“When the men come up again, Filcher, and the Term is at its height,
     You’ll never see me more in these long gay rooms at night;
     When the “old dry wines” are circling, and the claret-cup flows cool,
     And the loo is fast and furious, with a fiver in the pool.”

In 1872 “Lewis Carroll” brought out Through the Looking-glass, and every one who has ever read that pretty work of poetic fancy will remember the ballad of the Walrus and the Carpenter.  It was parodied in The Light Green under the title of “The Vulture and the Husbandman.”  This poem described the agonies of a viva-voce examination, and it derived its title from two facts of evil omen—­that the Vulture plucks its victim, and that the Husbandman makes his living by ploughing:—­

    “Two undergraduates came up,
      And slowly took a seat,
    They knit their brows, and bit their thumbs,
      As if they found them sweet;
    And this was odd, because, you know,
     Thumbs are not good to eat.

    “‘The time has come,’ the Vulture said,
      ’To talk of many things—­
    Of Accidence and Adjectives,
      And names of Jewish Kings;
    How many notes a Sackbut has,
      And whether Shawms have strings.’

    “‘Please sir,’ the Undergraduates said,
      Turning a little blue,
    ’We did not know that was the sort
      Of thing we had to do.’ 
    ‘We thank you much,’ the Vulture said;
      ‘Send up another two.’”

The base expedients to which an examination reduces its victims are hit off with much dexterity in “The Heathen Pass-ee,” a parody of an American poem which is too familiar to justify quotation:—­

    “Tom Crib was his name,
      And I shall not deny,
    In regard to the same,
      What that name might imply;
    But his face it was trustful and childlike,
      And he had the most innocent eye.

* * * * *

    “On the cuffs of his shirt
      He had managed to get
    What we hoped had been dirt,
      But which proved, I regret,
    To be notes on the Rise of the Drama
      A question invariably set.

    “In the crown of his cap
      Were the Furies and Fates,
    And a delicate map
      Of the Dorian States;
    And we found in his palms, which were hollow,
      What are frequent in palms—­that is, dates.”

Deservedly dear to the heart of English youth are the Nonsense Rhymes of Edward Lear.  It will be recollected that the form of the verse as originally constructed reproduced the final word of the first line at the end of the fifth, thus:—­

    “There was an old person of Basing
    Whose presence of mind was amazing;
      He purchased a steed
      Which he rode at full speed,
    And escaped from the people of Basing.”