Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 Excerpt:... redolent of their "Field;" there are cricketing men, to whom "all mankind are," or are not, "players;" there, again, are fast men, whose rapidity is that of a rolling stone, which gathers no decorative moss, whose progress is down hill, and whose end is to break and be broken. But there are other men who, like William Ashe, are of a more eclectic and catholic turn of mind; and who are probably less successful at the University than they are in after-life, by reason of these very tendencies. William Ashe matriculated at St. Old's. Now, although St. Old's was not a large college, the various degrees of University men were fairly represented in it at the time of his residence there. The College set was more or less a fast one; that is to say, it was composed of men who were for the most part the sons of country gentlemen, well-to-do rectors, London merchants, and the like, with a sprinkling of embryo baronets and a stray honourable or two; and a considerable number of them wore silk gowns as "gentlemen commoners," and were not too celebrated for their attendance at chapel or lectures in consequence. All these men were blest with incomes of from three to five hundred a year. Now, an Oxford income is very different from an income elsewhere. In the first place, it has to extend over a year of six instead of twelve months; in the second place, it merely pays during that period for food, lodging, washing, teaching, and those small and diverse items which come under the head of "sundries," and are usually paid for out of "pocket money." All the other necessaries of life--such as cigars, horses, wine, books, pictures, and clothes--are "put down" to the consumer's little account; that is, the selle...