Part 15

Old Doctor Delve, a scribbling quiz, Afraid of critics' jibes, By turns assumes the various phiz Of three old classic scribes.

Though now with high erected head, And lordly strut he'll go by us, He once made lawyers' robes, 'tis said, And called himself _Mac-robius_.

Last night I asked the man to sup, Who showed a second alias; He gobbled _all my jellies up_, O greedy _Aulus Gellius_.

On Sunday, arrogant and proud, He purrs like any tom-puss, And reads the Word of _God so loud_, He must be _Theo-pompus_.

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MY BEEF BURNT TO A CINDER.

The family of the Spintexts have, it appears, very lately put forth a _scion_, in the person of a learned divine, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who, being appointed a _Select Preacher_ in 1835, delivered a discourse of the extraordinary duration of an _hour and a half_! The present Father of the University and Master of Peter-house, Dr. Francis Barnes, upwards of ninety years of age, was one of the heads present. He sat out the first three quarters of an hour, but then began to be _fidgetty_. Another quarter of an hour expired,--the preacher was still in the _midst_ of his discourse. The Doctor (now become right down impatient,) being seated the lowest (next to the Vice-Chancellor) in _Golgotha_, or the "Place of Skulls," as it is called, he moved, first one seat higher (the preacher is still on his legs,) then to a third, then to a fourth, then to a fifth; and before the hour and a half had quite expired, he joined one of the junior esquire bedells at the top, to whom he observed, with that original expression of face for which he is so remarkable, "my beef is burnt to a cinder."

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SHORT HAND WRITING WAS INVENTED BY A CANTAB,

According to the first volume of the Librarian, published by Mr. Savage, of the London Institution; who says, that the first work printed on the subject was by Dr. Timothy Bright, of Cambridge, in 1598, who dedicated it to Queen Elizabeth, under the title of "An art of short, swift, and secret writing, by Character."

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THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE LADIES.

Before the erection of the Senate-House in the University of Cambridge, the annual grand Commencement was held in St. Mary's, the University church. "It seems," says Dyer, in his History of Cambridge, "that on these occasions (the time when gentlemen take their degrees") that is, the degree of M.A. more particularly, "ladies had been allowed to sit in that part of the church assigned to the doctors, called THE THRONE: it was, however, at length agreed amongst them (the doctors) that ladies should be no longer permitted to sit there; and the place assigned to them was under the throne, in the church." This invasion of what the fair almost looked upon as the abstraction of a right, led to a partial war of words and inuendos, and the matter was at last taken up by the facetious Roger Long, D.D., Master of Pembroke College, who, he adds, in his Supplement to his History, was celebrated for his Treatise on Astronomy, and for his erection of a sphere in his College eighteen feet in diameter, still shown there. On this humorous occasion, he was a dissentient against the Heads, not a little bustle was excited amongst the Cambridge ladies, a subject for a few jokes was afforded the wags of the University, and he produced his famous music-speech, spoken at the public Commencement of 1714, on the 6th of July, which was afterwards published, but is now very scarce. It was delivered in an assumed character, as "being the PETITION OF THE LADIES OF CAMBRIDGE," and is full of whim and humour, in Swift's best manner, beginning--

"The humble petition of the ladies, who are all ready to be eaten up with the spleen, To think they are to be cooped up in the Chancel, where they can neither see nor be seen, But must sit in the dumps by themselves, all stew'd and pent up, And can only peep through the lattice, like so many chickens in a coop; Whereas last Commencement the ladies had a gallery provided near enough, To see the heads sleep, and the fellow-commoners take snuff."

"How he could have delivered it in so sacred a place as St. Mary's," says Dyer, "is matter of surprise (though they say, good fun, like good coin, is current any where.") It is pleasant to see a grave man descend from his heights, as Pope says, "to guard the fair." Though nobody could probably be much offended at the time, unless the Vice-Chancellor, whom, if we understand the writer's meaning, he calls _an old woman_, when he says--

"Such cross ill-natured doings as these are, even a saint would vex, To see a Vice-Chancellor so barbarous to one of his own sex."

But the Doctor had

A NATURAL TURN FOR HUMOUR,

As is further illustrated by the celebrated Mr. Jones, of Welwyn, who calls him "a very ingenious person." "At the public Commencement of 1713," he says, "Dr. Greene (Master of Bene't College, and afterwards Bishop of Ely) being then Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Long was pitched upon for the tripos performance: it was witty and humorous, and has passed through divers editions. Some who remembered the delivery of it, told me, that in addressing the Vice-Chancellor (whom the University wags usually styled _Miss Greene_,) the tripos-orator, being a native of Norfolk, and assuming the Norfolk dialect, instead of saying DominE Vice-CancellariE, did very audibly pronounce the words thus,--DominA Vice-CancellariA; which occasioned a general smile in that great auditory." I could recollect several other

INGENIOUS REPARTEES

Of his, if there were occasion, adds Mr. Jones: but his friend, Mr. Bonfoy, of Ripon, told me this little incident:--that he, and Dr. Long walking together in Cambridge, in a dusky evening, and coming to a short _post_ fixed in the pavement, which Mr. B., in the midst of chat and inattention, took to be a boy standing in his way, he said in a hurry, "Get out of my way, boy." "That boy, sir," said the Doctor, very calmly and slily, "is a _post boy, who turns off his way for nobody_."

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CELEBRATED ALL OVER GERMANY.

George the Second is said, like his father, to have had a strong predilection for his continental dominions, of which his ministers did not fail, occasionally, to take advantage. A residentiary of St. Paul's cathedral happening to fall vacant, Lord Granville was anxious to secure it for the learned translator of Demosthenes, Dr. John Taylor, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. The King started some scruples at first, but his Lordship carried his point easily, on assuring his Majesty, which was the fact, that "the Doctor's learning was _celebrated all over Germany_."

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REBUSES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

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BECKINGTON.

The learned prelate, at whose expense the rector's lodgings were built at Lincoln College, Oxford, is commemorated by his rebus, a _beacon_ and a _tun_, which may still be traced on the walls.

ALCOCK,

Founder of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Ely, either _rebused_ himself, or was _rebused_ by others, in almost every conspicuous part of his College, by a _cock perched upon a globe_. On one window is a cock with a label from its mouth, bearing the inscription, [Greek: Egô eimi alektôr]: to which another opposite bravely crows, says Cole, [Greek: Ontôs kai egô]:

"I am a cock!" the one doth cry: And t'other answers--"So am I."

There is a plate of him at the head of his celebrated Sermon, printed by Pynson, in 1498, with a cock at each side, and another on the first page. The subject of the discourse is the crowing of the cock when Peter denied Christ.

EGLESFIELD,

The celebrated founder of Queen's College, Oxford, who was a native of Cumberland, and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, gave the College, for its arms, three spread eagles; but a singular custom, according to a _rebus_, has been founded upon the fanciful derivation of his name, from _aiguille_, needle, and _fil_, thread; and it became a commemorative mark of respect, continued to this day, for each member of the College to receive from the Bursar, on New Year's Day, a needle and thread, with the advice, "_Take this and be thrifty_." "These conceits were not unusual at the time the College was founded," says Chalmers, in his History of Oxford, "and are sometimes thought trifling, merely because we cannot trace their original use and signification. Hollingshed informs us, that when the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry the Fifth, who was educated at this College, went to Court in order to clear himself from certain charges of disaffection, he wore a gown of blue satin, full of oilet holes, and at every hole a needle hanging by a silk thread. This is supposed to prove at least, that he was an academician of Queen's, and it may be conjectured that this was the original academical dress." The same writer says, the Founder ordered that the Society should "be called to their meals by the sound of the trumpet (a practice which still prevails, as does a similar one at the Middle Temple, London,) and the Fellows being placed on one side of the table in robes of scarlet (those of the Doctor's faced with black fur,) were to oppose in philosophy the poor scholars, who, in token of submission and humility, kept on the other side. As late as the last century the Fellows and Taberders used sometimes to dispute on Sundays and holidays.

ASHTON.

In an arched recess of the ante-chapel of St. John's College, Cambridge, is the tomb of the celebrated Dr. Hugh Ashton, who took part with the famous Bishop Fisher (beheaded by Henry the Eighth) in the erection of the buildings of that learned foundation, and was the second Master of the Society. His tomb, as Fuller observes, exhibits "the marble effigy of his body when living, and the humiliating contrast of his skeleton when dead, with the usual conceit of the times, the figure of an _ash tree_ growing out of a _tun_."

LAKE LEMAN.

Dyer records of the learned contemporary and antiquarian coadjutor of the late Bishop of Cloyne, the Rev. Mr. _Leman_, a descendant of the famous Sir Robert Naunton, Public Orator at Cambridge, and a Secretary of State, that "his drawing-room was painted _en fresco_ with the scenery around _Lake Leman_."

SOMETHING IN YOUR WAY.

The same relates of himself, that, one day looking at some caricatures at a window in Fleet-street, Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot,) whom he knew, came up to him. "There, sir," said Mr. Dyer to the Doctor, pointing to the _caricatures_, "is something in _your_ way." "And there is something in _your_ way," rejoined the Doctor, pointing to some of the ladies of the _pave_ who happened to be passing. Peter was sure to pay in full.

DUNS

Have ever been a grievous source of disquietude to both Oxonians and Cantabs. Tom Randolph, the favourite son of Ben Johnson, made them the subject of his muse. But in no instance, perhaps, have the race been so completely put to the blush, "couleur de rose," as by the following

ODE ON THE PLEASURE OF BEING OUT OF DEBT.

HORACE, ODE XXII. BOOK I. IMITATED.

_Integer vitæ scelerisque purus, &c._

I.

The man who not a farthing owes, Looks down with scornful eye on those Who rise by fraud and cunning; Though in the _Pig-market_ he stand, With aspect grave and clear-starched band, He fears no tradesman's dunning.

II.

He passes by each shop in town, Nor hides his face beneath his gown, No dread his heart invading; He quaffs the nectar of the _Tuns_, Or on a spur-gall'd hackney runs To London masquerading.

III.

What joy attends a new-paid debt! Our _Manciple_[9] I lately met, Of visage wise and prudent; I on the nail my _battels_ paid, The master turn'd away dismay'd, Hear this each OXFORD student!

IV.

With justice and with truth to trace The grisly features of his face, Exceeds all man's recounting; Suffice, he look'd as grim and sour As any lion in the Tower, Or half starved cat-a-mountain.

V.

A phiz so grim you scarce can meet, In Bedlam, Newgate, or the Fleet, Dry nurse of faces horrid! Not BUCKHORSE fierce, with many a bruise, Displays such complicated hues On his undaunted forehead.

VI.

Place me on Scotland's bleakest hill, Provided I can pay my bill, Stay ev'ry thought of sorrow; There falling sleet, or frost, or rain, Attack a soul resolved, in vain-- It may be fair to-morrow.

VII.

To _Haddington_ then let me stray, And take _Joe Pullen's tree_ away, I'll ne'er complain of Phoebus; But while he scorches up the grass, I'll fill a bumper to my lass, And toast her in a rebus.

[9] Churton says, in his Lives of the Founders of Brazenose College, Oxford, that "Manciples, the purveyors general of Colleges and Halls, were formerly men of so much consequence, that, to check their ambition, it was ordered by an express statute, that no Manciple should be Principal of a Hall."

QUEERING A DUN.

A Cambridge wag who was skilled in the science of electricity, as well as in the art of _ticking_, having got in pretty deep with his tailor, who was continually _dunning_ him for payment, resolved to give snip "_a settler_," as he said, the next time he mounted his stairs. He accordingly _charged_ his electrifying machine much deeper than usual, and knowing pretty well the time of snip's approach, watched his coming to the foot of the stairs where he _kept_, and ere he could reach the door, fixed the _conductor_ to the _brass handle_. The tailor having long in vain sought occasion to catch him with his _outer_ door not _sported_, was so delighted at finding it so, that, resolving not to lose time, he seized the handle of the _inner_ door, so temptingly exposed to view, determining to introduce himself to his creditor _sans ceremonie_. No sooner, however, did his fingers come in contact with it than the _shock_ followed, so violent, that it stunned him for an instant: but recovering himself, he bolted as though followed, as the poet says, by "ten thousand devils," never again to return.

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GRAY THE POET A CONTRAST TO BISHOP WARBURTON.

Gray's letters, and Bishop Warburton's polemical writings, show, that in more respects than one they were gifted with a like temperament: but in the following instances they form a contrast to each other. In the library of the British Museum is an interesting letter occasioned by the death of the Rev. N. Nicholls, LL.B., Rector of Loud and Bradwell, in Suffolk, from the pen of the now generally acknowledged author of "The Pursuits of Literature," J. T. Mathias, M.A., in which he says, that shortly after that elegant scholar, and lamented divine, became a student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at the age of eighteen, a friend introduced him to Gray, the poet, at that time redolent with fame, and resident in Peter-House, to speak to whom was honourable; but to be admitted to his acquaintance, or to his familiarity, was the height of youthful, or indeed of any ambition. Shortly after this, Mr. N. was in a company of which Mr. Gray was one; and, as it became his youth, he did not enter into conversation, but listened with attention. The subject, however, being general and classical, and as Mr. Nicholls, even at that early period, was acquainted not only with the Greek and Latin, but with many of the best Italian poets, he ventured, with great diffidence, to offer a short remark, and happened to illustrate what he had said by an apposite quotation from Dante. At the name of Dante, Mr. Gray suddenly turned round to him and said, "Right: but have you read Dante, sir?" "I have endeavoured to understand him," replied Mr. N. Mr. Gray being much pleased with the illustration, and with the taste which it evinced, addressed the chief of his discourse to him for the remainder of the evening, and invited him to his rooms in Pembroke Hall; and finding him ready and docile, he became attached to him and gave him instruction in the course of his studies, to which, adds Mr. Mathias, "I attribute the extent and value of his knowledge, and the peculiar accuracy and correct taste which distinguished him throughout life, and which I have seldom observed in any man in a more eminent degree." And I wish every young man of genius might hear and consider, observes Mr. M., commenting upon an incident so honourable to all parties, "the

VALUE OF A WORD SPOKE IN DUE SEASON,

With modesty and propriety, in the highest, I mean the most learned and virtuous company." What a different spirit was evinced, in the following incident, by that great polemical writer, Bishop Warburton: but it happily originated

THE CANONS OF CRITICISM,

Which were the production of Thomas Edwards, an Etonian and King's College man, where he graduated M.A. in 1734, but missing a fellowship, turned soldier. After he had been some time in the army, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1779, it so happened that, being at Bath, after Mr. Warburton's marriage to Mr. Allen's niece, he was introduced at Prior Park, _en famille_. The conversation not unfrequently turning on literary subjects, Mr. Warburton generally took the opportunity of showing his superiority in Greek, not having the least idea that an officer of the army understood anything of that language, or that Mr. Edwards had been bred at Eton; till one day, being accidentally in the library, Mr. Edwards took down a Greek author, and explained a passage in it in a manner that Mr. Warburton did not approve. This occasioned no small contest; and Mr. Edwards (who had now discovered to Mr. Warburton how he came by his knowledge) endeavoured to convince him, that he did not understand the original language, but that his knowledge arose from French translations. Mr. Warburton was highly irritated; an incurable breach took place; and this trifling altercation (after Mr. Edwards had quitted the army and was entered of Lincoln's Inn) produced _The Canons of Criticism_.

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BISHOP BARRINGTON'S SPLENDID GIFT, AND OTHER TRAITS OF HIM.

That munificent prelate and Oxonian, Dr. Shute Barrington, sixth son of the first Viscount, and the late Bishop of Durham, a prelate, indeed, whose charities were unbounded, was so conscientious in the discharge of his functions, that he personally examined all candidates for Holy Orders, and, however strongly they might be recommended, rejected all that appeared unworthy of the sacred trust. On one occasion, a relative, relying for advancement upon his patronage, having intimated a desire to enter the Church, the Bishop inquired with what preferment he would be contented. "Five hundred pounds a year will satisfy all my wants," was the reply. "You shall have it," answered the conscientious prelate: "not out of the patrimony of the Church, but out of my private fortune." The same Bishop gave the entire of 60,000_l._ at once, for founding schools, unexpectedly recovered in a lawsuit; and amongst other persons of talent, preferred Paley to the valuable living of Bishop Wearmouth, unsolicited and totally unknown to him, save through his valuable writings.

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AN ADMIRABLE PULPIT ADMONITION

Is recorded of the celebrated Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Rev. James Scott, M.A., better known as Anti-Sejanus, who acquired extraordinary eminence as a pulpit orator, both in and out of the University. He frequently preached at St. Mary's, where crowds of the University attended him. On one occasion he offended the Undergraduates, by the delivery of a severe philippic against gaming; which they deeming a work of supererogation, evinced their displeasure by _scraping_ the floor with their feet (an old custom now scarcely resorted to twice in a century.) He, however, severely censured them for this act of indecorum, shortly afterwards, in another discourse, for which he selected the appropriate text, "_Keep thy feet when thou goest to the House of God_."

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THE SIMPLICITY OF GREAT MINDS.

It is not surprising that our distinguished philosophers and mathematicians have rarely evinced much knowledge of men and manners, or of the ordinary circumstances of life, since they are so much occupied in telling "the number of the stars," in tracing the wonders of creation, or in balancing the mental and physical powers of man. Our illustrious Cantab, Bacon, says his biographer, was cheated by his servants at the bottom, whilst he sat in abstraction at the top of his table; and he of whom Dr. Johnson said (the great and good NEWTON,) that had he lived in the days of ancient Greece, he would have been worshipped as a deity; of whom, too, the poet wrote--

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, 'Let NEWTON be,' and all was light,"

Caused a smaller hole to be perforated in his room door, when his favourite cat had a kitten, not remembering that it would follow puss through the larger one. Another more modern and less distinguished but not less amiable Cantab, who was _Senior Wrangler_ in his year, one day inquired--

"OF WHAT COUNTRY MARINES WERE?"

Another distinguished _Senior Wrangler_, Professor and divine, occasionally amuses his friends by rehearsing the fact, that once, having, to preach in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, he hired a blind horse to ride the distance on, and his path laying cross a common, where the road was but indistinctly marked, he became so absorbed in abstract calculations, that, forgetting to guide his steed aright, he and the horse wandered so far awry, that they tumbled "head over heels," as the folks say, upon a cow slumbering by the way side. _On dit_, the same Cantab was one morning caught over his breakfast-fire with an egg in his hand, to minute the time by, and his--

WATCH DOING TO A TURN IN THE SAUCEPAN.

When he went in for A.B. his natural _diffidence_ prevented his doing much in the first four days of the Senate House examination, and he was consequently _bracketted low_: but rallying his confidence, he challenged all the men of his years, and was _Senior Wrangler_. This incident caused him to be received with rapturous applause, upon his being presented to the Vice-Chancellor for his degree, on the following Saturday. A few days after he is said to have been in London, and entered one of the larger theatres at the same instant with ROYALTY itself:--the audience rose with one accord, and thunders of applause followed! "_This is too much_," said our Cantab to his friend, modestly hiding his face in his hat, having, in the _simplicity_ of his heart, taken the _huzzas and claps_ to be an _improved_ edition of the Senate House. Another Cantab, who was also a Senior Wrangler, and guilty of many singularities, as well as some follies, one who has _unjustly_ heaped reproach on the head of his _Alma Mater_ (see his "Progress of a Senior Wrangler at Cambridge," in the numbers of the defunct London Magazine,) had the following quaternion posted on his room door in Trinity:--

"King Solomon in days of old, The wisest man was reckon'd: I fear as much cannot be told Of Solomon the Second."

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A HOST OF SINGULARITIES