Read Ebook: Rowlandson's Oxford by Gibbs A Hamilton Arthur Hamilton Rowlandson Thomas Illustrator

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Ebook has 459 lines and 72411 words, and 10 pages

PAGE

Blissful ignorance--The real education--Empty schools-- Manhood--Lonely freshers--The "pi" man--The newcomer's metamorphosis--The Lownger's day--Regrets at being down 1-8

First arrival--Footpads and "easy pads"--Farewell to parents--A forlorn animal--Terrae Filius's advice--Much prayers--"Hell has no fury like a woman scorned"--The disadvantages of a conscience 9-17

Terrae Filius sums her up--Merton Wall butterflies--Hearne comments--Flavia and the orange tree--Dick, the sloven-- The President under her thumb--Amhurst's table of cons.-- King Charles and the other place 39-45

The germ of Ruskin Hall--Description of himself--George Whitefield--College exercises--Running errands and copying lines--Samuel Wesley--Famous servitors 46-54

Rowing--Dame Hooper's--Southey at Balliol--Cox's six-oared crew--The river-side barmaid--Sailing-boats--Statutes against games--Bell-ringing--Hearne and gymnasia--Horses and badger-baiting--Cock-fights and prize-fights-- Paniotti's Fencing Academy--Old-time "bug-shooters"-- Skating in Christ Church meadows--Cricket and the Bullingdon Club--Walking tours 55-68

The foregathering fresher--Dibdin and the "Lunatics"--The Constitution Club--The Oxford Poetical Club--Its rules and minutes--High Borlace--The Freecynics and Banterers 69-82

Tolerated ignorance--Lax discipline--Gibbon and Magdalen-- The "Vindication"--Opposing and responding--"Schemes"-- Doing austens--Perjury and bribes--Receiving presents-- Magdalen collections 83-94

Tutors--Their slackness--The real and the ideal tutor--Dr Newton on tutors' fees--Dr Johnson's recommendation of Bateman--Public lecturers--Terrae Filius and a Wadham man's letter 153-162

The examiners--Perjury and bribery--Method of examining-- College Fellows--Election to Fellowships--Gibbon and the Magdalen Dons--Heads of colleges--Their domestic and public character--Golgotha and Ben Numps--St John's head pays homage to Christ Church--Drs Marlowe and Randolph 163-174

Proctors--The Black Book--Personal spite and the taking of a degree--The case of Meadowcourt of Merton--Extract from Black Book--The taverner and the Proctor--Isaac Walton and the senior Proctor--Amhurst's character sketch of a certain Proctor 175-183

Charles James Fox--Earl of Malmesbury--William Eden--Cards and claret--Midnight oil--Oxford friendships remembered afterwards--Edward Gibbon--Delicate bookworm--Antagonism towards Oxford--Becomes a Roman Catholic--Subsequent apostasy--John Wesley--Resists taking orders--Germs of ambition--America the golden opportunity--Oxford responsible for Methodism 184-198

COLLEGE SERVICE " 15

A VIEW OF THE THEATRE, PRINTING HOUSE, ETC., AT OXFORD " 19

BUCKS OF THE FIRST HEAD " 30

MERTON COLLEGE AND CHAPEL, FROM THE QUADRANGLE " 40

A 'VARSITY TRICK--SMUGGLING IN " 45

VIEW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE " 53

NORTH VIEW OF FRIAR BACON'S STUDY AT OXFORD " 59

A DUCK HUNT " 66

A WESTERN VIEW OF ALL SOULS' COLLEGE " 74

THE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTERS AT MAGDALEN " 92

OFF TO A BADGER-BAITING " 133

A SOUTH VIEW OF THE OBSERVATORY AT OXFORD " 160

MERTON COLLEGE " 177

STAIRCASE, CHRIST CHURCH " 193

FOREWORD

The task of writing a book on Oxford University is by no means an easy one. If it be a novel there are countless pitfalls to entrap the author--points small and inconsequent to the reader who cannot proudly claim the City of Spires as his Alma Mater, but irritating beyond description to the man who knows and loves Oxford.

But if modern Oxford dealt with from the romantic and sentimental point of view as the background of a story contains such a network of difficulties, the Oxford of two hundred years ago, Rowlandson's Oxford, contains them multiplied a hundred times, because it now becomes a question not of reproducing the vivid pictures of the hour and moment, but of recreating the atmosphere of a time that is silent in death.

It is, therefore, with great diffidence that I have attempted to resuscitate the life and moods of Oxford of the eighteenth century. Barely two years have elapsed since the days when I looked out from my windows into the quad of my college. All the work and play, the alarums and excursions which go to form the life of the average Undergraduate have not yet had time to fade into dim, half forgotten memories. Alma Mater still grasps me in her warm hand. So vivid indeed are all the impressions which I received from the friendly gargoyles and the peace-touched lawns, the beautiful colleges with their silent cloisters, the full-blooded twenty-firsters and bump-suppers, and the thousand and one everyday happenings, that I might be merely awaiting the passing of vacation to go up once more.

With all the Undergraduate interests still so strongly at heart, I think that it is natural that I should have studied the Rowlandson period with the mind of the Undergraduate and have carried out my task from the Undergraduate point of view. It is difficult to give any idea of the quaintness, delight, and amusement caused by going back two hundred years to a University so like and so unlike--like, in that the men, although so different outwardly, had practically the same ideas as we have and carried them out in the same colleges, even in the same rooms, in a precisely similar manner; unlike in that the Dons were a breed of men differing in every respect from those who look after us to-day.

In all these phrases the old-time Undergraduate can be compared with his modern brothers. In his dealings with the river-side barmaids, the local tradesmen, and the proctors he pursued much the same ingenuous methods which are used with equal success to-day. Just as we become members of unlimited numbers of year clubs and settle the affairs of the entire human species at the nightly meetings with ease and eloquence, they, too, formed societies and took themselves with a similar seriousness. They contributed literary morsels to the Undergraduate papers which satirised existing institutions in the same youthful manner in which we satirise them. They conducted "rags" with a thoroughness and disregard of results which ended in the same speedy rustication of the ringleaders which inevitably overtakes the men who are still unwise enough to be found out.

In a word, my object has been not to compare the ethics of the university to-day with those of yesterday, but rather to set forth an analogy between Dons and Undergraduates of that period and this, and the business of their daily life, from the point of view of one upon whom the influence of Alma Mater has not yet been mellowed into an analytical remembrance by long contact with the world which lies beyond her spires.

Whether I have succeeded in proving my case remains to be seen. At least I venture to hope that the results of my work may form a frame for Rowlandson's pictures which are here reproduced for the first time from Rowlandson's original water-colour drawings.

Of these pictures many were engraved at the time in aquatint, but the engraver was as a rule so obsessed with the Georgian ideas of the beautiful in architecture that he practically reconstructed the majority of the buildings represented, in accordance with that idea, so that some of the most beautiful and characteristic buildings in Oxford and Cambridge, so delicately portrayed by Rowlandson's pencil, are turned into rectangular monstrosities, the like of which was never seen in either university town.

The superiority of hand-engraving over modern processes is evident enough, when the engraving itself was made by the artist; but when the original drawing is so hopelessly misrepresented as is the case with many of the aquatints of Rowlandson's drawings, the modern facsimile processes have their obvious advantages.

It is therefore claimed that Rowlandson's drawings of Oxford are here reproduced for the first time, and it is believed that they will be a revelation to many who have hitherto looked upon Rowlandson merely as a somewhat gross caricaturist. The caricaturist, it is true, is still here depicting in the foregrounds characteristic scenes in the university life of the time, but here is also another Rowlandson with an appreciation of the beauties of Oxford rare indeed in his age, and one who is able to delineate them with accuracy and delicacy which have seldom been equalled in the portrayal of such subjects.

The author desires to express his gratitude to the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth for having very kindly granted him permission to make quotations from "Social Life in the English Universities"; and to Messrs Macmillan & Co., publishers of J. R. Green's "Oxford Studies," for allowing him to make two quotations from that book; and also to Mr R. S. Rait of the Oxford Historical Society for having permitted him to quote from Miss L. Quiller-Couch's "Reminiscences of Oxford," published by that society.

ROWLANDSON'S OXFORD

THE UNDERGRADUATE THEN AND NOW

Blissful ignorance--The real education--Empty schools--Manhood--Lonely freshers--The "pi" man--The newcomer's metamorphosis--The Lownger's day--Regrets at being down.

How few of us there are to-day who ever devote even the slack hour between tea and "hotters" and Hall to finding out something at least about the Undergraduates who had our rooms two centuries ago. Yet to every man the word Oxford conjures up vast vague shadows from the past which make him as a freshman tread softly and with reverence through the quads and gardens, High Streets and by-streets of the City of Spires. Great names rise up into our minds and fill us with wonder, but the scout knocks at our door with half-cold food and our dreams dissolve into irritated reality. There may come a moment, perhaps, when, with feet at rest upon the mantel-shelf and a straight-grained pipe bubbling in quiet response between our teeth, we are deafening our ears to the call of bed, the slow-flowing conversation drifts by chance to a casual query as to what our predecessors did at the same hour two hundred years ago. Beyond a few more or less unimaginative surmises we remain in ignorance, blissful and uncaring, believing them to be strange-clothed beings of stilted language and curious habits, and at once the talk turns to present and more pleasant topics. We little think that to all intents and purposes we are almost exactly the same as our old-time-brethren.

To them schools were much less a source of worry than they are to us, for, beyond attending occasional disputations and an odd lecture or so, when a Don could be persuaded to give one, they obtained their degree by the simple but expensive process of drinking the examiner--usually a hardened toper--under the table overnight. He was then led, in the morning, while still pleasantly fuddled, to the schools, and there, in consideration of a respectable douceur, he signed away the necessary papers with a beaming and self-satisfied smile. They knew nothing of the humours of white ties, dark suits, and a week's terrible strain to get a First in Honour Mods--before the Finals are even thought of. The shivering crowds waiting in the Hall to be led to the slaughter did not exist in those days. A Trinity man named Skinner, who matriculated in 1790, flung himself at the subject in satirical verse:--

"Enter we next the Public Schools Where now a death-like stillness rules; Yet these still walls in days of yore Back to the streets returned the roar of hundreds.... But since their champion Aristotle Has been deserted for the bottle The benches stand like Prebends' stalls Lone and deserted 'gainst the walls."

No sooner have we finished with our public school days, when we are known as boys, and have either scrambled over the "Smalls" hedge with some humility and relief, or else have secured the privilege of lording it in a scholar's gown, than we instantly become men. We may be anything between eighteen and twenty, but if a sister, brother, or cousin be unwary enough to refer to us as a boy--woe unto him or her! We may pretend that we do not mind, but in our heart of hearts we rejoice in being Oxford "men," and guard our title jealously. We are not, however, unique in this. It is a habit which has come down to us from the eighteenth century when they were just as jealous of such points of etiquette.

George Colman the younger tells us that he came upon two freshmen of that time who had had a quarrel. Six months before they blacked each other's eyes at Westminster in the good old British way. Now, however, being Oxford men, they could not descend to such a childish level, but agreed to afford each other "gentlemanly satisfaction." They may have lacked a certain sense of humour, but it was the right spirit, and it is safe to conclude that they both did well at their respective colleges.

They had their clubs and societies at which, in the intervals of drinking, they indicted Latin poems or discussed some important political question where we, over mulled claret and other comestibles, read papers on "The Abolition of the Halfpenny Press," or "The Glories of Tariff Reform." They had big dinners, and tried to find their way home in the small hours. We have our fresher's wines and bump suppers in which the whole college participates with the sole object of enjoying good wine and destroying good furniture, and we crawl home, if we are outside college, through the same streets. To-day we have the "pi" man who sternly refuses to countenance such evil things as fresher's wines; who has signed the pledge and eschews tobacco. If he is compelled by an outraged band of senior men to lend his presence against his better judgment, and is led out from a room in a state of Dor?-like chaos, he becomes uproarious on a glass of water and two bananas, and writes home to his mother that his bill for repairs is enormous owing to his bravery in being a martyr to his principles, and that drunkenness is on the increase among the Undergraduates. All the same he thoroughly enjoys himself, and in time wears off rough corners and learns how to keep his vows without any objectionable fanfare. At the end of the eighteenth century a man of this kidney named Crosse wrote to his mother: "Oxford is a perfect hell upon earth. What chance is there for an unfortunate lad just come from school with no one to watch and care for him--no guide? I often saw my tutor carried off perfectly intoxicated." I can see the man crouching in a dark corner of the quad appalled at the sight of his fellows dancing round a bonfire, while his tutor rushes by on the arms of a festive crowd in full rejoicing at some college triumph. It would be interesting to ascertain Crosse's views at the end of his university career. He remained, however, in the obscurity of mediocrity.

Our trousseau when we first appear at the university consists of modest socks and humble waistcoats, and ties which make no claim to originality or even to smartness. They are content to be merely useful and to fulfil their appointed functions. But does not every parent learn subsequently, with dreadful results to his peace of mind, how after our first month we make our way unerringly to the tailors and clothiers, and there with deadly earnestness absorb colour schemes which cry a loud challenge to Joseph's coat? Our waistcoats are dreams,--sometimes nightmares; the blending of harmony between shirt, tie, and socks is as perfect as the rainbow. Our hair, which used to be parted carelessly down one side, now disdains partings and goes straight back in one beautiful Magdalen sweep. Our trousers are thrown at the scout's head as a gift unless they be of unparalleled width and of exceptional crease.

This tendency to burst forth into strange and variegated garments in token of our emancipation from apron strings was just as strong in the old days. The sons of country farmers came trooping into Oxford, their clouted shoes thick with good red earth, in linsey wolsey coats, with greasy, uncombed heads of hair flapping in the wind. Their stockings were of coarse yarn, and they knew nothing better than to have long muslin neckcloths run with red at the ends. But they soon realised the contempt in which they were held for this dull chrysalis-like appearance. After a few weeks these shamefaced clodhoppers sneaked into the side door of the barbers' shops to emerge proudly by the front entrance in a bob wig. Their clouted shoes were relegated to young brothers, and they wore new ones--Oxford cut. Their yarn stockings gave place to worsted, until, after a very short interval between their arrival and their settling down, they blushed out like butterflies in tye wigs and ruffles and silk gowns. The "blood" of that period, or, as the term then was, the "smart," or the "buck of the first head," was distinguished when he aired his person, Amhurst told us, "by a stiff silk gown which rustles in the wind as he struts along; a flaxen tye wig, or sometimes a long natural one which reaches down below his rump; a broad bully cock'd hat, or a square cap of above twice the usual size; white stockings, thin Spanish leather shoes; his cloaths lined with tawdry silk, and his shirt ruffled down the bosom as well as at the wrists. Besides all which marks, he has a delicate jaunt in his gait, and smells philosophically of essence."

How his direct descendant, the Bullingdon man, must envy him his magnificent opportunities of making a brave show! Not for him the silk gown, the bully cocked hat. The best he can do in imitation is the amazing dinner jacket which he sometimes sports at the theatre, under which one finds not the accepted form of dress shirt but a peculiar form of abortion which is neatly ruffled at "bosom and wrists." In place of the Spanish leather shoes the last word to-day is apparently buckskin. The "delicate jaunt in the gait" has been retained--the result being caused now by a union of "Eton slouch" and "Oxford manner." The head still smells of essence--honey and flowers at Hatt's, brilliantine at Martyr's. These great-minded people think alike not only in point of dress but of the manner of killing time. "The Lownger" summed up the process as carried out in the eighteenth century--

"I rise about nine, get to breakfast by ten, Blow a tune on my flute, or perhaps make a pen, Read a play till eleven or cock my lac'd hat, Then step to my neighbour's, till dinner to chat. Dinner over to Tom's or to James's I go, The news of the town so impatient to know, While Low, Locke and Newton and all the rum race That talk of their Modes, their ellipses and space, The Seat of the Soul and new Systems on high, In Halls as abstruse as their mysteries lie. From the coffee-house then I to Tennis away, And at five I post back to my College to pray, I sup before eight and secure from all duns, Undauntedly march to the Mitre or Tuns, Where in Punch or good Claret my sorrows I drown, And toss off a bowl to the best in the town. At one in the morning I call what's to pay? Then home to my College I stagger away. Thus I tope all the night as I trifle all day."

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