A learned living oriental scholar, and a senior fellow of St. John's
College, Cambridge, who thinks less of journeying to Shiraz,
Timbuctoo, or the Holy Land, than a Cockney would of a trip to
Greenwich Fair or Bagnigge Wells, _kept_ in the same court, in
College, with a late tutor, now the amiable rector of Staple----t, in
Kent. It was their daily practice, when in residence, to take a ramble
together, by the footpaths, round by Granchester, and back to College
by Trumpington, or to Madingley, or the Hills, but more commonly the
former; all delightful in their way, and well known to gownsmen for
various associations. To one of these our College dons daily wended
their way cogitating, for they never talked, it is said, over the
_omnia magna_ of Cambridge life. Their invariable practice was to keep
moving at a stiff pace, some four or five yards in advance of each
other. Our amiable tutor went one forenoon to call on Mr. P. before
starting, as usual, and found his door _sported_. This staggered him a
little. Mr. P.'s bed-maker chanced to come up at the instant. "Where
is Mr. P.?" was his query. "Gone out, sir," was the reply. "Gone out!"
exclaimed Mr. H.; "Where to?" "To _Jerusalem_," she rejoined. And to
Jerusalem he was gone, sure enough; a circumstance of so little import
in his eyes, who had seen most parts of the ancient world already, and
filled the office of tutor to an Infanta of Spain, that he did not
think it matter worth the notice of his _College Chum_. Other
travellers, "_vox et ratio_," as Horace says, would have had the
circumstance bruited in every periodical in Christendom, "_quinque
sequuntur te pueri_."
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