A Copy of Verses on the Doctor’s Death
CAPTAIN RAG
The sentence being irreversible, the captain made the Ode, and sent it, with his epistle, to Mr. Urry, who thereupon had his release.” “The epistle here mentioned,” adds Tom, “is a ludicrous prose analysis of the Ode, beginning Opusculum tuum, Halberdarie amplissime,” &c., and is printed in the fourth volume of Dr. Johnson’s English Poets, who pronounces it unequalled by modern writers. This same Oxonian, Smith, had obtained the soubriquet of By his negligence of dress. He was bred at Westminster School, under Doctor Busby; and it is to be remembered, for his honour, “that, when at the Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention between the representatives of Trinity College in Cambridge, and Christ Church in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity having a preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited the same time to Christ Church, he chose to accept of a studentship there.”
THE THREE DAINTY MORSELS
When our learned Oxonian, Dr. Johnson, was on his tour in the Hebrides, accompanied by Bozzy, as Peter Pindar has it, says an American writer, they had one day travelled so far without refreshment, that the Doctor began to growl in his best manner. Upon this Bozzy hastened to a cottage at a distance, ordered a dinner, and was lucky in obtaining the choice of a roast leg of mutton and the Doctor’s favourite plum-pudding. Upon reaching the house, the appetite of the latter drove him into the kitchen to inspect progress, where he saw a boy basting the meat, from whose head he conceited he saw something descend, by the force of gravity, into the dripping-pan. The meat was at length served up, and Bozzy attacked it with great glee, exclaiming, “My dear Doctor, do let me help you to some,—brown as a berry,—done to a turn.” The Doctor said he would wait for the pudding, chuckling with equal glee, whilst Bozzy nearly devoured the whole joint. The pudding at length came, done to a turn too, which the Doctor in his turn greedily devoured, without so much as asking Bozzy to a bit. After he had wiped his mouth, and begun to compose himself, Bozzy entreated to know what he was giggling about whilst he eat the mutton? The Doctor clapped his hands to both sides for support, as he told him what he saw in the kitchen. Bozzy thereupon begun to exhibit sundry qualms and queer faces, and calling in the boy, exclaimed, “You rascal, why did you not cover your dirty head with your cap when basting the meat?” “’Cause mother took it to boil the pudding in!” said the urchin. The tables were turned. The Doctor stared aghast, stamped, and literally roared, with a voice of thunder, that if Bozzy ever named the circumstance to any one, it should bring down upon him his eternal displeasure! The following, not very dissimilar anecdote, is told of a Cantab, who was once out hunting till his appetite became as keen as the Doctor’s, and, like his, drove him to the nearest cottage. The good dame spread before him and his friend the contents of her larder, which she described as “a meat pie, made of odds and ends, the remnant of their own frugal meal.” “Any thing is better than nothing,” cried the half famished Cantab, “so let us have it—ha, Bob.” Bob, who was another Cantab, his companion, nodded assent. No sooner was the savoury morsel placed before him, than he commenced operations, and greedily swallowed mouthful after mouthful, exclaiming, “Charming! I never tasted a more delicious morsel in my life! But what have we here?” said he, as he sucked something he held in both hands; “Fish, as well as flesh, my good woman?” “Fish!” cried the old dame, as she turned from her washing to eye our sportsman, “why, Lord bless ye, i’ that bean’t our Billy’s comb!” The effect was not a little ludicrous on our hungry Cantab, whilst Bob’s “Haw! haw! haw!” might have been heard from the Thames Tunnel to Nootka Sound.
ANSWERED IN KIND
Why should we smother a good thing with mystifying dashes, instead of plain English high-sounding names, when the subject is of “honourable men?” “Recte facta refert.”—Horace forbid it! The learned Chancery Barrister, John Bell, K.C., “the Great Bell of Lincoln,” as he has been aptly called, was Senior Wrangler, on graduating B.A., at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1786, with many able competitors for that honour. He is likewise celebrated, as every body knows, for writing three several hands; one only he himself can read, another nobody but his clerk can read, and a third neither himself, clerk, nor any body else can read! It was in the latter hand he one day wrote to his legal contemporary and friend, the present Sir Launcelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England (who is likewise a Cantab, and graduated in 1800 at St. John’s College, of which he became a Fellow, with the double distinction of Seventh Wrangler and Second Chancellor’s Medallist) inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot, finding all his attempts to decipher the note about as vain as the wise men found theirs to unravel the Cabalistic characters of yore, took a sheet of paper, and having smeared it over with ink, he folded and sealed it, and sent it as his answer. The receipt of it staggered even the Great Bell of Lincoln, and after breaking the seal, and eyeing and turning it round and round, he hurried to Mr. Shadwell’s chambers with it, declaring he could make nothing of it. “Nor I of your note,” retorted Mr. S. “My dear fellow,” exclaimed Mr. B., taking his own letter in his hand, is not this, as plain as can be, “Dear Shadwell, I shall be glad to see you at dinner to-day.” “And is not this equally as plain,” said Mr. S., pointing to his own paper, “My dear Bell, I shall be happy to come and dine with you.”
POWERS OF DIGESTION
A CAMBRIDGE D.D.,
In both Oxford and Cambridge the cooks are restricted to a certain sum each term, beyond which the college will not protect them in their demand upon the students. All else are extras, and are included in “sizings” in Cambridge; in Oxford the term is “to battel.” The head of a college in the latter university, not long since, sent for Mr. P——, one of his society, who had batteled much beyond the allowance; and after Mr. P—— had endeavoured to excuse himself on the ground of appetite, turning to the account, the Rector observed, “meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner, meat for supper,” and looking up in the face of the dismayed student, he exclaimed, with his Welsh accent, “Christ Jesus! Mr. P——, what guts you must have.” This reminds me of Now no more, who is said to have been a great gourmand, and weighed something less than thirty stone, but not much. At the college table, where our D.D. daily took his meal, in order that he might the better put his hand upon the dainty morsels, being very corpulent, he caused a piece to be scooped out, to give him a fair chance. His chair was also so placed, that his belly was three inches from the table at sitting down, and when he had eaten till he touched it, his custom was to lay down his knife and fork and desist, lest, by eating too much, any dangerous malady should ensue. A waggish Fellow of his college, however, one day removed his chair double the distance from the table, which the doctor not observing, began to eat as usual. After taking more than his quantum, and finding that he was still an inch or two from the goal, he threw down his knife and fork in despair, exclaiming, he “was sure he was going to die;” but having explained the reason, he was relieved of his fears on hearing the joke had been played him.
THE INSIDE PASSENGER
Every Cantab of the nineteenth century must remember our friend Smith of the Blue Boar, Trinity Street, charioteer of that now defunct vehicle and pair which used to ply between Cambridge, New-market, and Bury St. Edmunds, and on account of its celerity, and other marked qualities, was called “The Slow and Dirty” by Freshman, Soph, Bachelor, and Big-wig, now metamorphosed into a handsome four-in-hand, over which our friend Smith presides in a style worthy of the Club itself! He had one day, in olden time, pulled up at Botsham, midway between Newmarket and Cambridge, when there happened to be several Cantabs on the road, who were refreshing their nags at the “self-same” inn, the Swan, at which the Slow and Dirty made its daily halt. “Any passengers?” inquired Smith. “One inside,” said a Cambridge wag, standing by, whose eye was the moment caught by a young ass feeding on the nettles in a neighbouring nook. Having put his fellows up to the joke, Smith was invited in-doors and treated with a glass of grog; meanwhile, my gentleman with the long ears was popped inside the coach. Smith coming out, inquired after his passenger, whom he supposed one of his friends, the Cantabs, and learnt he was housed. “All right,” said Smith, and off he drove, followed quickly by our wag and party on horseback, who determined to be in at the denouement. Smith had not made much way, when our inside passenger, not finding himself in clover, popped his head out at one of the coach windows. The spectacle attracted the notice of many bipeds as they passed along; Smith, however, notwithstanding their laughter, “kept the even tenor of his way.” At Barnwell the boys huzzaed with more than their usual greetings, but still Smith kept on, unconscious of the cause. He no sooner made Jesus’ Lane, than crowds began to follow in his wake, and he dashed into the Blue-Boar yard with a tail more numerous than that upon the shoulders of which Dan O’Connell rode into the first Reformed Parliament, Feargus included. Down went the reins, as the ostlers came to the head of his smoking prads, and Smith was in a moment at the coach door, with one hand instinctively upon the latch, and the other raised to his hat, when the whole truth flashed upon his astonished eyes, and Balaam was safely landed, amidst peals of laughter, in which our friend Smith was not the least uproarious.
PALEY’S CELEBRATED SCHOOL ACT
When Paley, in 1762, kept his act in the schools, previously to his entering the senate-house, to contend for mathematical honours, it was under the moderators, Dr. John Jebb, the famous physician and advocate of reform in church and state, and the learned Dr. Richard Watson, late Bishop of Llandaff. Johnson’s Questiones Philosophicæ was the book then commonly resorted to in the university for subjects usually disputed of in the schools; and he fixed upon two questions, in addition to his mathematical one, which to his knowledge had never before been subjects of disputation. The one was against Capital Punishments; the other against the Eternity of Hell Torments. As soon, however, as it came to the knowledge of the heads of the university that Paley had proposed such questions to the moderators, knowing his abilities, though young, lest it should give rise to a controversial spirit, the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, was requested to interfere and put a stop to the proceeding, which he did, and Bishop Watson thus records the fact in his Autobiography:—“Paley had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act, Æternitas pænarum contradicit Divinis Attributis! The Eternity of Hell Torments contrary to the Divine Attributes. I had accepted it. A few days afterwards he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it, and told him that, if it would lessen his master’s apprehensions, he might put a ‘non’ before ‘contradicit;’ making the question, The Eternity of Hell Torments not contrary to the Divine Attributes: and he did so.” In the following month of January he was senior wrangler.