CHAPTER XXVII 



How I swore Fealty to two Corporations How Bath helped Oxford 

 The Juvenility of Oxford compared with Bath. 



I HAVE said a good deal about shows for whose 

 direction I was responsible. I have now 

 to tell of a show of a different description 

 in which I took a part. 



The combination referred to in the last chapter 

 was not the only dual role, which, owing to acci- 

 dental circumstances, it fell to my lot to play 

 during this 1 , to me, eventful year. It has been 

 my fate at certain periods of my life, to lead a 

 Jekyll and Hyde sort of existence without, I 

 hope, emulating the villainy of the latter as 

 will have been observed by those who did me the 

 honour to peruse my record of town-life, In the 

 Days of Victoria. Therein I described the quaint 

 ceremonial which entitled me to rank as a freeman, 

 by birth and parentage, of the ancient and loyal 

 city of Oxford. In open court, in the presence of 

 Mayor and Magistrates, I solemnly bound myself, 

 among other things, to defend the rights and 

 privileges of that city at all hazards whenever 

 called upon by lawful authority to do so. This 

 happened just after I had attained to man's estate, 

 and it never entered then into my imaginings that 

 the time would ever come when, in maturer years, 

 1 should solemnly bind myself in the Municipal 



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