marks, from Roger Bacon, Wycliffe, and Erasmus, down to the men of our own day. But those guide-books, while they tell one a great deal that one wants to know, in too many cases fail to tell one what certain ones want particularly to know, to wit: where Sidney roomed at Christ Church, what Beaumont and Shenstone did at Pembroke, how John Evelyn conducted himself at Oriel, as well as why some of these men left their colleges without their degrees, and how all of them passed their lives in Oxford; what were their interests and their occupations, what were their experiences in the place.
Such of these things as the present chronicler wished to learn he has here set down, patiently, carefully, and, he thinks, correctly, for his own profit and pleasure, and for the benefit of those, coming after him, who, in this respect, have tastes and sympathies in common with his own. No one book, and no one person, could give him the information he sought; hundreds of volumes of local history, biography, autobiography, correspondence, and reminiscence have been consulted, and hundreds of questions have been asked, of Deans and Dons, of Graduates and Undergraduates, of Scouts and Hall-porters, of Antiquaries and Topographists.
The great, and serious, trouble is the fact that all the histories of the colleges dwell upon the men
