an, I have
made the formal circuit of visits to all the heads of houses and
all the common-rooms. It has gone off very well. There was but one
reception by a head (Corpus) that was not decidedly _kind_, and
that was only a little cold. Marsham (Merton), who is a frank, warm
man, keenly opposed, said very fairly, to Inglis, 'I congratulate
you warmly'; and then to me, 'And I would be very glad to do the
same to you, Mr. Gladstone, if I could think you would do the same
as Sir R. Inglis.' I like a man for this. They say the dean should
have asked me to dine to-day, but I think he may be, and perhaps
wisely, afraid of recognising me in any very marked way, for fear
of endangering the old Christ Church right to one seat which it is
his peculiar duty to guard.

We dined yesterday in the hall at Christ Church, it being a grand
day there. Rather unfortunately the undergraduates chose to make a
row in honour of me during dinner, which the two censors had to run
all down the hall to stop. This had better not be talked about.
Thursday the warden of All Souls' has asked me and I _think_ I must
accept; had it not been a head (and it is one of the little party
of four who voted for me) I should not have doubted, but at once
have declined.

FOOTNOTES:

[199] _Frogs_, 756; the second line is Scott's own. An Aristophanic
friend translates:--

'Good brother-rogue, we've shared the selfsame beating:
At least, we carried off one Strype apiece.'

Strype was the book given to Scott and Gladstone as being good seconds
to the winner of the Ireland. See above p. 61.

[200] _Standard_, May 29, 1847.

[201] The proposer's Latin is succinct, and may be worth giving for its
academic flavour:--'Jam inde a pueritia literarum studio imbutus, et in
celeberrimo Etonensi gymnasio informatus, ad nostram accessit academiam,
ubi morum honestate, pietate, et pudore nemini aequalium secundus, indole
et ingenio facile omnibus antecellebat. Summis deinde nostrae academiae
honoribus cumulatus ad res civiles cum magna omnium expectatione se
contulit; expectatione tamen major omni evasit. In senatus enim domum
inferiorem cooptatus, eam ad negotia tractanda habilitatem, et ingenii
perspicacitatem exhibebat, ut reipublicae administrationis particeps et
adjutor adhuc adolescens fieret. Quantum erga ecclesiam Anglicanam ejus
studium non verba, sed facta, t