56 SINGULAR FEAT 



to the " Roebuck." The coach arriving in about half an 

 hour, I put him in off- wheel and drove him to Benson, a 

 distance of twelve miles, our first stage; and no horse 

 ever went better or quieter. 



The next day I drove him back, and the report of this 

 singular feat having spread through the city, I had all 

 the stable fraternity in Oxford to greet my return, and, 

 not believing such a thing possible, to assure themselves 

 of the identity of the animal ; for it appeared that he had 

 been tried by many of Mr. Costar's men, who had all 

 pronounced him incurable, and he had been returned 

 accordingly, as the man from whom I bought him had 

 told me. I continued to drive him as long as the coach 

 lasted ; and it fell to my lot, a year or two later, to 

 renew my acquaintance with him in another team from 

 the same establishment. 



It has often occurred to me, that the spot where I tried 

 the experiment of fire is the site where those sturdy 

 defenders of the reformed religion, Ridley and Latimer, 

 suffered martyrdom ; a splendid monument has since 

 been erected in honour of those champions of our creed. 



The late Lord Macaulay, in one of his early essays — 

 written, I believe, in his rooms at Trinity — asserts the 

 claims of his Alma Mater to supremacy over that of the 

 sister University ; and states, as an argument for it, that 

 Cambridge had the honour of educating the two Bishops 

 — and Oxford the honour of burning them. I am not a 

 member of either University, as these pages can testify, 

 nor can I decide the question of controversial superiority ; 

 but I have been a long time a member of a constituency 

 very near the University, in which Lord Macaulay was, a 



