rds ten o'clock they were allowed to depart, and
exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging
in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.

At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of
Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social
life--the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell,
Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of
the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music,
particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with
them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses
began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman
at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and
Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent,
audience.

In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very
perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed
to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for
a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally
came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally
filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships
were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business
habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very
Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I
was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host
was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole
furniture and the plate quite confounded me, and I became still more
confounded when I was suddenly called upon to make a speech at a time
when I could hardly put two words together in English.

The City society was completely separated from the University society,
so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have
ventured to ask members of the University to dine.

Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I
ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of
them. At my age I may well hol