sizars of St. John's.
    Behind the then chapel of this last-named college, there was a labyrinth
(this was the name it bore) of dingy tumble-down rooms tenanted exclusively by
the poorest undergraduates, who were dependent upon sizarships and scholarships
for the means of taking their degrees. To many even at St. John's, the existence
and whereabouts of the labyrinth in which the sizars chiefly lived was unknown;
some men in Ernest's time who had rooms in the first court had never found their
way through the sinuous passage which led to it.
    In the labyrinth there dwelt men of all ages, from mere lads to grey-haired
old men who had entered late in life. They were rarely seen except in hall or
chapel, or at lecture - where their manners of feeding, praying, and studying
were considered alike objectionable;
    no one knew whence they came, whither they went, nor what they did, for they
never shewed at cricket or the boats; they were a gloomy seedy-looking confrérie
who had as little to glory in [in] clothes and manners as in the flesh itself.
    Ernest and his friends used to consider themselves marvels of economy for
getting on with so little money, but the greater number of dwellers in the
labyrinth would have considered one-half of their expenditure to be an exceeding
measure of affluence; and so doubtless any domestic tyranny which had been
experienced by Ernest was a small thing to what the average Johnian sizar had
had to put up with.
    A few would at once emerge on its being found after their first examination
that they were likely to be ornaments to the college; these would win valuable
scholarships that enabled them to live in some degree of comfort, and would
amalgamate with the more studious of those who were in a better social position;
but even these, with few exceptions, were long in shaking off the uncouthness
they brought with them to the university, nor would their origin cease to be
easily recognisable till they had become dons and tutors. I have seen some of
these men attain high position in the world of politics or science, and yet
still retain a look of labyrinth and Johnian sizarship.
    Unprepossessing, then, in feature, gait, and manners, unkempt and
ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described, these poor fellows formed a
class apart whose thoughts and ways were not as the thoughts and ways of Ernest
and his friends, and it was among them that Simeonism chiefly flourished.
    Destined most of them for the church (for in those days holy orders were
seldom heard of), the