Chapter 2

“Qua præit Oxoniam Cancestria longa vetustasPrimatus a Petri dicitur orsa Domo.”

He finally overwhelms his opponent by adding, that Oxford became a public University in 1264, and that a bull for the purpose was obtained the previous year, Cambridge then “being but an obscure place of learning, if any at all.” Thus I have crackedNut the First. Those who would add “sweets to the sweets” may find them in abundance in the writers I have named already; and the subject is treated of very learnedly by Dyer, in hisDedicationto his “Privileges of the University of Cambridge.”

A learned living oriental scholar, and a senior fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, who thinks less of journeying to Shiraz, Timbuctoo, or the Holy Land, than a Cockney would of a trip to Greenwich Fair or Bagnigge Wells,keptin the same court, in College, with a late tutor, now the amiable rector of Staple——t, in Kent. It was their daily practice, when in residence, to take a ramble together, by the footpaths, round by Granchester, and back to College by Trumpington, or to Madingley, or the Hills,but more commonly the former; all delightful in their way, and well known to gownsmen for various associations. To one of these our College dons daily wended their way cogitating, for they never talked, it is said, over theomnia magnaof Cambridge life. Their invariable practice was to keep moving at a stiff pace, some four or five yards in advance of each other. Our amiable tutor went one forenoon to call on Mr. P. before starting, as usual, and found his doorsported. This staggered him a little. Mr. P.’s bed-maker chanced to come up at the instant. “Where is Mr. P.?” was his query. “Gone out, sir,” was the reply. “Gone out!” exclaimed Mr. H.; “Where to?” “ToJerusalem,” she rejoined. And to Jerusalem he was gone, sure enough; a circumstance of so little import in his eyes, who had seen most parts of the ancient world already, and filled the office of tutor to an Infanta of Spain, that he did not think it matter worth the notice of hisCollege Chum. Other travellers, “vox et ratio,” as Horace says, would have had the circumstance bruited in every periodical in Christendom, “quinque sequuntur te pueri.”

Is attributed to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, when a student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he is said to have studied hard, and rose daily, in the depth of winter, at four or five. He one day met a drunken fellow in the streets of Cambridge, who refused him the wall, observing, “I never give the wall to a rascal.” “I do,” retorted his Lordship, moving out of the way. It was probably this incident that gave rise to the couplet—

“Base man to take the wall I ne’er permit.”The scholar said, “I do;” and gave him it.

“Qui tenerosCAULESalieni fregerit horti.”—Hor.

During the progress of a political meeting held in the town of Cambridge, it so happened that the late Dr. Mansel, then Public Orator of the University of Cambridge, but afterwards Master of Trinity College and Bishop of Bristol, came to the place of meeting just as Musgrave, the well known political tailor of his day, was in the midst of a mostpatheticoration, and emphatically repeating, “Liberty, liberty, gentlemen—” He paused,—“Liberty isa plant—” “So is acabbage!” exclaimed the caustic Mansel, before Musgrave had time to complete his sentence, with so happy an allusion to the trade of the tailor, that he was silenced amidst roars of laughter. Another instance of—

But by an Oxonian, a learned member of Christ Church, is recorded in the fact, that having, for near half a century, been accustomed to walk with a favourite stick, theferuleof which, at the bottom, came off, he took it to histailorto have it repaired.

The famous antiquary, Thomas Baker, B.D. of St. John’s College, Cambridge, of which he was longSocius Ejectus, lays it down as a principle, in his admirableReflections on Learning, “that if we hadfewerbooks, we should have more learning.” It is singular that he never published but the one book named, though he has left behind him forty-two volumes of manuscripts, the greater part in the Harleian Collection, in the British Museum, principally relating to Cambridge, and all neatly written in his own hand.

When “honest Vere” Foster, as he is called by “mildWilliam,” his contemporary at College, and the grandfather of our celebrated traveller, Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke, was a student at Cambridge, where he was celebrated for his wit and humour, and for being a good scholar, St. John’s being looked upon as a Tory college, a young fellow, a student, reputed a Whig, was appointed to deliver an oration in the College Hall, on the 5th of November. This he did; but having, for some time, dwelt on the double deliverance of that day, in his peroration, he passed from King William to King George, on whom he bestowed great encomiums. When the speech was over, honest Vere and the orator being at table together, the former addressed the latter with, “I did not imagine, sir, that you woulddeclineKing George in your speech.” “Decline!” said the astonished orator; “what do you mean? I spoke very largely and handsomely of him.” “That is what I mean, too, sir,” said Vere: “for you had him in every case and termination:Georgius—Georgii—Georgio—Georgium—O Georgi!”

Another of “honest Vere’s”

Is deserving a place in our treasury. He one day asked his learned college contemporary, Dr. John Taylor, editor of Demosthenes, “why he talked of selling his horse?” “Because,” replied the doctor, “I cannot afford to keep him in thesehard times.” “You should keep amare,” rejoined Foster, “according to Horace—

‘Æquam memento rebus in arduisServare.’”

Soon after that great, good, and loyal son of Granta, Dr. Isaac Barrow, was made a prebend of Salisbury, says Dr. Pope, “I overheard him say, ‘I wish I had five hundred pounds.’ ‘That’s a large sum for a philosopher,’ observed Dr. Pope; ‘what would you do with so much?’ ‘I would,’ said he, ‘give it to my sister for a portion, thatwould procure hera good husband.’ A few months after,” adds his memorialist, “he was made happy by receiving the above sum,” which he so much desired, “for putting anew lifeinto thecorpsof his new prebend.”

Both Oxford and Cambridge have been famous for inveterate smokers. Amongst them was the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, who said “it helped his thinking.” His illustrious pupil,Newton, was scarcely less addicted to the “Indian weed,” and every body has heard of hishapless courtship, when, in a moment of forgetfulness, he popped the lady’s finger into his burning pipe, instead ofpopping the question, and was so chagrined, that he never could be persuaded to press the matter further. Dr. Parr was allowed his pipe when he dined with thefirst gentleman in Europe, George the Fourth, and when refused the same indulgence by a lady at whose house he was staying, he told her, “she was the greatesttobacco-stopperhe had ever met with.” The celebrated Dr. Farmer, ofblack-lettermemory, preferred the comforts of the parlour of Emmanuel College, of which he was master, and a “yard of clay” (there were nohookahsin his day,) to a bishopric, which dignity he twice refused, when offered to him by Mr. Pitt. Another learned

And eke of wit, mirth, puns, and pleasantry, was the famous Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the never-to-be-forgotten composer of the good old catch—

“Hark, the merry Christ-Church bells,”

and of another to besung by four men smoking their pipes, which is not more difficult to sing than diverting to hear. His pipe was his breakfast, dinner, and supper, and a student of Christ Church, at 10 o’clock one night, finding it difficult to persuade a “freshman” of the fact, laid him

That the Dean was at that instant smoking. Away he hurried to the deanery to decide the controversy, and on gaining admission, apologised for his intrusion by relating the occasion of it. “Well,” replied the Dean, in perfect good humour, with his pipe in his hand, “you see you have lost your wager: for I am not smoking, but filling my pipe.”

Bishop Watson says, in his valuable Chemical Essays, that “Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Bentley met accidentally in London, and on Sir Isaac’s inquiring what philosophicalpursuitswere carrying on at Cambridge, the doctor replied, “None; for when you are a-hunting, Sir Isaac, you kill all the game; you have left us nothing to pursue.” “Not so,” said the philosopher, “you may start a variety of game in every bush, if you will but take the trouble to beat it.” “And so in truth it is,” adds Dr. W.; “every object in nature affords occasion for philosophical experiment.”

The Editor of the Literary Panorama, says Corneille Le Bruyer, the famous Dutch painter, relates, that “happening one day to dine at the table of Newton, with other foreigners, when the dessert was sent up, Newton proposed, ‘a health to the men of every country who believed in a God;’ which,” says the editor, “was drinking the health of the whole human race.” Equal to this was

The celebrated naturalist and divine, who (when ejected from his fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge, fornon-conformity, and, for the same reason, being no longer atliberty to exercise his clerical functions as a preacher of the Gospel,) turned to the pursuit of the sciences of natural philosophy and botany for consolation. “Because I could no longer serve God in the church,” said this great and good man (in his Preface to the Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation,) “I thought myself more bound to do it by my writings.”

Is a tradition of many ages’ standing, but the origin of the celebrated statue of his Satanic Majesty, which of erst overlooked Lincoln College, Oxford, is not so certain as that the effigy was popular, and gave rise to the saying. After outstanding centuries of hot and cold, jibes and jeers, “cum multis aliis,” to whichstone, as well as flesh, is heir, it was taken down on the 15th of November, 1731, says a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, having lost its head in a storm about two years previously, at the same time the head was blown off the statue of King Charles the First, which overlooked Whitehall.

Tom Warton relates, in his somewhat rambling Life of Dr. Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity College, Oxford, that Dr. Radcliffe was a student of Lincoln College when Dr. B. presided over Trinity; but notwithstanding their difference of age and distance of situation, the President used to visit the young student at Lincoln College “merely for the smartness of his conversation.” During one of these morning or evening calls, Dr. B. observing the embryo physician had but few books in his chambers, asked him “Where was his study?” upon which young Radcliffe replied, pointing to a few books, a skeleton, and a herbal, “This, Sir, is Radcliffe’s library.” Tom adds the following

When the Doctor was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, a captain of a company, who had fought bravely in the cause of his royal master, King Charles the First, being recommended to him for the degree of D.C.L., the doctor told the son of Mars he could not confer the degree, “but he would apply to his majesty to give him a regiment of horse!”

An instrument of correction not entirely laid aside in our universities in his time; but (says Tom) heonly“delighted tosurprisescholars, when walking in the grove at unseasonable hours. This he practised,” adds Warton, “on account of the pleasure he took in givingso oddan alarm, rather than from any principle of reproving, or intention of applying so illiberal a punishment.” One thing is certain, that in the statutes of Trinity College, Oxford (as late as 1556,) scholars of the foundation are ordered to be

“Dr. Potter,” says Aubery, while a tutor of the above college, “whipped his pupil with his sword by his side, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the Inns of Court.” This was done to make him asmartfellow. “In Sir John Fane’s collection of letters of the Paston family, writtentemp. Henry VI.,” says the author of theGradus ad Catabrigiam, “we find one of thegentle sexprescribing for her son, who was at Cambridge,” no doubt with a maternal anxiety that he should

as follows:—“Prey Grenefield to send me faithfully worde by wrytyn, who (how) Clemit Paston hathe do his dever i’ lernying, and if he hath nought do well, nor will nought amend, prey hym that he wyll truelyBELASHhymtylhe wyll amend, and so dyd the last mastyr, and the best eu’ he had at Cambridge.” And that Master Grenefield might notwant due encouragement, she concludes with promising him “X m’rs,” for hispains. We do not, however, learn how manymarksyoung Master Clemit received, who certainly tookmore pains.—Patiendonon faciendo—Ferendonon feriendo.

over the buttery-hatch of Christ-College, Cambridge, and, as Dr. Johnson insinuates in his Life, was the last Cambridge student so castigated in either university. The officer who performed thisfundamentaloperation was Dr. Thomas Bainbrigge, the master of Christ’s College. But as it was at a later date that Dr. Ralph Bathurst carried his whip, according to our friend Tom’s showing, tosurprisethe scholars, it is therefore going a great length to give our “Prince of Poets” thesolemerit of being the lastsmartfellow that issued from the halls of either Oxford or Cambridge, handsome as he was.

The following celebrated

Printed, says the Oxford Sausage, “from the original MSS. preserved in theARCHIVESof the Jelly-bag Society,” is somewhere said to have been written by Dr. Ralph Bathurst, when an Oxford scholar:—

One day inChrist-churchmeadows walking,Of poetry and such things talking,SaysRalph, a merry wag,AnEPIGRAM, if right and good,In all its circumstances shouldBe like aJELLY-BAG.Your simile, I own, is new,But how dost make it out? quoth Hugh.QuothRalph, I’ll tell you, friend:Make it at top both wide and fitTo hold a budget full of wit,And point it at the end.

A party of Oxford scholars were one evening carousing at the Star Inn, when a waggish student, a stranger to them, abruptly introduced himself, and seeing he was not “one of us,” they all began toquizhim. This put him upon his mettle, and besides boasting of other accomplishments, he told them, in plain terms, that he could write Greek or Latin Verses better, and was, in short, an over-match for them at any thing. Upon this, one of the party exclaimed, “You have told us a great deal of what you can do,tell us something you can’t do?” “Well,” he retorted, “I’ll tell you what I can’t do—I can’t pay my reckoning!” This sally won him a hearty welcome.

About 1550, whilst the famous Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, was Dean of Christ-church, Oxford, says Cole, in his Athenæ Cant., “he brought his wife into the college, who, with the wife of Peter Martyr, a canon of the same cathedral, were observed to be the first women ever introduced into a cloister or college, and, upon that account, gave no small scandal at the time.” This reminds me of an anecdote that used to amuse the under-grads in my day at Cambridge. A certain D.D., head of a college, abachelor, and in his habits retired to a degree of solitariness, in an unlucky moment gave a lady that did not want twice bidding, not bill of exchange, but arunninginvitation to the college lodge, to be used at pleasure. She luckily seized the long vacation for making her appearance, when there were but few students in residence; but to the confusion of our D.D., hertendaughters cameen traine, and the college was not a little scandalized by their playing shuttlecock in the open court—the lady was in no haste to go. Report says sundry hints were given in vain. She took his originalinvitein its literal sense, to “suit her own convenience.” The anxiety he endured threw our modest D.D. in to a sick-bed, and not relishing the office of nurseto a bachelor of sixty years’ standing, she decamped, + her ten daughters.

In the days that are past, by the side of a stream,Where waters but softly were flowing,With ivy o’ergrown an old mansion-house stood,That was built on the skirts of a chilling damp wood,Where the yew-tree and cypress were growing.The villagers shook as they passed by the doors,When they rested at eve from their labours;And the traveller many a furlong went round,If his ears once admitted the terrific sound,Of the tale that was told by the neighbours.They said, “that the house in the skirts of the woodBy a saucer-eyed ghost was infested,Who filled every heart with confusion and fright,By assuming strange shapes at the dead of the night,Shapes monstrous, and foul, and detested.”And truly they said, and the monster well knew,That the ghost was the greatest of evils;For no sooner the bell of the mansion toll’d one,Than the frolicksome imp in a fury begunTo caper like ten thousand devils.He appeared in forms the most strange and uncouth,Sure never was goblin so daring!He utter’d loud shrieks and most horrible cries,Curst his body and bones, and hissweet little eyes,Till his impudence grew beyond bearing.Just at this nick o’ time, when the master’s sad heartWith anguish and sorrow was swelling,He heard that a scholar with science complete,Full of magical lore as an egg’s full of meat,AtCambridgehad taken a dwelling.The scholar was versed in all magical arts,Most famous was he throughoutcollege;To the Red Sea full oft many an unquiet ghost,To repose with King Pharaoh and his mighty hostHe had sent through his powerful knowledge.To this scholar so learn’d the master he went,And as lowly he bent with submission,Told the freaks of the horrible frightsThat prevented his household from resting at nights,And offered this humble petition:—“That he, the said scholar, in wisdom so wise,Would the mischievous fiend lay in fetters;Would send him in torments for ever to dwell,In the nethermost pit of the nethermost hell,For destroying the sleep of his betters.”The scholar so versed in all magical lore,Told the master his pray’r should be granted;He ordered his horse to be saddled with speed,And perch’d on the back of his cream colour’d steed,Trotted off to the house that was haunted.“Bring me turnips and milk!” the scholar he cried,In voice like the echoing thunder:He brought him some turnips and suet beside,Some milk and a spoon, and his motions they eyed,Quite lost in conjecture and wonder.He took up the turnips, and peel’d off the skins,Put them into a pot that was boiling;Spread a table and cloth, and made ready to sup,Then call’d for a fork, and the turnips fished upIn a hurry, for they were a-spoiling.He mash’d up the turnips with butter and milk:The hail at the casement ’gan clatter!Yet this scholar ne’er heeded the tempest without,But raising his eyes, and turning about,Asked the maid for a small wooden platter.He mash’d up the turnips with butter and salt,The storm came on thicker and faster—The lightnings went flash, and with terrific dinThe wind at each crevice and cranny came in,Tearing up by the root lath and plaster.He mash’d up the turnips with nutmegs and spice,The mess would have ravish’d a glutton;When lo! with sharp bones hardly covered with skin,The ghost from a nook o’er the window peep’d in,In the form ofa boil’d scrag of mutton.“Ho! Ho!” said the ghost, “what art doing below?”The scholar peep’d up in a twinkling—“The times are too hard to afford any meat,So to render my turnips more pleasant to eat,A few grains of pepper I’m sprinkling.”Then he caught up a fork, and the mutton he seiz’d,And soused it at once in the platter;Threw o’er it some salt and a spoonful of fat,And before the poor ghost could tell what he was at,He was gone like a mouse down the throat of a cat,And this is the whole of the matter.

Doctor John Franklin, Fellow and Master of Sidney College, Cambridge, 1730, “a very fat, rosy-complexioned man,” dying soon after he was made Dean of Ely, and being succeeded by Dr. Ellis, “a meagre, weasel-faced, swarthy, black man,” theFenmanof Ely, says (Cole) in allusion thereto, out of vexation at being so soon called upon forrecognition money, made the following humorous distitch:—

“The Devil took our Dean,And pick’d his bones clean;Then clapt him on a board,And sent him back again.”

“Two of a trade can ne’er agree,No proverb e’er was juster;They’ve ta’en down Bishop Blaize, d’ye see,And put up Bishop Bluster.”Dr. Mansel, on Bishop Watson’s head becominga signboard, in Cambridge, in lieu of theancient one of Bishop Blaize.—FacetiæCant.,p.7.

“Two of a trade can ne’er agree,No proverb e’er was juster;They’ve ta’en down Bishop Blaize, d’ye see,And put up Bishop Bluster.”

Dr. Mansel, on Bishop Watson’s head becominga signboard, in Cambridge, in lieu of theancient one of Bishop Blaize.—FacetiæCant.,p.7.

Sir Isaac Pennington and Sir Busick Harwood were cotemporary at Cambridge. The first as Regius Professor of Physic and Senior Fellow of St. John’s College, the other was Professor of Anatomy and Fellow of Downing College. Both were eminent in their way, but seldomagreed, and held each other’s abilities prettycheap, some say in sovereign contempt. Sir Busick was once called in by the friends of a patient that had been under Sir Isaac’s care, but had obtained small relief, anxious to hear his opinion of the malady. Not approving of the treatment pursued,he inquired “who was the physician in attendance,” and on being told, exclaimed—“He! If he were to descend into a patient’s stomach with acandle and lantern, he would not have been able to name the complaint!”

Was hit off, it is supposed, not by Dean Swift or wicked Will Whiston, but by Bishop Mansel, as follows:—

Sir Isaac,Sir Busick;Sir Busick,Sir Isaac;’Twould make you and I sickTo taste their physick.

Another, perhaps the same Cambridge wag, penned the following quaternion on Sir Isaac, which appeared under the title of

When Pennington for female ills indites,Studying alone not what, but how he writes,The ladies, as his graceful form they scan,Cry, with ill-omen’d rapture, “killing man!”

But Sir Isaac, too, was a wit, and chanced on a time to be one of a Cambridge party, amongst whom was a rich old fellow, an invalid, who was too mean to buy an opinion on his case, and thought it a good opportunity towormone out of Sir Isaacgratis. He accordingly seized the opportunity for reciting the whole catalogue of hisills, ending with, “what would you advise me to take, my dear Sir Isaac?” “I should recommend youto take advice,” was the reply.

Whose very name conjures up the spirits of ten thousand wits, holding both sides, over a copus of Trinity ale and a classical pun, would not only frequently “steal a few hours from the night,” but see out both lights and liquids,and seem none the worse for the carouse. He had one night risen for the purpose of reaching his hat from a peg to depart, after having finished the port, sherry, gin-store, &c., when he espied a can ofbeer, says Dyer, (surely it must have beenaudit,) in a corner. Restoring his hat to its resting place, he reseated himself with the following happy travestie of the old nursery lines—

“When wine is gone, and ale is spent,Then small beer is most excellent.”

It was no uncommon thing for hisgypto enter his room with Phœbus, and find him stillen robe, with no other companions but a Homer, Æschylus, Plato, and a dozen or two other old Grecians surrounding an empty bottle, or what his late Royal Highness the Duke of York would have styled “a marine,”id est“a good fellow, who had done his duty, and was ready to do it again.” Upon hisgyponce peeping in before day light, and finding him still up, Porson answered his “quod petis?” (whether he wantedcandlesorliquor,) with

ου τοδε ουδ’ αλλο.

Scotticè—neitherToddynorTallow.

At another time, when asked what he would drink? he replied?—“aliquid” (a liquid.)

He was once

That he could pun upon anything, when he was challenged to do so upon theLatin Gerunds, and exclaimed, after a pause—

“When Dido found Æneas would not come.She mourned in silence, and wasDi-do-dum(b).”

The late amiable, learned, and pious Bishop Heber was not above a pun in his day, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson’sanathema, that a man who made a pun would pick a pocket. Among thejeux des motsattributed to him are the following: he was one day dining with an Oxford party, comprises the élite of his day, and when the servant wasin the act of removing the table-cloth from off the green table-covering, at the end of their meal, he exclaimed, in the words of Horace—

“Diffugere nives: redeunt jam gramina campis.”

At another time he made one of a party of Oxonians, amongst whom was a gentleman of great rotundity of person, on which account he had acquired thesoubriquetof ‘heavy-a—se;’ and he was withal of verysomniferoushabits, frequently dozing in the midst of a conversation that would have made the very glasses tingle with delight. He had fallen fast asleep during the time a mirth-moving subject was recited by one of the party, but woke up just at the close, when all save himself were “shaking fat sides,” and on his begging to know the subject of their laughter,Heberlet fly at him in pure Horatian—

“Exsomnis stupet Evias.”

The mirth-loving Dr. Barnard, late Provost of Eton, was cotemporary, at Cambridge, with

Who, then a student of St. John’s College, used to frequent the same parties that Barnard did, who was of King’s. Barnard used to taunt him with his stupidity; “and,” said Judge Hardinge, who records the anecdote, “he one day half killed Barnard with laughter, who had been taunting him, as usual, with the simplicity of the following excuse and remonstrance: You are always running your rigs upon me and calling me ‘stupid fellow;’ and it is very cruel, now, that’s what it is; for you don’t consider thata broad-wheeled wagon went over my head when I was ten years old.” And here I must remark upon the injustice of persons reflecting upon the English Universities, as their enemies often do, because every man who succeeds in getting a degree does not turn out aPorsonor aNewton. I knew one Cantab, a Caius man, to whom writing a letter to his friends was such an effort, that he used to get his medical attendant to give him anægrotat(put him on the sick list,) and, besides,

till the momentous task was accomplished. And two Oxonians were of late

Because one being asked, “Who was theMediator, between God and man?” answered, “The Archbishop of Canterbury.” The other being questioned as to “why our Saviour sat on the right hand of God?” replied, “Because the Holy Ghost sat on the left.”

“The men of Exeter College, Oxon,” says Fuller, in his Church History, “consisted chiefly of Cornish and Devonshire men, the gentry of which latter, Queen Elizabeth used to say, are courtiers by birth. And as these western men do bear away the bell for might and sleight in wrestling, so the scholars here have always acquitted themselves with credit inPalæstra literaria.”

And writing of this society reminds me that

Is a living example of the fact, that it does not require great learning to make a great general; nor is great learning always necessary to complete the character of the head of a college. The late Rector of Exeter College, Dr. Cole, raised that society, by his prudent management, from the veryreducedrank in which he found it amongst the other foundations of Oxford, to a flourishing and high reputation for good scholarship. Yet he is said one day to have complimented a student at collections, by saying, after the gentleman had construed his portion of Sophocles, “Sir, you have construed yourLivyvery well.” He nevertheless redeemed his credit by one dayposinga student, during his divinity examination, with asking him, in vain, “What Christmas day was?” Another Don of the same college, once asking a student of the society some divinity question, which he wasequally at a loss for an answer, he exclaimed—“Good God, sir, you the son of a clergyman, and not answer such a question as that?” Aristotle was of opinion that knowledgecould only be acquired, but our tutor seems to have thought, like the opponents of Aristotle, that ason of a parsonought to beborn to it.

Whom I knew, yet was by no means deficient in scholastic learning, and withal a great wag. He was asked, at the divinity examination, how many sacraments there were. This happened at the time that theCatholic questionwas in the high road to the House of Lords, under the auspices of the Duke of Wellington, and he had beencramminghisupper storywith abundance ofCatholic Faithfrom the writings ofFaber,Gandolphy, and theBishops of Durham and Exeter. “How many sacraments are there, sir?” repeated the Examiner (of course referring to the Church of England.) The studentpaused on, and the question was repeated a second time; “Why—a—suppose—we—a—say half a dozen,” was the reply. It is needless to add he wasplucked. The following

Is attributed to a certain D.D. of Exeter, who, having undertaken to lionize one of the foreign princes of the many that accompanied the late king and the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia to Oxford, in 1814, a difficulty arose between them as to their medium of communication; the prince being ignorant of the English language, and the doctor no less so with respect to modern foreign languages. In this dilemma the latter proposed an interchange of ideas by means of the fingers, in the following unique address:—“Intelligisne colloquiumcum digitalibus tuis?”

It would be somewhat awkward for certain alumni if his Grace of Wellington should issue an imperative decree, as Chancellor,

(As Wood says, in his annals, the famous Archbishop Bancroftdid, on being raised to the dignity of Chancellor of Oxford in 1608,) “By the students in their halls and colleges, whereby,” said his Grace, “the young as well as the old may be inured to a ready and familiar delivery of their minds in that language, whereof there was now so much use both in studies and common conversation; for it was now observed (and so it may in these present times, adds Wood,) that it was a great blemish to the learned men of this nation, that they being complete in all good knowledge, yet they were not able promptly and aptly to express themselves in Latin, but with hesitation and circumlocution, which ariseth only from disuse.”

Dr. Fothergill, when Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, was a singular as well as a learned man, and would not have been seen abroad minus his wig and gown for a dukedom. One night a fire broke out in the lodge, which spread with such rapidity, that it was with difficulty Mrs. F. and family escaped the fury of the flames; and this she no sooner did than, naturally enough, the question was, “Where is the Doctor?” No Doctor was to be found; and the cry was he had probably perished in the flames. All was bustle, and consternation, and tears, till suddenly, to the delight of all, he emerged from the burning pile, full-dressed, as usual, his wig something the worse for being nearly ‘done to a turn;’ but he deemed it indecorous for him to appear otherwise, though he stayed torobeat the risk of his life.

The living Cambridge worthy, William Sydney Walker, M.A. (who at the age of sixteen wrote the successful tragedy of Wallace, and recently vacated his fellowship at Trinity College “for conscience-sake,”) walking hastily round the corner of a street in Cambridge, in his peculiarly near-sightedsidlinghasty manner, he suddenly came in contact with theblindmuffin-man who daily perambulatesthe town. The concussion threw both upon their haunches. “Don’t youseeI’m blind?” exclaimed the muffin-man, in great wrath. “How should I,” rejoined the learned wag, “when I’m blind too.”

Upon the death of a provost of King’s College, Cambridge, the fellows are obliged, according to their statutes, to be shut up in their celebrated chapel till they have agreed upon the election of a successor, a custom not unlike that to which the cardinals are subject at Rome, upon the death of a pope, where not uncommonly some half dozen are brought out dead before an election takes place. “The following is a comic picture of an election,” says Judge Hardinge, in Nichols’s Illustrations of Literature, from the pen of Daniel Wray, Esq. dated fromCambridge, the 19th of January, 1743. “The election of a provost of King’s is over—Dr. Georgeis the man. The fellows went into chapel on Monday, before noon in the morning, as the statute directs. After prayers and sacrament, they began to vote:—22 forGeorge; 16 forThackery; 10 forChapman. Thus they continued, scrutinizing and walking about, eating and sleeping; some of them smoking. Still the same numbers for each candidate, till yesterday about noon (for they held that in the forty-eight hours allowed for the election no adjournment could be made,) when the Tories,Chapman’sfriends, refusing absolutely to concur with either of the other parties,Thackery’svotes went over toGeorgeby agreement, and he was declared. A friend of mine, a curious fellow, tells me he took a survey of his brothers at two o’clock in the morning, and that never was a more curious or a more diverting spectacle: some wrapped in blankets, erect in their stalls like mummies; others asleep on cushions, like so manyGothictombs. Here a red cap over a wig, there a face lost in the cape of a rug; one blowing a chafing-dish with a surplice-sleeve; another warming a little negus, orsippingCoke upon Littleton,i. e.tent and brandy. Thus did they combat the cold of that frosty night, which has not killed any one of them, to my infinite surprise.” One of the fellows of King’s engaged in this election was Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord High Chancellor of England, and father of the present Marquis of Camden, who, writing to his amiable and learned friend and brother Etonian and Kingsman, Dr. Sneyd Davies, archdeacon of Derby, &c. in the January of the above year, says, “Dear Sneyd we are all busy in the choice of a provost.GeorgeandThackeryare the candidates.Georgehas all the power and weight of the Court interest, but I am forThackery, so that I am atpresent a patriot, and vehemently declaim against all unstatutable influence. The College are so divided, that your friends theToriesmay turn the balance if they will; but, if they should either absent themselves or nominate a third man,Chapman, for example,Thackerywill be discomfited. Why are notyoua doctor? We could choose you against all opposition. However, I insist upon it, that you shall qualify yourself against the next vacancy, for since you will not come toLondon, and wear lawn sleeves, you may stay where you are, and be provost,”—which he did not live to be, though he did take his D.D.

A writer in an early volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine has stated, that “the Christian name is never used in the university with the addition ofSir, but the surname only.” Cole says, in reply, “This is certainly so at Cambridge. Yet when Bachelors of Arts get into the country, it is quite the reverse; for then, whether curates, chaplains, vicars, or rectors, they are constantly styledSir, orDominus, prefixed to both their names, to distinguish them from Masters of Arts, orMagistri. This may be seen,” he says, “in innumerable instances in the lists of incumbents in New Court, &c.” And, he adds, addressing himself to that illustrious character,Sylvanus Urban, “I couldproduce a thousand others from the wills, institutions, &c. in the diocese of Ely, throughout the whole reign of Henry VIII. and for many years after, till the title was abandoned, and are never called Sir Evans, or Sir Martext, as in the university they would be, according to your correspondent’s opinion, but invariably Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext, &c. The subject,” adds this pleasant chronicler, “‘seria ludo,’ puts me in mind of a very pleasant story, much talked of when I was first admitted of the university, which I know to be fact, as I since heard Mr. Greene, the dean of Salisbury, mention it. The dean was at that time only Bachelor of Arts, and Fellow of Bene’t College, where Bishop Mawson was master, and then, I think, Bishop of Llandaff, who, being one day at Court, seeing Mr. Greene come into the drawing-room, immediately accosted him, pretty loud, in this manner,How do you do, Sir Greene? When did you leave College, Sir Greene?Mr. Greene was quite astonished, and the company present much more so, as not comprehending the meaning of the salutation or title, till Mr. Greene explained it, and also informed them,” observes Cole, with his accustomed fulness of information, “of the worthy good bishop’s absences.”

Fuller relates in his Abel Redivivus, that the celebrated President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Dr. John Rainolds, the contemporary of Jewel and Usher, had a controversy with one William Gager, a student of Christ-Church, who contended for the lawfulness of stage-plays; and the same Gager, he adds, maintained,horresco referens!in a public act in the university, that “it was lawful for husbands to beat their wives.”

Is contained in Antony Wood’s “angry account” of thealterations made in Merton College, of which he was a fellow, during the wardenship of Sir Thomas Clayton, whose lady, says Wood, “did put the college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous expenses, among which were a very large looking-glass, for her to see her ugly face, and body to the middle, * * * * * which was brought in Hilary terme, 1674, and cost, as the bursar told me, above 10£.; a bedstead and bedding, worth 40£., must also be bought, because the former bedstead and bedding was too short for him (he being a tall man,) so perhaps when ashortwarden comes, a short bed must be bought.” There were also other

When the Vandals of Parliamentary visiters, in Cromwell’s time, perpetrated their spoliations at Oxford, one of them, Sir Nathaniel Brent, says Wood, actually “took down the rich hangings at the altar of the chapel, and ornamented his bedchamber with them.”

The late vice-master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Rev. William Hodson, B.D., and the late Regius Professor of Hebrew, the Rev. William Collier, B.D., who had also been tutor of Trinity College, were both skilled in the science of music, and constant visiters at the quartett parties of Mr. Sharp, of Green Street, Cambridge, organist of St. John’s College. The former happened one evening to enter Mr. Sharp’ssanctum sanctorum, rather later than usual, and found the two latter just in the act of discussing a brace of roast ducks, with a bowl of punch in the background. He was pressed to join them. “No, no, gentlemen,” was his reply, “give me aglass of water and a crust. You know not what you are doing. You aredigging your graves with your teeth.” Both gentlemen, however, out-lived him.

The late master of Clare Hall, Cambridge, Dr. Torkington, was one evening stopped by a footpad or pads, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, when riding at an humble pace on his old Rosinante, which had borne him through many a long year. Both horse and master were startled by the awful tones in which the words, “Stand, and deliver!” were uttered, to say nothing of the flourish of a shillelah, or something worse, and an unsuccessful attempt tograbthe rein. The horse, declining acquiescence, set off at a good round pace, and thus saved his master; an act for which the old doctor was so grateful, that he never suffered it to be rode again, but had it placed in a paddock, facing his lodge, on the banks of the Cam, where, with a plentiful supply of food, and his own daily attentions, it lingered out the remnant of life, and “liv’d at home at ease.”

At the time the celebrated Archbishop Sharp was at Oxford, it was the custom in that University, as likewise in Cambridge, for students to have achumor companion, who not only shared the sitting-room with each other, but the bed also; and a writer, speaking of the University of Cambridge, says, one of the colleges was at one period so full, that when writing a letter, the students were obliged to hold their hand over it, to prevent its contents being seen. Archbishop Sharp, when an Oxford Scholar, was awoke in the night by hischumlying by his side, who told him he had just dreamed a most extraordinary dream; which was, that he (Sharp) would be an Archbishop of York. After some time, he again awoke him, and said he had dreamt the same, and was well assured he would arrive at that dignity. Sharp, extremely angry at being thus disturbed, told him if he awoke him any more, he would send him out of bed. However, his chum, again dreaming the same, ventured to awake him; on which Sharp becamemuch enraged; but his bed-fellow telling him, if he had again the same dream he would not annoy him any more, if he would faithfully promise him, should he ever become archbishop, to give him a good rectory, which he named. “Well, well,” said Sharp, “you silly fellow, go to sleep; and if your dream, which is very unlikely, should come true, I promise you the living.” “By that time,” said his chum, “you will have forgot me and your promise.” “No, no,” says Sharp, “that I shall not; but, if I do not remember you, and refuse you the living, then sayJohn Sharp is a rogue.” After Dr. Sharp had been archbishop some time, his old friend (his chum) applied to him (on the said rectory being vacant,) and, after much difficulty, got admitted to his presence, having been informed by the servant, that the archbishop was particularly engaged with a gentleman relative to the same rectory for which he was going to apply. The archbishop was told there was a clergyman who was extremely importunate to see him, and would take no denial. His Grace, extremely angry, ordered him to be admitted, and requested to know why he had so rudely almost forced himself into his presence. “I come,” says he, “my Lord, to claim an old promise, the rectory of ——.” “I do not remember, sir, ever to have seen you before; how, then, could I have promised you the rectory, which I have just presented to this gentleman?” “Then,” says his old chum, “John Sharp is a rogue!” The circumstance was instantly roused in the mind of the archbishop, and the result was, he provided liberally for his dreaming chum in the Church.

“In the year 1821,” says Parke, in his Musical Memoirs, “I occasionally dined with a pupil of mine, Mr. Knight, who had lately left college. This young man (who played the most difficult pieces on the flute admirably) and his brother Cantabs, when they met, were very fond of relating the wild tricks for which the students of the University of Cambridge are celebrated. The followingrelation of one will convey some idea,” he says, “of their general eccentricity:—A farmer, who resided at a considerable distance from Cambridge, but who had, nevertheless, heard of the excesses committed by the students, having particular business in the before-mentioned seat of the Muses, together with a strong aversion to entering it, took his seat on the roof of the coach, and, being engrossed with an idea of danger, said to the coachman, who was a man of few words, ‘I’ze been towld that the young gentlemen at Cambridge be wild chaps.’ ‘You’ll see,’ replied the coachman; ‘and,’ added the farmer, ‘that it be hardly safe to be among ’em.’ ‘You’ll see,’ again replied the coachman. During the journey the farmer put several other interrogatories to the coachman, which was answered, as before, with ‘You’ll see!’ When they had arrived in the High Street of Cambridge, Mr. Knight had a party of young men at his lodgings, who were sitting in the first floor, with the windows all open, and a large China bowl full of punch before them, which they had just broached. The noise made by their singing and laughing, attracting the notice and exciting the fears of the farmer, he again, addressing his taciturn friend, the coachman, (whilst passing close under the window,) said with great anxiety, ‘Are we all safe, think ye?’ when, before the master of the whip had time to utter his favourite monosyllables, ‘You’ll see,’ bang came down, on the top of the coach, bowl, punch, glasses, &c. to the amazement and terror of the farmer, who was steeped in his own favourite potation. ‘There,’ said coachee (who had escaped a wetting,) ‘I said as how you’d see!’”

When Gray produced his famous Ode for the installation of his patron, the late Duke of Grafton, a production, it is observed, which would have been more admired, had it “not been surpassed by his two masterpieces, the Bard, and the Progress of Poetry,” being possessed of a very accuratetaste for music, which he had formed on the Italian model, he weighed every note of the composer’s music, (the learned Cambridge professor, Dr. Randall,) with the most critical exactness, and kept the composer in attendance upon him, says Dyer, in his Supplement, for three months. Gray was, indeed, a thorough disciple of the Italian school of music, whilst the professor was an ardent admirer of the sublime compositions of Handel, whosenoise, it is stated, Gray could not bear; but after the professor had implicitly followed his views till he came to the chorus, Gray exclaimed, “I have now done, and leave you to make as much noise as you please.” This fine composition is still in MS. in the hands of the Doctor’s son, Mr. Edward Randall, of the town of Cambridge.

Gray was not the only modern poet of deserved celebrity, which Peter-House had the honour to foster in her cloisters. A late Fellow of that Society, namedKendal, “a person of a wild and deranged state of mind,” says Dyer, but, it must be confessed, with much method in his madness, during his residence in Cambridge, “occasionally poured out, extemporaneously, the most beautiful effusions,” but the paucity of the number preserved have almost left him without a name, though meriting a niche in Fame’s temple. I therefore venture to repeat the following, with his name, that his genius may live with it:—

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