R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Oxford in the 'Seventies 237by fifty or sixty years, might have saved the RobertElsmeres of the 'seventies from a deal of worry and misgiving;for the hero of Mrs Humphry Ward's first novelmust be regarded as a type, reflecting one side of Oxfordlife and letters in that decade. Is the book not, indeed,notoriously a roman~d-clef, with some of those named inthis chapter among the dramatis personae; though no onehas succeeded in identifying Mrs Ward's eponymous herowith any individual Oxonian. He was, presumably, acomposite photograph.IX. SOCIAL ASPECTS: YOUNGER DONSAnother vision of Oxford in the 'seventies is opened upby the same writer's Recollections (1918), dedicated to herhusband ' in memory of April 6th, 1872', and giving a delightfulaccount of the simple life and social intercoursein vogue with the young married couples in ' The Parks':startling novelties just made possible during that decade,by the removal of the celibate restriction upon Fellowships.No more attractive report on Oxford's domesticrenaissance has anywhere been preserved; to attempt aduplication of it here could result only in a plagiarism ora fiasco. Yet I would venture to supplement it by onepersonal reminiscence of the informal entertainments atFyfield House, on Friday evenings in term, to which agroup of young Dons had standing invitations. If onewere not coming on any given occasion, one was expectedto let the lady of the house know in good time. If youwere busy, or had pupils of a night, you were permittedto slip away early without offence. What gay and sometimesserious talk we had! What amiable differences!What cordial sympathies! What innocent ambitions,what sanguine expectations, for ourselves, for Oxford,for mankind, over the simple meal, and round the brightfire! Our hosts were Mr and Mrs Arthur Acland, she the