gh Table, made up
as it was for many years of a group of middle-aged or elderly men, with
a considerable admixture of youthful Fellow Commoners. During the
eighteenth century the proportion of Fellow Commoners was probably from
one-fourth to one-third of those dining together, and constraint on both
sides must have been almost inevitable. The terms "don" and
"donnishness" seem to have acquired their uncomplimentary meaning about
this period. The precise significance of "don" is not easy to express
concisely; the most felicitous is perhaps that of the Oxford _Shotover
Papers_, where we read that don means, in Spain, a gentleman; in
England, a Fellow. The abolition of the Fellow Commoner was perhaps
chiefly due to the rise of the democratic spirit and a general dislike
of privilege, but there are other grounds for welcoming it.

Of the individuals who make up the stream of youthful life which has
ebbed and flowed through the College gate there is but little official
record. An Admonition Book exists, in which more than a century ago
those who were punished for graver offences against discipline signed
the record of their sentence and promised amendment. One youth admits
over a trembling signature that he was "admonished by the Master, before
the Seniors, for keeping strangers in my chamber till twelve o' the
clock, and disturbing the Master by knocking at his gate in an
irreverent manner at that hour for the keys of the gate." When the
College gate was closed it may be explained that the keys were placed in
the Master's keeping. We are, however, left in ignorance of what passed
in that chamber until the midnight hour. Yet no doubt the student in
past days had his amusements as well as his successor of the present
day--rougher perhaps, but not less agreeable to him.

In Bishop Fisher's statutes archery was encouraged as a pastime, and we
know from Ascham's writings that he indulged in it. In the sixteenth
century the College built a tennis-court for the use of its members.
John Hall, who entered the College in 1646, recommended "shittlecock" as
fit for students--"it requires a nimble arme with quick and waking eye."
We hear of horse matches and cock-fighting, but in terms of disapproval.
Football is mentioned in 1574, when the Vice-Chancellor directed that
scholars should only play upon their own College ground. In 1595 "the
hurtful and unscholarly exercise of football" was forbidden, except
within each College and betwee