Yet not by Theory alone
    Did learning train the student mind—­
  Its exercise was carried on
    In places properly assigned: 
  From toil by weather undeterred
    In winter wild or burning June,
  The precepts in the morning heard
    They practised in the afternoon.

  The Colleges, whose grassy plots
    Are now resorts of vicious ease,
  Were then laid out in little lots,
    With useful beans and early peas: 
  Each merely ornamental sod
    They dug with spades and hoed with hoes: 
  The wilderness in every quad
    Was made to blossom as the rose.

  The gardens too, with cereals decked,
    Where tennis-courts no longer were,
  Showed Agriculture’s due effect
    Upon the student’s character: 
  No more by practices beguiled
    Which Virtue with displeasure notes,
  No longer dissolute and wild,
    He sowed domesticated oats.

  It was indeed a blissful state: 
    For Convocation’s high decree
  Dubbed the successful candidate
    Magister Agriculturae: 
  And if he failed, his vows denied,
    The world observed without surprise
  That those who learnt the plough to guide
    Were objects of its exercise!

THE LAST STRAW

  Now Spring bedecks with nascent green
    The meadows near and far,
  And Sabbath calm pervades the scene,
    And Sabbath punts the Cher.: 
  While I, like trees new drest by June,
    Must bow to Fashion’s law,
  And wear on Sunday afternoon
    A variegated Straw.

  My Topper! so serenely sleek,
    So beautifully tall,
  Wherein I decked me once a week
    Whene’er I went to call,—­
  No more shall now th’ admiring maid,
    While handing me my tea,
  View her reflected charms displayed
    (Narcissus-like) in thee!

  Yet oh! though different forms of hat
    May wreathe my manly brow,
  No Straw shall e’er (be sure of that)
    Be half so dear as thou. 
  Hang then upon thy native rack
    As varying modes compel,
  Till next year’s fashions bring thee back,
    My Chimneypot, farewell!

THE 1713 AGAINST NEWNHAM

[This Fragment will be found to contain, in a concentrated form, all the constituent parts of Greek Tragedy.  It has an Anagnorisis, because its subject is the Recognition of Women.  It also contains at least one Peripeteia:  and the action has been strictly confined, chiefly by the Editor of the Magazine, within one revolution of the sun.]

  SCENE:  Interior of a Ladies’ College

  LEADER OF THE CHORUS OF LADIES

  Sisters, from far upon my senses steals
  A sound of crackers and of Catherine wheels,
  By which I know the Senate in debate
  Decides our future and the country’s fate: 
  And lo! a herald from the city’s stir
  I see arrive—­the usual Messenger.