Rowlandson's Oxford

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-day we row, play cricket, football, tennis, golf; we cut our lectures when we safely can and "binge" at every opportunity. Schools do occupy us, it is true, but as a mere secondary item in the university scheme of things-and rightly so. A degree, however good, does not, by itself, make men of us and teach us how to live. It is the social life of the university which is the real education and which sends us out into the world ready to face anything and everything. By developing our bodies we develop our minds, and in this programme of athletics and sociability we are a replica of our eighteenth-century brethren. They rose about nine, breakfasted at ten, and dallied away the morning with a flute or the latest French comedy. By way of strenuous exercise, necessitated by a climate which was just as evil then as now, they walked, rode, rowed, or skated, and in the evening figured at the Mitre or Tuns where they made merry into the small hours with beer, claret, or punch.

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."[1]

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.

The lonely freshman of to-day who has no friends already in residence wanders round just as nervously and makes the same faux pas as did his predecessors. It takes him just as long to find his feet and settle down and make friends. Exactly in the same way also if he knows men already up he is welcomed by them, invited to heavy breakfasts and put right on matters of etiquette: such as never by any chance to wear square and gown unless absolutely compelled to-and all the other minuti? which are of such importance. In the eighteenth century a freshman was taken by his senior friends to the Mitre and sat in front of a bowl of punch with brown toast bobbing in it. He heard sonnets recited to the eyelashes of Sylvia. He was taught to drink on his knees to Phyllis or Chloe, or some other fair female of the moment. He was taken to the barber's and shown how to wear a wig instead of his own hair. In fact, his feet were set in the proper path then in just the same friendly spirit as now.

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 Doré-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."

Every one knows the various processes of slacking at the present time, so that there is no need for detail. But in essence the method is the same, and the result also. Our lunches at the Cherwell Hotel, at the riverside inns at Iffley and Abingdon; our "Grinds"; our slacking on the river in summer term-all these were done two centuries ago, and, just as some of the more energetic of us seek to immortalise these doings by contributing poems and articles to the 'varsity papers, so did the Undergraduates then send their sonnets and Latin verses to The Student, the Oxford Magazine, and Jackson's Oxford Journal. In place of the musical comedy lady, whose silvery laughter floats down wind to-day, the Oxford toast flaunted it right merrily in the old days. The gownsmen's tobacco accounts then amounted to quite as much as ours do, and they wrote home for further supplies of pocket money in almost the identical terms which we use to-day. Yesterday's and to-day's Oxford men are one and the same. Oxford herself and her Dons are changed, but the Undergraduate goes on doing and thinking the same things in the same way, and when he goes down now he feels very much as felt the eighteenth-century poet who, also down, sang:-

"Could Ovid, deathless bard, forbear,

Confin'd by Scythia's frozen plains,

Cease to desire his native air

In softest elegiac strains?

Cursed with the town no more can I

For Oxford's meadow cease to sigh....

Can I, while mem'ry lasts, forget

Oxford, thy silver rolling stream,

Thy silent walks and cool retreat

Where first I sucked the love of fame?

E'en now the thought inspires my breast

And lulls my troubled soul to rest."

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View of St. Mary's Church & Radcliffe Library.

* * *

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.

The beginning of our university career is marked, unless we be Stoics, by mixed feelings of elation and a sinking at the pit of the stomach which we afterwards learn to recognise as "needle." The train journey may have seemed long, but at this first breathless moment when the porter receives our goods and chattels into his arms from the top of the moribund hansom, we could almost wish that we were back in the train again. A sense of isolation, and of having to stand or fall by ourselves, sweeps over like a tidal wave, leaving us momentarily chilled and nervous.

How different was the fresher's arrival in the eighteenth century. He boarded a coach in the early morning in London. His baggage was placed in the boot, and the traveller, armed to the teeth with blunderbuss and pistols, took his seat. With a clattering of hoofs, yelling of ostlers and merry tooting on the horn, the coach dashed out of the yard and wound merrily along throughout the day by field, village, and town. If the journey were a lucky one, the travellers arrived at Oxford without let or hindrance about six o'clock in the evening, when they were able to catch a first glimpse of the top of Radcliffe's Library. They then jolted in over Magdalen Bridge-in those days the new bridge-and so made their way to their respective colleges.

Wrapped up in thick coats and with ice-cold feet tapping the side of the coach to restore circulation, the excited fresher had ample time for cogitation. The lets and hindrances, over and above the ordinary accidents to horse or vehicle, such as casting a shoe or breaking a strap, were little excitements in the form of footpads and highwayman, who infested the district on the look-out for a fat and likely college bursar laden with fat and likely money-bags. At the first hint of the approach of one of these gentlemen of the road, blunderbusses were whipped out and fired in all directions, while the horses were lashed and the coach leaned and rocked and swayed in its efforts to get away. Afterwards, ensconced behind a tankard in the Tuns among his somewhat condescending senior friends, the newcomer warmed up under the influence of hot toddy and genial society, and described the awful onslaught made upon them by at least fifty mounted desperadoes.

Did he come from nearer places than London, then he made his entrance on a sedate horse, in the fashion of the gentleman-commoner who sent the following account to Terrae Filius:-

"Being of age to play the fool

With muckle glee I left our school

At Hoxton,

And mounted on an easy pad

Rode with my mother and my dad

To Oxon."

This merry bard was not exempt from the pangs of loneliness. He, too, felt the wave of depression when his mother and dad kissed him and slowly disappeared down the street again on their easy pads. For, after an amusing description of purchasing gown and square, he burst into tears.

"I sallied forth to deck my back

With loads of Tuft and black

Prunello.

My back equipt, it was not fair

My head should 'scape, and so as square

As chessboard

A cap I bought, my scull to screen,

Of cloth without and all within

Of pasteboard

When metamorphos'd in attire

More like a parson than a squire

th' had dressed me

I took my leave with many a tear

Of John our man, and parents dear

Who blessed me...."[2]

and there he was, poor lad, probably no more than fifteen years old-of age to play the fool-left, lachrymose and solitary, to fight his own battles and win his M.A. spurs before coming to grips with the world.

George Colman the younger, who matriculated at the House in 1780, and who would most certainly have been instantly elected to the Bullingdon Club had he gone up to-day, wrote most feelingly on the question of the lonely fresher. "A Freshman, as a young academician is call'd on his admission at Oxford," he said "is a forlorn animal. It is awkward for an old stager in life to be thrown into a large company of strangers, to make his way among them, as he can-but to the poor freshman everything is strange-not only College society, but any society at all-and he is solitary in the midst of a crowd. If, indeed, he should happen to come to the University (particularly to Christ Church) from one of the great publick schools, he finds some of his late school fellows, who, being in the same straggling situation with himself, abridge the period of his fireside loneliness, and of their own, by forming a familiar intercourse-otherwise he may mope for many a week; at all events, it is generally some time before he establishes himself in a set of acquaintance."[3]

To-day when we have conquered Smalls and our rooms have been assigned in college or in the house of some licensed landlady, it is customary for our "parents dear" to lead us gently by the buttonhole into the study, and there, with their coat tails spread wide to the blazing logs, to hold forth in rounded periods what is termed sound advice. When it is over they shake hands with us, both of us swallowing absurdly, and we go forth better friends than ever. In the first number of any one of the 'varsity "rags" for the new academic year it is safe to conclude that the "leader" will be a word of explanation, advice, friendship, or welcome to the newcomer. It is always facetious and invariably has a gentle dig at the fresher's expense, though the writer, once a fresher himself, should know better. The following is a specimen of how these things were done in the old days:-

"Wednesday, May 1, 1721.

"To all gentlemen School-Boys, in his majesty's dominions, who are design'd for the University of Oxford, Terrae Filius sends greetings;

"My Lads,-I am so well acquainted with the variety and malapertness of you sparks, as soon as you get out of your schoolmaster's hands, that I know I shall be called a fusty old fellow, and a thousand ridiculous names besides, for presuming to give advice, which I would not, say you, take, if I was a young fellow myself. But being a very public-spirited person, and a great well wisher to my fellow subjects (whatever you may think of me) I am resolved, whether you mind what I am going to say, or not, to lay you down some rules and precautions for your conduct in the university, on the strict observation or neglect of which your future good or ill fortune will depend; and, I am sure that you will thank me, six or seven years hence, for this piece of service, however troublesome and impertinent you may think it now....

"I observe, in the first place, that you no sooner shake off the authority of the birch, but you affect to distinguish yourselves from your dirty school-fellows by a new suit of drugget, a pair of prim ruffles, a new bob wig, and a brazen-hilted sword; in which tawdry manner you strut about town for a week or two before you go to College, giving your selves airs in coffee-houses and booksellers' shops, and intruding your selves into the company of us men; from all which, I suppose you think your selves your own master, no more subject to controul or confinement-alas! fatal mistake! soon will you confess that the tyrrany of a school is nothing to the tyrrany of a college; nor the grammar-pedant to the academical one; for, what signifies a smarting back-side to a bullied conscience? What was Busby in comparison to D-e-l-ne?

"And now, young gentlemen, give me leave to put on my magisterial face, and to instruct you how you are to demean yourselves in the station you are entered into, and what sort of behaviour is expected from you, according to the oaths and these subscriptions.

"I know very well that you go thither prepossessed with a sanguine (but ignorant) opinion, that you are to hold fast your principles, whatever they are; that you are to follow, what in your conscience you think right, and to desclaim what you think wrong, that this is the only way to thrive in the world, and to be happy in the next, just as your silly mothers and superstitious old nurses have taught you: in the first place, therefore, I advise you to disengage your selves from all such scrupulous notions; for you may take my word for it, that otherwise it is a million to one that you miscarry.

"For, it is a maxim as true as it is common, so many men, so many minds: but amongst all the different opinions of mankind there is never, at any one time, but one of those opinions which is call'd orthodox; if, therefore, you give your fancy the reins and let your own judgment determine your opinions, what infinite odds is it, whether you happen to hit upon that single, individual opinion, which is, at that particular crisis of time, in vogue, and which is therefore your interest to espouse? But if with all your diligence and sincerity, you should miss this rara avis, this happy ph?nix opinion, then farewell to all your future prospects, to your ease, your reputation and good name for ever afterwards; I mean, if you are so weak, and so much bigotted with education, as to think it your duty to profess what you cannot help believing.

"Your only safe way therefore is to carry along with you consciences chartes blanches, ready to receive any impression that you please to stamp upon them; for I would not have you adopt any particular system, however popular and prevailing it may seem to be at present, because it may alter, and then will prove fatal to you; for as much as they talk of steadiness and immutability of principles at Oxford, every body knows that Popery was for many ages the orthodox religion there; that protestantism (with much difficulty, and sorely against their wills) succeeded it; that, not long ago, they were almost all Whigs, and now almost all Tories, and for ought we know, will e're long be Whigs again-never therefore explain your opinion but let your declarations be, that you are churchmen, and that you believe as the church believes....

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College Service.

"I will only advise you to suppress, as much as possible, that busy spirit of curiosity, which too often fatally exerts itself in youthful breasts; but if (notwithstanding all your non-inquisitiveness), the strong beams of truth will break upon your minds, let them shine inwardly; disturb not the publick peace with your private discoveries and illuminations; so, if you have any concern for your welfare and prosperity, let Aristotle be your guide in philosophy, and Athanasius in religion....

"To call yourself a Whig at Oxford, or to act like one, or to lie under the suspicion of being one, is the same as to be attainted and outlaw'd; you will be discouraged and brow beaten in your own college and disqualified for preferment in any other; your company will be avoided, and your character abused; you will certainly lose your degree and at last, perhaps, upon some pretence or other, be expelled....

"Leave no stone unturned to insinuate yourselves into the favour of the Head, and senior-fellows of your respective colleges....

"Whenever you appear before them, conduct yourselves with all specious humility and demureness; convince them of the great veneration you have for their persons by speaking very low and bowing to the ground at every word: whenever you meet them jump out of the way with your caps in your hands and give them the whole street to walk in, let it be as broad as it will. Always seem afraid to look them in the face, and make them believe that their presence strikes you with a sort of awe and confusion; but above all be very constant at chapel; never think that you lose too much time at prayers, or that you neglect your studies too much, whilst you are showing your respect to the church. I have heard indeed that a former president of St John's College (a whimsical, irreligious old fellow) would frequently jobe his students for going constantly three or four times a day to chapel, and lingering away their time, and robbing their parents, under a pretence of serving God. But as this is the only instance I ever met with of such an Head, it cannot overthrow a general rule.... Another thing very popular in order to grow the favourites of your Heads, is first of all to make your selves the favourites of their footmen, concerning whose dignity and grandeur I have spoken in a former paper. You must have often heard, my lads, of the old proverb, "Love me, and love my Dog"; which is not very foreign in this case; for if you expect any favour from the master, you must shew great respect to his servant.

"Have a particular regard how you speak of those gaudy things which flutter about Oxford in prodigious numbers, in summer-time, call'd toasts; take care how you reflect on their parentage, their condition, their virtue, or their beauty; ever remembering that of the poet,

'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned,'

especially when they have spiritual bravoes on their side and old lecherous bully-backs to revenge their cause on every audacious contemner of Venus and her altars....

"I have but one thing more to mention to you, which is, not to give into that foolish practice, so common at this time in the university, of running upon tick, as it is called.... How many hopeful young men have been ruin'd in this manner, cut short in the midst of their philosophical enquiries, and for ever afterwards render'd unable to pursue their studies again with a chearful heart, and without interruption?...

"My whole advice, in a few words, is this:-

"Let your own interest, abstracted from any whimsical notions of conscience, honour, honesty or justice, be your guide; consult always the present humour of the place and comply with it; make yourselves popular and beloved at any rate; rant, roar, rail, drink, wh-re, swear, unswear, forswear; do anything, do everything that you find obliging; do nothing that is otherwise; nor let any considerations of right and wrong flatter you out of those courses, which you find most for your advantage. I have only to add, that if you follow this advice, you will spend your days there not only in peace and plenty, but with applause and reputation; if you have any secret good qualities they will be pointed out in the most glaring light, and aggravated in the most exquisite manner; if you have ever so many ugly ones, they will be either palliated or jesuitically interpreted into good ones. Whereas, on the contrary, if you despice and reject these wholesome admonitions, violence, disrest, and an ill name will be the rewards of your folly and obstinacy; it will avail you nothing, that you have enrich'd your minds with all sorts of useful and commendable knowledge; and that, as to vulgar morality, you have preserved an unspotted character before men; these things will rather exasperate the holy men against you, and excite all their cunning and artifice for your destruction; the least frailties, humanity is prone to, will be magnify'd into the grossest of all wickedness; and the best actions, our nature is capable of, will be debased and vilified away. And now do even as it shall seem good unto you. Farewell.

Terrae Filius."

* * *

THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRESHER-(continued)

Ceremony of matriculation-Paying the swearing-broker-Colman and the Vice-Chancellor-Learning the Oxford manner-Homunculi Togati-Academia and a mother's love-The jovial father-Underground dog-holes and shelving garrets-The harpy and the sheets-The first night.

The advice tendered to freshmen in Amhurst's amazing and bitterly satirical letter is for those who have been matriculated. They must, therefore, fulfil all the rites of matriculation before they can read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. As the process was vastly different in Georgian times, it is interesting to read the varying accounts of eighteenth-century freshmen. The gentleman who, "being of age to play the fool," came up with his parents from Hoxton, has written a somewhat indiscreet but all the more laughable description of the ceremony.

"The master took me first aside,

Shew'd me a scrawl, I read, and cry'd

Do Fidem.

Gravely he shook me by the fist,

And wish'd me well-we next request

a tutor.

He recommends a staunch one, who

In Perkin's cause has been his co-

adjutor

To see this precious stick of wood,

I went (for so they deem'd it good)

in fear, Sir.

And found him swallowing loyally

Six deep his bumpers which to me

seem'd queer, Sir.

He bade me sit and take my glass,

I answered, looking like an ass,

I, I can't, Sir.

Not drink!-you don't come here to pray!

The merry mortal said by way

of answer.

To pray, Sir! No-my lad, 'tis well,

Come! here's our friend Sacheverell!

here's Trappy!

Here's Ormond! Marr! in short so many

Traitors we drank, it made my Cranium nappy...."

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A View of the Theatre, Printing House &c. &c. at Oxford.

The lad then went out into the town with this same "sociable priest," bought his gown, and parted from his parents, and then-

"The master said they might believe him,

So righteously (the Lord forgive him!)

he'd govern

He'd show me the extremest love,

Provided that I did not prove

too stubborn.

So far, so good-but now fresh fees

Began (for so the custom is)

Fresh fees!-with drink they knock you down,

You spoil your clothes; and your new gown

you spue in...."

He then retired for the night, and was awakened at six o'clock next morning by a "scoundrel" of a servitor. He rose and went to chapel, very sick and still half drunk. Later in the day, when he had recovered sufficiently, he went with his tutor to Broad Street, where-

"Built in the form of Pidgeon-pye,

A house there is for rooks to lie

and roost in.

Thither to take the oaths I went,

My tutor's conscience well content

to trust in.

Their laws, their articles of grace

Forty, I think (save half a brace),

was willing

To swear to; swore, engag'd my soul,

And paid the swearing-broker whole

ten shilling.

Full half a pound I paid him down,

To live in the most p--d town,

o' th' nation."

It must not be understood, however, that such orgies characterised the ceremony of matriculation. This writer of fluent doggerel was a gentleman commoner, but he seems to have caught at every lax point that he personally observed as a target for his wit. The more sober matriculation, both literally and figuratively, of George Colman the younger can be most suitably placed in the other side of the scale. "On my entrance at Oxford," he wrote, "as a member of Christ Church, I was too foppish a follower of the prevailing fashions to be a reverential observer of academical dress-in truth, I was an egregious little puppy-and I was presented to the Vice-Chancellor, to be matriculated, in a grass-green coat, with the furiously-bepowder'd pate of an ultra-coxcomb; both of which are proscribed by the Statutes of the University. Much courtesy is shown, in the ceremony of matriculation, to the boys who come from Eton and Westminster; insomuch that they are never examined in respect to their knowledge of the School Classicks-their competency is considered as a matter of course-but, in subscribing the articles of their matriculation oaths, they sign their praenomen in Latin; I wrote, therefore, Georgeius-thus, alas! inserting a redundant E-and, after a pause, said enquiringly to the Vice-Chancellor-looking up in his face with perfect naiveté-'pray, sir, am I to add Colmanus?'

"My Terentian father, who stood at my right elbow, blush'd at my ignorance-the Tutor (a piece of sham marble) did not blush at all-but gave a Sardonick grin, as if Scagliola had moved a muscle!

"The good-natur'd Vice drollingly answer'd me-that the surnames of certain profound authors, whose comparatively modern works were extant, had been latinized; but that a Roman termination tack'd to the patronymick of an English gentleman of my age and appearance, would rather be a redundant formality. There was too much delicacy in the worthy Doctor's satire for my green comprehension-and I walk'd back, unconscious of it, to my College-strutting along in the pride of my unstatutable curls and coat, and practically breaking my oath, the moment I had taken it."

From both their accounts, differing so widely from each other, it would seem that the ceremony of matriculation, which to-day is conducted with an almost ecclesiastical solemnity, was in those days simply a matter of form, a tedious business which the Vice-Chancellor hurried through with all speed. One man performed his part in a condition of semi-intoxication without an inkling of the meaning of the oaths to which he subscribed, while another was presented to the Vice-Chancellor in clothes more suitable to a fancy dress ball than to his formal admittance to the university. Neither man drew upon himself the reprimand which to-day would immediately be levelled at him.

In becoming a member of the university, therefore, the eighteenth-century freshman received his first experience of the complete inanition and futility of the Don world. Apparently he suffered no apprehension on the score of not conducting himself with fitting politeness when in the presence of the authorities. Their opinion of him gave him no concern. He was far more anxious not to contravene the unwritten laws of the Undergraduate world. Once the tiresome but necessary matriculation became a thing of the past, he began to look about him, anxiously at first from the desire to avoid grievous blunders which would make him a laughing-stock. All initiative was far too dangerous when the lynx eyes of the entire college were upon him. Actuated by the firm belief that at least he could not be criticised for politeness and good-breeding, the timid freshman endeavoured to ingratiate himself in the eyes of all by doffing his cap with humble frequence. From "Academia, or the Humours of Oxford," the following bitter excerpt on the question of the freshman's manners is vastly entertaining.

"Now being arrived at his College,

The place of learning and of knowledge,

A while he'll leer about, and snivel ye,

And doff his Hat to all most civilly,

Being told at home that a shame face too,

Was a great sign that he had some Grace too,

He'll speak to none, alas! for he's

Amased at every Man he sees:

May-hap this lasts a Week, or two,

Till some Scab laugh's him on't, so

That when most you'd expect his mending,

His Breeding's ended, and not ending

Now he dares walk abroad, and dare ye,

Hat on, in peoples' Faces stare ye;

Thinks what a Fool he was before, to

Pull off his Hat, which he'd no more do;

But that the devil shites Disasters,

So that he's forc'd to cap the Masters, ...

He must cap them; but for all other,

Tho' 'twere his Father, or his Mother,

His Gran'num, Uncle, Aunt, or Cousin,

He wo' not give one Cap to a dozen."

What wonders may be worked in a week or two! From almost servile politeness he went to the extreme of discourtesy with the assurance of a second-year man.

Imitation is, however, the essence of life. Because certain things are done, all men are compelled to do them unless they wish to incur social ostracism. We are like sheep and must follow our leaders with docility and readiness. If we decline to bow the neck to convention, and declare for originality and freedom, society turns and rends us. At Oxford the punishment for such a crime as originality is swift. A horde of outraged seniors descends like an avalanche upon the sinner's rooms. They visit their wrath not only upon his belongings but upon his person, and eventually they leave him in a condition of mental and physical chaos, to realise the utter futility of kicking against the pricks.

In the eighteenth century the same social creed was practised. For any transgression from the commonplace the chastisement of the culprit was inevitable. The freshman undoubtedly realised the truth of this, however vaguely, and conducted himself according to the rules laid down by his seniors. His excessive good manners lasted only until the moment when it was born in upon him that rudeness was the policy of his leaders.

But though he might be no more than a scant fifteen years of age, as soon as he wiped away the last tear caused by the departure of his mother, the fresher became a Man, aggressively and consistently so. "No character," wrote Colman, "is more jealous of the Dignity of Man (not excepting Colonel Bath, in Fielding's Novel of Amelia), than a lad who has just escaped from School birch to College discipline. This early Lord of the Creation is so inflated with the importance of virility, that his pretension to it is carefully kept up in almost every sentence he utters. He never mentions any one of his associates but as a gentlemanly or a pleasant man-a studious man, a dashing man, a drinking man, etc., etc.-and the Homunculi Togati of Sixteen always talk of themselves as Christ Church men, Trinity, St John's, Oriel, Brazen-nose men, etc.-according to their several colleges, of which old Hens, they are the Chickens-in short, there is no end to the colloquial manhood of these mannikins." This passage might easily have been written to-day and not about the middle of the eighteenth century, for the point of view of the modern Oxford man is exactly the same as it was then.

The parents of the old-time fresher looked at his going up and his immediate assumption of manhood from very opposite points of view. The mother, with regulation anxiety, conceived him to be a hardly-used, homesick, half-starved, uncomfortable, thoroughly wretched fellow, doomed to live in stone walls in a fever-stricken and miasmic locality.

"Most dearly tender'd by his Mother,

Who loves him better than his brother;

So she at home a good while keeps him,

In White-broath, and Canary steeps him;

And tho' his Noddle's somewhat empty,

His Guts are stuffed with Sweet-meats plenty."

This is how "Academia" described the mother's far-reaching apron-string still feeling out, though some weeks cut, for her far distant son. Not so the father! When his wife sent a servant up to Oxford with a well-stuffed hamper for her boy and fond messages as to his health, he went down to the servants' hall and, planting himself in front of the returned messenger, asked "If's Son has got a Punck yet Whores he, and gets ye often drunk yet; Being told by's Man, he took him quaffing, For joy he bursts his sides with laughing; and prithee John (says he) and how was't-Ha, Drunk i' the Cellar, as a Sow, wast?"

Although the father took it for granted that his son had immediately forgotten his home and arrived in an instant at man's estate-as far as that permits of getting drunk-he was not always in the right. To a certain extent the anxieties of the mother were justified, for, on arriving at Oxford, the freshman did not always fall on a bed of clover. In many instances he was lucky to get a bed at all in some poky little garret with one window, through which could be obtained a minute view of sky and stars, and which was ice-cold in winter and in summer stuffy to a degree. However large the college there were always more men in residence than could be properly housed. Colman said of the House, one of the biggest colleges in Oxford, that it "was so completely cramm'd, that shelving garrets, and even unwholesome cellars, were inhabited by young gentlemen, in whose father's families the servants could not be less liberally accommodated." He refers also to a fellow Westminster boy who was "stuffed into one of these underground dog-holes." Then, too, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century there prevailed a system of ragging freshers which did not tend to make them any the less homesick. They were swindled by their scouts, and shamefully misused by their bedmakers.

To add to their discomfort their tutors were in many cases fast allies of the bottle, and totally unable to render them any assistance in the matter of finding their feet. Colman made a very illuminative reference, from his own experience, to the scurvy tricks which the scouts and bedmakers played upon the long-suffering fresher. "My two mercenaries," he wrote, "having to do with a perfect greenhorn, laid in all the articles for me which I wanted-wine, tea, sugar, coals, candles, bed and table linen-with many useless etcetera, which they told me I wanted-charging me for everything full half more than they had paid, and then purloining from me full half of what they had sold."

His scout and bedmaker had each seen fit to enter the bonds of holy matrimony, and both brought up their better halves to assist in despoiling the luckless greenhorn. He, however, soon lost his greenness and set about putting his house in order-with the result that all four were turned out. In their places, he duly installed a scout and a bedmaker who were married to each other-a tactical move which "consolidates knavery, and reduces your ménage to a couple of pilferers, instead of four." But before Colman had found himself sufficiently to be able firmly but courteously to dispense with their services, his bedmaker, fittingly called a harpy, played him false most condemnably. "I was glad," he said, writing of his first night in Oxford, "on retiring early to rest, that I might ruminate, for five minutes, over the important events of the day, before I fell fast asleep. I was not, then, in the habit of using a night-lamp or burning a rush-light; so, having dropt the extinguisher upon my candle, I got into bed; and found, to my dismay, that I was reclining in the dark upon a surface very like that of a pond in a hard frost. The jade of a bedmaker had spread the spick and span sheeting over the blankets, fresh from the linen-draper's shop-unwash'd, uniron'd, unair'd, 'with all its imperfections on its head.' Through the tedious hours of an inclement January night, I could not close my eyes-my teeth chattered, my back shivered-I thrust my head under the bolster, drew my knees up to my chin; it was all useless, I could not get warm-I turned again and again, at every turn a hand or a foot touch'd upon some new cold place; and at every turn the chill glazy clothwork crepitated like iced buckram. God forgive me for having execrated the authoress of my calamity! but, I verily think, that the meekest of Christians who prays for his enemies, and for mercy upon "all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks," would in his orisons, in such a night of misery, make a specifick exception against his Bedmaker!"[4]

In these enlightened days a fresher, even, would not have left her out of his prayers-he would have invented new ones for her especial benefit. Poor Colman found when he rose betimes in the morning, making a virtue of necessity, that a night of misery was not the only torment that the ill-favoured hussy had stored up for him. For, having abluted in ice-cold water in the hopes of refreshing himself, he found that the towel was in an even worse state of hardness than the sheets; while at breakfast the tablecloth was so stiff that he dreaded to sit down to his meal because he feared to cut his shins against the edge of it. With intent, doubtless, to add humiliation to injury, the old hag had also left his surplice in a state of pristine unwashedness, so that "cased in this linen panoply, which covers him from his chin to his feet, and seems to stand on end, in emulation of a suit of armour (the certain betrayer of an academical debutant) the Newcomer is to be heard at several yards distance, on his way across a quadrangle, cracking and bouncing like a dry faggot upon the fire-and he never fails to command notice, in his repeated marches to prayer, till soap and water have silenced the noise of his arrival at Oxford."

The optimism of a Georgian freshman was truly amazing. The invaluable gift of youth is undoubtedly its explanation. To be thrust suddenly into entirely new surroundings where not only the manners and customs were quite different from any of which he had experience before, but where it was necessary to begin again, to readjust his outlook upon life, was a very trying experience. It was one which men of greater maturity would hesitate to undergo. And yet here was this man, a mere lad of fifteen or sixteen, gladly entering a new world with a vague notion of the things which would be expected of him or of the things to expect. Without a twinge of nervousness he signed his name to long-winded oaths, and unconsciously perjured himself five minutes later. Everywhere he saw strange faces, met with new and incomprehensible experiences, and found himself doing the wrong thing. With undaunted cheerfulness, however, he allowed Oxford to treat him as she chose, to mould him to her own liking, to pull him this way and that, until eventually, with an increased optimism, his schoolboy corners were rounded off, and he became one with Oxford. It was his very lack of experience which enabled him to go through such a difficult time without flinching. He did not realise the tremendous forces at work upon him. He was, in fact, like a seed put into earth. After the rain, the sun, the wind, and all the forces of Nature have been brought to bear upon it, slowly and irresistibly it shoots up and becomes at last a flower. The Oxford freshman burst forth into blossom at the end of his first year in the same helpless way. He was quite unable to tell by what steps his development had been brought about, and was perfectly content to go through his whole university career in the same blind way.

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