smooth-shaven green of a newly-mown meadow: sometimes they left
their vessels to see sights in the vicinity; sometimes they passed
a day or two in a comfortable inn.

At Oxford, they walked about to see the curiosities of
architecture, painted windows, and undisturbed libraries. The
Reverend Doctor Folliott laid a wager with Mr. Crotchet "that in
all their perlustrations they would not find a man reading," and
won it. "Ay," said the reverend gentleman, "this is still a seat
of learning, on the principle of--once a captain, always a captain.
We may well ask, in these great reservoirs of books whereof no man
ever draws a sluice, Quorsum pertinuit stipere Platona Menandro?
What is done here for the classics? Reprinting German editions on
better paper. A great boast, verily! What for mathematics? What
for metaphysics? What for history? What for anything worth
knowing? This was a seat of learning in the days of Friar Bacon.
But the Friar is gone, and his learning with him. Nothing of him
is left but the immortal nose, which, when his brazen head had
tumbled to pieces, crying "Time's Past," was the only palpable
fragment among its minutely pulverised atoms, and which is still
resplendent over the portals of its cognominal college. That nose,
sir, is the only thing to which I shall take off my hat, in all
this Babylon of buried literature.

MR. CROTCHET. But, doctor, it is something to have a great
reservoir of learning, at which some may draw if they please.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. But, here, good care is taken that nobody shall
please. If even a small drop from the sacred fountain, [Greek
text], as Callimachus has it, were carried off by any one, it would