Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded—­but I am wading out of my depths.  I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority—­I am plain Elia—­no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher—­though at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley.

I can here play the gentleman, enact the student.  To such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Universities.  Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours.  Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please.  I seem admitted ad eundem.  I fetch up past opportunities.  I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me.  In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor.  When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner.  In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts.  Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character.  I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort.  I go about in black, which favours the notion.  Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor.

The walks at these times are so much one’s own,—­the tall trees of Christ’s, the groves of Magdalen!  The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their own.  Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality:  the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer!  Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple.

Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art every thing!  When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity—­then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou called’st it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern!  What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert!  The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing!

What were thy dark ages?  Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the morning.  Why is it that we can never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro groping!