ds, were just ripe for
mischief, unheedful of the consequences or the cause.

On the other hand, the original fomenters of the strife had recruited
their forces with herds of the lowest rabble gathered from the purlieus
of their patron saints, St. Clement and St. Thomas, and the shores of
the Charwell,--the bargees, and butchers, and labourers, and scum of the
suburbians: a huge conglomerated mass of thick sculls, and broad backs,
and strengthy arms, and sturdy legs, and throats bawling for revenge,
and hearts bursting with wrathful ire, rendered still more frantic and
desperate by the magic influence of their accustomed war-whoop. These
formed the base barbarian race of Oxford truands,{1} including every
vile thing that passes under the generic name of raff. From college
to college the mania spread with the rapidity of an epidemic wind; and
scholars, students, and fellows were every where in motion: here a stout
bachelor of arts might be seen knocking down the ancient Cerberus who
opposed his passage; there the iron-bound college gates were forced open
by the united power of the youthful inmates. In another quarter might be
seen the heir of some noble family risking his neck in the headlong
leap {2}; and near him, a party of the _togati_ scaling the sacred
battlements with as much energetic zeal as the ancient crusaders would
have displayed against the ferocious Saracens.

1 The French _truands_ were beggars, who under the pretence
of asking alms committed the most atrocious crimes and
excesses.

2 It was on one of these occasions that the celebrated
Charles James Fox made that illustrious leap from the window
of Hertford College.

~254~~Scouts flying in every direction to procure caps and gowns,
and scholars dropping from towers and windows by bell-ropes and
_sheet-ladders_; every countenance exhibiting as much ardour and
frenzied zeal, as if the consuming elements of earth and fire threatened
the demolition of the sacred city of Rhedycina.

It was on the spot where once stood the ancient conduit of Carfax,
flanked on the one side by the venerable church of St. Martin and the
colonnade of the old butter-market, and on the other by the town-hall,
from the central point of which terminate, south, west, and north, St.
Aldate's, the butcher-row, and the corn-market, that the scene exhibited
its more substantial character. It was here the assailants first caught
sight of each other; and