Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars. Gooch Richard
at the divinity examination, how many sacraments there were. This happened at the time that the Catholic question was in the high road to the House of Lords, under the auspices of the Duke of Wellington, and he had been cramming his upper story with abundance of Catholic Faith from the writings of Faber, Gandolphy, and the Bishops of Durham and Exeter. “How many sacraments are there, sir?” repeated the Examiner (of course referring to the Church of England.) The student paused on, and the question was repeated a second time; “Why—a—suppose—we—a—say half a dozen,” was the reply. It is needless to add he was plucked. The following
LAPSUS GRAMMATICÆ
Is attributed to a certain D.D. of Exeter, who, having undertaken to lionize one of the foreign princes of the many that accompanied the late king and the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia to Oxford, in 1814, a difficulty arose between them as to their medium of communication; the prince being ignorant of the English language, and the doctor no less so with respect to modern foreign languages. In this dilemma the latter proposed an interchange of ideas by means of the fingers, in the following unique address:—“Intelligisne colloquium cum digitalibus tuis?”
It would be somewhat awkward for certain alumni if his Grace of Wellington should issue an imperative decree, as Chancellor,
THAT THE LATIN TONGUE BE USED,
(As Wood says, in his annals, the famous Archbishop Bancroft did, on being raised to the dignity of Chancellor of Oxford in 1608,) “By the students in their halls and colleges, whereby,” said his Grace, “the young as well as the old may be inured to a ready and familiar delivery of their minds in that language, whereof there was now so much use both in studies and common conversation; for it was now observed (and so it may in these present times, adds Wood,) that it was a great blemish to the learned men of this nation, that they being complete in all good knowledge, yet they were not able promptly and aptly to express themselves in Latin, but with hesitation and circumlocution, which ariseth only from disuse.”
EFFECT OF HABIT.
Dr. Fothergill, when Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, was a singular as well as a learned man, and would not have been seen abroad minus his wig and gown for a dukedom. One night a fire broke out in the lodge, which spread with such rapidity, that it was with difficulty Mrs. F. and family escaped the fury of the flames; and this she no sooner did than, naturally enough, the question was, “Where is the Doctor?” No Doctor was to be found; and the cry was he had probably perished in the flames. All was bustle, and consternation, and tears, till suddenly, to the delight of all, he emerged from the burning pile, full-dressed, as usual, his wig something the worse for being nearly ‘done to a turn;’ but he deemed it indecorous for him to appear otherwise, though he stayed to robe at the risk of his life.
THE CONCUSSION.
The living Cambridge worthy, William Sydney Walker, M.A. (who at the age of sixteen wrote the successful tragedy of Wallace, and recently vacated his fellowship at Trinity College “for conscience-sake,”) walking hastily round the corner of a street in Cambridge, in his peculiarly near-sighted sidling hasty manner, he suddenly came in contact with the blind muffin-man who daily perambulates the town. The concussion threw both upon their haunches. “Don’t you see I’m blind?” exclaimed the muffin-man, in great wrath. “How should I,” rejoined the learned wag, “when I’m blind too.”
COMIC PICTURE OF THE ELECTION OF A PROVOST OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Upon the death of a provost of King’s College, Cambridge, the fellows are obliged, according to their statutes, to be shut up in their celebrated chapel till they have agreed upon the election of a successor, a custom not unlike that to which the cardinals are subject at Rome, upon the death of a pope, where not uncommonly some half dozen are brought out dead before an election takes place. “The following is a comic picture of an election,” says Judge Hardinge, in Nichols’s Illustrations of Literature, from the pen of Daniel Wray, Esq. dated from Cambridge, the 19th of January, 1743. “The election of a provost of King’s is over—Dr. George is the man. The fellows went into chapel on Monday, before noon in the morning, as the statute directs. After prayers and sacrament, they began to vote:—22 for George; 16 for Thackery; 10 for Chapman. Thus they continued, scrutinizing and walking about, eating and sleeping; some of them smoking. Still the same numbers for each candidate, till yesterday about noon (for they held that in the forty-eight hours allowed for the election no adjournment could be made,) when the Tories, Chapman’s friends, refusing absolutely to concur with either of the other parties, Thackery’s votes went over to George by agreement, and he was declared. A friend of mine, a curious fellow, tells me he took a survey of his brothers at two o’clock in the morning, and that never was a more curious or a more diverting spectacle: some wrapped in blankets, erect in their stalls like mummies; others asleep on cushions, like so many Gothic tombs. Here a red cap over a wig, there a face lost in the cape of a rug; one blowing a chafing-dish with a surplice-sleeve; another warming a little negus, or sipping Coke upon Littleton, i.e. tent and brandy. Thus did they combat the cold of that frosty night, which has not killed any one of them, to my infinite surprise.” One of the fellows of King’s engaged in this election was Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord High Chancellor of England, and father of the present Marquis of Camden, who, writing to his amiable and learned friend and brother Etonian and Kingsman, Dr. Sneyd Davies, archdeacon of Derby, &c. in the January of the above year, says, “Dear Sneyd we are all busy in the choice of a provost. George and Thackery are the candidates. George has all the power and weight of the Court interest, but I am for Thackery, so that I am at present a patriot, and vehemently declaim against all unstatutable influence. The College are so divided, that your friends the Tories may turn the balance if they will; but, if they should either absent themselves or nominate a third man, Chapman, for example, Thackery will be discomfited. Why are not you a doctor? We could choose you against all opposition. However, I insist upon it, that you shall qualify yourself against the next vacancy, for since you will not come to London, and wear lawn sleeves, you may stay where you are, and be provost,”—which he did not live to be, though he did take his D.D.
SIR, DOMINUS, MAGISTRI, SIR GREENE.
A writer in an early volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine has stated, that “the Christian name is never used in the university with the addition of Sir, but the surname only.” Cole says, in reply, “This is certainly so at Cambridge. Yet when Bachelors of Arts get into the country, it is quite the reverse; for then, whether curates, chaplains, vicars, or rectors, they are constantly styled Sir, or Dominus, prefixed to both their names, to distinguish them from Masters of Arts, or Magistri. This may be seen,” he says, “in innumerable instances in the lists of incumbents in New Court, &c.” And, he adds, addressing himself to that illustrious character, Sylvanus Urban, “I could produce a thousand others from the wills, institutions, &c. in the diocese of Ely, throughout the whole reign of Henry VIII. and for many years after, till the title was abandoned, and are never called Sir Evans, or Sir Martext, as in the university they would be, according to your correspondent’s opinion, but invariably Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext, &c. The subject,” adds this pleasant chronicler, “ ‘seria ludo,’ puts me in mind of a very pleasant story, much talked of when I was first admitted of the university, which I know to be fact, as I since heard Mr. Greene, the dean of Salisbury, mention it. The dean was at that time only Bachelor of Arts, and Fellow of Bene’t College, where Bishop Mawson was master, and then, I think, Bishop of Llandaff, who, being one day at Court, seeing Mr. Greene come into the drawing-room, immediately accosted him, pretty loud, in this manner, How do you do, Sir Greene? When did you leave College, Sir Greene? Mr. Greene was quite astonished, and the company present much more so, as not comprehending the meaning of the salutation or title, till Mr. Greene explained it, and also informed them,” observes