and with shops, which do not detract, but rather add, to the dignity and
weight of the grand old buildings.

Having slowly sauntered up and down, and scanned the various characters
peculiar to the City of Universities--as, for instance, an autocrat in the
person of a Dean of Christchurch, a Principal of Balliol, or a Master of
Jesus, a Proctor newly made, but already endowed with something of the
detective police expression; several senior fellows, plump, shy, proud, and
lazy--walking for an appetite, and looking into the fishmongers on their way
to the parks; a "cocky" Master of Arts, just made, and hastening to call on
all his friends and tradesmen to show off his new dignity, and rustle the
sleeves of his new gown; three lads, just entered from a public school (last
month they laid out tip in Mother Brown's tarts), on their way to order three
courses and dessert at the Mitre, where very indifferent fare is provided for
fashionable credit prices; a pale student, after Dr. Pusey's own heart, in
cap and gown, pacing monk-like along, secretly telling his beads; a tuft
(nobleman) lounging out of the shop of a tailor, who, as he follows his
lordship to the door, presents the very picture of a Dean bowing to a Prime
Minister, when a bishop is very sick.

A few ladies are seen, in care of papas in caps and gowns, or mammas, who
look as if they were Doctors of Divinity, or deserved to be. The Oxford
female is only of two kinds--prim and brazen. The latter we will not
describe; the former seem to live in perpetual fear of being winked at, and
are indescribable.

From these street scenes, where the ridiculous only is salient, for the quiet
and gentlemanly pass by unnoticed, while pompous dons and coxcombical
undergraduates are as certain of attention as turkeycocks and bantams, we
will turn into the solemn precincts of a few of the colleges.