how many spots in life are there which will bear comparison with the beginning of a college boy’s second term at oxford? so far as external circumstances are concerned, it seems hard to know what a man could find to ask for at that period of his life, if a fairy godmother were to alight in his rooms and offer him the usual three wishes. in our second term we are no longer freshmen, and begin to feel ourselves at home, while both “smalls” and “greats” are sufficiently distant to be altogether ignored if we are that way inclined, or to be looked forward to with confidence that the game is in our own hands if we are reading men. our financial position—unless we have exercised rare ingenuity in involving ourselves—is all that heart can desire; we have ample allowances paid in quarterly to the university bankers without thought or trouble of ours, and our credit is at its zenith. it is a part of our recognized duty to repay the hospitality we have received as freshmen; and all men will be sure to come to our first parties, to see how we do the thing; it will be our own fault if we do not keep them in future. we[78] have not had time to injure our characters to any material extent with the authorities of our own college, or of the university. our spirits are never likely to be higher, or our digestions better. these, and many other comforts and advantages, environ the fortunate youth returning to oxford after his first vacation; thrice fortunate, however, if it is easter term to which he is returning; for that easter term, with the four days’ vacation, and little trinity term at the head of it, is surely the cream of the oxford year. then, even in this our stern northern climate, the sun is beginning to have power, the days have lengthened out, great-coats are unnecessary at morning chapel, and the miseries of numbed hands and shivering skins no longer accompany every pull on the river and canter on bullingdon. in christ-church meadows and the college gardens the birds are making sweet music in the tall elms. you may almost hear the thick grass growing, and the buds on tree and shrub are changing from brown, red, or purple, to emerald green under your eyes; the glorious old city is putting on her best looks and bursting out into laughter and song. in a few weeks the races begin, and cowley marsh will be alive with white tents and joyous cricketers. a quick ear, on the towing-path by the gut, may feast at one time on those three sweet sounds, the thud, thud of the eight-oar, the crack of the rifles at the weirs, and the click of the bat on the magdalen ground. and then commemoration rises in the[79] background, with its clouds of fair visitors, and visions of excursions to woodstock and nuneham in the summer days—of windows open on to the old quadrangles in the long still evenings, through which silver laughter and strains of sweet music, not made by man, steal out and puzzle the old celibate jackdaws, peering down from the battlements with heads on one side. to crown all, long vacation, beginning with the run to henley regatta, or up to town to see the match with cambridge at lord’s, and taste some of the sweets of the season before starting on some pleasure tour or reading-party, or dropping back into the quiet pleasures of english country life! surely the lot of young englishmen who frequent our universities is cast in pleasant places. the country has a right to expect something from those for whom she finds such a life as this in the years when enjoyment is keenest.