e are covered with men taking
their constitutionals. Longer walks, of twelve or fifteen miles, are
frequently taken on Sundays. There is not so much riding as might be
supposed. When there is ice enough, the cantabs are great skaters. It
is almost a _sine qua non_ that their exercise should be in the open
air. A finer set of men, consequently, is not to be seen. So bent,
indeed, are they upon combining study and recreation, that, during the
vacations, they form excursion-parties, which, from their professed
design, are called _reading_-parties (_lucus a non lucendo_), and of
which the utmost that can be advanced in justification of their name
is, that reading is _not impossible_. Reading-parties do not confine
themselves to England, or even the United Kingdom; sometimes they go
as far as Dresden. When a crack tutor goes on one, which is not
often, he takes his whole team with him.

Debating-clubs do not seem to be so common at the English universities
as at the Scotch. At Cambridge, there is only one of a public
nature--the 'Union.' Henry F. Hallam was instrumental in getting up a
small society of about forty members, called the 'Historical.' Another
society of a private nature was composed of a number of intellectual
aspirants, called the 'Cambridge _Apostles_;' so called, it is said,
because they had usually thirteen members in residence. This was a
university feeder to the Metropolitan Club, founded by the friends of
John Sterling. Their association had great influence in the formation
of their minds and characters--a sort of mutual benefit society in
more respects than one. For example, when a member of the club
publishes a book, one of the fraternity has a footing in the
_Edinburgh_, another in the _Quarterly_, a third in _Fraser_, and a
fourth in _Blackwood_, and so the new work is well introduced. Both
Tennyson and Thackeray, it is said, got well taken notice of in this
way by their comrades. But there was no plan at the bottom of
it--nothing to constitute them a name. The Apostles were always
inveighing against cant--always affecting much earnestness, and a
hearty dislike of formalism, which rendered them far from popular with
the _high_ and _dry_ in literature, politics, or religion. They were
eyed with terror by the conservatives as something foreign--German,
radical, altogether monstrous. But, in reality, their objects were
literary--not religious; and religion only entered into their
discussions as it must