NUTS TO CRACK; (continued 3)

PALEY’S SKETCH OF HIS EARLY ACADEMICAL LIFE.

In the year 1795, during one of his visits to Cambridge, Dr. Paley, in the course of a conversation on the subject, gave the following account of the early part of his own academical life; and it is here given on the authority and in the very words of a gentleman who was present at the time, as a striking instance of the peculiar frankness with which he was in the habit of relating adventures of his youth. “I spent the two first years of my under-graduateship (said he) happily, but unprofitably. I was constantly in society where we were not immoral, but idle and rather expensive. At the commencement of my third year, however, after having left the usual party at rather a late hour in the evening, I was awakened at five in the morning by one of my companions, who stood at my bedside and said, ‘Paley, I have been thinking what a d—d fool you are. I could do nothing, probably, were I to try, and can afford the life I lead: you can do every thing, and cannot afford it. I have had no sleep during the whole night on account of these reflections, and am now come solemnly to inform you, that, if you persist in your indolence, I must renounce your society.’ I was so struck (continued Paley) with the visit and the visiter, that I lay in bed great part of the day and formed my plan: I ordered my bed-maker to prepare my fire every evening, in order that it might be lighted by myself; I rose at five, read during the whole of the day, except such hours as chapel and hall required, allotting each portion of time its peculiar branch of study; and, just before the closing of gates (nine o’clock) I went to a neighbouring coffee-house, where I constantly regaled upon a mutton-chop and a dose of milk punch: and thus on taking my bachelor’s degree, I became senior wrangler.” He, too, filled the trustworthy and dignified office of Tutor of his College, and deserved, though he did not die in possession of, a bishopric.

THE LOUNGER. BY AN OXONIAN.

AN OXFORD HOAX AND A PURITAN DETECTED.

A certain Oxford D.D. at the head of a college, lately expected a party of maiden ladies, his sisters and others, to visit him from the country. They were strangers in Oxford, therefore, like another Bayard, he was anxious to meet them on their arrival and gallant them to his College. This, however, was to him, so little accustomed to do the polite to the ladies, an absolute event, and it naturally formed his prime topic of conversation for a month previously. This provoked some of the Fellows of his College to put a hoax upon him, the most forward in which was one Mr. H——, a puritan forsooth. Accordingly, a note was concocted and sent to the Doctor, in the name of the ladies, announcing, that they had arrived at the Inn in Oxford. “The Inn!” exclaimed the Doctor, on perusing it; “Good God! how am I to know the Inn?” However, after due preparation, off he set, in full canonicals, hunting for his belles and the Inn! The Star, Mitre, Angel, all were searched; at last, the Doctor, both tired and irritated, began to smell a rat! The idea of a hoax flashed upon his mind; he hurried to his lodgings, at his College, where the whole truth flashed upon him like a new light, and the window of his room being open, which overlooked the Fellows’ garden, he saw a group of them rubbing their hands in high glee, and the ringleader, Mr. H——, in the midst: he was so roused at the sight, that, leaning from the window, he burst out with—“H——! you puritanical son of a bitch!” It is needless to add, that the words, acting like a charm, quickly dissolved their council: but the Doctor, too amiable to remember what was not meant as an affront, himself afterwards both joined in and enjoyed the laugh created by the joke.

MORE THAN ONE GOOD SAYING

Is attributed to the non-juring divine, celebrated son of Oxon, and excellent English historian, Thomas Carte, who, falling under the suspicions of the Government, as a favourer of the Pretender, was imprisoned at the time the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, in 1744. Whilst under examination by the Privy Council, the celebrated Duke of Newcastle, then minister, asked him, “If he were not a bishop?” “No, my Lord Duke,” replied Carte, “there are no bishops in England, but what are made by your Grace; and I am sure I have no reason to expect that honour.” Walking, soon after he was liberated, in the streets of London, during a heavy shower of rain, he was plied with, “A coach, your reverence?” “No, honest friend,” was his answer, “this is not a reign for me to ride in.”

HORACE WALPOLE A SAINT.

Cole says, in his Athenæ Cant., that Horace Walpole latterly lived and died a Sceptic; but when a student at King’s College, Cambridge, he was of “a religious enthusiastic turn of mind, and used to go with Ashton (the late Dr., Master of Jesus College,) his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the castle.” Dyer gives the following poetical version of

A CAMBRIDGE CONUNDRUM,

In his Supplement, on Doctors Long, Short, and Askew:—

A BISHOP’S INTEREST.

Bishop Porteus said of himself, when holding the See of Chester, that he “had not interest enough to command a Cheshire cheese.”

OXFORD FAMOUS FOR ITS SOPHISTS.

“For sophistry, such as you may call corrupt and vain,” says Wood, in the first volume of his Annals, “which we had derived from the Parisians, Oxford hath in ancient time been very famous, especially when many thousands of students were in her, equalling, if not exceeding, that university from whence they had it; a token of which, with its evil consequences, did lately remain,—I mean the quadragesimall exercises, which were seldom performed, or at least finished without the help of Mars. In the reign of Henry the Third, and before, the schools were much polluted with it, and became so notorious, that it corrupted other arts; and so would it afterwards have continued, had it not been corrected by public authority for the present, though in following times it increased much again, that it could not be rooted out. Some there were that wrote, others that preached against it, demonstrating the evil consequences thereof, and the sad end of those that delighted in it. Jacobus Januensis reports that one Mr. Silo, a Master of the University of Paris, and Professor of Logic, had a scholar there, with whom he was very familiar: and being excellent in the art of sophistry, spared not all occasions, whether festival or other day, to study it. This sophister being sick, and almost brought to death’s door, Master Silo earnestly desired him, that after his death he would return to him and give him information concerning his state, and how it fared with him. The sophister dying, returned according to promise, with his hood stuffed with notes of sophistry, and the inside lined with flaming fire, telling him, that that was the reward which he had bestowed upon him for the renown he had before for sophistry; but Mr. Silo esteeming it a small punishment, stretched out his hand towards him, on which a drop or spark of the said fire falling, was very soon pierced through with terrible pain; which accident the defunct or ghost beholding, told Silo, that he need not wonder at that small matter, for he was burning in that manner all over. Is it so? (saith Silo) well, well, I know what I have to do. Whereupon, resolving to leave the world, and enter himself into religion, called his scholars about him, took his leave of, and dismissed them with these metres:—

Which said story coming to the knowledge of certain Oxonians, about the year 1173 (as an obscure note which I have seen tells me,) it fell out, that as one of them was answering for his degree in his school, which he had hired, the opponent dealt so maliciously with him, that he stood up and spake before the auditory thus: ‘Profectò, profectò, &c.’ ‘Truly, truly, sir sophister, if you proceed thus, I protest before this assembly I will not answer; pray, sir, remember Mr. Silo’s scholar at Paris,’—intimating thereby, that if he did not cease from vain babblings, purgatory, or a greater punishment, should be his end. Had such examples been often tendered to them (adds Wood, with real bowels of compassion,) as they were to the Parisians, especially that which happened to one Simon Churney, or Thurney, or Tourney (Fuller says, Thurway, a Cornish man,) an English Theologist there (who was suddenly struck dumb, because he vainly gloried that he, in his disputations, could be equally for or against the Divine truth,) it might have worked more on their affections; but this being a single relation, it could not long be wondered at.” After these logical marvels, Anthony gives us the following instance of

A VICE-CHANCELLOR’S BEING LACONIC.

“Dr. Prideaux, when he resigned the office of Vice-Chancellor, 22nd July, 1626 (which is never done without an oration spoken from the chair in the convocation, containing for the most part an account of the acts done in the time of their magistrateship,) spoke only the aforesaid metres, ‘Linquo coax,’ &c., supposing there was more matter in them than the best speech he could make, frustrating thereby the great hopes of the Academicians of an eloquent oration.”

“Oxford hath been so famous for sophistry, and hath used such a particular way in the reading and learning it,” adds Wood, in treating of the schools, “that it hath often been styled—

‘SOPHISTRIA SECUNDUM USUM OXON.’

So famous, also, for subtlety of logicians, that no place hath excelled it.” This great subtlety, however, would seem, in a degree, to have departed from our sister of Oxford in 1532, when, they say,

TWO PERT OXONIANS

Took a journey to Cambridge, and challenged any to dispute with them there, in the public schools, on the two following questions:—“An jus Civile sit Medicina præstantius?” In English as much as to say, Which does most execution, Civil Law or Medicine?—a nice point, truly. But the other formed the subject of serious argumentation, and ran thus:—“An mulier condemnata, bis ruptis loqueis, sit tertio suspendenda?” Ridley, the Bishop and martyr, then a young man, student or Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, is said to have been one of the opponents on this interesting occasion, and administered the flagellæ linguæ with such happy effect to one of these pert pretenders to logic lore, that the other durst not set his wit upon him. The Oxford sophistry had so much

CORRUPTED THE LATIN TONGUE

There, says Wood, that the purity thereof being lost among the scholars, “their speaking became barbarous, and derived so constantly to their successors, that barbarous speaking of Latin was commonly styled by many

‘Oxoniensis loquenti mos.’

The Latin of the schools, in the present day, is none of the purest at either University. A certain Cambridge Divine, a Professor, who was a senior wrangler, and is justly celebrated for his learning and great ability, one day presiding at an act in Arts, upon a dog straying into the school, and putting in for a share of the logic with a howl at the audience, the Moderator exclaimed, “Verte canem ex.” There have, however, been fine displays of pure Latinity in the schools of both; and it appears

THE OXONIANS SURPASSED ARISTOTLE

At a very early period, not only in the art of logic itself, but in their manner of applying it: for in the beginning of 1517, says Wood, about the latter end of Lent (a fatal time for the most part to the Oxonians,) a sore discord fell out between the Cistercian and Benedictine monks, concerning several philosophical points discussed by them in the schools. But their arguments being at length flung aside, they decided the controversy by blows, which, with sore scandal, continued a considerable time. At length the Benedictines rallying up what forces they could procure, they beset the Cistercians, and by force of arms made them fly and betake themselves to their hostels. In fact, he says, by the use of logic, and the trivial arts, the Oxford sophists, in the time of Lent, broke the king’s peace, so that the University privileges were several times suspended, and in danger of being lessened or taken away. Through the corrupt use of it, “the Parva Logicalia, and other minute matters of Aristotle, many things of that noble author have been so changed from their original, by the screwing in and adding many impertinent things, that Tho. Nashe (in his book, ‘Have at you to Saffron Walden,’) hath verily thought, that if Aristotle had risen out of his grave, and disputed with the sophisters, they would not only have baffled him with their sophistry, but with his own logic, which they had disguised, and he composed without any impurity or corruption. It may well be said, that in this day they have done no more than what Tom Nashe’s beloved Dick Harvey did afterwards at Cambridge, that is to say,

HE SET ARISTOTLE WITH HIS HEELS UPWARDS ON THE SCHOOL GATES,

With ass’s ears on his head,—a thing that Tom would ‘in perpetuam rei memoriam,’ record and never have done with. Wilson, in his Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ, says of this said Tom Nash, that he was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he resided seven years, was at the fatal repast of the pickled herrings with the poet Green, and, in 1597, was either confined or otherwise troubled for a comedy on the Isle of Dogs (extant in the MSS. of Oldys,) though he wrote but the first act, and the players without his knowledge supplied the rest. He was a man of humour, a bitter satirist, and no contemptible poet; and more effectually discouraged and non-plused the notorious anti-prelate and astrologer, Will Harvey, and his adherents, than all the serious writers that attacked them. There is a good character of him, says Oldys, in The return from Parnassus, or Scourge of Simony, which was publicly acted by the students of St. John’s, in 1606, wherein

THEY FIRST EXEMPLIFIED THE ART OF CUTTING,

An elegant term, that is in equal request at the sister university, as well as amongst the coxcombs of the day, adds Wilson, though the members of St. John’s are celebrated for the origin of the term “to cut,”—i. e. “to look an old friend in the face, and affect not to know him,” which is the cut direct. Those who would be more deeply read in this art, which has been greatly improved since the days in which it originated, will find it at large in the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.

CROMWELL’S SOLDIERS AT A DISPUTATION AT OXFORD.

It was a custom of Dr. Kettel, while President of Trinity College, Oxford (says Tom Warton, citing the MSS. of Dr. Bathurst, in his Appendix to his Life of Sir Thomas Pope,) “to attend daily the DISPUTATIONS in the college-hall, on which occasions he constantly wore a large black furred muff. Before him stood an hour-glass, brought by himself into the hall, and placed on the table, for ascertaining the time of the continuance of the exercise, which was to last an hour at least. One morning, after Cromwell’s soldiers had taken possession of Oxford, a halberdier rushed into the hall during this controversy, and plucking off our venerable Doctor’s muff, threw it in his face, and then, with a stroke of his halberd, broke the hour-glass in pieces. The Doctor, though old and infirm, instantly seized the soldier by the collar, who was soon overpowered, by the assistance of the disputants. The halberd was carried out of the hall in triumph before the Doctor; but the prisoner, with his halberd, was quickly rescued by a party of soldiers, who stood at the bottom of the hall, and had enjoyed the whole transaction.” It was in the grove of this college, during Monmouth’s Rebellion of 1685, that Sir Philip Bertie, a younger son of Robert Earl of Lindsay, who was a member of Trinity College, and had spoken a copy of verses in the theatre at Oxford, in 1683, to the Duke and Dutchess a York, &c., trained a company, chiefly of his own college, of which he was captain, in the militia of the university.

TROOPS BEING RAISED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

Says Warton, in Monmouth’s Rebellion. It reminds me of a curious anecdote concerning Smith’s famous Ode, entitled Pocockius, which I give from MSS., Cod. Balland, vol. xix. Lit. 104:—“The University raised a regiment for the King’s service, and Christ Church and Jesus’ Colleges made one company, of which Lord Morris, since Earl of Abingdon, was captain, who presented Mr. Urry (the editor of Chaucer,) a corporal (serjeant) therein, with a halberd. Upon Dr. Pocock’s death, Mr. Urry lugged Captain Rag (Smith) into his chamber in Peckwater, locked him in, put the key in his pocket, and ordered his bed-maker to supply him with necessaries through the window, and told him he should not come out till he made

A COPY OF VERSES ON THE DOCTOR’S DEATH.

The sentence being irreversible, the captain made the Ode, and sent it, with his epistle, to Mr. Urry, who thereupon had his release.” “The epistle here mentioned,” adds Tom, “is a ludicrous prose analysis of the Ode, beginning Opusculum tuum, Halberdarie amplissime,” &c., and is printed in the fourth volume of Dr. Johnson’s English Poets, who pronounces it unequalled by modern writers. This same Oxonian, Smith, had obtained the soubriquet of

CAPTAIN RAG

By his negligence of dress. He was bred at Westminster School, under Doctor Busby; and it is to be remembered, for his honour, “that, when at the Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention between the representatives of Trinity College in Cambridge, and Christ Church in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity having a preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited the same time to Christ Church, he chose to accept of a studentship there.”

THE THREE DAINTY MORSELS.

When our learned Oxonian, Dr. Johnson, was on his tour in the Hebrides, accompanied by Bozzy, as Peter Pindar has it, says an American writer, they had one day travelled so far without refreshment, that the Doctor began to growl in his best manner. Upon this Bozzy hastened to a cottage at a distance, ordered a dinner, and was lucky in obtaining the choice of a roast leg of mutton and the Doctor’s favourite plum-pudding. Upon reaching the house, the appetite of the latter drove him into the kitchen to inspect progress, where he saw a boy basting the meat, from whose head he conceited he saw something descend, by the force of gravity, into the dripping-pan. The meat was at length served up, and Bozzy attacked it with great glee, exclaiming, “My dear Doctor, do let me help you to some,—brown as a berry,—done to a turn.” The Doctor said he would wait for the pudding, chuckling with equal glee, whilst Bozzy nearly devoured the whole joint. The pudding at length came, done to a turn too, which the Doctor in his turn greedily devoured, without so much as asking Bozzy to a bit. After he had wiped his mouth, and begun to compose himself, Bozzy entreated to know what he was giggling about whilst he eat the mutton? The Doctor clapped his hands to both sides for support, as he told him what he saw in the kitchen. Bozzy thereupon begun to exhibit sundry qualms and queer faces, and calling in the boy, exclaimed, “You rascal, why did you not cover your dirty head with your cap when basting the meat?” “’Cause mother took it to boil the pudding in!” said the urchin. The tables were turned. The Doctor stared aghast, stamped, and literally roared, with a voice of thunder, that if Bozzy ever named the circumstance to any one, it should bring down upon him his eternal displeasure! The following, not very dissimilar anecdote, is told of a Cantab, who was once out hunting till his appetite became as keen as the Doctor’s, and, like his, drove him to the nearest cottage. The good dame spread before him and his friend the contents of her larder, which she described as “a meat pie, made of odds and ends, the remnant of their own frugal meal.” “Any thing is better than nothing,” cried the half famished Cantab, “so let us have it—ha, Bob.” Bob, who was another Cantab, his companion, nodded assent. No sooner was the savoury morsel placed before him, than he commenced operations, and greedily swallowed mouthful after mouthful, exclaiming, “Charming! I never tasted a more delicious morsel in my life! But what have we here?” said he, as he sucked something he held in both hands; “Fish, as well as flesh, my good woman?” “Fish!” cried the old dame, as she turned from her washing to eye our sportsman, “why, Lord bless ye, i’ that bean’t our Billy’s comb!” The effect was not a little ludicrous on our hungry Cantab, whilst Bob’s “Haw! haw! haw!” might have been heard from the Thames Tunnel to Nootka Sound.

ANSWERED IN KIND.

Why should we smother a good thing with mystifying dashes, instead of plain English high-sounding names, when the subject is of “honourable men?” “Recte facta refert.”—Horace forbid it! The learned Chancery Barrister, John Bell, K.C., “the Great Bell of Lincoln,” as he has been aptly called, was Senior Wrangler, on graduating B.A., at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1786, with many able competitors for that honour. He is likewise celebrated, as every body knows, for writing three several hands; one only he himself can read, another nobody but his clerk can read, and a third neither himself, clerk, nor any body else can read! It was in the latter hand he one day wrote to his legal contemporary and friend, the present Sir Launcelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England (who is likewise a Cantab, and graduated in 1800 at St. John’s College, of which he became a Fellow, with the double distinction of Seventh Wrangler and Second Chancellor’s Medallist) inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot, finding all his attempts to decipher the note about as vain as the wise men found theirs to unravel the Cabalistic characters of yore, took a sheet of paper, and having smeared it over with ink, he folded and sealed it, and sent it as his answer. The receipt of it staggered even the Great Bell of Lincoln, and after breaking the seal, and eyeing and turning it round and round, he hurried to Mr. Shadwell’s chambers with it, declaring he could make nothing of it. “Nor I of your note,” retorted Mr. S. “My dear fellow,” exclaimed Mr. B., taking his own letter in his hand, is not this, as plain as can be, “Dear Shadwell, I shall be glad to see you at dinner to-day.” “And is not this equally as plain,” said Mr. S., pointing to his own paper, “My dear Bell, I shall be happy to come and dine with you.”

POWERS OF DIGESTION.

In both Oxford and Cambridge the cooks are restricted to a certain sum each term, beyond which the college will not protect them in their demand upon the students. All else are extras, and are included in “sizings” in Cambridge; in Oxford the term is “to battel.” The head of a college in the latter university, not long since, sent for Mr. P——, one of his society, who had batteled much beyond the allowance; and after Mr. P—— had endeavoured to excuse himself on the ground of appetite, turning to the account, the Rector observed, “meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner, meat for supper,” and looking up in the face of the dismayed student, he exclaimed, with his Welsh accent, “Christ Jesus! Mr. P——, what guts you must have.” This reminds me of

A CAMBRIDGE D.D.,

Now no more, who is said to have been a great gourmand, and weighed something less than thirty stone, but not much. At the college table, where our D.D. daily took his meal, in order that he might the better put his hand upon the dainty morsels, being very corpulent, he caused a piece to be scooped out, to give him a fair chance. His chair was also so placed, that his belly was three inches from the table at sitting down, and when he had eaten till he touched it, his custom was to lay down his knife and fork and desist, lest, by eating too much, any dangerous malady should ensue. A waggish Fellow of his college, however, one day removed his chair double the distance from the table, which the doctor not observing, began to eat as usual. After taking more than his quantum, and finding that he was still an inch or two from the goal, he threw down his knife and fork in despair, exclaiming, he “was sure he was going to die;” but having explained the reason, he was relieved of his fears on hearing the joke had been played him.

THE INSIDE PASSENGER.

Every Cantab of the nineteenth century must remember our friend Smith of the Blue Boar, Trinity Street, charioteer of that now defunct vehicle and pair which used to ply between Cambridge, New-market, and Bury St. Edmunds, and on account of its celerity, and other marked qualities, was called “The Slow and Dirty” by Freshman, Soph, Bachelor, and Big-wig, now metamorphosed into a handsome four-in-hand, over which our friend Smith presides in a style worthy of the Club itself! He had one day, in olden time, pulled up at Botsham, midway between Newmarket and Cambridge, when there happened to be several Cantabs on the road, who were refreshing their nags at the “self-same” inn, the Swan, at which the Slow and Dirty made its daily halt. “Any passengers?” inquired Smith. “One inside,” said a Cambridge wag, standing by, whose eye was the moment caught by a young ass feeding on the nettles in a neighbouring nook. Having put his fellows up to the joke, Smith was invited in-doors and treated with a glass of grog; meanwhile, my gentleman with the long ears was popped inside the coach. Smith coming out, inquired after his passenger, whom he supposed one of his friends, the Cantabs, and learnt he was housed. “All right,” said Smith, and off he drove, followed quickly by our wag and party on horseback, who determined to be in at the denouement. Smith had not made much way, when our inside passenger, not finding himself in clover, popped his head out at one of the coach windows. The spectacle attracted the notice of many bipeds as they passed along; Smith, however, notwithstanding their laughter, “kept the even tenor of his way.” At Barnwell the boys huzzaed with more than their usual greetings, but still Smith kept on, unconscious of the cause. He no sooner made Jesus’ Lane, than crowds began to follow in his wake, and he dashed into the Blue-Boar yard with a tail more numerous than that upon the shoulders of which Dan O’Connell rode into the first Reformed Parliament, Feargus included. Down went the reins, as the ostlers came to the head of his smoking prads, and Smith was in a moment at the coach door, with one hand instinctively upon the latch, and the other raised to his hat, when the whole truth flashed upon his astonished eyes, and Balaam was safely landed, amidst peals of laughter, in which our friend Smith was not the least uproarious.

PALEY’S CELEBRATED SCHOOL ACT.

When Paley, in 1762, kept his act in the schools, previously to his entering the senate-house, to contend for mathematical honours, it was under the moderators, Dr. John Jebb, the famous physician and advocate of reform in church and state, and the learned Dr. Richard Watson, late Bishop of Llandaff. Johnson’s Questiones Philosophicæ was the book then commonly resorted to in the university for subjects usually disputed of in the schools; and he fixed upon two questions, in addition to his mathematical one, which to his knowledge had never before been subjects of disputation. The one was against Capital Punishments; the other against the Eternity of Hell Torments. As soon, however, as it came to the knowledge of the heads of the university that Paley had proposed such questions to the moderators, knowing his abilities, though young, lest it should give rise to a controversial spirit, the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, was requested to interfere and put a stop to the proceeding, which he did, and Bishop Watson thus records the fact in his Autobiography:—“Paley had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act, Æternitas pænarum contradicit Divinis Attributis! The Eternity of Hell Torments contrary to the Divine Attributes. I had accepted it. A few days afterwards he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it, and told him that, if it would lessen his master’s apprehensions, he might put a ‘non’ before ‘contradicit;’ making the question, The Eternity of Hell Torments not contrary to the Divine Attributes: and he did so.” In the following month of January he was senior wrangler.

HE WAS NOT FOND OF CLASSICAL STUDIES,

And used to declare he could read no Latin author with pleasure but Virgil: yet when the members’ prize was awarded to him for a Latin prose essay, in 1765, which he had illustrated with English notes, he was, strange enough, though his disregard of the classics was well known, suspected of being the author of the Latin only. The reverse was probably nearer the truth. It is notorious that

HE WAS NOT SKILLED IN PROSODY;

And when, in 1795, he proceeded to D.D., after being made Sub-Dean of Lincoln, he, in the delivery of his Clerum, pronounced profŭgus profūgus, which gave some Cambridge wag occasion to fire at him the following epigram:—

He had

A SPICE OF CUTTING HUMOUR

In his composition, and some time after the Bishop of Durham so honourably and unsolicited presented him to the valuable living of Bishop Wearmouth, dining with his lordship in company with an aged divine, the latter observed in conversation, “that although he had been married about forty years, he had never had the slightest difference with his wife.” The prelate was pleased at so rare an instance of connubial felicity, and was about to compliment his guest thereon, when Paley, with an arch “Quid?” observed, “Don’t you think it must have been very flat, my Lord?”

A RULE OF HIS.

A writer, recording his on dits, in the New Monthly Magazine, says, in Paley’s own words, he made it a rule never to buy a book that he wanted to read but once. In more than one respect,

HE WAS UNLIKE DR. PARR.

The latter had a great admiration for the canonical dress of his order, and freely censured the practice of clergymen not generally appearing in it. When on a visit to his friend, the celebrated Mr. Roscoe, at that gentleman’s residence near Liverpool, Parr used to ride through the village in full costume, including his famous wig, to the no small amusement of the rustics, and chagrin of his companion, the present amiable and learned Thomas Roscoe, originator and editor of “The Landscape Annual,” &c. Paley wore a white wig, and a coat cut in the close court style: but could never be brought to patronise, at least in the country, that becoming part of the dress of a dignitary of the church, a cassock, which he used to call a black apron, such as the master tailors wear in Durham.

HE WAS NEVER A GOOD HORSEMAN.

“When I followed my father,” he says, “on a pony of my own, on my first journey to Cambridge, I fell off seven times. My father, on hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, ‘Take care of thy money, lad!’” This defect he never overcame: for when advanced in years, he acknowledged he was still so bad a horseman, “that if any man on horseback were to come near me when I am riding,” he would say, “I should certainly have a fall; company would take off my attention, and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse, the quietest creature that ever lived; one that, at Carlisle, used to be covered with children from the ears to the tail.”

HIS TWO OR THREE REASONS FOR EXCHANGING LIVINGS.

Meadly, his biographer, relates, that when asked why he had exchanged his living of Dalston for Stanwix? he frankly replied, “Sir, I have two or three reasons for taking Stanwix in exchange: first, it saved me double housekeeping, as Stanwix was within twenty minutes’ walk of my house in Carlisle; secondly, it was 50l. a-year more in value; and, thirdly, I began to find my stock of sermons coming over again too fast.” He was

A DISCIPLE OF IZAAK WALTON,

And carried his passion for angling so far, that when Romney took his portrait, he would be taken with a rod and line in his hand.

HIS WAY WHEN HE WANTED TO WRITE.

“When residing at Carlisle,” he says, “if I wanted to write any thing particularly well, I used to order a post-chaise, and go to a quiet comfortable inn, at Longtown, where I was safe from the trouble and bustle of a family, and there I remained until I had finished what I was about.” In this he was

A CONTRAST TO DR. GOLDSMITH,

Who, when he meditated his incomparable poem of the “Deserted Village,” went into the country, and took a lodging at a farm-house, where he remained several weeks in the enjoyment of rural ease and picturesque scenery, but could make no progress in his work. At last he came back to a lodging in Green-Arbour Court, opposite Newgate, and there, in a comparatively short time, in the heart of the metropolis, surrounded with all the antidotes to ease, he completed his task—quam nullum ultra verbum.

PALEY’S DIFFICULTIES A USEFUL LESSON TO YOUTH.

Soon after he became senior wrangler, having no immediate prospect of a fellowship, he became an assistant in a school at Greenwich, where, he says, I pleased myself with the imagination of the delightful task I was about to undertake, “teaching the young idea how to shoot.” As soon as I was seated, a little urchin came up to me and began,—“b-a-b, bab, b-l-e, ble, babble!” Nevertheless, at this time, the height of his ambition was to become the first assistant. During this period, he says, he restricted himself for some time to the mere necessaries of life, in order that he might be enabled to discharge a few debts, which he had incautiously contracted at Cambridge. “My difficulties,” he observes, “might afford a useful lesson to youth of good principles; for my privations produced a habit of economy which was of infinite service to me ever after.” At this time I wanted a waistcoat, and went into a second-hand clothes-shop. It so chanced that I bought the very same garment that Lord Clive wore when he made his triumphal entry into Calcutta.

IN HIS POVERTY HE WAS LIKE PARR.

The finances of the latter obliged him to leave Cambridge without a degree; after he had been assistant at Harrow, had a school at Stanmore, and been head master of the grammar school at Colchester, and had become head master of that of Norwich, they remained so low that once looking upon a small library, says Mr. Field, in his Life of the Doctor, “his eye was caught by the title, ‘Stephani Thesaurus Linguæ Græcæ,’ turning suddenly about, and striking violently the arm of the person whom he addressed, in a manner very unusual with him, ‘Ah! my friend, my friend,’ he exclaimed, ‘may you never be forced, as I was at Norwich, to sell that work—to me so precious—from absolute and urgent necessity!’” “At one time of my life,” he said, “I had but 14l. in the world. But then, I had good spirits, and owed no man sixpence!”

PORSON, TOO, WAS A CONTRAST TO PALEY.

The first, it is well known, vacated his fellowship, and left himself pennyless, rather than subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, from which there is no doubt he conscientiously dissented; and when asked to subscribe his belief in the notorious Shakspeare forgery of the Irelands, his reply was, “I subscribe to no articles of faith.” When Paley was solicited to sign his name to the supplication of the petitioning clergy, for relief from subscription, he has the credit of replying, he “could not afford to keep a conscience,” a saying that many have cherished to the prejudice of that great man’s memory, but which it is more than probable he said in his dry, humorous manner, without suspicion it would be remembered at all, and merely to rid himself of some importunate applicant. Paley, it is well known, notwithstanding the conclusions to which some interested writers have come, was strongly and conscientiously attached to the doctrines and constitution of the Established Church; and it was impossible but that, with his fine common-sense perception, he must have been well aware, that no Established Church, such as is that of England, could long exist as such, if not fenced round by articles of faith. And here I am reminded of an

ANECDOTE OF THE GREAT LORD BURLEIGH AND THE DISSENTERS OF HIS DAY.

He was once very much pressed by a body of Divines, says Collins, in his Life, to make some alteration in the Liturgy, upon which he desired them to go into the next room by themselves, and bring in their unanimous opinion on the disputed points. But they very soon returned without being able to agree. “Why, gentlemen,” said he, “how can you expect that I should alter my point in dispute, when you, who must be more competent to judge, from your situation, than I can possibly be, cannot agree among yourselves in what manner you would have me alter it.”

OTHER SAYINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN

Were, that he would “never truste anie man not of sounde religion; for he that is false to God, can never be true to man.”

Parents, he said, were to be blamed for “the unthrifty looseness of youth,” who made them men seven years too soon, and when they “had but children’s judgments.”

“Warre is the curse, and peace the blessinge of a countrie;” and “a realme,” he said, “gaineth more by one year’s peace, than by tenne years’ warre.”

“That nation,” he would observe, “was happye where the king would take counsell and follow it.” With such a sage minister, it is not surprising that Elizabeth was the greatest princess that ever lived, nor that she gave such wise laws to Cambridge, whose Chancellor he was.

PORSON’S PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE.

“When I was seventeen,” Porson once observed, “I thought I knew every thing; as soon as I was twenty-four, and had read Bentley, I found I knew nothing. Now I have challenged the great scholars of the age to find five faults to their one, in any work, ancient or modern, they decline it.” On another occasion, he described himself as

A GENTLEMAN WITHOUT SIXPENCE IN HIS POCKET.

Person declining to enter into holy orders, as the statute of his college required he should do, lost his fellowship at Trinity, after he had enjoyed it ten years; “on which heart-rending occasion,” says his friend and admirer, Dr. Kidd, “he used to observe, with his usual good humour (for nothing could depress him,) that he was a gentleman living in London without a sixpence in his pocket.” Two years afterwards his friends procured his election to the Regius Professorship of Greek, on the death of Professor Cooke, the sudden news of which event, he says, in a letter printed in Parriana, addressed to the then Master of Trinity, the learned Dr. Postlethwaite, all his ambition of that sort having been long ago laid asleep, “put me in mind of poor Jacob, who, having served seven years in hope of being rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it was Leah.” He had seven years previously projected a course of lectures in Greek, which most unaccountably were not patronised by the Senate.

GREEK PROTESTANTS AT OXFORD.

Mr. Pointer says, in his Oxoniensis Academia, &c., speaking of the curiosities connected with Worcester College, there were “Ruins of a Royal Palace, built by King Henry the First, in Beaumont, near Gloucester-green, upon some parts of which ruins, the late Dr. Woodroff (when principal of Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College) built lodgings for the education of young scholars from Greece, who, after they had been here educated in the reformed religion, were to be sent back to their own country, in order to propagate the same there. And accordingly some young Grecians were brought hither, and wore their Grecian habits; but not finding suitable encouragement, this project came to nothing.”

JUDGMENT OF ERASMUS ON THE CAMBRIDGE FOLK.

Fuller says, that Erasmus thus wrote of the Cambridge folk, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. “Vulgus Cantabrigiense, inhospitales Britannos antecedit, qui cum summa rusticitate summum militiam conjunxere.” This will by no means now apply to the better class of tradespeople, and in no place that I know of is there more hospitality amongst the higher orders of society. Kirk White, in his Letters, is not very complimentary either to

BEDMAKERS OR GYPS.

The latter are called scouts in Oxford, and their office borders on what is generally understood by the word valet. The term Gyp is well applied from Γυπς, a vulture, they being, in the broadest sense of the word, addicted to prey, and not over-scrupulous at both picking and stealing, in spite of the Decalogue. I had one evening had a wine party, during the warm season of the year; we drank freely, and two of the party taking possession of my bed, I contented myself with the sofa. About six in the morning the Gyp came into the room to collect boots, &c. and either not seeing me, or fancying I slept (the wine being left on the table,) he very coolly filled himself a glass, which he lost no time in raising to his lips, but ere he had swallowed a drop, having watched his motions, I whistled (significant of recognition,) and down went the wine, glass and all, and out bolted our gyp, who actually blushed the next time he saw me. Another anecdote touching lodging-house keepers, I will head

DROPS OF BRANDY.

A certain mistress of a lodging-house, in Green-street, Cambridge, where several students had rooms, having a propensity, not for the ethereal charms of the music so called, but for the invigorating liquor itself, had a habit, with the assistance of what is called a screw-driver, but which might more aptly be termed a screw-drawer, of opening cupboard doors without resorting to the ordinary use of a key. By this means she had one day abstracted a bottle of brandy from the store of one of the students (now a barrister of some practice and standing,) with which, the better to consume it in undisturbed dignity, she retired to the temple of the goddess Cloacina. She had been missed for some time, and search was made, when she was found half seas over, as they say, with the remnant of the bottle still grasped in her hand, which she had plied so often to her mouth, that she was unable to lift her hand so high, or indeed to rise from her seditious posture. Upon this scene a caricature of the first water was sketched, and circulated by some Cambridge wag; another threw off the following Epigrammatic Conun:

Another head of a lodging-house is a notorious member of what in Cambridge is called—

THE DIRTY-SHIRT CLUB.

This is a society that has existed in the town of Cambridge for ages, whose functions consist in wearing the linen of the students who lodge in their houses after it has been cast off for the laundress. This same individual, however, had a taste for higher game, and one of the students, who had rooms in his house, being called to London for a few days, returning rather unexpectedly, actually found mine host at the head of the table, in his sitting-room, surrounded by some twenty snobs, his friends. Our gownsman very properly resented his impertinence, took him by the collar and waist, and, in the language of that fine old song, goose-a-goose-a-gander, “threw him down stairs.” The rest of the party prudently followed at this hint, leaving the table covered with the remains of sundry bottles of wine and a rich dessert. Thus the affair terminated at that time: but our gownsman being a man of fortune, and one of those accustomed, therefore, to treat his brother students, his friends, sumptuously too, went two or three days after, to his fruiterer’s, to order

DESSERT FOR TWENTY.

“The same as you had on Wednesday?” inquired the fruiterer. “On Wednesday!” he exclaimed with astonishment,—“I had no dessert on Wednesday!” “Oh, yes, sir,” was the rejoinder, “Mr. —— himself ordered it for you, and, as I before said, for twenty!” The whole matter was soon understood to be, that the lodging-house keeper had actually done him the honour to give his brother snobs, of the dirty shirt fraternity, an invite and sumptuous entertainment at his expense! Of course, he did not remain in the house of such a free-and-easy-gent. I name the fact as a recent occurrence, and

A HINT FOR GOWNSMEN.

But this is not the only way in which they are fleeced: the minor articles of grocery are easily appropriated: nay, not only easily appropriated, but a duplicate order is occasionally delivered for the benefit of the house. Some tradesmen have made

MARVELLOUS STRIDES ON THE ROAD TO WEALTH,

From various causes. I remember one man who, in six years, beginning life at the very beginning, saved enough to retire upon an independence for the rest of his life. Did he chalk double? I answer not. But students should look to these things. At St. John’s College, Cambridge, the tutors have adopted an excellent plan by which, with ordinary diligence, cheats may be detected: they oblige the tradesmen to furnish them with duplicates of their bills against the students, one of which is handed to the latter, and any error pointed out, they will be forced to rectify.

ANOTHER SPECIES OF FRAUD

Is a trick tradesmen have, in the Universities, of persuading students to get into their debt, actually pressing their wares upon them, and then, when their books show sufficient reason, forsooth, they make a mock assignment of their affairs over to their creditors, and some pettifogging attorney addresses the unlucky debtors with an intimation, that, unless the account is forthwith paid, together with the expenses of the application, further proceedings will be taken! though the wily tradesman has assured the purchaser of his articles that credit would run to any length he pleased: and so it does, and no longer. Such fellows should be marked and cut! It is but justice to add, however, that these observations do not apply to that respectable class of tradesmen, of whom the student should purchase his necessaries. The motto of every student, notwithstanding, who is desirous of not injuring his future prospects in life, by too profuse an expenditure, should be “fugies Uticam,”—keep out of debt!

THE SOURCE OF DR. PARR’S ELOQUENCE.

Some of Dr. Parr’s hearers, struck with a remarkable passage in his sermon, asked him “Whether he had read it from his book?” “Oh, no,” said he, “it was the light of nature suddenly flashing upon me.” He once called a clergyman a fool. The divine, indignant, threatened to complain to the Bishop. “Do so,” was the reply, “and my Lord Bishop will confirm you.”

To the same wit, when a student at Emanuel College, is attributed the celebrated—

ADDRESS TO HIS TEA-CHEST,

“Tu doces,” (thou tea-chest!) Others give the paternity to Lord Erskine, when a Fellow Commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge; n’importe, they were friends.

AS A SPICE OF THEIR JOINT VANITY,

It is related of them, that one day, sipping their wine together, the Doctor exclaimed, “Should you give me an opportunity, Erskine, I promise myself the pleasure of writing your epitaph.” “Sir,” was the reply, “it’s a temptation to commit suicide.” On another occasion more than one authority concur in the Doctor’s thus

ASSURING HIMSELF A PLACE AMONGST THE GREEK SCHOLARS OF HIS DAY.

“Porson, sir, is the first, always the first; we all yield to him. Burney is the third. Who is the second, I leave you to guess.”

ANOTHER SPICE OF HIS VANITY

Peeped out on his one night being seated in the side gallery at the House of Commons, with the late Sir James Mackintosh, &c., where he could see and be seen by the members of the opposition, his friends. The debate was one of great importance. Fox at length rose, and as he proceeded in his address, the Doctor grew more and more animated, till at length he rose as if with the intention of speaking. He was reminded of the impropriety, and immediately sat down. After Fox had concluded, he exclaimed: “Had I followed any other profession, I might have been sitting by the side of that illustrious statesman; I should have had all his powers of argument,—all Erskine’s eloquence,—and all Hargrave’s law.” He had one day been arguing and disagreeing with a lady, who said, “Well, Dr. Parr,

I STILL MAINTAIN MY OPINION.”

“Madam,” he rejoined, “you may, if you please, retain your opinion: but you cannot maintain it.” Another lady once opposing his opinions with more pertinacity than cogency of reasoning, concluded with the observation, “You know, Doctor,

IT IS THE PRIVILEGE OF WOMEN TO TALK NONSENSE.”

“No, madam,” he replied, “it is not their privilege, but their infirmity. Ducks would walk, if they could, but nature suffers them only to waddle.”

After some persons, at a party where the Doctor made one, had expressed their regret that he had not written more, or something more worthy of his fame, a young scholar somewhat pertly called out to him, “Suppose, Dr. Parr, you and I were to write a book together!” “Young man,” exclaimed the chafed lion, “if all were to be written in that book which I do know, and which you do not know, it would be a very large book indeed.” The following are given by Field as his

REPROOFS OF IGNORANCE TALKING WITH THE CONFIDENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

He was once insisting on the importance of discipline, established by a wise system, and enforced with a steady hand, in schools, in colleges, in the navy, in the army; when he was somewhat suddenly and rudely taken up by a young officer who had just received his commission, and was not a little proud of his “blushing honours.” “What, sir,” said he, addressing the Doctor, “do you mean to apply that word discipline to the officers of the army? It may be well enough for the privates.” “Yes, sir, I do,” replied the Doctor, sternly: “It is discipline makes the scholar, it is discipline makes the soldier, it is discipline makes the gentleman, and the want of discipline has made you what you are.”

BEING MUCH ANNOYED

By the pert remarks of another tyro,—“Sir,” said he, “your tongue goes to work before your brain; and when your brain does work, it generates nothing but error and absurdity.” The maxim of men of experience, the Doctor might have added, is, “to think twice before they act once.” To a third person, of bold and forward but ill-supported pretensions, he said, “B——, you have read little, thought less, and know nothing.”

HE MATCHED A TRICK OF THE DEVIL.

Like the more celebrated scholars and divines, Clarke, Paley, Markland, &c., he would join an evening party at cards, always preferring the old English game of whist, and resolutely adhering to his early determination of never playing for more than a nominal stake. Being once, however, induced to break through it, and play with the late learned Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Watson, for a shilling, which he won, after pushing it carefully to the bottom of his pocket and placing his hand upon it, with a kind of mock solemnity, he said, “There, my lord Bishop, this is a trick of the devil; but I’ll match him; so now, if you please, we will play for a penny,” and this was ever after the amount of his stake, though he was not the less ardent in pursuit of success, or less joyous on winning his rubber. Like our great moralist, Johnson, he had an aversion to punning, saying, it exposed the poverty of a language. Yet he perpetrated the following

THREE CLASSICAL PUNS:

One day reaching a book from a shelf in his library, two others came tumbling down, including a volume of Hume, upon which fell a critical work of Lambert Bos: “See what has happened,” exclaimed the Doctor, “procumbit humi bos.” At another time, too strong a current of air being let into the room where he was sitting, suffering under the effects of a slight cold, “Stop! stop!” said he, “this is too much; at present I am only par levibus ventis.” When he was solicited to subscribe to Dr. Busby’s translation of Lucretius, published at a high price, he declined doing so, by observing, at the proposed cost it would indeed be “Lucretius carus.”

HIS LAW ACT AT CAMBRIDGE.

On proceeding to the degree of LL.D. at Cambridge, in 1781, Dr. Parr delivered “in the law schools, before crowded audiences,” says Field, “two theses, of which the subject of the first was, Hæres ex delicto defuncti non tenetur; and of the second, Jus interpretandi leges privatis, perinde ac principi, constat. In the former of these, after having offered a tribute of due respect to the memory of the late Hon. Charles Yorke (the Lord Chancellor,) he strenuously opposed the doctrine of that celebrated lawyer, laid down in his book upon ‘the law of forfeiture;’ and denied the authority of those passages which were quoted from the correspondence of Cicero and Brutus; because, as he affirmed, after that learned and sagacious (Cambridge) critic, Markland (in his Remarks on the Epistles of those two Romans,) the correspondence itself is not genuine. The same liberal and enlightened views of the natural and social rights of man pervaded the latter as well as the former thesis; and in both were displayed such strength of reasoning and power of language, such accurate knowledge of historical facts and such clear comprehension of legal principles bearing on the questions, that the whole audience listened with fixed and delighted attention. The Professor of Law himself, Dr. Hallifax, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was so struck with the uncommon excellence of these compositions, as to make it his particular request that they should be given to the public; but with which request Dr. Parr could not be persuaded to comply.

“THERE IS A PLEASANT STORY

Reported of the Doctor,” says Barker, in his Parriana, when on a visit to Dr. Farmer, at Emanuel Lodge. He had made free in discourse with some of the Fellow Commoners in the Combination-room, who, not being able to cope with him, resolved to take vengeance in their own way; they took his best wig, and thrust it into his boot: this indispensable appendage of dress was soon called for, but could nowhere be found, till the Doctor, preparing for his departure, and proceeding, to put on his boots, found one of them pre-occupied, and putting in his hand, drew forth the wig, with a loud shout—perhaps ευρηκα.” “When the late Dr. Watson,” adds the same writer, “presided in the divinity-schools, at

AN ACT KEPT BY DR. MILNER,

The reputation of whose great learning and ability caused the place to be filled with the senior and junior members of the University, one of the opponents was the late Dr. Coulthurst, and the debate was carried on with great vigour and spirit. When this opponent had gone through his arguments, the Professor rose, as usual, from his throne, and, taking off his cap, cried out—

We juniors, who happened to be present, were much pleased with the application. Soon after, being in the Doctor’s company, I mentioned how much we were entertained with the whole scene, particularly with the close: he smiled, and said, ‘It is Warburton’s,’ where I soon after found it.”

EPIGRAM

On a Cambridge beauty, daughter of an Alderman, made by the Rev. Hans De Veil, son of Sir Thomas de Veil, and a Cantab:—

NOVEL REVENGE.

Sir John Heathcote, a Cantab, and lessee of Lincoln church, being refused a renewal of the same on his own terms, by the Prebend, Dr. Cobden, of St. John’s College, Cambridge, upon accepting the Prebend’s terms, appointed his late Majesty, then Prince of Wales, to be one of the lives included in the lease, observing, “I will nominate one for whom the dog shall be obliged to pray in the daytime, wishing him dead at night.”

THEY TAKE THEM AS THEY COME.

A person might very well conclude, from the observations of the enemies of our English Universities, that the governors of them had the power of selecting the youth who are to graduate at them, or that, of necessity, all men bred at either Oxford or Cambridge ought to be alike distinguished for superior virtue and forbearance, great learning, and great talents. They forget, that they must take them as they come, like the boy in the anecdote. “So you are picking them out, my lad,” said a Cantab to a youth, scratching his head in the street. “No,” said the arch-rogue, “I takes ’em as they come.” Just so do the authorities at Oxford and Cambridge. I knew a son of Granta, and eke, too,

THE DARLING SON OF HIS MOTHER,

Whose mind, at twenty, was a chaos, and must from his birth have been, not as Locke would have supposed, a sheet of white paper, ready to receive impressions, but one smeared and useless. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not half so wise as was this scion in his mother’s opinion. She, therefore, brought him to Cambridge, and having introduced him to the amiable tutor of St. John’s College, smirkingly asked him, “If he thought her darling would be senior wrangler?” “I don’t know, madam,” was his reply, in his short quick manner of speaking, pulling up a certain portion of his dress, in the wearing of which he resembled Sir Charles Wetherell, “I don’t know, madam; that remains to be seen.” Poor fellow, he never could get a degree, nor (after having been removed from Cambridge to the Politechnique School at Paris, for a year or two) could he ever get over the Pons Asinorum (as we Cantabs term the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid.) Another

MISCALCULATING MAMMA,

And they are sure to miscalculate whenever they inter-meddle with such matters, declined entering her two sons at Cambridge in the same year, that, as she said, “They might not stand in each other’s way.” Id est, they were to be both senior wranglers. They, however, never caught sight of the goal. I recollect, on one occasion, the second son being floored in his college mathematical examination. He was said to have afterwards carried home the paper (containing twenty-two difficult geometrical and other problems,) when one of his sisters snatched it out of his hand, exclaiming, “Give it to me,” and, without the slightest hesitation (in good Cambridge phrase,) she “floored” the whole of them, to his dismay. This lady was one of a bevy of ten beauties whom their mamma compassionately brought to Cambridge to dance with the young gentlemen of the University at her parties, and after so officiating for some three or four years, notwithstanding they were all Blues, and had corresponding names, from Britannia to Boadicea, the Cantabs suffered them all to depart spinsters. But Papas also sometimes overrate their sons’ talents and virtues. A gentleman, a few years since, on

PRESENTING HIS FAVOURITE SON

To the sub-rector of a certain College in Oxford, as a new member, did so with the observation, “Sir, he is modest, diffident, and clever, and will be an example to the whole College.” “I am glad of it,” was the reply, we want such men, and I am honoured, sir, by your bringing him here.” Papa made his exit, well pleased with our Welshman’s hospitality, for of that country our Sub-Rector, as well as the gentleman in question was. The former, too, had been a chaplain in Lord Nelson’s fleet, in his younger days, and was not over orthodox in his language, when irritated, though a man with a better heart it would have puzzled the Grecian sage to have traced out by candle-light. A month had scarcely passed over, when Papa, having occasion to pass through Oxon, called on the Sub-Rector, of course, and naturally inquired, “How his son demeaned himself?” “You told me, sir,” said the Sub-Rector, in a pet, and a speech such as the quarter-deck of a man-of-war had schooled him in; “you told me, sir, that your son was modest, but d—n his modesty! you told me, sir, he was diffident, but d—n his diffidence! you told me, sir, he was clever; he’s the greatest dunce of the whole society! you told me, sir, he would prove an example to the whole college: but I tell you, sir, that he is neither modest, diffident nor clever, and in three weeks,” added the Sub-Rector, raising his voice to a becoming pitch, “he has ruined half the College by his example!” We can scarcely do better than add to this, by way of tail-piece, from that loyal Oxford scourge Terræ Filius (ed. 1726)—(to be read, “cum grano,” and some allowance for the excited character of the times in which it was written)—

ITER ACADEMICUM; OR, THE GENTLEMAN COMMONER’S MATRICULATION.

A STORY

Is told, and, “in the days that are gone,” is not at all improbable, that a youth being brought to Oxon, after he had paid the Tutor and other the several College and University fees, was told he must subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles; “with all my heart,” said our freshman, “pray how much is it?”

FRESHMEN OFTEN AFFORD MIRTH

To both tutors, scholars, scouts, gyps, and others, by their blunders. They will not unfrequently, upon the first tingle of the college bell (though it always rings a quarter of an hour, by way of warning, on ordinary occasions, and half an hour on saints’ days, in Cambridge,) hurry off to hall or chapel, with their gowns the wrong side outwards, or, their caps reversed, walk unconsciously along with the hind part before, as I once heard a soph observe, “the peak smelling thunder.” They are also very apt to mistake characters and functionaries:—I have seen a freshman cap the college-butler, taking him for bursar at least. The persons to be so complimented are the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Proctors, the head of your college, and your tutors. When the late Bishop Mansell was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, he one day met two freshmen in Trumpington-street, who passed him unheeded. The Bishop was not a man to ’bate an iota of his due, and stopped them and asked, “If they knew he was the Vice-Chancellor?” They blushingly replied, they did not, and begged his pardon for omitting to cap him, observing they were freshmen. “How long have you been in Cambridge?” asked the witty Bishop. “Only eight days,” was the reply. “In that case I must excuse you; puppies never see till they are nine days old.”

ANOTHER FRESHMAN

Was unconsciously walking beyond the University church, on a Sunday morning, which (at both Oxford and Cambridge) he would have been expected to attend, when he was met by the Master of St. John’s College, Dr. Wood, who, by way of a mild rebuke, stopped him and asked him, “If the way he was going led to St. Mary’s Church?” “Oh, no, sir,” said he, with most lamb-like innocence, “this is the way,” pointing in the opposite direction. “Keep straight on, you can’t miss it.” The Doctor, however, having fully explained himself, preferred taking him as a guide.

WE MUST DO SOMETHING FOR THE POOR LOST YOUNG MAN.

Lords Stowel and Eldon both studied at Trinity College, Oxford, with success, and, it is well known, there laid the foundation of that fame, which, from the humble rank of the sons of a Newcastle coal-fitter, raised them to the highest legal stations and the English peerage. The former first graduated, and was elected a Fellow and Tutor of All Soul’s College (where he had the late Lord Tenterden for a pupil) and became Camden Professor. The latter afterwards graduated with a success that would have ensured him a fellowship and other University distinctions, but visiting his native place soon after he took A.B. he fell in love with Miss Surtees (the present Lady Eldon) daughter of a then rich banker, in Newcastle, who returned his affection, and they became man and wife. Her family were indignant, and refused to be reconciled to the young pair, because the lady had, as the phrase ran, “married below her station.” Mr. Scott, the father, was as much offended at the step his son had taken, which at once shut him out from the chance of a fellowship, and refused them his countenance. In this dilemma the new married pair sought the friendship of Mr. William Scott (now Lord Stowell) at Oxford. His heart, cast in a softer mould, readily forgave them,—his amiable nature would not have permitted him to do otherwise. He received them with a brotherly affection, pitied rather than condemned them, and is said to have observed to some Oxford friends, “We must do something for the poor lost young man!” What a lesson is there not read to mankind in the result! A harsher course might have led to ruin—the milder one was the stepping-stone to the woolsack and a peerage.

LIKE O’ WHISSONSET CHURCH.

A Cantab visited some friends in the neighbourhood of Whissonset, near Fakenham, Norfolk, during the life of the late rector of that parish, who was then nearly ninety, and but little capable of attending to his duty, but having married a young wife, she would not allow him a curate, but every Sunday drove him from Fakenham to the church. In short he was hen-pecked. His clerk kept the village public-house, and was not over-attentive to his duties. Our Cantab accompanied his friends to church at the usual time, arriving at which they found doors close; neither “Vicar or Moses” had arrived, nor did they appear till half an hour after. Under these circumstances our Cantab threw off the following epigram:

CUSTOM, WHIM, FASHION, AND CAPRICE,

Have been pretty nearly as arbitrary in our universities as with the rest of the world. When John Goslin was Vice-Chancellor, he is said to have made it

A HEAVY FINE TO APPEAR IN BOOTS.

A student, however, undertook, for a small bet, to visit him in them, and, to appease his wrath, he desired the doctor’s advice for an hereditary numbness in his legs. So far was the Vice-Chancellor from expressing any anger, that he pitied him, and he won his wager. Another vice-chancellor is said to have issued his mandate for all members in statu pupillari, to appear in

YELLOW STOCKINGS.

The following singular order, as to dress and the excess thereof, was issued by the great statesman, Cecil, Lord Burleigh, as chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in the days of Elizabeth, which is preserved in the Liber Niger, or Black-book, extant in the Cambridge University Library. The paper is dated “from my house in Strand, this seventhe of May, 1588,” and runs thus:—1. “That no hat be worne of anie graduate or scholler within the said universitie (except it shall be when he shall journey owte of the towne, or excepte in the time of his sickness.) All graduates were to weare square caps of clothe; and schollers, not graduates, round cloth caps, saving that it may be lawful for the sonnes of noblemen, or the sonnes and heirs of knights, to weare round caps of velvet, but no hats.”

2. “All graduates shall weare abroade in the universitie going owte of his colledg, a gowne and a hoode of cloth, according to the order of his degree. Provided that it shall be lawful for everie D. D., and for the Mr. of anie coll. to weare a sarcenet tippet of velvet, according to the anciente customes of this realme, and of the saide universitie. The whiche gowne, tippet, and square caps, the saide Drs. and heads shall be likewise bound to weare, when they shall resorte eyther to the courte, or to the citie of London.”

3. “And that the excesse of shirt bands and ruffles, exceeding an ynche and halfe (saving the sonnes of noblemen,) the fashion and colour other than white, be avoided presentlie; and no scholler, or fellowe of the foundation of anie house of learninge, do weare eyther in the universitie or without, &c., anie hose, stockings, dublets, jackets, crates, or jerknees, or anie other kynde of garment, of velvet, satin, or silk, or in the facing of the same shall have above a 1/4 of a yard of silke, or shall use anie other light kynde of colour, or cuts, or gards, of fashion, the which shall be forbidden by the Chancellor,” &c.

4th. “And that no scholler doe weare anie long lockes of hair vppon his head, but that he be notted, pouled, or rounded, after the accustomed manner of the gravest schollers of the saide universitie.” The penalty for every offence against these several orders being six shillings and eightpence: the sum in which offenders are mulcted in the present day.

THE FASHION OF THE HAIR

Has been not less varied, or less subject to animadversion, than the dress of the members of the universities. The fashion of wearing long hair, so peculiar in the reign of Charles II., was called the Apollo. His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the present Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, “was an Apollo” during the whole of his residence at Trinity College, says the Gradus ad Cant. Indeed his royal highness, who was noted for his personal beauty at that time, was “the last in Cambridge who wore his hair after that fashion.” “I can remember,” says the pious Archbishop Tillotson, as cited by the above writer, discoursing on this head, viz. of hair! “since the wearing the hair below the ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude; and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find, or make, occasion to reprove the great sin of long hair: and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly at him with great zeal.” And we can remember, since wearing the hair cropt, i. e. above the ears, was looked upon, though not as “a sin,” yet, as a very vulgar and RAFFISH sort of a thing; and when the doers of newspapers exhausted all their wit in endeavouring to rally the new-raised corps of CROPS, regardless of the late noble Duke (of Bedford) who headed them; and, when the rude rank-scented rabble, if they saw any one in the streets, whether time or the tonsor had thinned his flowing hair, they would point him out particularly and “let fly at him,” as the archbishop says, till not a shaft of ridicule remained! The tax upon hair-powder has now, however, produced all over the country very plentiful CROPS. Charles II., who, as his worthy friend the Earl of Rochester, remarked,

sent a letter to the University of Cambridge, forbidding the members to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, and read their sermons!! It is needless to remark, that TOBACCO has not yet made its EXIT IN FUMO, and that periwigs still continue to adorn “THE HEADS OF HOUSES.” Till the present all-prevailing, all-accommodating fashion of CROPS became general in the university, no young man presumed to dine in hall till he had previously received a handsome trimming from the hair-dresser (one of which calling was a special appointment to each college.) The following inimitable imitation of “The Bard” of Gray, is ascribed to the pen of the late Lord Erskine, when a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge. Having been disappointed of the attendance of his college-barber, he was compelled to forego his commons in hall. But determining to have his revenge, and give his hair-dresser a good DRESSING, he sat down and penned the following “Fragment of a Pindaric Ode,” wherein, “in imitation of the despairing Bard of Gray, who prophesied the destruction of King Edward’s race, he poured forth his curses upon the whole race of barbers, predicting their ruin in the simplicity of a future generation.”

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

Whilst we are discussing the subject of hair, we ought not to forget that, according to Lyson’s Environs of London,

THE FIRST PRELATE THAT WORE A WIG

was Archbishop Tillotson. In the great dining-room of Lambeth Palace, he says, there are portraits of all the Archbishops, from Laud to the present time, in which may be observed the gradual change of the clerical habit, in the article of wigs. Archbishop Tillotson was the first prelate that wore a wig, which then was not unlike the natural hair, and worn without powder. In 1633, 21 James 1st,

THE OXFORD SCHOLARS WERE PROHIBITED FROM WEARING BOOTS AND SPURS.

“Care was taken,” says Wood, “that formalities in public assemblies should be used, which, through negligence, were now, and sometime before, left off. That the wearing of boots and spurs also be prohibited, ‘a fashion’ (as our Chancellor saith in his letters) rather befitting the liberties of the Inns of Court than the strictness of an academical life, which fashion is not only usurped by the younger sort, but by the Masters of Arts, who preposterously assume that part of the Doctor’s formalities which adviseth them to ryde ad prædicandum Evangelium, but in these days implying nothing else but animum deserendi studium.” It was therefore ordered, “that no person that wears a gown wear boots; if a graduate, he was to forfeit 2s. 6d. for the first time of wearing them, after order was given to the contrary; for the second time 5s., and so toties quoties. And if an

UNDERGRADUATE, WHIPPING,

Or other punishment, according to the will of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, for every time he wore them.” And in 1608, when

ARCHBISHOP BANCROFT

Became Chancellor of Oxford, he decreed amongst other things, “that indecency of attire be left off, and academical habits be used in public assemblies, being now more remissly looked to than in former times. Also, that no occasion of offence be given, long hair was not to be worn; for whereas in the reign of Queen Elizabeth few or none wore their hair longer than their ears (for they that did so were accounted by the graver and elder sort swaggerers and ruffians,) now it was common even among scholars, who were to be examples of modesty, gravity, and decency.”

WAKEFIELD’S EPIGRAM ON THE FLYING BARBER OF CAMBRIDGE,

Which his college friend, Dyer, has given in his Supplement, under the head “Seria Ludo,” with the happy, original motto—

The subject of the epigram, he says (the original of which Mr. W. sent to a friend,) “was Mr. Foster, formerly of Cambridge, who, on account of his rapidity in conversation, in walking, and more particularly in the exercise of his profession, was called (by the Cantabs) the Flying Barber. He was a great oddity, and gave birth to many a piece of fun in the university:—

THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ.

The men of St. John’s College, Cambridge, like every other society in both Oxford and Cambridge, have their soubriquet. From what cause they obtained that of “Johnian Hogs” is yet scarcely settled, though much has been written thereon, extant in The Gradus ad Cant., Facetiæ Cant., and The Cambridge Tart. It proved of some service, however, to a wag of the society (and to them the merit of punning was conceded in the Spectator’s time,) in giving him an idea for a name for the elegant one-arched covered bridge which joins the superb Gothic court they have lately added to the fine old college, after the designs of Messrs. Hutchinson and Rickman of Birmingham. The question was discussed at a wine party, and one proposed calling it the “Bridge of Sighs,” as it led to most of the tutors’ and deans’ rooms, from whom issued all impositions (punishments,) &c. “I have it!” exclaimed a wag, his eyes beaming brighter than his sparkling glass—“I have it! Call it the Isthmus of Suez!” Id est The Hog’s Isthmus, from the Latin word sus, a sow, which makes suis in the genitive case, and proves our Johnian to be a punster worthy of his school.

YOU ARE TO PRAY AND FIGHT, NOT TO DRINK FOR THE CHURCH.

Mr. Jones, of Welwyn, relates, on the authority of Old Mr. Bunburry, of Brazen-nose College, that Bishop Kennett, when a young man, being one of the Oxford Pro-Proctors, and a very active one, about James the Second’s reign, going his rounds one evening, found a company of gownsmen engaged on a drinking bout, to whom his then high church principles were notorious (though he afterwards changed them, sided with Bishop Hoadley, and obtained the soubriquet of weather-cock Kennett.) When he entered the room, he reprimanded them for keeping such late hours, especially over the bottle, rather than over their studies in their respective colleges, and ordered them to disperse. One in the company, who knew his political turn, addressed him with, “Mr. Proctor, you will, I am sure, excuse us when I say, we were met to drink prosperity to the church, to which you can have no objection.” “Sir,” was his answer, with a solemn air, “we are to pray for the church, and to fight for the church, not to drink for the church.” Upon which the company paid their reckoning and dispersed. There is a curious print in the Library of the Antiquarians, of an altar-piece, which the rector of Whitechapel, Dr. Walton, caused to be painted and put up in his church, representing Christ and his twelve apostles eating the passover, wherein Bishop Kennett (the “Traitor Dean,” as his siding with Hoadley caused him to be designated) is painted as Judas.

SIGNS OF A GOOD APPETITE.

When a late master of Richmond School, Yorkshire, came, a raw lad in his teens, to matriculate at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was invited to dinner by his tutor, and happened to be seated opposite some boiled fowls, which, having just emptied a plate of his quantum of fish, he was requested to carve. He accordingly took one on his plate, but not being a carver, he leisurely ate the whole of it, minus the bones, not at all disconcerted by the smiles of the other guests: and when the cheese appeared, and his host cut a plateful for him to pass round the table, he coolly set to and eat the whole himself. He, notwithstanding, proved a good scholar, and distinguished himself both in classics and mathematics, is now a canon residentiary of St. Paul’s, and a very worthy divine, who has earned his reputation, preferments, and dignities by his merits only.

A COLLEGE QUIZ.

The following effusion of humour was the production of a very pleasant fellow, an Oxford scholar, now no more, who, says Angelo, in his Reminiscences, “was a great favourite among his brother collegians,” and a humourist:—“Lost £10 this morning, May 15, 1808, in Peckwater Quadrangle, near No. 6. Any nobleman, gentleman, common student, or commoner, who will, as soon as possible, bring the same back to the afflicted loser, shall, with pleasure, receive ten guineas reward; a suitor shall receive five guineas; and a scout or porter, one guinea. The notes were all Bank of England notes, I only received this morning from my father. My name is ——, and I lodge at ——, facing Tom Gate, where I am anxiously waiting for some kind friend to bring them to me.—Vivant Rex et Regina.”

SUCKING THE MILK OF BOTH UNIVERSITIES

Is an epithet applied to those members who, after graduating at one proceeds to a like degree at the other. A party one day disputing as to whether Oxford or Cambridge was the more distinguished seat of learning,—“It can’t affect me,” exclaimed one of them, “for I was educated at both.” Upon which a wag observed, “He reminded him of a calf that was suckled by two cows.” “How so?” said the other. “Why, it turned out the greatest calf I ever knew,” was the retort.

Amongst the musical professors of Cambridge, and not the least, who was organist of King’s College also, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, was Dr. Thomas Tudway. He was a notorious wag, and when several of the members of the University of Cambridge expressed their discontent at the paucity of the patronage, and the rigour of the government of the “proud Duke of Somerset,” whose statue graces their senate house, he facetiously observed—

“The Chancellor rides us all without a bit in our mouths.”

LIKE RABELAIS,

In him the passion for punning was strong in death, though less profane. When he laid dangerously ill of the quinsy (of which he soon after died,) his physician, seeing some hope, turned from his patient to Mrs. Tudway, who was weeping in despair at his danger, and observed, “Courage, madam! the Dr. will get up May-hill yet, he has swallowed some nourishment.” Upon which Dr. Tudway said, as well as his disease would permit him to articulate, “Don’t mind him, my dear: one swallow don’t make a summer.”

AMBASSADORS OF KING JESUS AT OXFORD.

The Rev. Charles Godwyn, B. D., Fellow of Baliol College, grandson to Dr. Francis G., Bishop of Hereford, in a letter, dated March 14, 1768, printed in Nichols’s Anecdotes, says, “a very sad affair has happened” at Oxford. “The principal of Edmund Hall (Dr. George Dixon) has been indiscreet enough to admit into his hall, by the recommendation of Lady Huntingdon, seven London tradesmen, one a tapster, another a barber, &c. They have little or no learning, but all of them have a high opinion of themselves, as being ambassadors of King Jesus. One of them, upon that title conferred by himself, has been a preacher. Complaint was made to the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. David Durell (principal of Hertford College,) I believe, by the Bishop of Oxford; and he, in his own right, as Vice-Chancellor, had last week a visitation of the hall. Some of the preaching tradesmen were found so void of learning, that they were expelled from the hall.”

A SURPRISING EFFORT OF INTELLECT.

Robert Austin, a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, was amanuensis to the famous Arabic professor, Wheelock, who employed him in correcting the press of his Persic Gospels, the first of the kind ever printed, with a Latin translation and notes. Of this surprising young man, he says, “in the space of two months, not knowing a letter in Arabic or Persic at the beginning, he sent a letter to me in Norfolk, of peculiar passages, so that of his age I never met with the like; and his indefatigable patience, and honesty, or ingenuity, exceed, if possible, his capacity.” But his immoderate application brought on a derangement of mind, and he died early in 1654.