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

He afterwards added this exquisite effusion:—

THE GRACE CUP OF PEMBROKE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE.

An ancient cup of silver gilt is preserved by this society, which was given to them by the noble foundress of their college, Lady Mary de St. Paul, daughter of Guy de Castillon, Earl of St. Paul, in France, and widow of Audomar de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, who is said to have been killed in a tournament, held in France, in 1323, in honour of their wedding day,—an accident, says Fuller, by which she was “a maid, a wife, and a widow, in one day.” Lysons in his second volume, has given an engraved delineation of this venerable goblet; the foot of which, says Cole, in the forty-second volume of his MSS. “stands on a large circle, whose upper rim is neatly ornamented with small fleurs de lis, in open work, and looks very like an ancient coronet.” On a large rim, about the middle of the cup, is a very ancient embossed inscription; which, says the same authority, in 1773, “not a soul in the College could read, and the tradition of it was forgotten;” but he supposes it to run:—

The other inscription is short, and has an M. and V. above the circle; “which,” adds Cole, “I take to mean, God help at need Mary de Valentia.” At the bottom of the inside of the cup is an embossed letter M. This he does not comprehend; but says it may possibly stand for Mementote. “Dining in Pembroke College Hall, New Year’s Day, 1773,” he adds, “the grace cup of silver gilt, the founder’s gift to her college, was produced at the close of dinner, when, being full of sweet wine, the old custom is here, as in most other colleges, for the Master, at the head of the long table, to rise, and, standing on his feet, to drink, In piam memoriam (Fundatricis,) to his neighbour on his right hand, and, who is also to be standing. When the Master has drunk, he delivers the cup to him he drank to, and sits down; and the other, having the cup, drinks to his opposite neighbour, who stands up while the other is drinking; and thus alternately till it has gone quite through the company, two always standing at a time. It is of no large capacity, and is often replenished.”

This is not unlike

THE TERTIAVIT

of the Mertonians, as they call it (says Mr. Pointer,) from a barbarous Latin word derived from Tertius, because there are always three standing at a time. The custom, he says, is a loyal one, and arises from their drinking the King and Queen’s health standing (at dinner) on some extraordinary days (called Gaudies, from the Latin word Gaudeo, to rejoice,) to show their loyalty. There are always three standing at a time the first not sitting down again till the second has drank to a third man. The same loyal custom, under different forms, prevails in all colleges in both Universities. At the Inns of Court, also, in London, the King’s health is drunk every term, on what is called Grand Day, all members present, big-wig and student, having filled “a bumper of sparkling wine,” rise simultaneously, and drink “The King,” supernaculum, of course.

A MORE CAPACIOUS BOWL

Than the foregoing is in the possession of the Society of Jesus College, Oxford, says Chalmers, the gift of the hospitable Sir Watkins Williams Wynne, grandfather to the present baronet. It will contain ten gallons, and weighs 278 ounces: how or when it is used, this deponent sayeth not. Queen’s College, Oxon, says Mr. Pointer, has its—

HORN OF DIVERSION,

So called because it never fails to afford funnery. It is kept in the buttery, is occasionally presented to persons to drink out of and is so contrived, that by lifting it up to the mouth too hastily, the air gets in and suddenly forces too great a quantity of the liquid, as if thrown into the drinker’s face, to his great surprise and the delight of the standers by. Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra.

ANOTHER BIBULOUS RELIQUE

Was the famous chalice, found in one of the hands of the founder of Merton College, Oxford, the celebrated Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of England, upon the opening of his grave in 1659, says Wood, on the authority of Mr. Leonard Yate, Fellow of Merton. It held more than a quarter of a pint; and the Warden and Fellows caused it to be sent to the College, to be put into their cista jocalium; but the Fellows, in their zeal, sometimes drinking out of it, “this, then, so valued relic was broken and destroyed.”

A LAUDABLE AND CHRISTIAN CUSTOM,

In Merton College, says Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia, &c. “is their meeting together in the Hall on Christmas Eve, and other solemn times, to sing a Psalm, and drink a Grace Cup to one another, (called Poculum Charitatis) wishing one another health and happiness. These Grace Cups,” he adds, “they drink to one another every day after dinner and supper, wishing one another peace and good neighbourhood.” This conclusion reminds us of the following anecdote:—

A learned Cambridge mathematician, now holding a distinguished post at the Naval College, Portsmouth, after discussing one day, with a party of Johnians, the propriety of the Dies Festæ, solar, siderial, &c., drily observed, putting a bumper to his lips, “I think we should have jovial days as well.” Every College in both Universities has the next best thing to it,—

THEIR FEAST DAYS,

“In piam memoriam” of their several founders, most of whom being persons of taste, left certain annual sums wherewith to “pay the piper.” Besides minor feast-days, every Society, both at Oxford and Cambridge, hold its yearly commemoration. There is always prayers and a sermon on this day, and the Lesson is taken from Eccl. xliv. “Let us now praise famous men,” &c. Mr. Pointer says, that at Magdalen College, Oxford, it is “a custom on all commemoration days to have the bells rung in a confused manner, and without any order, it being the primitive way of ringing.” The same writer states that there is

A MUSICAL MAY-DAY COMMEMORATION,

Annually celebrated by this Society, which consists of a concert of music on the top of the Tower, in honour of its founder, Henry VII. It was originally a mass, but since the Reformation, it has been “a merry concert of both vocal and instrumental music, consisting of several merry ketches, and lasts almost two hours (beginning as early as four o’clock in the morning,) and is concluded with ringing the bells.” The performers have a breakfast for their pains. They have likewise singing early on Christmas morning. The custom is similar to one observed at Manheim, in Germany, and throughout the palatinate.

Whoever was the author of the following admirable production, he was certainly not νους-less, and it will “hardly be read with dry lips, or mouths that do not water,” says the author of the Gradus ad Cant.

ODE ON A COLLEGE FEAST DAY.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AT CAMBRIDGE.

Sir Robert Walpole, the celebrated minister, was bred at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. At the first he raised great expectations as a boy, and when the master was told that St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, had with others, his scholars, distinguished themselves for their eloquence, in the House of Commons, “I am impatient to hear that Walpole has spoken,” was his observation; “for I feel convinced he will be a good orator.” At King’s College his career was near being cut short by an attack of the small-pox. He was then known as a fierce Whig, and his physicians were Tories, one of whom, Dr. Brady, said, “We must take care to save this young man, or we shall be accused of having purposely neglected him, because he is so violent a Whig.” After he was restored, his spirit and disposition so pleased the same physician, that he added, “this singular escape seems to be a sure prediction that he is reserved for important purposes,” which Walpole remembered with complacency.

Dr. Lamb, the present master of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in his edition of Master’s History of that College, gives the following copy of a bill, in the handwriting of Dr. John Jegon, a former master, which may be taken as a specimen of

A COLLEGE DINNER AT THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY:—

The same authority gives the following curious item as occurring in 1620, during the mastership of the successor of Dr. Jegon, Dr. Samuel Walsall, who was elected in 1618, under the head of

AN ACCOUNT OF THE WINE, &c., CONSUMED AT A COLLEGE AUDIT.

“Hence it appears,” observes Dr. L., “sack was 1s. 2d. a quart, claret 8d., and tobacco 1s. 6d. an ounce. That is, an ounce of tobacco was worth exactly four pints and a half of claret.” Oxford, more than Cambridge, observed, and still observes, many singular customs. Amongst others recorded in Mr. Pointer’s curious book, is the now obsolete and very ancient one at Merton College, called

THE BLACK-NIGHT.

Formerly the Dean of the college kept the Bachelor-fellows at disputations in the hall, sometimes till late at night, and then to give, them a black-night (as they called it;) the reason of which was this:—“Among many other famous scholars of this college, there were two great logicians, the one Johannes Duns Scotus, called Doctor Subtilis, Fellow of the college, and father of the sect of the Realists, and his scholar Gulielmus Occam, called Doctor Invincibilis, of the same house, and father of the sect of the Nomenalists; betwixt whom there falling out a hot dispute one disputation night, Scotus being the Dean of the college, and Occam (a Bachelor-fellow therein,) though the latter got the better on’t, yet being but an inferior, at parting submitted himself, with the rest of the Bachelors, to the Dean in this form, Domine, quid faciernus? (i. e. Sir, what is your pleasure?) as it were begging punishment for their boldness in arguing; to whom Scotus returned this answer, Ite et facite quid vultis (i. e. Begone, and do as you please.) Hereupon away they went and broke open the buttery and kitchen doors, and plundered all the provisions they could lay hands on; called all their companions out of their beds, and made a merry bout on’t all night. This gave occasion for observing the same diversion several times afterwards, whenever the Dean kept the Bachelor-fellows at disputation till twelve o’clock at night. The last black-night was about 1686.”

THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION.

A learned Cantab, who was so deaf as to be obliged to use an ear trumpet, having taken his departure from Trinity College, of which he was lately a fellow, mounted on his well-fed Rosinante for the purpose of visiting a friend, fell in with an acquaintance by the way side, with whom he was induced to dine, and evening was setting in ere he pushed forward for his original destination. Warm with T. B., he had not gone far ere he let fall the reins on the neck of his pegasus, which took its own course till he was suddenly roused by its coming to a stand-still where four cross roads met, in a part of the country to which he was an utter stranger. What added to the dilemma, the direction-post had been demolished. He luckily espied an old farmer jogging homeward from market. “Hallo! my man, can you tell me the way to ——?” “Yes, to be sure I can. You must go down hin-hinder lane, and cross yin-yinder common on the left, then you’ll see a hol and a pightal and the old mills, and ——” “Stop, stop, my good friend!” exclaimed our Cantab; “you don’t know I’m deaf,” pulling his ear-trumpet out of his pocket as he spoke: this the farmer no sooner got a glimpse of, than, taking it for a pistol or blunderbuss, and its owner for a highwayman, he clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped off at full speed, roaring out for mercy as our Cantab bawled for him to stop, the muzzle of his horse nosing the tail of the farmer’s, till they came to an opening in a wood by the road side, through which the latter vanished, leaving the Cantab solus, after a chase of some miles,—and upon inquiry at a cottage, he learnt he was still ten or twelve from the place of his destination, little short of the original distance he had to ride when he first started from Cambridge in the morning. This anecdote reminds me of two Oxonians of considerable celebrity, learning, and singular manners. One was the late amiable organist of Dulwich College the Rev. Onias Linley, son of Mr. Linley, of Drury-lane and musical celebrity: he was consequently brother of Mrs. R. B. Sheridan. He was bred at Winchester and New College, and was remarkable, when a minor canon at Norwich, in Norfolk, for

HIS ABSENT HABITS,

And the ridiculous light in which they placed him, and for carrying a huge snuff-box in one hand, which he constantly kept twirling with the other between his finger and thumb. He once attended a ball at the public assembly rooms, when, having occasion to visit the temple of Cloacina, he unconsciously walked back into the midst of the crowd of beauties present, with a certain coverlid under his arm, in lieu of his opera hat; nor was he aware of the exchange he had made till a friend gave him a gentle hint. He occasionally rode a short distance into the country to do duty on a Sunday, when he used compassionately to relieve his steed by alighting and walking on, with the horse following, and the bridle on his arm. Upon such occasions he frequently fell into what is called “a brown study,” and arrived at his destination dragging the bridle after him, minus the horse, which had stopped by the way to crop grass. He was one day met on the road so circumstanced, and reminded of the fact by a gentleman who knew him. “Bless me,” said he, with the most perfect composure, “the horse was with me when I sat out. I must go back to seek him.” And back he went a mile or two, when he found his steed grazing by the way, bridled him afresh, and reached his church an hour later than usual, much to the chagrin of his congregation. The late Dr. Adams, one of the first who went out to Demerara after the established clergy were appointed to stations and parishes in the West Indies by authority, was a man of habits very similar to those of Mr. Linley, and very similar anecdotes are recorded of him, and his oddities are said to have caused some mirth to his sable followers. He died in about a year or two, much regretted notwithstanding.

THE EARLY POETS BRED IN THE HALLS OF GRANTA,

“Semper—pauperimus esse,” were nearly all blest with none or a slender competence. But what they wanted in wealth was amply supplied in wit. Spenser, Lee, Otway, Ben Johnson, and his son Randolph, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Prior, and Kit Smart, poets as they were, had fared but so so, had they lived by poësy only—and who ever dreamed of caring ought for their posterity.

Spencer was matriculated a member of Pembroke College, Cambridge, the 20th of May, 1569, at the age of sixteen, at which early period he is supposed to have been under his “sweet fit of poesy,” and soon after formed the design of his great poem, the Faery Queene, stanzas of which, it is said, on very good authority, were lately discovered on the removal of some of the old wainscoting of the room in which he kept in Pembroke College. He took B. A. 1573, and M. A. 1576, without succeeding to fellowship, died in want of bread, 1599, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, according to his request, near Chaucer. Camden says of him—

In the common-place-book of Edward, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, preserved amongst the MSS. of the British Museum, is the memoranda:—“Lord Carteret told me, that when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a man of the name of Spenser, immediately descended from our illustrious poet, came to be examined before the Lord Chief Justice, as a witness in a cause, and that he was so entirely ignorant of the English language, that they were forced to have an interpreter for him.” But I have no intention to give my readers the blues. “Nat. Lee” was a Trinity man, and was, as the folk say, “as poor as a church mouse” during his short life, four years of which he passed in Bedlam. An envious scribe one day there saw him, and mocked his calamity by asking, “If it was not easy to write like a madman?” “No, Sir,” said he; “but it is

VERY EASY TO WRITE LIKE A FOOL.”

Otway was bred at St. John’s College, Cambridge. But though his tragedies are still received with “tears of approbation,” he lived in penury, and died in extreme misery, choked, it is said, by a morsel of bread given him to relieve his hunger, the 14th of April, 1685. Ben Jonson, “Rare Ben,” also “finished his education” at St. John’s, nor did I ever tread the mazes of its pleasant walks, but imagination pictured him and his gifted contemporaries and successors, from the time of the minstrel of Arcadia to the days of Kirke White,

But Ben, though “the greatest dramatic poet of his age,” after he left Cambridge, “worked with a trowel at the building of Lincoln’s Inn,” and died poor in everything but fame, in 1637. Ben, however, contrived to keep nearly as many “jovial days” in a year, as there are saints in the Roman calendar, and at a set time held a club at the same Devil Tavern, near Temple-bar, to which the celebrated Cambridge professor, and reformer of our church music, Dr. Maurice Greene, adjourned his concert upon his quarrel with Handel, which made the latter say of him with his natural dry humour, “Toctor Creene was gone to de tavil.” There Ben and his boon companions were still extant, when Tom Randolph (author of “The Muses’ Looking-Glass,” &c.,) a student of Trinity College, Cambridge, had ventured on a visit to London, where, it is said, he stayed so long, that he had already had a parley with his empty purse, when their fame made him long to see Ben and his associates. He accordingly, as Handel would have said, vent to de tavil, at their accustomed time of meeting; but being unknown to them, and without money, he was peeping into the room where they sat, when he was espied by Ben, who seeing him in a scholar’s thread-bare habit, cried out “John Bo-peep, come in.” He entered accordingly, and they, not knowing the wit of their guest, began to rhyme upon the meanness of his clothes, asking him if he could not make a verse, and, withal, to call for his quart of sack. There being but four, he thus addressed them:—

“By Jesus,” exclaimed Ben (his usual oath,) “I believe this is my son Randolph!” which being confessed, he was kindly entertained, and Ben ever after called him his son, and, on account of his learning, gaiety, and humour, and readiness of repartee, esteemed him equal to Cartwright. He also grew in favour with the wits and poets of the metropolis, but was cut off, some say of intemperance, at the age of twenty-nine. His brother was a member of Christ Church, Oxford, and printed his works in 1638. Amongst the Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ of Milton is the fact, that his personal beauty obtained for him the soubriquet of

“THE LADY OF THE COLLEGE;”

And that he set a full value on his fine exterior, is evident from the imperfect Greek lines, entitled, “In Effigie ejus Sculptorem,” in Warton’s second edition of his Poems. Some have supposed he had himself in view, in his delineation of the person of Adam. Every body knows that his “Paradise Lost” brought him and his posterity less than 20l.: but every body does not know that there is a Latin translation of it, in twelve books, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, in MS., the work of one Mr. Power, a Fellow of that Society, who printed the First Book in 1691, and completed the rest at the Bermudas, where his difficulties had obliged him to fly, and from whence it was sent to Dr. Richard Bentley, to publish and pay his debts with. However, in spite of his creditors, it still remains in MS. The writer obtained, says Judge Hardinge, alluding I suppose, to “the tempest of his mind and of his habits,” the soubriquet of the “Æolian Exile.” There is also a bust of Milton in the Library of Trinity College, and some of his juvenile poems, &c., in his own hand-writing. Cowley was bread at Trinity College. His bust, too, graces its Library, and his portrait its Hall.

BOTH THESE ALUMNI,

When students, wrote Latin as well as English verses, and the curious in such matters, on reference to this work, will be amused by the difference of feeling with which their Alma Mater inspired them. To Cowley the Bowers of Granta and the Camus were the very seat of inspiration; Milton thought no epithet too mean to express their charms: yet, says Dyer, in his supplement, “it is difficult to conceive a more brilliant example of youthful talent than Milton’s Latin Poems of that period.” Though they “are not faultless, they render what was said of Gray applicable to Milton—

‘HE NEVER WAS A BOY.’”

His mulberry tree, more fortunate than either that of Shakspeare, or the pear tree of his contemporary and patron, Oliver Cromwell, is still shown in the Fellows’ Garden of Christ College, and still “bears abundance in fruit-time,” and near it is a drooping ash, planted by the present Marquis of Bute, when a student of Christ College.

CROMWELL’S PEAR-TREE

I saw cut down, from the window of my sitting-room, in Jesus-lane, Cambridge (which happened to overlook the Fellows’ Garden of Sidney College,) in March, 1833. The tree is said to have been planted by Cromwell’s own hand, when a student at Sidney College, and, said the Cambridge Chronicle of the 11th of the above month, it seems not unlikely that the original stock was coeval with the Protector. The tree consisted of five stems (at the time it was cut down,) which rose directly from the ground, and which had probably shot up after the main trunk had been accidentally or intentionally destroyed. Four of these stems had been dead for some years, and the fifth was cut down, as stated above. “A section of it, at eight feet from the ground, had 103 consecutive rings, indicating as many years of growth for that part. If we add a few more for the growth of the portion still lower down, it brings us to a period within seventy years of the Restoration; and it is by no means improbable that the original trunk may have been at least seventy or eighty years old before it was mutilated. The stumps of the five stems are still left standing, the longest being eight feet high; and it is intended to erect a rustic seat within the area they embrace.”

OTHER MEMORIALS OF CROMWELL

At Sidney College, are his bust, in the Master’s Lodge, and his portrait in the Library. The first was executed by the celebrated Bernini, at the request of Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, from a plaster impression of the face of Cromwell, taken soon after his death. It was obtained by the late learned Cambridge Regius Professor of Botany, Thomas Martyn, B. D., during his stay in Italy, and by him presented to the Society of Sidney College, of which he was a fellow. Lord Cork said it bore “the strongest character of boldness, steadiness, sense, penetration, and pride.” The portrait is unique, drawn in crayons, by the celebrated Cooper, and is said to be that from which he painted his famous miniatures of the Protector. In the College Register is a memorandum of Cromwell’s admission to the society, dated April 23, 1616, to which some one has added his character, in Latin, in a different hand-writing, and very severe terms.

DRYDEN CONFINED TO COLLEGE WALLS.

Dryden, whom some have styled “The True Father of English Poetry,” was fond of a college life, as especially “favourable to the habits of a student.” He was bread at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he resided seven years, during which he is said never, like Milton and others, to have “wooed the muses.” What were his college habits is not known. The only notice of him at Trinity (where his bust and portrait are preserved, the first in the Library, the second in the Hall,) whilst an undergraduate, is the following entry in the College Register, made about two years after his admission:—“July 19, 1652. Agreed, then, that Dryden be put out of Comons, for a fortnight at least, and that he goe not out of the College during the time aforesaid, excepting to Sermons, without express leave from the Master or Vice-master (disobedience to whom was his fault,) and that, at the end of the fortnight, he read a confession of his crime in the Hall at the dinner-time, at the three fellows’ table.”

His contemporary, Dennis the Critic, seems to have been less fortunate at Cambridge. The author of the “Biographia Dramatica” asserts that he was

EXPELLED FROM CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Which is denied by Dr. Kippis, in the “Biographia Britannica,” and “when Doctors disagree, who shall decide?” In this case a third doctor steps in for the purpose, in the person of the celebrated Master of Emmanuel College, Dr. Richard Farmer, who, in a humorous letter, printed in the European Magazine for 1794, says, on turning to the Gesta Book of Caius College, under the head, “Sir Dennis sent away,” appears this entry: “March 4, 1680. At a meeting of the Master and Fellows, Sir Dennis mulcted 3l.; his scholarship taken away, and he sent out of the college, for assaulting and wounding Sir Glenham with a sword.”

PRIOR LAID OUT THE WALKS OF ST. JOHN’S

College, Cambridge, as I have been told, where he was educated, and lived and died a Fellow. After he became French Ambassador, and was distinguished by his sovereign, he was urged to resign his fellowship. His reply was (probably not having much faith in the longevity of princes’ favours,) “Should I need it, it will always insure me a bit of mutton and a clean shirt!” But it ought also to be added, to his honour, that the celebrated Thomas Baker, the antiquary, having been ejected from his fellowship in the same college, for refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary, Prior generously allowed him the proceeds of his.

The same Cantab was once at the opera, where a conceited French composer had taken his seat adjoining, and being anxious that the audience should know he had written the music, he annoyed our poet by humming every air so audibly as to spoil the effect of the person’s singing the part, one of the greatest artistes of the day. Thus annoyed, Prior ventured to hiss the singer. Every body was astonished at the daring, he being a great and deserved favourite. The composer hummed again,—again Prior hissed the singer, who, enraged at the circumstance, demanded “Why he was subject to such indignity?” “I want that fellow to leave off humming,” said Prior, pointing to the composer, “that I may have the pleasure of hearing you sing, Signor.”

STUNG BY A B.

Dr. Thomas Plume, a former Archdeacon of Colchester, was the munificent founder of the Cambridge Professorship of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, which (as in the case of the late Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke and the present George Pryme, Esq. M.A. and M.P.) he was the first to fill; but he was not as fortunate as the former, to fill his chair with unparalleled success,—in fact, his lectures were not quite the fashion. He was smarting under this truth, when he one day met Dr. Pearce in the streets of Cambridge, the Master of Jesus College, whom he addressed with, “Doctor, they call my lectures Plum-B-ian, which is very uncivil. I don’t at all like it, Dr. Pearce.” “I suppose the B. stung you,” rejoined the latter. Here we may not inappropriately introduce a trifle, hit off between Dr. Pearce and the woman who had the care of the Temple Gardens, when he was master there. It is a rule to keep them close shut during divine service on Sundays; but the Doctor being indisposed, and having no grounds attached to his residence save the church-yard, wished to seize the quiet hour for taking a little air and exercise. He accordingly rung the garden bell, and Rachel made her appearance; but she flatly told him she should not let him in, as it was against the Benchers’ orders. “But I am the Master of the Temple,” said Dr. P. “The more shame for you,” said Rachel, “you ought to set a better example;” and the Doctor retired dead beat.

A NEST OF SAXONISTS.

Queen’s College, Oxford, was called “a nest of Saxonists” towards the close of the sixteenth century, when those learned antiquarians and Saxonists, Rawlinson and Thwaites, flourished there. It is recorded of the latter, in Nichols’s Bowyer, that he said, writing of the state of the college, “We want Saxon Lexicons. I have fifteen young students in that language, and but one Somner for them all.” Our Cambridge gossip,

COLE, RELATES A PLEASANT MISTAKE,

(taken notice of by Warton also in the first volume of his History of English Poetry) of a brother Cantab’s having undertaken to translate the Scriptures into Welsh, and rendering vials of wrath (meaning vessels—Rom. v. 8) by the Welsh word Crythan, signifying crowds or fiddles. “The Greek word being φιαλας,” he adds, “it is probable he translated from the English only, where finding vials, he mistook it for viols.” The translator was Dr. Morgan, who died Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1604.

MINDING THE ROAST.

Lord Nugent, on-dit, once called on an old college acquaintance, then a country divine of great simplicity of manners, at a time when his housekeeper was from home on some errand, and he had undertaken to mind the roast. This obliged him to invite his lordship into the kitchen, that he might avoid the fate of King Alfred. Our dame’s stay exceeded the time anticipated, and the divine having to bury a corpse, he begged Lord N. to take his turn at the spit, which he accordingly did, till the housekeeper arrived to relieve him. This anecdote reminds me of the following

SPECIMEN OF A COLLEGE EXERCISE,

By the Younger Bowyer, written at St. John’s College, Cambridge,
November 29, 1719.

Parce tuum Vatum sceleris damnare.

TULIP-TIME.

Writing of the death of a former Master of Magdalen College, “whose whole delight was horses, dogs, sporting, &c.,” which, says Cole, happened on the first of September, the legal day for partridge-shooting to begin, “it put me in mind of the late Dr. Walker, Vice-master of Trinity, a great florist (and founder of the Botanical Garden at Cambridge,) who, when told of a brother florist’s death, by shooting himself in the spring, immediately exclaimed, ‘Good God! is it possible? Now, at the beginning of tulip-time!’”

THE COLLEGE BELL.

When Dr. Barrett, Prebend of St. Paul’s, was a student at Peter-house, Cambridge, he happened to make one of a party of collegians, where it was proposed that each gentleman should toast his favourite belle; when it came to his turn, he facetiously gave “the college-bell!”

COLLEGE FUN.

“Previous to my attending Cambridge,” says Henry Angelo, in his Reminiscences, “one of my scholars (whom I had taught at Westminster School,) at Trinity College, engaged an Irish fencing-master, named Fitzpatrick,” more remarkable for his native humour than science, and when he had taken too much of the cratur, “was amusing to the collegians, who had engaged him merely to keep up their exercise.” One day, during a bout, some wag placed a bottle of his favourite “mountain dew” (whisky) on the chimney-piece, which proved so attractive, “that as his sips increased, so did the numerous hits he received, till the first so far prevailed, aided by exertion and the heat of the weather, that he lay, tandem, to all appearance dead.” To keep the fun up, he was stripped and laid out like a corpse, with a shroud on, a coffin close to him, and four candles placed on each side, ready to light on his recovery. This jeu de plaisanterie might have been serious; “however, Master Push-carte took care not to push himself again into the same place.”

THE KING OF DENMARK AT CAMBRIDGE.

When the late King of Denmark was in England, in 1763, when he visited Eton, &c., he is said to have made a brief sojourn at Cambridge, where he was received with “all the honours,” and took up his abode (as is usual for persons of his rank) in the lodge of the Master of Trinity. In his majesty’s establishments for learned purposes, as well as throughout all Germany, &c., no provision is made for lodging and otherwise providing for the comforts of students, as in the two English universities; and when he surveyed the principal court of Trinity, he is said to have had so little notion of an English university, that he asked “whether that court did not comprise the whole of the university of Cambridge?” This royal anecdote reminds me that his present gracious Majesty,

WILLIAM THE FOURTH, ANNOUNCED HIS INTENTION TO VISIT CAMBRIDGE.

As in duty bound, upon his accession to the throne of his ancestors, a loyal congratulatory address was voted by the members of the University of Cambridge in full senate. This was shortly afterwards presented to his Majesty at St. James’s Palace by the then Vice-Chancellor, Dr. George Thackery, D.D., Provost of King’s College, at the head of a large body of the heads of colleges, and others, en robe. His majesty not only received it most graciously, but with that truly English expression that goes home to the bosom of every Briton, told Dr. Thackery he “should shortly take pot-luck with him in Cambridge.” The term, too, is worthy of particular notice, since it expresses his Majesty’s kind consideration for the contents of the university chest, and the pockets of its members. Oxford, it is well known, is still smarting under the heavy charges incident upon the memorable visit of his late Majesty, George the Fourth, in 1814, with the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia and their suites. It would be no drawback upon the popularity of princes if they did take “pot-luck” with their subjects oftener than they do. Let there be no drawback upon hospitality, but let the “feast of reason and the flow of soul” suffice for the costly banquet. In olden times, our monarchs took pot-luck both at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, without their subjects being the less loyal. Queen Elizabeth and James the First and Second were frequent visitors at both those seats of learning. Elizabeth, indeed, that flower of British monarchs, suffered no designing minister to shake her confidence in her people’s loyalty. She did not confine her movements to the dull routine of two or three royal palaces,—her palace was her empire. She went about “doing good” by the light of her countenance. She, and not her minister, was the people’s idol. I therefore come to the conclusion, that the expressed determination of his majesty, William the Fourth, to take pot-luck with his good people of the University of Cambridge, is the dawn of a return of those wholesome practices of which we read in the works of our ANNALISTS, when