November 13.

In the morning breakfasted with Bryce and a dozen or more
graduates and undergraduates in the common room at Oriel, and was
delighted with the relations between instructors and instructed
then shown. Nothing could be better. The discussion turning upon
Froude, who had evidently fascinated many of the younger men by
his style, Bryce was particularly severe against him for his
carelessness as to truth. This reminded me of a remark made to me
by Moncure Conway, I think, that Froude had begun with the career
of a novelist, for which he had decided gifts; that Carlyle had
then made him think this sort of work unworthy, urging him to
write history; and that Froude had carried into historical
writing the characteristics of a romance-writer. In the afternoon
to a beautiful concert in the great hall of Christ Church. A
curious sort of accommodation in quasi-boxes was provided by
pushing the dining-tables to the sides of the room and placing
the audience in chairs upon them and in front of them; it seemed
to me more serviceable than cleanly. In the evening dined at
Lincoln College with the rector, Dr. Merry, who was very
agreeable and entertaining, giving interesting accounts of his
predecessor, Mark Pattison, and of Wilberforce when Bishop of
Oxford. One of the guests, a fellow of New College, told me that
some fifty years ago an American, being entertained there showed
the college dons how to make mint-julep, or something of the
sort, and then sent them a large silver cup with the condition
that it should be filled with this American drink every year on
the anniversary of the donor's visit, and that this is regularly
done. This pious donor must have been, I think, "Nat" Willis.