An Oxford Hoax and a Puritan Detected
A certain Oxford D.D. at the head of a college, lately expected a party of maiden ladies, his sisters and others, to visit him from the country. They were strangers in Oxford, therefore, like another Bayard, he was anxious to meet them on their arrival and gallant them to his College. This, however, was to him, so little accustomed to do the polite to the ladies, an absolute event, and it naturally formed his prime topic of conversation for a month previously. This provoked some of the Fellows of his College to put a hoax upon him, the most forward in which was one Mr. H——, a puritan forsooth. Accordingly, a note was concocted and sent to the Doctor, in the name of the ladies, announcing, that they had arrived at the Inn in Oxford. “The Inn!” exclaimed the Doctor, on perusing it; “Good God! how am I to know the Inn?” However, after due preparation, off he set, in full canonicals, hunting for his belles and the Inn! The Star, Mitre, Angel, all were searched; at last, the Doctor, both tired and irritated, began to smell a rat! The idea of a hoax flashed upon his mind; he hurried to his lodgings, at his College, where the whole truth flashed upon him like a new light, and the window of his room being open, which overlooked the Fellows’ garden, he saw a group of them rubbing their hands in high glee, and the ringleader, Mr. H——, in the midst: he was so roused at the sight, that, leaning from the window, he burst out with—“H——! you puritanical son of a bitch!” It is needless to add, that the words, acting like a charm, quickly dissolved their council: but the Doctor, too amiable to remember what was not meant as an affront, himself afterwards both joined in and enjoyed the laugh created by the joke.
MORE THAN ONE GOOD SAYING
Is attributed to the non-juring divine, celebrated son of Oxon, and excellent English historian, Thomas Carte, who, falling under the suspicions of the Government, as a favourer of the Pretender, was imprisoned at the time the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, in 1744. Whilst under examination by the Privy Council, the celebrated Duke of Newcastle, then minister, asked him, “If he were not a bishop?” “No, my Lord Duke,” replied Carte, “there are no bishops in England, but what are made by your Grace; and I am sure I have no reason to expect that honour.” Walking, soon after he was liberated, in the streets of London, during a heavy shower of rain, he was plied with, “A coach, your reverence?” “No, honest friend,” was his answer, “this is not a reign for me to ride in.”
HORACE WALPOLE A SAINT
A CAMBRIDGE CONUNDRUM,
Cole says, in his Athenæ Cant., that Horace Walpole latterly lived and died a Sceptic; but when a student at King’s College, Cambridge, he was of “a religious enthusiastic turn of mind, and used to go with Ashton (the late Dr., Master of Jesus College,) his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the castle.” Dyer gives the following poetical version of In his Supplement, on Doctors Long, Short, and Askew:—
What’s Doctor, and Dr., and Doctor writ so?
Doctor Long, Doctor Short, and Doctor Askew.
A BISHOP’S INTEREST
Bishop Porteus said of himself, when holding the See of Chester, that he “had not interest enough to command a Cheshire cheese.”
OXFORD FAMOUS FOR ITS SOPHISTS
“For sophistry, such as you may call corrupt and vain,” says Wood, in the first volume of his Annals, “which we had derived from the Parisians, Oxford hath in ancient time been very famous, especially when many thousands of students were in her, equalling, if not exceeding, that university from whence they had it; a token of which, with its evil consequences, did lately remain,—I mean the quadragesimall exercises, which were seldom performed, or at least finished without the help of Mars. In the reign of Henry the Third, and before, the schools were much polluted with it, and became so notorious, that it corrupted other arts; and so would it afterwards have continued, had it not been corrected by public authority for the present, though in following times it increased much again, that it could not be rooted out. Some there were that wrote, others that preached against it, demonstrating the evil consequences thereof, and the sad end of those that delighted in it. Jacobus Januensis reports that one Mr. Silo, a Master of the University of Paris, and Professor of Logic, had a scholar there, with whom he was very familiar: and being excellent in the art of sophistry, spared not all occasions, whether festival or other day, to study it. This sophister being sick, and almost brought to death’s door, Master Silo earnestly desired him, that after his death he would return to him and give him information concerning his state, and how it fared with him. The sophister dying, returned according to promise, with his hood stuffed with notes of sophistry, and the inside lined with flaming fire, telling him, that that was the reward which he had bestowed upon him for the renown he had before for sophistry; but Mr. Silo esteeming it a small punishment, stretched out his hand towards him, on which a drop or spark of the said fire falling, was very soon pierced through with terrible pain; which accident the defunct or ghost beholding, told Silo, that he need not wonder at that small matter, for he was burning in that manner all over. Is it so? (saith Silo) well, well, I know what I have to do. Whereupon, resolving to leave the world, and enter himself into religion, called his scholars about him, took his leave of, and dismissed them with these metres:—
‘Linquo coax3 ranis, cras4 corvis, vanaque5 vanis,
Ad Logicam pergo, que mortis non timet6 ergo.’
A VICE-CHANCELLOR’S BEING LACONIC
Which said story coming to the knowledge of certain Oxonians, about the year 1173 (as an obscure note which I have seen tells me,) it fell out, that as one of them was answering for his degree in his school, which he had hired, the opponent dealt so maliciously with him, that he stood up and spake before the auditory thus: ‘Profectò, profectò, &c.’ ‘Truly, truly, sir sophister, if you proceed thus, I protest before this assembly I will not answer; pray, sir, remember Mr. Silo’s scholar at Paris,’—intimating thereby, that if he did not cease from vain babblings, purgatory, or a greater punishment, should be his end. Had such examples been often tendered to them (adds Wood, with real bowels of compassion,) as they were to the Parisians, especially that which happened to one Simon Churney, or Thurney, or Tourney (Fuller says, Thurway, a Cornish man,) an English Theologist there (who was suddenly struck dumb, because he vainly gloried that he, in his disputations, could be equally for or against the Divine truth,) it might have worked more on their affections; but this being a single relation, it could not long be wondered at.” After these logical marvels, Anthony gives us the following instance of “Dr. Prideaux, when he resigned the office of Vice-Chancellor, 22nd July, 1626 (which is never done without an oration spoken from the chair in the convocation, containing for the most part an account of the acts done in the time of their magistrateship,) spoke only the aforesaid metres, ‘Linquo coax,’ &c., supposing there was more matter in them than the best speech he could make, frustrating thereby the great hopes of the Academicians of an eloquent oration.”
“Oxford hath been so famous for sophistry, and hath used such a particular way in the reading and learning it,” adds Wood, in treating of the schools, “that it hath often been styled—
‘SOPHISTRIA SECUNDUM USUM OXON.’
TWO PERT OXONIANS
CORRUPTED THE LATIN TONGUE
So famous, also, for subtlety of logicians, that no place hath excelled it.” This great subtlety, however, would seem, in a degree, to have departed from our sister of Oxford in 1532, when, they say, Took a journey to Cambridge, and challenged any to dispute with them there, in the public schools, on the two following questions:—“An jus Civile sit Medicina præstantius?” In English as much as to say, Which does most execution, Civil Law or Medicine?—a nice point, truly. But the other formed the subject of serious argumentation, and ran thus:—“An mulier condemnata, bis ruptis loqueis, sit tertio suspendenda?” Ridley, the Bishop and martyr, then a young man, student or Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, is said to have been one of the opponents on this interesting occasion, and administered the flagellæ linguæ with such happy effect to one of these pert pretenders to logic lore, that the other durst not set his wit upon him. The Oxford sophistry had so much There, says Wood, that the purity thereof being lost among the scholars, “their speaking became barbarous, and derived so constantly to their successors, that barbarous speaking of Latin was commonly styled by many
‘Oxoniensis loquenti mos.’
THE OXONIANS SURPASSED ARISTOTLE
The Latin of the schools, in the present day, is none of the purest at either University. A certain Cambridge Divine, a Professor, who was a senior wrangler, and is justly celebrated for his learning and great ability, one day presiding at an act in Arts, upon a dog straying into the school, and putting in for a share of the logic with a howl at the audience, the Moderator exclaimed, “Verte canem ex.” There have, however, been fine displays of pure Latinity in the schools of both; and it appears At a very early period, not only in the art of logic itself, but in their manner of applying it: for in the beginning of 1517, says Wood, about the latter end of Lent (a fatal time for the most part to the Oxonians,) a sore discord fell out between the Cistercian and Benedictine monks, concerning several philosophical points discussed by them in the schools. But their arguments being at length flung aside, they decided the controversy by blows, which, with sore scandal, continued a considerable time. At length the Benedictines rallying up what forces they could procure, they beset the Cistercians, and by force of arms made them fly and betake themselves to their hostels. In fact, he says, by the use of logic, and the trivial arts, the Oxford sophists, in the time of Lent, broke the king’s peace, so that the University privileges were several times suspended, and in danger of being lessened or taken away. Through the corrupt use of it, “the Parva Logicalia, and other minute matters of Aristotle, many things of that noble author have been so changed from their original, by the screwing in and adding many impertinent things, that Tho. Nashe (in his book, ‘Have at you to Saffron Walden,’) hath verily thought, that if Aristotle had risen out of his grave, and disputed with the sophisters, they would not only have baffled him with their sophistry, but with his own logic, which they had disguised, and he composed without any impurity or corruption. It may well be said, that in this day they have done no more than what Tom Nashe’s beloved Dick Harvey did afterwards at Cambridge, that is to say,
Notes
3 Luxuriam scil. luxuriosis, vel potius rixas sophistis.
4 Avaritiam scil. avaris.
5 Superbiam pomposis.
6 Religionem ubi bene viventi non timetur stimulus mortis.