Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/92

62 handsome girls there, the Ladies P—t, and the place had a kind of distant resemblance to Boulogne. The raffles at the libraries made it a caricature of a German Bath. I wandered about the country; I visited Margate, where the tone of society was perfectly marvellous, and ran about the small adjacent bathing-places, like Broadstairs and Herne Bay. This brought on the time when I was obliged to return to Oxford.

I went there with no good will, and as my father had refused to withdraw me from the University, I resolved to withdraw myself.

My course of action was one of boyish thoughtlessness. Reports of wine-parties were spread everywhere, whispers concerning parodies on venerable subjects, squibs appeared in the local papers— in those days an unpardonable offence—caricatures of Heads of House were handed about, and certain improvisations were passed from mouth to mouth. I had a curious power of improvising any number of rhymes, without the slightest forethought; but the power, such as it was, was perfectly useless to me, as it was accompanied with occasional moments of nervousness, when I despaired, without the slightest reason whatever, of finding the easiest rhyme. Probably the professional Italian, who declaims a poem or a tragedy, labours under the perfect conviction that nothing in the world can stop him. And then it is so much easier to rhyme in Italian than in English; so my efforts were mostly confined to epigrams and epitaphs, at wines and supper-parties, and you may be sure that these brilliant efforts did me no good.

This was the beginning of the end. My object was to be rusticated, not to be expelled. The former may happen in consequence of the smallest irregularity, the latter implies ungentlemanly conduct. I cast about in all directions for the safest line, when fortune put the clue into my hands. A celebrated steeplechaser, Oliver the Irishman, came down to Oxford, and I was determined to see him ride. The collegiate authorities, with questionable wisdom, forbad us all to be present at the races, and especially at what they called "the disgraceful scenes of 'race ordinaries.'" Moreover, in order to make matters sure, they ordered all the undergraduates to be present at the college lecture, at the hour when the race was to be run.

A number of high-spirited youngsters of the different colleges swore that they would not stand this nonsense, that it was infringing the liberty of the subject, and that it was treating them like little boys, which they did not deserve. Here, doubtless, they were right. But, well foreseeing what would be the result, they acted according to the common saying, "In for a penny, in for a pound;" so