Part 2

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

* * * * *

A CUTTING RETORT

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

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

* * * * *

LIBERTY A PLANT.

"Qui teneros CAULES alieni fregerit horti."--_Hor._

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

A TAILOR BEING TAKEN BY SURPRISE,

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

* * * * *

REASONS FOR NOT PUBLISHING.

The famous antiquary, Thomas Baker, B.D. of St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he was long _Socius Ejectus_, lays it down as a principle, in his admirable _Reflections on Learning_, "that if we had _fewer_ books, we should have more learning." It is singular that he never published but the one book named, though he has left behind him forty-two volumes of manuscripts, the greater part in the Harleian Collection, in the British Museum, principally relating to Cambridge, and all neatly written in his own hand.

* * * * *

DECLINING KING GEORGE.

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

Another of "honest Vere's"

CLASSICAL JEU D'ESPRIT

Is deserving a place in our treasury. He one day asked his learned college contemporary, Dr. John Taylor, editor of Demosthenes, "why he talked of selling his horse?" "Because," replied the doctor, "I cannot afford to keep him in these _hard times_." "You should keep a _mare_," rejoined Foster, "according to Horace--

'Æquam memento rebus in arduis Servare.'"

* * * * *

A TRAIT OF BARROW.

Soon after that great, good, and loyal son of Granta, Dr. Isaac Barrow, was made a prebend of Salisbury, says Dr. Pope, "I overheard him say, '_I wish I had five hundred pounds_.' 'That's a large sum for a philosopher,' observed Dr. Pope; 'what would you do with so much?' 'I would,' said he, 'give it to my sister for a portion, that would procure her _a good husband_.' A few months after," adds his memorialist, "he was made happy by receiving the above sum," which he so much desired, "for putting a _new life_ into the _corps_ of his new prebend."

* * * * *

INVETERATE SMOKERS.

Both Oxford and Cambridge have been famous for inveterate smokers. Amongst them was the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, who said "it helped his thinking." His illustrious pupil, NEWTON, was scarcely less addicted to the "Indian weed," and every body has heard of his _hapless courtship_, when, in a moment of forgetfulness, he popped the lady's finger into his burning pipe, instead of _popping the question_, and was so chagrined, that he never could be persuaded to press the matter further. Dr. Parr was allowed his pipe when he dined with the _first gentleman in Europe_, George the Fourth, and when refused the same indulgence by a lady at whose house he was staying, he told her, "she was the greatest _tobacco-stopper_ he had ever met with." The celebrated Dr. Farmer, of _black-letter_ memory, preferred the comforts of the parlour of Emmanuel College, of which he was master, and a "_yard of clay_" (there were no _hookahs_ in his day,) to a bishopric, which dignity he twice refused, when offered to him by Mr. Pitt. Another learned

LOVER OF TOBACCO,

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

"Hark, the merry Christ-Church bells,"

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

A WAGER,

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

* * * * *

GAME IN EVERY BUSH.

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

* * * * *

NEWTON'S TOAST.

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

THE PIETY OF RAY,

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

* * * * *

THE DEVIL LOOKING OVER LINCOLN.

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

* * * * *

RADCLIFFE'S LIBRARY.

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

TRAITS OF DR. BATHURST'S WIT AND HABITS.

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

HE FREQUENTLY CARRIED A WHIP IN HIS HAND,

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

WHIPPED EVEN TO THE TWENTIETH YEAR.

"Dr. Potter," says Aubery, while a tutor of the above college, "_whipped his pupil with his sword by his side_, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the Inns of Court." This was done to make him a _smart_ fellow. "In Sir John Fane's collection of letters of the Paston family, written _temp_. Henry VI.," says the author of the _Gradus ad Catabrigiam_, "we find one of the GENTLE SEX prescribing for her son, who was at Cambridge," no doubt with a maternal anxiety that he should

BE A SMART FELLOW,

as follows:--"Prey Grenefield to send me faithfully worde by wrytyn, who (how) Clemit Paston hathe do his dever i' lernying, and if he hath nought do well, nor will nought amend, prey hym that he wyll truely BELASH hym _tyl_ he wyll amend, and so dyd the last mastyr, and the best eu' he had at Cambridge." And that Master Grenefield might not want due encouragement, she concludes with promising him "X m'rs," for his _pains_. We do not, however, learn how many _marks_ young Master Clemit received, who certainly took _more pains_.--PATIENDO _non faciendo_--FERENDO _non feriendo_.

* * * * *

MILTON WAS BELASHED

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

The following celebrated

EPIGRAM ON AN EPIGRAM,

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

One day in _Christ-church_ meadows walking, Of poetry and such things talking, Says _Ralph_, a merry wag, An EPIGRAM, if right and good, In all its circumstances should Be like a JELLY-BAG.

Your simile, I own, is new, But how dost make it out? quoth Hugh. Quoth RALPH, I'll tell you, friend: Make it at top both wide and fit To hold a budget full of wit, And point it at the end.

* * * * *

TELL US WHAT YOU CAN'T DO?

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

* * * * *

THE FIRST WOMEN INTRODUCED INTO A CLOISTER.

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

* * * * *

THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLAR AND THE GHOST OF A SCRAG OF MUTTON.

In the days that are past, by the side of a stream, Where waters but softly were flowing, With ivy o'ergrown an old mansion-house stood, That was built on the skirts of a chilling damp wood, Where the yew-tree and cypress were growing.

The villagers shook as they passed by the doors, When they rested at eve from their labours; And the traveller many a furlong went round, If his ears once admitted the terrific sound, Of the tale that was told by the neighbours.

They said, "that the house in the skirts of the wood By a saucer-eyed ghost was infested, Who filled every heart with confusion and fright, By assuming strange shapes at the dead of the night, Shapes monstrous, and foul, and detested."

And truly they said, and the monster well knew, That the ghost was the greatest of evils; For no sooner the bell of the mansion toll'd one, Than the frolicksome imp in a fury begun To caper like ten thousand devils.

He appeared in forms the most strange and uncouth, Sure never was goblin so daring! He utter'd loud shrieks and most horrible cries, Curst his body and bones, and his _sweet little eyes_, Till his impudence grew beyond bearing.

Just at this nick o' time, when the master's sad heart With anguish and sorrow was swelling, He heard that a scholar with science complete, Full of magical lore as an egg's full of meat, At _Cambridge_ had taken a dwelling.

The scholar was versed in all magical arts, Most famous was he throughout _college_; To the Red Sea full oft many an unquiet ghost, To repose with King Pharaoh and his mighty host He had sent through his powerful knowledge.

To this scholar so learn'd the master he went, And as lowly he bent with submission, Told the freaks of the horrible frights That prevented his household from resting at nights, And offered this humble petition:--

"That he, the said scholar, in wisdom so wise, Would the mischievous fiend lay in fetters; Would send him in torments for ever to dwell, In the nethermost pit of the nethermost hell, For destroying the sleep of his betters."

The scholar so versed in all magical lore, Told the master his pray'r should be granted; He ordered his horse to be saddled with speed, And perch'd on the back of his cream colour'd steed, Trotted off to the house that was haunted.

"Bring me turnips and milk!" the scholar he cried, In voice like the echoing thunder: He brought him some turnips and suet beside, Some milk and a spoon, and his motions they eyed, Quite lost in conjecture and wonder.

He took up the turnips, and peel'd off the skins, Put them into a pot that was boiling; Spread a table and cloth, and made ready to sup, Then call'd for a fork, and the turnips fished up In a hurry, for they were a-spoiling.

He mash'd up the turnips with butter and milk: The hail at the casement 'gan clatter! Yet this scholar ne'er heeded the tempest without, But raising his eyes, and turning about, Asked the maid for a small wooden platter.

He mash'd up the turnips with butter and salt, The storm came on thicker and faster-- The lightnings went flash, and with terrific din The wind at each crevice and cranny came in, Tearing up by the root lath and plaster.

He mash'd up the turnips with nutmegs and spice, The mess would have ravish'd a glutton; When lo! with sharp bones hardly covered with skin, The ghost from a nook o'er the window peep'd in, In the form of _a boil'd scrag of mutton_.

"Ho! Ho!" said the ghost, "what art doing below?" The scholar peep'd up in a twinkling-- "The times are too hard to afford any meat, So to render my turnips more pleasant to eat, A few grains of pepper I'm sprinkling."

Then he caught up a fork, and the mutton he seiz'd, And soused it at once in the platter; Threw o'er it some salt and a spoonful of fat, And before the poor ghost could tell what he was at, He was gone like a mouse down the throat of a cat, And this is the whole of the matter.

* * * * *

COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS.

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

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

* * * * *

JAUNT DOWN A PATIENT'S THROAT.

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

_Dr. Mansel, on Bishop Watson's head becoming a signboard, in Cambridge, in lieu of the ancient one of Bishop Blaize._--FACETIÆ CANT., _p._ 7.

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

THIS DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

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

Sir Isaac, Sir Busick; Sir Busick, Sir Isaac; 'Twould make you and I sick To taste their physick.

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

AN EPIGRAM ON A PETIT-MAITRE PHYSICIAN.

When Pennington for female ills indites, Studying alone not what, but how he writes, The ladies, as his graceful form they scan, Cry, with ill-omen'd rapture, "_killing man_!"

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

* * * * *

PORSON,