It was a memorable affair.  Among those who were to receive degrees that morning besides Samuel Clemens were:  Prince Arthur of Connaught; Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman; Whitelaw Reid; Rudyard Kipling; Sidney Lee; Sidney Colvin; Lord Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland; Sir Norman Lockyer; Auguste Rodin, the sculptor; Saint-Saens, and Gen. William Booth, of the Salvation Army-something more than thirty, in all, of the world’s distinguished citizens.

The candidates assembled at Magdalen College, and led by Lord Curzon, the
Chancellor, and clad in their academic plumage, filed in radiant
procession to the Sheldonian Theater, a group of men such as the world
seldom sees collected together.  The London Standard said of it: 
    So brilliant and so interesting was the list of those who had been
    selected by Oxford University on Convocation to receive degrees,
    ‘honoris causa’, in this first year of Lord Curzon’s chancellorship,
    that it is small wonder that the Sheldonian Theater was besieged
    today at an early hour.

Shortly after 11 o’clock the organ started playing the strains of “God Save the King,” and at once a great volume of sound arose as the anthem was taken up by the undergraduates and the rest of the assemblage.  Every one stood up as, headed by the mace of office, the procession slowly filed into the theater, under the leadership of Lord Curzon, in all the glory of his robes of office, the long black gown heavily embroidered with gold, the gold-tasseled mortar- board, and the medals on his breast forming an admirable setting, thoroughly in keeping with the dignity and bearing of the late Viceroy of India.  Following him came the members of Convocation, a goodly number consisting of doctors of divinity, whose robes of scarlet and black enhanced the brilliance of the scene.  Robes of salmon and scarlet-which proclaim the wearer to be a doctor of civil law—­were also seen in numbers, while here and there was a gown of gray and scarlet, emblematic of the doctorate of science or of letters.

The encenia is an impressive occasion; but it is not a silent one.  There is a splendid dignity about it; but there goes with it all a sort of Greek chorus of hilarity, the time-honored prerogative of the Oxford undergraduate, who insists on having his joke and his merriment at the expense of those honored guests.  The degrees of doctor of law were conferred first.  Prince Arthur was treated with proper dignity by the gallery; but when Whitelaw Reid stepped forth a voice shouted, “Where’s your Star-spangled Banner?” and when England’s Prime Minister-Campbell-Bannerman—­came forward some one shouted, “What about the House of Lords?” and so they kept it up, cheering and chaffing, until General Booth was introduced as the “Passionate advocate of the dregs of the people, leader of the submerged tenth,” and “general of the Salvation Army,” when the place broke