Cuthbert Bede

“ No bonnet betokening a female traveller could be seen either inside or out; and that lady was indeed lucky who escaped being an inside passenger on the following day. Nothing but a lapse of time, or the complete re-lining of the coach, could purify it from the attacks of the four gentlemen who were now doing their best to convert it into a divan; and the consumption of tobacco on that day between Birmingham and Oxford must have materially benefited the revenue. The passengers were not limited to the two-legged ones, there were four-footed ones also. ”

“ But freshmen cannot learn the mysteries of college etiquette in a day.
However, we are anticipating. They had not yet got to Oxford, though, from the pace at which they were going, it appeared as if they would soon reach there; for the coachman had given up his seat and the reins to the box-passenger, who appeared to be as used to the business as the coachman himself; and he was now driving them, not only in a most scientific manner, but also at a great pace. Mr. Green was not particularly pleased with the change in the four-wheeled government ”

“ The first view of the City of Colleges is always one that will be long remembered. Even the railway traveller, who enters by the least imposing approach, and can scarcely see that he is in Oxford before he has reached Folly Bridge, must yet regard the city with mingled feelings of delight and surprise as he looks across the Christ Church meadows and rolls past the Tom Tower. But he who approaches Oxford from the Henley Road, and looks upon that unsurpassed prospect from Magdalen Bridge,—or he who enters the city, as Mr. Green did, from the Woodstock Road, and rolls down the shady avenue of St. ”

“ Sweet land of visions, that will with such ease confer even a treble first upon the weary sleeper, why must he awake from thy gentle thraldom, to find the class-list a stern reality, and Graduateship too often but an empty dream!
↑ This well-known coach ceased to run between Birmingham and Oxford in the last week of August 1852, on the opening of the Birmingham and Oxford Railway. ”

“ There was a pair of braces from Mary, worked with an ecclesiastical pattern of a severe character—very appropriate for academical wear, and extremely effective for all occasions when the coat had to be taken off in public. And there was a watch-pocket from Fanny, to hang over Verdant's night-capped head, and serve as a depository for the golden mechanical turnip that had been handed down in the family, as a watch, for the last three generations. And there was a pair of woollen comforters knit by Miss Virginia's own fair hands ”

“ There was a purse from Helen, which, besides being a triumph of art in the way of bead decoration, was also, it must be allowed, a very useful present, unless one happened to carry one's riches in a porte-monnaie. ”

“ Green that so many men went up by the coach, that unless he made an early application, he would altogether fail in obtaining places; so a letter had been dispatched to "the Swan" coach-office at Birmingham, from which place the coach started, and two outside seats had been put at Mr. Green's disposal. ”