tered the city, when he was caught hold of by a party of the academic
youth, who proceeded to practise on his awkwardness and his ignorance.
At first sight one wonders at their childishness; but the like conduct
obtained in the medieval Universities; and not many months have passed
away since the journals have told us of sober Englishmen, given to
matter-of-fact calculations, and to the anxieties of money-making,
pelting each other with snowballs on their own sacred territory, and
defying the magistracy, when they would interfere with their privilege
of becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to something or
other in human nature. Meanwhile, there stands the new-comer,
surrounded by a circle of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to
frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him, to the extent of
their wit. Some address him with mock politeness, others with
fierceness; and so they conduct him in solemn procession across the
Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they dance about him like
madmen. But this was to be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a
sort of initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or University
gown, and was suffered by his tormentors to depart in peace. One alone
is recorded as having been exempted from this persecution; it was a
youth graver and loftier than even St. Gregory himself: but it was not
from his force of character, but at the instance of Gregory, that he
escaped. Gregory was his bosom-friend, and was ready in Athens to
shelter him when he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the great
Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory, but a catechumen of the
Church.

But to return to our freshman. His troubles are not at an end, though
he has got his gown upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he to
attend? He finds himself seized, before he well knows where he is, by
another party of men, or three or four parties at once, like foreign
porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the perplexed
stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards into his unwilling hands. Our
youth is plied by the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that,
each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of having a houseful. We
will say that he escapes from their hands,--but then he will have to
choose for himself where he will put up; and, to tell the truth, with
all the praise I have already given, and the praise I shall have to
give, to the city of mind, nevertheless, betw