trouble him with a card of his establishment, - our hero proceeded
with his father along the High Street, and turned round by St.
Mary's, and so up Cat Street to the Schools, where they made their
way to the classic


[46 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

"Pig-market,"* to await the arrival of the Vice-Chancellor. When he
came, our freshman and two other white-tied fellow-freshmen were
summoned to the great man's presence; and there, in the ante-chamber
of the Convocation House,+ the edifying and imposing spectacle of
Matriculation was enacted. In the first place, Mr. Verdant Green
took divers oaths, and sincerely promised and swore that he would be
faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. He
also professed (very much to his own astonishment) that he did "from
his heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, that
damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or
deprived by the pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, may be
deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever." And,
having almost lost his breath at this novel "position," Mr. Verdant
Green could only gasp his declaration, "that no foreign prince,
person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any
jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority,
ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm." When he had
sufficiently recovered his presence of mind, Mr. Verdant Green
inserted his name in the University books as "Generosi filius natu
maximus"; and then signed his name to the Thirty-nine Articles, -
though he did not endanger his matriculation, as Theodore Hook did,
by professing his readiness to sign forty if they wished it! Then the