Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars

“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—

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.”

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.”

REBUSES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

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, Εγω ειμι αλεκτωρ: to which another opposite bravely crows, says Cole, Οντως και εγω:

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.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

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.

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.

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 60,000l. 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.

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.”

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—

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:—

A HOST OF SINGULARITIES

Are recorded of the famous Cantab and Etonian, the Rev. George Harvest, B. D., who was one day walking in the Temple Gardens, London, with the son of his patron, the great Speaker Onslow, when he picked up a curious pebble, observing he would keep it for his friend, Lord Bute. He and his companion were going to The Beef-steak Club, then held in Ivy-lane. Mr. Onslow asked him what o’clock it was, upon which he took out his watch, and observed they had but ten minutes good. Another turn or two was proposed, but they had scarcely made half the length of the walk, when he coolly put the pebble into his fob, and threw his watch into the Thames. He was at another time in a boat with the same gentleman, when he began to read a favourite Greek author (for, like Porson, his coat pockets generally contained a moderate library) with such emphasis and strange gesticulations, that

HIS WIG AND HAT FELL INTO THE WATER,

And he coolly stepped overboard to recover them, without once dreaming that it was not terra-firma, and was fished out with great difficulty. He frequently wrote a letter to one person, forgot to subscribe his name to it, and directed it to another. On one occasion he provided himself with three sermons, having been appointed to preach before the Archdeacon and Clergy of the district. Some wags got them, and having intermixed the leaves, stitched them together in that state, and put them into his sermon-case. He mounted the pulpit at the usual time, took his text, but soon surprised his reverend audience by taking leave of the thread of his discourse. He was, however, so insensible to the dilemma in which he was placed, that he went preaching on. At last the congregation became impatient, both from the length and the nature of his sermon. First the archdeacon slipped out, then the clergy, one by one, followed by the rest of the congregation; but he never flagged, and would have finished

HIS TRIPLE, THRICE-CONFUSED DISCOURSE,

Had not the clerk reminded him that they were the sole occupants of the lately-crowded church. He went down to Cambridge to vote for his Eton contemporary,

THE CELEBRATED LORD SANDWICH,

When the latter was candidate for the dignity of High-steward of the University, in opposition to Pitt. His lordship invited him to dine with some friends at the Rose Inn. “Apropos, my lord,” exclaimed Harvest, during the meal, “whence do you derive your nick-name of Jemmy Twitcher?” “Why,” said his lordship, “from some foolish fellow.” “No, no,” said Harvest, “not from some, for every body calls you so;” on which his lordship, knowing it to be the favourite dish of his quondam friend, put a huge slice of plum-pudding upon his plate, which effectually stopped his mouth. His lordship has the credit of being the originator and first President of the Cambridge Oriental Club. He was also

THE INVENTOR OF SANDWICHES.

Once passing a whole day at some game of which he was fond, he became so absorbed in its progress, that he denied himself time to eat, in the usual way, and ordered a slice of beef between two pieces of toasted bread, which he masticated without quitting his game; and that sort of refreshment has ever since borne the designation of a Sandwich. Parkes, in his Musical Memoirs, gives him the credit of

LAPSUS LINGUÆ.

It happened, he says, that during a feast given to his lordship by the Corporation of Worcester, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, a servant let fall a dish with a boiled neat’s tongue, as he was bringing it to table. The Mayor expressing his concern to his lordship, “Never mind,” said he, “it’s only a lapsus linguæ!” which Witty saying creating a great deal of mirth, one of the Aldermen present, at a dinner he gave soon after, instructed his servant to throw down a roast leg of mutton, that he too might have his joke. This was done; “Never mind,” he exclaimed to his friends, “it’s only a lapsus linguæ.” The company stared, but he begun a roaring laugh, solus. Finding nobody joined therein, he stopped his mirth, saying, that when Lord Sandwich said it, every body laughed, and he saw no reason why they should not laugh at him. This sally had the desired effect, and the company, one and all, actually shook their sides, and our host was satisfied.

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE LOYALTY.

In 1717, George I. and his ministers had contrived to make themselves so unpopular, that the badges of the disaffected, oaken boughs, were publicly worn on the 29th of May, and white roses on the birth-day of the Pretender, the 10th of June. Oxford, and especially the university, manifested such strong feelings, that it was deemed expedient to send a military force there: Cambridge, more inclined to the Whig principles of the court and government, was at the same time complimented with a present of books. Upon this occasion, Dr. Trapp, the celebrated Oxford poet and divine, wrote the following epigram:—

Cambridge, as may be well supposed, was not backward in retorting: and an able champion she found in her equally celebrated scholar, physician, and benefactor, Sir William Blowne (founder of a scholarship and the three gold medals called after his name,) who replied to Dr. Trapp in the following quaternion:—

Not that Cambridge was behind Oxford in supporting the unfortunate Charles the First, to whom the several colleges secretly conveyed nearly all their ancient plate; and Cromwell, in consequence, retaliated by confining and depriving numbers of her most distinguished scholars, both laymen and divines, many of whom died in exile: and the commissioners of parliament, with a taste worthy of the worst barbarians, caused many of the buildings to be despoiled of their architectural ornaments and exquisite pieces of sculpture and painted glass. It was at this time appeared the following celebrated poetic trifle, extant in the Oxford Sausage, known as

THE CUSHION PLOT,

Written by Herbert Beaver, Esq., of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, when “Gaby” (as the then President, Dr. Shaw, is called, who had been a zealous Jacobite,) suddenly, on the accession of George the First, became a still more zealous patron of the interests of the House of Hanover.

Terræ Filius relates the following instance of

THE DANGER OF DRINKING THE KING’S HEALTH.

Mr. Carty of University College, and Mr. Meadowcourt of Merton College, Oxford (says this writer,) were suspended from proceeding to their next degree, in 1716, the first for a period of one, the second for a period of two years, the latter further, not to be permitted “to supplicate for his grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes, and asks pardon upon his knees, For breaking out to that degree of impudence (when the Proctor admonished him to go home from the tavern at an unseasonable hour,) as to command all the company, with a loud voice, to drink King George’s health.” And, strange enough, persisting in his refusal to ask pardon, as required, he only ultimately obtained his degree by pleading the act of grace of the said King George, enacted in favour of those who had been guilty of treason, &c. These were, it appears, both Fellows of colleges, and with several others, who were likewise put in the Black-book, were members of a society in Oxford, called

“THE CONSTITUTION CLUB,”

At a meeting of which it was that the king was toasted.

AMONGST THE CAMBRIDGE CLUBS

Was one formed, in 1757, by the Wranglers of that year, including the late Professor Waring; the celebrated reformer Dr. Jebb the munificent founder of the Cambridge Hebrew Scholarships; Mr. Tyrwhitt; and other learned men. It was called The Hyson Club, the entertainments being only tea and conversation. Paley, who joined it after he became tutor of Christ College, is thus made to speak of it by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine for 1825:—“We had a club at Cambridge, of political reformers; it was called the Hyson Club, as we met at tea time; and various schemes were discussed among us. Jebb’s plan was, that the people should meet and declare their will; and if the House of Commons should pay due attention to the will of the people, why, well and good; if not, the people were to convey their will into effect. We had no idea that we were talking treason. I was always an advocate for braibery and corrooption: they raised an outcry against me, and affected to think I was not in earnest. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘who is so mad as to wish to be governed by force? or who is such a fool as to expect to be governed by virtue? There remains, then, nothing but braibery and corrooption.’” No particular subjects were proposed for discussion at their meetings, but accident or the taste of individuals naturally led to topics, such as literary and scientific characters might freely discuss. At a meeting where the debate was on the justice or expediency of making some alteration in the ecclesiastical constitution of the country, for the relief of tender consciences, Dr. Gordon, of Emmanuel College, late Precentor of Lincoln, vehemently opposed the arguments of Dr. Jebb, then tutor of Peter House, who supported the affirmative, by exclaiming, “You mean, Sir, to impose upon us a new church government.” “You are mistaken,” said Paley, who was present, “Jebb only wants to ride his own horse, not to force you to get up behind him.”

THE RETROGRADATION AMONGST MASTERS, TUTORS, AND SCHOLARS.

Discipline, like every thing else characteristic of our elder institutions, has for some years been fast giving way in our universities. Statutes are permitted to slumber unheeded, as not fitted to the present advanced state of society; and in colleges where it would, as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, have been almost a crime to have been seen in hall or chapel without a white cravat on, scholars now strut in black ones, “unawed by imposition” or a fine. I can remember the time when this inroad upon decent appearance first begun, and when the Dean of our college put forth his strong arm, and insisted on white having the preference. Men then used to wear their black till they came to the hall or chapel door, then take them off, and walk in with none at all, and again twist them round the neck, heedless whether the tie were Brummell or not, on issuing forth from Prayers or Commons. Like the Whigs, they have by perseverance carried their point, and strut about in black, wondering what they shall next attempt.

THERE IS AN ON-DIT,

That at the time Dr. W—— became Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the tutors used to oblige (and it was a custom for) the scholars to stand, cap in hand (if any tutor entered a court where they might be passing,) till the said tutor disappeared. This was so rigorously enforced, that the scholars complained to the new master, and he desired the tutors to relax the custom. This order they refused to comply with. Upon this the Doctor took down from a shelf a copy of the College Statutes, and coolly read to them a section, where the fellows of the same were enjoined to stand, cap in hand, till the master passed by, wherever they met him; and the Doctor, it is added, insisted upon its observance, on pain of ejection, till at length the tutors gave way.

THE WORCESTER GOBLIN.

Foote the comedian was, in his youthful days, a student of Worcester College, Oxford, under the care of the Provost, Dr. Gower. The Doctor was a learned and amiable man, but a pedant. The latter characteristic was soon seized upon by the young satirist, as a source whereon to turn his irresistible passion for wit and humour. The church at this time belonging to Worcester College, fronted a lane were cattle were turned out to graze, and (as was then the case in many towns, and is still in some English villages) the church porch was open, with the bell-ropes suspended in the centre. Foote tied a wisp of hay to one of them, and this was no sooner scented by the cattle at night, than it was seized upon as a dainty morsel. Tug, tug, went one and all, and “ding-dong” went the bell at midnight, to the astonishment of the Doctor, the sexton, the whole parish, and the inmates of the College. The young wag kept up the joke for several successive nights, and reports of ghosts, goblins, and frightful visions, soon filled the imagination of old and young with alarm, and many a simple man and maiden whisked past the scene of midnight revel ere the moon had “filled her horns,” struck with fear and trembling. The Doctor suspected some trick. He, accordingly, engaged the Sexton to watch with him for the detection of the culprit. They had not long lain hid, under favour of a dark night, when “ding-dong” went the bell again: both rushed from their hiding places, and the sexton commenced the attack by seizing the cow’s tail, exclaiming, “’Tis a gentleman commoner,—I have him by the tail of his gown!” The Doctor approached on the opposite tack, and seized a horn with both hands, crying, “No, no, you blockhead, ’tis the postman,—I have caught the rascal by his blowing-horn!” and both bawled lustily for assistance, whilst the cow kicked and flung to get free; but both held fast till lights were procured, when the real offender stood revealed, and the laugh of the whole town was turned upon the Doctor and his fellow-night-errant, the Sexton.

RECORDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE TRIPOSES.

The Spoon, in the words of Lord Byron’s Don Juan,

is the annual subject for University mirth, and if not the fountain, is certainly the very foundation of Cambridge University honours: without the spoon, not a man in the Tripos would have a leg to stand upon: in fact, it would be a top without a bottom, minus the spoon. Yet “this luckless wight,” says the compiler of the Cambridge Tart, is annually a universal butt and laughing-stock of the whole Senate-House. He is the last of those men who take honours of his year, and is called a “junior optime,” and notwithstanding his being superior to them all, the lowest of the Ὁι πολλοι, or Gregarious Undistinguished Bachelors, think themselves entitled to shoot their pointless arrows against the “wooden spoon,” and to reiterate the perennial remark, that, “wranglers” are born with golden spoons in their mouths; “senior optimes” with silver spoons; “junior optimes” with wooden spoons, and the Ὁι πολλοι with leaden spoons in their mouths. It may be here, however, observed, that it is unjust towards the undistinguished bachelors to say that “he (the spoon) is superior to them all.” He is generally a man who has read hard, id est, has done his best, whilst the undistinguished bachelors, it is well known, include many men of considerable, even superior talents, but having no taste for mathematics, have merely read sufficient to get a degree; consequently have not done their best. The muse has thus invoked

THE WOODEN SPOON.

That many have borne off this prize who might have done better, is well known too. One learned Cantab in that situation felt so assured of his fate, when it might have been more honourable, had he been gifted with prudence and perseverance, that on the morning when it is customary to give out the honours, in the Senate House, in their order of merit, he provided himself with a large wooden spoon, and when there was a call from the gallery, for “the spoon” (for then the Undergraduates were allowed to express their likes and dislikes publicly, a custom now suppressed,) he turned the shafts of ridicule aside by thrusting the emblem of his honours up high over his head,—an act that gained him no slight applause. Another Cantab, of precisely the same grade as to talent, who was second in the classical tripos of his year, gave a supper on the occasion of the spoon being awarded to him, which commenced with soup, each man being furnished with a ponderous wooden spoon to lap it with. Another, now a Fellow of Trinity College, who more than once bore off the Porson prize, being in this place of honour, a wag nailed a large wooden spoon to his door. Hundreds of other tricks have been put upon the spoon, next to whom are—

THE POLL; OR, ὉΙ ΠΟΛΛΟΙ:

Which, said the great Bentley, in a sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, on the 5th of November, 1715, “is a known expression in profane authors, opposed sometimes, τοις σοφοις, to the wise, and ever denotes the most, and generally the meanest of mankind.” “Besides the mirth devoted character,” (the wooden spoon,) says the writer first quoted, there “are always a few, a chosen few, a degree lower than the Ὁι πολλοι, constantly written down alphabetically, who serve to exonerate the ‘wooden spoon,’ in part, from the ignominy of the day; and these undergo various epithets, according to their accidental number. If there was but one, he was called Bion, who carried all his learning about him without the slightest inconvenience. If there were two, they were dubbed the Scipios; Damon and Pythias; Hercules and Atlas; Castor and Pollux. If three, they were ad libitum, the three Graces; or the three Furies; the Magi; or Noah, Daniel, and Job. If seven, they were the seven Wise Men; or the Seven Wonders of the World. If nine, they were the unfortunate Suitors of the Muses. If twelve, they became the Apostles. If thirteen, either they deserved a round dozen, or, like the Americans, should bear thirteen stripes on their coat and arms. Lastly, they were sometimes styled constant quantities, and Martyrs; or the thirteenth was designated the least of the Apostles; and, should there be a fourteenth, he was unworthy to be called an Apostle!” An unknown pen has immortalized the Ὁι πολλοι, by the following—

ODE TO THE UNAMBITIOUS AND UNDISTINGUISHED BACHELORS.

“Post tot naufragia tutus.”—Virg.