"
"You forget the long purses, Sir E--," said our classical Jehu, "which
some of the Oxford tradesmen have acquired by these long practices
of the university, Sir E--." The little Welsh rector bowed with
astonishment, while his rustic scion stared with wild alarm to find
himself for the first time in his life in company with a man of title. A
wink from coachee accompanied with an action of his _rein angle_ against
my side, followed by a suppressed laugh, prepared me ~119~~ for some
important communications relative to my fellow traveller. "An old
_snyder_,"{6} whispered Jehu, "who was once mayor of Oxford, and they do
say was knighted by mistake,--' a thing of shreds and patches,'
'Who, by short skirts and little capes,
Items for buckram, twist, and tapes, '
has, in his time, fine drawn half the university; but having retired
from the seat of trade, now seeks the seat of the Muses, and writes
fustian rhymes and bell-men's odes at Christmas time: a mere clod, but a
great man with the corporation."
We had now arrived on the heights within a short distance of the city
of Oxford, and I had the gratification for the first time to obtain a
glance of sacred _Academus_ peeping from between the elm groves in which
she is embowered, to view those turrets which were to be the future
scene of all my hopes and fears.
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