by these natural destructive agencies, it seems absurd to attribute periodic scarcities to human agency alone. Oysters, as everybody knows, vary considerably in point of flavour. According to Mr. Buckland, the oysters of the Isle of Ré 'have a vulgar, bad smell,' and would be valueless if introduced amongst us. But de gustibus non est disputandum,' perhaps. The green oysters, so much esteemed by our friends on the Continent, would probably not find much favour here. Mr. Buckland has made some interesting experiments in order to ascertain the money value of different descriptions of oysters. 'I made a rule,' he says, 'to weigh the shells and to weigh the meat of every oyster I could get hold of. I have now weighed upwards of fifty kinds of oysters from every part of the world, weighing a dozen oysters, and taking the weight of the shells and of the meat. At the head of the list is the Whitstable oyster, which bears a proportion of one-fourth meat as compared with the weight of the shell. Next came the Colchester oyster, with a beautiful clean shell, and meat one-fourth again. Then Mr. Wiseman's oyster, from Paglesham, one-fifth. Next the Herne Bay oysters, one-fifth, and these were not cultivated. Falmouth, one-sixth; Isle of Ré, one-fifteenth. Like the French pig, they are very lean.' Mr. Buckland does not tell us anything about American oysters; but according to Charles Mackay, the oysters of New York are the finest and best in the world. Fine in flavour, and of a size unparalleled in the oyster-beds of Whitstaple, Ostend, or the Rocher de Cancale.' Some people prefer having their oysters opened on the shallow shell,-being under the impression, probably, that the contained liquor is merely salt water. But this is a mistake. According to M. Payen's investigations, the liquid found in the substance of the oyster and between its shells is not salt water only, or principally, but contains a good deal of organic matter. When shaken with ether, it deposits some albuminous material, containing 8.75 per cent. of nitrogen.' Real oyster-lovers eat the creature out of the deep shell, and thus get all the delicious liquid. Some people swallow an oyster whole, others masticate it. According to a little handbook on this mollusc, 'the ancients, our teachers in all arts, but especially in æsthetics, did not bolt the oyster, but masticated it. With more epicurean tact, they always extracted the full enjoyment out of the good things set before them. Not so we. Most of us now bolt them; but this is a mistake, for the oyster has a much finer flavour, and is far more nourishing, when well masticated.' The ancient Romans, we may remark, after they had eaten as much as they were 1 The Oyster: Where, How, and When to Find, Breed, Cook, and Eat it, p. 42. able, used to practise a not very refined custom, whereby they were enabled to go on eating more. We hope we may never copy them in that particular branch of æsthetics! Oysters are generally considered nutritious and easy of digestion when eaten raw, and, as is well known, raw oysters are not unfrequently recommended to the invalid; their digestibility probably depends upon the person by whom and the time when they are eaten. The London costermongers deal largely in oysters; they are sold to them out of the smacks at Billingsgate, and a few at Hungerford. The more expensive kind are never bought by the costermongers, but they buy oysters of a 'good middling quality.' 'these The 'At the commencement of the season,' says Mr. Mayhew, oysters are 14s. a "bushel," but the measure contains from a bushel and a half to two bushels, as it is more or less heaped up. general price, however, is 9s. or 10s.; but they have been known 16s. and 18s. The "big trade" was unknown till 1848, when the very large shelly oysters, the fish inside being very small, were introduced from the Sussex coast. They were sold in Thames Street and at the Borough Market. Their sale was at first enormous. The costermongers distinguished them by the name of "scuttle-mouths." .. With the scuttle-mouths, the costermonger takes no trouble; he throws them into the yard, and dashes a few pails of water over them, and then places them on his barrow, or conveys them to his stall. Some of the better class of costermongers, however, lay down their oysters carefully, giving them oatmeal to fatten on.' The number of oysters sold by the costermongers amounts to 124,000,000 a year. Those, at four a penny, would realize the large sum of £129,000. We may therefore assume,' adds Mr. Mayhew, that £125,000 is spent yearly on oysters in the streets of London.' Every one has heard of the saying that oysters are in season only when there is the letter r in the months; an error which was refuted so long ago as the year 1804, when M. Balaine contrived the means of sending to Paris oysters fresh, and in the best possible order, at all seasons alike." As oysters differ considerably in their times of spawning, as we have seen above, ther axiom must be taken cum grano salis. At any rate the rule is violated, for August 4th inaugurates the oyster season; and in this month more oysters will be found spawning than in the month of May, and perhaps of June. The whiskered Pandores,' of which all Scotchmen boast, are obtained at Prestonpans and Cockenzie, where oyster-dredging is the principal occupation of the fishermen. 'The Pandore oyster,' writes Mr. Bertram, 'is so called because of being found in the neighbourhood of the salt-pans. It is a large fine flavoured oyster, as good as any "native" that ever was brought to table, the pooldoodies of Burra not excepted. During the whole time that the dredging is being carried on, the crew keep up a wild monotonous song, or rather chant, in which they believe much virtue to lie. They assert that it charms the oysters into the dredge. "The herring loves the merry moonlight, But the oyster loves the dredger's song, We conclude by expressing a hope that the 'gentle' bivalve will become more and more sensitive to the charms of oystercultivators, and that their efforts to induce the dancing fry to settle down to a quiet spat may ere long be attended with success. ART. VII.-OXFORD UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. THE great inquiry into the English Universities which was instituted in 1852, and the changes which were the result of that inquiry, stand out conspicuous among the many services. which Lord Russell has rendered to the country. For these measures the Government of that day never, we think, received sufficient credit. Only a Minister of strong convictions and great courage would have boldly approached, with reforming hands, those powerful academic bodies. The danger encountered was not slight. The Universities cried aloud against the rash innovators; the inquiry was opposed by the whole force of the Tory party. Happily that outcry and that opposition were in vain. It is not unfrequently urged that, laying out of view certain leading measures of reform, the country derives no benefit from the continuance in office of a Liberal Administration; that the ordinary business of the Administration can be as well carried on by the Tories as by their rivals. The remark, though plausible, is very shallow. To this one great change we would point in answer. It was carried by a Liberal Government, acting on principle alone, not urged on, not even supported, by popular clamour, and carried against the whole force of the Tory party. How important the reform has been, how instant have been its results on the Universities, especially on Oxford, all who know the Universities are well convinced; and the constitution of English society is such, that everything affecting those great bodies must extend and spread itself, until it penetrates throughout the whole community. No one has a better right to set forth what has been the work accomplished by the Reformers of that time than Mr. Goldwin Smith--himself not the least active and powerful among them. 'In the swift lapse of academical generations the Reformers of 1850 are rapidly passing off the scene. They encountered and overcame opposition in their day. They cleared away a mass of obstruction which during centuries of torpor had accumulated to such a height that the effort to remove it assumed something of the character, was attended with some of the evils, and has left behind it something of the lassitude, of a revolution. They overthrew oligarchy in the University and despotism in the College. They restored the Professoriate, for want of which the University had lost her position to a great extent as a seat of learning, and almost entirely as a seat of science. They opened and augmented the Scholarships, thereby giving you the means of drawing hither the flower of English youth. They introduced physical science, which besides its intrinsic impor tance as a study, and as the indispensable title to the intellectual allegiance of a scientific age, has naturalized here the scientific habit of mind, and erected a bulwark of assured truth, though it may not be truth of the very highest kind, against which the alternate waves of Jesuitism and scepticism will henceforth beat in vain. Above all they opened the fellowships, a reform which in the case of many Colleges, and those among the wealthiest, amounted to nothing less than the reconversion of a mere body of proprietors, with a certain literary and educational tinge, into literary and educating institutions; and which moreover has assured the future by placing the destinies of Oxford in the hands of men, who, whatever qualms or reactions may prevail among them for the moment, cannot fail, as they have hearts and brains, in the long-run to see and feel the grandeur of their trust.'1 But though much has been done, there yet remains much to do. The Reformers of 1852 often failed to see their way clearly, sometimes fell into serious error. Besides, the work they had set before themselves was so great that they could not hope to achieve more than a portion of it; had they attempted more, they might have failed altogether. They were acting, as Mr. Goldwin Smith has said, mainly as pioneers. Partly owing to their own shortcomings, still more owing to the inveterate obstructiveness of well-drilled opponents, their pioneering labours have not fully thrown open the rich country which lies before us; the problem of converting the literary monasteries of the middle ages into modern places of learning and education has not yet been solved. The abolition of the old Laudian government, under which the University had slept through centuries, undisturbed by the movement of the world without, was doubtless a long step in advance. But the constitution which inexperience or timidity substituted has been found indifferent or hostile to true academic interests; powerful only to obstruct, sometimes to disgrace. Owing mainly to the inefficiency, or worse, of the governing body, the examinations of the University are not in a satisfactory state. The position neither of college tutors nor of private tutors is right or just; the restoration of the professoriate has been, on the whole, a failure; and, above all, the pressing question of University Extension remains very much where it was in 1850. To this last matter the attention of the University has been recently directed; and we propose in this paper to discuss very shortly the various schemes of University extension which have been suggested. It seems to us that education is rapidly rising to a place among great political questions. We are beginning to 1 A Letter to the Rev. C. W. Sandford, M.A., Senior Censor of Christ Church, By Goldwin Smith. |