In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is
a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X.,
Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint
Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when
young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family'
is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the
Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby
knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface,
and the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate.

He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders;
but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite
pitiless against the Dissenters.



CHAPTER XV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS

I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various
University Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous
are they. I should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters
of some of the Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies;
their innocent artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts,
and evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter
of Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her
shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about
seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining
them with ogles and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair
Emily of the shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to
dribble over them!--what a waist!--what a killing sea-green shot-silk