Part 3

Whose very name conjures up the spirits of ten thousand wits, holding both sides, over a copus of Trinity ale and a classical pun, would not only frequently "steal a few hours from the night," but see out both lights and liquids, and seem none the worse for the carouse. He had one night risen for the purpose of reaching his hat from a peg to depart, after having finished the port, sherry, gin-store, &c., when he espied a can of _beer_, says Dyer, (surely it must have been _audit_,) in a corner. Restoring his hat to its resting place, he reseated himself with the following happy travestie of the old nursery lines--

"When wine is gone, and ale is spent, Then small beer is most excellent."

It was no uncommon thing for his _gyp_ to enter his room with Phoebus, and find him still _en robe_, with no other companions but a Homer, Æschylus, Plato, and a dozen or two other old Grecians surrounding an empty bottle, or what his late Royal Highness the Duke of York would have styled "a marine," _id est_ "a good fellow, who had done his duty, and was ready to do it again." Upon his _gyp_ once peeping in before day light, and finding him still up, Porson answered his "_quod petis?_" (whether he wanted _candles_ or _liquor_,) with

[Greek: ou tode oud' allo.]

Scotticè--neither _Toddy_ nor _Tallow_.

At another time, when asked what he would drink? he replied?--"_aliquid_" (a liquid.)

He was once

BOASTING AT A CAMBRIDGE PARTY,

That he could pun upon anything, when he was challenged to do so upon the _Latin Gerunds_, and exclaimed, after a pause--

"When Dido found Æneas would not come. She mourned in silence, and was _Di-do-dum(b)_."

BISHOP HEBER'S COLLEGE PUNS.

The late amiable, learned, and pious Bishop Heber was not above a pun in his day, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's _anathema_, that a man who made a pun would pick a pocket. Among the _jeux des mots_ attributed to him are the following: he was one day dining with an Oxford party, comprises the élite of his day, and when the servant was in the act of removing the table-cloth from off the green table-covering, at the end of their meal, he exclaimed, in the words of Horace--

"Diffugere nives: redeunt jam gramina campis."

At another time he made one of a party of Oxonians, amongst whom was a gentleman of great rotundity of person, on which account he had acquired the _soubriquet_ of 'heavy-a--se;' and he was withal of very _somniferous_ habits, frequently dozing in the midst of a conversation that would have made the very glasses tingle with delight. He had fallen fast asleep during the time a mirth-moving subject was recited by one of the party, but woke up just at the close, when all save himself were "shaking fat sides," and on his begging to know the subject of their laughter, HEBER let fly at him in pure Horatian--

"Exsomnis stupet Evias."

The mirth-loving Dr. Barnard, late Provost of Eton, was cotemporary, at Cambridge, with

A WORTHY OF THE SAME SCHOOL,

Who, then a student of St. John's College, used to frequent the same parties that Barnard did, who was of King's. Barnard used to taunt him with his stupidity; "and," said Judge Hardinge, who records the anecdote, "he one day half killed Barnard with laughter, who had been taunting him, as usual, with the simplicity of the following excuse and remonstrance: You are always running your rigs upon me and calling me 'stupid fellow;' and it is very cruel, now, that's what it is; for you don't consider that _a broad-wheeled wagon went over my head when I was ten years old_." And here I must remark upon the injustice of persons reflecting upon the English Universities, as their enemies often do, because every man who succeeds in getting a degree does not turn out a _Porson_ or a _Newton_. I knew one Cantab, a Caius man, to whom writing a letter to his friends was such an effort, that he used to get his medical attendant to give him an _ægrotat_ (put him on the sick list,) and, besides,

KEEP HIS DOOR SPORTED FOR A WEEK,

till the momentous task was accomplished. And two Oxonians were of late

PLUCKED AT THEIR DIVINITY EXAMINATION,

Because one being asked, "Who was the _Mediator_, between God and man?" answered, "_The Archbishop of Canterbury_." The other being questioned as to "why our Saviour sat on the right hand of God?" replied, "_Because the Holy Ghost sat on the left_."

COMPLIMENT TO THE MEN OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXON.

"The men of Exeter College, Oxon," says Fuller, in his Church History, "consisted chiefly of Cornish and Devonshire men, the gentry of which latter, Queen Elizabeth used to say, are courtiers by birth. And as these western men do bear away the bell for might and sleight in wrestling, so the scholars here have always acquitted themselves with credit in _Palæstra literaria_."

And writing of this society reminds me that

HIS GRACE OF WELLINGTON

Is a living example of the fact, that it does not require great learning to make a great general; nor is great learning always necessary to complete the character of the head of a college. The late Rector of Exeter College, Dr. Cole, raised that society, by his prudent management, from the very _reduced_ rank in which he found it amongst the other foundations of Oxford, to a flourishing and high reputation for good scholarship. Yet he is said one day to have complimented a student at collections, by saying, after the gentleman had construed his portion of Sophocles, "Sir, you have construed your _Livy_ very well." He nevertheless redeemed his credit by one day _posing_ a student, during his divinity examination, with asking him, in vain, "_What Christmas day was?_" Another Don of the same college, once asking a student of the society some divinity question, which he was equally at a loss for an answer, he exclaimed--"Good God, sir, you the son of a clergyman, and not answer such a question as that?" Aristotle was of opinion that knowledge _could only be acquired_, but our tutor seems to have thought, like the opponents of Aristotle, that a _son of a parson_ ought to be _born to it_.

ANOTHER OXONIAN WAS POSED,

Whom I knew, yet was by no means deficient in scholastic learning, and withal a great wag. He was asked, at the divinity examination, how many sacraments there were. This happened at the time that the _Catholic question_ was in the high road to the House of Lords, under the auspices of the Duke of Wellington, and he had been _cramming_ his _upper story_ with abundance of _Catholic Faith_ from the writings of _Faber_, _Gandolphy_, and the _Bishops of Durham and Exeter_. "How many sacraments are there, sir?" repeated the Examiner (of course referring to the Church of England.) The student _paused on_, and the question was repeated a second time; "Why--a--suppose--we--a--say half a dozen," was the reply. It is needless to add he was _plucked_. The following

LAPSUS GRAMMATICÆ

Is attributed to a certain D.D. of Exeter, who, having undertaken to lionize one of the foreign princes of the many that accompanied the late king and the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia to Oxford, in 1814, a difficulty arose between them as to their medium of communication; the prince being ignorant of the English language, and the doctor no less so with respect to modern foreign languages. In this dilemma the latter proposed an interchange of ideas by means of the fingers, in the following unique address:--"Intelligisne colloquium _cum digitalibus tuis?_"

It would be somewhat awkward for certain alumni if his Grace of Wellington should issue an imperative decree, as Chancellor,

THAT THE LATIN TONGUE BE USED,

(As Wood says, in his annals, the famous Archbishop Bancroft did, on being raised to the dignity of Chancellor of Oxford in 1608,) "By the students in their halls and colleges, whereby," said his Grace, "the young as well as the old may be inured to a ready and familiar delivery of their minds in that language, whereof there was now so much use both in studies and common conversation; for it was now observed (and so it may in these present times, adds Wood,) that it was a great blemish to the learned men of this nation, that they being complete in all good knowledge, yet they were not able promptly and aptly to express themselves in Latin, but with hesitation and circumlocution, which ariseth only from disuse."

EFFECT OF HABIT.

Dr. Fothergill, when Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, was a singular as well as a learned man, and would not have been seen abroad minus his wig and gown for a dukedom. One night a fire broke out in the lodge, which spread with such rapidity, that it was with difficulty Mrs. F. and family escaped the fury of the flames; and this she no sooner did than, naturally enough, the question was, "Where is the Doctor?" No Doctor was to be found; and the cry was he had probably perished in the flames. All was bustle, and consternation, and tears, till suddenly, to the delight of all, he emerged from the burning pile, full-dressed, as usual, his wig something the worse for being nearly 'done to a turn;' but he deemed it indecorous for him to appear otherwise, though he stayed to _robe_ at the risk of his life.

* * * * *

THE CONCUSSION.

The living Cambridge worthy, William Sydney Walker, M.A. (who at the age of sixteen wrote the successful tragedy of Wallace, and recently vacated his fellowship at Trinity College "for conscience-sake,") walking hastily round the corner of a street in Cambridge, in his peculiarly near-sighted _sidling_ hasty manner, he suddenly came in contact with the _blind_ muffin-man who daily perambulates the town. The concussion threw both upon their haunches. "Don't you _see_ I'm blind?" exclaimed the muffin-man, in great wrath. "How should I," rejoined the learned wag, "when I'm blind too."

* * * * *

COMIC PICTURE OF THE ELECTION OF A PROVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Upon the death of a provost of King's College, Cambridge, the fellows are obliged, according to their statutes, to be shut up in their celebrated chapel till they have agreed upon the election of a successor, a custom not unlike that to which the cardinals are subject at Rome, upon the death of a pope, where not uncommonly some half dozen are brought out dead before an election takes place. "The following is a comic picture of an election," says Judge Hardinge, in Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, from the pen of Daniel Wray, Esq. dated from _Cambridge_, the 19th of January, 1743. "The election of a provost of King's is over--_Dr. George_ is the man. The fellows went into chapel on Monday, before noon in the morning, as the statute directs. After prayers and sacrament, they began to vote:--22 for _George_; 16 for _Thackery_; 10 for _Chapman_. Thus they continued, scrutinizing and walking about, eating and sleeping; some of them smoking. Still the same numbers for each candidate, till yesterday about noon (for they held that in the forty-eight hours allowed for the election no adjournment could be made,) when the Tories, _Chapman's_ friends, refusing absolutely to concur with either of the other parties, _Thackery's_ votes went over to _George_ by agreement, and he was declared. A friend of mine, a curious fellow, tells me he took a survey of his brothers at two o'clock in the morning, and that never was a more curious or a more diverting spectacle: some wrapped in blankets, erect in their stalls like mummies; others asleep on cushions, like so many _Gothic_ tombs. Here a red cap over a wig, there a face lost in the cape of a rug; one blowing a chafing-dish with a surplice-sleeve; another warming a little negus, or sipping _Coke upon Littleton_, _i. e._ tent and brandy. Thus did they combat the cold of that frosty night, which has not killed any one of them, to my infinite surprise." One of the fellows of King's engaged in this election was Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord High Chancellor of England, and father of the present Marquis of Camden, who, writing to his amiable and learned friend and brother Etonian and Kingsman, Dr. Sneyd Davies, archdeacon of Derby, &c. in the January of the above year, says, "Dear Sneyd we are all busy in the choice of a provost. _George_ and _Thackery_ are the candidates. _George_ has all the power and weight of the Court interest, but I am for _Thackery_, so that I am at _present a patriot_, and vehemently declaim against all unstatutable influence. The College are so divided, that your friends the _Tories_ may turn the balance if they will; but, if they should either absent themselves or nominate a third man, _Chapman_, for example, _Thackery_ will be discomfited. Why are not _you_ a doctor? We could choose you against all opposition. However, I insist upon it, that you shall qualify yourself against the next vacancy, for since you will not come to _London_, and wear lawn sleeves, you may stay where you are, and be provost,"--which he did not live to be, though he did take his D.D.

* * * * *

SIR, DOMINUS, MAGISTRI, SIR GREENE.

A writer in an early volume of the Gentleman's Magazine has stated, that "the Christian name is never used in the university with the addition of _Sir_, but the surname only." Cole says, in reply, "This is certainly so at Cambridge. Yet when Bachelors of Arts get into the country, it is quite the reverse; for then, whether curates, chaplains, vicars, or rectors, they are constantly styled _Sir_, or _Dominus_, prefixed to both their names, to distinguish them from Masters of Arts, or _Magistri_. This may be seen," he says, "in innumerable instances in the lists of incumbents in New Court, &c." And, he adds, addressing himself to that illustrious character, _Sylvanus Urban_, "I could produce a thousand others from the wills, institutions, &c. in the diocese of Ely, throughout the whole reign of Henry VIII. and for many years after, till the title was abandoned, and are never called Sir Evans, or Sir Martext, as in the university they would be, according to your correspondent's opinion, but invariably Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext, &c. The subject," adds this pleasant chronicler, "'seria ludo,' puts me in mind of a very pleasant story, much talked of when I was first admitted of the university, which I know to be fact, as I since heard Mr. Greene, the dean of Salisbury, mention it. The dean was at that time only Bachelor of Arts, and Fellow of Bene't College, where Bishop Mawson was master, and then, I think, Bishop of Llandaff, who, being one day at Court, seeing Mr. Greene come into the drawing-room, immediately accosted him, pretty loud, in this manner, _How do you do, Sir Greene? When did you leave College, Sir Greene?_ Mr. Greene was quite astonished, and the company present much more so, as not comprehending the meaning of the salutation or title, till Mr. Greene explained it, and also informed them," observes Cole, with his accustomed fulness of information, "of the worthy good bishop's absences."

* * * * *

HUSBANDS MAY BEAT THEIR WIVES.

Fuller relates in his Abel Redivivus, that the celebrated President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Dr. John Rainolds, the contemporary of Jewel and Usher, had a controversy with one William Gager, a student of Christ-Church, who contended for the lawfulness of stage-plays; and the same Gager, he adds, maintained, _horresco referens!_ in a public act in the university, that "it was lawful for husbands to beat their wives."

* * * * *

ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE LADIES

Is contained in Antony Wood's "angry account" of the alterations made in Merton College, of which he was a fellow, during the wardenship of Sir Thomas Clayton, whose lady, says Wood, "did put the college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous expenses, among which were a very large looking-glass, for her to see her ugly face, and body to the middle, * * * * * which was brought in Hilary terme, 1674, and cost, as the bursar told me, above 10_£._; a bedstead and bedding, worth 40_£._, must also be bought, because the former bedstead and bedding was too short for him (he being a tall man,) so perhaps when a _short_ warden comes, a short bed must be bought." There were also other

EXTRAORDINARY DOINGS AT MERTON.

When the Vandals of Parliamentary visiters, in Cromwell's time, perpetrated their spoliations at Oxford, one of them, Sir Nathaniel Brent, says Wood, actually "took down the rich hangings at the altar of the chapel, and ornamented his bedchamber with them."

* * * * *

DIGGING YOUR GRAVES WITH YOUR TEETH.

The late vice-master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Rev. William Hodson, B.D., and the late Regius Professor of Hebrew, the Rev. William Collier, B.D., who had also been tutor of Trinity College, were both skilled in the science of music, and constant visiters at the quartett parties of Mr. Sharp, of Green Street, Cambridge, organist of St. John's College. The former happened one evening to enter Mr. Sharp's _sanctum sanctorum_, rather later than usual, and found the two latter just in the act of discussing a brace of roast ducks, with a bowl of punch in the background. He was pressed to join them. "No, no, gentlemen," was his reply, "give me a _glass of water and a crust_. You know not what you are doing. You are _digging your graves with your teeth_." Both gentlemen, however, out-lived him.

* * * * *

DR. TORKINGTON'S GRATITUDE TO HIS HORSE.

The late master of Clare Hall, Cambridge, Dr. Torkington, was one evening stopped by a footpad or pads, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, when riding at an humble pace on his old Rosinante, which had borne him through many a long year. Both horse and master were startled by the awful tones in which the words, "Stand, and deliver!" were uttered, to say nothing of the flourish of a shillelah, or something worse, and an unsuccessful attempt to _grab_ the rein. The horse, declining acquiescence, set off at a good round pace, and thus saved his master; an act for which the old doctor was so grateful, that he never suffered it to be rode again, but had it placed in a paddock, facing his lodge, on the banks of the Cam, where, with a plentiful supply of food, and his own daily attentions, it lingered out the remnant of life, and "liv'd at home at ease."

* * * * *

SAY JOHN SHARP IS A ROGUE.

At the time the celebrated Archbishop Sharp was at Oxford, it was the custom in that University, as likewise in Cambridge, for students to have a _chum_ or companion, who not only shared the sitting-room with each other, but the bed also; and a writer, speaking of the University of Cambridge, says, one of the colleges was at one period so full, that when writing a letter, the students were obliged to hold their hand over it, to prevent its contents being seen. Archbishop Sharp, when an Oxford Scholar, was awoke in the night by his _chum_ lying by his side, who told him he had just dreamed a most extraordinary dream; which was, that he (Sharp) would be an Archbishop of York. After some time, he again awoke him, and said he had dreamt the same, and was well assured he would arrive at that dignity. Sharp, extremely angry at being thus disturbed, told him if he awoke him any more, he would send him out of bed. However, his chum, again dreaming the same, ventured to awake him; on which Sharp became much enraged; but his bed-fellow telling him, if he had again the same dream he would not annoy him any more, if he would faithfully promise him, should he ever become archbishop, to give him a good rectory, which he named. "Well, well," said Sharp, "you silly fellow, go to sleep; and if your dream, which is very unlikely, should come true, I promise you the living." "By that time," said his chum, "you will have forgot me and your promise." "No, no," says Sharp, "that I shall not; but, if I do not remember you, and refuse you the living, then say _John Sharp is a rogue_." After Dr. Sharp had been archbishop some time, his old friend (his chum) applied to him (on the said rectory being vacant,) and, after much difficulty, got admitted to his presence, having been informed by the servant, that the archbishop was particularly engaged with a gentleman relative to the same rectory for which he was going to apply. The archbishop was told there was a clergyman who was extremely importunate to see him, and would take no denial. His Grace, extremely angry, ordered him to be admitted, and requested to know why he had so rudely almost forced himself into his presence. "I come," says he, "my Lord, to claim an old promise, the rectory of ----." "I do not remember, sir, ever to have seen you before; how, then, could I have promised you the rectory, which I have just presented to this gentleman?" "Then," says his old chum, "_John Sharp is a rogue_!" The circumstance was instantly roused in the mind of the archbishop, and the result was, he provided liberally for his dreaming chum in the Church.

* * * * *

"I SAID AS HOW YOU'D SEE."

"In the year 1821," says Parke, in his Musical Memoirs, "I occasionally dined with a pupil of mine, Mr. Knight, who had lately left college. This young man (who played the most difficult pieces on the flute admirably) and his brother Cantabs, when they met, were very fond of relating the wild tricks for which the students of the University of Cambridge are celebrated. The following relation of one will convey some idea," he says, "of their general eccentricity:--A farmer, who resided at a considerable distance from Cambridge, but who had, nevertheless, heard of the excesses committed by the students, having particular business in the before-mentioned seat of the Muses, together with a strong aversion to entering it, took his seat on the roof of the coach, and, being engrossed with an idea of danger, said to the coachman, who was a man of few words, 'I'ze been towld that the young gentlemen at Cambridge be wild chaps.' 'You'll see,' replied the coachman; 'and,' added the farmer, 'that it be hardly safe to be among 'em.' 'You'll see,' again replied the coachman. During the journey the farmer put several other interrogatories to the coachman, which was answered, as before, with 'You'll see!' When they had arrived in the High Street of Cambridge, Mr. Knight had a party of young men at his lodgings, who were sitting in the first floor, with the windows all open, and a large China bowl full of punch before them, which they had just broached. The noise made by their singing and laughing, attracting the notice and exciting the fears of the farmer, he again, addressing his taciturn friend, the coachman, (whilst passing close under the window,) said with great anxiety, 'Are we all safe, think ye?' when, before the master of the whip had time to utter his favourite monosyllables, 'You'll see,' bang came down, on the top of the coach, bowl, punch, glasses, &c. to the amazement and terror of the farmer, who was steeped in his own favourite potation. 'There,' said coachee (who had escaped a wetting,) 'I said as how you'd see!'"

* * * * *

I NOW LEAVE YOU TO MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS YOU PLEASE.