54 



did they not enter at that college first where four- 

 legged instincts are grappled with, serviceable science 

 plainly illustrated, and the art of moving forward 

 intelligibly expounded ? Their o^ti two-legged in- 

 stincts which must have warned many from the 

 beginning that horses, not Horace, was their ambition, 

 would then have been doubled ; and a couple of 

 seasons passed in that hemisphere, would have taught 

 them that vigilance was fully as needful as Virgil, and 

 would have lined their larder with something more 

 lucrative than Latin. Had Paterfamilias helped them 

 in this direction, they would have learnt the prosody 

 of the period, and would neither have been hoaxed nor 

 made a harvest of. The sign -posts were clearly up, 

 but with unpardonable purblind precipitation, they 

 took the wrong course, and according to the laws of 

 Nature's Club, they have been distanced ; the con- 

 sequence is they are now left to deal in promissory 

 paper, while their half compromised classical Paters 

 are deservedly left to pay the piper. There may be 

 still time for some to retrieve. Though well milked, 

 they may not be muffs, but there is a deal of leeway, 

 I calculate, to make up, and unless they "go in" 

 to listen to the latest interpretative lectures which, I 

 can vouch for, are eminently demonstrative of the 

 fact that with full knowledge of a four-legger, they 



