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Merton College.
Out of the doings of that adventurous, amusing and wholly reprehensible evening the proctor White concocted the following charges which were duly recorded in the Black Book, in all their pompous length:—
“June 28th, 1716.“Let Mr Carty of university College be kept from his degree, for which he stands next, for the space of one whole year.“1. For prophaning, with mad intemperance, that day, on which he ought, with sober chearfulness, to have commemorated the restoration of King Charles the second and the royal family, nay, of monarchy itself, and the church itself.“2. For drinking in company with those persons, who insolently boast of their loyalty to King George, and endeavour to render almost all the university, besides themselves, suspected of dissaffection.“3. For calling together a great mob of people, as if to see a shew, and drinking impious execrations, out of the tavern window, against several worthy persons, who are the best friends to the church and the king; by this means provoking the beholders to return them the same abuses; from whence followed a detestable breach of the peace.“4. For refusing to go home to his college after nine o’clock at night, though he was more than once commanded to do it, by the junior proctor, who came thither to quell the riot.“5. For being catch’d at the same place again by the senior proctor, and pretending, as he was admonish’d by him, to go home; but with a design to drink again.“Let Mr Meadowcourt of Merton College be kept back from the degree which he stands for next, for the space of two years; nor be admitted to supplicate for his grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes, and asks pardon upon his knees.“Not only for being an accomplice with Mr Carty in all his faults (or rather crimes), but also,“7. For being not only a companion, but likewise a remarkable abetter of certain officers, who ran up and down the High Street with their swords drawn, to the great terror of the townsmen and scholars.“8. For breaking out to that degree of impudence (when the proctor admonish’d him to go home from the tavern at an unseasonable hour) as to command all the company with a loud voice, to drink King George’s health.“Joh. W.,proc-jun.”
“June 28th, 1716.
“Let Mr Carty of university College be kept from his degree, for which he stands next, for the space of one whole year.
“1. For prophaning, with mad intemperance, that day, on which he ought, with sober chearfulness, to have commemorated the restoration of King Charles the second and the royal family, nay, of monarchy itself, and the church itself.
“2. For drinking in company with those persons, who insolently boast of their loyalty to King George, and endeavour to render almost all the university, besides themselves, suspected of dissaffection.
“3. For calling together a great mob of people, as if to see a shew, and drinking impious execrations, out of the tavern window, against several worthy persons, who are the best friends to the church and the king; by this means provoking the beholders to return them the same abuses; from whence followed a detestable breach of the peace.
“4. For refusing to go home to his college after nine o’clock at night, though he was more than once commanded to do it, by the junior proctor, who came thither to quell the riot.
“5. For being catch’d at the same place again by the senior proctor, and pretending, as he was admonish’d by him, to go home; but with a design to drink again.
“Let Mr Meadowcourt of Merton College be kept back from the degree which he stands for next, for the space of two years; nor be admitted to supplicate for his grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes, and asks pardon upon his knees.
“Not only for being an accomplice with Mr Carty in all his faults (or rather crimes), but also,
“7. For being not only a companion, but likewise a remarkable abetter of certain officers, who ran up and down the High Street with their swords drawn, to the great terror of the townsmen and scholars.
“8. For breaking out to that degree of impudence (when the proctor admonish’d him to go home from the tavern at an unseasonable hour) as to command all the company with a loud voice, to drink King George’s health.
“Joh. W.,proc-jun.”
In spite of the many entreaties on his behalf made by several distinguished persons (“amongst whom were a most noble duke and a marquis”) Meadowcourt was unable to obtain the remission of his sentence, and was compelled to wait the full two years before he could proceed to his degree. At the end of that time both the proctors concerned had retired, and the Merton man, upon applying to the proctor then in office, was informed that nothing could be done until both Holt and White had been consulted. The unfortunate man went from one to the other for weeks. They “bandied it about, sending Mr Meadowcourt upon sleeveless errands,” till, at last, having jumbled their learned noddles together, they sent him a paper containing the following articles, which they insisted should be read by Mr Meadowcourt publicly in the Convocation House, before he might proceed to his degree.
“1. I do acknowledge all the crimes laid to my charge in the Black Book, and that I deserved the punishment imposed on me.“2. I do acknowledge that the story of my being punish’d on account of affection to King George, and his illustrious house, is unjustand injurious, not only to the reputation of the proctor, but of the whole university.“3. I do profess sincerely, that I do not believe that I was punish’d on that account.“4. I am very thankful for the clemency of the university, in remitting the ignominious part of the punishment, viz., begging pardon on my knees.“5. I beg pardon of Almighty God, of the proctor, and all the masters, for the offences which I have committed respectively against them; and I promise that I will, by my future behaviour, make the best amends I can, for having offended by the worst of examples.”
“1. I do acknowledge all the crimes laid to my charge in the Black Book, and that I deserved the punishment imposed on me.
“2. I do acknowledge that the story of my being punish’d on account of affection to King George, and his illustrious house, is unjustand injurious, not only to the reputation of the proctor, but of the whole university.
“3. I do profess sincerely, that I do not believe that I was punish’d on that account.
“4. I am very thankful for the clemency of the university, in remitting the ignominious part of the punishment, viz., begging pardon on my knees.
“5. I beg pardon of Almighty God, of the proctor, and all the masters, for the offences which I have committed respectively against them; and I promise that I will, by my future behaviour, make the best amends I can, for having offended by the worst of examples.”
Having fought the almighty proctors thus far Meadowcourt was not, however, the man to give in to such an absurdly overwhelming piece of indignity as that proposed. He refused to read the paper, resolving rather to go without his degree. He was advised, however, to plead the Act of Grace, which he did after many further checks and delays. He emerged finally from the unequal conflict with victory and a degree. This case I think amply justifies Amhurst’s assertion that the Black Book was used as a weapon with which the proctors paid off personal insults and old scores, and the injustice and abuse of the great power which they knew so cunningly how to wield is only too apparent.
The proctors, naturally enough, were vastly unpopular men and, supposedly, realising this, did not go one iota out of their way to decrease the general dislike attaching to them, but rather consoled themselves by piling on the pains and penalties at every opportunity. The gownsmen were not the only people who had a rooted objection to them on principle. Even the townees and tradesmen regarded them with an unfriendly eye, and gave them no assistance in the detectionof Undergraduate delinquents. In illustration of the light in which they were held by the townspeople Amhurst related an amusing story.
“A man who liv’d just by a pound in Oxford and kept an ale house put upon his sign these words ‘Ale sold here by the Pound,’ which seduced a great many young students to go thither out of curiosity to buy liquor, as they thought, by weight; hearing of which, the vice-chancellor sent for the landlord to punish him according to statute, which prohibits all ale house keepers to receive scholars into their houses; but the fellow, being apprehensive what he was sent for, as soon as he came into the vice-chancellor’s lodgings, fell a spitting and a spawling about the room; upon which the vice-chancellor ask’d him in an angry tone, what he meant by that?
“‘Sir,’ says the fellow, ‘I am come to clear myself.’
“‘Clear yourself, sirrah!’ says the vice-chancellor; ‘but I expect that you should clear yourself in another manner; they say you sell ale by the pound.’
“‘No, indeed, Mr Vice-chancellor,’ replies the fellow, ‘I don’t.’
“‘Don’t you,’ says the Vice-chancellor again, ‘how do you then?’
“‘Very well,’ replies he, ‘I humbly thank you, Mr Vice-chancellor; pray how do you, sir?’
“‘Get you gone,’ says the vice-chancellor, ‘for a rascal’; and turned him downstairs.
“Away went the fellow and meeting with one of the proctors, told him that the vice-chancellor desired to speak with him immediately; the proctor in great haste went to know the vice-chancellor’s commands, and the fellow with him, who told the vice-chancellor, when they came before him, that here he was.
“‘Here he is!’ says the vice-chancellor, ‘who is here?’
“‘Sir,’ says the impudent alehouse-keeper, ‘you bad me go for a Rascal; and lo! here I have brought you one.’”
The proctors had the appointment of the examiners, and once now and again they paid a surprise visit in their official capacity to the schools, when the examinations (such as they were) were in progress. This was, however, a “rare and uncommon occurrence.” When prowling the streets in search of whom they might devour their method was to search the coffee-houses and smart establishments and give impositions to the “Bucks in boots” upon whom they pounced. They left the ale-houses alone, or, in Tom Warton’s words:—
“Nor Proctor thrice with vocal Heel alarmsOur Joys secure, nor deigns the lowly RoofOf Pot-house snug to visit: wiser heThe splendid Tavern haunts, or Coffee-house....”
Izaak Walton described the senior proctor in 1616 as one who “did not use his power of punishing to an extremity; but did usually take their names, and a promise to appear before him unsent for next morning: and when they did convinced them with such obligingness, and reason added to it, that they parted from him with such resolutions as the man after God’s own heart was possessed with, when he said to God, There is mercy with thee, and therefore thou shalt be feared (Psal. cxxx.). And by this, and a like behaviour to all men, he was so happy as to lay down this dangerous employment, as but few, if any have done, even without an enemy.”
The proctorship was therefore a difficult post to fill even a full century before Amhurst was born to set down in black and white the iniquities of his own time. Izaak Walton’s proctor was the exception;Amhurst’s seems to have been the rule, and his character is given by Terrae Filius as follows:—
“... of Christ Church, a tool that was form’d by nature for vile and villainous purposes, being advanced to the proctorship, publickly declar’d, that no constitutioner should take a degree whilst he was in power. This corrupt and infamous magistrate had formerly been under cure for lunacy, and was now very far relaps’d into the same distemper. He was naturally the most proud and insolent tyrant to his betters, who were below him in the university; but to those above him the most mean and creeping slave. He was peevish, passionate, and revengeful; loose and profligate in his morals, though seemingly rigid and severe. In publick, a serious and solemn hypocrite; in private, a ridiculous and lewd buffoon. An impudent pretender to sanctity and conscience, which he always us’d as a cloak for the most unjust and criminal actions. In short, he was so worthless and despicable a fellow, and had so scandalously overacted his part in his extravagant zeal against the constitution club, that at the expiration of his proctorship, when he appear’d as candidate for the professorship of history, there were not above ten persons, besides the members of his own college who voted for him.”
The anonymity of the blank space in front of the man’s college is not sufficient to conceal the fact that this character sketch, a bitter and pointed attack, was most probably meant for the Mr White who distinguished himself in the Meadowcourt case. As, however, from many instances, he appears to have been no better and no worse than the generality of proctors during the century, there is no reason why Amhurst’s denunciations should not be credited as descriptive of most of the others of his kind.
Modern Oxford has reason to congratulate herself that the reinsof government are no longer in such hands. There exist to-day none of the abuses and vices which were so striking a feature of the eighteenth century. They have all been swept away. Oxford has purged herself of them, and in their place are to be found honesty, uprightness, and all the cardinal virtues. The modern Don has nothing in common with his Georgian predecessor. He relegates self to a discreet background, and devotes his entire energies to the interests of those over whom he has authority; and his pupils, on going down, harbour no feelings of contempt and ill-feeling, but look on him instead as a man whose friendship is an honour which must be treasured to the end.
CELEBRITIES AS OXFORD MEN
Charles James Fox—Earl of Malmesbury—William Eden—Cards and claret—Midnight oil—Oxford friendships remembered afterwards—Edward Gibbon—Delicate bookworm—Antagonism towards Oxford—Becomes a Roman Catholic—Subsequent apostasy—John Wesley—Resists taking orders—Germs of ambition—America the golden opportunity—Oxford responsible for Methodism.
Charles James Fox—Earl of Malmesbury—William Eden—Cards and claret—Midnight oil—Oxford friendships remembered afterwards—Edward Gibbon—Delicate bookworm—Antagonism towards Oxford—Becomes a Roman Catholic—Subsequent apostasy—John Wesley—Resists taking orders—Germs of ambition—America the golden opportunity—Oxford responsible for Methodism.
Academic Oxford of the eighteenth century has been thrown on to the screen in different lights and from different sides. The Don, for the most part inert in his elbow chair, puffing at his glazed pipe, with many bottles and tankards at his elbow in the common room or the coffee-house; turning up his nose at the impudence of any man who wanted to work; too lazy, and in many cases too ignorant, to put skilful questions in the examinations; abusing his trust as an examiner by receiving bribes, in the same manner that he set the Undergraduates a lead in vice of all kinds outside the schools; earnest and eager in political strife of the Vicar of Bray type; keen on nothing but his own personal aggrandisement, either socially or financially—in all these lights he has passed through the picture. We have seen also the Undergraduate in all his class divisions—the humble servitor receiving sixpence a week from each of his gentleman patrons, doing the dirty work and odd jobs, keeping soul and body together on the scraps that fell from the rich men’s table, writing out their impositions and scraping an education in the meanwhile, God knows how; the gentleman commoner and the Smart, swaggering it abroad in the glory of their purple and fine linen, sneering at the dull regulars, cutting lectures and chapels, doing no work, incurring enormous expenses “upon tick,”following the example set by the Dons in drunkenness and wenching. We have seen them amusing themselves, free from any kind of restriction, in taverns, town and gown rows, on the river, in the cock-pit and the prize ring, and dallying with the beauties under Merton Wall.
Looking at all these things and to the general loose living which was the keynote of the eighteenth century, we are apt to feel with Malmesbury that it is a matter of surprise how so many of the Undergraduates made their way so well and so creditably in the world. It has already been remarked that the worth of Oxford lies not in the quality of the degree taken, but in the education which environment and the association with better men undoubtedly gives. The mere cramming of book knowledge would be useless were it not accompanied by the far more important expansion of mind, the broadening of outlook, and the formation of character brought about by the social life of the university. This is palpably so in the case of the eighteenth-century Undergraduate, since work was practically non-existent, and a degree merely a matter of so much ready money. He could not do anything else but take on the colour of the surroundings of vice and intemperance which then reigned supreme.
How is it then that any man emerged from the Oxford of this period and succeeded in inscribing his name on the roll of fame? The reason is that Oxford was a mirror in which was reflected London life. The metropolis was simply Oxford on a larger scale, so that the Undergraduates were learning at the university to do the things which would be expected of them in after life; and the men who distinguished themselves at college were bound to achieve renown later. The fame of such men as Charles Fox, the pre-eminent statesman; Edward Gibbon, the historian; Malmesbury, the diplomat; John Wesley, thefounder of Methodism; Collins, the poet; and the immortal Dr Johnson, is written down in the pages of history.
Charles James Fox, one of the greatest statesmen England has ever seen, came up from Eton to Hertford College[30]in 1764, where he was the leading spirit in a little coterie which included James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury, and William Eden, Baron Auckland. By his father he had been initiated, while still at Eton, into the vice of gaming, by which he was very deeply bitten. A still more curious fact is that although Fox as a young man had no inclinations towards loose living he was taken over to Paris and laughed into it by his otherwise doting parent. His innate force of character, however, enabled him to resist what might have wrecked the life of another man less strong, and although outwardly he was at Oxford an idle gamester, yet in secret, in the small hours of the morning, he worked exceedingly hard. Malmesbury has described this circle of friends as a non-working, pleasure-loving body. Fox, as the leader of them, fell, of course, under this category; but the results of his hours of private grinding were quite extraordinary. He read “Aristotle’s ‘Ethics and Politics,’ with an ease uncommon in those who have principally cultivated the study of the Greek writers. His favourite authors were Longinus and Homer, with the latter of whom he was particularly conversant; he could discuss the works of the Ionian bard, not only as a man of exquisite taste, and as a philosophical critic, which might be expected from a mind like his, but also as a grammarian. He was indeed capable of conversing with Longinus, on the beauty, sublimity, and pathos of Homer; with Aristotle on his delineations of man, with a pedagogue on dactyls, spondees, anapaests, and all the arcana of language. History, ethics, politics, were, however, his particular studies.”
Yet with all these accomplishments, which, in a period none too famous for its learning, were all the more amazing, this extraordinary man was swayed by his passion for gaming, and never behindhand in expeditions of debauch with his companions. Cards were the favourite pastime then in vogue, and it was round the baize-covered table that Fox cemented his friendship with Malmesbury and Eden. These latter, both, subsequently, men of international fame, also surrendered themselves completely to the slackness of the time, and did their utmost to imitate with thoroughness the London fops of whom they had some slight experiences before coming up. While still gownsmen this triumvirate gave signs of their future greatness. Their card parties were a centre of attraction, not because of the high stakes for which they played, but for the wit and brilliance of their conversation. Fox’s eloquence was even then remarkable, and he had “no cotemporary so erudite in knowledge, none so elegant in mirth.” The enormous possibilities of this Undergraduate were fully appreciated by the college authorities. He was allowed to make trips to London, where, in the company of his father, he went to the Houses of Parliament, and was a keen listener at many of the great debates. When a proposal was on foot for Fox to cross to Paris and make a stay of some months there, the Head of Hertford granted him leave immediately with the unusual remark that such application as his necessitated “some intermission; and you are the only person with whom I have ever had connexion to whom I could say this.”
With characteristic thoroughness Fox outdid the most complete Smart in the elegance of his dress. He made a special journey from Paris to Lyons for the purchasing of waistcoats, and on his return to England was seen in the Mall “in a suit of Paris-cut velvet, most fancifully embroidered, and bedecked with a large bouquet; aheaddress cemented into every variety of shape; a little silk hat, curiously ornamented; and a pair of French shoes with red heels; for the latter article of which he considered it of no mean consequence that he was indebted to his own exclusive importation!”
He had a great fondness for literature and poetry and, following the customs of the times, he used occasionally to dash off an indiscreet sonnet, or a more sound criticism of the current publications. Italian, he declared, contained as a language more good poetry in it than any with which he was conversant. The essential quality in any subject was that it should be “entertaining.” Without this, Fox refused to consider it. The exact meaning which he read into the word is, however, somewhat difficult to gather, for, writing to his friend Macarthey, he stated that he was fond of mathematics and would concentrate upon it because it promised to be entertaining.
Oxford remained dear to Fox and the friendships he formed over the card-table, and the various “rags” in which he took part were never forgotten by him. When the triumvirate went down, their ways at first lay separate. Eden’s time was occupied first in getting called to the Bar, and then, through the patronage of the Duke of Marlborough, to Parliament as member for Woodstock. Malmesbury, an incipient diplomatist while still at Winchester, left England and joined the British Embassy at Madrid. Fox left Oxford before the age of twenty-one, and was immediately returned to Parliament for Midhurst. For some twenty years the tide of life kept the three apart, each striving in his own quarter. Then in 1782 Fox, who had climbed higher up the ladder of fame than either of the other two, was reminded of the old friendships of his Undergraduate days. Malmesbury, then Sir James Harris, Knight of the Bath, was invalided home from the Embassy at St Petersburg, and was instantly appointedby Fox to be Minister at the Hague. The year after this, Eden, whose political career under the banner of Lord North was a distinguished one, came again into touch with Fox, and exerted himself to bring about a coalition between his own chief and his old Oxford friend. It is practically certain that the touch of sentiment roused by the remembrance of the old days, when Eden and he played cards and drank claret beneath the spires of Oxford, was the only reason why the coalition was brought about by Eden, for Fox afterwards publicly avowed in the House of Commons, when the rupture between North and himself was final, that “the greatest folly of his life was in having supported Lord North.”
“To the University of Oxford,” wrote Gibbon in after years, “I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.”
A boy of sixteen, thin and delicate, who from his earliest infancy had fallen from one illness into another, possessed of an abnormal brain, and for these two reasons shunning, and shunned by, his school-fellows both in playground and classroom, and therefore compelled joyfully to fall back upon books, with which he ate, drank, and slept—conceive such a boy, and one sees Gibbon at Magdalen. Add to this the facts concerning the debauch, the lack of “bookish fellows,” the gross and inert Dons, all of which characterised the times, and it is easy to appreciate the reasons why a man like Gibbon, a high-strung, dreamy creature to whom any crowd of human beings inspired positive fear, and whose interests were entirely removed from wenching, drinking, and gaming, received no benefit from Oxford. He wentup intent on nothing but the pursuit of knowledge. In the course of his dealings with his various tutors—which have already been set forth in a previous chapter—he found that knowledge was to be obtained neither in the lecture rooms nor the common rooms. To these latter, being a gentleman commoner, he received invitations and went high in the expectation of learned conversations and brilliant dialogue. He found instead no subjects under discussion save horses, drink, and political preferment. This beardless boy, practically self-educated and big with ideas upon the important subjects of life, turned with disgust from the society of the “port bibbing” and stagnant Fellows. With no definite course of studies to occupy his attentions, and unchecked by any authority, the unaccustomed feeling of liberty swept him into the infringement of rules and statutes. To his tutor he gave casual excuses for non-attendance at lectures, and disappeared from Oxford for days at a time. The unscholarly condition of the university, and his own physical inability to join in any athletic pursuits, united in preventing Oxford from making any impression upon him. Her history, her architecture, her traditions, seem to have held no interest for him, and he was more interested in making expeditions to London and places in the surrounding country than in remaining in the university and studying Undergraduate life. Even the beauty of Oxford’s old walls, tree-bordered lawns and walks, and winding river, made no appeal to him. He was in sympathy with no single thing. It was a mistake on his parents’ part ever to have sent him up. A man of Gibbon’s peculiar temperament was entirely out of place in any university; more particularly Oxford, in the state in which she then was.
And yet in spite of the incompatibility between Gibbon and Oxford, his university career was marked by an all-important incident in the development of the great historian. By education and traininghe was a Protestant, but, as was his habit with every subject to which he turned his attention, he did not merely read books and swallow their contents as indisputable facts. Everything he read was deeply pondered, made to pass under his own criticism, and then compared with other authors on the opposite side of the case. Consequently the subject of his own creed underwent deep thought, and after reading Middleton’s “Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the Christian Church,” Gibbon’s religious beliefs were shaken. He decided that Protestantism was inconsistent; he was dissatisfied with it. Filled with the restlessness engendered by uncertainty, Gibbon read many works, including Bossuet’s “Variations of Protestantism” and “Exposition of Catholic Doctrine,” and the writings of the Jesuit priest, Father Parsons. “These works,” he said, “achieved my conversion”—the arguments in favour of Roman Catholicism put forward by the Jesuit priest being the real turning point in the scale.
Having arrived at the conclusion that the Protestant religion paled into insignificance before the Roman Catholic one, the Magdalen man felt that he would know no happiness until he himself should join the ranks of the “Papists.” For once his thoroughness deserted him. He did not consider the question—and the question of a man’s entirely changing his religious beliefs is a very vital one—with his usual exhaustiveness. Like a baby with a new toy, Gibbon, the great and wonderful man of brain, world famous and immortal, made a complete fool of himself. He rushed off to London without more ado, and there, under the influence of a “momentary glow of enthusiasm,” “privately abjured the heresies” of his childhood before a certain Father Baker, also a Jesuit, and became a Roman Catholic. For the moment his belief was red hot, and he wrote a burningly defiant letter to his fatherannouncing his change of creed. The elder Gibbon at once provided an excuse for his being sent down (a circumstance which very probably would have come about on the Magdalen Dons’ own initiative without any excuse being offered to them), and packed him off to the care of the Calvanistic minister at Lausanne, M. Pavilliard. The scattering of the hastily-swallowed, undigested arguments which had brought about Gibbon’s precipitate action, was a matter of a few months to M. Pavilliard, and in less than two years he was once more a fully convinced Protestant. The ex-Magdalen man’samour propreis fully demonstrated by the unblushing assertion that although the Calvinist minister had “a handsome share in his re-conversion,” yet it was principally brought about “by his own solitary reflections.” Doubtless when he wrote those statements he fully realised the extent and powers of his own brain, and refused to admit that any ordinarily clever man could have, or ever did have, any influence in swaying him from one point of view to another. One is fully justified in assuming that had he not gone to a Calvinist minister, but, instead, continued under the roof of a Jesuit priest, none of the “philosophical arguments,” to which he refers so glibly, would have availed him, and Edward Gibbon, historian, would have remained a Roman Catholic to the end of his days.
“Lord, let me not live to be useless!” was the constant prayer of John Wesley, and it was the keynote of his character. The founder of the Methodists, famous throughout the civilised world, and a man whose personal magnetism and great brain were bound to bring him to the fore in whatever profession he might have chosen, was actuated by a consuming dread of being considered useless. A desire to achieve great things was fostered during his Undergraduatedays at Christ Church. He went there with a sound knowledge of Hebrew, and began to achieve some note for his skill in logic. This was the beginning of the growth of ambition, and the fact that he was “noticed for his attainments” brought him great pleasure, for at all times he bubbled over with humour and good spirits in full realisation of his college notoriety. In consequence of this his reluctance at taking orders, when proposed by his family, was marked. He argued the question with himself fully while pacing his rooms at night, and he wrote to his father and explained his reluctance. It is conceivable that the life as led by gentleman commoners, with its wine parties, wild escapades, and general moral carelessness may have been the reason of Wesley’s hesitation. For this clever, amusing lad was popular in his college, and invited to take part in all the jollifications. Be that as it may, the question of devoting his life to religion was a difficult one. Wesley’s self-examination, assisted by his father’s scorn of becoming a “callow clergyman,” was doubtless attended by silent questionings as to what was his speciality. The atmosphere and traditions of Oxford had laid hold of him. The names of great men, sons ofAlma mater, filled him with the desire to emulate them, to excel them even. Their names were spoken in awe and admiration. Why should not his be also? He was brilliantly clever, of a clever family, and already had tasted the joys of fame in however humble a manner. Why should he have to follow his father’s lead and enter the Church? Could he not do better for himself outside? Undoubtedly, for there was more scope, less subjection to rules and orders, more individual power. But, on the other hand, these speculations and desires to break away were held in check by filial respect and love. His father and mother were keenly desirous of his embracing a clerical life, and his mother especially was of opinion that the sooner heentered into deacon’s orders the better, as it would be an additional inducement to “greater application in the study of practical divinity.”
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Staircase, Christ Church.
Wesley, therefore, looked facts in the face and concentrated his whole mind upon the study of theology. Since he could not be Prime Minister, he would be a great religious man. He began by disagreeing with “The Imitation of Christ,” and held views on the question of humility which lead one to believe that by this time the seeds of his ambition had grown to trees. Jeremy Taylor’s tenet, that we ought, “in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come,” was flatly contradicted by Wesley, who, although admitting absolute humility to God, reserved the right to consider himself a better man than many another; for when he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln, after he had been ordained, he practically showed the door to all those of his visitors whom he thought would do him no good, by reason of their not loving or fearing God. Then an incident happened which had a lasting effect upon Wesley; which changed his whole life. He travelled over to see what was called “a serious man.” Who this man was is unknown, but he was a student of psychology and a man of keen intuition. He summed up John Wesley, and gave forth the remark which had so great an influence upon him. “Sir,” he said, “you wish to serve God and go to Heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone; you must, therefore,findcompanions ormakethem: the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.”
Wesley never forgot these words. They were the turning-point in his career. His vast brain and desire to become the greatest of God’s servants would not allow him to be merely a curate in the Established Church, thus to serve God humbly. Even the chance of his eventually emerging as Archbishop was not sufficiently big. Neitherwas the Roman Church large enough, though from his characteristics it is conceivable that he was in sympathy with the love of power which, in olden times, is said to have marked out the Jesuits. The words of this “serious man” gave him furiously to think. He would make companions, followers, disciples. He, himself, would become greater than any of the men discussed by his fellow Undergraduates by taking over the leadership of a band of religious and ascetic men, who should occupy themselves solely in carrying out the commands of God.
Already his piety and zeal were much discussed in Oxford, for he led the way to George Whitefield in attending the Sacrament daily and doing charitable works. His younger brother, Charles, had formed the nucleus of a religious order by meeting weekly with two or three serious-minded friends and discussing religion. When John Wesley returned to Lincoln after an absence of some two years, during which he had had time to think out matters while filling a country curacy, these lads put themselves under his leadership. It was the first taste of power and individual authority. He ruled the little band sternly, put their practices into order and method, and secured an “accession of members.” He submitted himself to rigorous fasts, and cultivated an eccentric appearance by letting his hair grow. Even his brother, Samuel, himself really religious, perceived that he “excited injurious prejudices against himself, by affecting singularity in things which were of no importance.” His mother suggested cutting his hair off, but the money could not be spared from Wesley’s charities. His brother put forward that it should be merely reduced in length. This Wesley agreed to, and it is recorded that “this was the only instance in which he condescended, in any degree, to the opinions of others.”
The culminating instance of his egoism lies in his absolute refusal,in spite of his father’s earnest entreaty, to take on hiscureat the latter’s death. He considered the proposal “not so much with reference to his utility, as to his own well-being in spiritual things.” The question, as it appeared to him, was not whether he could do more good to others there or at Oxford, but whether he could do more good to himself, seeing that wherever he could be most holy himself, there he could most promote holiness. He decided that he could improve himself more at Oxford than at any other place, and at Oxford, therefore, he determined to remain. His father wrote to him, “if you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father, for above forty years in God’s vineyard, be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you consider that Mr M. must in all probability succeed me if you do not, and that in prospect of that mighty Nimrod’s coming hither shocks my soul, and is in a fair way of bringing down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropt; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this poor people has for you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service, and the plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls, whereas you have not many more souls in the university—you may, perhaps, alter your mind and bend your will to His, who has promised if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths.”
In the face of this stirring appeal from an aged father what did Wesley reply? He refused absolutely to entertain the matter. His self-centredness, the while he directed the religious beliefs and operations of the small body of disciples at Oxford, made him forget all considerations of filial duty and love and of God’s commands to obedience. His parents had been the reason of his entering the Church. He would make nofurther sacrifice for them now that he saw his way clear. His father, mother, the thousands of poor people—nobody and nothing mattered except that he should make himself more holy! The petty duties, worries, and cares, the continual small demands of trifling points entailed by such a curacy were too small for this striving, all-conquering spirit. What mattered it that he should send his father’s grey hairs down in sorrow to the grave?
All this while, he was most certainly turning over the saying of the “serious man”—tomakefollowers. On his father’s death it was proposed that he should go to America. Here was his great chance. Oxford had taught him that to expect to make English people, in their then blind and vicious state, see the truth of the gospel of Christ, was futile and childish. He was a prophet in his own country. But America, with all its unsophisticated, raw children, its ripeness for a strong man to come with the gift of oratory and sweep the country from end to end—there was his chance! And afterwards, on the crest of his fame and success, then would he convert England. His glory would have preceded him, and he would return as one already great, to whom they would lend a more willing ear. But with the astuteness of a really clever man, he peremptorily refused the offer to send him out there. As a natural result the proposers of the scheme argued. By degrees he allowed his willingness to be seen, though he piously pointed out that as he was his mother’s support, the staff of her age, he could not go without her consent. This she immediately gave, as he well knew she would. Accordingly, filled with exultation, buoyed up by a feeling of certainty as to his ultimate success, John Wesley left Oxford and England for the new country on which he intended to stamp his personality, and by whose conquest he was determined to hand down his name to posterity in the profession to which he hadreconciled himself at the age of some nineteen years while still an Undergraduate of Christ Church.
Had Wesley not gone up to Oxford, his name might never have been added to the list of England’s famous men. It was Oxford which first showed him the narrowness of a small curacy, Oxford which set him contemplating greatness, Oxford which actually started him in command of disciples. Therefore it is to Oxford that must be attributed the foundation, growth, and fame of Methodism, the means by which John Wesley attained his ends, power, and celebrity.
CELEBRITIES AS OXFORD MEN—(continued)
William Collins—Joins the Smarts—Forgets how to work—Oxford kills his will-power—Loses his reason—Samuel Johnson at Pembroke—A lonely freshman—Translates Pope’sMessiah—Suffers horribly from poverty—Dr Adam, his tutor—Readiness and physical pluck—Love of showing off—His love of Pembroke.
William Collins—Joins the Smarts—Forgets how to work—Oxford kills his will-power—Loses his reason—Samuel Johnson at Pembroke—A lonely freshman—Translates Pope’sMessiah—Suffers horribly from poverty—Dr Adam, his tutor—Readiness and physical pluck—Love of showing off—His love of Pembroke.
William Collins has been claimed as the greatest lyric poet of the eighteenth century. But, as is so often the case with famous men, his genius during his life time received no recognition. It was only when the world learned of his death, after he has been removed from a madhouse, that his few works began to come in for the notice which they deserved. Perhaps one of the reasons that life brought him no triumphant successes was the fact that he knew not how to work; and the blame of this undoubtedly falls upon Oxford. Whilst at school Collins worked steadfastly both in the matter of examinations and independent poems. It was at Winchester that he wrote hisPersian Eclogues, and in proof of his capacity for study he headed the list for nomination to an Oxford college, which included Warton and Whitehead. Oxford caused him to dwindle into a mere dilettante, a Smart, although he was accused falsely of bringing with him from school “a sovereign contempt for all academic studies and discipline.” The beginning of his Undergraduate life was marked by his strutting about in fine clothes with a feather in his cap, and running up heavy bills at the booksellers and tailors. The steady reading which he must have got through to enable him to head the school list was now laughed at. No one else did any work. Why should he? The Dons atMagdelen did not enforce the college exercises, and those which Collins condescended to put in showed signs of great genius and great indolence. The atmosphere of slacking, and card and wine parties which prevailed in the university seized hold of Collins, and he indulged himself to the full.
From time to time the poetry that was in him overflowed in an ode or two, but he was delighted to be interrupted by some genial friend in the middle of his work, and there the poem would be left. He frequented parties daily, entering thoroughly into the spirit of flippancy which characterised all his smart friends. He loved to be the centre of attraction, to talk and laugh and jest with a circle of admirers. Those who did not think as he did were dubbed “damned dull fellows.” The complete liberty enjoyed by him as a gownsman killed the habit of work so forcibly inculcated at his school. No sooner did he sit down in his rooms to read than the thought of a call that he must pay brought him to his feet again. His entire freedom was his ruin. Had he been compelled to work during certain hours every day, it is certain that Collins would have been less of a butterfly, and probable that he would not have lost his reason. As it was, the lax authority bred in him a desire to partake of the dissipation and gaiety of London, and caused him to relegate work and poetry to a secondary and quite unimportant consideration. He became content merely to draw up the outline of vast schemes for future work. That which he did complete was short and unsatisfying. He began other things and never completed them. In momentary bursts of enthusiasm he would dash off the commencement of some perfect lyric with inspiration and genius. But his powers of concentration had been sapped. He had not the strength to go on working. The call to a tea-party, any outside matter of no importance, was sufficient to make him throw his work into the fire and rush off to enjoy himself. He even went sofar as to receive money on thescenarioof a work on condition of promising the completion by a certain date. For some days he was steadied. His usual haunts saw him not. Behind sported oak he sat and toiled, striving to conquer the distracting thoughts aroused by the chime of a bell, the street cries which drifted up to his window, the rustle of a branch in the trees outside, the tramp of footsteps on his staircase, the shouts from a distant quad. The effort was too much for him. Oxford had completely stifled whatever will-power he had ever possessed. He was beaten by her, robbed of the faculty of using the gifts which God had given him. He emerged from the struggle with several pages ofscenario, and nothing more was ever attempted.
The praise of his friends round the Oxford tea-tables turned him into a consistent prevaricator. “To-morrow I will write! To-morrow shall see my epoch-making poem. To-morrow!” But to-morrow came and was passed in equal idleness and futilities. “Wait till I get to London. Ah, then!” He was convinced that he had but to arrive in the metropolis to be the centre of a storm of praise and admiration. The praise and adulation poured upon him by his fellow Undergraduates convinced him that his wit and genius would make a brilliant success in London, and win him a fortune. But it was not to be. His weakness and lack of resolve and initiative had triumphed. He became anhabituéof coffee-houses, and formed acquaintances with actors, wasting his time at stage doors. He soon dissipated his money, and became badly in debt. The schemes for work by which to win fame and retrieve his fortunes died at their birth, and nothing was carried through.
There cannot be definitely laid at Oxford’s door the accusation of being the root of the insanity which subsequently developed in him. But it was undoubtedly the fault of Oxford that he lost so soonthe power over his will which he possessed before his Undergraduate days. Such a man as Collins needed the control of a guiding hand, some strong man whose influence would have acted as a spur, and whose example would have led to regular hours and serious work. Oxford, however, provided no such man. The appointed tutor, who must have been a person gross in mind and body, took no trouble with his charge, exercised no care, left him, indeed, to his own resources. With him lies the blame for Collins’ madness. By leaving him to follow the loose example of the Undergraduates of the time, who acted upon the caprice of the moment whether for good or evil, that tutor withheld, however unconsciously, the support for which the fragile mind of Collins craved. Consequently, under the evil influence of eighteenth-century Oxford, the holds upon his will which kept Collins within the bounds of sanity were gradually loosened, until at length, a few years after his going down, his reason entirely left him, and he who should have been one of the world’s greatest poets was lost.
In a room on the second floor over the gateway at Pembroke Dr Johnson lived during his Undergraduate career. A large-browed, unusual looking lad, whose clothes were even then ill-fitting and badly cut, he came up at the age of nineteen under the protecting wing of his father; was duly introduced to his tutor, and moved in, reverently and tenderly, the only household gods that he possessed—his books.
Of a melancholic and somewhat bitter disposition already, he was, if possible, even more lonely and unsought than the average freshman. This condition of things caused him no regret. All his friends he brought with him to line the bookshelves, and, sporting his oak against an unrealising and unappreciative world, he revelled in the poets and the classics with uninterrupted bliss. But the vitality of youth doesnot long remain daunted, and Johnson soon threw off his melancholia and sallied forth into the cobbled streets in search of amusement or adventure. Through the bare-armed trees of the Broad Walk he made his way and joined in the sliding in the frozen Christ Church meadows. Work was forgotten in the biting, frosty, invigorating air, and for four days his tutor saw him not. Ice does not come every year, and Johnson made the most of it while it lasted.
The college exercises were child’s play to him. Unlike the majority of Undergraduates of the time, who read nothing but what was put into their hands by their tutor, Johnson brought with him to the university such a wide acquaintance with books, both of classics and poetry, that the Master of Pembroke said in all sincerity that he was better qualified for the university than any man during his time. With such knowledge and with the impetuousness that was always one of his chief characteristics, it is not to be wondered at that Johnson dashed off his exercises at top speed, and with a brilliance that created awe in the minds of the Dons. In one case, for instance, being requested to translate Pope’sMessiahinto Latin verse, Johnson retired to his chamber and there, behind closed doors, wrote feverishly on a corner of his book-strewn table. The results of his rapid labours were twofold. He established a great reputation not only in his college but in the entire university, and, more than that, earned Pope’s highest praise, and brought about his statement that in later days it would be a question whether his own or Johnson’s version would be considered the original. One of his favourite haunts was Pembroke gate. There he lounged away his mornings, doing no work, attending no lectures, and preventing a crowd of listening Undergraduates from doing work or attending lectures. Like a king surrounded by his court, Johnson, unkempt of hair and ragged of clothes, with shoes down at heel andfit only for the rubbish heap, let fly his wit and satire upon every topic. The shouts of laughter which he provoked from his compeers bound them to him as though he had been a Pied Piper, and it was to empty benches that the Dons delivered their empty discourses. Against the tutors and Fellows also he turned his tongue, and his satire and humour at their expense allied the Undergraduates still more closely to him. But these merry meetings in the Pembroke gateway were only a pose on Johnson’s part. He wished to convey a certain impression, and he succeeded. The Master of Pembroke told Boswell that he “was caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicksome fellow, and passed there the happiest part of his life.”
This was indeed a proof of the success of his pose; for in reality he was neither gay nor happy. His poverty, the bareness of his rooms, the shabbiness of his dress, the consequent inability to go anywhere, even into Christ Church, or do any of the things that the other men did who had money, ground into his soul. He was bitterly sensitive of these things, and the least reference to them, however delicate or well-meaning, either aroused a torrent of hot words, or caused him to retreat clam-like into his shell. The man who in a spirit of discreet friendship crept up to his rooms, left a new pair of shoes outside his door and stole unseen away, was only rewarded for his good-nature by learning that Johnson had thrown them out of the window in a burst of fury against the creation that had left him penniless. It was only the fact that scornful eyes (or at any rate Johnson’s touchiness interpreted scorn into them) were turned upon his shoes, through which his feet peered frankly out, that Johnson ceased going to Christ Church to obtain, second hand, the lectures of Bateman from his friend Taylor. He conceived poverty to be an awful and dangerous state. After his father had died, leaving practically nothing for his mother and himself,Johnson wrote in one of his little diaries: “Meanwhile let me take care that the powers of my mind may not be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into criminal act.” By force of having no money, and not receiving any remittances from his father, by whom every penny had to be made to go the distance of two, he naturally incurred debts at Oxford. As he knew, however, that it would be only with difficulty that his expenses would be met at all, his debts were not large, and any incipient extravagance that may have been in him was crushed out very early. His one great craving was to replenish his library, and as this was impossible he took every opportunity of visiting the well-stocked libraries of other people. These gave him intense joy, and his first move was always to cross to the bookshelves and there, oblivious of his host and the whole world, to pour over the beloved volumes.
His faculty for poetical and prose writings was already strongly developed when first he came up to Oxford, and the original points of view from which he wrote his themes were a subject of great comment. The rest of the Undergraduates were as children when compared to one of his mental abilities. Even his tutor admitted that his position was farcical, and that Johnson was far above him in brain capacity, for he said on one occasion that “I was his nominal tutor but he was above my mark.” And the lad was then but some nineteen years of age! Merely to perform college exercises was absurd and irritating to one of his hasty dispositions. Having rattled them off, he used to read by himself, but with such a varied and impetuous taste that his knowledge seemed to include every subject of which anything had ever been written. Boswell says that “he told me, that from his earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end; that he read Shakespeare at a period so early, that the speech ofthe ghost inHamletterrified him when he was alone; thatHorace’s Odeswere the composition in which he took most delight, and it was not long before he liked hisEpistlesandSatires.... What he read most solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Euripides, and now and then a little epigram; that the study of which he was most fond was Metaphysicks.” But for all his brilliance Johnson went down without taking a degree. His father’s death rendered it impossible for him to remain at Oxford for the full course, and he never went in for the schools.
While at the university he did not form many great friendships. His was not the temperament. A highly sensitive man, surrounded for the most part by men of some wealth who were ever ready to incur expenses, he was always on the look-out for an objectionable glance of pity or sympathy, than which there was to him nothing worse or more heinous. With his wonderful talents it was rather for him to look down upon the vacuous moneyed men than permit himself to be patronised by them. Consequently, fully realising the almost insurmountable handicap of comparative penury, Johnson preferred to make his way by force of brain power or not at all, rather than bow down to the man with a fat purse. As he himself said in after life, “I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all authority.”
As a man of readiness and physical pluck he was without rival. In the summer the thought of sunshine and the wonderful green colourings of the trees called him from his books, and collecting a companion on the way, he was used to saunter through the parks to enjoy a bathe. His pulses tingling with the delight of being alive and young on a glorious day, with the softly waving branches rustling overhead, and the quiet river gliding at his feet, Johnson’s flow offancies kept his companion entranced until they had thrown off their clothes and were ready for the first cool splash. There existed apparently a certain deep hole in the river bed in one of the places where they used to bathe, and Johnson’s friend warned him of the danger. Immediately, with the uncaring folly of youth, Johnson plunged into the very spot to his friend’s horror and anxiety. In a few moments he emerged, blowing like a healthy grampus, and poured ridicule upon his well-meaning if timid friend. He was, indeed, foolhardy to the point of braggadocio. A very sure proof of this is afforded by an incident which occurred when he was staying at Mr Beauclerk’s house in the country. The guests were outside the house one day on the lawn discussing the merits of their guns, when one of them pointed out that if a gun were loaded with many balls there was a danger of its bursting. Johnson promptly slipped in some seven or eight and fired his gun against the wall of the house. Instead of rating him soundly for his egregiously childish love of showing off, Boswell, in his blind idolatry, praises this up as being “resolution.”
At Oxford, and in fact afterwards, it was Johnson’s habit to sally forth at night time for solitary walks. His great affection for Oxford was doubtless stimulated by these lonely prowls through the moonlit streets, and his entire disregard for the consequences of his actions helped him in his climbs back into college. One can picture him dropping out of Pembroke after careful glances to right and left to see that all was clear, and marching along with his hands behind his back, safe from the scornful eyes of Smarts, which made his mean clothes infinitely more uncomfortable, his eyes drinking in the beauties of the wonderful skyline of the City of Spires, his mind occupied perhaps in thinking out Rasselas as he made his way through the narrow, deserted streets. On one of these expeditions four roughssprang out upon him suddenly from the shadow of a gateway, intent on relieving him of the purse and jewellery which they supposed him to have. Their mistake was twofold, for, in addition to lighting upon a poor man, they had also caught a tartar. Johnson, young and active, struck out lustily and with skill, and, setting his back to the wall, battered the scoundrels right royally. Savage at being resisted, the men renewed their attack with the idea of vengeance, but Johnson, with no other aid than his fists, kept them at bay until the quick tramp of feet hurrying round the corner announced the presence of the watch, and both the attackers and their would-be victim were carried off to the round-house.
At a later period in his career when, one would have thought, his quick temper should have been entirely under control, he had an amusing adventure in the playhouse at Lichfield which showed, plainly enough, both that he could still lose his temper and that he had sufficient strength to carry things through. A chair had been placed for Johnson’s express use between the side scenes. Wishing, however, to speak with some one in another part of the building, he left it for a moment. Some gentleman promptly took possession, and Johnson, finding on his return that his place was occupied, civilly demanded his seat. The gentleman rudely refused to give it up. In a flash Johnson laid hold of him and tossed both man and chair into the pit.
In spite of the fact that Johnson at Pembroke suffered tortures from being poor, and that his gay and frolicsome habits were merely a cloak to hide his bitterness, yet he contracted a love for his college which endured to his death. It was a matter of pride to him to run over the list of names of the celebrated men educated at the same college: such names as Spenser, Shenstone, Blackstone, and others. In the “Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Hannah Moore” is found the followingpassage illustrative of his love for the old college. “Who do you think is my present cicerone at Oxford? Only Dr Johnson! and we do so gallant it about! You cannot imagine with what delight he showed me every part of his own college.... Dr Adams, the Master of Pembroke, had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry. We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner Johnson begged to conduct me to see the college, he would let no one else show it me but himself. ‘This was my room; this Shenstone’s.’ Then after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, ‘In short,’ said he, ‘we were a nest of singing birds. Here we walked, there played cricket.’ He ran over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days he passed there.... But alas! Johnson looks very ill indeed—spiritless and wan. However he made an effort to be cheerful....”
As a last token of his love for Pembroke he sent the college a present of all his works. This was done just before his death, and Boswell tells us that he was most anxious to bequeath his house at Lichfield to the college as well. His friends, however, “very properly dissuaded him from it.”
And now reluctantly I lay down my pen. It would be possible to continue for ever with such a subject as Oxford. Oxford, filled with the mystic echoes of the past, and the life and movement of the present, where a man passes four of the best years of his life, making livelong friendships, feeling things, doing things, and seeing things which remain indelibly engraved in his mind. Memories of Oxford have moved singers and poets to ecstasies of emotional utterance, inspired great writers with beautiful thoughts, and have been the one ray of comforting light in dark and miserable lives. Is there, or has there ever been, a man who,having known the protection of the old city’s walls, and explored the tree-shaded meanderings of the limpid Cher, having rioted after an athletic triumph and burnt the midnight oil with an intimate friend, having been, in short, a full-blooded Undergraduate, has gone down without any love forAlma materin his heart, who has felt no thrill in after years when looking back upon his Oxford years? Surely such a creature was never born. Oxford’s charm is, essentially, not for the few. It strikes the heart of every one of her countless sons. Year follows year, and century, century, and the stream of men flows unceasingly in and out of the city’s gates. Does Oxford change, however? Another wrinkle on her face may betray the lapse of many decades, but her beauty remains. She is still the same.
“Still on her spire the pigeons hover;Still by her gateway haunts the gown;Ah, but her secret? you, young lover,Drumming her old ones, forth from town,Know you the secret none discover?Tell it when you go down.“Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,Lean to her whispers never so nigh;Yet if at last not less her loverYou in your hansom leave the High;Down from her towers a ray shall hover—Touch you, a passer by.”[31]
PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET.
Footnotes:
[1]“Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch.
[2]“Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch.
[3]“Random Records,” by G. Colman the younger (London, 1830).
[4]“Random Records,” by G. Colman the younger (London, 1830).
[5]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[6]“Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch.
[7]“Oxford Studies,” by J. R. Green (Macmillan & Co).
[8]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[9]Ibid.
[10]“Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch.
[11]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[12]“Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth” (London 1820).
[13]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[14]“Reminiscences of Oxford,” by L. Quiller-Couch.
[15]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[16]“Reminiscences of a Literary Life,” by T. F. Dibdin, London, 1836.
[17]“Recollections of Particulars in Life of late Mr William Shenstone,” by the Rev. Richard Graves.
[18]Terrae Filius.
[19]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[20]“Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon” (London, 1796).
[21]“Essays Moral and Literary,” by Vicesimus Knox.
[22]“Oxford Studies,” by J.R. Green (Messrs Macmillan & Co.).
[23]“Social Life at the Universities,” by Chris. Wordsworth.
[24]“Life of William, Earl of Shelburne,” by Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice (London, 1895).
[25]“University Education,” by Dr Newton (London, 1726).
[26]“Boswell’s Life of Johnson.”
[27]“Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon” (London, 1796).
[28]“Reminiscences of a Literary Life,” by T. F. Dibdin.
[29]“Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth” (London, 1820).
[30]To which he transferred from Magdalen Hall.
[31]A. C. Quiller-Couch.