Woodstock was reached: "Four-in-hand Fosbrooke" gave up the reins to the professional Jehu; and at last the towers, spires, and domes of Oxford appeared in sight. The first view of the City of Colleges is always one that will be long remembered. Even the railway traveller, who enters by the least imposing approach, and can scarcely see that he is in Oxford before he has reached Folly Bridge, must yet regard the city with mingled feelings of delight and surprise as he looks across the Christ Church meadows and rolls past the Tom Tower. But he who approaches Oxford from the Henley Road, and looks upon that unsurpassed prospect from Magdalen Bridge, - or he who enters the city, as Mr. Green did, from the Woodstock Road, and rolls down the shady avenue of St. Giles', between St. John's College and the Taylor Buildings, and past the graceful Martyrs' Memorial, will receive impressions such as probably no other city in the world could convey.

As the coach clattered down the Corn-market, and turned the corner by Carfax into High Street, Mr. Bouncer, having been compelled in deference to University scruples to lay aside his post-horn, was consoling himself by chanting the following words, selected probably in compliment to Mr. Verdant Green.

"To Oxford, a Freshman so modest,
I enter'd one morning in March;
And the figure I cut was the oddest,
All spectacles, choker, and starch.
Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c.From the top of 'the Royal Defiance,'
Jack Adams, who coaches so well,
Set me down in these regions of science,
In front of the Mitre Hotel.
Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c.'Sure never man's prospects were brighter,'
I said, as I jumped from my perch;
'So quickly arrived at the Mitre,
Oh, I'm sure, to get on in the Church!'
Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c."

By the time Mr. Bouncer finished these words, the coach appropriately drew up at the "Mitre," and the passengers tumbled off amid a knot of gownsmen collected on the pavement to receive them. But no sooner were Mr. Green and our hero set down, than they were attacked by a horde of the aborigines of Oxford, who, knowing by vulture-like sagacity the aspect of a freshman and his governor, swooped down upon them in the guise of impromptu porters, and made an indiscriminate attack upon the luggage. It was only by the display of the greatest presence of mind that Mr. Verdant Green recovered his effects, and prevented his canvas-covered boxes from being

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 31]

carried off in the wheel-barrows that were trundling off in all directions to the various colleges.

[32 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

But at last all were safely secured. And soon, when a snug dinner had been discussed in a quiet room, and a bottle of the famous (though I have heard some call it "in-famous") Oxford port had been produced, Mr. Green, under its kindly influence, opened his heart to his son, and gave him much advice as to his forthcoming University career; being, of course, well calculated to do this from his intimate acquaintance with the subject.