I went into the public “hall” [so is called in Oxford the public eating-room].—­De Quincey’s Life and Manners, p. 231.

Dinner is, in all colleges, a public meal, taken in the refectory or “hall” of the society.—­Ibid., p. 273.

4.  At the University of Cambridge, Eng., dinner, the name of the place where the meal is taken being given to the meal itself.

Hall lasts about three quarters of an hour.—­Bristed’s Five Year in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 20.

After Hall is emphatically lounging-time, it being the wise practice of Englishmen to attempt no hard exercise, physical or mental, immediately after a hearty meal.—­Ibid., p. 21.

It is not safe to read after Hall (i.e. after dinner).—­Ibid., p. 331.

HANG-OUT.  An entertainment.

I remember the date from the Fourth of July occurring just afterwards, which I celebrated by a “hang-out.”—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 80.

He had kept me six hours at table, on the occasion of a dinner which he gave ... as an appendix to and a return for some of my “hangings-out.”—­Ibid., p. 198.

HANG OUT.  To treat, to live, to have or possess.  Among English Cantabs, a verb of all-work.—­Bristed.

There were but few pensioners who “hung out” servants of their own.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 90.

I had become ... a man who knew and “hung out to” clever and pleasant people, and introduced agreeable lions to one another.—­Ibid., p. 158.

I had gained such a reputation for dinner-giving, that men going to “hang out” sometimes asked me to compose bills of fare for them.—­Ibid., p. 195.

HARRY SOPHS, or HENRY SOPHISTERS; in reality Harisophs, a corruption of Erisophs ([Greek:  erisophos], valde eruditus).  At Cambridge, England, students who have kept all the terms required for a law act, and hence are ranked as Bachelors of Law by courtesy.—­Gradus ad Cantab.

See, also, Gentleman’s Magazine, 1795, p. 818.

HARVARD WASHINGTON CORPS.  From a memorandum on a fly leaf of an old Triennial Catalogue, it would appear that a military company was first established among the students of Harvard College about the year 1769, and that its first captain was Mr. William Wetmore, a graduate of the Class of 1770.  The motto which it then assumed, and continued to bear through every period of its existence, was, “Tam Marti quam Mercurio.”  It was called at that time the Marti Mercurian Band.  The prescribed uniform was a blue coat, the skirts turned with white, nankeen breeches, white stockings, top-boots, and a cocked hat.  This association continued for nearly twenty years from the time of its organization, but the chivalrous spirit which had called it into existence seems at the end of that time to have faded away.  The last captain, it is believed, was Mr. Solomon Vose, a graduate of the class of 1787.