Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars. Gooch Richard
at any thing. Upon this, one of the party exclaimed, “You have told us a great deal of what you can do, tell us something you can’t do?” “Well,” he retorted, “I’ll tell you what I can’t do—I can’t pay my reckoning!” This sally won him a hearty welcome.
THE FIRST WOMEN INTRODUCED INTO A CLOISTER.
About 1550, whilst the famous Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, was Dean of Christ-church, Oxford, says Cole, in his Athenæ Cant., “he brought his wife into the college, who, with the wife of Peter Martyr, a canon of the same cathedral, were observed to be the first women ever introduced into a cloister or college, and, upon that account, gave no small scandal at the time.” This reminds me of an anecdote that used to amuse the under-grads in my day at Cambridge. A certain D.D., head of a college, a bachelor, and in his habits retired to a degree of solitariness, in an unlucky moment gave a lady that did not want twice bidding, not bill of exchange, but a running invitation to the college lodge, to be used at pleasure. She luckily seized the long vacation for making her appearance, when there were but few students in residence; but to the confusion of our D.D., her ten daughters came en traine, and the college was not a little scandalized by their playing shuttlecock in the open court—the lady was in no haste to go. Report says sundry hints were given in vain. She took his original invite in its literal sense, to “suit her own convenience.” The anxiety he endured threw our modest D.D. in to a sick-bed, and not relishing the office of nurse to a bachelor of sixty years’ standing, she decamped, + her ten daughters.
THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLAR AND THE GHOST OF A
SCRAG OF MUTTON.
In the days that are past, by the side of a stream,
Where waters but softly were flowing,
With ivy o’ergrown an old mansion-house stood,
That was built on the skirts of a chilling damp wood,
Where the yew-tree and cypress were growing.
The villagers shook as they passed by the doors,
When they rested at eve from their labours;
And the traveller many a furlong went round,
If his ears once admitted the terrific sound,
Of the tale that was told by the neighbours.
They said, “that the house in the skirts of the wood
By a saucer-eyed ghost was infested,
Who filled every heart with confusion and fright,
By assuming strange shapes at the dead of the night,
Shapes monstrous, and foul, and detested.”
And truly they said, and the monster well knew,
That the ghost was the greatest of evils;
For no sooner the bell of the mansion toll’d one,
Than the frolicksome imp in a fury begun
To caper like ten thousand devils.
He appeared in forms the most strange and uncouth,
Sure never was goblin so daring!
He utter’d loud shrieks and most horrible cries,
Curst his body and bones, and his sweet little eyes, Till his impudence grew beyond bearing. Just at this nick o’ time, when the master’s sad heart With anguish and sorrow was swelling, He heard that a scholar with science complete, Full of magical lore as an egg’s full of meat, At Cambridge had taken a dwelling. The scholar was versed in all magical arts, Most famous was he throughout college; To the Red Sea full oft many an unquiet ghost, To repose with King Pharaoh and his mighty host He had sent through his powerful knowledge. To this scholar so learn’d the master he went, And as lowly he bent with submission, Told the freaks of the horrible frights That prevented his household from resting at nights, And offered this humble petition:— “That he, the said scholar, in wisdom so wise, Would the mischievous fiend lay in fetters; Would send him in torments for ever to dwell, In the nethermost pit of the nethermost hell, For destroying the sleep of his betters.” The scholar so versed in all magical lore, Told the master his pray’r should be granted; He ordered his horse to be saddled with speed, And perch’d on the back of his cream colour’d steed, Trotted off to the house that was haunted. “Bring me turnips and milk!” the scholar he cried, In voice like the echoing thunder: He brought him some turnips and suet beside, Some milk and a spoon, and his motions they eyed, Quite lost in conjecture and wonder. He took up the turnips, and peel’d off the skins, Put them into a pot that was boiling; Spread a table and cloth, and made ready to sup, Then call’d for a fork, and the turnips fished up In a hurry, for they were a-spoiling. He mash’d up the turnips with butter and milk: The hail at the casement ’gan clatter! Yet this scholar ne’er heeded the tempest without, But raising his eyes, and turning about, Asked the maid for a small wooden platter. He mash’d up the turnips with butter and salt, The storm came on thicker and faster— The lightnings went flash, and with terrific din The wind at each crevice and cranny came in, Tearing up by the root lath and plaster. He mash’d up the turnips with nutmegs and spice, The mess would have ravish’d a glutton; When lo! with sharp bones hardly covered with skin, The ghost from a nook o’er the window peep’d in, In the form of a boil’d scrag of mutton. “Ho! Ho!” said the ghost, “what art doing below?” The scholar peep’d up in a twinkling— “The times are too hard to afford any meat, So to render my turnips more pleasant to eat, A few grains of pepper I’m sprinkling.” Then he caught up a fork, and the mutton he seiz’d, And soused it at once in the platter; Threw o’er it some salt and a spoonful of fat, And before the poor ghost could tell what he was at, He was gone like a mouse down the throat of a cat, And this is the whole of the matter.
COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS.
Doctor John Franklin, Fellow and Master of Sidney College, Cambridge, 1730, “a very fat, rosy-complexioned man,” dying soon after he was made Dean of Ely, and being succeeded by Dr. Ellis, “a meagre, weasel-faced, swarthy, black man,” the Fenman of Ely, says (Cole) in allusion thereto, out of vexation at being so soon called upon for recognition money, made the following humorous distitch:—
“The Devil took our Dean,
And pick’d his bones clean;
Then clapt him on a board,
And sent him back again.”
JAUNT DOWN A PATIENT’S THROAT.
“Two of a trade can ne’er agree,
No proverb e’er was juster;
They’ve ta’en down Bishop Blaize, d’ye see,
And put up Bishop Bluster.”
Dr. Mansel, on Bishop Watson’s head becoming a signboard, in Cambridge, in lieu of the ancient one of Bishop Blaize.—Facetiæ Cant., p. 7.
Sir Isaac Pennington and Sir Busick Harwood were cotemporary at Cambridge. The first as Regius Professor of Physic and Senior Fellow of St. John’s College, the other was Professor of Anatomy and Fellow of Downing College. Both were eminent in their way, but seldom agreed, and held each other’s abilities pretty cheap, some say in sovereign contempt. Sir Busick was once called in by the friends of a patient that had been under Sir Isaac’s care, but had obtained small relief, anxious to hear his opinion of the malady. Not approving of the treatment pursued, he inquired “who was the physician in attendance,” and on being told, exclaimed—“He! If he were to descend into a patient’s stomach with a candle and lantern, he would not have been able to name the complaint!”
THIS DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Was hit off, it is supposed, not by