really one of the fortunate chances of my life."

This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have
occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society.
But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.

Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner
with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other
society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their
own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had
tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale,
college home-brewed ale. "How fat we got!" she exclaims. The Master
seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what
was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and
writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his
society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the
ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
Houses. "The various Heads," she writes, "with their respective wives,
were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or
country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to
the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace
what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style;
there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of
the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in
love with her brother's tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in
the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the
lesser clergy, there were young witty ones--odious; young learned
ones--bores; and elderly ones--pompous; all, however, of all grades,
kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle,
considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I
could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china,
and massive plate."

"The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring
the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of
chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on
every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was
suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the