It was over Smiler's oak in----, that some wag had printed
and stuck up the following notice:
Men traps and spring guns
Set here to catch _duns_.
* A _speedy-man_ at New College is a person employed to take
a letter to the master of Winchester school from the warden
of New College, acquaint-ing him that a fellowship or
scholarship is become vacant in the college, and requiring
him to send forthwith the next senior boy. The speedy-man
always performs his journey on foot, and within a given
time.
~230~~
BY LILLYMAN LIONISE.
Here rests a poet--heaven keep him quiet,
For when above he lived a life of riot;
Enjoy'd his joke, and drank his share of wine--
A mad wag he, one Horace Eglantine.{17}
The good old orthodox beverage now began to display its potent effects
upon the heads and understandings of the party. All restraint being
completely banished by the effect of the liquor, every one indulged
in their characteristic eccentricities. Dick Gradus pleaded his utter
incapability to sing or produce an impromptu rhyme, but was allowed to
substitute a prose epitaph on the renowned school-master of Magdalen
parish, Fatty T--b,{18} who lay snoring under the table.
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