"Oxford must from all antiquity have been either somewhere or
nowhere. Where was it in the time of Tarquinius Priscus? If
it was nowhere, it surely must have been somewhere. Where was
it?"--_Facetiæ Cant._
Here is a conundrum to unravel, or a nut to crack, compared to which
the _Dædalean Labyrinth_ was a farce. After so many of the learned
have failed to extract the kernel, though by no means deficient in
what Gall and Spurzheim would call _jawitiveness_ (as their writings
will sufficiently show,) I should approach it with "fear and
trembling," did I not remember the encouraging reproof of "Queen Bess"
to Sir Walter Raleigh's "Fain would I climb but that I fear to
fall"--so _dentals_ to the task, come what may. A new light has been
thrown upon the subject of late, in an unpublished "Righte Merrie
Comedie," entitled "Trinity College, Cambridge," from which I extract
the following