“——’s Coffee-house,May 4.“Brother Student,—Without a compliment I am much pleased with your scheme, and heartily wish you success. Hitherto I think you bid fair for it, and seem to meet with general applause. But will you forgive my offering a word or two of advice? Let us have no more of your abstract speculations, as you call them; indeed they are not popular. Last night, in a full assembly of pretty fellows at this place (all your admirers), Billy Languish read your fourth number. We all agreed that your ‘Impudence’ is inimitable, but your ‘letter in defence of religion,’ tho’ it did not startle us (as you apprehended it would) somewhat amazed us, I must own. Consider, Mr Student, you write for the publick of which three fourths are ignoramuses, and therefor, tho’ we may allow you now and then in compliment to your taylor and mercer and other learned folks, to insert a Latin ode or epigram, yet I must needs tell you, that we don’t relish your metaphysics. For which reason I am directed by all the Smarts at ——’s, to acquaint you, that we expect (especially if it be English), at least to understand what we read. We consider your book as a monthly feast or entertainment; and if we pay our ordinary, ’tis but reasonable the dishes you set before us should be such as we are able to taste. We cannot indeed always expect rarities, and may now and then admit of a trifle or puff by way of make up; but prithee don’t surfeit us with ambigu’s and inconnu’s. At the same time I must tell you, that we are much pleased with your last Sapphic, that we reverence Tony Alsop’s memory, and have resolv’d one and all to subscribe to his works. Billy Languish and Dick Dimple indeed say, the ‘verses on the grotto’ are better; and Dick(who you know is a wit as well as a beau) gave us off hand a translation of them, but I have indeed since found out where he borrows it.—I am yours,Harry Didapper.”
“——’s Coffee-house,May 4.
“Brother Student,—Without a compliment I am much pleased with your scheme, and heartily wish you success. Hitherto I think you bid fair for it, and seem to meet with general applause. But will you forgive my offering a word or two of advice? Let us have no more of your abstract speculations, as you call them; indeed they are not popular. Last night, in a full assembly of pretty fellows at this place (all your admirers), Billy Languish read your fourth number. We all agreed that your ‘Impudence’ is inimitable, but your ‘letter in defence of religion,’ tho’ it did not startle us (as you apprehended it would) somewhat amazed us, I must own. Consider, Mr Student, you write for the publick of which three fourths are ignoramuses, and therefor, tho’ we may allow you now and then in compliment to your taylor and mercer and other learned folks, to insert a Latin ode or epigram, yet I must needs tell you, that we don’t relish your metaphysics. For which reason I am directed by all the Smarts at ——’s, to acquaint you, that we expect (especially if it be English), at least to understand what we read. We consider your book as a monthly feast or entertainment; and if we pay our ordinary, ’tis but reasonable the dishes you set before us should be such as we are able to taste. We cannot indeed always expect rarities, and may now and then admit of a trifle or puff by way of make up; but prithee don’t surfeit us with ambigu’s and inconnu’s. At the same time I must tell you, that we are much pleased with your last Sapphic, that we reverence Tony Alsop’s memory, and have resolv’d one and all to subscribe to his works. Billy Languish and Dick Dimple indeed say, the ‘verses on the grotto’ are better; and Dick(who you know is a wit as well as a beau) gave us off hand a translation of them, but I have indeed since found out where he borrows it.—I am yours,
Harry Didapper.”
Thehabituésof the unknown coffee-house, all pretty fellows, looked uponThe Studentas a “monthly feast of entertainment!” For all their soaking and “wenching” and slacking they would seem to have had a certain amount of brain and appreciative capability left to them.
In a subsequent chapter I shall set down the methods by which these men obtained their degrees after having spent some six or seven years inside the old walls of the university. They had as little time for work as the “bloods” of to-day whose every moment is claimed by matters of far greater moment than mere study! To a certain extent the Smarts, though they perhaps did not know it, were philosophers. They said to themselves that life was short and youth shorter still, that therefore it behoved them to cram in to the six years of their university career as much pleasure, excitement, and amusement as was possible. The eighteenth century lent itself whole-heartedly to this programme. The Dons, who should have been intent on governing Oxford, had other game afoot. The Undergraduates were thus left to their own devices, and the Smarts were the first to take advantage of such Arcadian conditions. They delayed the hour of rising until the sun grew weary of calling them out. There was no stern shepherd to round them into chapel at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock. Like butterflies they flitted from place to place at the caprice of the moment. They held Bacchanalian revels in and out of college without regard to Dons and statutes. Their paramours, far from being ejected from the city, were shared with the authorities,thus proving that they had a better understanding of real socialism than the exponents of to-day. The same cobbled streets that hear us shouting our way home in the small hours, saw the Georgian men staggering along with tight-linked arms in the silvery moonlight, while Big Tom boomed out the birth of a new day.
As year after year slipped relentlessly off the calender they absorbed the unique atmosphere of Oxford, fully appreciating under their mask ofblaséscorn the traditions and the unforgettable charm ofAlma mater. They carried their love and reverence for her to the grave, and gave proof of it by sending their sons and grandsons to swell the never-ending procession of men who sing the praises of Oxford.
THE TOAST
Terrae Filius sums her up—Merton Wall butterflies—Hearne comments—Flavia and the orange tree—Dick, the sloven—The President under her thumb—Amhurst’s table of cons.—King Charles and the other place.
Terrae Filius sums her up—Merton Wall butterflies—Hearne comments—Flavia and the orange tree—Dick, the sloven—The President under her thumb—Amhurst’s table of cons.—King Charles and the other place.
What is an Oxford toast? For answer I cannot do better than turn to that OxfordEncyclopædia, Terrae Filius, who from the ambush of his anonymity, directed his fire upon all toasts with unerring aim and deadly effect.
“She is born, as the King says, of mean estate, being the daughter of some insolent mechanick, who fancies himself a gentleman and resolves to keep up his family by marrying his girl to a parson or a schoolmaster; to which end, he and his wife call her pretty miss, as soon as she knows what it means, and sends her to the dancing school to learn how to hold up her head, and turn out her toes; she is taught from a child not to play with any of the dirty boys and girls in the neighbourhood; but to mind her dancing, and have a great respect for the gown. This foundation being laid, she goes on fast enough of herself, without any farther assistance, except an hoop, a gay suit of cloaths, and two or three new holland smocks. Thus equipt, she frequents all the balls and publick walks in Oxford; where it is a great chance if she does not, in time, meet with some raw coxcomb or other, who is her humble servant; waits upon her home, calls upon her again the next day; dangles after her from place to place; and is at last, with some art and management, drawn in to marry her.
“She has impudence—therefore she has wit;She is proud—therefore she is well bred;She has fine Cloaths—therefore she is genteel;She would fain be a wife-and therefore she is not a Wh—re.”
Amhurst also informed his readers that they appeared principally in summer, like butterflies, when they flitted from flower to flower of the Smarts under Merton Wall. “The toasts,” he remarked, “are scouring up and new-trimming their best gowns and petticoats against the summer, and intend to make a splendid appearance.” These ladies were an extremely conspicuous feature of Undergraduate life. In the description of the Smart’s day we are told how after chapel he drank tea with some celebrated toast, and then waited upon her to Maudlin Grove or Paradise Garden and back again. Afterwards, when drowning his sorrows at the particular establishment in vogue at the time, the Smart exhausted himself in his efforts to dash off a sonnet to her eyelashes or a rhapsody in praise of her tip-tilted nose. He drank her health upon his knees, tossing off a non-heeltaps to every letter of her name. His day was considered wasted unless he were seen in all his delicate apparel in company with the acknowledged reigning queen among toasts.
One lady, by name of Flavia, kept an orange tree growing in the window of her bed-chamber. This inspired a burst of classic poetry from a Buck who saw and envied it. In one of the volumes of Terrae Filius a most amusing story was related which shows what influence these toasts exercised upon the Undergraduates. She, too, answered to the name of Flavia—whether she were one and the same as the horticultural lady it is impossible to say. A “promising lad” came up and was recognised by his master—of whom he was “a very favourite”—to be a “diligent and ingenious scholar.”
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Merton College and Chapel, from the first Quadrangle.
That character he maintained for some time, keeping to his chamber and his books, with sported oak, and not concerning himself with the vagaries of fashion; “indeed the poor young fellow did not dress smart; nay, often was really dirty.” Gradually he made the acquaintance of some noted Bucks and sought their society and conversation out of curiosity. But they continually ragged him about his shabby appearance. “Dick!” said they, “prithee let’s burn this damned brown wig of thine; get thee a little more linnen.” The lad for a time was obdurate, but at last put forward in excuse that “this alteration of himself would make him be taken too much notice of, and, it may be, his new dress might sit so awkward, that he would become the jest of his acquaintance.” This was a set-back to the friends, but they came to the cunning conclusion that he might be tricked into it. So they buttonholed him. “Dick,” said one, “did you never see Miss Flavia, one of our top toasts?” “No,” quoth he, “unless at her window.” “Well, faith,” said the friend, “to be plain, she likes you, I myself heard her say in public company, I have been shew’d Mr Such-a-one several times; everybody says he’s a man of fire; it is a thousand pities he’s such a sloven.” Dick was finished. He went home obsessed with the idea, flung his wig into the fire, forgot his studies entirely and swore to see Flavia the very next day. His friends spread a rumour abroad that he had come into money, and his tradesmen gave him unlimited credit. Accordingly he was decked out, in ruffles and all the other paraphernalia, and from that day worshipped at the lady’s shrine. In these days such fair Flavias would in all probability be found pulling beer in a public-house, totally devoid of H’s, but none the less popular among a certain set. To-day they can be treated with a certain amount of Undergraduate levity, but in the eighteenth century it behoved the contumelious to walk delicatelyand to be very careful. Amhurst hoisted the danger signal when he related that “not long ago, a bitter lampoon was published upon the most celebrated of these petticoat-professors, as soon as it came out the town was in an uproar, and a very severe sentence was passed upon the author of this anonymous libel; to discover whom no pains were spared; all the disgusted, ill-natured fellows in the university were, one after another, suspected upon this occasion. At last, I know not how, it was peremptorily fixed upon one; whether justly, or not, I cannot say; but the parties offended resolved to make an example of somebody for such an enormous crime, and one of them (more enraged than the rest) was heard to declare ‘that, right or wrong, that impudent scoundrel (mentioning his name) should be expelled, by G—d; and that she had interest enough with the president and senior fellows of his college to get his business done.’” And the scandalous part of the business was that the president and senior fellows who had evidently had relations with the woman in question were such cowards as to yield to her demands, which probably took the form of threats of exposure against themselves, and sent the unoffending man down for good.
In his character of general reformer Terrae Filius felt himself compelled, however reluctantly, to “draw his pen against womenkind”—the womenkind of Oxford. His apology for so doing was that “I shall have the misfortunes of numberless young men to answer for, if I conceal anything which may be for their advantage, or spare any abuses in the universities, though committed by the fairest offenders.”
After a disquisition on love, which he described as “a most arbitrary passion,” which “engrosses the whole man ... and grumbles at its own poverty and searches after new acquisitions,” he continued“conscious of this truth, our wise forefathers took all possible care to purge the seats of learning of these shining temptations, these dangerous decoys of youth; but as all their prudence and precaution could not do this entirely, they made a statute, ‘prohibiting all scholars, as well as Graduates or Undergraduates, of whatever faculty, to frequent the houses and shops of any townsmen by day, and especially by night; but more especially houses, which harbour or receive infamous or suspected women, with whom all scholars are strictly forbid to keep company, either in their own private chambers, or at the houses of any townsmen.’ I suppose it will be objected by the Smarts, or others, that this statute extends only to common prostitutes or night-walkers, and not to those divine creatures dignified by the name of toasts; but I think that it includes all suspected women, and especially the toasts, for the following reasons:—
“1. Because it was not the only design of the statute to restrain the scholars from debauchery (from which, I hope, they need no forcible restraint!) but to prevent them also from neglecting their studies, and entering into scandalous marriages; of which they are in no danger from common strumpets and mercenary street-walkers.
“2. Because there was no occasion for a statute against common whores, any more than against house-breakers and pickpockets, which are all punishable by the laws of the land.
“3. Because I have a better opinion of the townsmen of Oxford (who are, many of them, matriculated men), than to believe that they would entertain in their houses such filthy drabs; though it is probable enough that they would marry their daughters to advantage if they could; in which I can see no great harm on their parts.
“4. Because I have a better opinion of the scholars too, than tobelieve that they would keep company with such cattle; and I think it is a scandal to the university to stand in need of a statute, which supposes that any of her hopeful children are addicted to such beastliness.”
Amhurst’s reasons are logical enough to convince the meanest intelligence of the true nature of the Oxford toasts. In support of them he brings up no less a second than King Charles I., who wrote officially and at some length on the question of university government to the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Cambridge commanding the suppression of women such as those in question. The reason why the good King did not treat Oxford to a similar injunction is, supposedly, that the need for it did not reach the royal ears. It is hinted more than once, too, in the pages of Terrae Filius that the Dons themselves entertained feelings of sympathy towards the toasts, and shielded them from royal visitations by intentionally keeping things quiet. Judging from the character of the Dons in the eighteenth century it is highly probable that such was indeed the case.
“Happy is it,” says Amhurst, “for the present generation of Oxford toasts, that King Charles I. (so much unlike that accomplished gentleman, his son) was long ago laid in the dust! Were that rigid King now alive, my mind misgives me strangely, that I should see an end of all the balls and cabals, and junketings at Oxford; that several of our most celebrated and beautiful madams would pluck off their fine feathers, and betake themselves to an honest livelihood; or make their personal appearance before the lords of his majesty’s privy council, to answer their contempt, and such other matters as should be objected against them.”
Unmourned and besmirched the last of the Oxford toasts haslong since passed beyond the judgment of man. The Dons were in all too many cases the cause of sending recruits to the ranks of the oldest profession in the world. Heads of colleges, reverend clerics, and holders of Fellowships must all answer to the charge of “wenching.”
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A Varsity Trick—Smuggling In.
The Servitor
The germ of Ruskin Hall—Description of himself—George Whitefield—College exercises—Running errands and copying lines—Samuel Wesley—Famous servitors.
The germ of Ruskin Hall—Description of himself—George Whitefield—College exercises—Running errands and copying lines—Samuel Wesley—Famous servitors.
In the year of grace nineteen hundred and eleven there are three main divisions of the genus Undergraduate:—scholars, commoners, and “toshers,” the last sometimes known as non-collegiate Undergraduates. Under a fourth heading, which constitutes a small subdivision all by itself, I may place the working-men Undergraduates—the members of Ruskin Hall. Georgian Undergraduates might also be split up into parallel divisions. There were also servitors, who were, in some sort, the ancient form of the working-men Undergraduates of the twentieth century.
Oxford in Georgian times was, according to the popular conception, a place where peers and rich men sent their sons in order that they might receive a better education than anywhere else in the world. The erudition, classical learning, and brilliance of the Dons passed all belief. Nowhere on earth was there gathered together a body of men with such knowledge and brain power. Did any man yearn for instruction in any subject, Oxford was the only place where that subject was exhaustively known and thoroughly taught.
It naturally followed, therefore, that the lower classes, who drudged all day in the effort to keep body and soul together, and provide the wherewithal to fill the stomachs of their hungry progeny, left Oxford outside their calculations when discussing the prospectiveeducation of their children. Oxford was a place for rich men. How, then, could their sons go there? It was impossible. Meanwhile, the children were clamouring for education. What was to be done?
Through the influence of rich men who had been to the university the penniless lads were taken from the plough and entered into colleges as errand boys and odd-job hands. They were at liberty to pick up what education they could in the intervals of performing menial tasks for the gentlemen commoners. They cleaned boots, fetched and carried, and were the servants of anybody who chose to order them about. Having no money they slept in coal-holes, cupboards under the stairs, and attics under the eaves, and satisfied the pangs of hunger by picking up the crumbs which fell from the rich men’s tables. They had no social intercourse with the gentlemen commoners, and were treated with scant courtesy by the college servants.
The resemblance between the servitor and the Ruskin Hall man is apparent when due allowance has been made for modern improvements. The modern conception of Oxford is curiously akin to that of the eighteenth century. The education to be received still has a very high reputation. The present day working classes, however, possess a greater ambition than their antecedents showed. They are no longer content to snatch education in the intervals of earning their keep. Ruskin Hall has been built for their especial benefit. There they may win scholarships to their heart’s content. Their kinship with the humble servitor lies in the fact that they do their own menial work instead of having to do it for others; that they have no social intercourse with the Undergraduates of other colleges except at the weekly debates of the Union Society in which they distinguish themselves by their fluent Socialistic doctrines; and that they take no part in the athletic and collegiate life of the university.
One of the earliest references to servitors in the eighteenth century records is contained in a comedy entitled “An Act at Oxford.” The play was written in 1704 by a dramatist named Baker.
One of the characters was a servitor named Chum. His father was a chimney-sweep and his mother a poor ginger-bread seller at Cow Cross. Chum was established in Brazen-Nose College, and his duties consisted in waiting “upon Gentleman-Commoners, to dress and clean their shoes and make out their exercises.” His “fortune,” which was “soon told,” consisted apparently of “two Raggs call’d shirts, a dog’s eared Grammer, and a piece ofOvid de Tristibus.” For having materially assisted his master, a Smart, to win the hand and heart of a fair damsel known as Berynthia, he was rewarded, in the play, with the sum of five hundred guineas—an occurrence which would be the height of improbability in real life, as the servitor was jeered at and made a kind of Aunt Sally by all and sundry.
In 1709 one of those poor miserable wretches sat him down—where he procured pen and paper is still shrouded in mystery—and wrote a poem on his own doleful condition. Its title is “Servitour,” and it was printed by “H. Hills in Black-Fryars, near the water side.” He pictured himself to be coming out of a Skittle Yard in his “rusty round cap.”
“Like Cheesy Pouch of Shon-ap-Shenkin,His Sandy locks, with wide Hiatus,Like Bristles seem’d Erected at us,Clotted with Sweat, the Ends hung down;And made Resplendent Cape of Gown;Whose Cape was thin, and so Transparent,Hold it t’ th’ Light, you’d scarce beware on’t’Twixt Chin and Breast contiguous Band,Hung in an Obtuse Angle and—It had a Latitude Canonick,His coat so greasy was and torn,That had you seen it you’d ha’ sworn’Twas Ten Years old when he was born.His buttons fringed as is the Fashion,In Gallick and Brittanick Nation;Or, to speak like more Modern fellows,Their moulds dropt out like ripe Brown-shellers.His Leather Galligaskin’s rent,Made Artless Music as he went....His Holey Stockins were ty’d up,One with a Band, one with a Rope.”
In such clothes as these, the extreme poverty of which would bring a blush to the cheek of the modern Oxford paper-boy, this gloomy poet had to go to the Buttery and procure game and capons, ribs of beef, and other succulent dainties for some gentleman commoner’s dinner, while for himself there was nothing but “Poor scraps and Cold as I’m a sinner.” As a place to lay his head o’ nights, he was thankful to get a lumber-room in the apex of the building, somewhere under the eaves,
“A Room with Dirt and Cobwebs lin’d,Which here and there with Spittle Shin’d;Inhabited let’s see—by Four;If I mistake not, ’twas no more.Two buggy beds....Their Dormer windows with brown paper,Was patch’d to keep out Northern Vapour.The Table’s broken foot stood on,An old Schrevelious Lexicon,Here lay together Authors various,From Homer’sIliad, to Cordelius:And so abus’d was Aristotle,He only served to stop a bottle....Where eke stood Glass, Dark-Lanthorns ancientFragment of Mirerr, Penknife, Trencher,And forty things which I can’t mention.Old Chairs and Stools, and such-like Lumber,Compleatly furnisht out the Chamber.”
George Whitefield, a servitor at Pembroke in 1732, also shared his rooms with others. His companions, however, did not appear to have suffered unduly from the usual depression caused by their hard lot, for they frequently invited Whitefield to join them “in their excess of riot,” and looked upon him as a weird and extraordinary creature for his persistent refusals. His account of the manner of his admission to Pembroke College is characteristic of the man, and gives an idea of what tasks servitors were called upon to perform.
“Being now near eighteen years old, it was judged proper for me to go to the university. God had sweetly prepared my way. The friends before applied to, recommended me to the Master of Pembroke College. Another friend took up ten pounds upon bond (which I have since repaid), to defray the first expence of entring; and the Master, contrary to all expectations, admitted me servitor immediately.
“Soon after my admission I went and resided, and found my having been used to a publick-house was now of service to me. For many of the servitors being sick at my first coming up, by diligent and ready attendance I ingratiated myself into the gentlemen’s favour so far, that many, who had it in their power, chose me to be their servitor.
“This much lessened my expence; and indeed, God was so gracious, that, with the profits of my place, and some presents made me by my kind tutor, for almost the first three years I did not put all my relations together to above £24 expence.
“And it has often grieved my soul to see so many young students spending their substance in extravagant living, and thereby entirely unfitting themselves for the prosecution of their proper studies.”
Because he became a Methodist and attended seriously to his religious duties, Whitefield was badly ragged. The fact that a servitor should make any claims to superior godliness made his employers, forsome reason, acutely annoyed. “I daily underwent some contempt at college,” he wrote, “some have thrown dirt at me; others, by degrees, took away their pay from me; and two friends that were dear unto me, grew shy of, and forsook me.”
One of his lay duties as servitor consisted in going round to the gentlemen’s rooms at ten o’clock at night and knocking to find out who was in—the majority of them being at that hour, doubtless, discussing punch and claret in the Mitre or Tuns. All those who made no answer to his knock were reported and received punishment for being out of college after hours.
Of his college exercises he wrote as follows:—
“Whenever I endeavoured to compose my theme, I had no power to write a word nor so much as tell my Christian friends of my inability to do it. Saturday being come (which is the day the students give up their compositions), it was suggested to me that I must go down into the Hall and confess I could not make a theme, and so publickly suffer, as if it were for my Master’s sake. When the bell rung to call us, I went to open the door to go downstairs, but feeling something give me a violent inward check, I entered my study, and continued instant in prayer, waiting the event. For this my tutor fined me half a crown. The next week Satan served me in like manner again; but having now got more strength, and perceiving no inward check, I went into the Hall. My name being call’d, I stood up, and told my tutor I could not make a theme. I think he fined me a second time; but, imagining that I would not willingly neglect my exercise, he afterwards called me into the common room, and kindly enquired whether any misfortune had befallen me, or what was the reason I could not make a theme? I burst into tears, and assured him that it was not out of contempt of authority, but that I could not actotherwise. Then, at length, he said he believed I could not; and, when he left me, told a friend (as he very well might), that he took me to be really mad.”
Besides cleaning boots, fetching and carrying, running errands and performing other menial services of a like nature, the servitors jumped at the opportunity of earning odd pence by writing out the impositions to which their masters had been condemned by the Proctors.
“For should grave Proctor chance to meetA buck in boots along the streetHe stops his course and with permissionAsking his name, sets imposition,Which to get done, if he’s a ninnyHe gives his barber half a guinea.This useful go-between will share itWith servitor in college garret,Who counts these labours sweet as honeyWhich brings to purse some pocket money.”[6]
Other methods of pocket filling to which servitors had recourse were mentioned by Dr Johnson, who, writing to Tom Warton concerning the delay in a work on Spenser caused by the number of his correspondents and pupils at Oxford, said: “Three hours a day stolen from sleep and amusement will produce it. Let a servitor transcribe the quotations, and interleave them with references to save time.” As, however, servitors were not admitted within the sacred precincts of the Bodleian, transcription was necessarily limited. This was a cause of great lamentation and outcry at the time from the men, because they were compelled to do the work themselves, and from the servitors because they were thus deprived of a means of earning a few extra necessary pence. “Dr Hyde complains,” says Wordsworth in his book on the eighteenth century, “that some in the university have been verytroublesome in pressing that their servitors may transcribe manuscripts for them, though not capable of being sworn to the Library.”
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View of Queen’s College.
For a commoner to be seen in public in the company of a servitor was a “great disparagement.” Consequently, if a servitor was sufficiently blessed to be able to call a commoner friend, he must needs visit him secretly, or under cover of darkness. It is on record that Shenstone, who was a commoner of Pembroke, visited Jago a servitor, a friend of his, in strict private because of this popular prejudice. When Erasmus was at Queen’s his servitor’s rooms were immediately above his own. The poor wretch, besides being at his master’s beck and call, was very often the slave of his master’s mistress—an employ of vast uneasiness and discomfort.
In theOxford Chroniclein 1859, in a series of articles entitled “Oxford during the Last Century,” Aubrey describes Willis, the servitor of Dr Iles, Canon of Christ Church, as studying in his blue livery cloak at the lower end of the hall by the door, and assisting his master’s wife in mixing drugs.
As a parallel case to that of Whitefield, who was a drawer in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, Hearne tells “of one Lyne, son of a clergyman, and grandson of the Town Clerk of Oxford, who was drawer at the King’s Head Tavern of that city, in 1735; his elder brother being Fellow of Emmanuel, and his younger an eminent scholar of King’s.”
It was no exaggeration to say that the servitors lived on the scraps from the Undergraduates’ tables. The following quotation shows the grinding penury against which they had to struggle: “Of the poverty of the class,” wrote J. R. Green in his wonderful “Oxford Studies,” “no better instance can be found than Samuel Wesley, the father of the Wesleys who were to change the whole state of religion in England, and himself a very stirring person, to whom we shall haveoccasion subsequently to allude. He was the son of an ejected and starving non-conformist minister, and when at the age of sixteen he walked to Oxford and entered himself as a servitor at Exeter, his whole worldly wealth amounted to no more than £2, 16s. Yet after supporting himself during his whole university career without any aid from his friends, save a trivial 5s., he set off to London to make a plunge into life with a capital increased to £10, 15s. Five shillings, however, sneer as we may, seem to have been no uncommon ‘allowance’ to a servitor of the time.”[7]
These poor servitors did not feel any touch of shame or degradation at having to clean boots and perform all the other dirty work of the place. Why should they? Their poverty at Oxford was in no way different from that in which they lived previously to their arrival at Oxford. It was merely a change in locality. For they came, as has been shown, from plough and public-house.
There are many instances to show to what great use some of them put the education which they managed to acquire during their servitorship. Sir John Birkenhead was a servitor at Oriel, and during that period of his afterwards noteworthy career, his brother was a trooper. It was only through the kindheartedness of a patron that Bishop Robinson became the servitor of Sir James Astrey at Brasenose. He was afterwards appointed to a Fellowship at Oriel, was sent as an envoy to Sweden, and became Bishop both of Bristol and London. In the days of his fame he was able to repay in some sort the kindness of his patron by granting his son a chaplaincy; and his love for the university is shown by the scholarships which he founded at Oriel.
Can Ruskin Hall point proudly to a son who has achieved such fame as either of these ex-servitors?
SPORTS AND ATHLETICS
Rowing—Dame Hooper’s—Southey at Balliol—Cox’s six-oared crew—The riverside barmaid—Sailing-boats—Statutes against games—Bell-ringing—Hearne and gymnasia—Horses and badger-baiting—Cock-fights and prize-fights—Paniotti’s Fencing Academy—Old-time “bug-shooters”—Skating in Christ Church meadows—Cricket and the Bullingdon Club—Walking tours.
Rowing—Dame Hooper’s—Southey at Balliol—Cox’s six-oared crew—The riverside barmaid—Sailing-boats—Statutes against games—Bell-ringing—Hearne and gymnasia—Horses and badger-baiting—Cock-fights and prize-fights—Paniotti’s Fencing Academy—Old-time “bug-shooters”—Skating in Christ Church meadows—Cricket and the Bullingdon Club—Walking tours.
It would be impossible to live in Oxford and be healthy—except perhaps in the summer term, if we are lucky enough to have any sun—without taking exercise. It has long been a matter of wonder how those men keep fit who, with the excuse of “having a heart” neither row, play soccer, rugger, hockey, or any other of the strenuous games which keep the average Undergraduate sound in wind and limb. As a matter of fact they don’t. For the “heart-y” gentlemen almost invariably take as many week-ends out of Oxford as possible, and in most cases retire comfortably and ingloriously to the paternal establishment and maternal care long before term is over. The others, the normal people, the devotees of bone and muscle, the “muddied oafs and flannelled fools”—(which is the only mistake Mr Kipling ever made)—are never ill, at least from climatic effects. They may strain something, or even break a few bones, but that cannot be put down to the Oxford weather. The best doctors on earth, or rather the best preventatives against illness—and there is a great difference—are the river, the football and hunting fields, and the boxing ring, and as we find these things to be true to-day so in old times, when wigs and ruffles were somewhat of a handicap to the taking of hard exercise, theseremedies against the Oxford climate were adopted with almost the same keenness. The word almost is used advisedly because the percentage of “bloods” who did nothing strenuous was far larger, and the possibilities in things sporting were not nearly so great. We have changed all that, and can afford a smile of condescension when, seated on the alleviating pontius in a “Rough” eight, with its simple-looking sliding seat, its hair-thick outer shell and its wonderful travelling possibilities, we think of the heavy gigs and six-oared boats into which our predecessors “tumbled,” clad in catskin caps and leather trousers.
Nevertheless the river was just as popular then though for quite different reasons. There were no rowing Blues to be had in those days; no presidents of boat clubs—no boat clubs even. There was only Dame Hooper’s—an odd-looking, tumble-down, shed-like place, where the gownsmen blarneyed the old lady and hired out skiffs, gigs, cutters, and canoes. Unlike our togger men who, like strange hairy creatures from another planet, hatlessly converge from all parts of the town through the Broad Walk to the Barges, emitting yards of muscular leg for all the world to view in amusement and admiration, the eighteenth-century wet-bobs went down to the river in square—or, as they called it, trencher—and gown. But Dame Hooper was old, unskittish, and trustworthy, and so they threw off their academical garb in her shed and arrayed themselves in the trousers, jackets, and caps which were then the thing. It might well be thought that these were a great hindrance to correct ’varsity swinging. But they did not worry their heads about that—there was no boat race to be taken into agitated consideration—and it has been left for 1911 to pour out its bleeding heart in vehement controversy anent the true ’varsity style as opposed to the new fangled Belgian method. In those days the motto was air and exercise. Now, dare it be said, the river is abusiness, a profession, to which are consecrated all the waking moments, and many of those which we should like to dedicate to bed, of our whole university careers.
Southey, who was, oddly enough, a Balliol man, said that he only learned two things at Oxford—to swim and to row. After he went down he wrote the following description of the river:—
“A number of pleasure boats were gliding in all directions upon this clear and rapid stream; some with spread sails; in others the caps and tassels of the students formed a curious contrast with their employment at the oar. Many of the smaller boats had only a single person in each; and in some of these he sat face forward, leaning back as in a chair, and plying with both hands a double-bladed oar in alternate strokes, so that his motion was like the path of a serpent. One of these canoes is, I am assured, so exceedingly light, that a man can carry it; but few persons are skilful or venturous enough to use it.”[8]
It would be well worth while to watch the face of one of these timid canoers if we could bring him down to the barges to-day to one of the “rag” regattas and show him scores of “venturous persons” who not only dispense with paddles, but dash about in a Canadian canoe with a punt pole.
G. V. Cox told us that in 1790 there were no races, but that “men went to Nuneham for occasional parties in six-oared boats (eight-oared boats were then unknown), but these boats belonged to the boat people; the crew was a mixed crew got up for the day, and the dresses worn anything but uniform. I belonged to a crew of five, who were, I think, the first distinguished by a peculiar (and what would now be thought a ridiculous) dress, viz., a green leather cap, with a jacket and trousers of nankeen!”[9]
There are many recent boat club presidents who proudly show souvenirs of love passages with every barmaid from Folly Bridge to Abingdon, and up the Cher to Water Eaton. The fair damsels of the Cherwell Hotel are indeed the sole reasons why hordes of Undergraduates punt out there to lunch on Sundays, when they might just as easily, and far less expensively, take luncheon baskets with them—as they do if their people are up! But there is nothing original in all this. The same touch of old Adam existed in the coffee-house period, as is shown by the following lines:—
“We visit Sandford next and thereBeckley provides accustomed fareOf eels and perch and brown beef-steak....Whilst Hebe-like his daughter waits,Froths our full bumpers, changes plates.The pretty handmaid’s anxious toilsMeanwhile our mutual praise beguiles,Whilst she, delighted, blushing seesThe bill o’erpaid and pockets feesSupplied for ribbon or for laceTo deck her bonnet or her face.”
To-day Hebe has becomeblaséand cannot blush with any readiness, nor is she so anxious in her toils. The chaste salute and the overpaid bill are features of our own time, and will remain, from generation to generation, as long as Oxford is a university, and there are hotels on the Cher. The same poet goes on to describe the way in which he was taught to sail by a friend who was already an expert.
“At Folly Bridge we hoist the sail,And briskly scud before the galeTo Iffley—where our course awhileDetain—its locks and Saxon pileAffording pause; to recommendThe Hobby-horse unto my friend.Our light-built galley; ours I saySince Warren bears an equal swayIn her command; as first, in costThe half he shared; himself a hostWhether he plies the limber oarOr tows the vessel from the shore;Or strains the main sheet tight asternClose to the wind; of him I learnPatient to wait the time exactWhen jib and foresail should be back’dTo bring her round; or mark the strainThe boat on gunwale can sustainWithout aught danger of upsetting,Or giving both her mates a wetting.”[10]
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North View of Friar Bacon’s Study at Oxford.
A glance at the statutes shows that the river was almost the only form of athletics then permissible, for the prohibited sports included “every kind of game in which money is concerned, such as dibs, dice, cards, cricketing in private grounds or gardens of the townspeople ... every kind of game or exercise from which danger, injury, or inconvenience might arise to other people, such as hunting of beasts with any sort of dogs, ferrets, nets or toils, also any use or carrying of muskets, cross-bows, or falchions; neither rope-dancers nor actors, nor shows of gladiators are to be permitted without especial sanction; moreover, the scholars are not to play at football, nor with cudgels, either among themselves or with the townsfolk, a practice from which the most perilous contentions have arisen.”
During the earlier half of the century, bell ringing was a form of amusement—and exercise—which was very largely indulged in. At any hour of the day it was the custom to go up into the belfry and practice, with such zest that the ringer sometimes fell from sheer exhaustion. Hearne was known to take a keen interest in the matcheswhich were sometimes arranged between different peals of bells, while Antony Wood, some years before, had joined with his mother and brothers in subscribing towards the foundation of the Merton bells and, as Wordsworth says, “though they were not satisfactory to the ‘curious and critical hearer,’ he plucked at them often with some of his fellow-collegians for recreation sake.” Later on, however, this practice was generally voted boring and even vulgar, and the more “aristocratic door bell and knocker ringing” succeeded it. Hearne himself was pleased to countenance bell-ringing, yet when a proposal was afoot to found “an academy of exercise in the university such as riding the great horse, fencing, etc.,” he would not hear of it or entertain the idea for a moment. “I think,” said he, “’twould have utterly obstructed all true learning.”
Horses, in spite of Hearne, were popular among Dons and Undergraduates. The “Female Student,” writing a letter toThe Student, summed up the tastes of a Master of Arts as consisting of “the college-hall, the common-room, the coffee-house, and now and then a ride to the Gog-magog-hills.” The now and then was probably accounted for by the expensiveness attaching to the hobby. There were, however, several stable-keepers at the time who, starting with a diminutive capital, retired after a very few years in the business with large fortunes. G. V. Cox, the member of the crew in nankeen trousers, says that it was quite a usual thing “for a gentleman (the Oxford tradesman’s designation of a member of the university) to ride a match against time to London and back again to Oxford (108 miles) in twelve hours or less with, of course, relays of horses at regular intervals. In one instance this was done in eight hours and forty-five minutes.... Betting was, no doubt, the first and chief motive; a foolish vanity the second; the third cause was the absence at that time in theuniversity of a better mode of proving pluck and taming down the animal spirits of non-reading youngsters.... Hunting then, as now, was an expensive amusement, only to be enjoyed by the few, and by them only for a part of the year; racing had not then been thought of ... but a gentleman need not learn to ride like a jockey.”[11]
Sir Erasmus Philipps must, therefore, have been a monied man, for in 1720, when he was a Fellow-commoner of Pembroke, his outdoor sports took the form of fox-hunting, attending cock-fights and horse-races, and riding to Woodstock, Godstow, and Nuneham. Many of the horse-races took place on Port Meadow. Terrae Filius, referring to “that famous apartment by idle wits and buffoons nick-named Golgotha,i.e., the place of Sculls or Heads of Colleges and Halls where they meet and debate upon all extraordinary affairs which occur within the precincts of their jurisdiction,” says that “this room of state or academical council chamber is adorn’d with a fine pourtrait of her late Majesty Queen Anne, which was presented to this assembly by a jolly fox-hunter in the neighbourhood, out of the tender regard which he bore to her pious memory, and to the reverend Sculls of the university, who preside there; for which benefaction they have admitted him into their company, and allow him the honour to smoak a pipe with them twice a week.”
In one of the papers ofThe Loitererthe writer described how Dr Villars, Mr Sensitive, and himself went for a country walk and talk to Joe Pullen’s Tree. “As soon as we had reached this elevated situation, and cast our eyes over the well-known view, a general silence took place for some minutes. It was indeed a day for meditation. The sun emerging by fits and starts from the grey fleckered clouds which overspread the whole atmosphere, illuminated the projecting pointsof Magdalen and Merton Towers, and shot its lengthened gleams across the pastures and meads, which extend themselves in a long level to the north of the city, while the woody hills of Wytham, rising boldly from behind a flat country, threw over the whole background a broad mass of dark shadows broken only here and there by a white sail, whose almost imperceptible motion just marked the various turns and windings of the river.... A large party of very dashing men rode by, mounted on cropt ponies, and followed by no inconsiderable number of Tarriers. Of all sorts, sizes, and colours; and as they did not ride very fast, and talked rather loud, we easily discovered that the object of this grand cavalcade had been a badger-baiting on Bullingdon Green; in the event of which combat they seemed greatly interested, and were settling the merits of their different dogs with great clamour, and not without some altercation.” The solemn statutes did not seem to worry those optimistic sportsmen overmuch on that glorious summer day.
Bull-baiting and cock-fighting, both, in their time, exceedingly popular at the university were strongly put down by the authorities. One gathers that it was usual at these affairs to start a free fight after the show, in which the town and gown partisans did their best to kill or maim each other for life. All things duly considered, therefore, it was, perhaps, a wise step on the part of the Dons to forbid such affairs. Dr Rawlinson made a regretful reference to one of these pitched battles: “A great disturbance between the scholars of the university and the townsmen of Heddington at a bull-baiting, at which some scholars were beaten.” Considering the tender years of most of the freshmen it is a matter for great congratulation that they made such good stands against the bullet-headed townees. They could not have done so but for the fact that boxing was much followed among ’varsity men. They were to a large extent keen patrons of the nobleart of self-defence, and the chief instructors about the year 1729 were none other than the celebrated Broughton and Figg, who ran a saloon in London. The fact that this boxing academy was far away from Oxford did not preclude the keenest pugilists from journeying up to take lessons. Amhurst came across a crowd of Undergraduates in an Oxford coffee-house one night just after Mendoza had won a famous victory, and he was vastly entertained to hear their keenly excited discussion of every lead and stop and hook and counter and to see them turning and twisting their bodies in pugilistic attitudes in illustration of the professional manner of planting each separate blow. They seemed to know as much about the fight as if they had been present.
In December 1729 the Mayor of Oxford licensed a prize fight to be held in the town. Crowds attended in the assurance of a good morning’s sport, but at the last moment the Vice-Chancellor, a book-ridden, pompous, crusty old curmudgeon, filled with the dignity of his office, appeared on the scene and succeeded in putting a stop to it. It was a miracle that the assembled multitude did not tear his robes off his back and put him in the ring to stand up to one of the bruisers.
In spite of Hearne’s prognostication that the establishment of a fencing academy would be the death of all true learning, an academy was started some years later by a Greek of the name of Paniotti. He was “full of sentiments of honour and courage, and of most independent spirit.” R. L. Edgeworth was a keen pupil of Paniotti, and it was at his school that he became friends with Sir James M‘Donald, who was “one of the greatest scholars and mathematicians of his time.” Their friendship was of short duration, however, as Sir James died at Rome some five years later.
Edgeworth has an interesting story about this fencing establishment.“Mr L., a young gentleman of a noble family and of abilities, but of overbearing manners, was our fellow pupil under Paniotti. At the same school we met a young man of small fortune, and in a subordinate position at Maudlin.
“He fenced in a regular way, and much better than Mr L., who, in revenge, would sometimes take a stiff foil that our master used for parrying, and pretending to fence, would thrust it with great violence against his antagonist. The young man submitted for some time to this foul play, but at last he appealed to Paniotti, and to such of his pupils as were present. Paniotti, though he had expectancies from the patronage of the father of his nobly-born pupil, yet without hesitation condemned his conduct. One day, in defiance of L.’s bullying pride, I proposed to fence with him, armed as he was with this unbending foil, on condition that he should not thrust at my face; but at the very first opportunity he drove the foil into my mouth. I went to the door, broke off the buttons of two foils, turned the key in the lock, and offered one of these extemporaneous swords to my antagonist, who very prudently declined the invitation. This person afterwards showed through life an unprincipled and cowardly disposition.”[12]
While on the subject of fighting it is interesting to note that there were such things as ’varsity “bug-shooters” even in those times, whose keenness was far greater than that of the majority of the O.U.O.T.C., who slack through just sufficient drills to enable them to put in a fortnight’s camping in summer. G. V. Cox says that there were “enrolled about five hundred, commanded by Mr Coker of Bicester, formerly Fellow of New College. Such indeed was the zeal and spirit called forth in those stirring times by the threat of invasion that even clerical members did not hesitate to join the ranks.... Some also ofthe most respectable of the college servants were enrolled with their masters.... The dress or uniform was of a very heavy character but also very imposing: a blue coat (rather short but somewhat more than a jacket) faced with white duck pantaloons, with a black leathern strap or garter below the knee, and short black cloth gaiters. The headdress was also heavy; a beaver round-headed hat surmounted by a formidable roll of bear-skin or something of the kind.”[13]
Several years after the above incident in Paniotti’s fencing school, an article appeared inThe Student. It was a fantastic account of “Several Public Buildings in Oxford never before described” and contained the following:—
“The several gymnasia constructed for the exercise of our youth, and a relaxation from their severer studies, are not so much frequented as formerly, especially in the summer; our ingenious gownsmen having found out several sports which conduce to the same end, such as battle-door and shuttle-cock, swinging on the rope, etc., in their apartments; or, in the fields, leap-frog, tag, hop-step-and-jump, and among the rest, skittles; which last is a truly academical exercise, as it is founded on arithmetical and geometrical principles.”
Skinner, the poet, who sailed his yacht down to Sandford and rowed in Dame Hooper’s boats, seems to have been quite an all-round man.
“If day prove only passing fairI walk for exercise and airOr for an hour skate,For a large space of flooded groundWhich Christ Church gravel walks surroundHas solid froze of late.“Here graceful gownsmen silent glide,Or noisy louts on hobnails slide,Whilst lads the confines keepExacting pence from every oneAs payment due for labour doneAs constantly they sweep.”
His touch of “side” is not unfunny—the graceful ’varsity man is a picture of all culture, while the townee is a lout because he slides on vulgar hobnails. On several of the bard’s sailing expeditions, after they had dined chez Beckley, and duly tipped the girl,
“A game of quoits will oft our stayAwhile at Sandford Inn delay;Or rustic nine-pins; then once moreWe hoist our sail, and tug the oar.”[14]
He must doubtless have looked down upon his fellow quill driver inThe Studentas several parts of a fool for thinking rustic nine-pins “a truly academical exercise, as it is founded on arithmetical and geometrical principles.”
Cricket and tennis were not of much account. The Lownger described his going after dinner to tennis, returning in time for chapel
“From the Coffee House then I to Tennis away,And at six I post back to my college to pray,”
while G. V. Cox, in his “Recollections,” remembered that “the game of cricket was kept up chiefly by the young men from Winchester and Eton, and was confined to the old Bullingdon Club, which was expensive and exclusive. The members of it, however, with the exception of a few who kept horses, did not mind walking to and fro.”[15]
As a rather less strenuous form of exercise than eighteenth-centurycricket many men kept themselves fit by walking. Wordsworth points out that “in 1799 Daniel Wilson writes to his father, that very few days passed when he did not walk for about an hour.” This exceedingly gentle form of pedestrianism was only an end of century hobby. Earlier on men seem to have been made of sterner stuff. The Greek Professor at Aberdeen, Dr Thomas Blackwell, wrote to Warburton at Oxford in 1736 to beg him to accompany Middleton and their common friend, Mr Gale, in a tour in Scotland for two months in the summer during the long vacation. “In 1742 Tho. Townson started for a three years’ tour in France, Italy, Germany, and Holland, with Dawkins, Drake, and Holdsworth. On his return from the continent,” the quotation is from Christopher Wordsworth, “he resumed in College (Magdalen) the arduous and respectable employment of tuition, in which he had been engaged before he went abroad. William Wordsworth took walking tours in France 1790-91 (at a time no less awfully interesting than that which the country has now been passing through) before and after taking his degree.” In the first instance he was accompanied by his college friend Robert Jones, with about twenty pounds apiece in their pockets. “Our coats which we had made light on purpose for that journey are of the same piece,” he wrote, “and our manner of carrying our bundles which is upon our heads, with each an oak stick in our hands, contributes not a little to the general curiosity which we seem to excite.”