The Spoon, in the words of Lord Byron's Don Juan,
"---- The name by which we Cantabs please,
To dub the last of honours in degrees,"
is the annual subject for University mirth, and if not the _fountain_,
is certainly the very _foundation_ of Cambridge University honours:
without _the spoon_, not a man in the _Tripos_ would have a _leg to
stand upon_: in fact, it would be a top without a bottom, _minus_ the
spoon. Yet "this luckless wight," says the compiler of the Cambridge
Tart, is annually a universal butt and laughing-stock of the whole
Senate-House. He is the last of those men who take _honours_ of his
year, and is called a "_junior optime_," and notwithstanding his being
superior to them all, the lowest of the [Greek: Hoi polloi] or
Gregarious Undistinguished Bachelors, think themselves entitled to
shoot their pointless arrows against the "_wooden spoon_," and to
reiterate the perennial remark, that, "_wranglers_" are born with
_golden_ spoons in their mouths; "_senior optimes_" with _silver_
spoons; "_junior optimes_" with _wooden spoons_, and the [Greek: Hoi
polloi] with _leaden_ spoons in their mouths. It may be here, however,
observed, that it is unjust towards the _undistinguished bachelors_ to
say that "he (the spoon) is superior to them all." He is generally a
man who has read hard, _id est_, has _done his best_, whilst the
undistinguished bachelors, it is well known, include many men of
considerable, even superior talents, but having no taste for
_mathematics_, have merely read sufficient to get a degree;
consequently _have not done their best_. The muse has thus invoked