e after
place on the river; the eleven got beaten in all their matches.
The inaugurators of these changes had passed away in their turn,
and at last a reaction had commenced. The fellows recently
elected, and who were in residence at the time we write of, were
for the most part men of great attainments, all of them men who
had taken very high honors. The electors naturally enough had
chosen them as the most likely persons to restore, as tutors, the
golden days of the college; and they had been careful in the
selection to confine themselves to very quiet and studious men,
such as were likely to remain up at Oxford, passing over men of
more popular manners and active spirits, who would be sure to
flit soon into the world, and be of little more service to St.
Ambrose.

But these were not the men to get any hold on the fast set who
were now in the ascendant. It was not in the nature of things
that they should understand each other; in fact, they were
hopelessly at war, and the college was getting more and more out
of gear in consequence.

What they could do, however, they were doing; and under their
fostering care were growing up a small set, including most of the
scholars, who were likely, as far as they were concerned, to
retrieve the college character of the schools. But they were too
much like their tutors, men who did little else but read. They
neither wished for, nor were likely to gain, the slightest
influence on the fast set. The best men amongst them, too, were
diligent readers of the _Tracts for the Times_, and followers of
the able leaders of the High-church party, which was then a
growing one; and this led them also to form such friendships as
they made amongst out-college men of their own way of
thinking-with high churchmen, rather than St. Ambrose men. So
they lived very much to themselves, and scarcely interfered with
the dominant party.

Lastly, there was the boating set, which was beginning to revive
in the college, partly from the natural disgust of any body of
young Englishmen, at finding themselves distanced in an exercise
requiring strength and pluck, and partly from the fact, that the
captain for the time being was one of the best oars in the
University boat, and also a deservedly popular character. He was
now in his third year of residence, had won the pair-oar race,
and had pulled seven in the great yearly match with Cambridge,
and by constant hard work had managed to carry the St. Ambrose
bo