BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Globe 8ro. 5s. per Volume. 
 
 Eversley Series. 
 
 STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND 
 
 ITALY. 
 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. In 
 
 8 vols. 
 THE MAKING OF ENGLAND. With Maps. 
 
 In 2 vols. 
 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. With Maps. 
 
 In 2 vols. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 OXFORD STUDIES
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN RICHARD GREEN 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Mrs. J. R. GREEN and Miss K. NORGATE 
 
 ilontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 XEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPAJTY 
 1901 
 
 All right* reserved 
 
 l^
 
 *
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 The Eakly Histoky of Oxford 
 
 Oxford during the Eighteenth Century 
 
 Young Oxford 
 
 Oxford as it is 
 
 Notes 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ix 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 245 
 255 
 267 
 293
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The papers in this volume represent an idea which 
 was constantly in Mr. Green's thoughts for many 
 years — a History of Oxford. The Essays on Oxford 
 in the Last Century were his first work, written in 
 the Oxford Chronicle of 1859. Almost his first article 
 to the Saturday Revieiv, in 1867, was on "Watch and 
 Ward in Oxford "; and his first papers in MacmUlan's 
 Magazine, in 1871, were on Oxford and its Earl}' 
 History; "whereof," as he says, "the thesis is two- 
 fold: (1) That the University killed the City; and (2) 
 that the Church pretty well killed the University." * 
 In that year he returns to the same subject : " Koam- 
 ing through these little Ligurian towns makes me 
 utter just the old groans you used to join in when 
 we roamed about France — groans, I mean, over the 
 state of our local histories in England. There isn't 
 one of these wee places that glimmer in the night 
 like fireflies in the depth of their bays that hasn't a 
 full and generally admirable account of itself and its 
 
 * Letters, pp. 170, 260, 283.
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 doings. They are sometimes wooden enough in point 
 of style and the like, but they use their archives, and 
 don't omit, as all our local historians seem to make a 
 point of doing, the history of the town itself. I have 
 made a little beginning for that of Oxford in the first 
 paper I sent to George Grove ; but clearly the first 
 part of such work, the printing and sifting materials, 
 falls properly to the local antiquary." * 
 
 Born in 4 St. John's Street, Mr. Green was from 
 his childhood sensitive to the spirit of his native 
 city. Its outer beauty had lifted his imagina- 
 tion. " Bells had their poetry for me from the first 
 as they still have," he says, "and the Oxford peals 
 would always fill me with a strange sense of 
 delight. . . . There was the awe of listening to one 
 of the college choirs, and hearing the great organ at 
 New College or Magdalen ! . . . The College was a 
 poem in itself ; its dim cloisters, its noble chapel, its 
 smooth lawns, its park with the deer browsing 
 beneath venerable elms, its ' walks ' with ' Addison's 
 walk' in the midst of them, but where we boys 
 thought less of Addison than of wasps' nests and craw- 
 fishing. Of all the Oxford colleges it was the state- 
 liest and the most secluded from the outer world, and 
 thout:rh I can laugh now at the indolence and useless- 
 ness of the collegiate life of my boy-days, my boyish 
 imagination was overpowered by the solemn services, 
 the white-robed choir, the long train of divines and 
 fellows, and the president — moving like some 
 * Letters, pp. 295-96.
 
 INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 mysterious dream of the past among the punier 
 creatures of the present. . . . Ma}^ morning too M'as 
 a burst of poetry every year of my boyhood. Before 
 the Reformation it had been customary to sing a 
 mass at the moment of sunrise on the 1st of May, 
 and some time in Ehzabeth's reign this mass was 
 exchanged for a hymn to the Trinity. At first we 
 used to spring out of bed, and gather in the gray of 
 dawn on the top of the College tower, where 
 choristers and singing-men were already grouped in 
 their surplices. Beneath us, all wrapped in the dim 
 mists of a spring morning, lay the city, the silent 
 reaches of Cherwell, the great commons of Cowley 
 marsh and BuUingdon now covered with houses, but 
 then a desolate waste. There was a long hush of 
 waiting just before five, and then the first bright 
 point of sunlight gleamed out over the horizon; 
 below, at the base of the tower, a mist of discordant 
 noises from the tin horns of the town boys greeted 
 its appearance, and above, in the stillness, rose the 
 soft pathetic air of the hymn Te Detim Patrem 
 colimus. As it closed, the sun was fully up, 
 surplices were thrown off, and with a burst of gay 
 laughter the choristers rushed down the little 
 tower stair, and flung themselves on the bell ropes, 
 'jangling' the bells in rough mediaeval fashion till 
 the tower shook from side to side. And then, as 
 they were tired, came the ringers ; and the ' jangle ' 
 died into one of those 'peals,' change after change, 
 which used to cast such a spell over my
 
 Xll OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 boyhood." * I well remember the i)assionate 
 enthusiasm with which he watched from the train 
 for the first sight of the Oxford towers agT,inst the 
 sky. 
 
 As a child too he had felt the power of Oxford in 
 the Past. His first prize had been given him by the 
 old President of Magdalen who wore the last wig 
 ever seen in Oxford, who had himself seen Dr. John- 
 son, " We boys used to stand overawed as the old 
 man passed by, the keen eyes looking out of the 
 white, drawn face, and feel as if we were looking 
 on some one from another world."! It was 
 from Oxford itself that he learned to deny the 
 convention that would separate between Ancient and 
 Modern History. "Oxford seems to me the one 
 place where this distinction vanishes. There in its 
 very system of training the old and the new worlds 
 are brought together as they are brought nowhere 
 else." + 
 
 The history of the Papers on " Oxford in the 
 Eighteenth Century " is given in a preface to a re- 
 print in 1859 of two series of articles published in 
 the Oxford Chronicle of that year. " It was intended 
 by the proprietors of the Oxford Chronicle that this 
 series should embrace the whole period from 1750 
 to the middle of the present century, detailing in 
 chronological order the more marked events of every 
 year, the municipal changes, the local improvements, 
 
 * Letters, pp. 4-6. t lb. p. 6. J lb. p. 176.
 
 INTRODUCTION Xlil 
 
 the social progress of the town. For the execution, 
 however, of such a project it is plain that the good- 
 will and co-operation of the custodians of the city 
 archives were absolutely necessary ; and this co- 
 operation in a matter of such great civic interest it 
 was never doubted they would be only too ready to 
 afford. With these expectations, the most respectful 
 application was made for access to civic documents, 
 but, to our great surprise (and, perhaps, to our readers 
 also), the request was met by a refusal. At the 
 Spanish Queen's levee each lady used to be attended 
 by two gallants, who were permitted to remain 
 covered in the presence even of Majesty, on the sup- 
 position that they were too engrossed to remember 
 anything but their mistress. A similar excuse — in 
 the engrossing character of the pursuits in which they 
 are engaged — may perhaps be found for our civic 
 authorities. It will be hard, at least, to suggest any 
 other." 
 
 There were however certain good friends of know- 
 ledge both in the University and among the civic 
 officers, who gave their help to the enterprise, lending 
 books and documents and supplying such information 
 as was possible. " The information thus kindly com- 
 municated, as well as that which has been withheld, 
 has led to changes of some importance in our scheme. 
 It became impossible to persevere in the original 
 project without rendering the papers a mere dull 
 summary of petty and uninteresting events. It was 
 determined, therefore, on the change of authorship at
 
 XIV OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 the conclusion of the First Series, to adapt them, as 
 far as possible, to our existing sources of information ; 
 and since we could not present a chronological history, 
 to depict in as lively a manner as possible the Life of 
 the Times which were so fast passing away from us. 
 Papers detailing the events of several periods were at 
 the same time interspersed amongst the others, and 
 it was hoped that the combination would give to our 
 readers no incomplete idea of the Life of Oxford 
 during the Last Century. The proprietors have 
 wished to satisfy the interest which has been felt in 
 this series by the present reprint of them, and they 
 have only to hope, in conclusion, that their attempt, 
 frustrated though it has been in some respects, has, 
 on the whole, done no unimportant service in filling 
 up a very conspicuous gap in our civic history and 
 antiquities. " 
 
 Mr. Green, then in his last year of residence, was 
 the anonymous author of the Second Series of papers 
 on Oxford in the Eighteenth Century, His rooms 
 at Jesus are described by Sir Owen Roberts as " on 
 the first staircase on the right entering the second 
 quadrangle — next the Principal's house in the corner, 
 and on the second floor on the left — right as one 
 ascends the stairs." In the summer months when 
 these essays were written, between July and Sep- 
 tember, he was at 13 High Street. The idea of the 
 papers was perhaps suggested to the proprietors by 
 the piles of volumes of the Oxford Chronicle of the 
 eighteenth century still preserved in the Office, un-
 
 INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 fortunately by accident of fire no longer perfect. 
 The volumes formed, as \n\\ be seen in the 
 references to these Essays, a rich source of 
 information for the social history of the past. Some 
 fragments from a diary kept by Mr. Green at 
 the time show his perpetual eagerness in gathering in 
 from every source whatever could be known about 
 Oxford. 
 
 Friday, 5th August 1859. — "Rose at seven, arranged 
 notes for papers on Jacobite Oxford ; at breakfast read 
 Burton ; ran over to Cooke with three papers on 
 Civic Oxford, which, make up nine of the series. 
 That on the Toasts appears to-day in print. . . . 
 Afternoon read magazines in Union, especially 
 Sword and Gown in Frazer. After tea wrote No. I. 
 of the Jacobite papers, succeeding pretty well in 
 point of style, I think, but desperately Whig — Whigs 
 being in Oxford the minority. Read a little Burton, 
 and sallied forth with Dick round meadow. . . . 
 
 Saturday, Qth. — "Rose at seven, leaving Dick asleep 
 in bed, and finished the paper, interrupted just before 
 ending by breakfast, resumed, but close very stupid 
 in consequence. Burton at breakfast, but interrupted 
 by frequent calls for my book-desk — the loaf. . . . 
 The Union — papers and reviews — after dinner, ex- 
 tracts for my papers, etc. from Spence and other 
 sources. Burton at tea, and after tea Coleridge's 
 Northern Worthies, a book below the name, at least.
 
 XVI OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 What of sketches of Oxford Worthies — Davenant, 
 Chillingworth, Pococke, etc. 1 
 
 Sunday, 1th. — " Uncle at dinner remembers when 
 Christ Church dined at three, and some at four ; none 
 at five. Says, Dr. Jackson, when asked to advance 
 from two to three, replied, ' to one, if you like.' . . . 
 The night so close I could not sleep for thinking of my 
 plans for literary work, especially my ' Oxford-born 
 Worthies,' which I planned out elaborately in my 
 head, 
 
 Monday, 8th. — "Drew uncle out at tea about old 
 Oxford. Tales were lingering about the resort of Dons 
 to Taverns when he came here, 1810 ; especially to that 
 which stood where Evans lives now. I told the story 
 of Warton and the Dream. Spoke of the Music Hall ; 
 he remembered the weekly entertainments which 
 were transferred to the Town Hall from insufficiency 
 of room. Catalani was the first to sing there. The 
 concerts used to be important affairs, and the trustees 
 important men, especially Dr. Johnson of Magdalene, 
 a big, pompous, good-humoured fellow. Sir Francis 
 Burdett lived in the two houses of Aid. Spiers and 
 Aid. Sadler's wife his lady's maid. Sir Edward 
 Hitchings succeeded him, removing from Clarke's 
 Row, to which he had retired on quitting business. 
 Aunt spoke of the greater mixture and familiarity 
 which used to exist between University and City 
 from their meeting in Taverns. At the bottom of 
 George Street, aunt says, ' the respectable citizens ' 
 used to meet, etc. The Bear Inn, whence name of
 
 INTRODUCTION XVll 
 
 lane, stood where Foster's house now stands, had a 
 coach entry to High Street. 
 
 Sunday, \ith. — . . . . "Finished half my twelfth 
 paper. Shall go on with it now. Ended it and 
 strolled out to Merton ; find they are building up 
 again the Meadow Gate " (a few days before he had 
 noticed in his walk the demolition of the gate). " I 
 asked a policeman the reason of this pulling down 
 and building up. ' 'Cos they don't know what to do 
 with their money, I suppose, sir.' . . . 
 
 Friday, Idth. — . . . "When uncle came home to 
 prayers I drew him out about old times, apropos of a 
 little book of 1818 I showed him, and gleaned a few 
 curious items for my papers, e.g. he remembers old 
 Dennet, the last of the Barbers, turning out at four 
 with his apron and scissors to trim and powder the 
 ' Gentlemen's ' heads for Hall. 
 
 Saturday, '20th. — "Disappointed inNotes and Queries, 
 but hit on a mine of information in Nicholls, at ex- 
 tracts from which I was busied all the morning. 
 Returned to dinner, found a relative of uncle's who 
 farms a little near North Leach. We talked of 
 enclosures, and the great downs he remembered 
 sprinkled with a few half-starved sheep, now every- 
 where covered with crops. I wished to lead the 
 subject to that remarkable coincidence between the 
 enlargement of enclosures and the local improvement 
 of towns, but he refused to travel beyond his own 
 tether. The whole afternoon I dug in Nicholls. . . , 
 
 Tuesday, 23rd. — "'Ah! woe is me,' quoth the niece, 
 
 b
 
 XVni OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ' my uncle a poet too ! he knows everything ! nothing 
 comes amiss to him ! ' 'I assure thee, niece,' 
 answered Don Quixote, 'that were not my whole 
 soul engrossed by the arduous duties of chivalry, I 
 would engage to do anything — there is not a curious 
 art I would not acquire, especially that of making 
 bird-cages and tooth-picks ! ' Is this the case with 
 myself? Is the Opus Magnum to dwindle down to 
 monographs on Sir Leoline Jenkins — or Oxford 
 Worthies — or the slop-work of magazines and 
 reviews ? I lay tossing and tumbling last night with 
 the thought of this. Sir Leoline's life would be a 
 sop to the Jesuits — Oxford Worthies (not forgetting 
 Wilkins), a sop to my fellow-citizens. But the Opus 
 — well, ' God send it a good delivery,' as they say at 
 Assizes. I bundled off my Jacobite papers this 
 morning, and am already planning those on Educa- 
 tion, but intend interposing some on the County, etc. 
 Oh, that I knew a little about marl, loam, and clay ! 
 
 Friday, 2Qth. — . . . " It requires great intellectual 
 power to be diffuse. A loose rambling style can only 
 be adapted to a mind like De Quincey, full of varied 
 thoughts and quaint paradoxical speculations — or 
 Southey's, with its hoards of miscellaneous learning ; 
 for ordinary mortals who have no such reserve of 
 wealth to peep out between the chinks of their style, 
 'tis impossible to be too terse and condensed. I have 
 sinned deeply in these last papers of mine on the 
 Jacobites, though the patchwork I have to sew to- 
 gether is provocative of the sin.
 
 INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 Friday, 29//i September. — "At uncle's dinner last 
 night, chat with Slatter. His partner, Munday, an 
 apprentice of old Fletcher's. The Oxford Spy pub- 
 lished by them. The first part came with a note 
 requesting pul^lication ; they read and liked it and it 
 took. The three other parts followed, and when 
 all were inserted, the real author called and they 
 made him a handsome remuneration with which he 
 was much gratified. The secret of his name is still 
 preserved. Its incidents were quite true, especially 
 that of the Proctors breaking into Locke's house, 
 and the room where his wife lay ill in bed, in search 
 of some runaway young men. They published the 
 eccentric Dr. Tatham's sermons and pamphlets. To 
 one, in which he advocated a National Bank, he 
 always attributed the bank's consent to help Pitt in 
 the French War. They published too his Bamp- 
 tons, including that celebrated one of an hour and 
 three-quarters, which drove the Bishop of Gloucester 
 (1) out of church from sheer fatigue. He had long 
 been promulgating his strictures on the ' Aristo- 
 telian ' mode of education with little success, so this 
 sermon was made the vehicle for the diffusion of his 
 peculiar views. ' You profess to educate the youth 
 of the country, but the youth require a visit to 
 continental capitals to complete their education ! ' 
 He proposed Modern Languages and History, and 
 seems to have been a reformer before his age. He was 
 probably the last punster in an University pulpit, 
 ' What with your Little Goes and Great Goes, I fear
 
 XX OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 education will give you the Bygo.' The Lady's Visit 
 to Oxford was written by Mrs. Hewlitt (wife of the 
 author of Peter Priggens) ; the second part was 
 never published. The Oxford Volunteers, in which he 
 was Lieutenant, mustered 800 strong, in two divi- 
 sions. Dr. Tatham rode up their ranks, promising 
 to pension the widow of the first man who fell in 
 the country's cause. The Lucubrations of Councillor 
 Bickerton, which they published, was written by a 
 Mr, Tawney, then gentleman commoner of Exeter. 
 The Councillor was not offended, but came in and 
 seriously proposed a share in the profits in lieu of the 
 liberty taken with his name. He studied for the bar 
 and used once to go circuit in a post-chaise of his 
 own with one horse. He was miserably poor, and used 
 to cut branches from the trees in Hertford Quad for 
 fuel. On one occasion he quietly severed the branch 
 on which he sat and came to the ground. Mother 
 Goose (her real name he mentioned, but I forget) a 
 great favourite with the University men. When the 
 Regent passed through to Bibury Races he would 
 change horses at the ' Lamb and Flag,' take one of 
 her bouquets and fling her a guinea. The knighting 
 by mistake was a true story. William Elias Taunton 
 was Town Clerk; his son of the same name, the 
 Recorder, was absent when the Prince drove up, and 
 the father read the address, but instead of handing 
 it to the Mayor for presentation, handed it in himself. 
 The Regent took a sword from one of his attendants, 
 asked his name, and knighted him. He was reminded
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 that it was an error. ' Bid the Mayor stand 
 forward,' and he rose Sir Joseph Locke. Truly, a 
 Comedy of Errors. The great Oxfordshire election 
 he was surprised no one had touched on. It ruined 
 every family concerned but Turner's. It was not a 
 struggle against the Duke as I supposed. Parties of 
 twenty rode out to fetch in a single voter. The 
 conduit ran with wine. It was then opposite 
 Slatter's house. The four were returned, and a 
 scrutiny conducted before the House of Commons. 
 The Oxford election which wrested one seat from the 
 Duke was different from this. His wife's father (as 
 I understood) one of the Corporation imprisoned in 
 the Tower. 
 
 " The Town Clerk as usual lectured on the Grace 
 Cups. The large one is a present from Charles II., 
 as the inscription testifies. The small, plain, but 
 very valuable two-handed cup of solid gold, worth 
 about £200 or £300, was a present from Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham, High Steward of the City. 
 (How did he become so ? Did he interfere in 
 elections 1) There are a series of letters from him 
 still preserved in the City archives, inviting the 
 Corporation to Clieveden, etc. : ' A good subject for 
 a novelist,' said the Town Clerk; 'these old 
 burgesses amongst the wit and wickedness of 
 Buckingham Court.' They are written in a school- 
 boy's hand. (See and copy these, and study the 
 subject.) George the Fourth's cup was presented 
 by the Old Corporation before its decease to Tommy
 
 xxii OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Ensworth. They feared that in the zeal for reform 
 all the plate would be sold. There . were in- 
 deed madmen, such as Bristow, who counselled 
 them." 
 
 It seems that by the end of September one series 
 of papers was completed, and Mr. Green was pro- 
 posing to reach out beyond the city into regions 
 where the proprietors of the Oxford Chronicle 
 hesitated to follow him, into the county history, 
 the history of religion and education. "I have 
 finished," he writes, "the first of my papers 
 on the County considerably debated; I reserve 
 erasures for my collected edition. This Aid. Spiers 
 seemed to be looking forward to with some interest. 
 Then Oxford during the Siege, and Will Davenant, 
 and the rest of the Oxford-born Worthies — and the 
 Oxford Quarterly, and a thousand other unhatched 
 projects — immensum navigavimus mqiior — hey for a 
 literary life ! " 
 
 Friday. — . . . " ' You have not been an idle 
 fellow,' said B., 'and yet you have so little to show 
 for your work.' 'I suppose I am the only fellow 
 who would think so, yet I don't doubt that my 
 career has been a successful one,' I replied. . . . 
 ' What have you learnt ? ' said B. ' What few here 
 seem to learn,' said I, 'to think.' 
 
 Wednesday evening, Ind November. — " ' You have 
 done the College a great service,' said B. to me a 
 night or two ago, 'in introducing to them an animal
 
 INTRODUCTION XXIU 
 
 who read, and yet did not read for honours.' ... I 
 have passed, with compliments from the examiners, 
 but without honours — and must strike out for myself 
 till I have convinced mankind that I can swim after 
 all. 
 
 " Besides reading a review of Sede's pamphlet and 
 spending a couple of hours over a paper for the 
 Chronicle I have done little to-day." 
 
 It was a bitter disappointment to him and a 
 great discouragement at the time, to be forced to 
 abandon projects he had so much at heart. A 
 letter written some years later recalls his regret 
 at this decision : — 
 
 St. Philip's, Stepney, 
 April 1867. 
 
 My DEAR H. — I send the loose sheets — I have no 
 other — of what I wrote about Oxford. Of course I don't 
 swear by all of it now ; I see, for instance, that the social 
 part is over-coloured. It is the almost necessary conse- 
 quence of using memoirs or pamphlets, etc. as authorities 
 before one has learnt the use of a little wholesome 
 criticism. The Jacobite part is new and not bad ; and 
 had I been allowed to continue the series of papers by a 
 few on the religion and educational state of Oxford then, 
 I might have found something new to tell there too. 
 But they came out — as you know — in a local paper and 
 it would stand no more. . . . — Yours very busily, 
 
 J. E. G. 
 
 p,S, — I can't find the first paper, but it was a mere 
 preface. I think I have generally quoted my authorities. 
 I have made much use of the I'errce Filius.
 
 xxiv OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Many of Mr. Green's letters and papers have been 
 lost, and many destroyed. There remain only a few 
 fragmentary pieces to indicate his constant interest in 
 the Oxford of his own day. A letter of Sept. 22, 
 1860, alludes to some friction which had arisen be- 
 tween him and the Oxford magnates on the subject 
 of the Eifle Corps.* 
 
 " We had Morrell's great dinner to the Eifle Corps 
 here last Thursday. Bishop, Duke, Heads of 
 Houses, M.P.'s, etc., all in robes ; a pretty sight they 
 say (the ' they ' being ladies). At the end of the 
 proceedings Cooke of the Chronicle inserts in type my 
 verses against the Eifle Corps — unde irae." The 
 lines went against what may be called the outburst 
 of Jingoism of that day. In 1858 the plot of Orsini 
 was prepared in London to blow up the Emperor ; it 
 was followed by the address of the French Colonels 
 to Louis Napoleon, demanding to be led on London. 
 Orsini's fellow conspirator, Bernard, was tried in 
 London 1859, acquitted, and carried in triumph 
 shoulder-high by the mob. Then came the assem- 
 bling of the French fleet at Cherbourg, and the forma- 
 tion of Eifle Corps all over England — celebrated 
 by Tennyson in his verses "Form, Eiflemen, Form !" 
 Mr. Green's lines Avere given in the Chronicle of 
 Saturday, September 22, 1860, immediately after a 
 long account of the " Grand Banquet to the Oxford 
 City Eifle Corps," which had taken place on the 
 previous Thursday. The line in verse four, " Fight 
 
 * Letters, p. 46.
 
 INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 bravely — o'er trimmings and facings," is an allusion 
 to a discussion which had been going on in the news- 
 paper for some weeks previously about a proposed 
 alteration in the uniform of the Corps. 
 
 PEACE OR WAR? 
 
 ' The Guarantee Fund of the Exhibition of 1852 is still 
 open. " — Athenceum. 
 
 Build ! what, a Temple to Peace ! 
 
 I laugh as I utter the woixi — 
 Peace with a mailed hand 
 
 And its olive-branch hiding a sword. 
 
 Peace ! hut an hour ago 
 
 Came a martial clangour this way. 
 And nursemaids and boys followed, gaping, 
 
 A thin file of heroes in grey. 
 
 Has life, then, heroes in grey, 
 
 Nothing deeper and truer than this — 
 
 To march with a clangour of war 
 To watch how the rifle-shots miss ? 
 
 To drill — when the drill's not too early ; 
 
 Parade — when the weather seems fine ; 
 Fight bravely — o'er trimmings and facings ; 
 
 And dare — not to die — but to dine ? 
 
 Better war than a hypocrite peace — 
 Better war with its stern hard dints, 
 
 Than a Peace full of childish fears, 
 Of panics and rumours and hints.
 
 XXVI OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Better battle with blow for blow — 
 
 Hard strife amid dust and gore 
 Than double-faced Peace like this — 
 
 This puerile mimic of War. 
 
 War ! there is war to be waged, 
 Real war, by the weakest hand — 
 
 War with the craven fears 
 
 That deaden the heart of the land. 
 
 Arm ! but with the weapons of Peace ! 
 
 Let the Rifle rust as it will, 
 While the shuttle from loom to loom 
 
 Flies merry and blythe through the mill. 
 
 While early at dawn the ploughshare 
 Cleaves through the rich black mould ; 
 
 While mile upon mile in the sunshine 
 The heavy grain rijaens to gold. 
 
 Then, oh ! for the weapons of labour — 
 The warfare that never may cease. 
 
 While fearless, and honest, and earnest, 
 Man fights the glad battle of Peace. 
 
 J. R. G. 
 
 In the same number of the Chronicle a Perambula- 
 tion of the Bounds of the city is announced for the 
 following Monday, September 24 ; and a week later 
 a short description is given beginning thus : " The 
 ancient custom of perambulating the boundary of the 
 city was performed on Monday last, and as seven 
 years have elapsed since the event took place, during 
 the Mayoralty of Aid. Dudley, it excited a consider-
 
 INTRODUCTION XXVll 
 
 able degree of interest." A letter of Mr. Green's* 
 gives an account of his share in the proceedings. 
 
 " Oh, how I wish you had been in Oxford to go 
 with me round the city boundaries. About once in 
 eight years the Mayor has to do this, winding up 
 with a great feed. I was invited and went. We 
 marched in red and fur {i.e. the Corporation), cocked 
 hats and mace, down the High to Magdalene Bridge. 
 Here we dismissed the rifle band, the aldermen doffed 
 their robes, the bulk of the crowd dispersed, but the 
 faithful followed the Mayor in punts across the 
 stream, along the Cherwell Meadows, across Christ- 
 church Mead by the side of the ditch that runs across 
 it, and then entering some house-boats which were 
 waiting for us with the ladies on board, we went as 
 far as the Long Bridge where the city boundary 
 stone is situated. Here we were joined by the king 
 of the Sclavonians, a club of firemen who are now 
 dying out, arrayed in aldermanic costume, with a 
 royal crown of ' real gold,' as the ladies all averred, 
 upon his head. His Majesty was presented with a 
 bottle of gin, whose head he graciously condescended 
 to knock off, and then to swallow its contents. 
 Bidding adieu to the monarch we again returned, 
 bade farewell to the ladies, and punted under those 
 arches on Avhich Eandall's house stands into the 
 Hincksey meadows, through which, muddy as they 
 were, we proceeded to pound. We were cheered by 
 the merry beat of the city drum — the city fife having 
 * Letters, pp. 47-48.
 
 XXVIU OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 been early 'winded' and dropped behind, 'You 
 make me quite wild, you do,' said the drum as he 
 dragged forward his lagging comrade, but the fife was 
 too exhausted, or screwed, to reply. At Hincksey 
 we found the barrel of beer which the tenant is 
 bound to offer the Mayor on such occasions stolen, 
 so onwards we trudged towards Godstow, only paus- 
 ing at Botley to shy bread and cheese, and pipes and 
 ale at the crowd; you may fancy what a glorious 
 scramble it was. My party now led 'across country,' 
 but getting pounded at the second hedge, I was 
 picked up by the alderman who was comfortably 
 ensconced in a punt, and conveyed to the dinner at 
 Godstow. The feed at an end, off we started again, 
 but as the plank-bearers had got too drunk to stir, 
 the Mayor had to jump ditches — item the mace. 
 The Mayor did wonders, and reflected credit on the 
 city. The mace made oft acquaintance with the 
 mud. So we emerged on Portmeadow, which is a 
 perfect quagmire now, only to be paddled through, 
 and crossing the tAvo roads descended into the vale 
 of the Cherwell, where the aldermen again embarked, 
 while I managed to scramble over hedges and ditches 
 as best I might, and in a mangled and fragmentary 
 condition emerged near Holywell Church, rejoining 
 the procession at Magdalene Bridge, and marched 
 home to the ' sound of trumpets.' As a bit of pluck, 
 I finished the evening at the theatre ; but didn't I 
 pay for it the next day."
 
 INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 Mr. Green was deeply interested in Oxford politics. 
 A friend recalls how "Green gave me the most 
 remarkable account of canvassing Oxford with 
 Thackeray, whose want of power of public speaking 
 seems to have been perfectly extraordinary. On the 
 hiistings he utterly broke down, and Green heard 
 him say to himself, 'If I could only go into the 
 Mayor's parlour for five minutes I could write this 
 out quite well.'* It was of this election that he 
 used to tell the tale of his experience in canvassing. 
 There was a certain barge-owner who had, or was 
 supposed to have, the command of many votes, and 
 it was held necessary to secure his support. Mr. 
 Green was sent to intervieAv him, and laid before him 
 the loftiest reasons for giving a liberal vote. The 
 man heard him to the end, and then silently stretched 
 out an open palm. As Mr. Green hesitated, 'How 
 much is it?' said he. Mr. Green expressed a just 
 surprise and repudiation of such a thought. 'Well, 
 that's all well enough,' said the man, ' but we knows 
 very well what to believe. We reads the papers, and 
 we sees what happens in Parliament. When they 
 have talked a while, what do they do 1 Why, they 
 cries Diwide ! Diwide ! Now what do they diwide ? 
 Why, the Taxes to be sure ! '" 
 
 In 1869 and 1870 Mr. Green wrote the two 
 papers in the Saturday Ilevkio on Modern Oxford 
 which are included in this volume. There is a sad 
 
 * Notes from a Diary, Sir M. E. Grant -Duff, i. 112.
 
 XXX OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 laugh in one of his letters at " the talk and jest of 
 young Oxford " ; "I have said hard things of ' young 
 Oxford,'" he says in another letter, "and perhaps 
 there are hard things to say, but no one can deny 
 there is a great deal of real nobleness and refinement 
 of life about it."*- "With all its faults of idleness 
 and littleness, there is a charm about Oxford which 
 tells on one, a certain freshness and independence 
 ("it has never given itself over to the Philistines," as 
 Mat. Arnold says), and besides a certain geniality 
 of life such as one doesn't find elsewhere. Perhaps 
 its very blunders — and one meets a blunder at every 
 step if one regards it as a great educational institu- 
 tion—save it at any rate from falHng into the mere 
 commonplace of the Daily Telegraph. The real peril 
 of our days is not that of being wrong, but of being 
 right on wrong grounds ; in a liberalism which is a 
 mere matter of association and sentiment, and not of 
 any consistent view of man in his relation to society ; 
 the Liberalism of the daily papers, I mean, and of 
 nine-tenths of their readers; a Liberalism which 
 enables the Times to plead this morning for despotic 
 government in Greece, or Froude to defend the rack. 
 And with all its oddities [Oxford] seems to give a 
 wide toleration and charity to the social intercourse 
 of thinkers ; Comtist and Eomaniser laugh together 
 over High Table and are driven, by the logic of fact, 
 from the shallow device of avoiding one another as 
 'fools' or ' madmen.' "t 
 
 * Letters, pp. 287, 256. t /&• PP- 241-42.
 
 INTRODUCTION XXXI 
 
 As Mr. Green's first work was a collection of 
 materials for the History of Oxford, so it was one of 
 his last occupations. He had filled many note-books 
 with details collected from all sorts of sources, and in 
 1873 he proposed to prepare a book of "Essays on 
 Oxford History " ; working in a paper on " Early 
 Oxford " ; a paper on " Oxford in the Great Re- 
 bellion," and another on " Puritan Oxford," and close 
 with two long studies on "Oxford Society in the 
 Eighteenth Century" and "The Oxford Jacobites," 
 taken from the essays written as an undergraduate. 
 The last of these he had begun to put into form and 
 correct, but the work remains unfinished. I can now, 
 therefore, only give these studies in their original 
 form. 
 
 When failing health had put an end to all hope of 
 his own work on Oxford history being continued, he 
 took pleasure in the thought that it might still be 
 carried on by the society which he had first planned, 
 and which he lived to see inaugurated — the Oxford 
 Historical Society. 
 
 I have to thank the editors of the Oxfwd Chronicle, 
 and of the Saturday Bevieio for permission to reprint 
 articles from their papers. The ProA'ost of Queen's 
 and Mr. Madau kindly allowed the editors of this 
 volume to see some notes taken by Mr. Richard 
 Robinson and the Rev. John Rigaud. In a few cases 
 where these have been used, the initials R. R. or J. R. 
 have been added. The initials A. C. indicate a few 
 suggestions given by the Rev. Andrew Clark. There
 
 XXxii OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 are a few instances in which it has been found 
 impossible to supply the necessary references. I 
 hope that some intelligent readers will come to our 
 help and fill in the blanks. 
 
 ALICE STOPFORD GREEN. 
 
 14 Kensington Square, 
 September 1901.
 
 THE EAPiLY HISTOEY OF OXFOED 
 
 B
 
 To most Oxford men, indeed to the common visitor 
 of Oxford, the town seems a mere offshoot of the 
 University. Its appearance is altogether modern ; 
 it presents hardly any monument that can vie in 
 antiquity with the venerable fronts of colleges and 
 halls. An isolated church here and there tells a 
 different tale ; but the largest of its parish churches 
 is best known as the church of the University, and 
 the church of St. Frideswide, Avhich might suggest 
 even to a careless observer some idea of the town's 
 greatness before University life began, is known to 
 most visitors simply as Christchurch Chapel. In all 
 outer seeming Oxford appears a mere assemblage of 
 indifferent streets that have grown out of the needs 
 of the University, and this impression is heightened 
 by its commercial unimj)ortance. The town has no 
 manufacture or trade. It is not even, like Cam- 
 bridge, a great agricidtural centre. Whatever import- 
 ance it derived from its position on the Thames has 
 been done away Avith by the almost total cessation of 
 river navigation. Its very soil is in large measure in
 
 4 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 academical hands. As a municipality it seems to 
 exist only l)y grace or usurpation of prior University 
 privileges. It is not long since Oxford gained control 
 over its own markets or its own police. The peace 
 of the town is still but partially in the hands of its 
 magistrates, and the riotous student is amenable only 
 to university jurisdiction. Within the memory of 
 living men the chief magistrate of the city on his 
 entrance into office was bound to swear in a humiliat- 
 ing ceremony not to violate the privileges of the 
 great academical body which reigned supreme within 
 its walls. 
 
 Historically the very reverse of all this is really 
 the case. So far is the University from being older 
 than the city, that Oxford had already seen five 
 centuries of borough life before a student appeared 
 within its streets. Instead of its prosperity being 
 derived from its connection with the University, 
 that connection has probably been its commercial 
 ruin. The gradual subjection both of markets and 
 trade to the arbitrary control of an ecclesiastical 
 corporation was inevitably followed by their ex- 
 tinction. The University found Oxford a busy, 
 prosperous borough, and reduced it to a cluster of 
 lodging-houses. It found it among the first of 
 English municipalities, and it so utterly cruslied its 
 freedom that the recovery of some of the commonest 
 rights of self-government has only been brought 
 about by recent legislation. Instead of the Mayor 
 being a dependant on Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor,
 
 EARLY OXFORD 6 
 
 Chancellor ;uul Vice-Chancellor have simply usurped 
 the far older authority of the Mayor. 
 
 The story of the struggle which ended in this 
 usurpation is one of the most interesting in our 
 municipal annals, and it is one which has left its 
 mark not on the town only but on the very constitu- 
 tion and character of the conquering University. 
 But to understand the struggle, Ave must first know 
 something of the town itself. At the earliest moment, 
 then, when its academic history can be said to open, 
 at the arrival of the legist Vacarius in the reign of 
 Stephen, Oxford stood in the first rank of English 
 municipalities. In spite of antiquarian fancies, it is 
 certain that no town had arisen on its site for cen- 
 turies after the departure of the Roman legions from 
 the isle of Britain. The little monastery of St. 
 Frideswide rises in the turmoil of the eighth century 
 only to fade out of sight again without giving us a 
 glimpse of the borough which gathered probably 
 beneath its walls. The first definite evidence for its 
 existence lies in a brief entry of the English Chronicle 
 which records its seizure by the successor of -Alfred. 
 But though the form of this entry shows the town to 
 have been already considerable, we hear nothing more 
 of it till the last terrible wrestle of England with the 
 Dane, when its position on the borders of the Mercian 
 and West-Saxon realms seems for the moment to have 
 given it a political importance under ^thelred and 
 Cnut strikingly analogous to that which it acquired 
 in the Great Kebellion. Of the life of its burgesses
 
 6 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 in this earlier period of Oxford life we know little or 
 nothing. The names of its parishes, St. Aldate, St. 
 Ebbe, St. Mildred, and St. Edmund, show how early 
 church after church gathered round the earlier 
 church of St. Martin. The minster of St. Frideswide, 
 in becoming the later cathedral, has brought down to 
 our own times the memory of the ecclesiastical origins 
 to which the little borough owed its existence. But 
 the men themselves are dim to us. Their town- 
 meeting, their Portmannimote, still lives in shadowy 
 fashion as the Freeman's Common Hall ; their town- 
 mead is still Port-meadow. But it is only by later 
 charters or the record of Domesday that we see them 
 going on pilgrimage to the shrines of Winchester, or 
 chaffering in their market-place, or judging and law- 
 making in their busting, their merchant guild regu- 
 lating trade, their reeve gathering his king's dues of 
 tax or honey or marshalling his troop of burghers for 
 the king's wars, their boats floating down the Thames 
 towards London and paying the toll of a hundred 
 herrings in Lent-tide to the Abbot of Abingdon by 
 the way. 
 
 Of the conquest of Oxford by William the Norman 
 we know nothing, though the number of its houses 
 marked " waste " in the Survey seems to point to a 
 desperate resistance. But the ruin was soon repaired. 
 No city better illustrates the transformation of the 
 land in the hands of its new masters, the sudden out- 
 burst of industrial eff"ort, the sudden expansion of 
 commerce and accumulation of wealth which followed
 
 EARLY OXFORD 7 
 
 the Conquest. The architectural glory of the town 
 in fact dates from the settlement of the Norman 
 within its walls. To the west of the town rose one 
 of the stateliest of English castles, and in the meadows 
 beneath the hardly less stately Abbey of Osney. In 
 the fields to the north the last of the Norman kings 
 raised his palace of Beaumont. The canons of St. 
 Frideswide reared the church which still exists as the 
 diocesan cathedral : the piety of the Norman earls 
 rebuilt almost all the parish churches of the city and 
 founded within their new castle walls the church of 
 the canons of St. George. 
 
 But Oxford does more than illustrate this outburst 
 of industrial effort; it does something towards ex- 
 plaining its cause. The most characteristic result of 
 the Conquest was planted in the very heart of the 
 town in the settlement of the Jew. Here as else- 
 where the Jewry was a town within a town, with its 
 own language, its own religion and law, its peculiar 
 commerce, its peculiar dress. The policy of our 
 foreign kings secured each Hebrew settlement from 
 the common taxation, the common justice, the common 
 obligations of Englishmen. No city bailift' could 
 penetrate into the square of little streets which lay 
 behind the present ToAvn-hall ; the Church itself was 
 powerless against the synagogue that rose in haughty 
 rivalry beside the cloister of St. Frideswide. The 
 picture which Scott has given us in Ivanhoe of 
 Isaac of Yorlc, timid, silent, crouching under 
 oppression, accurately as it represents our modern
 
 O OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 notions of the position of his race during the Middle 
 Ages, is far from being borne out by historical fact. 
 In England at least the attitude of the Jew is almost 
 to the end an attitude of proud and even insolent 
 defiance. His extortion was sheltered from the 
 common law. His bonds were kept under the royal 
 seal. A royal commission visited with heavy penalties 
 any outbreak of violence against these " chattels " of 
 the king. The thunders of the Church broke vainly 
 on the yellow gaberdine of the Jew. In a well-known 
 story of Eadmer's the Red King actually forbids the 
 conversion of a Jew to the Christian faith : it was a 
 poor exchange which would have robbed him of a 
 valuable property and given him only a subject. 
 
 At Oxford the attitude of the Jewry towards the 
 national religion showed a marked consciousness of 
 this royal protection. Prior Philip of St. Frideswide 
 complains bitterly of a certain Hebrew with the odd 
 name of " Deus-cum-crescat," who stood at his door 
 as the procession of the saint passed by, mocking at 
 the miracles wrought at her shrine. Halting and 
 then walking firmly on his feet, showing his hands 
 clenched as if Avith palsy and then flinging open his 
 fingers, the mocking Jew claimed gifts and oblations 
 from the crowd who fiocked to St. Frideswide's on 
 the ground that such recoveries of limb and strength 
 were quite as real as any Frideswide had wrought. 
 But though sickness and death, in the prior's story, 
 avenge the insult to his shrine, no earthly power, 
 ecclesiastical or civil, seems to have ventured to
 
 EARLY OXFORD 9 
 
 meddle with " Deus-cum-crescat." The feud between 
 the priory and the Jewry went on unchecked for a 
 century more, to culminate in a daring act of fanaticism 
 on the Ascension-day of 1268. As the usual pro- 
 cession of scholars and citizens returned from St. 
 Frideswide's, a Jew suddenly bui'st from the group of 
 his comrades in front of the synagogue, and snatching 
 the crucifix from its bearer trod it under foot. But 
 even in presence of such an outrage as this the terror 
 of the Crown shielded the Jewry from any burst of 
 popular indignation. The sentence of the king con- 
 demned the Jews of Oxford to erect a cross of marble 
 on the spot where the crime was committed ; but 
 even this was remitted in part, and a less offensive 
 place was allotted for the cross in an open plot by 
 Merton College. 
 
 With the Jewish settlement began the cultivation 
 of physical science in Oxford. The Hebrew instruc- 
 tion, the Hebrew books which he found among its 
 rabbis, were the means by which Roger Bacon pene- 
 trated to the older world of material research, A 
 medical school which we find established there and 
 in high repute during the twelfth century can hardly 
 have been other than Jewish : in the operation for 
 the stone, which one of the stories in the Miracles of 
 St. Frideswide preserves for us, we trace the tradi- 
 tional surgery which is still common in the East. 
 But it is perhaps in a more purely material way that 
 the Jewry at Oxford most directly influenced our 
 academical history. There as elsewhere the Jew
 
 10 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 brought with him something more than the art or 
 science Avhich he had gathered at Cordova or Bagdad ; 
 he brought with him the new power of wealth. The 
 erection of stately castles, of yet statelier abbeys, 
 Avhich followed the Conquest, the rebuilding of 
 almost every cathedral or conventual church, marks 
 the advent of the Jewish capitalist. No one can 
 study the earlier history of our great monastic houses 
 without finding the secret of that sudden outburst of 
 industrial activity to which we owe the noblest of our 
 minsters in the loans of the Jew. The bonds of 
 many a great baron, the relics of many an abbey, 
 lay pledged for security in the " Star-chamber " of 
 the Jew. 
 
 His arrival at Oxford is marked by the military 
 and ecclesiastical erections of its Norman earls. But 
 a result of his presence, which bore more directly on 
 the future of the town, was seen in the remarkable 
 development of its domestic architecture. To the 
 wealth of the Jew, to his need of protection against 
 sudden outbursts of popular passion, very probably 
 to the greater refinement of his social life, England 
 owes the introduction of stone houses. Tradition 
 attributes almost every instance of the earliest stone 
 buildings of a domestic character to the Jew ; and 
 where the tradition can be tested, as at Bury St. 
 Edmunds or Lincoln, it has proved to be in accord- 
 ance with the facts. In Oxford nearly all the larger 
 dwelling-houses which were subsequently converted 
 into halls bore traces of their Jewish origin in their
 
 EARLY OXFORD 11 
 
 names, such as Moysey's Hall, Lombards', Jacob's 
 Hall. It is a striking proof of the superiority of the 
 Hebrew dwellings to the Christian houses around 
 them that each of the successive town-halls of the 
 borough had, before their expulsion, been houses of 
 Jews. Such houses were abundant in the town, not 
 merely in the purely Jewish quarter on Carfax but 
 in the lesser JeA^iy which was scattered over the 
 parish of St. Aldato ; and we can hardly doubt that 
 this abundance of substantial buildings in the town 
 was at least one of the causes which drew teachers 
 and students within its walls. 
 
 The same great event which flung down the Jewish 
 settlement in the very heart of the English town 
 bounded it to the west by the castle and the abbey of 
 the conquerors. Oxford stood first on the line of 
 great fortresses which, passing l)y Wallingford and 
 Windsor to the Tower of London, guarded the course 
 of the Thames. Its castellan, Kobert D'Oilly, had 
 followed William from Normandy and had fought by 
 his side at Senlac. Oxfordshire was committed by 
 the Conqueror to his charge ; and he seems to have 
 ruled it in rude, soldierly fashion, enforcing order, 
 heaping up riches, tripling the taxation of the town, 
 pillaging without scruple the older religious houses 
 of the neighbourhood. It was only by ruthless ex- 
 action such as this that the work which William had 
 set him to do could be done. Money was needed 
 above all for the great fortress which held the town. 
 The new castle rose on the eastern bank of the
 
 12 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Thames, broken here into a number of small stream- 
 lets, one of which served as the deep moat which 
 encircled its Avails. A Avell marked the centre of the 
 wide castle-court ; to the north of it on a lofty mound 
 rose the great keep ; to the west the one tower which 
 remains, the tower of St. George, frowned over the 
 river and the mill. Without the walls of the fortress 
 lay the Bailly, a space cleared by the merciless policy 
 of the castellan, with the church of St. Peter le Bailly 
 which still marks its extent. 
 
 The hand of Eobert D'Oilly fell as heavily on the 
 Church as on the townsmen. Outside the town lay 
 a meadow belonging to the Abbey of Abingdon, 
 which seemed suitable for the exercise of the soldiers 
 of his garrison. The earl was an old plunderer of 
 the Abbey ; he had wiled away one of its finest 
 manors from its Abbot Athelm; but his seizure of 
 the meadow beside Oxford drove the monks to 
 despair. Night and day they threw themselves 
 weeping before the altar of the two English saints 
 whose names were linked to the older glories of their 
 house. But while they invoked the vengeance of 
 Dunstan and ^Ethelwold on their plunderer, the 
 earl, fallen sick, tossed fever-smitten on his bed. At 
 last Robert dreamt that he stood in a vast court, one 
 of a crowd of nobles gathered round a throne whereon 
 sate a lady passing fair. Before her knelt two 
 brethren of the abbey, Aveeping for the loss of their 
 mead and pointing out the castellan as the robber. 
 The lady bade Eobert be seized, and two youths
 
 EARLY OXFORD 13 
 
 hurried him away to the field itself, seated him on 
 the ground, piled burning hay around him, smoked 
 him, tossed haybands in his face, and set fire to his 
 beard. The earl woke trembling at the divine 
 discipline ; he at once took boat for Abingdon, and 
 restored to the monks the meadow he had reft from 
 them. His terror was not satisfied by the restitu- 
 tion of his plunder, and he returned to set about the 
 restoration of the ruined churches within and with- 
 out the walls of Oxford. The tower of St. Michael, 
 the doorway of St. Ebbe, the chancel arch of Holy- 
 well, the crypt and chancel of St. Peter' s-in-the-East, 
 are fragments of the work done by Robert and his 
 house. But the great monument of the devotion of 
 the D'Oillys rose beneath the walls of their castle. 
 Robert, a nephew of the first castellan, had wedded 
 Edith, a concubine of Henry I. The rest of the story 
 we may tell in the English of Leland. " Edith used 
 to walke out of Oxford Castelle with her gentle- 
 women to solace, and that oftentymes where yn a 
 certen place in a tree, as often as she cam, a certain 
 pyes used to gather to it, and ther to chattre, and as 
 it were to spek on to her, Edyth much mervelyng at 
 this matter, and was sumtyme sore ferid by it as by 
 a wonder." Radulf, a canon of St. Frideswide's, was 
 consulted on the marvel, and his counsel ended in 
 the erection of the priory of Osney beneath the walls 
 of the castle. The foundation of the D'Oillys be- 
 came one of the wealthiest and larsiest of the EnG;lish 
 abbej's ; but of its vast church and lordly abbot's
 
 14 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 house, the great quadrangle of its cloisters, the alms- 
 houses without its gate, the pleasant walks shaded 
 with stately elms beside the river, not a trace re- 
 mains. Its bells alone were saved at the Dissolution 
 by their transfer to Christchurch. 
 
 The military strength of the castle of the D'Oillys 
 was tested in the struggle between Stephen and the 
 Empress. Driven from London by a rising of its 
 burghers at the very moment when the crown seemed 
 within her grasp, Maud took refuge at Oxford. In 
 the succeeding year Stephen found himself strong 
 enough to attack his rival in her stronghold ; his 
 knights swam the river, fell hotly on the garrison 
 which had sallied without the walls to meet them, 
 chased them through the gates, and rushed pell-mell 
 with the fugitives into the city. Houses were burnt 
 and the Jewry sacked ; the Jews, if tradition is to 
 be trusted, were forced to raise against the castle 
 the work that still bears the name of " Jews' Mount " ; 
 but the strength of its walls foiled the efforts of the 
 besiegers, and the attack died into a close blockade. 
 Maud was however in Stephen's grasp, and neither 
 the loss of other fortresses nor the rigour of the 
 winter could tear the king from his prey. Despair- 
 ing of relief, the Empress at last resolved to break 
 through the enemy's lines. Every stream was frozen 
 and the earth covered with snow, when clad in white 
 and with three knights in white garments as her 
 attendants Maud passed unobserved through the 
 outposts, crossed the Thames upon the ice, and
 
 EARLY OXFORD 15 
 
 made her way to Abingdon and the fortress of 
 Wallingford. 
 
 With the surrender which followed the military- 
 history of Oxford ceases till the Great Rebellion. 
 Its political history had still to attain its highest 
 reach in the Parliament of De Montfort. The great 
 assemblies held at Oxford under Cnut, Stephen, and 
 Henry III, are each memorable in their way. With 
 the first closed the struggle between Englishman and 
 Dane, with the second closed the conquest of the 
 Norman, with the third began the regular progress 
 of constitutional liberty. The position of the town, 
 on the border between the England that remained 
 to the West-Saxon kings and the England that had 
 become the " Danelagh " of their northern assailants, 
 had from the first pointed it out as the place where a 
 union between Dane and Englishman could best be 
 brought about. The first attempt Avas foiled by the 
 savage treachery of ^thelred the Unready. The 
 death of Swegen and the return of Cnut to Denmark 
 left an opening for a reconciliation, and Englishmen 
 and Danes gathered at Oxford round the king. But 
 all hope was foiled by the assassination of the Law- 
 men of the Seven Danish Boroughs, Sigeferth and 
 Morcar, who fell at a banquet by the hand of the 
 minister Eadric, while their followers threw them- 
 selves into the tower of St. Frideswide and perished 
 in the flames that consumed it. The overthrow of 
 the English monarchy avenged the treason. But 
 Cnut was of nobler stuff than yEthelred, and his
 
 16 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 conquest of the realm was followed by the gathering 
 of a new gemot at Oxford to resume the work of re- 
 conciliation which Eadric had interrupted. English- 
 man and Dane agreed to live together as one people 
 under Eadgar's Law, and the wise government of 
 the King completed in the long years of his reign 
 the task of national fusion. Tlie conquest of William 
 set two peoples a second time face to face upon the 
 same soil, and it was again at Oxford that by his 
 solemn acceptance and promulgation of the Charter 
 of Henry I. in solemn parliament Stephen closed the 
 period of military tyranny, and began the union of 
 Norman and Englishman into a single people. These 
 two great acts of national reconciliation were fit pre- 
 ludes for the work of the famous assembly which 
 has received from its enemies the name of " the Mad 
 Parliament." In the June of 1258 the barons met 
 at Oxford under earl Simon de Montfort to commence 
 the revolution to which we owe our national liberties. 
 Followed by long trains of men in arms and sworn 
 together by pledges of mutual fidelity, they wrested 
 from Henry IH. the great reforms which, frustrated 
 for the moment, have become the basis of our con- 
 stitutional system. On the " Provisions of Oxford " 
 followed the regular establishment of parliamentary 
 representation and power, of a popular and re- 
 sponsible ministry, of the principle of local self- 
 government. 
 
 From pailiaments and sieges, from Jew and cas- 
 tellan, it is time to turn back to the humbler annals
 
 EARLY OXFORD 17 
 
 of the town itself. The first event that lifts it into 
 historic prominence is its league with London. The 
 "bargemen" of the borough seem to have already- 
 existed before the Conquest, and to have been closely 
 united from the first with the more powerful guild, 
 the " boatmen " or " merchants " of the capital. In 
 both cases it is probable that the bodies bearing 
 this name represented wliat in later language was 
 known as the merchant guild of the town ; the 
 original association, that is, of its principal traders 
 for purposes of mutual protection, of commerce, and 
 of self-government. Koyal recognition enables us to 
 trace the merchant guild of Oxford from the time of 
 Henry I. ; even then indeed lands, islands, pastures 
 already belonged to it, and amongst them the same 
 "Port-meadow" or "Town-mead" so familiar to 
 Oxford men pulling lazily on a summer's noon to 
 Godstow, and which still remains the property of the 
 freemen of the town. The connection between the 
 two cities and their guilds was primarily one of 
 traffic. Prior even to the Conquest, " in the time of 
 King Eadward and Abbot Ordric," the channel of the 
 river running beneath the walls of the Abbey of 
 Abingdon became so blocked up "that boats could 
 scarce pass as far as Oxford." It was at the joint 
 prayer of the burgesses of London and Oxford that 
 the abbot dug a new channel through the meadow to 
 the south of his church, the two cities engaging that 
 each barge should pay a toll of a hundred herrings 
 on its passage during Lent. But the union soon took 
 
 C
 
 18 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 a constitutional form. The earliest charter of the 
 capital which remains in detail is that of Henry I., 
 and from the charter of his grandson we find a similar 
 date assigned to the liberties of Oxford. The customs 
 and exemptions of its burghers are granted by Henry 
 n., "as ever they enjoyed them in the time of King 
 Henry my grandfather, and in like manner as ray 
 citizens of London hold them." This identity of 
 municipal privileges is of course common to many 
 other boroughs, for the charter of London became 
 the model for half the charters of the kingdom ; 
 what is peculiar to Oxford is the federal bond which 
 in Henry H.'s time already linked the two cities 
 together. In case of any doubt or contest about 
 judgment in their own court the burgesses of Oxford 
 were empowered to refer the matter to the decision 
 of London, " and whatever the citizens of London 
 shall adjudge in such cases shall be deemed right." 
 The judicial usages, the municipal rights of each city 
 were assimilated by Henry's charter. " Of whatever 
 matter they shall be put in plea, they shall deraign 
 themselves according to the law and customs of the 
 city of London and not otherwise, because they and 
 the citizens of London are of one and the same 
 custom, law, and liberty." 
 
 In no two cities has municipal freedom experienced 
 a more different fate than in the two that were so 
 closely bound together. The liberties of London 
 waxed greater and greater till they were lost in the 
 general freedom of the realm : those of Oxford were
 
 EARLY OXFORD 19 
 
 trodden under foot till the city stood almost alone in 
 its bondage among the cities of England. But it 
 would have been hard for a burgher of the twelfth 
 century, flushed with the pride of his new charter, or 
 fresh from the scene of a coronation where he had 
 stood side by side with the citizens of London and 
 Winchester as representing one of the chief cities 
 of the realm, to have dreaded any danger to the 
 liberties of his borough from the mob of half-starved 
 boys who were beginning to pour year after year 
 into the town. The wealthy merchant who passed 
 the group of shivering students huddled round a 
 teacher as poor as themselves in porch and doorway, 
 or dropped his alms into the cap of the mendicant 
 scholar, could hardly discern that beneath rags and 
 poverty lay a power greater than the power of kings, 
 the power for which Becket had died and which 
 bowed Henry to penance and humiliation. On all 
 but its eastern side indeed the town was narrowly 
 hemmed in by jurisdictions independent of its own. 
 The precincts of the Abbey of Osney, the wide bailly 
 of the castle, bounded it narrowly on the west. To 
 the north, stretching away to the little church of St. 
 Giles, lay the fields of the royal manor of Beaumont. 
 The Abbot of Abingdon, whose woods of Cumnor 
 and Bagley closed the southern horizon, held his leet 
 court in the small hamlet of Grampound beyond the 
 bridge. Nor was the whole space within its walls 
 altogether subject to the self-government of the 
 citizens. The Jewry, a town within a town, lay
 
 20 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 isolated and exempt from the common justice or law 
 in the very heart of the borough. Scores of house- 
 holders, dotted over the various streets, were tenants 
 of abbey or castle, and paid neither suit nor service 
 to the city court. But within these narrow bounds 
 and amidst these various obstacles the spirit of 
 municipal liberty lived a life the more intense that 
 it was so closely cabined and confined. 
 
 It was in fact at the moment when the first Oxford 
 students appeared within its walls that the city 
 attained complete independence. The twelfth cen- 
 tury, the age of the Crusades, of the rise of the 
 scholastic philosophy, of the renewal of classical 
 learning, was also the age of a great communal move- 
 ment, that stretched from Italy along the Khone and 
 the Ehine, the Seine and the Somme, to England. 
 The same great revival of individual, human life in 
 the industrial masses of the feudal world that hurried 
 half Christendom to the Holy Land, or gathered 
 hundreds of eager faces round the lecture-stall of 
 Abelard, beat back Barbarossa from the walls of 
 Alessandria and nerved the burghers of Northern 
 France to struggle as at Amiens for liberty. In 
 England the same spirit took a milder and perhaps 
 more jDractical form, from the different social and 
 political conditions with which it had to deal. The 
 quiet townships of Teutonic England had no tradi- 
 tions of a Roman past to lure them on, like the cities 
 of Italy, into dreams of sovereignty. Their ruler was 
 no foreign Caesar, distant enough to give a chance for
 
 EARLY OXFORD 21 
 
 resistance, but a king near at hand and able to 
 enforce olicdieuco and law. The king's peace shielded 
 them from that terrible oppression of the mediaeval 
 baronage Avhich made liberty with the cities of 
 Germany a matter of life or death. The i)eculiarity 
 of municipal life in fact in England is that instead of 
 standing apart from and in contrast with the general 
 life around it the progress of the English town moved 
 in perfect harmony with that of the nation at large. 
 The earlier burgher was the freeman within the walls, 
 as the peasant-ceorl was the freeman without. Free- 
 dom went with the possession of land in town as in 
 country. The citizen held his burgher's rights by his 
 tenure of the bit of ground on which his tenement 
 stood. He was the king's free tenant, and like the 
 rural tenants he owed his lord dues of money or 
 kind. In township or manor alike the king's reeve 
 gathered this rental, administered justice, commanded 
 the little troop of soldiers that the spot was bound to 
 furnish in time of war. The progress of municipal 
 freedom, like that of national freedom, was wrought 
 rather by the slow growth of wealth and of popular 
 spirit, by the necessities of kings, by the policy of a 
 few great statesmen, than by the sturdy revolts that 
 wrested liberty from the French seigneur or the 
 century of warfare that liroke the power of the 
 Cresars in the plain of the Po. 
 
 Much indeed that Italy or France had to win by 
 the sword was already the heritage of every English 
 freeman within Avails or without. The common
 
 22 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 assembly in Avhich their own public affairs were 
 discussed and decided, the borough-mote to which 
 every burgher Avas summoned by the town - bell 
 swinging out of the town-tower, had descended by 
 traditional visage from the customs of the first English 
 settlers in Britain. The close association of the 
 burghers in the sworn l^rotherhood of the guild 
 was a Teutonic custom of immemorial antiquity. 
 Gathered at the guild supper round the common 
 fire, sharing the common meal, and draining the 
 guild cup, the burghers added to the tie of mere 
 neighbourhood that of loyal association, of mutual 
 counsel, of mutual aid. The regulation of internal 
 trade, all lesser forms of civil jurisdiction, fell quietly 
 and without a straggle into the hands of the merchant 
 guild. The rest of their freedom was bought with 
 honest cash. The sale of charters brought money to 
 the royal treasury, exhausted by Norman wars, by 
 the herd of mercenaries, by Crusades, by the struggle 
 with France. The towns bought first the commuta- 
 tion of the uncertain charges to which they were 
 subject at the royal will for a fixed annual rent. 
 Their purchase of the right of internal justice fol- 
 lowed. Last came the privilege of electing their own 
 magistrates, of enjoying complete self-government. 
 Oxford had already passed through the earlier steps 
 of this emancipation before the conquest of the 
 Norman. Her citizens assembled in their Port- 
 mannimote, their free self-ruling assembly. Their 
 merchant-guild leagued with that of London. Their
 
 EARLY OXFORD 23 
 
 dues to the Crown are assessed in Domesday at a 
 fixed sum of honey and coin. The charter of Henry 
 II. marks the acquisition hy Oxford, probably at a 
 far earlier date, of judicial and commercial freedom. 
 Liberty of external commerce was given by the ex- 
 emption of its citizens from toll on the king's lands ; 
 the decision of either political or judicial affairs was 
 left to their borough-mote. The highest point of 
 municipal independence was reached when the Charter 
 of John substituted a mayor of their own choosing 
 for the mere bailiff of the Crown. 
 
 It is hard in dry constitutional details such as 
 these to realize the quick pulse of popular life that 
 stirred such a community as Oxford. Only a few 
 names, of street and lane, a few hints gathered from 
 obscure records, enable one to see the town of the 
 twelfth or thirteenth century. The Church of St. 
 Martin in the very heart of it, at the " Quatrevoix" 
 or Carfax where its four roads meet, was the centre 
 of the city's life. The Town-mote was held in its 
 churchyard. Justice was administered by mayor and 
 bailiff sitting beneath the low shed, the "penniless 
 bench " of later times, without its eastern wall. Its 
 bell summoned the burghers to counsel or to arras. 
 Around the church lay the trade-guilds, ranged as in 
 some vast encampment : .Spicery and Vintnery to 
 the south, Fish Street falling noisily down to the 
 Bridge, the corn market occupying then as now 
 the street which led to Northgate, the stalls of the 
 butchers ranged in their " Butcher-row " along the
 
 24 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 I'oad to the castle. Close beneath the church to the 
 south-east lay a nest of huddled lanes broken by a 
 stately synagogue and traversed from time to time by 
 the yellow gaberdine of the Jew, whose burying-place 
 lay far away to the eastward on the site of the 
 present Botanic Garden. Soldiers from the castle 
 rode clashing through the narrow streets ; the bells 
 of Osney clanged from the swampy meadows ; long 
 processions of pilgrims wound past the Jewry to the 
 shrine of Saint Frideswide. It was a rough time, 
 and frays were common enough, — now the sack of a 
 Jew's house, now burgher drawing knife on burgher, 
 now an outbreak of the young student lads, who 
 grew every day in numbers and audacity. But as 
 yet the town seemed well in hand. The clang of the 
 city bell called every citizen to his door, the summons 
 of the mayor brought trade after trade with bow in 
 hand and banners flying to enforce the king's peace. 
 Order and freedom seemed absolutely secure, and 
 there was no sign which threatened that century of 
 disorder, of academical and ecclesiastical usurpation, 
 which humbled the municipal freedom of Oxford to 
 the dust.
 
 OXFOKD DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 CENTUKY
 
 We have hitherto endeavoured to review, with as 
 much regard for chronological arrangement as was 
 possible, the more prominent features of our Oxford 
 history during the greater part of the eighteenth 
 century. But such a detail, however interesting in 
 itself, can necessarily give us but little insight into 
 the Oxford of the time, into its habits and social 
 life, its sympathies and prejudices, its moral in- 
 fluences, its educational position and utility. Nor 
 can Ave guess at these things by any comparison 
 with, or inference drawn from, the corresponding 
 facts of the present day. For between this age and 
 the last "a great gulf is fixed." It is almost im- 
 possible, without special study, to throw oneself 
 into communion with the age of the first two 
 Georges — to feel as though its men and women were 
 of real flesh and blood, and not mere marionettes, 
 whom an adroit hand is putting through fictitious 
 bows and imaginary minuets. In the moral history 
 of the world the last century ^ is not of necessity a
 
 28 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 hundred years nearer us than its predecessor. Just 
 as infancy, spite of the lapse of years that intervenes, 
 is really nearer than manhood to that second child- 
 hood, a garrulous old age, so in the history of man- 
 kind, instead of a constant, unintermitted advance, 
 we see the ages of the past recurring in a myste- 
 rious alternation, each, viewed by itself, seeming but 
 the gulf that parts two alike in all but time, till a 
 Avider retrospect shows us that this age of severance 
 has its countei'part too — and that the alternation is 
 not an exception but a law. 
 
 And thus it is that we instinctively feel the great, 
 the immeasurable distance that severs this age, so 
 proud of its truth, its earnestness, its energy, its 
 high and noble aims, from the heartlessness, the in- 
 difference, the frivolity — in one word, the utter 
 worldliness of the eighteenth century. Were one of 
 us, falling asleep in the nineteenth, to v/ake an 
 Englishman of the sixteenth century, to don his ruff, 
 his short cloak, buff jerkin, and tnmk hose, he would 
 find little novel, save his costume, or strange in those 
 who thronged the streets of the time of Queen Bess 
 save their "prythee's" and canary. The two cen- 
 turies have common sympathies, common ideas, 
 common aims. Drake is but the prototype of 
 Nelson or Franklin, Sydney of Havelock, Raleigh of 
 the emigrant or goldseeker of to-day. But fall 
 asleep once more and wake — two centuries nearer, 
 as chronologists have it — in the age of the Georges. 
 Saliy forth iii well-combed peruke, gold-laced coat,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 20 
 
 and silver shoe-buckles into Pall Mall oi- Merton 
 Walks, and bow gracefully to the Delias and Phyllises 
 that swim past you in their hoops and huge head- 
 dresses, with a leer on their painted faces, and a 
 roguish flutter of their fans. Chat with one of those 
 gay beaux, all lace and pei-fumes, who are dangling 
 their amber-headed canes with the true supercilious 
 vacancy of men of the mode ! Why so silent ? Sir 
 Fopling is voluble enough, can chat of to-morrow's 
 masquerade, the intrigues of Lady Dash, or the 
 latest epigram of George Selwyn ; he will rally you 
 on your "blues," rattle over the frolic of last night, 
 how they smoked a country squire, carried off an 
 actress, or knocked down a watchman. Or per- 
 chance — should you be dumb— he will turn with a 
 charming ease to themes of graver import, though 
 treated with as light an air; will demolish Chris- 
 tianity with a jest, and quote Toland for a sarcasm 
 on "superstition." 
 
 We are about then to endeavour, before resuming 
 the detail of events during the latter years of the last 
 century, to rebuild from the few facts which we have 
 been enabled to collect, this Oxford of the first 
 Georges ; to see what men lived then, and what 
 manner of life theirs was ; to listen to their dispu- 
 tations, to smoke a pipe of Virginia with them in 
 the common-room, or chat over a bowl of punch in 
 the coffee-house ; ' in short, it is our purpose to give 
 as full an account as we are able of the social, the 
 political, the religious and the educational state of
 
 30 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Oxford during the greater part of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 "I cannot but fancy," writes one of Swift's 
 correspondents, "if one of our heads were dis- 
 sected, after passing a winter's campaign in town, it 
 Avoukl appear just like a pamphlet shop ; you would 
 see a collection of treaties, a bundle of farces, a parcel 
 of encomiums, another of satires, speeches, novels, 
 sermons, loose songs, addresses, epigrams, procla- 
 mations, poems, divinity lectures, quack bills, histori- 
 cal accounts, fables, and God knows what."^ Just such 
 a medley as Lord Bathurst discovered in the head of a 
 man of fashion, makes up the Oxford of the last cen- 
 tury. It is in the most primary sense an "universitas," 
 its little microcosm represents faithfully, though in 
 miniature, every purpose, aim, or fancy of the world 
 Avithout, but it is without order or arrangement ; 
 there exists no centre round which these tendencies 
 may group themselves ; religion has dwindled down 
 to a roll-call, and education may be found anywhere 
 save in the lecture-room. In spite of the imposing 
 ceremonies that attest its greatness, in spite of past 
 traditions and present pretensions, it might be said 
 of the University — as was indeed said of it in fulsome 
 eulogy — "we seek in vain for Oxford in Oxford. "^ 
 Great architectural efforts were being made, noble build- 
 ings were every day rising around, but to those who 
 looked in all their costly display for learning and piety, 
 the University resembled the Jewin Addison's simile — 
 "a toad squatting among the ruins of a mighty temple."
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 31 
 
 For this "aggregation of atoms," however, one 
 centre still existed, one focus to which all resorted, a 
 little University within the University. I mean the 
 cofFee-house. The first introduction of this bever- 
 age into Oxford had been made by a Jew, who, in 
 the year 1650, had offered it for sale at the Angel, 
 in St. Peter-in-the-East, where " by some that de- 
 lighted in Noveltie," Anthony a Wood says, "it was 
 drank." ^ But its progress had been rapid ; a brother 
 antiquary, Aubrey, testifies to " the modern advantage 
 of coffee-houses in this great city, before which 
 men knew not how to be acquainted, but with their 
 own relations or societies." - Tom Warton in his 
 panegyric on Oxford ale could soon sing of 
 
 The coffee-house 
 Of James or Juggins, where the gi-ateful breath 
 Of loathed tobacco ue'er diffused its bahu : 
 But the lewd spendthrift falsely deemed polite, 
 While steams around the fragrant Indian bowl, 
 Oft damns the vulgar sons of humbler ale.^ 
 
 And in 1759 we find an advertisement in the Oxford 
 Journal for that year, which reveals the price of the 
 beverage and the number of its vendors. "April 
 13th, 1759, — The Masters of Coffee-houses in Oxford 
 find themselves under the disagreeable necessity of 
 acquainting their customers that by the late addi- 
 tional duties on Coffee and Chocolate, together with 
 the advanced price of those commodities, occasioned 
 by their present scarcity, they shall be obliged to 
 advance the price of Chocolate from four-pence to
 
 32 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 five-pence per dish, and Coffee from four-pence to 
 five-pence a pot. Signed, James Horseman, Charles 
 King, Eliz. Coombes,— Hobson, Thomas Hadley, 
 John King, Thomas Browne, Thomas Eoberson, 
 William Harper, John Bullock"^ One exception, 
 however, occurs to this unanimity, for Mrs. Anne 
 Blowfield, of the George Coffee House, announces, 
 in a counter advertisement, that she does not join 
 in the rise." The same names, with but one addi- 
 tion, are met with in Warton's Newsman's Verses 
 for 1770, when entreating entertainment he apos- 
 trophizes — 
 
 Ye too, whose houses are so handy 
 
 For coffee, tea, rum, wine, and Lrandy : 
 
 Pride of fair Oxford's gaudy streets, 
 
 You, too, our strain submissive greets ! 
 
 Hear, Horseman, Spindlow, King, and Harper — 
 
 The weather, sure, was never shaiper ! 
 
 Here it is that all meet, the pedant, the wit, the 
 rake, and the gamester. At the door lounges "a 
 man of Fire" as he terms himself, "a Slicer," 
 "Towrow," "Blood," "Buck," as he is called by the 
 rest of the world, with a loud triumphant "she 
 blues " for the passing seamstress that blushes at his 
 coarse buffoonery, a scurvy jest for the threadbare 
 servitor, who scared from entrance by the terrible 
 score in the bar hangs about the door, ready to 
 barter a catch or song for a pint of ale, and a low 
 bow for the "smart fellow "who saimters in with 
 red stockings and elaborate peruke conning over a
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 33 
 
 sonnet for the reigning toast, whose health has been 
 sung from Headington to Ilincksey. A deeper 
 obeisance still he reserves for the fellow-commoner 
 who struts by, freed from the drudgery of lectures 
 or chapel by the golden tuft in the velvet cap, at 
 once badge of honour and apology for ignorance — 
 the magnet that draws in its train that crowd of the 
 shabbily -genteel toadeaters, ready at his call to 
 " breakfast, dine, or sup with him, as he pleases ; to 
 drink with him, rake with him, borrow his money, 
 or let him pay the reckoning."^ Dick Loungeit — poor 
 devil — rather envies these fortunate toadies; falling 
 into a reverie, whence he is awakened by that boon 
 companion Tom Buck, wdio, having brought the 
 repute of knowing every London vice from West- 
 minster, is determined to leave behind him at Oxford 
 the additional fame of seeing every comrade under 
 the table. He has already tossed off his morning 
 tankard at the Magpie, and is come now to the 
 Coffee-house, partly for the Tory news, for Tory 
 Tom is to the backbone ever since he learnt, on his 
 arrival, that Tories drank deepest and swore loudest, 
 partly to plan over his claret a debauch for to- 
 morrow or a trip to the Paradise of town. The 
 noise of these two topers wonderfully disturbs Dr. 
 Dry in his perusal of the Monitor, spite of his eager- 
 ness to return to pipe and common-room with the 
 news of the Grand ]\Ionarque or the Great Mogul. 
 There are others waiting for the Monitor — one in 
 particular, to whom vre ovre so much for the dry 
 
 D
 
 34 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 notes in which he has handed down that age to us — 
 Esquire Beadell, Mr. Hearne,^ is there, big mouthed, 
 with set obstinate face and inquisitive eye, liair 
 scornful of wig flowing to his shoulders, and ink- 
 stained hands spreading over his unbuttoned slovenly 
 waistcoat, chatting with Browne Willis over Grieves's 
 great work on the " Roman Denarius," or the com- 
 parative antiquity of Oxford and Cambridge.^ 
 
 There is a stir however in the coffee-room now. 
 Topers, doctors, and antiquaries are making their 
 way coUegewards, for it is close upon twelve o'clock, 
 and twelve during the earlier part of the eighteenth 
 century was the dinner hour. "Time," says De 
 Quincey, in a most ingenious essay on this subject, 
 " has very little connexion with the idea of dinner. 
 It has travelled through every hour, like the hand 
 of a clock, from ten in the morning till ten at night." 
 He might have pushed the hour hand still further 
 back. "Rise at five, dine at nine," says the old 
 French proverb, and one traditional cause of Louis 
 the Twelfth's death was his change of dinner hour 
 from eight to twelve, in compliment to his young 
 English bride. But the century which we are at 
 present engaged with was the epoch of Dinners 
 greatest advance. The Revolution of 1688 brought 
 with its other "glorious" consequences a march of 
 the dinner hour to two ; the Rebellion of 1745 marks 
 its progress to four. But, at the beginning of this 
 century, Oxford was on this point in the rear of the 
 metropolis. Even in 1732, when Queen Carohne
 
 OXFORD DURINCx THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 35 
 
 sends a buck to Magdalen, the dinner at which it 
 appears is at 10 a.m.^ Each advance was made 
 amidst grumblings from the older and more conser- 
 vative members. " University disputations," growls 
 Hearne in his diary,- "began on Ash Wednesday, 
 at two and after, instead of at one ; occasioned by 
 several colleges altering the hour of dinner from eleven 
 to twelve, from people's lying in bed longer than they 
 used to do." " It hath been an old custom," he writes 
 in 172.3, "for the scholars of all houses on Shrove 
 Tuesday to go to dinner at ten o'clock, at which time 
 the little bell, called pancake-bell, rings, or at least 
 should ring, at St. Maries, and at 4 in the afternoon ; 
 and it was always followed in Edmund Hall as long 
 as I have been in Oxford till yesterday, when they 
 went to dinner at twelve and to supper at six. 
 Nor were there any fritters at dinner as there used 
 always to be. When laudable old customs alter 'tis 
 a sign learning dwindles ! "^ How horrorstruck would 
 he have been had he seen the great move in 1804,* 
 1805, when those colleges that had dined at three 
 advanced to four, those that had dined at four to five !
 
 II 
 
 " Oxford," sings Spenser, 
 
 That fair city wherein make abode 
 So many learned imps that shoot abroad 
 And witli their branches spread all Britainy 
 No less than do her elder sister's brood — 
 Joy to you both, ye double nursery 
 Of arts, but Oxford, thee doth Thame most glorify. 
 
 We have seen these "learned imps" assembled at 
 their common rendezvous, the coffee-house, but to 
 form any notion of the social aspect of the Oxford 
 of the day it will be necessary for us — if our readers 
 be not already weary of the subject — to folloAV them 
 to their college homes, to dwell a little on their 
 manners and discipline, their fashions and habits, 
 their amusements and extravagances, while in suc- 
 ceeding papers we may do our best to complete the 
 picture by some slight account of their educational 
 and religious position. 
 
 We have seen the servitor waiting without the 
 coffee-house, in fear to enter ; and were we to follow 
 him home to his college v/e should find him ready
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 37 
 
 to perform as menial offices for his daily subsistence 
 as he was then for a tankard of ale. The servitor 
 was even now beginning to clash with the sjDirit of 
 the place ; he was practically an anachronism, the 
 last relic of that great church system which, whether 
 purposely or no, seemed to love the elevation of the 
 very meanest to the same or a higher level than the 
 princes and nobles of the day by the mere ladder 
 of learning, the system which raised Becket to 
 Canterbury, and Wykeham to Winchester. He was 
 usually a lad of low extraction, but of promising 
 parts, who came fresh from the taproom or the 
 plough — not as now, to take his station 9,mong 
 equals, but by menial offices to earn that instruction 
 which the University could aftbrd. Sometimes the 
 young country squire brought him up with him 
 from the country, oftener he came up alone, seeking 
 only to be quartered upon some wealthier student. 
 He lived generally within call ; Avhen Erasmus for a 
 time taught at Cambridge, his servitor's room, 
 Aubrey notes, was close above his at Queens'.^ 
 He was wholly at his master's command, and some- 
 times at his mistress's. Willis, Avho afterwards ac- 
 quired such fame and wealth through his discovery 
 of the chalybeate properties of A strop Wells, "was 
 first servitor," says Aubrey in his memoirs of him,- 
 "to Dr. lies, one of the Canons of Christ Church, 
 whose Avife Avas a knoAving Avoman in physic and 
 surgery, and did inany cures. Tom Willis then wore 
 a blue livery cloak and studied at the lower end of
 
 38 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 the hall, by the hall dore ; was pretty handy, and 
 his mistresse would oftentimes have him to assist her 
 in making of medicines. This did him no hurt, and 
 allured him on." The knowledge which the half- 
 educated boy thus picked up gave him a superiority 
 over his less fortunate companions, of which he 
 would sometimes mischievously avail himself. When 
 one of our earliest mathematicians^ was counted an 
 astrologer by the populace, "his servitor, to impose 
 on freshmen and simple people, would tell them 
 that sometimes he should meet the s]3irits comeing 
 up his staires like bees." 
 
 It need not, however, be supposed that in these 
 services there was anything to humiliate or degrade 
 them. In many the position resolved itself into a 
 mere change of place. When the afterwards not- 
 able Sir John Birkenhead entered as a servitor at 
 Oriel, his brother Avas a common trooper.^ Bishop 
 Eobinson was sent up through the kindness of his 
 patron from the plough.^ Whitefield was the son 
 of a tavern-keeper at Gloucester, and to quote his own 
 words, "I put on my blue apron and my snuffers,*" 
 washed mops, cleared rooms, and in one word be- 
 came professed and common drawer for nigh a year 
 and a half," at the expiration of which time his 
 mother hears that there is a possibility of admission 
 at Pembroke and enters him there as a servitor.^ Of 
 
 * So the word is printed iu liis own account. It may be a 
 misprint for 'Scoggers,' as sleeves worn by cleanly men iu dirty 
 employments are called in some parts of England. — Southey.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 39 
 
 the poverty of the class no better instance can be 
 found than Samuel Wesley, the father of the Wesleys 
 who were to change the whole state of religion in 
 England, and himself a very stirring person, to whom 
 we shall have occasion subsequently to allude. He 
 was the son of an ejected and starving noncon- 
 formist minister, and when at the age of sixteen he 
 walked to Oxford and entered himself as a servitor 
 at Exeter his Avhole worldly wealth amounted to no 
 more than £2 : 1 6s. Yet, after supporting himself 
 during his whole university career without any aid 
 from his friends save a trivial five shillings, he set 
 off to London to make his plunge into life with a 
 capital increased to £10: 15s.^ Five shillings, how- 
 ever, sneer as we may, seem to have been no un- 
 common " allowance " to a servitor of the time. In 
 an amusing imitation of a servitor's letter, in one of 
 the squibs of the time, we find the writer, after thank- 
 ing his mother for her present of a Cheshire cheese, 
 and announcing "I am a rising lad, mother, and have 
 gott prefarment in college allready, for owr sextoun 
 beeing gonn intoo Heryfordshear has left mee his 
 depoty which is a vary good place," concludes with 
 believing he shall do very well, "if you wuU but 
 send me t'other crowne."^ 
 
 While the less promising, however, were employed 
 on the most menial errands, the more literate seem 
 often to have been introduced to notice and patron- 
 age by the occupation of copying. When Laud 
 wished to have some manuscripts transcribed, Birken-
 
 40 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 head, whom we have before mentioned, was recom- 
 mended to him as one that " wrote an excellent hand ; 
 who performed his businesse so well that the Arch- 
 bishop recommended him to All Souls' College to be 
 a fellow, and he was accordingly elected," ^ hereafter 
 to become scholar, poet, cavalier, and the witty 
 editor of the Mercurkis Aulmis. "I would not have 
 your Spenserian design delayed," writes Johnson to 
 Warton. "Let a servitor transcribe the quotations, 
 and interleave them with references, to save time " ; " 
 and at the beginning of this century Dr. Hyde 
 complains that "some in the university have been 
 very troublesome in pressing that their servitors 
 may transcribe manuscripts for them though not 
 capable of being sworn to the Library."^ Many similar 
 employments seem to have been open to servitors, 
 which enabled them to subsist till their degree was 
 attained, and distinction lay as open to them as to 
 their nobler masters. How well they availed them- 
 selves of the opportunity many instances show, but 
 none perhaps more so than one whom we have before 
 alluded to, Bishop Robinson. Transferred from the 
 plough to trade, his master, "finding him more 
 inclined to books than business, got him to Brasenose, 
 where he was servitour to Sir James Astrey, who was 
 exti^emely kind to him." He became fellow of Oriel, 
 envoy to Sweden, Bishop in turn of Bristol and 
 London, but his greatness did not obliterate the 
 memory of his days of toil and poverty ; he was 
 enabled to relieve his benefactor's son with a chap-
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 41 
 
 laincy, and tlic scholarships which he founded at 
 Oriel attest his gratitude to the universit}'.^ 
 
 At the beginning of the present century the 
 order was practically extinct, but, considering the 
 facilities it afforded for the entrance of a class into 
 the university who are now in effect shut out of it, 
 some may perhaps be indisposed to join in Mr. De 
 Quincey's rejoicings over "the wise discontinuance 
 of the order itself in those colleges which were left 
 to their own choice in this matter." - 
 
 Although, perhaps, the story of Oliver Goldsmith 
 has elevated the waiting in hall into greater notoriety 
 than any of the other menial services which it fell to 
 the servitor's lot to perform, we have reserved them 
 for less prominent mention because in reality they 
 were not peculiar to this order of students. Battlers, 
 a rank which has also disappeared, had, in addition 
 to other small perquisites, the dishes from the table 
 of the fellow or gentleman commoner whom they 
 served. And it was the duty of scholars on the 
 foundation, says Salmon, "to wait in hall on the 
 fellows by turns." ^ 
 
 And this brings us to the consideration of the 
 "poor scholar" of those days; "poor" being then no 
 naere statutory epithet, but a reality — for the poor 
 scholar somewhat of a sad one. Scholars of note could 
 fairly lay claim to it ; " Mr. Lydiatt of New, by many 
 great judges reckoned to excel Scaliger," vibrates 
 all his days between Oxford Bocardo and the King's 
 Bench, spending his last penny on books and being.
 
 42 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 says Hearne, " in a manner starved to death." ^ Mr. 
 Trapp found our Poetry professorship not unwelcome, 
 "being but in mean circumstances." ^ Ockley, the 
 first eastern scholar of his age, studied Arabic and 
 wrote his history in Oxford gaol.^ Dr. Hyde, who 
 gave the first great impulse to Oriental studies, 
 burnt his unsaleable books to boil his kettle with.^ 
 Deep-read Mr. Hales (Hearne recurs to that grim 
 phrase) "All allow to have been in a manner 
 starved."^ Nor were these poor scholars at the 
 University in a better position. This poor scholar of 
 ours (as we have him etched for us in the satires of 
 the day, for he was the common butt of wit and 
 poetaster) will muffle his face in his gown as he passes 
 the shops of his creditors ; will run away in dread of 
 battels from the manciple if he meet him ; will barri- 
 cade himself in his garret — " vile " perhaps, but with 
 a window commanding the sole means of approach 
 for a dun. He is hunger-pinched, glad to dine upon 
 scraps and drink " small acid tiff." If it be cold he 
 must blow his chilled fingers to warm them, for there 
 is not a knob of coal in the cellar ; he must sit in the 
 dark to mend his tattered stockings or rent galli- 
 gaskin— for there is not a candle in his closet. None 
 cares for his society — if he walks, his walk is a soli- 
 tary one — if he sits in his garret he has no companion 
 but " the tube as black as winter chimney or well- 
 polished jet "; " he may scribble a verse now and then, 
 but his musings will be interrupted —
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 43 
 
 Whether the plaintive voice 
 Of laundress shrill awake his startled ear. 
 Or barber spruce with supple look intrude, 
 Or tailor with obsequious bow advance, 
 Or groom invade him with defying front 
 And stern demeanour,^ 
 
 from whose persecution he has no refuge but the 
 wood-hole.- Worst of all miseries he must go supper- 
 less to bed, for the Bursar has " crossed " him at the 
 buttery, and not a pothouse will " tick " for him more. 
 It must not be thought that this picture because 
 satirical is too highly coloured. The "mending of 
 galligaskins " indeed seems to have borne a different 
 aspect to our ancestors from that which it bears to us. 
 Dr. Kettle, of whom Aubrey gives us so many odd 
 details, when choosing a son-in-law, "seldom found 
 Bathurst minding of his booke, but mending of his 
 old doublet or breeches ; he was very thrifty and 
 penurious, and upon this reason he carried away this 
 curious creature." ^ But it is noted of this same eccen- 
 tric doctor to his honour (and it bears on the question 
 which we are treating) that " where he observed 
 diligent boys that he ghessed had but a slender ex- 
 hibition from their friends, he would many times 
 putt money in at their windowes, that his right hand 
 did not know what his left did."^ Nor was this 
 penury of modern date. 
 
 For want of means, the University judge nie — 
 I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings 
 At least seven years,
 
 44 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 says Ford in his Vittoria Corombona, and though 
 Padua is the scene aUuded to, it can hardly be 
 doubted that his description is drawn from the 
 Universities Avhere he had himself been a student. 
 
 But the clearest and the most touching picture of 
 the position of the poor scholar in the eighteenth 
 century is that which has been given us in the few 
 faint traditions Avhich Boswell was enabled to collect 
 respecting Johnson's life at Oxford. Some of his 
 contemporaries ^ could recollect the awkward, blear- 
 eyed, conA^ulsive figure, lounging at the college gates, 
 the centre of a circle of gay students, entertaining 
 them with his wit, spurring them on to rebellion 
 against discipline, or detaining them from their 
 studies. He had no close friendship with any of his 
 fellow collegians ; men and tutors stood alike in aAve 
 of this strange wild creature who had brought such a 
 store of curious and uncommon reading with him, 
 and who was already known as a poet of no mean 
 abilities ; whose pride repelled every overture for 
 the relief of his griping poverty, and whose reckless 
 wit drew down remonstrances from friendly tutors, 
 which "made me ashamed," as he afterwards con- 
 fessed, "though I was too proud to own it."^ He 
 ruled his college chums as he ruled his associates 
 in after life. "Sir," said Edwards, an old college 
 associate, when he casually met him years after, "I 
 remember you would not let us say ' prodigious ' at 
 colles;e."2 But all the memories of him were not 
 harsh and stern like these. "I'll convince you," he
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 45 
 
 said to this very friend, " that I recollect you. Do 
 you remember our drinking together .it an ale-house 
 near Pembroke Gate? At that time you told me 
 of the Eton boy, who, when verses on our Saviour 
 turning water into wine were prescribed as an 
 exercise, brought up a single line, ' Vidit et erubuit 
 lympha pudica Dcum,' and I quoted another fine 
 line from Camden on the death of a kinsr who Avas 
 succeeded by a prince of equal merit 'Mira cano, 
 sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est.' " ^ But his poverty 
 seldom can have allowed him such relaxations. AVe 
 can see how grinding it must have been Avhen we 
 find him relinquishing his visits to his friend Taylor, 
 because his shoes Avere Avorn out, and it was noticed 
 by the Christ Church men — Avhen a friend in pity 
 places a pair of neAv shoes at his door, and his pride 
 makes him fling them aAvay with indignation — Avhen 
 the very mention of Dr. Adams's remark "he Avas 
 caressed and loved by all about him — Avas a gay frolic- 
 some felloAv — and passed there the happiest part of 
 his life " forces out from him, Avhen years had passed 
 OAxr these memories, the touching reply, "Ah, Sir, I 
 Avas mad and Aaolent — it was bitterness they mistook 
 for frolic. I Avas miserably poor and thought to fight 
 my Avay by my literature and my Avit, so I disre- 
 garded all poAver and all authority." -
 
 Ill 
 
 There are certain types which Nature seems never 
 tired of repeating — if they vanish for a time, it is 
 only to spring up into a new life under some different 
 name or under a fresh set of circumstances. And 
 among this class we may fairly reckon the Oxford 
 Freshman. There is no greater difference between 
 the young novice of 17 GO and the Freshman of a 
 hundred years later, than between the hoop of the 
 one period and the crinoline of the other. Their 
 costume, their manners may differ; but they blush 
 with the same " verdancy," pass through the ordeal 
 of the same merciless ridicule, develop very much 
 into the same characters. 
 
 We are enabled, and principally by the lively 
 sketches of Amherst, to gain a pretty distinct con- 
 ception of the Freshman of the eighteenth century. 
 We see the public schoolman, just freed from the 
 rod of Busby's successors, strutting about town for 
 a week or two before entrance, courting his school- 
 fellows' envy with his " new suit of drugget, his pair 
 of prim ruffles, his new bobwig, and brazen-hilted
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 47 
 
 sword," swaggering at coffee-houses, and giving him- 
 self a scholar's airs at the bookshops.^ We see the 
 country greenhorn, " mounted on an easy pad," 
 trotting with father and mother along the Oxford 
 road ; - or meet in the High the rough country farmer 
 with his equally unkempt hopeful, staring moodily 
 about in "linscy woolsey coats, greasy sun- 
 burnt heads of hair, clouted shoes, yarn stockings, 
 flapping hats with silver hatbands, and long muslin 
 neckcloth, run with red at the bottom."^ They are 
 domineered over by the butler, overawed by the tutor, 
 and introduced by him to their set, "a parcel of 
 honest merry fellows," who complete their initiation 
 by carrying them drunk to bed for three or four 
 nights together.'* They are awoke by the bell at six, 
 and bestow a pardonable malediction on the servitor 
 who bids them tumble into chapel with heads reeling 
 from the last night's debauch.^ A few weeks and 
 they are swaggering in their new bobwigs and Oxford- 
 made shoes ; drugget supersedes linsey woolsey and 
 worsted stockings the yarn ; and a month or two sees 
 them metamorphosed into complete smarts, "d — g 
 the old country »putts, their fathers, with twenty 
 foppish airs and gesticulations."^ The smart of the 
 day rises late in an age of early risers. Nothing 
 indeed is more curious than the great change of 
 manners in this particular. Milton, we know, rose 
 at four in the morning, even after he had lost his 
 sight, for the purpose of study. Hobbes, when at 
 Oxford, was remarkable for the early hour at which
 
 48 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 he rose. Wartou, who would saunter and chat all 
 day, rose in the early morn to study and court the 
 muse in his favourite walks along the Cherwell or up 
 Headington Hill. And at the very close of the 
 century we find Shelley's biographer asserting " many 
 of the wholesome usages of antiquity had ceased at 
 Oxford, that of early rising however still lingered," ^ 
 and from his subsequent statements it seems to have 
 been thought even at that time a piece of gross 
 indolence to remain in bed after seven in the morn- 
 ing, at whatever hour the sleeper had retired to rest. 
 But the smart's breakfast is scarce over by ten ; a 
 few notes on the flute — a glance at the last French 
 comedy,- and in academic undress he is strolling to 
 Lyne's coffee-house, the great rendezvous of the 
 loungers of the day, where at the risk of inked ruffles, 
 he indites a billet-doux or a stanza to the reigning 
 Sylvia of the town. From Lyne's he saunters for a 
 turn or two upon the Park or under Merton wall 
 "while the dull regulars," the "slow" fellows, "are 
 at dinner in hall according to statute." A little 
 dinner in his rooms at one, and an hour devoted to 
 dress prepare him for the great business of the after- 
 noon.^ Dress is indeed with him a matter of serious 
 import. It was a time when hundreds were spent 
 on the costly embroideries of a single suit ; when a 
 coat was handed down like an estate from father to 
 son ; when a man could count it no reproach if told 
 that he carried all he possessed upon his back. 
 Those who have laughed — and who has not — over
 
 OXFOrxD DURING THE KIGIITEENTII CENTURY 49 
 
 the adventures of Roderick Random, Mill remember 
 the bold stroke of that hero when driven to his last 
 resources he expends them on the most costly finery 
 and puts his fortune on the hazard of a conquest. 
 But an equally amusing instance of the excessive 
 value attaclicd to dress occurs in one of the bits of 
 news which the OxfordJonrnal for 1755 communicates 
 to its readers. A young gentlewoman, it appears, 
 had thrown herself into the Serpentine " which being 
 seen by some gentlemen and ladies that were going to 
 Kensington, one of the gentlemen, notwithstanding 
 his being finely drest, had the humanity to run to her 
 relief and jvunped in just time enough to save her." ^ 
 With no little care has our lounger studied the rustle 
 of the stiff silk gown, the graceful dependence of the 
 long tlaxen tie-wig, the defiant cock of his laced hat 
 or huge square cap, his red or white stockings, the 
 red tops of his Spanish leather shoes, the silk-lined 
 coat, the laced ruffles at breast and wrist. AVith 
 what sublime contempt does he look down on "a ragged 
 servitor of Jesus, or a half-starved scholar of St. 
 John's,"^ on Johnson with his worn-out shoes, or 
 Whitefield's " unpowdered hair, woollen gloves, 
 patched gown and dirty shoes," ^ as he passes by with 
 tripping gait and jaunty dangle of his clouded 
 amber-headed cane. The afternoon is spent by our 
 exquisite in learning the news of the town or parad- 
 ing before the windows of a toast. He drinks a dram 
 of citron at Hamilton's and saunters off at last to 
 chapel " to shew how genteely he dresses and how 
 
 E
 
 50 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 well he can cliaunt." Chapel ended, he has an 
 assignation to tea with some fair one, whom he 
 amuses with all-important discussions, whether any 
 wears " finer lace or better linen than Jack Flutter, 
 has handsomer tie-wigs, or more fashionable 
 cloaths, or cuts a bolder bosh than Tom Paroquet, 
 is a more handy man at a tea table than Robin 
 Flutter, or plays ombre better than Valentine 
 Frippery."^ He waits on her to the fashionable places 
 of resort, to Merton, Magdalen Walks, or Paradise 
 Garden,^ whispers his verses in her ear as he attends 
 her home, sups, and then turns to the less refined 
 pleasures of the night. He is soon one of the group 
 round the table of the Mitre or the Tuns, is loud in 
 his song, deep in puns, put, or cards, toasts his 
 mistress in the spiced cup with the brown toast 
 bobbing in it, and staggers home to his college " a 
 toper all night as he trifles all day."^ 
 
 Almost a century before, the same character had 
 been wittily painted by Dr. Earle, under the name of 
 "a young gentleman of the University." He 
 " is one that comes there to wear a gown, and to say 
 hereafter he has been at the University. His father 
 sent him thither because he heard there were the 
 best fencing and dancing schools ; from these he had 
 his education — from his tutor, the oversight. . . . 
 His study has commonly handsome shelves, his 
 books neat silk strings, which he shews to his father's 
 man, and is loth to unty or take down for fear of 
 misplacing. Upon foul days for recreation he retires
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 51 
 
 thither and looks over the pretty book his tutor reads 
 to him, for whieli his tutor gives him money to spend 
 next day. His main loitering is at the library, where 
 he studies arms and books of honour, and turns 
 a gentleman critic in pedigrees. Of all things he 
 endures not to be mistaken for a scholar, and hates 
 a black suit, though it be made of sattin. His 
 company is ordinarily some stale fellow that has been 
 notorious for an ingle to gold hatbands."^ 
 
 Most of these exquisites were gentleman-com- 
 moners, a class Avhich is now rapidly decaying, but 
 which was then in its fullest vigour. They were 
 allowed either to dine with the Fellows or at a 
 separate table of their own ; their college charges 
 were double those of an ordinary member, and a 
 liberty even more than proportionate to their position 
 seems to have been allowed them. Every temptation 
 to idleness was in fact thrown in their way. They 
 were told plainly that it was not for men of their 
 fortune to mind exercises ; if studious, the gentleman 
 commoner Avas taunted with being "morose," and 
 "a heavy bookish fellow " ; if his wine was good, the 
 Fellows would forgive every delinquency, and excuse 
 even absence from morning chapel.^ " My own intro- 
 duction," say Gibbon, " to the University of Oxford 
 forms a new era in my life, and at the distance of 
 forty years I still remember my first emotions of 
 surprise and satisfaction. In my fifteenth year I felt 
 myself suddenly raised from a boy to a man ; the 
 persons whom I respected as my superiors in age and
 
 52 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 academical rank entertained me with every mark of 
 attention and civility ; and my vanity was flattered 
 by the velvet cap and silk gown which distinguish a 
 gentleman commoner from a plebeian student. A 
 decent allowance, more money than a schoolboy had 
 ever seen, was at my own disposal; and I might 
 command among the tradesmen of Oxford an in- 
 definite and dangerous latitude of credit." " The want 
 of experience, of advice, and of occupation soon 
 betrayed me into some improprieties of conduct, 
 ill-chosen company, late hours, and inconsiderate 
 expense. My growing debts might be secret, but 
 my frequent absence was visible and scandalous, and 
 a tour to Bath, a visit into Buckinghamshire, and 
 four excursions to London in the same winter were 
 costly and dangerous frolics. The irksomeness of a 
 cloistered life repeatedly tempted me to wander, but 
 my chief pleasure was that of travelling, and I was 
 too young and bashful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian 
 in town, the pleasures of London. In all these 
 excursions I eloped from Oxford ; I returned to 
 college ; in a few days I eloped again as if I had 
 been an independent stranger in a hired lodging, 
 without once hearing the voice of admonition, without 
 once feeling the hand of control ; yet my time was 
 lost, my expenses wei'e multiplied, my behaviour 
 abroad was unknown; folly as well as vice should 
 have awakened the attention of my superiors, and 
 my tender years would have justified a more than 
 ordinary degree of restraint and discipline.'"'^ Nor
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 53 
 
 are the reminiscences of the first Lord Malmcsbury, 
 then Mr. Harris, less severe on the University 
 system : — " In fact, the two years of my life I look 
 back to as most unprofitably spent were those I passed 
 atMerton," 1763-5. "The discipline of the University 
 happened at this particular moment to be so lax that 
 a gentleman commoner was under no restraint, and 
 never called on to attend lectures, chapel, or hall. My 
 tutor, an excellent and worthy man, accoixling to the 
 practice of all tutors at that moment, gave himself no 
 concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during 
 a fortnight when I took into my head to be taught 
 trigonometry. The set of men Avith whom I lived 
 were very pleasant, but very idle fellows. Our life 
 was an imitation of High Life in London ; luckily 
 drinking was not the fashion, but what we did drink 
 was claret, and we had our regular round of evening 
 card pax'ties, to the great annoyance of our finances. 
 It has often been a matter of surprise to me how so 
 many of us made our way so well in the world, and 
 so creditably." ^ 
 
 How far these excesses might be carried with 
 comparative impunity we learn from the anecdotes 
 which are preserved of Foote's residence in the Uni- 
 versity just previous to 1740. The future wit, 
 though entered on the foundation of Worcester as 
 founder's kin, seems to have plunged at once into all 
 the dissipation of the town. His dress was of the 
 utmost extravagance, and we can guess at its character 
 from the frock suit of green and silver lace, bagwig,
 
 54 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 sword, bouquet, and point ruffles in whicli he was 
 soon afterwards to make his entrance into the Bedford, 
 and at once take his place among the critics and the 
 wits. In every sort of reckless adventure Foote soon 
 took the lead ; he acted Punch in disguise through 
 the streets, and amused the crowd with his ridicule 
 of the pomposity of his college's head. Provost 
 Gower, the most lumbering of pedants, was the 
 object of his especial persecution. On one occasion 
 when summoned to receive a reprimand from the 
 insulted dignitary, he presented himself with the 
 greatest appearance of gravity and submission, but 
 with a dictionary under his arm. No sooner had the 
 pompous harangue begun than at the first long word 
 Foote interrupts the Doctor, begs pardon with the 
 greatest formality, and turns over his dictionary to 
 find out its meaning, and after a moment's pause 
 requests the Provost to proceed. Yet even this grave 
 insult seems to have passed without severe punish- 
 ment, and it Avas not till the audacious rake, on his 
 return from a trip to Bath, dashed through Oxford 
 in a coach and six greys, accompanied by " society 
 not very worshipful," tricked out in ridiculous 
 finery, and attended by a couple of footmen, that the 
 authorities took him gravely to task, and though he 
 quitted college in consequence, it is expressly men- 
 tioned that his departure was voluntary, and " with- 
 out any public censure." ^
 
 IV 
 
 We have in a previous paper sketched the rapid 
 metamorphosis of a bumpkin into a fop, but it must 
 not be supposed that tlie change was always so 
 complete or instantaneous. The freshman some- 
 times transferred to college the habits of school : 
 kept his room, buried himself in his books, and 
 seldom appeared but in a dirty brown wig and linen 
 that would have borne washing. Taunts were in- 
 effective, though conveyed as delicately as those 
 which De Quincey has recorded. "I neglected," 
 says that entertaining writer, in speaking of his 
 Oxford career in 1803, &c., " I neglected my dress in 
 one point habitually, that is, I wore my clothes till 
 they were threadbare, partly in the belief that my 
 gown would conceal their main defects, but much 
 more from carelessness and indisposition to bestow 
 upon a tailor what I had destined for a bookseller. 
 At length an official person sent me a message on the 
 .subject." This was, however, disregarded, and "one 
 day I suddenly made the discovery that I had no 
 waistcoat wliich was not torn, ov otherwise dilapi-
 
 56 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 dated, whereupon, buttoning up my coat to the 
 throat, and drawing my gown as close about me aa 
 possible, I went into the hall. A grave man, with a 
 superlatively grave countenance, whom I did not 
 personally know, addressing his friend sitting opposite 
 begged to know if he had seen the last Gazette, because 
 he understood it contained an order in Council laying 
 an interdict upon the future use of waistcoats. His 
 friend replied with the same perfect gravity that he 
 trusted so sensible an order would be followed up 
 by an interdict on breeches — they being still more 
 disagreeable to pay for." ^ 
 
 Stubborn, however, as our student might be in 
 his poverty and bookishness, his friends had still one 
 weapon to try ere they despaired of his reforma- 
 tion. " Had he never seen Miss Flavia, the top 
 toast of the town ? Why, she had been heard 
 
 to say in publick company — ' Mr. is a 
 
 man of fire ; 'tis a thousand pities he is such a 
 sloven ' ! " The poor fellow eats no supper, retires 
 to walk restlessly about his chamber, flings his 
 brown wig into the fire, and swears, like one dis- 
 tracted, that he will see her to-morrow. An inter- 
 view with his mercer, a few hints of future expecta- 
 tions, a bill begun, and our hero is in an hour a 
 smart. The assemblies are soon buzzing with the 
 news that Dick dresses at Miss Flavia ; the girl in 
 her turn is enraptured at her conquest ; Dick flings 
 aside his band and ruffles, wearies his brain with no 
 heavier task than the penning a sonnet, a billet, or an
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTKENT1£ CENTURY 57 
 
 epigram, and dwiudlcs into the hanger-on of a 
 toast. ^ 
 
 Whatever reason be assigned, it is certain tliat 
 the toast of a hundred years since occupied a far 
 more conspicuous place in Oxford society than her 
 nameless successors in the present day. Tatlcrs 
 and Spectators did not deem her beneath tlieir 
 notice ; she was the theme of a hundred songs, jests, 
 satires. Her father — so runs the sarcastic description 
 of her which Amherst has given — a good honest trades- 
 man, dreams of raising his family by her marriage 
 with a parson or a schoolmaster ; the little ]\Iiss, 
 not yet in her " teens," is forbidden to play with the 
 muckworms of the neighbourhood ; she graduates at 
 a dancing school, and sallies forth to victory with no 
 arms save "an hoop, a gay suit of clothes, and 
 two or three new Holland smocks." She is assidu- 
 ous at balls and assemblies ; you may meet her in 
 every public walk, coyly listening to the compliments 
 of the chance gownsman who has had the happy 
 audacity to address her, who waits on her home, calls 
 the next day, and dangles ever after.^ 
 
 The time has gone by since grave dons com- 
 plained that, with a court and ladies of honour 
 invading the cloistered shades, all learning was at an 
 end ; since, in her rooms at Merton, Barbara Villiers, 
 Lady Castlemaine, gave birth to a son, whom the 
 Merry Monarch did not blush to claim for his own ; 
 since Lady Isabella Thynne^ — "the possessor of all 
 the virtues save one," as Aubrey tells us — used to
 
 58 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 come with a friend of hers to morning prayers at 
 Trinity College Chapel " half-drest, like angels," or 
 make her entrance upon the college walks with a 
 lute playing before her — just as Waller sang of her : 
 
 The trembling strings about her fingers crowd, 
 And tell their joy for every kiss aloud. 
 
 But the toast still carries on the war of her sex 
 against academic studies. The smart, with his hair 
 just " wired " by the friseur, and his cap trimmed to 
 the smallest size, parades daily beneath her window 
 for the chance of a look or an ogle ; grave Dons lay 
 down their pipes for her society ; ^ should Patty go on 
 Sunday to church, " the students stand in rows at 
 her pew door " ; she is toasted at the clubs, and the 
 High Borlace,-'' at its annual meeting at the King's 
 Head, chooses her their patroness for the year : 
 while in the Trinity Gentleman Commoners' and 
 Bachelors' Common-room the chosen Laureate is 
 reciting, crowned with a wreath of laurel, a copy of 
 verses in her honour. Toasts, indeed, seem to have 
 been the Oxford Muses of the last century, and to 
 have inspired every poetaster with a passion for 
 song. Miss Brickenden cannot go down to Nuneham 
 without the trees being invited to "rush into the 
 flood " to meet her, while the laggards — the " gouty 
 oaks," we suppose, of Tennyson's Amphion — are ex- 
 horted to — 
 
 Peep o'er their fellows' heads to view the fair, 
 Whose name upon their wounded bark they bear.^
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59 
 
 Miss Polly Foote's brief visit becomes the basis of a 
 little epic, where Cupid sends this lovely emissary to 
 make war upon the favourite seat of Pallas, stations 
 her battery at a Venetian window, and joys to see 
 
 "What troops of gazing students fell, 
 Stretch'd o'er the smooth parade. 
 
 Folios are relegated to their former dust ; logic is 
 abandoned, pipes neglected, and churches deserted 
 for Polly, till at the prayer of the assaulted Deity 
 Jove decrees, as the sole means of saving Learning's 
 seat from destruction, that "Iris should next week 
 convey fair Polly back to London."^ Here and there, 
 it must be owned, this great engine of compliment 
 was turned into an instrument of satire. Lucetta 
 was taunted as one who 
 
 Bears Jove's lightnings in her eyes, 
 But in her voice his thunder ; '^ 
 
 or Belinda reminded in mellifluous verse of her 
 rouge and cosmetic, or scandal just hinted at the 
 "three-pair window" whence the Troughs looked 
 down on their admirers below. 
 
 The favourite resort of the toasts was Merton 
 Walks, which during the early part of the century, 
 constituted the fashionable Oxford promenade. 
 Every Sunday night saw them " thronged with 
 young gentlemen and gentlewomen," as Hearne 
 soberly puts it, " like a fair." " We can very dimly 
 discern through the chance notices of the time 
 which have reached us, the more prominent features
 
 GO OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 of the scene— the brilliant medley of smirking 
 beaux and smiling belles, the langhter and jest and 
 repartee, the soft compliment and whispered as- 
 signation, the couples retreating to talk sentiment 
 in the more retired corners, the elders talkinsr 
 fashion and scandal in the broad promenade, the tap 
 of the snuff-box, the rattle of the fan. We can see 
 the Brooks towering high above her rivals, " the tall 
 cedar " that " o'erlooks the wood," or meet the sisterly 
 Troughs, about whom there are such whispers 
 and suspicions. Margaret with her proud cold 
 bearing, contrasting so strongly with the alternating 
 smile and frown of the coquette Maria. Not that all 
 is joy and happiness here, " radiant Astre " has a 
 cloud upon her brow — " has generous love no 
 charms— or riches more 1 "—she has, in plain English, 
 been jilted in favour of a wealthier widow ; while 
 Hay ward, " every fair in one," is scornfully telling the 
 simpering Strephons of the impudent fellow Avhose 
 billet desired her visit to his chamber — alone. 
 
 The source from which much of this sketch is 
 derived is a small poem called "Merton Walks, or 
 the Oxford Beauties." The Queen of Beauty turns 
 Jacobite, and flies from a court where "German 
 eyes" bear rule, till passing over "Rhedecyna's 
 towers," she sees a thousand beauteous nymphs — 
 
 A thousand sportive youths contrived for joy, 
 As her Adonis fair, but not so coy. 
 
 She determines to fix her empire there, and the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 61 
 
 poet summons this brilliant troop of her subjects to a 
 closer review. From this point all is indiscriminate 
 flatter)'. Wc can almost picture to ourselves the 
 author, sallying forth in the conscious perfection of 
 fashion, and whispering in every ear that strain of 
 elaborate compliment, the art of which Louis 
 Quatorze had bequeathed — his only benefaction to 
 his admiring century. He learns from Brunetta's 
 eyes that " beauty to no colour is confined — the 
 fair, the brown, all equally destroy " ; he mourns 
 over the loss of Eleanora, and beflatters Celia with a 
 curious cento of mythological allusion. Merton 
 Gardens are transformed for the nonce into " Ida's 
 hill," and our poetic Paris only gets rid of the diffi- 
 culty of selection by suddenly apostrophising a passing 
 " Miss Harris," as it seems, a visitor " from AVinton's 
 towers the lovely robber came." But, little disturbed 
 by the incident, our author is already reminding 
 Miss Law of her trip to the Woodstock races, 
 how at her appearance " the winged coursers 
 passed unheeded by " ; he is thrown into an affected 
 ecstacy as he greets another beauty, " where Ham- 
 mond is, with every beauty crowned, a thousand 
 Cupids scatter deaths around " ; he is whispering 
 with " charming White," and ransacked at last of all 
 his store of compliments, he is forced to adore 
 " lovely Wright," by attributing to her all the united 
 perfections of her rivals. By this time Ave have 
 nearly forgotten the epic and its machinery, but 
 they are suddenly recalled at the close ; the Goddess
 
 62 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 sees Mira, and constitutes her vice-gerent of the 
 realms of Beauty, and leaves her Cupids as a 
 body-guard. Cumbrous as it is, tiie poem may be 
 read with amusement ; but there are reflections 
 suggested by these honied lines which will not bear 
 to be dwelt on here. Who was Brunetta, Eleanora, 
 Mira ? What names are hid under the disguised 
 
 B y, T 1, L w, and P y ? The buzz 
 
 and the rustle are hushed, the fans that those 
 hands wielded so deftly are dragged from old 
 lurking-places and given to the children to be torn 
 to pieces, the feigned name that was meant but as a 
 mark has turned into the sole title on tombstones, 
 and Beauty is lost in a line of asterisks. 
 
 Our poet, however, recks little of this. Life is 
 with him a matter of infinite jest and merriment ; 
 he is a member of the Amorous Club, and dreams 
 that love consists in pledging a glass to every letter 
 of his mistress's name. To this club (our readers 
 will perhaps remember the charming paper of 
 Steele, which we are quoting) no introduction is 
 requisite but " a mistress and a poem in her praise. 
 Without the latter no one can be admitted, for he 
 that is not in love enough to rhyme is unqualified 
 for our society." Disputes would even here creep in. 
 " A young student who is in love with Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Dimple was so unreasonable as to begin her 
 health under the name of Elizabetha, which so exas- 
 perated the Club, that by common consent we 
 retrenched it to Betty." Absence of mind is an
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY G3 
 
 indispensable qualification. Tliey "look upon a man 
 as no company that does not sigh five times in a 
 quarter of an hour; and look upon a member as 
 very absurd that is so much himself as to make a 
 direct answer to a question." There are dangers, 
 however, to be run in the pursuit of sentiment. 
 They are obliged to live in secrecy ; "our constitu- 
 tion runs counter to that of the place in which we 
 live, for in love there are no doctors, and we all pro- 
 fess so high passion that we admit of no graduates 
 in it." ^ There are other perils, too, of a more serious 
 character which may have to be encountered. 
 Churchill's early marriage prevented his admission 
 at Merton, and a passing flirtation with a toast sent 
 Nash, the future monarch of Bath, in disgrace from 
 the University.
 
 V 
 
 The literary and social life of the last century 
 seemed to centre in its Clubs. Dryden's arm-chair 
 recalls to us Will's; Addison held " his little senate " 
 at Button's; Johnson gave his name to one which 
 continues famous to this daj'. The conclusion of 
 our last paper would show that Oxford faithfully 
 copied the fashion of the Metropolis. But the 
 Amorous Club — whether the mere creation of the 
 graceful essayist, or (as is more probable) founded 
 on real Oxford reminiscences — was not the only 
 instance which can be given. The Terrse Filius^ 
 gives us an account full of absurd exaggeration, 
 but evidently founded on a substratum of fact, of a 
 Poetical Club, presided over by Tom Warton, the 
 father of the more celebrated poet of the same 
 name. The Three Tuns is the place chosen for its 
 deliberations, with this proviso — "That Mr. Brad- 
 gate would keep good wine, and a pretty wench at 
 the bar, both of which are, by all critics, allowed to 
 be of indispensable use in poetical operations." No 
 member is admitted without certificate of distinction
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Gf) 
 
 ill " tale, catch, sonnet, epigram, madrigal, anagram, 
 acrostic, tragedy, comedy, or epic." A reverend 
 Doctor alone is allowed to smoke in a corner ; to the 
 rest tobacco is forbidden, " the fumigation thereof 
 being supposed to cloud the poetical faculty and to 
 clog the subtle wheels of the imagination." The 
 members " clear their throats with a glass of port and 
 a loud Hem ! " The utmost license is allowed to 
 innuendo or double -entendre, but on one point, 
 orthodoxy, the utmost rigid severity prevails. When 
 a daring versifier argues that " since some one God 
 believe, some thirty, and some three," since men differ 
 universally on this point, while on the worship of 
 A^'oman all agree — 
 
 Since in this faith no heresies we find, 
 
 To love let our religion he resigned, 
 
 And Coelia reign, the goddess of mankind, 
 
 the jest is voted heretical, burnt by the hands of the 
 small-beer-drawer, and its author expelled the club. 
 
 More license was probably allowed in the crowd of 
 clubs which a letter in the Spectator- mentions as 
 having sprung up about the beginning of the last 
 century, — the Panning Club — the Witty Club — and 
 the Handsome Club. The last found a formidable 
 rival in a burlesque of itself, which Steele has im- 
 mortalised under the name of the Ugly Club. Their 
 rules were embodied in an " Act of Deformity " ; 
 " a visible quearity in aspect " ; a " peculiar cast of 
 countenance " ; "gibbosity," or "obliquity," Avere the 
 
 F
 
 66 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 necessary qualifications for admission. The figures 
 of Esop, Thersites, Scarron, and Hudibras adorned 
 their club -room. Over their pipes and ale they 
 recited their congratulations to Mrs. Touchwood "upon 
 the loss of her two fore-teeth " ; or to Mrs. Andiron on 
 the deformity of her " left shoulder " ; or toasted Mrs. 
 Vizard with acclamation on the ground of her ad- 
 vance in ugliness since the small-pox.^ 
 
 But of the majority of the Clubs of the time we 
 know only the names. We meet with them in quaint 
 advertisements, as in the following from the Oxford 
 Journal ior 1775: — "The brethren of the Arcadian 
 Society are requested to meet at the Angel Inn, in 
 Oxford, to ballot for some fresh candidates. (Signed) 
 Alphesiba3us, Crook-holder."^ Here and there Ave get 
 a casual glimpse of their doings within, as in Hearne's 
 mention of the meeting of the " High Borlace at the 
 King's Head, when Miss Molly Wickham of Garsington 
 was chosen lady patroness in room of Miss Stonhouse 
 that was lady patroness last year."^ But for the most 
 part we are left to glean what we can from the mere 
 names, and these are generally characteristic. Our 
 notion of the "Nonsense Club"is verified when we learn 
 that George Colman, Bonwcll Thornton, and Lloyd 
 were among its first founders ; nor can any mistake 
 the meaning of the " Jelly-bag Club," who remember 
 that famous little epigram from which it derives its 
 title.* We can only fancy to ourselves the nightly 
 gathering, the chat, laughter, and wit, the poem read 
 and criticised, the toast drunk in repeated potations,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 67 
 
 the candles burning dim and blue in the smoky 
 atmosphere. For if our own can yield to no other 
 age in the universal diffusion of the habit of smoking, 
 the last century seems to have been especially the 
 sera of old smokers. We meet with no mention of 
 the Common-room of those days without some refer- 
 ence to pipes. Scholars and divines derived inspiration 
 from it in their studies. The Civil Wars furnished 
 the great means for the diffusion of this taste ; soldiers 
 brought it from Germany, and marches and counter 
 marches spread it over England. How firm a root 
 it took in Oxford we see from Dr. Plot's mention of 
 the bed of white clay at Shotover, "which during 
 the late wars, in the siege, was wholly used for 
 making tobacco pipes. "^ By this time it had conquered 
 every prejudice against its use. When Raleigh, 
 " standing in a stand at Sir Eobert Poyntz's parke 
 at Acton tooke a pipe of tobacco, it made the ladies 
 quitt it till he had donne." And, writing in 1G80, 
 Aubrey adds, "within these thirty-five years 'twas 
 scandalous for a divine to take tobacco." ^ Now 
 Aldrich could print in company with his " Hark, the 
 bonny Christ Church bells," a "Smoking Catch to 
 be sung by four men smoking their pipes, not more 
 difficult to sing than diverting to hear." The ' Sam ' 
 of the "I prythee, Sam, fill," was Aldrich 's friend, 
 Sampson Eastwich, of Christ Church, and of the 
 three other sinirers one was the Dean himself. So 
 notorious was his love of smoking that a young 
 gentleman — so runs the story — betted with a friend
 
 68 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 that the Dean was smoking at the moment of their 
 talk, which happened to be ten in the morning. 
 The Dean received his visitors, laughed good- 
 humouredly at their tale, and replied " you see you 
 have lost your wager, for I am not smoking — but 
 filling my pipe." ^ But perhaps tobacco never took 
 so public a position as in the exhibition which we 
 find mentioned in Hearne's Diary for the year 1723. 
 "At two o'clock in the afternoon was a smoking 
 match over against the Theatre, a scaffold being 
 built up for it just at Finmore's, an ale-house. 'Twas 
 thought a journeyman tailor of St. Peter's in tlie 
 East would have been victor, he smoking faster than, 
 and being many pipes before, the rest, but at last he 
 was so sick that 'twas thought he would have died, 
 and an old man that had been a soldier and smoked 
 gently came off conqueror, smoking the three ounces 
 quite out, and four or five pipes the same evening." ^ 
 There is another habit peculiar in the excess to 
 which it then was carried, to the age of which we 
 are treating, which — however disagreeable to dwell 
 upon — it would be altogether absurd to omit in a 
 notice of this century. It was a century of hard 
 drinkers. The vice was not confined to grade or 
 age, the Don was carried to bed as often as the 
 servitor. Dr. Grabe, the great theologian's " way of 
 writing was to have a bottle of ale, brandy, or wine 
 stand by him — and every three or four lines of his writ- 
 ing he would drink thereof."^ Hearne does not scruple 
 to call the fellows of University " debauchees " ;* their
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 69 
 
 senior fellow passed by the significant name of " Jolly 
 Ward."^ The scurrilous Terr» Filius of 1733, in his 
 "speech as it was to have been spoken at the public 
 Act," could taunt the fellows of All Souls : "I would 
 willingly next pay a visit to their college, if I could 
 find it out ; it used to stand on the right hand above 
 Queen's, but if we may judge from the resort of its 
 members we shoi-ild judge it to be translated over the 
 way, and that the Three Tuns Tavern was All Souls' 
 College, did not the effigies of the good Archbishop 
 over the door convince us to the contrary."'^ The 
 fellows of St. John's " valued themselves for having 
 the best single and double coll ^ in the University," 
 and doubtless could appreciate the fine old drinking 
 
 song- 
 
 Ill potu pi-inio purgatur guttur a limo ; 
 Gaudia sunt nobis solennia (luuni bibo bis ; 
 Nil valeant vina nisi sit potatio trina ; 
 Cumque quater poto tunc hiitor pectore toto ; 
 Ad quintum potum mens labitur in paradisuni ; 
 Sextus vult potus ut nemo sit milii notus ; 
 Potu septeno frons efticitur sine freno ; 
 Octavo potu sum debilis et sine motu ; 
 Nono tractatur ut corpus sepeliatur. 
 
 Lord Eldon has recorded in his anecdote book 
 how he saw a Doctor of Divinity striving to make 
 his way to Brasenose through Kadclifie Square ; "he 
 had reached the Library, a rotunda then without 
 railings, and, unable to support himself except by 
 keeping one hand upon the building, he continued 
 walking round and round " till rescued by a friend.*
 
 70 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 It was no new feature in the character of an Oxford 
 Doctor. When the Spanish ambassador visited the 
 University in the time of James I, "I shall not tell 
 you," says a letter-writer of the time, "how our 
 Doctors pledged healths to the Infanta and Arch- 
 Duchess, and, if any left too big a snufF, Colombo 
 would cry ' supernagulum ' (invert the cup on the 
 nail, so that if a drop remains it would be detected)." ^ 
 But the dons of the eighteenth century far exceeded 
 their predecessors in the regularity as well as depth 
 of their potations. The immense punch-bowl which 
 Sir Watkin Wynn bequeathed to Jesus College ^ was 
 the most fitting gift for the time. " I did not leave 
 off drinking wine because I could not bear it," said 
 Dr. Johnson. "I have drunk off three bottles of 
 port without being the worse of it. University 
 College has witnessed this." ^ " Were the Colleges 
 ever to be reformed," wrote South ey, soon after his 
 entrance, "and reformation will not come before it is 
 wanted, I would have a little more of the disci- 
 pline kept up. Temperance is much wanted ; the 
 waters of Helicon are far too much polluted by the 
 wine of Bacchus ever to produce any effect." * 
 " Oxford," Avrote Crosse ^ to his mother at the very 
 beginning of the present century, " is a perfect hell 
 upon earth. AVhat chance is there for an unfortunate 
 lad just come from school, with no one to watch and 
 care for him — no guide 1 I often saw my tutor carried 
 off, perfectly intoxicated." 
 
 The undergraduates, says Lord Eldon, were
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 71 
 
 no better. At Corpus Christi were drinking cups 
 and glasses, which, from their shape, were called ox- 
 eyes. "Pol, me ox-eye-distis, amici," punned a 
 young tippler as he was being helped to bed. Kegs 
 of brandy and other cordials crowded Christ Church 
 meadow when the ice was frozen for skating. John 
 Scott — as he was then termed — broke through into 
 the ditch, and, on scrambling out, a brandy-vendor 
 recommended him "something warm." "None of 
 your brandy for that wet young man," cried Lord 
 Grantlcy's son as he sAvept past, " he never drinks 
 but Avhen he is dry." ^ Even those who detested ex- 
 cesses succumbed to the tone of the place. Abbot, 
 indeed, the future Lord Tenterden, could summon 
 up enough courage to decline wine parties, but few 
 were so resolute. "I always hated wine," confessed 
 Crosse, "but I had not the moral courage to resist 
 joining in the parties which were made up by my 
 companions." ^ But the drinking of the time of 
 which Crosse spoke was trivial when compared with 
 the drinking that was passing slowly away. Of 
 Lord Lovelace, the Principal of his Hall could report 
 that " he never knew him sober but twelve hours, 
 and that he used every morning to drink a quart of 
 brandy, or something equivalent to it, to his own 
 share. "^ 
 
 The results of this debauchery it was easy to 
 foresee. Lord Cornbury, fresh from Christ Church, 
 dies of "hard drinking, particularly taking hot 
 spirits in a morning";^ Dr. Inett's son "being drink-
 
 72 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ing with three others, after they had drunk ale for 
 some time, 'twas concluded to drink brandy upon it, 
 which they did in such a quantity that they all fell 
 asleep," and awaking, "found Inett quite dead." -^ 
 Nor were these deaths confined to the junior 
 members of the University. Hearne records the 
 death of Whiteside, the keeper of the Ashmolean, 
 from drinking "a pretty deal of bad small beer at 
 Christ Church," ^ and the account of the end of the 
 Savilian Professor of Astronomy must be left to tell 
 its own tale — " that which immediately contributed 
 to his death (as it is said) was drinking late on 
 Saturday night, at his own house, where he enter- 
 tained, with Avine and punch, the Vice-Chancellor, Sir 
 Tom GifFord, and some others."^ 
 
 We pass easily from this subject to a few notices 
 of the Taverns and Ale-houses of the time.^ It is 
 curious to remark the difference between the manners 
 of the last and present centuries in this particular. 
 The tavern was the favourite resort of the senior as 
 well as the junior members of the University. St. 
 John's sent its Fellows forth at eve — as we learn 
 from their enemy, Amherst — to drink their bottle at 
 the neighbouring ale-house ; we have seen the All 
 Souls' men congregating at the Three Tuns ; Warton 
 " was fond of drinking his ale and smoking his pipe 
 with persons of mean rank and education." ^ By the 
 younger scholars it was even more frequented. The 
 poor battler, who dared not enter the more refined 
 and dearer coffee -house, left his masters to their
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 73 
 
 punch, and turned away to liis pipe and ale at 
 " Juniper's ]\Iagpie or ToAvn Hall." ^ Dr. Newton 
 laments the growing inclination to " go every evening 
 to a public house, become mighty to mingle strong 
 drink, and suffer the love of it to steal upon them."" 
 But the rebuke is one-sided ; strong drink could be 
 mingled in common rooms as well as taverns, but the 
 ale-house gave the poor scholar, in addition to its 
 liquors, the precious joys of light, fire, and society ; 
 and, recalling the lines of Warton, in his Panegyric, 
 M'e may, perhaps, see beneath their irony some 
 traces of the " home-like " feeling with which the ale- 
 house was regarded by the half-starved student or 
 the weary servitor : — 
 
 To pot-house I repair, the sacred haunt 
 
 Where, Ale, thy votaries, in full resort, 
 
 Hold rites nocturnal. In capacious chair, 
 
 Of monumental oak and antique mould, 
 
 * * * * I place 
 
 My gladsome limbs, while, in repeated round, 
 
 Returns replenished the successive cup, 
 
 And the brisk fire conspires to general joy ; 
 
 AVhile, haply, to relieve the lingering hours 
 
 In innocent delight, amusive Putt, 
 
 On smooth joint-stool, in emblematic play, 
 
 The vain vicissitudes of fortune shows ; 
 
 Nor reckoning, name tremendous, me disturbs, 
 
 Nor called for cliills my breast with sudden fear. 
 
 While on the wonted door, expressive mark. 
 
 The frequent penny stands described to view 
 
 In snowy characters and graceful row.
 
 VI 
 
 What were the amusements of Oxford men during 
 the last century '? That these constituted no unim- 
 portant part of their social life, the founder of New 
 College had long since shown. "Since," he says 
 in his statutes, "since in the winter time a fire 
 in Hall is afforded for the Fellows, then let the 
 Scholars and Fellows be allowed after dinner or 
 supper time to enjoy a becoming leisure for recrea- 
 tion's sake in Hall in ballad-singing (cantilenis) or 
 other seemly amusement, and somewhat more gravely 
 to peruse poems, histories, and the wonders of the 
 world, with all other things that befit their clerical 
 position." And how long these amusements in Hall 
 survived we can see from the account which Wood 
 gives us of some in Avhich he himself bore a part 
 at jMerton. " Christmas appearing there were fires 
 of charcoal made in the common Hall on All Saints' 
 Eve, All Saints' Day and night, on the holydayes, 
 and their nights and eves between that time and 
 Christmas Day. Then on Christmas Eve, Christmas 
 Day and holydaj'^es and their nights, and on Candlemas
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 75 
 
 Eve, Candlemas Day and night. At all these fires every 
 night, which began to be made a little after five of 
 the clock, the senior undergraduats would bring into 
 the Hall the juniors or freshmen between that time 
 and six of the clock, and there make them sit downe 
 on a forme in the middle of the Hall, joyning to 
 the declaiming desk, which done, every one in order 
 was to speake some pretty apothegmc, or make a 
 jest or bull, or speake some eloquent nonsense to 
 make the company laugh. But if any of the fresh- 
 men came oft' dull or not cleverly, some of the 
 forward or pragmatical seniors would ' tuck ' them, 
 that is, set the nail of their thumb to their chin 
 just under the lipp, and by the help of their other 
 fingers under the chin they would give him a mark 
 which somtimes would produce blood. On Candle- 
 mas Day or before (according as Shrove Tuesday 
 fell out) every freshman had warning given him to 
 provide his speech to be spoken in the publick Hall 
 before the undergraduats and servants on Shrove 
 Tuesday night that followed, being alwaies the time 
 for the observation of that ceremony The fire being 
 made in the Common Hall before five of the clock 
 at night, the Fellowes would go to supper before 
 six ; and, making an end sooner than at other times, 
 they left the Hall to the libertie of the under- 
 graduats, but with an admonition from one of 
 the fellowes (who was the principal of the under- 
 graduats and postmasters) that all things should 
 be carried in good order. While they were at
 
 76 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 supper in the Hall, the cook was making the lesser 
 of the brass pots ful of cawdel at the freshman's 
 charge, which, after the Hall was free from the 
 fellows, was brought up and set before the fire in 
 the said Hall. Afterwards everj' freshman accord- 
 ing to seniority was to pluck off his gowne and 
 band, and if possible to make himself look like a 
 scoundrell. This done, they were conducted each 
 after the other to the high table and there made to 
 stand on a forme placed thereon, from whence they 
 Avere to speak their speech with an audible voice to 
 the company, which if well done the person that 
 spoke it was to have a cup of cawdle and no salted 
 drinke ; if indifferently, some cawdle and some salted 
 drink ; but if dull, nothing was given to him 
 but salted drinke, or salt put in college beere, with 
 tucks to boot. Afterwards, when they were to be 
 admitted into the fratei-nity, the senior cook Avas to 
 administer to them an oath over an old shoe, part 
 of which runs thus, ' Item tu jurabis quod Penni- 
 less Bench ^ non visitabis ' ; after which, spoken 
 with gravity, the freshman kist the shoe, put on 
 his gowne and band and took his place among the 
 seniors." Doubtless, though most of these jocular 
 observances Avere SAvept aAvay during the reign of 
 the Puritans, yet — as Warton notes on this very pas- 
 sage — customs bearing a very near resemblance to 
 this Avere still kept up in the eighteenth century." 
 But their chief amusement seems to have lain Avith- 
 out the college Avails. The times Avere long past
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 77 
 
 since the scholars amused themselves in Bellomonte 
 (Beaumont),^ the fields of which were portioned out 
 to the different degrees. We have seen them loiter- 
 ing their mornings at the coffee-house, or taking an 
 early tankard at the tavern ; one of the especial 
 enjoyments of the afternoon seems to have been 
 boating. Southey's favourite diversion Avas a pull 
 with his friend Wynn upon the Isis. " There were 
 but two things I leai-nt in Oxford," he could say in 
 after life, "to row and to .swim."^ "So," sings our 
 own Hurdis — 
 
 So on thy banks, too, Isis have I strayed 
 
 A tasselled Student, witness you who shared 
 
 My morning walk, my ramble at high noon, 
 
 Aly evening voyage, an unskilful sail. 
 
 To Godstow bound, or some inferior port. 
 
 For strawberries and ereani. What have we found 
 
 In life's austerer hours delectable 
 
 As the long day so loitered ? ' 
 
 But it seems that that age was not exempt from the 
 accidents that have so often thrown a gloom over 
 the amusement in our own day, for we find con- 
 tinually announcements of a similar character with 
 the following, from the Oxford Journal, April 13, 1776 : 
 — "On Monday last, as Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Bullock, and 
 Mr. Street, of Merton College, were sailing on the 
 river near Kennington, their boat was overset by a 
 sudden gust of wind, when the two former were 
 unfortunately drowned." Others of the "regulars," 
 like Warton (and, as we have seen above, Hurdis),
 
 78 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 preferred the "constitutional" up Headington Hill, 
 or a "saunter on the banks of his favourite Cher- 
 well," or the enjoyment of the frequent concerts at 
 the new Music-room.^ But the Ijulk of Oxford men 
 sought for amusements of a less refined character. 
 They had no literature to amuse them ; indeed, no 
 taste for it seems to have existed. "Few or none of 
 the Oxford undergraduates, with whom parity of 
 standing threw me into collision at my first outset, 
 knew anything at all of English literature," says 
 De Quincey ; " the Spectator seemed to me the only 
 book of a classical rank which they had read, and 
 even this less for its inimitable delicacy, humour, 
 and refined pleasantry in dealing with manners and 
 characters, than for its insipid and meagre essays, 
 ethical or critical,"^ which might serve them for trans- 
 lations and exercises. Kougher diversions were pro- 
 vided for these. The conduit now stood on the site 
 of the old bull-ring, but we see them with doffed 
 coat and bob-wig, " cocking " at the pit in Holywell, 
 skittle-playing at Wolvercot and Godstow, carousing 
 at Wallingford or Abingdon, or gambling at home. 
 The practice was not confined to the juniors — a 
 Terrse Filius could shake a dice-box in the Theatre 
 at the President of St. John's, and salute him, as 
 he entered, with "Jacta est alea, doctor, seven's 
 the main."^ Practical jokes and still more daring 
 exploits relieved the monotony of the fast man's 
 existence. It is amusing to find a grave Lord Chan- 
 cellor telling us of the riotous deeds of plain Mr, 
 
 I
 
 OXFORD DURING TlIK EIGHTEENTir CENTURY 79 
 
 Scott. An invalid grumbled that the view from 
 his window down the Iligli Street was intercepted 
 by a tree in All Saints' churchyard. His young asso- 
 ciates determined to relieve him. "One niuht," 
 says Lord Eldon, "avIicu the moon was under a 
 cloud, we set the gentleman's servant to cut down 
 this tree whilst we stationed ourselves at different 
 parts to watch. Well, he was very long about it, 
 and the moon began to appear, and we were in a 
 great fright, so got over the wall to see what he was 
 about. He was a Yorkshireman, and he told us ' The 
 seg winna wag ' ; and that, which meant — the saw will 
 not move — was all that we could get from him. So 
 "we had to help him, down came the tree, and away 
 we all scampered. Next day there were handbills 
 and magistrates offering a reward for the conviction 
 of any of the offenders who had the night before 
 committed a dreadful crime in All Saints' Church- 
 yard. None of us peached, and so we all escaped, 
 and Nurse said it was the most glorious crime that 
 had ever been perpetrated in favour of a patient."^ 
 "Bucks and bloods" cocked their newlj^-laced hats 
 as they whirled along from Blagrave's stables to 
 Campsfield, nodded to laughing toasts on the race- 
 course at Woodstock, pic-nic'd at Enstone wells, 
 or dined "on mutton chops and scanty Avine" at 
 Dorchester." 
 
 The smart, however, despised excursions so trivial 
 as these. Tired of l^illiards, runs with Capt. Bertie's 
 pack, and the bowling-green, he is fluttering day
 
 80 . OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 after day at Bath, or plunging down, " amid a crowd 
 of academics," at Astrop. About a hundred years 
 before, a young doctor,^ just fresh from Oxford, "rid- 
 ing towards Brackley, to a patient, his way led him 
 through Astrop, where he observed the stones in 
 the little rill were discoloured of a kind of Crocus- 
 Martis colour ; thought he, this may be an indica- 
 tion of iron ; he getts galls, and putts some of the 
 powder into the water, and immediately it turned 
 blackish ; there, said he, ' I'll not send my patients 
 now so far as Tunbridge.' " His observation 
 and acuteness made Willis's fortune, and raised 
 a little village for a time into a fashionable water- 
 ing-place. But London was the great magnet that 
 attracted the majority of the idlers and bucks of 
 the time. There is no one to be found in Tom 
 Lowngeit's room, the ordinary sporting-room, with 
 its prints of horses and dogs, its hat and whip on one 
 hook, and pair of boots on another, its sole library 
 the Sportsman's Calendar and Gibson's Treatise on 
 Horses. The room is empty, for Tom, with Dick 
 Eiot, and a few choice spirits, are on their way to 
 town, and a smart rider Dick makes, in his long 
 blue riding coat, with lAate buttons, and leathern 
 belt girding his waist. 
 
 The Oxford man in London is the butt of all the 
 wits of his time. They are never weary of ridiculing 
 his awkward imitation of a man of the town. He 
 "transfers to playhouse, park, and tavern the loung- 
 ing air that passes for genteel in an Oxford Coffee-
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 81 
 
 house," but he misses the genuine careless loll and 
 easy saunter of the town-bred coxcomb. He is the 
 darling of hotel-keepers, for he never dines or sups 
 out of the house, and eats and drinks and pays like 
 a lord. " Ha, Jack, is it you," shouts one to a chum 
 whom he meets in Pell-Mell; "how long do you 
 stayl" "Ten guineas," is the reply, "if you come 
 to Venables after the play you'll find Tom Latin, 
 Bob Classic, and two or three more." " So ! your 
 servant," rejoins his friend, "for I am off to meet 
 the finest girl upon town in the green boxes." They 
 haunt the theatre with the Templar, a kindred soul 
 with their own, and perhaps just transferred from 
 their set to his present position ; the briefless bar- 
 rister sauntering from tavern to tavern " in silk gown 
 and purple slippers," or hurrying from Nandos to 
 Covent Gai'den, to criticise or catcall, and returning 
 to George's to show by his harangue that his depth in 
 the drama is equal to his shallowness in the law. But 
 though their stay in London is a round of diversion, 
 its sphere is limited to the play, the gaming-house, 
 or the bagnio. This is what one scores on a window 
 in an idle fit. "Monday — Eode to town in six 
 hours ; saw two last acts of Hamlet ; at night with 
 Polly Brown. Tuesday — Saw Harlequin the Sor- 
 cerer ; at night with Polly again. Wednesday — Saw 
 Macbeth ; at night with Sally Parker, Polly engaged. 
 Thursday — Set out for Oxford — a d — d muzzy 
 place." " 'Tis always Polly with this set of mortals," 
 comments Colman, " till their purse is exhausted, 
 
 G
 
 82 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 and they are forced to exchange tavern and theatre 
 for small beer and halfpenny commons."^ 
 
 They returned, however, to something better than 
 " small beer and halfpenny commons." The com- 
 moner who had been roused to run "with hose 
 ungartered " to reach chapel ere the door was closed, 
 
 was nowise reluctant 
 
 To repair 
 To friendly buttery ; there on smoking crust 
 And foaming ale to banquet unrestrained. 
 
 "Unlike," adds the poet, "the squeamish sons of 
 modern times," " whose practices compelled Dr. Newton 
 to fulminate an edict in Hart Hall against the use 
 of tea^ and coffee, '"a fashionable vice which leads 
 only to squandering of money and misspending the 
 morning in jentacular confabulations."* And for those 
 who loved more solid potations the Mitre stood 
 open, the tavern of the noted " Captain Jolly, who 
 pro bono publico first reduced the price of porter 
 in Oxford from sixpence to fourpence a quart." 
 Draughts of his liquor gave a relish to the supper 
 of tripe, Mother Spreadbury's sausages, or Ben 
 Tyrrel's " threepenny mutton pies." Ben Tyrrel had 
 the good fortune to attract the attention of the wits 
 of the time, and in their verses we can still see 
 the motley company that gathered round his board 
 on Wednesday and Saturday evenings " at seven 
 
 o'clock." 
 
 For thee the citizen and cit 
 
 Their cold boiled beef and carrots quit ; 
 
 Grave aldermen, ambitious, share
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 In Alma Mater's classic fare ; 
 The blooming toasts of Oxford town 
 Catch the contagion of the gown, 
 And wish the wonted evening nigh 
 To "have a finger in the pie."^ 
 
 A time of course came when these joys had to be 
 relinquished, when the "one-curled scratch" was 
 exchanged by the hands of " Bay lis, Blenkinsop, or 
 lofty Wise," the noted peruke makers of the time, 
 for the " snowy pomp " of the grizzle wig,"^ and fop 
 and regular alike sobered down into Dons. But this 
 stage of their history we must reserve for future 
 notice, when in our account of Oxford's educational 
 position we shall be enabled to paint in detail the 
 life of a college Fellow. For the present, however, 
 our sketches of Oxford university society must cease 
 here, but should we be furnished with any additional 
 information we shall not hesitate to resume a subject 
 whose ti-eatment we hope may have furnished some 
 little information as well as entertainment to our 
 readers.
 
 VII 
 
 Before commencing the series of papers in which 
 we shall endeavour to illustrate the political life 
 of Oxford in the Last Century, we may, perhaps, 
 venture, for the sake of variety, to interpose a passing 
 account of the transactions, as far as they can be 
 gleaned from the newspapers, of the period from 
 1774 to 1777. It is impossible in an undertaking of 
 this kind to pursue our civic history in strict 
 chronological order; deficiency of information will 
 necessarily create gaps here and there in our design. 
 But this apparent inconsequence may probably give 
 us a better notion of our subject than the most 
 perfect regularity. The habitual associates of a man 
 often know less of his character than one who meets 
 him at odd moments, and chats with him at irregular 
 intervals. And our desire of seeing this Oxford 
 in the Last Century — not so much in its daily 
 events and weekly details, as in its ordinary life and 
 character — will probably find its fullest gratification 
 in the somewhat irregular plan which we propose to 
 adopt.
 
 OXFORD DURING TUE EIGHTEExXTII CENTURY 85 
 
 Our information — as we have said — must be 
 gleaned from the newspapers of the day. The 
 Oxfoi'd Journal was probably a superior specimen 
 of the provincial press. It was the lion's mouth, as 
 the Spectator would have said, into which members 
 of the University poured lucubrations which furnish 
 even to the reader of to-day no little amusement. 
 Warton did not disdain to turn from odes and 
 antiquarian research to immortalise Ben Tyrrel's 
 mutton pies, or to parody Gray's Elegy. Wits 
 penned from the coffee-house for Jackson's insertion 
 sparkling little ditties on Miss Brickenden or Miss 
 Polly Foote. Old Lochard, the newsman, who, bell 
 in hand, hawked the Journal through the streets, 
 owed to his college patrons not only the " antiquated 
 cane " and " rusty grizzle Avig," which they had 
 thrown by after ten years' service, or the tankard 
 at buttery hatch in return for " quick despatches " ; 
 but the merry rhymes that every Christmas drew a 
 douceur from the tradesman, a "slice of sirloin and 
 cup of October" from the squire, or a dram from 
 "Mother Baggs."^ To them we owe the amusing 
 detail of tho subjects of the day, — 
 
 Eacli vast event our varied page supplies, 
 
 The fall of princes, and the rise of pies ; 
 
 Patriots and squires learn here with little cost 
 
 Or when a kingdom or a match is lost ; 
 
 Both sexes here approved receipts peruse, 
 
 Hence belles may clean their teeth or beaux their shoes : 
 
 From us informed Britannia's farmers tell 
 
 How Louisburgh by British thunders fell ;
 
 86 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 'Tis we that sound to all the Trump of Fame, 
 And babes lisp Amherst's and Boscawen's name, — 
 All the four quarters of the gloloe conspire 
 Our news to fill, and raise your glory higher.^ 
 
 But spite of this consi>iracy of the four quarters of 
 the globe, the news is hardly what the pampered 
 appetites of the present day would call "full." Let 
 us turn to a newspaper of the period which we have 
 selected. The little poems and epigrams have dis- 
 appeared. Their young authors have graduated and 
 donned their grizzle-wigs, and have left no successors 
 behind them. The little weekly essays which we 
 find in the Journal for 1755 have ceased, and 'tis 
 only occasionally that a passing jest reminds us of 
 "Will Whimsey." Here, however, in the paper 
 which we open we are entertained with an epistle 
 from "Old Squaretoes." He is bitter on the 
 enormous head-dresses of the day; his daughter 
 "though in a morning but five feet one inch high, 
 yet, by raising herself fifteen inches at top and four 
 at bottom, she grows to the amazing height of six 
 feet eight by four in the afternoon." A series of 
 ludicrous adventures follow. A shower overtakes 
 the ladies in their promenade, they run for shelter 
 to a sentinel's box, " and forgetting the preposterous 
 height of their heads, struck them against the top 
 of the box with such violence that both fell backwards, 
 kicked up their heels, and threw down my -wife, whose 
 pyramid flew off and was picked up by a taylor's ap- 
 prentice who ran away with it." The lesson is in vain;
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 87 
 
 Old Squaretocs has hardly concluded his moralising 
 when "Mr. Toupee entered the room with three 
 bandboxes, each of the size of a child's coffin," and 
 the ladies appear " with heads four inches higher 
 than their last." A fire, however, destroys these new 
 erections, the ladies are left doctoring their scorched 
 faces, and with a proposal for a fire-insurance of 
 head-dresses, the lively little extravaganza concludes. 
 
 We turn to the news. Foreign politics are summed 
 up in a few paragraphs. Rumours of a "rupture 
 between Spain and Portugal"; "talk of a grand 
 alliance which will greatly alarm the public." The 
 American war is in progress, and engagements, 
 privateering and naval orders are spun out into a 
 couple of meagre columns. The fashionable intel- 
 ligence is divided between the turf and the elope- 
 ments and scandal of town. Justice is satisfied by 
 an account of the execution of a brace of culprits. 
 "An abstract of the new Act for the relief of in- 
 solvent debtors " fills up the remaining space. Only 
 the Oxford news is left. It is exactly four paragraphs. 
 We learn that " the Rev. John Williams " has received 
 a dispensation to hold a couple of livings at once ; 
 the marriage of " the Rev. Thomas Robinson, head 
 master of Magdalen College School, to Miss Rebecca, 
 daughter of Mr. James Fletcher, of this place, book- 
 seller," is succeeded by the death of the Rector of 
 Oddington ; and the news ends with an advertisement 
 from some itinerant vendor of "likenesses."^ 
 
 To those, however, who would gain a clearer view
 
 88 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 of the social and material conditions of the period, the 
 advertisements fui^nish the widest field for observa- 
 tion. The time had not yet arrived when " advertise- 
 ments " had become a regular item in trade expenses, 
 and 'tis amusing to see the ingenious devices to 
 which advertisers resorted to justify their appear- 
 ance before the public. The favourite means were 
 a feigned dispute between two of a trade ; some- 
 times a pretended rumour " to my prejudice " served 
 the turn, or the setting up of an apprentice, as a 
 rival, was the signal for recriminatory advertise- 
 ments. Notices of enclosure grow more and more 
 frequent, and prominent among them we see the 
 enclosure of Campsfield, that open ground between 
 Oxford and Woodstock, which we have noticed 
 before as a favourite drive for the (3xford bucks 
 and bloods. We can see the traces of that great 
 advance of agriculture which began with the acces- 
 sion of George III., and which was so soon to 
 change for the better the habits of our rural gentry. 
 "Twenty-five Inclosure Acts only had passed," says 
 Massey, "up to the accession of George II.; during 
 his reign of 33 years, they had increased by 182. 
 From 1760 (the accession of the third George) to 
 1774 — the beginning of our present period — upwards 
 of 700 Inclosure Acts were obtained " ; while the 
 passing of 452 Turnpike Acts enormously facilitated 
 the communications of the country. In the rural 
 districts, as swamps and wastes disappeared, the 
 higher classes began to imbibe that love of the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 89 
 
 country -which is, at this day, the most creditable 
 characteristic of an English country gentleman. In 
 the towns, as we shall afterwards have occasion to 
 see in greater detail, the sudden accumulation of 
 Avealth produced an increased refinement in manners, 
 which, in its turn, became the origin of those great 
 local improvements which marked the period of 
 which we are speaking. But, great as this progress 
 was, to those who view this time from our point of 
 view rather than from its own, it must necessarily 
 seem a period of social barbarism. The police of the 
 kingdom was, with the exception of the few Bow 
 Street runners, disorganised and ineffective. Riot- 
 ous young aristocrats sallied forth to commit the 
 grossest insults on either sex without fear of the 
 superannuated "Jarvies." Highwaymen robbed not 
 only on the outskirts but in the very squares of the 
 metropolis, in broad daylight. Runaway soldiers, 
 with swords they did not scruple to use, infested 
 the highways. "It is noticeable," says a paragraph 
 in one of the Oxford Journals, " that most robberies 
 are Avrought by persons with weapons, to be 
 accounted for by the great number of discharged 
 soldiers who took to the trade." Men of the highest 
 rank were not exempt from these attacks. The 
 robbery of Lord Percival was, as we shall soon see, 
 one of Dumas' most notable exploits, and in the news 
 for March 12, 1774, we find so illustrative an account 
 that we insert it at length: — "Lord Stanley and 
 his brother, coming in a postchaise- and -four from
 
 90 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Chelsea to town, were stopped by four footpads, two 
 of whom seized the horses, and put pistols to the breasts 
 of the postilions ; the other two went on each side 
 the carriage, and, presenting their pistols, were 
 resisted by the Hon. Mr. Stanley, whom one of the 
 fellows fired at, on which Lord Stanley seized the 
 man on his side by the arm, and wounded him on 
 the back of the head with a scymetar. The two 
 ruffians at the head of the horses then went to the assist- 
 ance of their comrades, Avhen, the postilions driving 
 furiously on, the nobleman and his brother escaped 
 unhurt, though one of the villains fired a second 
 pistol." The neighbourhood of Oxford was haunted 
 by similar marauders. Farmer Dover, of Botley, is 
 knocked down, on his way home from market, by a 
 couple of footpads, near Bulstock Bridge, and only 
 rescued by a chance arrival (March 1775).^ A couple 
 of highwaymen infest the country between Wood- 
 stock and Glympton, and count among their many 
 exploits "the robbery of two young gentlemen of 
 the University, near Campsfield, this side Wood- 
 stock." ^ In November 1776, three coaches are 
 robbed in the immediate vicinity ; one, indeed, near 
 the Radcliffe Infirmary.^ The Oxford news for 
 December 7, 1776, is enlivened by the following 
 paragraph : — " On Thursday morning, between five 
 and six o'clock, the Bath coach, in which were three 
 passengers, was robbed in going up the hill on the 
 other side of Bottley, about a mile and a-half from 
 this city, by a single highwayman, well mounted.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 91 
 
 who took from Mr. Jonas, the celebrated conjuror, 
 his watch and about four guineas. It is more than 
 probable that either the suddenness of the demand, 
 or the bitter imprecations of the highwayman, might 
 so much alarm Mr. Jonas as totally to deprive him of 
 his wonderful art of "conveyance," or we can scarcely 
 suppose he would have suffered the robber to pocket 
 the watch or money, and carry it off." 
 
 It is not the least peculiar feature of the times 
 that these deeds of pillage, attended as they often 
 were with a combination of cowardice and cruelty 
 which it is impossible now to regard with aught but 
 disgust, seem at the time to have been looked upon 
 with an especial leniency and favour. Highwaymen 
 Avere the heroes of the day. There was a something, 
 the ladies would argue, about the dark muffled 
 figure, whose horse came splashing up to the toiling 
 night-coach, in contemptuous defiance of the shiver- 
 ing guard and his lumbering blunderbuss, that 
 severed him from the vulgar pilferer of the Old 
 Bailey. And the highwaymen, here and there, seem 
 to have appreciated and returned the sympathy of 
 the fairer sex. Rings and jewels were often ran- 
 somed by a kiss, and 'twas reported of Dumas that, 
 after capturing a whole coachfui of ladies, he was 
 satisfied with dancing a coranto with each in turn 
 upon the green. The story of this prince of high- 
 waymen is connected with our especial subject by 
 his execution at Oxford, on Monday, March 23, 1761 
 By birth the son of a corkcutter, in Eastcheap, his
 
 92 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 spirit scorned the drudgery of common toil; he 
 sought and found company more to his taste, was 
 soon enrolled among "the Killers of Care, the 
 Silenians, Sons of Nimrod, A.B.C.darians, Snitchers, 
 Choice Spirits, Ubiquarians," and every other low 
 club of the town, and told his story, sang his song, 
 and drank his bottle with the best of them. But 
 debauchery and extravagance told fast upon his 
 purse, and, to support his mistresses, young Isaac 
 Darkins was driven to "the road." His assumed 
 name of Dumas soon became the terror of travellers. 
 He was sung in Seven Dials, and famed even in 
 aristocratic boudoirs. But fame could not protect 
 him from mishap. At Chelmsford, in 1758, we find 
 him sentenced to death for the robbery of Capt. 
 Cockburn, but his youth gained him a reprieve, and 
 his sentence was finally commuted to transportation 
 for fourteen years. By revealing a plan of escape 
 formed by his fellow transports, in short, by peach- 
 ing, our hero obtained a pardon on condition of 
 serving as a soldier in the Island of Antigua, and, in 
 spite of several frustrated attempts at escape, he 
 was put on board ship, and conveyed thither. But 
 Dumas' destiny was not thus to be evaded. He 
 availed himself of the first opportunity of desertion 
 to lie in hiding on board a merchant vessel, and, 
 eluding the strict search which was made, in the 
 disguise of a sailor, soon found himself once more in 
 England. His exploits in mid and west England, by 
 their daring and ingenuity, attracted on him such
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 93 
 
 inconvenient attention from the officers of justice, 
 that he was forced to seek for safety by entering as 
 a midshipman on board the Royal George. While 
 in harbour, however, a leave of absence enabled him 
 again to gratify his tastes, and a series of successful 
 encounters was crowned by his robbery of Lord 
 Percival. For this he was soon brought to trial, but 
 an ingenious defence, and the defective proof of 
 identity, procured him an acquittal, and he was 
 again free "to set out for London in a postchaise." 
 While in gaol, his cell had been visited by every 
 lady of fashion, and his adventures furnished the 
 tea-table chat of the town. They were charmed 
 with the elegance of his person, the neatness of his 
 dress, and the gaiety Avith which he enlivened his 
 prison, But the sympathy of the sex was soon to 
 prove fatal to him. He had directed letters to some 
 of his female friends from an inn whose owner was 
 postmaster of the district, and his abode thus dis- 
 covered, a robbery near Nettlebed lodged him in 
 Oxford gaol. He maintained his nonchalance to the 
 end, played "Macheath" in the prison, and threw 
 himself off at the gallows Avithout troubling the 
 executioner. His age was but twenty -one at his 
 death, and his booty already amounted to £600. A 
 striking mark of popular sympathy followed his end. 
 He had declared that he feared — not death — but the 
 thought of being anatomized, and, at his execution, 
 a large body of bargemen surrounded the scaffold, 
 and carried off his body in triumph to the next
 
 94 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 parish church, " where," says the account in the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, from which this is condensed, " while 
 some rang the bells, others opened the belly, filled 
 it with unslack'd lime, and then buried the body." ^ 
 
 As interesting a culprit to the higher classes in 
 Oxford was Le Maitre, a French master of tambour 
 and similar accomplishments, who, in 1776, gained 
 considerable notoriety by pillaging the Ashmolean 
 Museum of a great number of antiquities, medals, 
 etc., to the amount of £100. Being arrested at 
 Dublin, he was sentenced, at the Oxford assizes, to 
 five years' hard labour, and is next heard of as the 
 originator of a nearly-successful attempt at escape, 
 which throws light on the condition of the Oxford 
 prisons at the time. With the aid of four, who were 
 confined in the same cell, the wall was undermined 
 by a few faggot-sticks and an holdfast taken from 
 the pump, the hole was covered with a few mats, 
 and confederates waited without to file their fetters.^ 
 The plan was discovered on the very eve of its com- 
 pletion, but justice was not always so fortunate. In 
 the autumn of the previous year two women had 
 succeeded in cutting through the bars of their window, 
 and escaped into the road which ran beside ; ^ and in 
 1775 a prisoner, himself under sentence for assisting 
 a culprit to break prison, was killed by a fall in his 
 attempt to escape.^ 
 
 Such attempts, indeed, were common in every 
 prison in the kingdom. The dilapidated condition 
 of the buildings offered every temptation. And
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 95 
 
 witliin was every means of plotting and facilitating 
 an escape. The interior of a prison of that time, 
 whether we trust the statements of the novelist or 
 the philantliropist, was nothing short of a hell upon 
 earth. The vilest and most profligate were left free 
 to reduce the less experienced criminals to their own 
 degradation. Criminals herded together in noisome 
 cells, where the most foul crimes were connived 
 at by the gaolers, who were themselves scarce 
 tetter than the felons they guarded. These, treated 
 like beasts, turned like beasts upon their keepers. 
 Prisons were sometimes broken open by a revolt 
 from within. The terrible Newgate riot of 1775 
 needed the presence of troops to quell it. The 
 same policy exhibited itself in those fearful penal 
 laws which were in their full vigour at this period. 
 Every assize saw the punishment of death recorded 
 for crimes the most unequal in their nature, for the 
 villain who had taken his benefactor's life, and the 
 bankrupt who had fraudulently concealed his goods. 
 The same want of equity distinguished the punish- 
 ments of the pillory. " All secondary offences, from 
 crimes too abominable to name down to libels and 
 breaches of the peace, were punished by the pillory," 
 says Mr. Massey. But the occasions of its use in 
 Oxford during the latter part of this century seem 
 to have been rare ; indeed, only one is recorded in 
 the public prints, — the punishment of Edwaixl Clark, 
 for keeping a house of ill-fame, November 1774.^ 
 Men still living can remember the last instance of
 
 96 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 its exercise in, we believe, 1810, when one Tnbb 
 stood in the pillory for perjury. The pillory ^ seems 
 to have been placed near the Cross Inn, in North 
 Gate or Cornmarket Street. Another,^ which at a 
 very distant period stood in company with a cross, 
 gallows, and stocks ^ at the corner of Magdalen Grove, 
 looking up Holywell, recalls to us the time when 
 the north side of that street stood alone, when the 
 south side and Long Wall were as yet but the city 
 ditch, and the manor, with its judicial rights, beyond 
 the wall was the property of Bogo de Clare.'* But, 
 if the gallows and pillory were more plentiful in the 
 Middle Ages, the culprit then possessed a privilege 
 which civilization has long robbed him of — the right 
 of sanctuary. Behind All Saints' churchyard stood 
 Broadgate Hall," where, in 146.3, Mr. Hill, one of the 
 proctors, coming to seize "one J. Harry, a tailor, of 
 Oxon, who had stabbed a man," "upon information 
 given to him that it was a place privileged of old time 
 by the Pope, and claim laid to the said privilege by 
 the Master and Convent of St. John's Hospital, the 
 man at length, upon some small security given, found 
 the benefit of the place, and was dismissed."^' The 
 privilege in this case seems to have fallen into desue- 
 tude aliout 1.530. In Wood's time, the vestiges of a 
 sanctuary, near St. Edward's Church, " did not long 
 ago remain in a townsman's ground abutting down 
 from the High Street to Tresham's Lane." ^ A sanctu- 
 ary of greater interest Avill, in our next number, 
 introduce us to the more especial consideration of
 
 OXFORD DURINU TIIP] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 97 
 
 the civic affairs of Oxford in the period which we 
 are treating. 
 
 Minor olicnces were visited with punishments 
 Avhich men still living can remember — the stocks on 
 the Butter-bench/ or a whipping at the cart's tail. 
 The last was a practice as useless as it was disgusting, 
 for, as we have learned from one who had himself 
 seen this punishment inflicted, " though dragged the 
 whole length of the Cornmarket and back again, the 
 culprit scarce ever received more than one effective 
 stroke, in consequence of the throng and pressure of 
 the crowd around." But one consequence of the 
 severity of the penal code was the jurisdiction which 
 the populace themselves exercised. Pickpockets, 
 taken in the fact, seldom made their appearance at 
 Sessions ; they were usually dragged to the nearest 
 pond or pump, and ducked while any sign of life 
 remained. The same rude justice, as many must 
 remember, was extended to those whose religious 
 tenets offended the sovereign mob. Young thieves 
 and minor offenders were usually let off with a 
 thrashing. But enough withal remained to make 
 the office of Recorder no sinecure. In noticina; the 
 resignation of this office in the year 1776,' by 
 "Thomas Francis AVemnan, Esq.," and the unanimous 
 election of " John Skinner, Esq., of Little Milton, 
 one of the Justices of the Princi^jality of Wales," 
 we must conclude this, we confess, somewhat mis- 
 cellaneous paper.
 
 VIII 
 
 The Sanctuary to which Ave referred at the con- 
 clusion of our last number was the Sanctuary at East 
 Gate. The friars of the order of the Holy Trinity 
 for the Redemption of Captives, who had been 
 settled in the little chapel by its side, by the patron- 
 age of Edmund, son of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 
 were cut off to a man in the pestilence of 1351, and 
 the chapel eventually lapsed to the city. Here the 
 new Mayor who, by the charter of Henry III., 
 claimed, with the chief magistrate of London, the 
 honour of a formal presentation to the Barons of the 
 Exchequer for confirmation in his new office, was 
 accustomed on his return over the long and rude 
 " Petty Pont,"^ which has given place to the present 
 Magdalen bridge, to stop and return thanks to God 
 for his safe return, leaving, at the same time, an 
 alms on the altar upon which a little taper or lamp 
 burnt night and day. On quitting the chapel the 
 Mayor was received by the townsmen, assembled in 
 their trades, and "conducted into the city with great 
 huzzaing and rejoicings." "
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 99 
 
 In the elections for 1774, Mr. Samuel Culley was 
 chosen Mayor ; Mr. Thomas Jones and Mr. Kichard 
 Hayes, Chamberlains of the city.^ The next year 
 presents us with the name still honoured in its con- 
 nection with civic offices, in the imanimous election 
 of "Mr. William Thorpe, the junior assistant of this 
 city," to the Mayoralty, Avhile Mr. William Fidler 
 and Mr. Richard Weston were appointed bailiffs.^ 
 The mention of a family which still remains to us 
 cannot fail to recall some of those which have long 
 perished and decayed. The Chillingworths have 
 gone, yet the most acute of all our philosophers was 
 the son of a Mayor of Oxford. Sir William 
 D'Avenant reminds us that it was during the 
 mayoralty of his father, that Shakespear used to 
 stop at the Crown, on his way to Stratford,'' but the 
 very name has died out of Oxford now. Here and 
 there indeed local denominations recall the memory 
 of old civic families passed away. Yet of the thou- 
 sands who speak of Peckwater Quad, how many 
 remember that it is so called from occupying the 
 site of the old house of Radulph Peckwether, one of 
 an illustrious line, who was Provost or chief magis- 
 trate of Oxford in the reign of Henry HI. And the 
 gradual change of names is already obliterating even 
 these slight vestiges. Peml)roke Street has even 
 recently superseded the old " Pennyfarthing " Street, 
 the street that commemorated the name of the great 
 burgher-family, the Penyverthings, of whom one was 
 Provost in Henry the Third's time. The name of a
 
 100 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 tavern has driven from Ship Street the title of 
 Burewald's Lane, which it owed to the wealthy 
 family which ended in Dionysia Burewald,^ the 
 foundress of a chauntry in St. Michael's Church, for 
 the souls of those of her name, " especially of 
 Gilbert and Kadulph, men of great possessions in 
 Oxford." These, however, had themselves super- 
 seded the designation which it had before derived 
 from the Dewys, a family of early note in Oxford 
 history, and whose name seems to have lingered on 
 to our own times. The same transmutations were 
 the fate of other streets ; the lane from " Bocardo 
 to New Inn Hall " was Bedford Lane, from burgesses 
 of that name in the first Edward's time — and then 
 Adynton's Lane, from that Stephen Adynton, who 
 was seven times Mayor at a much later period. But 
 not seldom lane and name have perished together. 
 Improvements have banished Kepeharme's Lane,^ 
 which ran from Fish Street (St. Aldate's) into the 
 Butcher-row, and with it all memory of the great 
 family that, like the Segrims, whose tenements were 
 blotted out by Wolsey's Hospital, held civic offices 
 in Oxford before the Conquest, and the wife of one 
 of whose descendants, Alice, had to offer to King 
 John one hundred marcs and two palfreys for 
 liberty to re-marry.^ 
 
 Mr. Edward Lock was the Mayor for 1776; the 
 Chamberlains being Mr. William Hyde and Mr. 
 William Jones.* The elections of the old Corpora- 
 tions were scenes of bribery and riot. The poor
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 101 
 
 freeman thought himself entitled to his half-guinea 
 and bottle of gin. In A. Wood's time, we find him 
 recording, "Anthony Hall, vintner, chosen Mayor, 
 at which some young scholars and servitors being 
 present, heard his speech of thanks out of the 
 balcony, viz. that he thanked them for their choice 
 of him^ — that he could not speak French nor 
 Spanish, but if they would walk to the Bear they 
 should find that he could speak English, meaning 
 give them English ale and beer." ^ At this date, how- 
 ever (1679), the powers of the office were wielded 
 Avith a severity Avhich would astonish the burgess 
 of the present day. In recording the Mayoralty of 
 Robert Pauling, draper. Wood observes, " Whereas 
 all Mayors in memory of man used to be mealy- 
 mouthed and fearful of executing their office for fear 
 of losing trade, this person is not, but walks in the 
 night to take townsmen in tipjjling houses, prohibits 
 coffee to be sold on Sundays, which Dr. Nicholas, 
 Vice-Chancellor, prohibited till after evening prayer, 
 viz. till five o'clock."" But spite of these extensive 
 powers and vexatious interferences, the Mayor seems 
 to have had little control over the riotous inclina- 
 tions of his townsmen. Indeed, election-time was 
 particularly selected for the noisiest demonstrations. 
 The election of Anthony Hall, which we have 
 noticed above, was the signal for a prolonged "Town 
 and Gown," between the servitors and the populace, 
 which continued amid breakages of arms and heads 
 for the space of a week, till appeased by the Vice-
 
 102 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Chancellor and Proctors.^ Here and there, too, the 
 latent opposition, which always existed towards the 
 High Church Tory Corporation, manifested itself in 
 acts of violence. Not ten years after the Eevolution 
 of 1688, we find the Puritan, or AVhig party, carry- 
 ing the Tovvnclerkship against the united powers of 
 the Earl of Abingdon and the Corporation, and cele- 
 brating their victory with bonfires and " ringing of 
 bells at night." And at the elections of the same 
 year the mob wandered about the city, breaking the 
 windows of the officers of the corporation. " These," 
 says Wood, " are the fanatical or factious sort, and 
 shew what they will do when they are in authority." ^ 
 We may be pardoned for wearying our readers 
 with details so distant and seemingly unimportant 
 as these, when it is considered that these revolts of 
 the populace were in fact protests, very noisy protests, 
 against the system of corporate government, or mis- 
 government, which was then gradually approaching 
 that uncontested supremacy Avhich it enjoyed in the 
 eighteenth century. Without dwelling on the minute 
 features of the system which the Municipal Eeform 
 Act swept once and for ever away — on the narrow 
 suffrages, the disgraceful bribery, the close family 
 patronage, which were necessary for its support, it 
 may be well for those who, perhaps not unnaturally 
 irritated by the disagreeables of the system which 
 that reform established, and influenced, in addition, 
 by that very pardonable prejudice which throws an 
 air of sanctity over all th:it is past, are now and
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGUTEENTH CENTURY 103 
 
 then driven to a cry of regret for " the old corpora- 
 tion," to consider the pitiful position in which that 
 regime placed the city with respect to the great 
 noblemen whose possessions surrounded it. 
 
 Of these families the first which we find in intimate 
 connection with the corporate aflairs of the city was 
 that of the Berties. In 1682 Wood records the joy 
 of the Tory party at the elevation of their head. 
 " Bonfires made in several parishes in Oxford by the 
 Tory party after supper for joy that the Lord Norris 
 was made Earl of Abingdon, with the ringing of 
 bells. Several colleges had bonfires, All Souls' 
 especially. About 11 at night they brought out a 
 barrel of beer out of the cellar, and drank it in 
 healths on their knees to the Duke of York and 
 Earl of Abingdon out of the buckets that hung up 
 in the hall. They got about twenty of the trained 
 bands of Oxford, who discharged at the drinking of 
 every health. They had wine in great plenty from the 
 tavern over the way, guarded by a file of musqueteers ; 
 they had a drummer that beat round the college quad- 
 rangle and at the gate."^ The Earl's Toryism had 
 given him the lord lieutenancy of the county, and in 
 Monmouth's rebellion, two years later, we find him 
 at the head of the troop of 60 horse which was 
 raised ])y the University,^ committing suspected 
 Puritans — amongst others our severe friend Eobert 
 Pauling — to the Castle,^ and training the volunteers 
 in Broken Heyes •* or Christ Church Meadow.'"' But 
 loyalty so vehement as this was soon destined to be
 
 104 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 shaken. The Earl was one of the first to welcome 
 William of Orange, and his gratulations were seconded 
 by the University. The Tory meddling, however, 
 continued still. The contest for Town Clerk in 1694 
 was decided in favour of Thurston against 81atford, 
 "by the endeavour of James Earl of Abingdon, who 
 got several country gentlemen that were of the house 
 to give votes for the said Thur.ston. The Commons, 
 enraged at it, spoke vilely of the Earl of Abingdon 
 and his son, called them Jacobites. He laid in 
 town that night, went next day to the Bishop's 
 lodgings, at Magdalen College, in the company of 
 one or two constables to prevent abuses." ^ The 
 wrath of the " Commons " the Earl could afford to 
 despise, but the internal opposition which the family 
 influence experienced from the corporation must 
 have been more trying to his patience. In 1732, 
 Hearne tells us of my Lord's driving in a coach 
 from Rycot to put up Mr. Lawrance, the chandler, 
 against Mr. Nibb, upholsterer, for the office 
 of Mayor's assistant ; but the drive was in 
 vain, and the Earl had to entertain his supporters 
 at dinner afterwards with what good humour he 
 might." 
 
 By the middle of this century, however, the Rycot 
 was fast being superseded by the Blenheim influence. 
 The gi^eat Duke, the rise of whose stately palace had 
 been viewed with such malignant eyes by his Tory 
 neighbours — (Hearne has handed down to us the 
 exultation of the common-room at the news that the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 105 
 
 fine stones of the new buildings were already crack- 
 ing with the frost) ^ — was too busy in his intrigues, 
 too miserly in his expenditure, to meddle in the 
 civic elections. Violent Duchess Sanih seems to 
 have confined herself to occasional presents of a buck 
 to the Whig heads. But the eighteenth century was 
 the great sera of what Disraeli has called "Venetian " 
 government. The great oligarchic families were 
 straining every nerve to secure a " following " in the 
 corrupt House of Commons. Nobles forced their 
 Avay into the cabinet by a simple enumeration of 
 the votes at their disposal. Immense sums were 
 lavished on contested elections. Yorkshire grew 
 famous as the insatiable quagmire that engulfed 
 the mortgaged acres of its battling landholders ; but 
 simple boroughs proved often as ravenous. The 
 Spencers, who squandered nearly £100,000 on the 
 Northampton election, were only one out of three 
 great families that retired crippled from the con- 
 test. Corruption was practised without disguise ; 
 indeed one member openly proposed in the House to 
 repeal the Bribery Act. " Arnold Nesbitt, Esq.," says 
 a paragraph in one of these Oxfwd Journals, M.P. 
 for Cricklade, "made a present of ten guineas each to 
 the voters in his interest at the late general election, 
 and likewise entertained them with a genteel dinner."- 
 At the Hindon contest, a man, supposed to be a clergy- 
 man, in a fantastic female habit, called ' the dancing 
 Punch,' presents each voter with five guineas, and 
 distributes larger sums to all that call at his inu."^
 
 106 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Worcester saw its members elected, unseated, re-elected 
 and unseated again for the most flagrant bribery, yet a 
 third election secured them in their seats. 
 
 The Marlboroughs, like their fellows, aspired to be 
 boroughmongers. They had already gained a footing 
 in the county, they nominated the two members for 
 their borough of Woodstock, and an opportunity at 
 length arrived for securing one of the seats for 
 Oxford. The borough representation had, at this 
 time, fallen practically into the hands of the corpora- 
 tions. The vilest means, bribery, drink, abused 
 influence, Avere employed to secure the comparatively 
 small body of freemen, who alone possessed the 
 right of suffrage. Should these fail, the corporation 
 could increase its power by a nev/ charter, such as, 
 in 1774, was granted to Abingdon. It was welcomed 
 with a Mayor's feast, drink was distributed to the 
 populace, bonfires kindled in the Market-place, and 
 the bells set ringing.^ But the grant was a mere 
 election dodge. The roll of electors was in the 
 hands of overseers, who were chosen by two justices, 
 and the appointment of the latter was, by this 
 charter, vested in the corporation. In other words, 
 the list of electors was at its mercy. A creation of 
 '• beggar " voters soon followed. "Mr. Bayley and 
 the dissenters " (we suppose political dissenters) were 
 routed in the choice of Mayor, and the next election 
 saw a nominee of the corporation sent, as their repre- 
 sentative, to Parliament.- 
 
 The corporation of Oxford were encumbered with
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 107 
 
 debts, and saw in the approaching election of 1768 
 a means of freeing them from their embarrassments. 
 But the offer which they made to their members to 
 return them for the sum of £7500, ended in a repri- 
 mand from the Speaker and a committal to Newgate. 
 During the five days of their confinement, however, 
 it was rumoured that the bargain which had failed 
 with Lee and Stapylton had been successfully con- 
 cluded with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord 
 Abingdon.^ The year following saw the city debt 
 of about £6000 liquidated by the Duke,^ and (1771) 
 the elevation of Sergeant Nares to the Bench, gave 
 a seat to his brother, Lord Robert Spencer. For the 
 subsequent half-century the city became the mere 
 nomination borough of the Duke and corporation. 
 The honour, however, if honour it were, was not 
 purchased cheaply. Eighty taverns were opened at 
 the Duke's expense, and a collation provided for the 
 corporation, when the debt was satisfied by the sale 
 of the representation.^ Into these " collations " had 
 the old city feast dwindled, just as the city itself 
 seems to have shrunk into the corporation. A. Wood 
 recalls to us some of these old entertainments, which 
 would seem to have promoted a feeling of fellowshij) 
 among their partakers. The citizens met in the 
 Town Hall, "marched thence very orderly, in 
 number about 440 " (the time was 1669) " down the 
 High-street, with a minister before them, had a 
 sermon in the church of St. Peter-in-the-East, preached 
 by Eob. Field, M. A., born in Grope-lane,* in St. Mary's
 
 108 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 parish, and, retiring to the Hall again, had a noble 
 entertainment ; Avhich done, there was a collection 
 made to bind out two or more boys apprentices." ^ 
 This seems to have been the first feast of the kind, 
 though many afterwards are recorded in his pages. 
 Open entertainments, indeed, were everyAvhere given 
 to the freemen on the eve of elections. At Wootten 
 Bassett, the Mayor presided while two fat oxen, the 
 gift of the members, were distributed among the 
 electors, and a third was roasted whole for their 
 diversion. 2 Every civic necessity occasioned an appeal 
 to the purses of its representatives. The members 
 for Windsor, in 1774, are "honourably mentioned" 
 for their present of <£500 to the corporation, towards 
 defraying the expenses of the new pavement of the 
 town.^ The Marlborough interest in the county was 
 maintained after the same fashion by a sumptuous 
 ball at Blenheim, "Lord Robei't Spencer and Miss 
 Vernon began the minuets " ; Avhence the ladies, 
 returning at four in the morning, "in passing through 
 the park, expressed uncommon transport on be- 
 holding the glorious appearance of a rising sun " ; ^ 
 or by grosser entertainments to 225 tenants and 
 other farmers, in the greenhouse, at Blenheim, where 
 they were treated with " 128 dishes, exclusive of vege- 
 tables, etc.,; 300 bottles of port wine, 52 bottles of rum 
 made into punch, besides an indefinite quantity of ale 
 and strong beer," ■'' which tells well for the heads of the 
 freeholders. Nor were the more indirect means 
 neglected. The members and their patrons were
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 109 
 
 expected to subscribe munificently to local charities 
 and subscriptions, and, amongst other contributors, we 
 find Peshall mentioning Lord Abingdon, " who then 
 lived in Mr. Hacker's house," as a principal bene- 
 factor to the new gallery at St, Petcr's-in-the-East.^ 
 
 But the heaviest demands on their charity were 
 occasioned by the extreme destitution which was 
 caused by the severity of the winters of this period 
 and the high war-prices of provisions, wheat being 
 at forty shillings per quarter. The distress was not 
 confined to Oxford. At Westbury the members 
 contributed in large donations, and the corporation of 
 Abingdon granted £50 for the relief of the necessi- 
 tous poor. 2 Fifty guineas were given by the Duke 
 of Marlborough, in 1776, to be distributed in bread 
 to the poor in general ; and twice that amount Avas 
 subscribed by the members for the city. Lord Eobert 
 Spencer and Mr. Bertie, for the relief of the free- 
 men.^ Similar contributions seem to have been 
 made at every inclement season, accompanied with 
 gratuitous distributions of coal and fuel. The most 
 stringent regulations were at the same time made to 
 enforce the ridiculous statutes against "Forestalling 
 and regrating," and, by an official assize of bread in 
 the winter of 1775, the penny loaf (wheaten) was 
 fixed at 9 oz. 4 dr., while tlie price of the wheaten 
 quartern loaf was settled at 6id.^
 
 IX 
 
 The prerogative of the corporation was not solely 
 employed in fixing the assize of bread. We find a 
 curious instance of its exercise in the case of inocu- 
 lation. The small -pox has, by the discovery of 
 Jenner, been rendered so comparatively innocuous, 
 that we can scarcely realise to ourselves the intense 
 consternation which the mere mention of the scourge 
 produced. The slightest rumour of its presence in 
 any locahty was deemed a pernicious libel, and 
 judged worthy of the most authoritative contradic- 
 tion. The surgeons of Wallingford advertise their 
 protest against the rumour that it has broken out 
 there.^ June 24, 1775,— "The minister, church- 
 warden, overseer, and principal inhabitants of 
 Chipping Norton do hereby certify that the small- 
 pox is not in the said town, and that those belong- 
 ing to it who have had this disorder were, before 
 they became infectious, removed to the pest-house, 
 and are now quite recovered." The vicar and 
 inhabitants of Watlington certify to the freedom 
 of their parish from the infection.' At the same
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 111 
 
 time, the new remcrly of inoculation, which Lady 
 JNIary Montague had introduced from the East, 
 was viewed in many quarters with disgust and in- 
 credulity. Hosts of doctors, some of whom seem to 
 have been little removed from quacks, opened houses 
 for the reception of patients. Mr. Sampson, of 
 Begbroke, "who has inoculated near two thousand 
 without the loss of a single patient, inoculated his 
 third company for this season " ; Mr. Bristow, of 
 Begbroke, "receives a succession of patients for in- 
 oculation at his house at Jericho, near this city, where 
 they are carried through that disease Avith the 
 utmost safety by his approved and most successful 
 method " ; ^ but those in authority, at least, remained 
 unconverted. The prohibition which was fulminated 
 in the year 1774 is too great a curiosity not to be 
 preserved entire: — "Whereas attempts have been 
 made to inoculate persons for the small-pox within 
 the University and City of Oxford, to the great 
 terror of the inhabitants, we, the yice-Chancellor 
 and Mayor of the said University and City, do 
 hereby will and command that, for the future, no 
 attempt of this kind be made, nor inoculation prac- 
 tised within the said University and City. And 
 likewise we hereby do give notice that if any person 
 or persons shall henceforth inoculate in private 
 houses, or shall take into their respective houses 
 patients under inoculation, or shall let or make use 
 of any houses within the said University and City to 
 inoculate patients therein, such person or persons
 
 112 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 offending in any or either of those cases will be 
 prosecuted as the law directs. Given under our 
 hands, Tlio. Fothergill, Vice -Chancellor ; Sam. 
 Culley, Mayor." ^ These thunderers, however, seem 
 to have roused a spirit of opposition. "Mr. Sutton, 
 just retui'ned from France," advertises that he 
 "intends to inoculate in Oxford and its neighbour- 
 hood this winter, notwithstanding any attempts to 
 impede his practice."- 
 
 Interferences such as these, absurd as they seem 
 to us, were too much in harmony with the countless 
 other restrictions of the time to seem out of place 
 in the eighteenth century. Sumptuary laws still 
 forbade the use of metal buttons, and ladies were 
 dragged, by common informers, before the Lord 
 Mayor, and fined, for appearing in chintz dresses. 
 The law meddled equally with workman and em- 
 ployer. The one was lialjle to imprisonment for a 
 " strike ; " the other to a heavy penalty for exceed- 
 ing the wages prescribed by statute. The old and 
 cumbrous machinery of trade -companies, obsolete 
 as it had grown, still retained a lingering vitality. 
 "N. Elliot, Master of the Guild or Fraternity of 
 Cordwainers," advertises a reward of five guineas to 
 any one v/ho will discover any of the journeymen on 
 strike in May 1776.^ A general combination for 
 increase of wages seems to have been formed at 
 this time, for immediately above this advertisement 
 appears another, which gives us tlie names of the 
 master tailors of the time in Oxford. "Twenty or
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTERXTH CENTURY 113 
 
 thirty journeymen taylors "' are advertised for by 
 " Thomas Joy, P. Kice, Richard West, Fred. Rogers, 
 Wm. Fidler, Thomas Benwell, Wm. Davenport, 
 John Giles, Joseph Harpur, Edward Hitchins."^ 
 The last of these, a name of future eminence in the 
 city, had hnt recently (as appears from his first 
 advertisement, Octol)er 20, 1775) succeeded to the 
 business of Mr. Heme, and his commencement was 
 almost contemporaneous with that of Mr. Deodatus 
 Eaton, another well-known name, who, in the suc- 
 ceeding week, advertises that "in partnership with 
 his brother-in-law, W. Thompson," he has suc- 
 ceeded to his mother's business as a wood and 
 coal merchant.- 
 
 Tho Company of Taylors, to which these trades- 
 men belonged, took the lead among the Oxford guilds. 
 "No less than eight kings, eleven dukes, forty-one 
 earls, with many hundreds of gentlemen of family 
 and fortune," had, it boasted, been admitted as 
 honorary members of the fraternity. In March 
 1776, we find thus admitted the lion. Peregrine 
 Bertie, Sir Narborough D'Aeth, and Francis Brown- 
 sword Bullock, Esq. ; while John AValley, Esq., pre- 
 sented the society with a handsome piece of plate. ^ 
 But, great as the guild was, it yielded in antiquity 
 to the shoemakers, though both claimed priority 
 over the glovers and mercers. So, at least, did the 
 Common Council determine, when consulting on 
 the order of the procession which was to welcome 
 King James the Second. "These companies — 
 
 I
 
 114 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 glovers, cordwainers, taylors, and mercers," says 
 Anthony a Wood, "went on foot. At the end of 
 each company was the master thereof, with his 
 gowne on. Each company went apart by themselves, 
 and had a flagge or ensigne, containing the arms 
 of the company or corporation painted on them. 
 The Taylors, who were most numerous, had two 
 flaggs, one containing their arms, another" — here 
 the account ends in asterisks.^ One compan}'- seems 
 even at this early date to have slipped into non- 
 entity — the Company of Barbers. These, Peshall 
 tells us, " at their first incorporation, at the order of 
 Dr. North wade, thenVice-Chancellor of the University, 
 agreed that they would yearly keei) and maintain a 
 light before our Lady in our Lady's chapel in St. 
 Frideswide's church ; for the sure continuance of 
 which every man or woman of the same profession, 
 that kept a shop, should pay two pence every quarter, 
 two journeymen a penny, and to keep it always burn- 
 ing, under the pain of 6s. 8d."- This, which continued 
 till the Reformation, was only one of the many lights 
 which testified at once to the opulence and piety of 
 the crafts. In the orders of the glovers (14G1) 
 they are bound to find a light in All Hallows' 
 church, in the Trinity chapel, "namely, 8 tapers and 
 6 torches, to be honestly kept to the praise of the 
 Holy Trinity." All Hallows, or All Saints' church, 
 was the religious centre of the Company of Glovers. 
 In this chapel of the Trinity, on its south side, 
 which had been founded by J. Stodely, a glover, and
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 115 
 
 several times iVIayor of this Cit}', in the 14th century, 
 the guild was accustomed to celebrate mass on 
 Trinity Sunday for the good estate of the glovers. 
 The mass was silenced at the Reformation, but, in 
 another little chapel, on the same side of the church, 
 which John Berry, Mayor of the City, and warden of 
 the company, had erected in the reign of Henry the 
 Eighth, for a mass priest to pray for their welfare, 
 the change of religion, which so soon followed, did 
 not abolish the whole commemoration, but com- 
 muted the mass into prayers on the Trinity Monday, 
 immediately before the guild proceeded to the election 
 of its officers, and to this the benefaction of Alder- 
 man Southam added a sermon, which, says Peshall, 
 Avriting in 1773, "they have now besides praying as 
 formerly." ^ Most, indeed, of the older churches, 
 within the walls, preserved, even to late times, the 
 memories of the trade fraternities. On the south 
 side of All Hallows' church stood the chapel of Our 
 Lady, built by the Cordwainers ; - and, in the upper 
 window of the south aisle of old St. Martin's, the 
 painting of a pair of tailor's shears remained, in 
 memory of the foundation of a chauntry in that 
 church by the craft of tailors, for "a priest, that 
 should pray for their welfare, at a yearly stipend of 
 £3 :16s." 3 
 
 Another company which the lapse of time had 
 long since extinguished was the craft of weavers ; 
 and it afTords a curious instance of the mutations 
 (the Avhole story of which is itself so curious and
 
 116 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 entertaining) of locality and trade in Oxford to know 
 that in oM times barges came heavily laden up the 
 Cherwell to Parry's Mead,^ ground now enclosed in 
 the limits of Magdalen College MeadoAv, where 
 seventy fullers and weavers abode, and twenty-three 
 looms were busily at work. This peculiar segrega- 
 tion — if we may use the term — of a trade was char- 
 acteristic of the crafts of the middle ages. Not to 
 look abroad to the great towns of mediaeval Italy, 
 where this system had its fullest development, we 
 find the relics of this severance of trade from trade 
 long lingering at least in the names of our own 
 streets and localities. " Sched-yard " Street,- the 
 present Oriel Lane, preserved in its very title the 
 memory of a time when, as appears from records 
 still preserved, it was solely inhabited by "Parch- 
 menors, exemplars, luminars, and bocbynders," 
 the several divisions of what we should now perhaps 
 roughly call the craft of booksellers and stationers. 
 The same craft seem to have inhabited the street 
 which has passed through the titles of St. Mildred's, 
 Cheney, Jesus, and Market Street. Drapers' Hall, 
 which stood in the Bailey, near St. Martin's, long 
 commemorated the "Drapery," within whose bounds 
 it was built. Fishmongers' Hall received its name 
 from the company, whose arms were still remaining 
 in its windows in A. Wood's time, and the residence 
 of whose craftsmen had given to the street in which 
 it stood — the present St. Aldate's — the name of 
 Fish Street. A little bridge on the way to Osney
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 117 
 
 recalled by its appellation of " Bocbyiulers' Bridge " 
 some settlement of a craft which probably flourished 
 in the vicinity of the great Abbey. The tailors had 
 their shops in the North-east Ward, in St. Michael's 
 parish, whence, on St. John Baptist's eve, they 
 sallied in procession to the sound of musical instru- 
 ments, trolling out ancient songs in honour of their 
 craft and its patron, and returning after a circuit 
 of the streets to the jovial mirth of their revel. ^ 
 Other companies seem to have had similar revels 
 and processions, which, picturesque as they appear 
 at the distance of centuries, seem in reality to have 
 afforded scenes of riot and murder so outrageous as 
 to necessitate their suppression by a Koyal missive to 
 the Chancellor. 
 
 But we have wandered so far into antiquity that 
 we may gladly allow the mention of these revels to 
 lead us back to the more modern times of which we 
 are treating, and to the fairs and \vakes Avhich had 
 superseded them. The fair of St. Frideswide, whose 
 memory is still annually kept up by the cakestall which 
 adorns St. Aldate's, the great fair during the seven 
 days of whose continuance the custody of the city 
 was given up into the hands of the monastery, the 
 town courts Avere closed in favour of the Steward's 
 Piepowder Court, and the keys of the gates ren- 
 dered by the Mayor to the Prior — had, even in A. 
 Wood's time, fallen "almost to nothing."- The 
 Austin fair, which the Augustiu friars had held on 
 the site of the present Wadham College, had been
 
 118 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 long forgotten. Fairs, therefore, in the sense of 
 resorts for traffic, there was none. Two wakes how- 
 ever remained ; the one Gloucester Green, ^ the other 
 St. Giles's. Of the latter Ave find no mention — a 
 chance war of advertisements gives us a passing 
 peep into the first. We see " the usual and accus- 
 tomed pastime of backsword playing," the disorderly 
 mob, the "informer" singled out and chased across 
 the Green.- In presence of such scenes we fail to 
 perceive the justice of Salmon's eulogium — "The 
 people of the place are more civilised than the 
 inhabitants of any other town in Great Britain."^ 
 They were probably neither better nor worse than 
 the citizens of "the other towns." It Avas, despite 
 its material progress, a rough and rude state of 
 society, governed by feelings and sympathies differ- 
 ing Avidely from our OAvn. We need not shrug our 
 shoulders too complacently Avhen our eye is met by 
 constant advertisements of cock-fighting ; when the 
 "Pit" in Holywell is seen to be as established an 
 amusement as the Bull-ring in Spain ; Avhen the news- 
 paper chronicles, as an edifying feat, the "drinking 
 three quarts of ale in three minutes " by a labourer 
 at the Observatory;^ or the constant "deaths from 
 drink" that testify to the prevalence of the vice. 
 Ladies have their vices noAv, though Ave should stare 
 to hear — as Hearne tells us then — of the death of a 
 canon's Avife at Christ Church from overlove of the 
 brandy bottle,^ or of attempts at suicide by ladies of 
 rank from inability to pay their gambling dcbts.^
 
 OXFORD DURING TIIK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 119 
 
 If again and again wc are horrified in perusing the 
 tedious records of the time to find the constant out- 
 rages Avhich were perpetrated against old women 
 on the ground of "witchcraft"; the stripping and 
 weighing against the church Bible; the tying of 
 hands to feet and luirling into the neighbouring 
 pond ; we must remember that a century has 
 elapsed, that we boast of our educational advance, 
 and yet that the belief in witchcraft lingers still 
 in our rural districts. A recollection of the fearful 
 immorality which still prevails in the mining counties 
 may perhaps soften our abhorrence of the brutal 
 jocular carelessness Avith M'hich the papers of the 
 time treat that most brutal of all outrages on 
 decency, the sale of a wife. Such sales were then 
 frequent enough. "We have before us one at Leeds, 
 where the ceremony was attended by one thousand 
 spectators, and the bargain concluded for twenty-one 
 guineas, a sum usual in these cases, and which proves 
 that the parties concerned could not at any rate 
 plead ignorance or poverty in excuse. lu justice to 
 oiu-selves, indeed, we must own that wc have at any 
 rate shamed vice o;it of its outrageous publicity. A 
 mistress is not now regarded as the ordinary ap- 
 pendage of a gentleman's household ; wives are not 
 lent " by an eminent tradesman " to his comrade for 
 a night ; women do not (as we find one in the year 
 1775) marry in but an undergarment with the notion 
 of thus getting rid of their debts ; ^ nor do husbands 
 advertising for a wife who has eloped promise the
 
 120 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 person who is "so obliging as to bring her back to 
 her husband tlie first night's lodging with her in his 
 house." ^ If the times have not grown more virtuous, 
 they have at least grown more sh;imefaced. 
 
 In concluding this account of the three years, we 
 have only to notice the few i)hysical phenomena 
 which they presented. The shock of an earthquake, 
 which was distinctly felt in September 1775, was 
 soon followed by a storm of such violence as to be 
 without parallel in the memory of those then living. 
 Roofs were torn off, chimneys shattered, and holes 
 perforated in the ground by the lightning." The 
 more prominent event during the period, however, 
 was the great flood of 1774. Four days and nights 
 of incessant rain rendered the temporary footbridge 
 which supplied the place of Magdalen Bridge, then 
 in process of re - erection, impassable ; the roads 
 were covered, and communications carried on in 
 boats ; St. Thomas's church was filled Avith water 
 for a week, and service interrupted ; while a land- 
 slip of an acre of ground, on the south side of Shot- 
 over, shifted one hundred yards into the valley 
 beneath.^
 
 X 
 
 In the Papers which have ah'eady appeared we have 
 endeavoured to present to our readers the Oxford of 
 the Last Century in its social aspects. We have 
 painted the university of the time, its servitors and 
 poor schoh\rs, its rakes and debauchees — we have 
 whispered the toasts in Merton gardens, and sipped 
 punch in the coffee-house — and, passing on to de- 
 scriptions more purely civic, we have gleaned from 
 paragraphs, but too brief and few, some notion of the 
 tradesman of the day, of the drunken voter, the 
 useless watch, the pillory, and the gaol. In future 
 papers we shall, it is hoped, be enabled to fill up 
 these sketches in still greater detail ; the series which 
 will follow on the educational position of Oxford will 
 open U{) an interesting side of her social life in the 
 sketch of "the Don" of that day, "steeped in 
 ])rejudice and port " ; while Papers similar to those 
 which have just come to a close will little by little 
 enable us to realise more completely' the everj'-day 
 life of the shop and the counter. 
 
 But this — though the more interesting aspect to
 
 122 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 US — was not, it must be remembered, the aspect in 
 which Oxford appeared to the England of the time. 
 Nor was it Oxford's educational position which gave 
 her the importance which she retained through the 
 first half of this century. Walpole, who hated books 
 and tossed history aside with a contemptuous — 
 " That I know must be false," was not likely to care 
 much for schoolmaster-functions which the university 
 so imperfectly discharged. Nor did the country 
 scjuire, Avhose library consisted of the tattered 
 Baker's Chronicles and a few l)Ooks on simples 
 and farriery, in the hall-window, care one straw for 
 the learning of Dr. Hyde, or the resources of the 
 Bodleian. Yet Oxford Vt^as the one point of interest 
 for botli squire and minister. It was the Jacobite 
 capital of England. The traders of London might 
 think of Addison's " sponge " and shout themselves 
 hoarse for Public Credit and the Protestant Succes- 
 sion ; Oxford brooded over memories of parliament- 
 ary visitors and " purified " colleges, and toasted the 
 "King over the water." It was the place of all 
 others where tradition exercised most influence, and 
 the traditions of 1640 hung round Oxford like a 
 baneful spell. Christ Church still boasted of her 
 loyally-defiant Dr. Fell ; even Jesus could lay her 
 poverty at the door of the fraudulent Principal whom 
 the Visitors had set over her. The ring of arms had 
 hardly yet died out of the memories of men. There, 
 in Bodley's Library, the curious visitor was shown 
 the map in which " H. Shirburne, Esq., a native of
 
 OXFORD DURING THE KKiHTEKXTll CIvNTURY 12:5 
 
 Oxon, and Comptroller of the Ordnance," had 
 graven Oxford "whilst it was a garrison, ■with all its 
 fortifications, bastions, trenches," and on which 
 Charles himself, " much approving, wrote the names 
 of the bastions with his own hand." ^ Very old men 
 could remember the scenes which A. Wood's rough 
 memoranda have handed down to us ; the students 
 but too willingly drawn from their books to the 
 muster; the troop of university horse Avhich has 
 bequeathed its name to the " Oxford blues " ; the 
 city girded by floods on every side save the north, 
 and the Abingdon road, cleaving the inundations, 
 covered with long trains of provisions, or echoing the 
 tramp of Rupert and his straggling troopers, fagged 
 and weary from skirmishes as successful — and as 
 fatal to the noble and good — as that of Chalgrove. 
 Such a one was the " old Viill Bremicham," with Avhom 
 Hearne often, as he tells us, conversed, who used to 
 supply his father's place, as a sentinel on the ramparts, 
 " where Buddard's garden, as they call it, by Wadham 
 is now." The old man could remember Charles, "a 
 thin man, of a little picked beard and little whiskers," 
 and the hanging of the notable traitor on the oak 
 towards Abingdon, to which the execution gave the 
 name of "Blake's Oak."- The Restoration of the 
 Royal Family was no mere matter of political feeling 
 in Oxford ; it meant there the restoration of hundreds 
 of fellows and scholars who had been ejected for 
 their cause. IMcn so expelled, so restored, were not 
 likely easily to forget to whom they owed the one
 
 124 OXrORD STUDIES 
 
 benefit or the other. And so it was that when the 
 fever-fit of loyalty, which had succeeded the liestora- 
 tion, had abated elsewhere, it was still maintained 
 at its height in Oxford. Thither Charles II. pro- 
 rogued his Parliament when London and Shaftesbury 
 seemed likely to foil the projects of the "merry 
 monarch " ; and its streets had been filled with the 
 armed retinues of the great opposition lords, who 
 distrusted the pledges of a Stuart. It rewarded 
 Charles's confidence Avith the most abject devotion. 
 No job was too dirty, no humiliation too base, for its 
 loyalty. Again and again Whigs smiled and the 
 printers rejoiced to see its Heads looking on while 
 beadles stirred the fire that consumed some anathe- 
 matized volume or pamphlet. A word from Court, 
 and Locke was expelled from Christ Church ; and 
 foreign men of learning smiled when the exiled 
 philosopher told them his great work was contraband 
 in the university on account of its " Whig principles." 
 But Oxford was ready to stoop to compliances baser 
 even than this. AVhen Charles was baulked in his 
 desire to sacrifice Colledge, "the Protestant Joiner," 
 by the " Ignoramus " of a London grand jury, the 
 victim was despatched to Oxford, and the judicial 
 murder was easily consummated.^ 
 
 With facts like these staring us in the face, we 
 may perchance have little sympathy to spare for 
 the university when the characteristic ingratitude of 
 the Stuarts turned upon itself the tyranny it had so 
 warmly applauded when exercised on others. For
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 125 
 
 the moment " non-resistance "' was forgotten. The 
 King was dclie<l, and the Prince of Orange welcomed. 
 But the welcome of the Prince aiignred no welcome 
 for King William. The oath of allegiance forced the 
 Avaverers to a quick decision. Some, the worthiest, 
 resigned all rather than take it ; the majority swoi'c, 
 and counted the imposition of the oath a iievr griev- 
 ance against "the intruder." As day by day the 
 memory of the wrong James had done them grew 
 weaker, the memory of the wrong they had done James 
 waxed the stronger and stronger. Oxford began to 
 reassume its position during the Great Eebellion. 
 Then, as now, the Stuarts had been driven from the 
 throne — then, as now, a " test " had emptied fellow- 
 ships and prefci'ments- — and the acutest politicians 
 of the time could not predict but that a restoration 
 now, as then, was an event within the bounds of 
 probability. Communications were soon opened with 
 the Pretender. Non-jurors retired to Oxford to 
 find cognate sympathies and society, and formed a 
 little junto for the reception and discussion of 
 despatches from St. Germain's. Mr. GifFard, the 
 ejected rector of Russell in Wilts, was there for the 
 sake of " honest company,"^ and by this time " honest " 
 was the cant term for "Jacobite." Holdsworth, an 
 ejected fellow of Magdalen, and well known for his 
 amusing " Muscipula," had brought thither from 
 Rome the pictures of the Pretender and his consort ; - 
 Leak brings news — to be told when none but honest 
 folk are present — of the birth of that son of the
 
 126 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Chevalier de St. George who, under the name of 
 Prince Charles Edward, was to culminate at Derby 
 and set at Culloden.^ In St. Giles's lived Dr. Wynne, 
 a man learned and benevolent, who had put a stop 
 to the profligate sale of fellowships at All Souls only 
 to be deprived of his own "about midnight" by the 
 Whig head. Dr. Gardiner.^ This junto it was that 
 leavened the whole mass, but the mass needed little 
 leavening. Freshmen were, drawn from the very 
 quarters where Jacobitism still reigned triumphant, 
 from the country nooks where the squire caught up 
 the Scotch songs that were creeping about, and 
 trolled out " Here's a health to him that's far 
 awa'"; or the vicar weekly thundered against "the 
 pretended right to resistance." "I am a Tory," says 
 one of them, "and all my family have been Tories ; 
 my grandfather lost his estate against Oliver Crom- 
 well ; my father was a great sufferer for King James 
 II. ; and I myself had my head broke in defence of 
 Dr. Sacheverell before I was eight years old."^ One 
 so trained was ready to sit down at his first introduc- 
 tion to his tutor, and toast Ormond and Mar six 
 bumpers deep. 
 
 Besides the historical causes — if we may so term 
 them — there were other circumstances peculiar to 
 the time which aided Oxford in becomino: the sjreat 
 capital of Jacobite England. London indeed was 
 then, even in a greater degree than now, not only 
 the emporium of commerce, but of learning, of 
 manners, one may almost say, of civilisation. It
 
 OXFORD DrrjNO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 127 
 
 was to England what Paris is now to France. Other 
 cities l)orc no comparison with the capital ; mann 
 factures had not begotten Manchester, nor had 
 commerce reared Liverpool. London was the great 
 magnet to which whatever genius cropped up was 
 irresistibly attracted, that drew Chatterton from 
 Bristol, Goldsmith from Dublin, Johnson and Gar- 
 rick from Lichfield. But there were material obstacles 
 which circumscribed the range of the influence which 
 it radiated back in return. Prominent among these 
 were the badness and insecurity of the roads. And 
 every mile from London the roads grew less travers- 
 able and less secure. AYe have already dwelt enough 
 on the highwaymen and their exploits, but we can 
 hardly now realise the dread and terror of travel 
 which those exploits created. Still less can we 
 realise the condition of the roads, the long lanes of 
 mud and ruts through which the lumbering "dili- 
 gence" ploughed its way to London. Here is a 
 Prince on his travels, no further back than 1734. 
 " As the Prince of Orange was going from Newbury 
 to Abingdon in order to see Oxford, and the road 
 lying through a lane almost impassable for a coach 
 and ver}^ dangerous, a wealthy farmer, Avhose estate 
 lay contiguous, threw down the hedges and opened 
 a way for his highness to pass through his 
 grounds." ^ 
 
 One consequence was that the provincial dis- 
 tricts fell far behind in the progress of intelligence. 
 Addison has humorously sketched a Templar riding
 
 128 OXFORD STUriES 
 
 forth on a briefless circuit and busy in marking 
 how, by imperceptible degrees, costume grew more 
 antiquated every stage of his journey, till on his 
 arrival in CornAvall he found the high sheriff priding 
 himself on the fashion of a coat which had l)oen fifty 
 years out of date in town. And it was with manners 
 as with costume. The farther from the metropolis, 
 the farther one went from refinement or education. 
 Wales was for all practical purposes at a greater 
 distance from London than it is now from Vienna. 
 Without adopting Squire Vfestern as the common 
 type of the country gentleman of the day, one can 
 understand the contempt which the novelist's portrait 
 undoubtedly displays. The riches of the country 
 aristocracy might indeed find their way to the 
 amusement, the society, the dissipation of town, but 
 the bulk of the country squires vegetated on their 
 estates, cut off from communication with the world 
 Avithout (save by the monthly "Dyer's Letter," 
 humble precursor of our newspapers and reviews) an 
 occupation but that of hunting, or an ambition but 
 that of being the deepest sot among the topers of the 
 c{uorum. The squire's dame (as Humphrey Clinker 
 reveals her to us), spite of " her rose-coloured negligee, 
 her yellow damask, and blue quilted petticoat," 
 which, with French commode and Mechlin headdress, 
 were disentombed from the walnut-press at the 
 advent of a new visitor, was but a farmer's wife. 
 She had to care for her cheese, her savings of butter- 
 milk, her turkeys, chickens, and goslings ; it was her
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 129 
 
 business to see when old Moll had another litter of 
 pigs, what the Alderney calf might fetch, or whether 
 the goose was sitting ; it was her eye that kept the 
 maids busy at their spinning-wheels, and watched 
 over ungrateful " Mary Jones that loved to be romping 
 with the men." 
 
 The chief result of all this was the greater com- 
 parative importance of the provincial towns. The 
 one great centre being practically beyond access, 
 each started into the little centres of its own district. 
 We pass through these country towns, and wonder 
 at the great brick houses, the haunt now of a score 
 of lodgers, but whence of old the county magnates 
 sallied forth to hunt, ball, or assembly. Macadam 
 and Stephenson have been the vandals of these little 
 rural capita/Is. But at this time they were in the 
 heyday of prosperit}^, and this prosperity was shared 
 by Oxford ; itself a provincial centre, with which no 
 rival could compete. Here the youth, just fresh 
 from the dulness and ignorance of the country, 
 could find all the excess, the life, the refinement of 
 town. It was a sudden plunge at an age when the 
 mind is most susceptible of impressions — that plunge 
 into the Tory atmosphere of Oxford. And the 
 prejudices which the neophyte encountered were 
 but the counterparts of his own. All that chivalry 
 and noble feeling had suggested in favour of the 
 exiled race was now confirmed by the sanction of 
 those whom, at first, he must have looked up to as 
 men of learning and religion. He could give the lie
 
 130 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 to the Whig attorney of his native town, who con- 
 trasted the ignorance of the Jacobites with the men 
 of letters who rallied round the constitution. The 
 men of letters, whom he met in the High, or the 
 Broad, were Jacobites to a man. It was no wonder 
 that Oxford, thus reinforced, became the focus of 
 disloyalty to the House of Hanover; that after 
 abdicating her functions of the guardian of religion, 
 as the nurse of learning, she came forward as the 
 defiant champion of a retrograde and senseless 
 Toryism. But when the patient firmness of the 
 national will had foiled again and again her efforts at 
 what would have been self-destruction ; when the 
 Jacobite blindness had passed from her eyes, and 
 she saw herself landed in safety on the securer 
 ground of "Church and King" — it may be that a 
 few humorists, such as Dr. King, smiled at the 
 story of the poor Irish bricklayer, who had betted 
 against the possibility of his comrades carrying him 
 up a ladder in his hod, and when safely disembarked 
 on the roof could find no better reflection on his 
 foolhardiness than "Faix, but I had hopes at the 
 third story."
 
 XI 
 
 In our last Paper we attempted to sketch, in detail, 
 the causes which led to the political position which 
 the university assumed in the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, a position so opposite to her own 
 interests and to the sentiments of the wiser and 
 more statesmanlike among the nation at large — the 
 greater importance of provincial towns, the metro- 
 politan position which Oxford occupied towards the 
 yovuig students who flocked to her, the character of 
 those classes from whom she drew her chief rein- 
 forcements, the country squires and the country 
 parsons. But, above all, we directed attention to 
 the traditions in which Oxford was bound and en- 
 tangled, the noble memories of sufferings, manfully 
 borne, for the cause of the Stuarts, the bitter remem- 
 brance of injuries, never to be forgotten, inflicted by 
 the usurpers. A mere glance round the landscape 
 would, in Tory hearts, revive the bitterest reminis- 
 cences. The great forest of Bagley, that stretched 
 to the very skirts of Oxford, and enveloped Abingdon
 
 132 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 in old time, had, indeed, long been curtailed. But, 
 up to the Great Eebellion, the neighbourhood of 
 Oxford was well - wooded ; spite of Fuller's com- 
 plaints : " Indeed, the woods therein are put to too 
 hard a task in their daily duty, viz. to find fuel 
 and timber for all the houses in, and many out of, the 
 shire, and they cannot possibly hold out, if not season- 
 ably relieved by pit- coal, found here, or sea- coal 
 brought hither." The forests had been dear to the 
 city. " When Shotover woods," we quote the same 
 amusing author, " being bestowed by King Charles the 
 First on a person of honour, were likely to be cut down, 
 the university, by letters, laboured their preserva- 
 tion, wherein this, among many other pathetical 
 expressions, ' that Oxford was one of the eyes of the 
 land, and Shotover woods the hair of the eyelids, the 
 loss whereof must needs prejudice the sight with too 
 much moisture flowing therein.' This retrenched that 
 design for the present, but in what case the woods 
 stand at this day is to me unknown."^ Dr. Plot, 
 however, can tell. " The hills, 'tis true, before the late 
 unhappy wars, were well enough — as Camden says — 
 beset with woods, where now 'tis so scarce that 'tis a 
 common thing to sell it by weight."'- The ravages 
 during; the Great Rebellion had left traces that no 
 loyalist heart could well forget. 
 
 But to this natural sympathy, and to the pride 
 which might arise from a consciousness of the political 
 importance which Oxford now assumed, Ave must 
 add that perverseness with which the university has
 
 OXFORD DURING THK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 133 
 
 SO often shown itself the antagonist of national feel- 
 ing. " Chronica si penses," says the old proverb, 
 
 Cum pugiiant Oxonienses 
 Tunc post sex menses volat ira per Augligenses. 
 
 But the wrath of the people was as likely to be in 
 opposition as in accordance with the result of the 
 university's contests. When crown and nation alike 
 took alarm at what were then considered the socialist 
 doctrines of Wycliffc, the reformer could find his 
 stanchest adherents and disciples in the lecture- 
 rooms of Oxford. So violent was the tendency that 
 Eichard Fleming, at first a strong partisan, but after 
 his elevation to the see of Lincoln, as strong an 
 opponent of the new doctrines, thought it wise to 
 establish the college which bears the name of his 
 see, for the purpose of perpetually opposing the 
 tenets of " that pestiferous sect," as the statutes 
 termed the Lollards. But the first dawn of the 
 Reformation had been watched by the great prelates 
 Avho founded Corpus Christi and Brasenose, as bul- 
 warks against the spread of heresy in the University. 
 And so, though literature and scholars such as 
 Erasmus and Ludovicus Vives spread " the new 
 learning " in Oxford, and the teachers whom AVolsey 
 had gathered from Cambridge and elsewhere secretly 
 countenanced the rising heresy, the university, as a 
 body, stood aloof from the movement ; it required 
 menaces to gain her assent to that divorce which was 
 the turning-point in the contest, and Oxford is only
 
 134 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 associated with the Eeformation by that burning 
 of the three bishops that " lighted such a fire in 
 England as shall not easily be put out." In the great 
 national strife against Charles the First, Maynwaryng 
 went forth from Oxford to preach "No resistance," 
 and Laud to counsel " Thorough." 
 
 There Avere some who believed that by violent 
 measures the universities could be brought into 
 unison with the national feeling, and amongst the 
 earliest of these was Locke. " Sir, you have made a 
 most glorious and happy Ee volution, but the good 
 effects of it will soon be lost if no care be taken to 
 regulate our universities,"^ was the appeal of one who, 
 perhaps, still smarted with the disgrace of an exclusion, 
 on mere political grounds, from Christ Church. But 
 the Government wisely held aloof — how wisely the 
 result of Sacheverell's " persecution " was destined to 
 prove. During William's reign and the first years of 
 his successor the university merely talked. Non-jurors 
 were content to ignore the "usurpers," and in the 
 midst of the rejoicings for Marlborough's victories, to 
 exult over the exploits of the young Pretender, 
 though fighting against those whom he claimed as 
 his subjects and countrymen. " Amongst others, that 
 signalized themselves " in the battle near Mons, 
 says Hearne, " must not be forgotten the young King 
 of England, who fought under the character of the 
 Chevalier St. George, and 'tis by that title he passes. 
 He showed abundance of undaunted courage and re- 
 solution, led up his troops with unspeakable bravery,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGIITKENTII CENTURY 135 
 
 appeared in the utmost dangers, and at last was 
 wounde<,l." ^ Jacobites, to whom London was danger- 
 ous, sought shelter in Oxford. Leslie, author of the 
 seditious pamphlet, "The Memorial of the Church of 
 England," in his flight from outlawry, could visit the 
 Bodleian under a flimsy incognito, without fear of 
 discovery.^ A visitor of greater interest to us was the 
 father of the Wesleys. In a previous Paper we saw 
 him starting, without a penny, to Oxford, and eking 
 out his subsistence as a servitor, by teaching and 
 composing exercises for the idlers of his college. He 
 was ordained, became, in turn, a navy chaplain and 
 a London curate, and, in his latter capacity, distin- 
 guished himself by refusing to read James's obnoxious 
 " Declaration," and taking for his text the reply of 
 Daniel, "Be it known unto thee, King, that we 
 will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image 
 that thou hast set up." The Revolution came, and 
 Wesley was amongst the foremost to write in its de- 
 fence ; and the dedication of his work to Queen Mary 
 Avas rewarded with the living of Epworth, in Lincoln- 
 shire.^ Like his sons, he was a poet, and a poem on 
 the battle of Blenheim procured him a chaplain's 
 place in one of the new regiments, and a promise 
 of greater favour. But Wesley was among those 
 whose conscience or obstinacy are for ever marring 
 their fortune. He had engaged in an acrimonious 
 controversy with the Dissenters, and the request of 
 the " person " on whom all his hopes of preferment 
 rested that he would drop the dispute, "had a con-
 
 136 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 trary effect to what was expected, I left my fortunes 
 in God's hands, and resolved to act according to my 
 conscience," ho says in his letter. Accordingly, no 
 sooner had he gone down into the country than he 
 threw himself into election struggles, Avrote letters, 
 which his enemies charged with treason, was ousted 
 from his chaplaincy, and thrown into prison for deht 
 to one of the friends of the candidate he had 
 opposed. The same zeal that had involved him in 
 these misfortunes had gained him bitter foes among 
 his Lincolnshire parishioners ; but we must leave his 
 own begging letter to tell the story of a poor parson's 
 life and misfortunes in the last century. " I had 
 been thrown behind by a series of misfortunes. My 
 jiarsonage barn was blown down ere I had recovered 
 the taking my living; my house, great part of it, 
 burnt down about two years since; my flax, great 
 part of my income, now in my own hands (hemp 
 was the principal crop of the neighbourhood), I doubt 
 wilfully fired and burnt in the night, whilst I was last 
 in London ; my income sunk about one half by the 
 low price of grain; and my credit lost by the 
 taking away my regiment. I was brought to Lincoln 
 Castle June the 23rd last past. About three weeks 
 since, my very unkind people, thinking they had not 
 yet done enough, have, in the night, stabbed my three 
 cows, which were a great part of my poor numerous 
 family's subsistence. For which God forgive them." ^ 
 The letter was responded to by considerable sub- 
 scriptions on the part of all the colleges, and a vote
 
 OXFOIU) DUllINd TlIK EIGHTEi<>M'H CENTURY 137 
 
 of £20 from the justices in session ; Ijut the sympathy 
 was not so much for his distress as for his opposition 
 to the Whigs. " There is a gathering making in the 
 University for relief of Mr. Wesley," says Hearne, 
 " to the great mortification of the fanatics." ^ To the 
 same charitable end tended the ceaseless calumnies 
 which Oxford common - rooms poured foith against 
 the character of the Prince whose first arrival they 
 had so vehemently welcomed. To us it would seem 
 simjjly ridiculous were a grave Don to assert that 
 " King William gave £1000 to those infamous villains 
 Blackett and Fuller, that were embarked in a design 
 to take away the lives of Archbishop Sancroft and 
 Bishop Spratt " ; ^ but the lie thus circulated became a 
 source of exultation to the Tories and of indignation 
 to the Whigs. On the other hand no eulogy could 
 be too great for the suflferers for " loyalty's " 
 sake. Lord Griffin dies in the tower, "confined," 
 comments Hearne, "for treason, as they now call 
 sticking close to the oath of allegiance, and adhering 
 firmly to the undoubted Sovereign." ^ The most 
 odious epithets were lavished on their political foes. 
 " Vile, stinking Whig "* almost recalls to our memory 
 O'Connell's "base, bloody, and brutal." A chorus 
 of indignant invective saluted any public demonstra- 
 tion of Whig principles. Long after this several of 
 the nobility had to vindicate their characters — as 
 though the aspersions were a grave one — from having 
 met together purposely to carouse on the 30th of 
 January, the " jMartyr's day." And the Tory annalist
 
 138 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 commemorates " an abominable riot committed in All 
 Souls' College. Mr. Dalton, A.B., and Mr. Talbot, 
 A.M., son to the Bishop of Oxon, both fellows, had a 
 dinner drest at 12 Clock, part of which was woodcocks, 
 whose heads they cut off in contempt of the memory of 
 the blessed martyr. At this dinner were present 
 two of the pro-proctors, of Oriel Coll., Mr. Ibbetson 
 and Mr. Rogers, to their shame be it spoken, both low 
 church men. 'Tis to be noted that this Dalton, an 
 empty fellow, is one of those whom the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, Dr. Tennison, put into the Society 
 upon the devolution to him of that power when Dr. 
 Finch the late Warden died. He was for having 
 calves' heads, but the cook refused to dress them."^ 
 
 Greater persons than cooks, however, were now 
 coming forward to vindicate the Toryism of the 
 University. Sacheverell, like his personal friend but 
 political opponent, Addison, was a fellow of Magdalen. 
 It is hard to guess the causes of the friendship between 
 two so opposed in character as well as opinion, for, 
 from the testimony of his very supporters, Sache- 
 verell was a man of infinite bluster but of scanty 
 parts or knowledge. It fell, however, to his lot to 
 preach at St. Paul's before the Lord Mayor and Cor- 
 poration, and he selected for the occasion a sermon 
 which he had just preached at St. Mary's. But 
 language that fell unheeded in Oxford sounded like 
 treason at St, Paul's. He upbraided "the fanatics" 
 for condemning the king of high treason against " his 
 supreme subjects." He taunted the Whig ministers,
 
 OXFORD DURING TJIK EIGHTKENTH CENTURY 139 
 
 and singled out Clodolpliin by the nickname of 
 Volpone. Then, turning on the AVhig London clergy, 
 who sat in great numbers in the choir — " The Wliigs," 
 he thundered out, " are conformists in faction, half 
 conformists in practice, and nonconformist in judg- 
 ment." The glove thus boldly thrown down wus at 
 once taken up by the opposite party. Tlie Govern- 
 ment talked of prosecution. The Lord Mayor and 
 Corporation refused to order the sermon to be printed. 
 But the university was not backward in supporting 
 her daring son. Drs. Moss and Smalridge refused 
 to preach before the Lord Mayor " on account of the 
 ill-treatment Dr. Sacheverell had received."^ The 
 populace, wearied with the long war Avhose objects they 
 could not understand, and roused by the cry of " the 
 church in danger," flocked to hear the preacher at 
 Lothbury, and pulled down Meeting-houses to show 
 their zeal for the Establishment. ]\Iobs surrounded 
 the Queen's coach with shouts of " The Church and 
 Dr. Sachevercll." The impeachment went on, and 
 Atterbury and the Oxford wits penned an ingenious 
 and impressive defence. The return from the trial 
 was a triumphal progress. Addresses were presented 
 to the doctor ; purses were thrown into his coach- 
 Everywhere he stopped on his journey to his parson- 
 age in Wales mobs turned out to huzzah him. Oxford 
 received him in solemn procession, and the bells rang 
 as for a victory.^ 
 
 It was indeed a victory for the Tories. The 
 Queen was weary of imperious Duchess Sarah of
 
 140 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Marlborough, iincl the nation was weary of the war. 
 The Sacheverell mania gave a last blow to the totter- 
 ing ministry, and, aided by Mrs. Masham, Harley and 
 Bolingbroke came into power. Peace was made, and 
 the people were contented. Whisj^ers spread abroad 
 of ministerial intrigues for the restoration of the 
 Pretender on the Queen's death, and the Jacobites 
 waited in silence. " Mr. Giffard told us last night," 
 says Hearne, " when several of us were in companj^, all 
 honest men, that the young king was in England 
 when the present Queen, as she is styled, his sister, was 
 crowned, and he further says that the Queen kissed 
 him at that time, he being present at the coronation. 
 This is a great secret." ^ It was on " secrets " like these 
 that the Tories relied, as they saw the Queen's health 
 gradually declining. Smalridge and Atterbury were 
 rapidly promoted ; Oxford again basked in court 
 favour, and its tranquillity gave no sign of the stormy 
 outbreak which was so soon to follow the downfall 
 of its hopes. This, however, we reserve for our 
 next Paper.
 
 XII 
 
 The accession of Harley -to power, the Jacobite syra- 
 I)athics of the Queen, the hopes that rested on her 
 failing health and on the success of the intrigues of 
 Bolingbroke and Ormond, had given a seeming peace 
 to the university. Both parties shook hands on the 
 brink of a deadly struggle. They accosted each 
 other in the streets ; politics were carefully excluded 
 from conversation ; party words — those badges of 
 faction — laid for a Avhile aside. The Whi^ was 
 silent about the " Pretender " ; the Tory, in return, 
 said little about the "Elector of Brunswick." The 
 one party looked hopefully to Hanover — its rival, to 
 the Ministry and St. Gerraains. 
 
 At length the crisis came. The Ministry, dis- 
 united and shaken by Bolingbroke's manoeuvres, 
 hung back irresolutely. The Jacobite members of 
 the Cabinet exhorted them in vain to a bolder course 
 of action. Atterbury, bishop though he was, swore 
 with an oath that, give him but a regiment of the 
 Guards, and he would proclaim the Pretender in the 
 heart of the city. But, while their enemies were
 
 142 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 discussing, the great Whig lords had forced their way 
 into the Council Chamber. The Queen died, and 
 Bolingbroke was flying for his life across the Channel, 
 Harley waiting for impeachment at home. The 
 Elector was on the throne, and the Whigs sang a 
 triumphant welcome to the first of the Georges. 
 
 Bitter as the disappointment must have been, the 
 new king was at all events received without open 
 opposition in the greater part of his dominions. In 
 Scotland, indeed, there were signs of the rebellion 
 which Mar was so soon to put himself at the head 
 of, but in England the discontent only expressed 
 itself in that "grumbling" which an Englishman 
 reckons among his constitutional privileges. Here 
 and there one might find a parish clerk that had 
 "ransacked Hopkins and Sternhold for staves in 
 favour of the race of Jacob ; after the example of 
 their politic predecessors in Oliver's days, who on 
 every Sabbath were for binding kings in chains and 
 nobles with links of iron." The Jacobite beauty 
 might parade her white rose, to spite the rival fair 
 one, who, " to show her zeal for revolution principles, 
 had adorned her bosom with a Sweet William." Elec- 
 tions for " Toasts " might be decided in clubs rather 
 on political than on personal grounds, and a trifling 
 deformity be pardoned on account of "honest prin- 
 ciples." In the theatres the ladies patched on 
 diff'erent sides as they differed in opinion ; and the 
 audience ranged into parties, selected their respective 
 favourites, and hooted or applauded every chance
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 143 
 
 phrase that they could wrest to the contests of the 
 day. In the country the strife took other, but not 
 more demonstrative forms. The elder Wesley's house 
 — according to his own account — was haunted by a 
 goblin that proved its Jacobitism by rarely suffering 
 him to pray for the King or the Prince of Wales 
 without disturbing the family devotions. " As to the 
 devil's being an enemy to King George," replied his 
 son Samuel, to whom he communicated his troubles, 
 "were I the King myself, I should rather old Nick 
 should be my enemy than my friend." ^ Even up to 
 the beginning of George III.'s reign there were 
 persons in Bristol whose political principles would 
 not allow them to receive King William's halfpence, 
 and such was the inconvenience to trade which 
 attended their refusal that the interference of the 
 magistrates was thought necessary. 
 
 But a more envenomed opposition awaited the 
 triumph of the Whig cause at Oxford. There the 
 correspondents of Atterbury, the confidants of Dr. 
 King, Avaited, hour by hour, for some interference 
 that never came, some rising that never occurred. 
 They exulted at the small number of people who 
 attended to hear the Hanoverian proclaimed at 
 Abingdon. " A person in an open-sleeved gown, and 
 in a cinnamon -coloured coat," left at the Mayor's 
 house a letter, which, in its medley of cowardly 
 threats, craven petitions, and vague intimations, 
 gives us a very lively picture of the state of the 
 Jacobite minds of the time.
 
 144 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 "Mr. Mayor, — If you arc so honest a man as to 
 prefer your duty and allegiance to your lawful 
 sovereign before the fear of danger, you will not 
 need this caution, which comes from your friends to 
 warn you if you should receive an order to proclaim 
 Hanover not to comply with it. For the hand of 
 God is now at work to set things upon a right foot, 
 and in a few days you will find wonderful changes, 
 which if you are wise enough to foresee you will 
 obtain grace and favour from the hands of his sacred 
 Majesty King James by proclaiming him voluntarily, 
 which otherwise you will be forced to do with dis- 
 grace. If you have not the courage to do this, at 
 least for your own safety delay proclaiming Hangver 
 as long as you can under pretence of sickness or 
 some other reason. For you cannot do it without 
 certain hazard of your life, be you ever so well 
 guarded. I, who am but secretary to the rest, 
 having a particular friendship for you and an 
 opinion of your honesty and good inclinations to his 
 Majesty's service, have prevailed with them to let me 
 give you this warning. If you would know Avho 
 the rest are, our name is Legion — and we are many." 
 
 The only notice taken of this ludicrous epistle was 
 a proclamation by the Heads of Houses, and an offer 
 of £100 for the discovery of the deliverer in the 
 cinnamon- coloured coat.^ Broadwater, the Mayor, 
 " honest " though his subsequent conduct shews him 
 to have been, was prudent enough to proclaim the 
 accession on Carfax with all the usual ceremonies.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145 * 
 
 while the Heads met at the Convocation House and 
 proceeded to St. Mary's for the same purpose. The 
 Tories, however, exulted with Hearne " on the small 
 appearance of Doctors and Masters " in the procession, 
 and in the feeble rejoicings and scanty illuminations 
 with which Oxford celebrated the occasion.^ But 
 day after day passed -without notes of disturbance, 
 the country was quiet, and men began to hope that 
 the same peaceful sentiments would prevail at the 
 university. There, however, the waiting against hope 
 begat a bitterness which could not long contain itself 
 in even an appearance of content. The rage of the 
 vanquished broke out in all the malice of a baffled 
 and disappointed faction. Libels covered the tables 
 of the coffee-houses ; grave dons toasted " The King 
 over the water " ; rioters sang treasonable lampoons 
 beneath the windows of the hated Hanoverians. 
 They were marked out for persecution and scorn. 
 Common-rooms had no mercy on them ; Golgotha — 
 the place of skulls, as the Hebdomadal room ^ was 
 then called — denied them justice or redress. Nor 
 was it better without college than within. If they 
 ventured forth they were sure of insult from the 
 crowd ; gownsmen shouted at them as they passed, 
 and the rabble at their bidding hustled and mobbed 
 them.'* 
 
 But the Whigs, few as they were in Oxford, were 
 too fresh from the triumph of their cause to yield 
 without a struggle. Their lack of numbers called for 
 union, and it is characteristic of their age that they 
 
 L
 
 146 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 found this union in a club. To this — the Constitu- 
 tion Club — all were to be admitted who were well- 
 affected to the Government, and (as we presume few 
 Whigs could be found among undergraduates) not 
 below the Bachelor's degree. Originated by some 
 members of New College, and patronised by Dr. 
 Gardiner, the Head of All Souls, it soon became the 
 centre round which the poor persecuted Whigs 
 grouped. The Tories fumed at " the insolent 
 loyalty " of the united Hanoverians.-^ But, as yet, 
 though individual members might be persecuted, no 
 opportunity could be found for attack on the club. 
 On the 28th of May 1715, however, came the first 
 anniversary of the birthday of the new Sovereign. 
 The bells " were j ambled by the Whiggish fanatical 
 crew," as Hearne growls, but "honest folk" mocked, 
 and drank deep for King James. ^ Mobs paraded the 
 streets, shouting for the Pretender, and putting a 
 stop to every kind of rejoicing. The Constitution 
 Club had gathered to commemorate the day at the 
 King's Head. The windows were illuminated, and 
 preparations made for a bonfire. Tossing up their 
 caps, and scattering money among the rabble that 
 flocked to the front of the hotel, the Jacobite gowns- 
 men egged them on with shouts of " No George " ; 
 "James for ever"; " Ormond " ; or " Bolingbroke." 
 The fagots were torn to pieces, showers of brickbats 
 were thrown into the clubroom. It was feared lives 
 would have been lost had not the Constitutioners 
 escaped by the back door, and slunk away to their
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 147 
 
 colleges. Thus baffled, the mob rolled on to attcaclc 
 all illuminated houses. Every Whig window was 
 smashed. The meeting-house was entered and 
 gutted.^ This was the usual mode of showing con- 
 cern for the Church by men who, like Addison's Tory 
 landlord, " had not time to go to church himself, but 
 — as my friend told me in my ear— had headed the 
 mob at the pulling down of two or three meeting- 
 houses." There was some reason for the essayist's 
 caustic comment — "Their concern for the Church 
 always rises highest when they are acting in direct 
 opposition to its doctrines. Our streets are filled 
 at the same time with zeal and drunkenness, riots 
 and religion. We must confess that if noise and 
 clamour, slander and calumny, treason and perjury, 
 were articles of their communion there would be 
 none living more punctual in the performance of 
 their duties." 
 
 At last the mob dispersed for the night, publicly 
 giving out that "the glorious work" was left un- 
 finished till the morrow. The Twenty-ninth of May 
 was associated with too significant reminiscences to 
 be allowed to pass in quiet. Sunday though it was, 
 the streets were filled with people running up and 
 down with oak boughs in their hats, and shouts of 
 " King James, the true king — No Usurper. The Good 
 Duke of Ormond ! " The streets were brilliantly 
 illuminated ; indeed, wherever disregard was shown 
 to the mob's fiat, the windows Avere broken.^ It is a 
 sign of the deep disloyalty of the place that even
 
 148 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 those who hud not shared in the riot of the past 
 night, boasted of their part in it. The real rioters 
 displayed their hoarseness in proof of the vigour of 
 their uproar, and recruited their voices with treason- 
 able healths in every tavern. Oxford had seen no 
 such public rejoicing since the Restoration. The 
 crowds grew thicker and noisier towards even. A 
 rumour had gone abroad that Oriel had given shelter 
 to some of the Constitutionalists. The mob rushed 
 to the attack, and threatened to break open the 
 closely-barred gates. At this moment a shot from a 
 window wounded one of the ringleaders, a gownsman 
 of Brasenose, and the crowd fled in confusion to break 
 fresh windows, gut the houses of dissenters, and pull 
 down the chapels of the Anabajotists and Quakers.^ 
 
 Such is the Whig account of the great Jacobite 
 riots in Oxford in the year of the accession of King 
 George. The account of the Tories was very different. 
 " Golgotha " met to deliberate on the causes of the 
 riot. It was at once laid at the door of the 
 club. They had met there, it was urged, to carry 
 out " extravagant designs," been prevented by an 
 "honest party" in an adjoining room, and forced to 
 steal away.- The guilt, too, of the bloodshed was 
 laid at their door. 'Twas in vain that others, not 
 belonging to the club, who had been in the street at 
 the time of the attack, alleged that its members had 
 given no provocation, had left the tavern before 
 nine, and had been forced to use weapons in self- 
 defence. It was replied by the Heads of Houses,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE KRiHTEENTll CENTURY 119 
 
 and to such a reply it is difficult to see what answer 
 could be made, that had the Constitutional Club not 
 been assembled in the tavern on the 28th, the riot 
 could not have occurred, and that on this ground 
 the club must be adjudged the originators of the 
 disturbances. Nor were the Heads alone in this 
 conclusion. The grand jury of the county made a 
 similar presentment at the assizes, branding the 
 Constitutionalists as "a set of factious men, who, 
 shrouding themselves under the specious name of 
 the Constitution Club, were enemies to monarchy 
 and all good government, and had been the authors 
 of all the tumults and disorders that had happened in 
 the city or county of Oxford."^ The county juries, 
 however, had long since earned a reputation for un- 
 flinching Jacobitism by the trial of Du Cain, an 
 Irish gentleman, who was indicted for declaring his 
 belief that the sovil of King William was in hell. 
 The charge could not be denied, but the jury, never- 
 theless, returned a verdict of acquittal, stating their 
 belief that by the word which he had used the prisoner 
 did not intend to convey the meaning of a place of 
 torment, but merely that intermediate place of rest 
 Avhere the dead repose till the last judgment day ! ^ 
 After sophistry such as this we may, perhaps, attach 
 less importance to the logic by which the grand 
 jury condemned the members of the Constitutional 
 Club.
 
 XIII 
 
 The Heads seem to have entertained a reasonable 
 doubt whether the account of these riots, which 
 proved satisfactory to themselves, would prove 
 equally satisfactory to the Court. " Eattling letters," 
 as Hearne phrases it, had come down to the Pro-Vice- 
 Chancellor, Dr. Charlett, and to the Mayor. "The 
 riots," these missives urged, "had been begun by 
 scholars, and scholars promoted them. . . . The Pro- 
 Vice-Chancellor did not endeavour to suppress them, 
 and the other magistrates were no less remiss." Old 
 Sherwin, the beadle, Avas indeed sent up to London 
 to represent what the Tories styled "the truth of 
 the matter " ; ^ but the Heads felt that the patience 
 of the Government had reached its utmost limits. 
 When June 10th brought the Pretender's birthday, 
 the zeal of his supporters was rudely suppressed. 
 Charlett and the Proctors were industrious in hinder- 
 ing any sign of rejoicing. Illuminations indeed were 
 commenced at Wadham, but they were promptly 
 extinguished by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Atterbury's 
 friend, Smalridge, now, in addition to his Bishopric
 
 OXFORD DURING THK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 151 
 
 of Bristol, Deal I of Christ Church, invited all the 
 noblemen and gentlemen commoners of his house 
 to supper, and kept them in his lodgings, and was 
 christened "a sneaker" for his pains. "All honest 
 men Mere obliged to drink King James's health 
 either privately or out of town." Hearne, with a 
 party of Balliol non-jurors, made merry at Foxcombc.^ 
 The Jacobites had no reason to reproach Golgotha 
 with " sneaking." At their instigation the university, 
 on the impeachment and withdrawal of their Chan- 
 cellor, Ormond, had unanimously elected as his suc- 
 cessor his equally Jacobite brother, the Earl of 
 Arran.2 On the very day of the coronation of 
 King George the Convocation met to confer on Sir 
 Constantine Phipps, one of the most active of the Tory 
 partisans, the honorary degree of D.C.L., with 
 particiilar marks of honour and esteem.^ Of their 
 representatives in Parliament, Bromley disputed the 
 Tory leadership with Wyndham, and Whitlock had to 
 apologise to the House for the intemperate language 
 which, in his opposition to the dissolution, he applied 
 to the Throne.* On the birthday of the Prince of 
 Wales ^ no signs of rejoicing were shown, and the 
 bells were silent. A recruiting party ° was in Oxford 
 at the time, and its Major, indignant at the affront 
 to the house of Hanover, bustled off to the Mayor. 
 The Mayor shuffled ; he did not know, he urged, that 
 it was the Prince Regent's birthday. The Major 
 swore he would draw out his regiment, and celebrate 
 the day with suitable rejoicings. The soldiers were
 
 152 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 drawn out, and the Mayor appeared, as was alleged, 
 to prevent disturbance. A vast mob followed at 
 his heels, and filled up the streets. His very at- 
 tendants insulted the soldiers in their march with 
 opprobrious language and cries of "Down with the 
 Roundheads." Dirt and stones were thrown at them; 
 some the mob even attempted to disarm. Encouraged 
 by the forbearance of the " redcoats," the mob sur- 
 rounded the house where the officers and some of 
 the collegians had met to commemorate the day. 
 The windows were broken by stones thrown from the 
 house opposite, that of one Hurst, an ironmonger; 
 and the soldiers to revenge the affront began a series 
 of retaliations. There was every prospect of a 
 serious riot ; two or three of the soldiers had returned 
 the insults of the Mayor's attendants by firing, 
 but with powder only. The frightened authorities 
 at last applied to the Major for aid, patrols were 
 sent through the streets, and the soldiers ordered to 
 their quarters. Both parties forwarded conflicting 
 accounts to London, and some time subsequently^ the 
 matter was brought before the House of Lords in a 
 debate on the Mutiny Bill. Instead of waiting to be 
 put on its defence, the university boldly constituted 
 itself assailant. A peer complained on its behalf of 
 the disorders Avhich had been caused by the soldiers 
 in different quarters, and especially in Oxford. It 
 was moved, that before proceeding with the Bill an 
 enquirj^ should be made into the riot in that city ; 
 and, on an address being resolved on, the papers
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 153 
 
 relating to it were laid on the table of the House. 
 A grand debate ensued. The cpiscoi^al bench 
 mustered strong in defence. Dawes, Archbishop 
 of York, Eastred, of Chester, Smalridge, of Bristol, 
 Atterbury, of Kochestcr, were supported by the 
 liords Harcourt, Trevor, North, and Grey, the Duke 
 of Buckingham, and, most active of all, by the Earl 
 of Abingdon. For forty years past, it was urged, no 
 regard had been paid by the university to the birth- 
 day of Prince or King by public rejoicing. Illumina- 
 tions and bonfires were but little suitable to the 
 gravity of a place of learning. The magistrates were 
 ignorant of the occasion, and as for the neglect of 
 bell-ringing, only three out of sixteen colleges had 
 bells to ring. The riots, both on the coronation day 
 and the Prince's birthday, were attributable to the 
 insolence of the soldiers, supported by members of 
 the university "calling themselves the Constitution 
 Club," and to the neglect of the officers A fling 
 at the Constitutioners completed the ingenious de- 
 fence. "A certain collegian," it was asserted, "went 
 roimd the bonfires and encouraged the soldiers to 
 break Hurst's windows, and all that were not illu- 
 minated." 
 
 It was not hard for Cowper, Sunderland, Towns- 
 hend, and Parker, to reply to a defence such as this. 
 The university had been forward enough in its 
 rejoicings during the reigns of the Stuarts. The 
 ignorance of the authorities could not be urged after 
 they had been informed by the Major ; and so far
 
 154 OXFOKD STUDIES 
 
 from the riot being attributable to tlie officers, it 
 was only by their exertions that a greater disturb- 
 ance was prevented. The Earl of Abingdon, finding 
 the debate going against him, offered a petition 
 from the Mayor and Magistrates, but it was very 
 properly rejected, as the House was in committee, 
 and the Lords agreed to the following resolutions : 
 — " That the Heads of Houses and the Mayor of the 
 City neglected to make proper rejoicings on the 
 Prince's birthday ; that the officers having met to 
 celebrate the day, the house in which they assembled 
 was assaulted and windows broke by the rabble ; 
 that this assault was the beginning and occasion of 
 the riots which ensued; that the conduct of the 
 Major was justified by the affidavits ; that the print- 
 ing and publishing the depositions while that matter 
 was under the examination of the Lords of Council, 
 and before any resolution was come to, was irregular, 
 disrespectful to the Prince, and tending to sedition."^ 
 In the interval, however, between the riots and 
 these proceedings, which, for the sake of convenience, 
 we have linked together, the Court had taken an 
 opportunity of shewing its resentment by a most 
 contemptuous reception of the address with which 
 the university met the announcement from the 
 Throne of the rebellion in Scotland.^ It is difficult, 
 indeed, to imagine how the actors in this farce could 
 have kept their countenances. It is probable that 
 among the Avhole deputation there was scarce one 
 who did not in his heart wish for Mar's success.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTJI CENTURY 155 
 
 The Government, well informed of the Jacobite 
 plans, of the preparations for insurrection in the 
 western counties, of the arms and artillery gathering 
 at Bath, of the design to surprise Bristol, could 
 hardly jilace much confidence in the loyal professions 
 of a place which they were on the point of coercing 
 by military force. Still, so great had been the for- 
 bearance of the Administration, that it was with no 
 little surprise that Oxford saw Major-General Pepper's 
 entrance at daybreak at the head of his dragoons.^ 
 Martial law was at once proclaimed, and the General 
 declared that any student who presumed to appear 
 beyond the limits of their respective colleges should 
 be marched off to military execution. After the 
 seizure of ten or a dozen persons, "among whom 
 was one Lloyd, a cofTee-man," ^ and of some horses 
 and furniture belonging to the notorious traitor, 
 Colonel Owen, and other Jacobites, the soldiers with- 
 drew to Abingdon, and Handyside's ^ regiment of foot 
 was afterwards ■* quartered in Oxford " to overawe 
 the university." ^ The measure, harsh as it was, can 
 hardly be considered an unnecessary one. Der- 
 wentwater's rebellion was on the point of breaking 
 out, Oxford men were among his associates, and in 
 the number of those who were taken at Preston, we 
 find Hearne mourning over one "Lionel Walden, 
 a very worthy young gentleman," just fresh from 
 Christ Church, who, after a temporary imprisonment, 
 seems to have taken refuge on the continent, and 
 there to have fallen in a miserable squabble with one
 
 156 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Forbes, a fellow refugee.^ To such ends could a 
 worthless cause lead the noblest and bravest of the 
 youth of England ! 
 
 The wits of Oxford met this affront with an epi- 
 gram worthy of a better origin — 
 
 King George, observing with judicious eyes 
 
 Tlie state of both his universities, 
 
 To Oxford sent a troop of horse ; and why ? 
 
 That learned body wanted loyalty. 
 
 To Cambridge books he sent, as well discerning 
 
 How much that loyal body wanted leaining. 
 
 The authorship of this is, we believe, unknown.^ The 
 reply which was made with almost equal seA^erity on 
 behalf of Cambridge was attributed to Sir William 
 Browne, the founder of the prize for odes and epi- 
 grams in that university, and himself a wit of no 
 mean order — 
 
 The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse, 
 For Tories own no argument but force. 
 With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent, 
 For Whigs admit no force but argument. 
 
 The books here alluded to were the 30,000 volumes 
 of Bishop Moore's magnificent library which the 
 Crown had purchased at Lord Townshend's sugges- 
 tion. Cambridge, though cool in comparison with 
 Oxford, was yet Tory in sentiment, and opposed to 
 the domination of the Whigs. She returned in the 
 election of 1715 representatives as anti-Hanoverian 
 as Bromley and Whitlock. Riots took place at
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGIITPJENTII CENTURY 157 
 
 Cambridge as at Oxford on the birthdays of the King 
 and the Pretender, windows were broken, and young 
 gownsmen shouted "No Hanover." But Golgotha 
 was not so blind as at the sister university. Instead 
 of the ingenious logic by which the Oxford Heads 
 thrust the l)lame on to Whig shoulders, the Vice- 
 Chancellor treated the conduct of the young men as 
 a breach of discipline, and the senate in a formal act 
 sanctioned an address to the Throne, acknowledging 
 King George for their rightful sovereign, and promis- 
 ing so to train up the youth under their charge " tliat 
 they might shew in their conduct an example of those 
 principles of loyalty and obedience which this uni- 
 versity, pursuing the doctrines of our Church, has ever 
 steadily maintained. " The doctrine of Non-resistance 
 was an odd one to use in addressing a King who owed 
 his throne to a revolution, but the testimonial was well 
 timed, and the loyalty of Cambridge was rewarded 
 with the present of Bishop Moore's Library.^ 
 
 But the insult to Oxford was resented by measures 
 more weighty, if less provoking, than epigrams. On 
 the suppression of the rebellion, and the conclusion of 
 a triple treaty with France and Holland, addresses 
 poured in from every quarter of the kingdom. " Ox- 
 ford," smiles the Tory Smollett, " was not so lavish 
 of her compliments." At a meeting of the Vice- 
 Chancellor and Heads of Houses an address was 
 moved to the King. Its grounds are curiously 
 stated. The suppression of the late rebellion, and 
 the King's safe return from his Hanoverian dominions.
 
 158 OXFOKD STUDIES 
 
 were coupled — as a concession to Tory prejudice — 
 with "the favour lately shown the university in 
 omitting, at their request, the ceremony of burning 
 in effigy the Devil, the Pope, the Pretender, 
 the Duke of Ormond, and Earl of Mar, on the 
 anniversary of his Majesty's accession," In spite, 
 however, of such a favour as this, the proposal 
 met with a vehement opposition. The rebellion, 
 Smalridge argued, had been long suppressed ; ad- 
 dresses would have no end were one presented on 
 each return of the King from his German dominions ; 
 the favour so much dwelt upon was more than 
 counterbalanced by the regiment that was quartered 
 on them ; while the remonstrances of the university 
 against the riotous conduct of the troops had been 
 met with contemptuous disregard.^ 
 
 If we are amused at this childish display of an 
 impotent resentment, we cannot, on the other hand, 
 fail to be struck with the great forbearance exhibited 
 by the Government in their dealings with Oxford. 
 Enough has been said of the secret intrigues carried 
 on even by Ministers of the Crown with the Court of 
 St. Germains, but historians have failed to notice 
 that the lenity which this conduct forced them to 
 exhibit towards those who were more luckless in their 
 intrigues, or more open in their dealings with the 
 exiles, was one of the main causes of the comparative 
 bloodlessness of the many contests which disturbed 
 the throne of the first two Georges. Certain it is, 
 that of this lenity Oxford had more than its share.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 159 
 
 So long as sedition only trumpeted from its pidpits ; so 
 long as their exertions for the Jacobite cause Avere 
 confined to treasonable toasts and witty epigrams, 
 the Government stood by inactive. Bellarmine — so 
 merciless to heretics — " allowed," says Southey, "free 
 right of pasture on his corporal domains to fleas. He 
 thought they were created to afford exercise for our 
 patience, and, moreover, that it was unjust to inter- 
 rupt them in their enjoyment here when they have 
 no other paradise to expect." Oxford divines had no 
 court promotion, no deaneries or sees to look to, and, 
 perhaps, Townshend or Sunderland allowed them in 
 very pity to have their fling. It may be that, like 
 the monks who, every day during the warm season, 
 shake the vermin from their habits into a dungeon 
 beneath, the Hanoverian statesmen were glad to 
 brush off the prejudices and bigotries which, if 
 accumulated elscAvhere, might have given them so 
 much trouble, into this antiquated receptacle, and 
 to leave it untouched, as the monks left theirs un- 
 touched — " La Pulciara " — the Fleaery of England.
 
 XIV 
 
 Those who have amused themselves with the riots 
 and disturbances of our former Papers must smile 
 to think how, proudly as our university looks down 
 on its continental rivals, its attitude in the last 
 century recalls the Jena and Heidelburg of 1848. 
 There are the same boisterous disloyalty — the same 
 secret clubs — the same military coercion. Traitors 
 — to give them a harsh name — they immured in 
 their hidden recesses ; the beautiful turret, which 
 alone remains to us of old Magdalen Hall, served to 
 conceal Colonel Owen, the seizure of whose horses 
 we have already recorded. The same high and noble 
 sympathies were enlisted in the cause of King James 
 as in the cause of republican liberty, but it must be 
 owned that the German universities — whether from 
 fear or some higher feeling — have shown a disposition 
 towards their political opponents very difierent from 
 that which the Oxford Tories displayed towards the 
 Oxford Whigs. 
 
 During the reign of the first two Georges, Oxford 
 was to a Whig an earthly purgatory. Open resist-
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IGl 
 
 ance to the ncAV family ceased after the first wild 
 outburst of disappointment ; and the baffled dons 
 turned witli an old-womanish instinct to worry the 
 luckless partisans Avhom fortune bad placed in their 
 hands. The severer weapons of offence were indeed 
 no longer in their power. The days were past when 
 A. Wood could record (Sept. 6, 1683) "Bannimus 
 stuck up to expell Mr. Parkinson from the university 
 for Whiggism, formerly expelled from C.C.C.," and 
 a late expulsion of one of the fellows by a Cambridge 
 college for justifying the execution of King Charles 
 had been annulled by the restoration of their victim. 
 But means of annoyance still remained, as well for 
 the Whig as for the Tory. Degrees were refused to 
 even the most senior applicants. Dr. Wills com- 
 plained of the strenuous opposition that was ofiered 
 to the conferring of his degree, "which he obtained 
 at last with much difficulty by a majority of only 
 three or four," and of the refusal of accumulating, 
 which was granted on the same day to an applicant 
 of the other party. " What reasons," blustered a 
 Tory zealot,^ "have I against him? Did he not 
 decypher the Bishop of Rochester's letters'?" The 
 bishop was Atterbury, just exiled on a charge of 
 treason, and whom his sufferings rendered justly dear 
 to his Jacobite friends at the university. The story 
 of Amherst — to whose sketches we owe so much of 
 our knowledge of the time — may prove that this 
 persecution ranged from doctors down to under- 
 graduates. Though there seems little doubt that his 
 
 M
 
 162 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 conduct was by no means so irreproacliable as he 
 represents it, and that he suffered as much for his 
 own misconduct as for his Whig sympathies, yet the 
 side of his Oxford life which he has written for us is 
 too strongly corroborated by every other memorial 
 of the time to be dismissed as a fiction. ?Ie sketches 
 vividly enough t!ie hot, ardent boy disputing " with 
 his disaffected schoolfellows upon Liberty and Property 
 and the Protestant Succession," poring over the 
 Flying Post, and devouring the crowds of controversial 
 pamphlets, "by which means I became so consider- 
 able a disputant that I thought myself a match for 
 any Jacobite in the kingdom." He is elected, in the 
 very crisis of Mar's rebellion, to St. John's, "a 
 collea;e the most remarkable in Oxford for as violent 
 a zeal on the contrary side,"^ and he had not been 
 there an hour before the company were toasting 
 "King James, Ormond, and Mar," and "Confusion 
 to the Usurper." The young Whig declined drink- 
 ing to the Pretender, whom he was on the morrow 
 to abjure, and proposed the health of King George. 
 He was charged with " an affront to the company," 
 and set down in the eyes of all honest men as 
 "a turbulent, contumacious, ungovernable wretch, an 
 undutiful son of the university." The young "fresh- 
 man" seems to have had an Irishman's love of a 
 row ; if there was one thing in Oxford worse than 
 the being a Whig it was the being a Low Churchman, 
 and Amherst took part with Hoadiey in the famous 
 Bangorian controversy only to add to his other titles
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1G3 
 
 that of " Arian, infidel, and atheist." It was in vain 
 that liead and tutors remonstrated ; he enrolled him- 
 self in the Constitution Club, and was whispered to 
 be the author of the bitterest of the Whig pamphlets 
 and epigrams. His probation came at last to a 
 close ; ten out of fourteen fellows voted against him 
 for his fellowship, and his four supporters in turn 
 came in for the penalties of insubordination. One 
 lost his living, two were long denied testimonials for 
 orders, and it was rumoured that another, before 
 he could obtain his degree, had to declare that he 
 abhorred Amherst's person and principles.^ 
 
 But the most systematic and persevering instance 
 of Tory persecution was directed against the Con- 
 stitution Club. We have already described the riots 
 of 28-29 May 1715. On the evening of 29 May 1715 
 the Club, with several officers of Handyside's regiment, 
 were drinking loyal healths at the King's Head, re- 
 gardless of the squibs or hooting of the crowd without. 
 About eleven the Pro-proctor, Mr. Holt, of Magdalen, 
 entered to demand the reason of their presence at a 
 tavern at so late an hour. Meadowcourt,^ of Merton, 
 who was in the chair, replied that they were met to 
 commemorate the restoration of King Charles and 
 the accession of King George, and invited the Proctor 
 to join him in drinking the health of the latter. It 
 was impossible, with any appearance of loyalty, to 
 refuse ; but the jest was an imprudent one. The 
 oflfender was summoned next day to the Proctor. 
 He was treated to a tirade against the Constitution
 
 164 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Club — "the most profligate fellows in Oxford, who 
 deserved to be expelled for pretending to have more 
 loyalty than the rest of the university. Who were 
 this handful of men," thundered the indignant official, 
 " that they should venture to set themselves up in a 
 place where there were notoriously ten Tories to one 
 Whig?" Meadowcourt was fined, and his name, 
 with that of his companions,^ put down^ in the 
 Proctorial Black Book, in spite of the intercession of 
 influential friends. They were charged in that 
 formidable record with " profaning with mad intem- 
 perance " the sacred anniversary of the Restoration ; 
 with associating " with those who insolently boast of 
 their loyalty to King George"; with abetting "certain 
 officers who ran up and down the High Street with 
 their swords drawn " ; and " with breaking out to 
 that degree of impudence " at the Proctor's admoni- 
 tion to withdraw, "as to command all the company 
 to drink King George's health." For these and other 
 charges they were suspended from their degrees for 
 different periods, and at whose expiration an abject 
 apology was required. This was refused, and the 
 culprits took advantage ^ of the King's Act of Grace, 
 which wiped off all offences, to stand for their 
 degrees. Mr. Meadowcourt was thrice denied his 
 M.A. ; and on the third trial it was granted only 
 because the refuser would then have had to allege 
 his reasons for such a proceeding.* In spite of these 
 penalties the Constitution Club advanced in numbers 
 and influence. While the Vice - Chancellors were
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 165 
 
 sneering at it in the Theatre, and a Proctor was 
 describing its members to Convocation as "villains 
 hateful to heaven and to men," they boasted of the 
 presidency of Dr. Gardiner, the head of All Souls, 
 and of the adhesion of the more aristocratic members 
 of the university. It was impossible to arrest the 
 steady growth of more loyal principles, and the 
 disgust which was felt at the mad threat of one of 
 the Proctors, "that no Constitutioner should take 
 his degree " during his year of office,^ was a sign that 
 in this burst of vapouring Toryism open persecution 
 had at last reached its close. 
 
 The petty but perhaps more annoying vexations 
 Avhich Whigs were exposed to in their social inter- 
 course with their opponents lasted probably much 
 longer. Hearne glories in the exclusion of Mr. 
 Moseley from the club of "the High Borlace," on 
 the mere pretext that he was a Merton man.^ 
 " Oxford," exclaimed a Tory professor who had 
 wandered to London, " is a learned and blameless 
 society." "What," said a friend, "are there no 
 abuses, debauchery, disloyalty, or perjury there ? " 
 " None at all," replied the doctor. " No ! " rejoined 
 his questioner, "not in Merton College, sir?" 
 "Hum," quoth his pi'ofessorship, "yes, really, I 
 have heard of strange doings there ! " ^ Merton, in 
 fact, was regarded by both parties as the centre and 
 rally ing-point of the Whigs. Three of its fellows 
 were among " the associates of the red coats," who, 
 with Meadowcourt, experienced the discipline of the
 
 166 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Black Book.^ A Merton Proctor, Mr. Streat, who 
 with his Pro. was commemorating the coronation 
 of the King in a tavern, on the evening of that 
 anniversary, which chanced to be Sunday, was 
 pounced upon by the Vice-Chancellor, " who walked 
 that evening," and "dismissed forthwith to the 
 great reluctance — to be sure — of Streat and his 
 friends," chuckles Hearne.^ Wadham, Exeter, and 
 Christ Church were tainted with the same political 
 spirit in a less degree. The Deans who succeeded 
 Atterbury and Smalridge were carefully selected by 
 the Court from among its staunchest adherents. 
 On the King's birthday, in 1727, "Mr. Jonathan 
 Colley, being chaunter of Christ Church, set a peni- 
 tential anthem, which enraged the Dean, Dr. Brad- 
 shaw, to that degree that after service he sent for and 
 reprimanded him."^ Gibson, the head of Queen's, 
 was a Whig as well by conviction as by his marriage 
 with a grand-daughter of the Protector Cromwell.* 
 There were indeed many exceptions ; Johnson, years 
 after, praised Panting, the Master of Pembroke, as 
 a " fine Jacobite fellow " ; ^ but the Toryism of the 
 Heads was lukewarm Avhen compared with the 
 Toryism of the Undergraduates. 
 
 The " Freshman," wlio arrived at Oxford with a 
 head full of loyal traditions, a hatred of Oliver, Jack 
 Presbyter, and the Whigs, had little to encourage 
 him to a change of sentiments. He saw the feAV 
 Whigs outlawed, discountenanced, and jeered at, 
 scouted by the society of their college, disqualified
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 167 
 
 for preferment, visited with the utmost severity on 
 the most trifling breach of discipline. He evades 
 the oath of allegiance — as he thinks — by kissing his 
 thumb instead of the book, or perhaps, by favour of 
 an "honest" beadle, has not the book given him at 
 all.^ He drinks to " Betty of Hearts " with his tutor, 
 and passes his wine duly over the water-bottle. He 
 has a knack of rhyming, and his satirical verses on 
 the Whig head, whose zeal had so carefully erased 
 the treasonable initials (as they seemed) "J. R," 
 from the velvet cushion only to discover that he 
 had destroyed the initials of the donor (Jemmet 
 Raymond) - are laughed at in the coflee-houses, and 
 applauded by the ^vits. Or, perhaps of a rougher 
 turn of mind, he sits over a pipe and a bottle with 
 some "jovial blades" of All Souls, when, espying 
 some foreigners in the quad, the company jump out 
 of window, pelt them out of college, and stand hoot- 
 ing before their lodgings for a couple of hours, 
 
 "d n all strangers, particularly Frenchmen and 
 
 Hanoverians," and swearing " they would have their 
 blood before they went away."^ 
 
 Indeed "a foreigner" was as fearful a bogie to 
 these educated gentlemen as to the veriest bumpkin 
 in Stubblcshire. If he entered a Oxford coffee-house, 
 the doctor whom he accosted had no reply for him 
 but a cool "Yes, sir," or "No, sir"; and the company 
 round stared at him, and swore that by his assurance 
 he must be a Hanoverian. If he walked through 
 the streets, rumours instantly flew about, a mob
 
 168 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 gathered at his heels, and he was fortunate if he 
 escaped without a broken head. If he complained 
 to the authorities, he was probably told that the 
 gentlemen Arere in liquor, and obliged to content 
 himself without even an apology.^ 
 
 In one respect, doubtless, the Tory " freshman " 
 was more commendable than his successor of the 
 present day. He was regular in his attendance at 
 the university sermons. But the motives which 
 drew him to St. Peter"s or St. Mary's were not so 
 much those of religion as of amusement and fear. 
 If he absented himself, he was liable to a lecture 
 from his tutor ; and the Proctor, if he caught him 
 strolling in the High during sermon time, was prompt 
 with an imposition. If he attended, the dry topics 
 of theology were sure to be enlivened with a spice 
 of treason or a gird at the Whigs. Sometimes an 
 entertaining scene would divert the audience. When 
 Wyatt, the Principal of St. Mary Hall, thundered 
 against the perfidy and Whiggery of the Scots, 
 Archibald Campbell, the son of Argyle, who happened 
 to be one of the audience, "did accost Mr. Wyatt 
 when he came out of the pulpit, and did in a most 
 egregious manner abuse him in the face of the people, 
 and called him 'red -faced sot.'"^ Among the 
 preachers whose sermons " smacked of treason " we 
 find no less a name than John Wesley. "My 
 brother," says Charles, in 1734, "has been much 
 mauled and threatened more for his Jacobite sermon 
 on the 11th of June. But he was wise enough to
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 169 
 
 get the Vicc-Chanccllor to read and approve it before 
 he preached it, and may therefore bid "Wadham, 
 Merton, Exeter, and Christ Church do their worst." ^ 
 Some were not so fortunate. Mr. Coningsby was 
 summoned before the Vice-Chancellor for a sermon 
 whose sedition seems to have consisted in innuendoes, 
 and suspended for two years, but Hearne's comment 
 is remarkable—" I am told it was a good honest 
 discourse, and that all were' very attentive, without 
 the least smile, as often happens when any stinging 
 passage comes from a sermon." ^
 
 XV 
 
 More remarkable in its tone, however, than any 
 of the sermons which we have noticed, was one 
 delivered by the then Professor of Poetry, the elder 
 Warton, on May 29, 1719. The obvious parallel 
 between the First Charles and his deposed son was 
 dexterously used to point the covert allusions of the 
 preacher, and the fidelity of Oxford dwelt upon as 
 an example in times of similar difficulty. " Justice," 
 ended the Professor, with a slight perversion of 
 the words of St. Paul, " Justice beareth all things, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things, restoreth all 
 things," and the emphasis on the word "restoreth" 
 left no doubt of the meaning of this clerical pun. 
 Men praised it as the boldest, and as the most 
 guarded sermon that had ever been heard at Oxford ; 
 the Masters waved their caps to the preacher as he 
 passed through them out of church, and his health 
 was drunk in every common-room. The challenge, 
 however, was too bold a one not to be taken up by 
 the Whigs. Meadowcourt charged the sermon with 
 sedition, and demanded that Warton's notes might
 
 OXFOrxD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 171 
 
 be examined, but the Vice-Chancellor refused. The 
 charge was laid before Craggs, at that time Secretary 
 of State, and the Lords Justices, in the King's 
 absence, commanded the Vice-Chancellor to proceed 
 against the preacher. He was summoned, but as 
 notice had been privately given him, the notes were 
 prudently lost. The only result of the Government 
 interference was that in his Commemoration speech, 
 the Vice-Chancellor branded Meadowcourt as a 
 "delator turbulentus," — " a troublesome informer," — 
 and alluded to the Council as "a foreign juris- 
 diction."^ 
 
 That the Government should interfere, and that 
 in a harsher and more summary manner, had been 
 already suggested by many Avise and judicious men. 
 We have already noticed the advice which Locke 
 gave to King AYilliam, and in 1719 Archbishop 
 Wake was earnest for the introduction of a bill for 
 the assertion of the royal supremacy and the better 
 regulation of the clergy of the two Universities, 
 Lord Macclesfield went further than a mere sugges- 
 tion or desire. In a formal memorial he embodied 
 his plan for the reformation of the Universities, and 
 it is, in some points, so characteristic of the age, 
 that we may be pardoned for entering a little into 
 detail. The election of Heads was henceforward to 
 be vested in the great Officers of State, with the 
 concurrence of the Visitor and the Bishop. The 
 Fellowships were to be limited in duration to twenty 
 years, to prevent that long continuance in college
 
 172 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 which leads only "to their being overrun with spleen, 
 or taking to sottishness." Conciliation was to be 
 attempted by the founding of Professorships, and 
 the gift of pensions of " £20 or £30 per annum," to 
 about twenty fellows of colleges "to encourage them 
 to serve the government with their pupils and 
 others." The system of bribery, which Walpole 
 found so effective in St. Stephen's, was to be tried 
 in Oxford. The benefices of the Crown and the 
 nobility were to be bestowed only "on well-affected 
 persons." The Government was advised to "extend 
 its care and kindness in an especial manner to those 
 colleges in which honest " ('tis amusing to see this 
 last word the shuttlecock of both parties) " in which 
 honest and loyal men have any interest," both by 
 bestowing livings and the like, and by the removal 
 of the discontented "till the true interest in them 
 was become superior to all opposition." ^ 
 
 Wise, however, as some of these suggestions might 
 be, the government preferred — and wisely preferred 
 — inaction. It was not till within ten years of the 
 accession of George the Third, when the House of 
 Brunswick, after the suppression of the "Forty-five," 
 felt itself at length secure upon the throne, that 
 measures of severity were resorted to. But the 
 opportunity which was chosen, was by no means a 
 happy one. Two or three riotous young students 
 dropped some treasonable expressions over their cups, 
 and boasted of their attachment to the House of 
 Stuart. No sooner had the report of this spread
 
 OXFORD DURINf} THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 173 
 
 abroad, than the Yice-Chanccllor and Proctors — ap- 
 prehensive of the result — published a declaration of 
 their abhorrence of seditious practices, their resolu- 
 tion to punish such offences with the utmost rigour, 
 and containing peremptory orders for the regulation 
 of the university. The Government, however, was 
 not to be diverted from its purpose. A messenger 
 of state was despatched to arrest "the three boys," 
 two of whom were, after trial in the Court of King's 
 Bench, found guilty, and sentenced to walk through 
 the Courts of "Westminster with an account of their 
 crime fixed on their foreheads, to pay a fine of five 
 nobles each, be imprisoned for two years, and find 
 security for seven years more. This ridiculously 
 disproportionate sentence was followed up by other 
 acts of rigour. The King's Bench granted an in- 
 formation against the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Purnell, 
 for his behaviour in the matter, but the rule was 
 eventually countermanded.^ It was attempted to 
 subject the whole of the statutes to the revision of 
 the Privy Council, but, after an argument in the 
 Court of King's Bench, this attempt, in deference to 
 the judge's opinion, was also countermanded. The 
 cry of Jacobitism was, however, still clamoured 
 against the university, and its address, on the re- 
 establishment of peace, was rejected with disdain. 
 
 Meanwhile Cambridge was displaying a fulsome 
 spirit of flattery rather than loyalty. Its Chancellor- 
 ship fell vacant, and, though generally expected to 
 have been reserved for the Prince of Wales, who
 
 174 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 was then in opposition, was bestowed on that most 
 ignorant and ridiculous of mortals, the Premier, the 
 Duke of Newcastle. The prosecutions of 1748 
 afforded another opportunity of "supporting the 
 throne," and Mason, then a promising young poet, 
 bid high for perferment by the publication of his 
 Isis. In an invidious comparison, he contrasted 
 the loyalty of Cambridge with the disaffection of its 
 sister University. At Oxford he bids us 
 
 See Hydra Faction spread its impious reign, 
 Poison each breast and madden every brain ; 
 Hence frontless crowds, that not content to fright 
 Tlie blushing Cynthia from her throne of night, 
 Blast the fair face of day ; and madly bold 
 To freedom's foes infernal orgies hold ; 
 To freedom's foes, ah, see the goblet crowned ! 
 Hear plaiisive shouts to freedom's foes resound. 
 
 But he does not omit a tribute to the few Whig 
 Abdiels, " faithful only found," — 
 
 Learning, that once to all diffused her beam, 
 Now sheds by stealth a partial private gleam 
 In some low cloister's melancholy shade 
 Where a firm few support her sickly head, 
 Despised, insulted by the barbarous train 
 Who scour like Thracia's moon-struck rout the plain, 
 Sworn foes like them to all the muse approves, 
 All Phoebus favours, or Minerva loves ! 
 
 To us the satire seems of the dullest and most 
 vapid kind, but its author, as we learn from an 
 amusing anecdote, thought very differently. Years 
 after the elegy had been published, and (we should
 
 OXFORD DURING THE KIGHTKENTII CENTURY 175 
 
 think) forgotten, Mason was entering Oxford on 
 horseback, and, as he passed Magdalen-bridge, he 
 turned to his companion to express his satisfaction 
 that the darkness of the evening would allow them 
 to enter the town unnoticed. His friend was puzzled 
 to conjecture what the advantage of this could be. 
 " What," rejoined the poet, " do you not remember 
 my Isis ? " ^ 
 
 Whatever was the extent of Mason's vanity or 
 timidity, it is seldom that the victor bears a grudge 
 against the vanquished, and victorious Oxford had 
 come oflf on this occasion, thanks to the genius of a 
 young scholar of Trinity, the son of that Tom 
 Warton whom we mentioned at the commencement 
 of this Paper. This younger Tom Warton was 
 doubtless then, what he remained to the end of his 
 life, a singular combination of the scholar and the 
 l)uflfoon, the hard -reader and deep -drinker. He 
 lounged and sauntered all day, and spent the early 
 hours, when his comrades slept, for classical and 
 antiquarian study. He was a poet in the morning, 
 strolling, full of fancies, along the Cherwell, or up 
 Headington-hill, or standing, lost to all but his 
 thoughts, before the ancient gateway of Magdalen 
 Colle2;e. At night he was the first of boon com- 
 panions, punning and jesting in common-room, or 
 drinking his ale and smoking his pipe in the lowest 
 pot-house, " with persons," as his biographer primly 
 puts it, " of mean rank and education." ^ There was 
 little poetical in the appearance of this " little, thick,
 
 176 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 squat, red-faced man," as a satirist describes him, 
 with a stutter that prevented all but his friends 
 from understanding him, and "a gobble," as Johnson 
 said, " like a turkey cock." ^ But poet, notwithstand- 
 ing, he was, and, in picturesqueness of description, 
 inferior to few among his rivals. The lines in which 
 he invokes the time-honoured temples and shrines 
 of Oxford to inspire their defender against this un- 
 provoked assailant have never been excelled by a 
 poet of twenty-two, and such was the age of their 
 author. Nor was he wanting in a vigorous vein of 
 sarcasm — 
 
 Let Granta boast the patrons of her name — 
 Each splendid fool of fortune or of fame : 
 Still of preferment let her shine the Queen, 
 Prolific parent of each bowing Dean ; 
 Be hers each prelate of the pampered cheek, 
 Each courtly chaplain, sanctified and sleek, 
 Still let the drones of her exhaustless hive 
 On rich pluralities supinely thrive. 
 
 There was a ring in lines like these that made his 
 poem in very deed " The Triumph of Isis." He was no 
 less successful in his compliment to the Jacobite Dr. 
 King, whose oration at the opening of the EadclifFe 
 had roused a thousand charges of disloyalty — 
 
 See, on yon sage, how all attentive stand, 
 
 To catch his darting eye and waving hand ; 
 
 Hush, he begins with all a Tully's art 
 
 To pour the dictates of a Cato's heart ; 
 
 Skilled to pronounce what noblest thoughts inspire.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 177 
 
 He blends the speaker's with the patriot's fire ; 
 Bold to comteive, nor timorous to conceal, 
 "What Britons dare to think he dares to tell. 
 
 The sage of these lines was too notable a Jacobite 
 to be passed over in these Papers without notice, 
 l^rincipal of St. Mary's Hall, and, by turns, secretary 
 to Ormond and Arran, a keen satirist and a most 
 amusing wit, he contrived to trifle his great gifts 
 away (like the predecessor in his name who waged 
 war against Bentley, and, though conquered, made 
 the world laugh at his conqueror) in the mean con- 
 tests of party, or rather of faction. " Iniprudens 
 et improvidus," it was thus he wrote of himself, 
 " corais et benevolus, sa?po tequo iracundior, baud un- 
 quam ut essem implacabilis — ipse et cibi abstinentior 
 et vini abstinentissimus, cum magnis vixi, cum plebeiis, 
 cum omnibus, ut homines noscerem — ut meipsum 
 imprimis — neque eheu novi ! " ^ " A pleasant, kind- 
 hearted fellow, often angry beyond measure, but 
 never too stubborn to be appeased, a temperate diner, 
 still more temperate in his cups — I have lived with 
 the lofty, with the lowly, with every one in short, 
 that I might gain a knowledge of men and of myself, 
 and yet this last knov.dedge I have never gained." 
 Contented with the laugh with which men welcomed 
 every scrap from his humorous pen, he gave up 
 literature for politics, but he retained a kindl}^ feel- 
 ing towards the young aspirants who enlisted under 
 the standard he had deserted. "We can yet see the 
 " tall, lean, well-looking man " reading, in the shop 
 
 N
 
 178 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 of Prince, the bookseller, with a smile of pleasure 
 this eulosfium from an unknown hand, and then — no 
 idle thought in an age of Johnsons and Savages — 
 inquiring whether five guineas would be of any 
 service to the author, and leaving the donation with 
 the publisher.^ He was at this time in communi- 
 cation with the Pretender, the head, it might almost 
 be said, of the English Jacobites, yet truer than 
 ever were his words — he knew not himself. When 
 the third of the Georges mounted the throne, and 
 Dr. King accompanied the address, the party he had 
 led turned upon him as the Protectionists turned 
 upon Sir Kobert Peel. The end of his life Avas 
 embittered with charges of " apostacy " from his old 
 supporters. ''He knew not himself," but he might 
 have urged with equal truth that the University to 
 which he belonged was just as ignorant. Its eyes 
 were soon to open. Tory principles mounted the 
 throne with George the Third, and the current of 
 royal favour was at once diverted to the Tory 
 University ; Jacobitism disappeared like a dream. 
 The Cardinal of York was sneered at as a pretender. 
 The zeal that had backed the most odious of causes 
 was needed now to back the new king in the most 
 odious of wars — the war with America. Deaneries 
 and Bishoprics fell in a shower among the Heads, 
 and a stream of addresses — against Wilkes, against 
 Catholic Emancipation, against anything in short 
 that the King hated, evinced the gratitude of the 
 University. As Dryden sang years before —
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 179 
 
 The court of Constantine was full of Rlory, 
 And every trimmer turned addressing Tory. 
 
 We pause, however, at this beginning of a new reign, 
 this striking revolution in the position of Oxford 
 towards the Crown, because the chain of events 
 which we have been tracking ends abruptly here. 
 In future Papers we may perhaps resume the tale 
 of Tory Oxford under the two last of the Georges, 
 but of Jacobite Oxford under the two first the tale 
 is ended. If the story has nothing but what is 
 mean, and petty, and trivial, if Jacobitism in Oxford 
 had no Prestons or Cullodens to prove the sincerity 
 of its loyalty ; if its " honesty " began and ended in 
 grumbling, while the heads of braver and truer men 
 were mouldering on Temple Bar, there is something 
 even in this childish obstinacy, this ineffective re- 
 sentment, above the level, uninterrupted sycophancy 
 which was to follow it. The tale, at any i-ate, is 
 new and curious (it has never, so far as we know, 
 been attempted before) ; and if this brief sketch has 
 served in any way to illustrate it, we shall have 
 gained some fresh knowledge of an hitherto untold 
 side of the History of Oxford during the Last 
 Century.
 
 XVI 
 
 Those who are at all conversant with authorship 
 know that sketches of a period, such as those which 
 we have endeavoured to produce, must often be 
 constructed from the most heterogeneous materials. 
 The pamphlet, the libel, the broadsheet, must in 
 turn be ransacked by one who would picture the 
 social life of the time. The writer must resemble 
 the alchemist, and extract gold from the very vilest 
 materials. And this for the very obvious reason 
 that his search is for those very details which such 
 chance productions alone preserve to us. That 
 common, daily life, which he is endeavouring to 
 disentomb, seems to those who partake of it so 
 mean and worthless in its lesser circumstances that 
 they would think it ridiculous to chronicle it in 
 their graver and more serious histories. And so 
 the generations who succeed, if they would learn not 
 merely how their forefathers fought and died, but 
 how they walked, were dressed, eat, drank, spoke, 
 laughed, or swore, must turn nito the "bye- ways"
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 181 
 
 of literature, and melt down in their crucible the 
 libels of the wit, or the play-book of the child. 
 
 The little volume which we intend to submit to 
 this process for the edification of our readers in the 
 present paper is of the latter character. The 
 Young Travellers, or a Visit to Oxford, by a Lady,^ 
 is just the sort of book which sage parents put into 
 the hands of those who have attained the enviable 
 title of "good boys." The parents are all bene- 
 volent, affable, and prosy : the children — what 
 children never were or will be. They listen with 
 the utmost interest to the dullest lectures on moral 
 questions, and, full of their own unquestioning obedi- 
 ence, doubt not that ever}' little boy who utters 
 those tabooed .syllables, "I won't," is destined to be 
 drowned, buried alive, or devoured 1)y tigers. They 
 have a horror of marbles and mud-pies, and a great 
 love for the society of sententious old gentlemen, 
 who might be their grandfathers. In short, the book 
 is of the usual stamp of the child-books of our own 
 youth, and is inspired with just that amount of 
 untrue as well as ridiculous morality which is usually 
 thought wholesome for developing philosophers, 
 still unbreechcd. It is full, however, of interesting 
 details of a time which we may call the borderland, 
 between this century and the last, and its notices, 
 combined with the information we have been enabled 
 to draw from other quarters, may enable us to realize 
 in some measure that phase of Oxford life, on which, 
 as yet, we have not ventured, the Life of the Streets.
 
 182 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 We pass into Oxford by the great London road, 
 with a glance at the row of old tumble-down houses, 
 a disgrace to the city, which ran along from the 
 gate of the Botanic Gardens, and turned down what 
 is now the open side of Rose Lane. Before one of 
 these, on its high pole, hangs out the sign of the 
 Noah's Ark, and the host (one Hodges) is busy 
 clearing his doorway of one of the noisiest scamps in 
 the town, that prince among poachers, Dan Stewart. 
 Fish and game were Dan's legitimate property ; 
 there was not a cover or a preserve in the county 
 whose merits he was not well acquainted with ; and 
 so high was his reputation for a knowledge of 
 " sport," that he was generally selected by freshmen 
 as their guide on piscatory excursions. The joke 
 ran that he was as invariably successful in directing 
 them to spots perfectly free from fish of any size, 
 as he was in securing a bagful when he sallied out 
 alone. Dan, however, is at present haranguing, as 
 is his wont, blind-drunk in the street, and a crowd 
 gathers round to laugh at the blasphemies which 
 proceed so fluently from his lips. Dan is but one 
 amid a host of ruffians who infested the streets — 
 ruffians, such as the blustering drunkard whom the 
 children call "Captain Ward," who comes raving 
 up street at the moment, with eyes bearing traces 
 of many encounters, abusing every one he meets, 
 and offering them satisfaction in a fight for a pot of 
 beer. 
 
 The children, however, leave these two worthies
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 183 
 
 to run over to the old cakemau beneath the elms 
 of Magdalen Horse-walk, where two or three Mag- 
 dalen schoolboys are already lounging, hesitating 
 between his "rosy apples and sugared cakes." Dicky 
 Dunker, however, finds a formidable rival in old 
 Mother Smith, who passes by with her basket full 
 of buns, and her shrill cry of " any cakes and rolls, 
 muffins and crumpets " ; and in Tippcty Ward's 
 cakes, "all sugar and brandy," as the vendor de- 
 scribes them. Tippety, we may remark in passing, 
 was a very notable Oxford character, whose father 
 had lived in the great farmhouse with the trees in 
 its front below the Infirmary, which was subse- 
 quently burnt down, and whose site is now occupied 
 by Pearse's-row. Street-cries, which we so seldom 
 hear now, were in these days no insignificant fea- 
 ture of Oxford streets, and Monday morning in par- 
 ticular seldom failed to bring round the old woman 
 with her bag across her shoulder, and her cry of 
 " old boots and old shoes," with whom extravagant 
 servant-galism (so said the mistresses) was glad to 
 effect exchange of less useful finery. Another 
 member of the mercantile fraternity of the streets 
 was " poor Jack the matchman," in his long coat 
 and slouched hat, who still figures in AVest's picture 
 of "The Death of General Wolfe," as the soldier 
 who, leaning on his musket, is casting a last look 
 of affection on his dying leader. Fame, however, 
 had not saved Jack from penury, and his present 
 resource was that of vending those old-fashioned
 
 184 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 matches which hicifers have driven out of use. A 
 more poetical traffic was that of the far-famed 
 Mother Goose, who, sitting at the Star gate, in her 
 heavy cloak, ruffled cap, and trim little hat, was ready 
 to curtsey a welcome to the coaches as they rolled up 
 one after another, and to present her basket of 
 flowers to "pretty ladies" within. She was a great 
 favourite with university men, who christened her 
 " Flora " ; but she did business now and then with 
 nobler customers than these. When the Regent 
 passed through on his way to Bibury Races, it was 
 his custom to change horses at the Lamb and Flag, 
 so as to avoid the crowd and confusion which his 
 changing them at the Star would have created, and 
 as Mother Goose never failed to appear with her 
 usual offering, the kind-hearted voluptuary would 
 take one of her bouquets and fling her a guinea. 
 We may be sure no one in Oxford cried " God save 
 the Regent " with more loyalty than Mother Goose. 
 
 If we turn from the streets to the Broad Walk 
 we may encounter a greater character even than 
 Mother Goose, in the person of " Counsellor Bicker- 
 ton,"^ attired in his shabby gown, and dilapidated 
 cap, with enormous curled wig and band, haranguing 
 up and down, without consciousness of observers. 
 He had been a member of Hertford College, where, 
 spite of all efforts to get rid of him, he still claimed 
 rooms, and was so miserably poor that he was said 
 to cut branches from the trees in the quad for fuel. 
 On one occasion, said the wits, he quietly severed
 
 OXFORD DURING TIIK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 185 
 
 the branch on which he sat, and came to the ground. 
 He was tlic usual butt of these wits, and one (a 
 Mr. Tawne}^ we believe of Exeter) published The 
 Lucubrations of Counsellor Bicherton. The Coun- 
 sellor was not offended, but entered the publisher's 
 shop, and seriously proposed a share in the division 
 of the profits in recompense for the liberty taken 
 with his name ! His habits were as singular as his 
 ideas. Fancying himself the Principal of Hertford, 
 he thought it inconsistent with his dignity to rise 
 before noon, or retire to rest before daybreak. His 
 favourite mania, however, was the Law. Du1)bing 
 liimself a barrister, he carried everywhere in his 
 pocket a portentous wig, which was drawn forth 
 and donned whenever he supposed himself called 
 on to speak. At a meeting of the Bible Society 
 when the business was over, and the audience on 
 the point of dispersing, the poor enthusiast clapped 
 on his wig, mounted one of the benches, and 
 astonished his hearers with an oration, which, for 
 once, displayed a trifle of sense and lucidity. His 
 exhibitions, however, were sometimes more ludi- 
 crous. A barrister, he very justly argued, should 
 "go circuit." Accordingly, a battered post-chaise 
 was purchased ; its shafts altered to suit a single 
 horse; and in this vehicle the Counsellor folloAved 
 the Judges, and offered his services to any client 
 that required them. As none, however, came for- 
 ward, it was his custom to rise and censure in a 
 lengthy speech, the conduct of the judge, jury,
 
 1S6 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 prosecutor, and defendunt alike, till expelled from 
 the court. 
 
 "Great wit from madness what thin bounds 
 divide," says Dry den, and the occasional eccentrici- 
 ties of the strong - headed Dr. Tatham^ not un- 
 frequently rivalled the exploits of poor Bickertoii. 
 It was his own sober opinion that to him, and him 
 alone, was owing the overthrow of Buonaparte, and 
 the consequent glory of Great Britain. The Bank, 
 he said, refused Pitt advances, and the war must 
 have dropped, had not a pamphlet of his own, advo- 
 cating the establishment of a rival bank, frightened 
 the old lady of Threadneedle-street into a loan — 
 the war was continued, and the usurper overthrown. 
 More notable, however, was his celebrated sermon 
 on Oxford education, a discourse of an hour and 
 three-quarters, whose excessive length drove even a 
 prelate, who was among his auditors, out of church 
 from sheer fatigue. It was a vehement attack on 
 what he termed the Aristotelian mode of education 
 at Oxford, and, in many respects, a just one. "You 
 profess to educate the youth of the country," he 
 argued, " but your students require a visit to conti- 
 nental capitals to complete their education." He 
 proposed the introduction of modern languages and 
 history, and seems, in some of his suggestions, to 
 have been a reformer before his age. He was prob- 
 ably the last punster in an university pulpit. 
 "What with your little-goes and your great-goes, 
 I fear education will give you the by -go," said the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 187 
 
 indignant doctor. But if he was an ardent reformer 
 he was none the less an ardent Tory, and when the 
 Oxford volunteers, who mustered at the time 800 
 strong, were drawn up on review, in two divisions, 
 Dr. Tatham rode along their ranks, promising to 
 pension the widow of the first man v/ho fell in his 
 country's cause. As volunteering is revived, Ave 
 record this promise of the doctor's as a hint to its 
 encouragers. 
 
 We have not space enough to dwell in very great 
 detail on the little fragments of our local historv 
 which we have gleaned. We can only notice " the 
 Linen Draper " of Oxford, a person named Smith, 
 whose shop was on Carfax, and who seems to have 
 had so complete a monopoly of his trade, that when 
 he went out he could afford to lock up his shop ; if 
 a customer came in during his dinner-hour, he was 
 requested to call again, and during his annual journey 
 to London to make purchases, the shop was closed 
 for a week until his return — as an evidence of the 
 great revolution which has hecn created by com- 
 petition in trades. Or we can glance at Atkins, 
 the City Marshal, strutting about in his laced hat 
 and coat, and carrying his long staff, with the city 
 arms painted on its top, with all the self-importance 
 of beadledom. Or passing, as the quarter-boys 
 strike eight in the morning, at Carfax^ we may see 
 "Little Dickey James" passing in to read early 
 prayers, whose diminutive stature had made him 
 the subject of a few practical jokes. The fall of one
 
 188 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 of the quarter-boys soon produced an advertisement, 
 in which "the Little Doctor" (as, though but M.A., 
 he was generally called) was made to announce his 
 intention of offering himself as a candidate for the 
 post. Or we may meet "Johnny," the Oriel 
 messenger, scudding along on his crutches faster 
 than ordinary legs could carry him ; or Barber 
 Dennet, with apron and tongs, proceeding to deco- 
 rate the gentlemen's heads before their dinner- 
 hour. But these and other topics we may touch 
 on a future occasion.
 
 XVII 
 
 In our sketches of the Smart of the Last Century we 
 had occasion to introduce Amherst's picture of the 
 farmer of the time, in his "linsey woolsey coat, 
 greasy sunljurnt head of hair, clouted shoes, yarn 
 stockings, flapping hats with silver hat-bands, and 
 long muslin neckcloths run with red at the bottom." 
 Figures like these were the jest of every wit who 
 paraded the High ; fops lisped out their sneers at the 
 " Aborigines," and their very sons, " metamorphosed 
 into complete Smarts, d — d the old country putts, 
 their fathers, Avith twenty foppish airs and gesticula- 
 tions." The severance between town and country 
 was indeed a marked feature of the earlier part of 
 the century which we are treating. To the writers 
 of the Spectator school a farmer was but a synonym 
 for a mixture of ignorance and excess; novelists, 
 like Fielding in his Squire Western, depicted him 
 as a compound of passion and brutality, whose 
 oaths alternated with his potations. Even Swift, 
 writing soberly to Pope, says — "In how few hours 
 with a swift horse or a strong jade may a man come
 
 190 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 among a people as unknoAvn to him as the Anti- 
 podes." The ignorance was reciprocated hy the 
 rustic of the country. A stranger from London was 
 looked upon as a Whig in disguise ; the vicar declared 
 him "no churchman," and hinted his suspicions of 
 "no religion at all." 
 
 The causes of this great severance have been par- 
 tially noticed before. First among them was the 
 condition of the roads. About 1760 "the roads of 
 Oxfordshire," says an accurate observer, " were in a 
 condition formidable to the bones of all who travelled 
 on wheels. The two great turnpikes v/hich crossed 
 the countrjT^ by Witney and Chipping Norton, by 
 Henley and Wycombe, were repaired in some places 
 with stones as large as they could be brought from 
 the quarry, and, when broken, left so rough as to be 
 calculated for dislocation rather than exercise." ^ The 
 heavy stage waggons, whose broad wheels alone 
 made an impression on these formidable masses, 
 were stopped for days or weeks by floods and snow. 
 Bridges were scarce, save in the vicinity of towns, 
 and lighter vehicles often found themselves exposed 
 to serious danger in crossing the fords. Pope, who 
 often passed through Oxford on his way to Colonel 
 Dormer's, nearly lost his life through an accident of 
 this kind. His carriage was overturned, and the 
 poor poet, at the last moment, had to be dragged 
 through its windows.^ The country lanes were, of 
 course, incomparably worse. "The cross roads," 
 says our informant, " were impassable but with real
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 191 
 
 danger." The iieigbbouring farmers' horses had 
 often to be borrowed to drag the luckless voyagers 
 out of these Sloughs of Despond. Sometimes, as in 
 the case of the Prince of Orange, it became necessary 
 to make a flank march through the farmers' fields. 
 The latter part of the century saw the almost total 
 abolition of this great obstacle to national inter- 
 communication. "A noble change," write3 Young, 
 in 1809, "has taken place, but generally by turnpikes 
 which cross the county in every direction, so that 
 when you are at one town you have a turnpike road 
 to every other town. This holds good with Oxford, 
 Woodstock, Witney, Burford, Chipping Norton, 
 Banbury, Bicester, Thame, Abingdon, Wallingford, 
 Henley, Reading, etc. etc., and in every direction, 
 and these lines necessarily intersect the county in 
 every direction. The parish roads are greatly im- 
 proved, but are still capable of much more. The 
 turnpikes are very good, and, where gravel is to be 
 had, excellent."^ Along these roads rolled hundreds 
 of coaches, whose superiority to the speed of all 
 previous means of locomotion was as great as is the 
 superiority of steam to their own. That great array 
 of mail coaches in front of the Post-Office on the 
 first of May, a spectacle on which De Quincey, in his 
 Autobiography, dwells ^vith such delight, was sug- 
 gestive of something more than material progress. 
 To every thoughtful observer they must have seemed 
 the great weapons by which England Avas gathering 
 up her severed parts into one united whole ; which
 
 192 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 were knitting town to country, and country to town ; 
 which were bringing rural honesty and truth and 
 fearlessness to bear upon the social depravity of the 
 metropolis, and carrying the civilization of the 
 metropolis to the most secluded districts of the 
 country. 
 
 Another great obstacle, to which this century did 
 not apply any efficient remedy, arose from the mul- 
 titudes of highwaymen who infested the roads. 
 We have already dwelt upon the daring exploits 
 which made these ruffians the heroes at once of the 
 ladies' closet and the thieves' gin-cellar ; and, in our 
 account of Dumas, have striven to realize, as much 
 as possible, the life and adventures of one of the 
 fraternity. But, besides the element of romance, 
 and the longing for "plunder," which made "the 
 road" so fashionable a profession, an additional in- 
 ducement to crime seems to have been afforded by 
 its comparative security. Here and there, indeed, 
 individual travellers, like Mr. Stanley, might carry 
 Aveapons and make a fight for it, and it is due to the 
 prudence of the Dick Turpins of this time to own 
 that in such cases they shewed the utmost facility 
 in running away, if a correspondence with their 
 Sultanas fell into the hands of inquisitive innkeepers, 
 or an encounter with a personage of high rank set 
 the Bow-street runners on them ; but, for the most 
 part, the plunderers were unmolested. Hair-dressers 
 and tailors, for these were the trades that furnished 
 most recruits to the host of the highway, had nothing
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 193 
 
 to do but to buy a pistol out of their master's till, 
 steal the best horse in the neighbourhood, and levy 
 black-mail on whom they ^vould. If travellers ran 
 scarce, or the road became dangerous, it was easy to 
 assemble a gang of a dozen, and break into a farm- 
 house or a rectory. The newspapers of the time are 
 crowded with outrages such as these. If secured, 
 ladies visited the hero in prison, and petitioned for 
 his pardon, while the ruined walls, and confederates 
 within and without, offered every opportunity for 
 escape. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder 
 that people, convinced of the inefficacy of the law, 
 began to take the question of Police into their own 
 hands. "Divers felonies and depredations," says an 
 advertisement in the 0:rford Journal for 1783, 
 "having been lately made and committed on the 
 persons and property of the Inhabitants of Oxford, 
 its suburbs, and neighbourhood, it has been resolved 
 to promote an association for the joint protection of 
 the subscribers, and for prosecuting all persons guilty 
 of Felonies committed upon any of the members of 
 the said association, as well as for rewarding such 
 persons as shall give information, apprehend, or 
 bring to conviction any offender or oft'enders." ^ The 
 Mayor for the time being was, by the rules, con- 
 stituted Treasurer, and associated in committee with 
 fourteen other members, Mr. Aid. Tawney, Mr. Aid. 
 Tongue, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Morrell, Mr. Taunton, Mr. 
 Shortland, Mr. Lock, Mr. Burford, Mr. James 
 Fletcher, jun., Mr. John Walker, Mr. Thomas Prickett, 
 
 o
 
 194 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Mr. Francis Guiden, and the Bailiffs of the city. 
 For the detection of a burglar or incendiary, a 
 reward of ten guineas was offered ; half that sum was 
 given for the discovery of a highway or a foot robber, 
 or a receiver of stolen goods ; and smaller sums in 
 proportion for crimes of less consequence. No com- 
 promise with persons arrested was to be allowed, and 
 the prosecutor's share of all rewards, given by Act 
 of Parliament, was to be added to the premium 
 offered by the society for their apprehension.^ A 
 similar association was formed, with still higher re- 
 wards, by "gentlemen, farmers, and others, in the 
 neighbourhood of Abingdon." ^ Oxfordshire and 
 Buckinghamshire seem to have combined for the 
 purpose, and the organization, as we find from 
 advertisements, spread rapidly over all the neigh- 
 bouring counties. How little terror these announce- 
 ments caused among the fraternity, we may see 
 from the following item of Oxford news, for February 
 28, 1784. "Between seven and eight o'clock last 
 Monday evening, one of the Bath coaches was 
 robbed upon the galloping gi'ound above Bottley, 
 about two miles and a half from this city, by two 
 men on foot, who took from the passengers upwards 
 of £24 in money, with their watches. But at the 
 request of the driver, they returned all the watches 
 except one, and went off with their booty. There 
 were six passengers in the coach, and two outsides." 
 
 We need not stop to dwell on the subsidiary 
 causes which hindered intercourse between country
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 195 
 
 and town, but, in these days of tourist and excursion 
 trains, it is impossible to avoid the mention of one. 
 Nothing, perhaps, can be considered a stronger 
 characteristic of our own age than the taste for 
 scenery which has been difiuscd through every 
 grade of society. Prince and peasant alike hurry 
 from home on every chance interval of leisure, and 
 deem themselves abundantly repaid for trouble and 
 expense by the view of a mountain, or a peep at a 
 waterfall. But this perception of the picturesque, 
 this intense relish f-or natural beauty was denied 
 to our forefathers. The very phrases which they 
 habitually employ to characterise scenes of surpass- 
 ing sublimity were such as " a horrid grandeur," or 
 a " rugged waste." Men of taste were no better than 
 their fellows. Goldsmith, who saw the perfection of 
 rural beauty in the flat meadows and sluggish canals 
 of Holland, could see in Scotland nothing but fright- 
 ful precipices and bare and savage solitudes. It may 
 be said that to this time was left the task of dis- 
 covering the sublimity of Snowdon or Ben Nevis, 
 or the picturesque beauty of the Lakes. A poet of 
 the last age might sing of nightingales and sunrise, 
 but his very expressions betray that he had never 
 heard the one or seen the other. He might play at 
 pastorals with Phyllis and Corydon, but his Phyllises 
 wore red-heeled shoes, and his Corydons wielded the 
 dice box. The essayists of this time found no sub- 
 ject more amusing than the disgust of a man about 
 town at the humdrum monotony of a country life.
 
 196 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Sir John with his long stories over the bottle, Lady 
 Prue with her genealogies and embroidery, the 
 daughters with their hoydenish familiarities and 
 hands fresh from pudding-making, the sons with 
 their eternal dog and gun, were terrible bores to the 
 Exquisite who had supped with Selwyn or gambled 
 with March. 
 
 We cannot, however, turn away with these from 
 this simple life of the country. We shall follow 
 these farmers as they trot homewards, and get what 
 scanty glimpses we can of their life and manners, 
 of their system of cultivation, and the great changes 
 in the modes of farming which were at this time 
 gradually introduced. In the course of this task we 
 shall doubtless often have to crave the indulgence of 
 our readers. The details of a farmer's system require 
 a special knowledge which we cannot claim to pos- 
 sess, and the materials which are at our command are 
 far too scanty to enable us to give the full account 
 which we should desire. We can, however, but 
 attempt the task, praying in the merry words of old 
 Tusser — 
 
 And grant me now, 
 Thou reader, thou ! 
 Of terms to use, 
 Such choice to choose, 
 As may delight 
 The country wight, 
 
 And knowledge bring ; 
 
 For such do praise 
 The country phrase,
 
 OXFORD DURlNt; TIIK KICHTEENTH CENTUIIY 107 
 
 The country acts, 
 The country facts, 
 The country toys, 
 Before the joys 
 
 Of any thing.
 
 XVIII 
 
 The character of the Oxfordshire farmer experienced 
 a remarkable change during the progress of the last 
 century. The great spread of education, the varia- 
 tions in the mode of culture, the closer ties by which 
 country began to be bound to town, all tended to 
 improve and civilize them. " Enclosing," says Arthur 
 Young, at the end of the century, " to a greater pro- 
 portional amount than in almost any other county in 
 the kingdom has changed the men as much as it has 
 improved the country ; they are now in the ebullition 
 of this change ; a vast amelioration has been wrought 
 and is working. The Goths and Vandals of open 
 fields touch the civilisation of enclosures."^ The 
 capital of trade was beginning to be thrown into 
 the cultivation of the land. Mr. Taunton was paring 
 and burning hundreds of acres of Avaste land at En- 
 sham, and, though farmers laughed at the mistakes of 
 the town-bred agriculturist, he was in reality but the 
 sign of the revolution which was creeping over the 
 whole system of English farming. ^ 
 
 But, "Forty years ago," the same writer confesses,
 
 OXFORD DURINC 'I'lIK KKillTEENTIf CKNTUUY 109 
 
 " I found them a very different race from what they 
 are at present." Even in the midst of this great 
 advance, " a great deal of ignorance and barbarity 
 remains." "When I passed from the conversation of 
 the farmers I was recommended to call on to that of 
 men whom chance threw in my way, I seemed to have 
 lost a century in time, or to have moved a thousand 
 miles in a day. Liberal communication, the result 
 of enlarged ideas, was contrasted with a dark ignor- 
 ance under the covert of wise suspicions ; a sullen 
 reserve lest landlords should be rendered too know- 
 ing, and false information given under the hope that 
 it might deceive, were in such opposition that it 
 was easy to see the change, however it might work, 
 had not done its business. The old open-field school 
 must die off before new ideas can become generally 
 rooted." ^ This retrograde class, the exceptions of 
 the close of the century, were fair representatives of 
 the bulk of the agriculturists during the greater 
 part of it. The tenant of his small holding, the 
 holding of his father and grandfather, whose acres 
 seemed bound up with his family history, had little 
 to draw him out of the vegetative life of his fellows. 
 The little circle round the fire at the village inn con- 
 stituted his world ; their chat furnished him with 
 his news and information. The Journal indeed had 
 sprung up of late, but a newspaper was still a 
 novelty, and to the bulk who could not read, and 
 made their cross in the parish register, a somewhat 
 useless one. His only excursions were a "rim" with
 
 200 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 the Squire's pack, and the journeys to market for the 
 disposal of his produce. The great Bible served for 
 his library, and was treasured perhaps more for the 
 fly-leaf, with its entries of births, marriages, and 
 deaths, than for the rest of its contents. Schools 
 were "for his betters," and learning he looked down 
 on as something "lackadaisical." Lilly, the r.strologer, 
 whose family were yeomen in the obscure town of 
 Diseworth, in Leicestershire, describes it amusingly 
 as "a town of great rudeness, wherein it is not re- 
 membered that any of the farmers thereof did ever 
 educate any of their sons to learning." ^ There were 
 probably no such towns as Diseworth in the England 
 of that day, but a village school was still a rarity. 
 The farmer's home was the great kitchen, with its 
 warm chimney corners, where the huge flitches hung 
 amid the smoke for winter consumption. Wife and 
 daughters were busy spinning flax for the countless 
 sheets and counterpanes that filled the walnut presses 
 in the bedroom, and the hum of the wheels enlivened 
 the dull evenings. It was not the farmer's wife only 
 whose wheel hummed so merrily ; the labourer's wife 
 had the same resource. In the middle of the last 
 century " every cottage at Baldon had a plot of hemp, 
 and all manufactured into linen for their own con- 
 sumption, selling what they could spare"; but its 
 close saw the extinction of this household manufac- 
 ture. "The last," adds Young, writing in 1809, 
 " was given up about six years ago." ^ 
 
 It was a time of transition for much besides hemp
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 201 
 
 plots. The whole face of the country Avas under- 
 going a great change by the rapid progress of en- 
 closures. Before the accession of George II. scarcely 
 an Enclosure Act can be discovered, but at the close 
 of the last century "very nearly the whole range of 
 country, 13 miles, from Banbury to Chipping-Norton 
 is enclosed by Act of Parliament, and improved in 
 product very greatly." ^ Burford, Young speaks of as 
 "enclosed 12 years ago."^ Culham-heath was still 
 unenclosed, " the reddest sand (near Nuneham lodge) 
 covered with thick fern — a sure proof everywhere of 
 what is below it."^ Enclosure, adds Young, "has 
 been the capital improvement of the county, for 
 proportionately to the extent of it more land has 
 been enclosed since I first travelled in it, which is 
 about 40 years ago, I conceive, than in any county in 
 England." •* The statistics fully justify this assertion. 
 During the first forty years of the reign of George III. 
 sixty-seven Enclosure Acts for this county had passed 
 through Parliament, forty-one of which seem to have 
 been carried into effect, and the amount of land thus 
 utilised was little less than 100,000 acres, or some- 
 what more than one-fifth of the county. One con- 
 sequence was a sensible diminution in the wheat 
 produce. The 4882 acres of wheat grown before 
 these Enclosure Acts actually decreased by 112. 
 Under the head of oats, however, as well as cattle, 
 dair)^ land, sheep pasture, and turnips, we find 
 a considerable increase. Burford is an instance : 
 since its enclosure "it has not produced so much
 
 202 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 corn, but infinitely more mutton and beef." Ecnts 
 rose rapidly, as the produce increased. "Fringford 
 has been improved greatly in rent and produce since 
 the enclosure, at least trebled in both ; Stoke Lyne 
 the same. . . . Stratton Ardley was £500 a year, 
 now it is £2500 : one estate there was offered for 
 £3000, it is now £800 per annum." Rents round 
 Bicester Avere trebled ; at Alvescot the vicarage farm 
 rose from £200 to £600 a year; Wootton, "Mr. 
 Sotham has not the least doubt of having yielded 
 full four times the produce in the 37 years since its 
 enclosure that it did in a like period before, and the 
 rent is five times as much as it was in the open 
 state." Nor did the rise in rent press heavily on 
 those who paid it ; " at Barton the land was let for 
 scarcely anything, and the farmers generally as poor 
 as could be ; enclosed it let at twenty shillings an 
 acre, and the farmers in easy circumstances and 
 doing well, and in all of them the farmers in general 
 very much benefitted."^ Other districts, however, 
 resisted for a long time the introduction of en- 
 closures. Campsfield, the open common between 
 Oxford and Woodstock, where we have seen the 
 Oxford fast men taking their morning drive, still 
 hung on to its old "rights," its cow common and com- 
 mon meadows, where wretched cross-bred sheep were 
 tended by " shepherds miserably poor."^ Whichwood 
 still spreads over its 7000 acres, filling its vicinity 
 with "poachers, deer-stealers, and pilferers of every 
 kind. . . . Oxford gaol would be uninhabited were
 
 OXFOllD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 203 
 
 it not for this fertile source of crimes."^ Most 
 stubborn of all was Otmoor, where the " commonei's " 
 were backed by the opposition of Lord Abingdon, 
 and enjoyed the low flat, with its periodical inunda- 
 tions, its " rot," and " moor-evil," undisturbed.'^ Long 
 after, at a time just previous to the passing of the 
 Reform Bill, the carrying out of the enclosure in 
 that district gave rise to the notable Otmoor riots, 
 which still linger in the recollection of many of our 
 readers. 
 
 Great changes, too, were taking place in what we 
 may call the interior economy of the farm. Oxford- 
 shire became noted for the neatness and regularity 
 of its rickyards. The farmers, says Young, "have 
 a proper pride in a clean and well ordered rickyard 
 and are sure to walk a stranger into them. They 
 form so perfect a contrast to the ragged heaps called 
 stacks, by the courtesy of Suffolk and Norfolk, that 
 I have returned to my own county and farm with 
 no little disgust."^ The thi-ashing mill, though a 
 new invention at the close of the last century, was 
 rapidly superseding the flail. Other implements 
 made slower progress. Li 1807 only a few drills 
 had crept into the county, scarifiers and scufflers 
 were " very rare indeed," and not a single horse-hoe 
 was to be seen nearer than Henley -bridge.* Horse- 
 hoeing Young notes as "quite unknown in Oxford- 
 shire."^ The system of rotation of crops was still 
 regarded in some quarters as an innovation ; ^ there 
 were but one or two fields of cabbage ; rape was only
 
 204 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 to be found on the rich red land north of Banbury. 
 Swedes were in 1807 just beginning to attract atten- 
 tion, but at Milton where Sir C. Willoughby, the 
 great patron of the plant, had covered considerable 
 tracts of land with it, there had been none five 
 years before.^ In this branch of agriculture Oxford- 
 shire seems to have taken the lead among English 
 counties. In other respects it was not so ad- 
 vanced. Nature had her own water-meadows at 
 Watereaton, where the summer floods would some- 
 times sweep away five hundred pounds worth of 
 hay in a season,^ but there was not a single artificial 
 water-meadow in the county. Where attempts were 
 made to introduce them they were frustrated by the 
 opposition of the millers.^ Artificial manure in the 
 shape of peat or coal ash had begun to make 
 its appearance under the patronage of Mr. Fane.* 
 Southdowns were being gradually introduced " to the 
 exclusion of the Berkshires";^ the Chilterns produced, 
 says a competent witness, half as much again as they 
 did thirty years before, and the increase was attri- 
 butable to "the increase of live stock by more turnips 
 and artificial grass." *> 
 
 Of the condition of the labourer we only gain in- 
 cidental glimpses. His wages, too, had risen more 
 than a third in the last forty years of the eighteenth 
 century. At its close his wages amounted to about 
 nine or ten shillings a week, with a rise to twelve 
 shillings in harvest. This was at a time when, in 
 the Oxford Market, beef was at 7|d. per pound, and
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 205 
 
 the quartern loaf at 9d.^ " There are gardens, and 
 good ones, to nine-tenths of the cottages I have seen 
 in Oxfordshire." And he adds a curious fact, "A 
 few years ago they had no potatoes ; now all have 
 them. Formerly, they did not like that root with 
 their bacon, only cabbage ; at present, they are 
 generally eaten."- Of their occasional hardships, 
 and how much these have been relieved by national 
 progress, we gain a glimpse in the following note. 
 "Before the navigable canal, about 1780, the people 
 at Heyford were greatly distressed for firing, wood 
 being scarce ; they were obliged to burn straw, 
 etc., or anything they could procure ; but now 
 as well supplied with coals as any village in 
 Oxfordshire." ^ 
 
 Far greater distress, however, than that of the 
 agricultural labourers was the lot of the manufac- 
 
 O 
 
 turing hands at Witney, Thame, and Woodstock. 
 In the middle of the last century there were above 
 five hundred weavers in full employ at Witney, but 
 it sank gradually to below half that number, and so 
 great were the fluctuations of the trade, that though 
 revived for a time by the introduction of spinning 
 jennies, it sank in the five years preceding 1807 
 from four hundred to one hundred and fifty. At 
 Thame a little lace manufacture was insufficient to 
 save the town from "depressing poverty," which 
 was enhanced by the high price of coals, 2s. 2d. per 
 cwt. Greater still were the fluctuations in the 
 trade of Woodstock. At the beginning of the
 
 206 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 century, the manufacture of articles of polished steel 
 was introduced by a Mr. Metcalfe, and to such a 
 height was it carried, that a chain of two ounces was 
 sold for £170,^ the box in which the freedom of the 
 borough was presented to Viscount Cliefden cost 
 30 guineas, and a garter star for the Duke of Marl- 
 borough 50 guineas, while a pair of scissors sold in 
 proportion to their workmanship, at from 5s. to 3 
 guineas. At the close of the century, however, the 
 trinkets of Birmingham and Sheffield had driven 
 these articles from the market, and not more than 
 a dozen hands were employed in their manufacture. 
 About 1750, however, the manufacture of leather 
 into breeches and gloves, had been established here, 
 and in 1807 no less than sixty to seventy men were 
 engaged as "grounders" and "cutters," at wages 
 of from a guinea to 30s. a week, and from 1400 to 
 1500 women, who earned from 8s. to 12s. So 
 flourishing was the trade at this time, that the manu- 
 facture had risen, in ten years, from thirty dozen 
 to four hundred dozen per week. In addition to 
 these manufacturing centres, we may notice that 
 the general employment of the female poor, at the 
 close of the eighteenth century, was in the south of 
 the county lace -making, while spinning prevailed 
 through the north and midland portions.^ The 
 average of the county poor-rates was 4s. 8d. in the 
 pound, but these varied greatly in different parts, 
 from the 2s. rates of Kelmscott, to 10s. at Burford, 
 and 14s., in the scarcity, at Bensington. The poor-
 
 OXFORD DURING THE KIGIITEENTII CENTURY 207 
 
 rate for the city in 1803 (the date of these statistics) 
 seems to have been slightly below the average of the 
 county, amounting to 4s. 4d. in the pound. ^ "We have 
 only to add, that at the beginning of tlie present 
 century, the population of the city was estimated at 
 about 13,000, that of the county at 9G,000.2
 
 XIX 
 
 So much interest has been taken in the restoration 
 of the City Races, that we may perhaps find some 
 little entertainment in a glance at them a century 
 ago. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, in the 
 month of July, were the days selected for the sport ; 
 the principal prize was the gold cup of one hundred 
 guineas in value (in addition to £40 in specie) ; the 
 town purse of £50 for five-year-olds ; a stake of the 
 same value for four-year-olds ; and a £50 gift from 
 the stewards. Lord Abingdon, Lord Robert Spencer, 
 Sir James Whalley Gardiner, and Captain Bertie 
 (then master of the hounds) and Mr. Bowler, seem 
 to have been the chief patrons of the sport. Dur- 
 ing the period of the races, Oxford was a scene of 
 gaiety. Public breakfasts alternated with the balls 
 and musical entertainments of the evening ; while, 
 for the less refined, there were matches in the 
 Cockpit, in Holywell, "each morning of the races, 
 between the gentlemen of Oxford and the gentlemen 
 of Watlington for five guineas a battle, and fifty 
 guineas the odd battle,"^ and E.O., upon which we
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 209 
 
 find the Mayor ;uid constables busy in effecting a 
 razzia.^ Itinerant hairdressers came down from 
 London to prepare the elaborate head-dresses of the 
 ladies who flocked in fiom every quarter to the races, 
 the assemblies, and "Mr. Sadler's balloon.'"^ 
 
 The ascent of a balloon, so ordinary an event with 
 us, was in 1784 a new discovery, for the honour 
 and precedence in which France and England were 
 eager in contending. To the unscientific it seemed 
 little less than a miracle. " Mr. Eudge, of Queen's," 
 was not the only college Fellow who launched these 
 wondrous machines amid the applause of the univer- 
 sity ; nor the Marquis of Blaudford the only peer 
 who considered it an honour to cut the string that 
 fastened it to the earth.^ But this interest rose to 
 its greatest height when adventurers trusted them- 
 selves to this frail means of ascent. One of the 
 first of such exploits, in England, was the ascent 
 of Mr. Sadler from the Physic Garden, November 
 12, 1784, The accounts notice "a surprizing con- 
 course of people of all ranks ; the roads, streets, fields, 
 trees, l)uildings, and towers of the parts adjacent 
 being crowded beyond description." After crossing 
 Otmoor, Thame, etc., the balloon descended near Sir 
 William Lee's ; and on the aeronaut's arrival in Oxford, 
 "the populace seized the chaise at the entrance of 
 the town, took off the horses, dragged the carriage 
 through several of the principal streets of this city, 
 and were not content till they had compelled the 
 inhabitants to illuminate their houses. " ■* 
 
 p
 
 210 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Balloons were not the only amusements which 
 Oxford had to offer her visitors or inhabitants. The 
 Music-room was at this time at the height of its 
 prosperity. Every Monday evening a concert of 
 vocal and instrumental music was held (except dur- 
 ing September and Passion week) ; the Messiah was 
 performed in Lent, some other oratorio in Act 
 Term, and in Easter and Michaelmas Terms either 
 a piece of choral music, or a grand miscellaneous 
 concert. The subscription was a guinea for two 
 tickets, a sum so small that we wonder how the 
 stewards could provide, as they undoubtedly did, 
 such singers as Mara and Catalani. The amuse- 
 ments of Oxford seem to have been softened and 
 refined by the character of the place. While Want- 
 age had its back-sword feast, and Stow-on-the-Wold 
 offered the munificent prizes of " half-a-guinea to each 
 man breaking a head, and two shillings and six pence 
 to each man having his head broke," ^ Oxford was 
 unobtrusively fostering "Florist Feasts," the humble 
 precursors of our Horticultural Societies. "A show 
 of Carnations in the Town Hall, August 8, 1782," ^ 
 seems to have been one of the first of these exhibi- 
 tions, which, from this time, continued to be held annu- 
 ally. No theatre was, as yet, established at Oxford ; 
 but a flourishing dramatic company could be found at 
 Burford, and at Woodstock. An advertisement, warning 
 all trespassers off the domains of Lord Harcourt,^ would 
 seem to point to the first origin of that most enjoyable 
 of all quiet amusements — a water-party to Nuneham.
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 211 
 
 It was from Nuneham that King George, with his 
 Queen, and the Princes Ernest, Augustus, Adolphus ; 
 the Princesses Koyal, Augusta, and Elizabeth, visited 
 Oxford, September 13, 1785. This event, at any- 
 time an interesting one for Oxford, was especially 
 notable as a sign and seal of that great change 
 in the position of antagonism which the city had 
 occupied up to the accession of the present king 
 towards the Hanoverian dynasty. From Jacobite 
 Oxford had become Tory, and was free once more 
 to bask in the sunshine of royal favour. There 
 were recent obligations due to her which George III. 
 was of all men least likely to forget. In the heat 
 of the great struggle in which Pitt, with the aid 
 of the King, eventually succeeded in breaking for 
 ever the oligarchic yoke of the great Whig houses, 
 Oxford had come to the aid of the minister in his 
 encounters with a hostile majority ; had expressed to 
 the King its " most cordial thanks for your Majesty's 
 late goodness and wisdom in removing from your coun- 
 cils " the heads of the coalition ministry of Fox and 
 North ; adding, " at the same time we intreat your 
 Majesty to accept our hearty congratulations upon 
 the appointment of a Ministry who, we have reason 
 to believe, are equal in ability and virtue to the 
 important trust they have undertaken, and in every 
 respect deserving the confidence of the people at 
 large, so generally bestowed upon them." "We 
 shall ever be ready," said the address in conclusion, 
 "to support the constitutional exercise of all your
 
 212 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 royal prerogatives, and we will not cease to implore 
 the blessing of Almighty God upon a Prince whose 
 exemplary life and character have so justly rendered 
 him the object of universal veneration and esteem."-^ 
 This address they even prevailed on their member, 
 Lord Kobert Spencer, though himself in opposition, 
 to present to the King. Reward was not long in 
 coming. Warton, the fellow of an Oxford college, 
 was now the court laureate, and, for the first time 
 since the accession of the Georges, Oxford shared 
 with Cambridge the honour of a royal visit. The 
 royal party, accompanied by the Earl and Countess 
 of Harcourt, entered the city in five carriages, and 
 passing through the fields behind Merton College, 
 attended morning prayers at the Cathedral. After 
 inspecting Christ Church, they were waited upon at 
 Corpus by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Dennis, Presi- 
 dent of St. John's College, preceded by the Beadles, 
 "with their staves inverted," who conducted them 
 by the Schools to the Theatre, where the Heads of 
 Houses and the Proctors had the honour of kissing 
 their Majesties' hands, while Dr. Hayes performed 
 several overtures on the organ. After visiting the 
 Bodleian, New College, St. John's, and the Obser- 
 vatory, the King returned to the Council Chamber, 
 and conferred the honour of knighthood on the 
 Mayor (John Treacher, Esq.), who, with the Alder- 
 men, assistants, and other members of the Corpora- 
 tion, kissed hands. All Souls', Queen's, and Magdalen, 
 having been inspected, the royal party quitted
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 213 
 
 Oxford at a little past five, and returned by Lord 
 Harcourt's to Windsor. It may interest future in- 
 vestigators into royal costume to know that "his 
 Majesty and the young Princes were in a blue 
 and gold uniform, the Queen in a plain lilac silk, the 
 Princess lioysd and Princess Elizabeth in pale blue, 
 and Princess Augusta in light green." The enthusiasm 
 of the citizens seems to have been boundless. Bells 
 rang incessantly from the arrival of the royal family 
 till their departure, and at night the city was " grandly 
 illuminated."^ 
 
 The mention of the IMayor, whom this accolade 
 converted into Sir John Treacher, reminds us that 
 the year immediately preceding had been distin- 
 guished by three Mayoralties. The Mayor for the 
 year beginning September 1782 was Mr. William 
 Fletcher, mercer ; the Bailiffs being Mr. Christopher 
 Yeats and Mr. John Collis.^ His successor Avas Mr. 
 John Watson, with Mr. Stephen Haynes and Mr. 
 William Costar, Bailiffs. =^ On the 29th of March, in the 
 succeeding year (1784), Mr. Watson died, and, as an 
 election was close at hand, and a returning officer 
 necessary, Mr. Isaac Lawrance was elected in his 
 place for the remainder of the year of office.'* July, 
 however, saw the death of Mr. Lawrance, at the age 
 of seventy ; ^ and the Mayoralty now fell to Alderman 
 Edward Tawney,*^ who was more fortunate than his 
 predecessors. Nicholas Halse, Esq., held the chief 
 magistracy during the following year, with Mr. 
 Pears and Mr. Bush, Bailiffs.'' Mr, Halse had pre-
 
 214 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 viously been elected Assistant in the year 1783.^ The 
 only event connected with the Corporation recorded 
 during these four years, from 1782 to 1785, was the 
 opening of "the organ, just erected, by Mr. Green, 
 of London, for the Corporation of this city," in 
 Carfax Church, by a voluntary played by Dr. Hayes, 
 which ushered in the procession of Mayor and 
 Aldermen. Mr. Cross was appointed organist, for 
 whose benefit the oratorio of Judas Maccabajus was 
 performed in St. Martin's.^ 
 
 The election which caused so hasty a re-election 
 of Mayor, was caused by that dissolution of Parlia- 
 ment by Pitt, which resulted in the return of a 
 triumphant majority in his favour, and the annihila- 
 tion of the old Whig faction. But, though Oxford 
 had been so lavish of fair words, the yoke was too 
 strong to be thrown off, and the old members, Lord 
 Robert Sj^encer and Captain Bertie, though open 
 followers of Fox, were returned without opposition.^ 
 The scene was hardly more creditaljle at Banbury, 
 where the territorial influence of Lord North secured 
 his re-election. " Some disgust having been conceived 
 at a former election, relative to the beer which had 
 been withheld from the companies of woolcombers, 
 weavers, etc., they peremptorily declined accepting 
 any favours from his Lordship, and, determining to 
 have an election of their own, constituted a corpora- 
 tion among themselves. At the time Lord North's 
 election was carrying on, the new-created corporation 
 passed his Lordship in grand procession, with music,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 215 
 
 flags, und a curious display of the coalition, which 
 consisted of a fox and a badger, the latter with a blue 
 riband " (Lord North habitually wore the badge of 
 the Order of the Garter), " and both suspended from 
 a branched polo. The companies having elected their 
 member, he was chaired amidst the acclamations of 
 more than a thousand people." ^ The mention of the 
 companies in this extract, from the papers of the time, 
 is ilhistrated by the account of the thanksgiving day at 
 Salisbury, in the same year, where the effigy of the 
 giant, St. Christopher, was escorted by a procession 
 of the companies of joiners, shoemakers, weavers, 
 tailors, and woolcombers ; the last of which made, on 
 this occasion, its "first appearance as a society, and 
 added in no small degree to the beauty of the scene ; 
 they were preceded by a boy and girl, elegantly 
 habited in the dresses of a shepherd and shepherdess, 
 and followed by a band of youths, uniformly dressed 
 in white, with sashes of various-coloured wool, and 
 carrying wands; next came Bishop Blaze in his 
 episcopal robes and mitre, holding a prayer-book and 
 wool-comb in his hands, mounted on a white horse, 
 attended by pages, and followed by his chaplain, also 
 mounted on a white steed. The body of combers, 
 drest in white luiiforms, with sashes of wool, and a 
 banner of the same, closed a scene which gave infinite 
 satisfaction to the spectators."^
 
 XX 
 
 The year 1786 began tind ended with a great display 
 of activity on the part of the new Street Commis- 
 sioners. InFebruaryinformationswereordered against 
 "such of the inhabitants as shall in future neglect 
 to have the pavement swept before their respective 
 doors " four times a week, and against " persons suf- 
 fering postchaise, carts, or waggons to remain in the 
 public streets, and particularly in Lincoln and Jesus 
 College Lanes, on Market days." And in the follow- 
 ing December no less than ninety inhabitants of the 
 High Street were summoned and fined for neglect of 
 these directions.^ In another instance their activity 
 was perhaps not less beneficial. The inconvenience 
 of the blocking up of Carfax had long been felt, and 
 in October it was finally determined that the Conduit " 
 should be taken down before the Lady-Day next 
 following, and that the northern side of the western 
 extremity of the High Street should be opened by 
 setting back the projecting houses and buildings in a 
 right line with the front of the new market.^ Li the 
 succeeding May workmen were already busy in taking
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 217 
 
 down "tlic ornaments and imagery from the upper 
 part of the Conduit, these ancient decorations" having 
 been "presented by the university to the Earl of Har- 
 court." ^ They still form not the least among the 
 many attractions of Nuneham, but it may perhaps be 
 a matter of regret that, while so many local sites 
 remained unai)propriated, a relic of so much civic 
 interest should have been lost to Oxford. 
 
 Nuneham at this period was often honourea with 
 the royal presence, and after a visit to Lord Harcourt 
 in the month of August their Majesties, with the 
 Princesses Eoyal, Augusta, and Elizabeth set out for 
 Oxford on Sunday, the 13th, and were received at 
 the east gate of the Schools by the Vice-Chancellor, 
 the Duke of Marlborough, the Marquis of Bhindford, 
 Heads of Colleges, etc., and escorted to the Theatre. 
 Here an address was presented overflowing with pro- 
 testations of loyalty and thanksgiving for the King's 
 escape from the attempt of the maniac Nicholson. 
 A similar address, couched in still warmer terms, was 
 presented by the Corporation in the Council Chamber, 
 after v»-hich (the Mayor declining to accept that 
 dignity) the honour of knighthood was conferred on 
 the senior Alderman, Richard Tawney, Esq.- The 
 royal example had begun to make these visits to the 
 city fashionable, and every year is now distinguished 
 by the arrival of the Duke of Gloucester or some 
 other prince of the blood. In September we find 
 announced the visit of the Archduke Ferdinand of 
 Austria, and his consort Beatrice, Princess of Modena,
 
 218 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 with the Imperial Ambassador and a brilliant suite. ^ 
 A more really beneficial result of the royal visit was 
 a present from the King of <£300 towards the release 
 of the poor debtors in Oxford gaol, and a remission 
 to each of the better-conducted convicts of a part of 
 their sentence. By the means of this benefaction the 
 Earl of Harcourt was enabled to effect the discharge 
 of twenty-five out of the twenty-seven debtors con- 
 fined in the Castle.^ Benevolence was not confined 
 to royalty ; in the month of January of this year 
 "five hundred half-peck loaves, a benefaction from 
 Sir John Treacher, our late Mayor, were distributed 
 among the necessitous freemen and the widows of 
 freemen of this city."^ 
 
 Among the more miscellaneous events of this year 
 may be noticed one which recalls the more recent 
 sacrilege at New College ; the robbery of two pair 
 of massive candlesticks and a large silver offertory 
 plate from Magdalen Chapel, by an organised gang 
 of thieves, who effected an entrance through the 
 woodyard and kitchen into the cloisters, and made 
 their way into the Chapel by means of a false key. 
 They were convicted at the next assizes, two reprieved, 
 and Ward, the leader of the gang, executed in the 
 month of April.^ A curious instance of the low 
 morality of the times may be seen in the frequency 
 of the "Wife Sales." In August 1786 we find that 
 " one Broom, of Kennington, near this city, sold his 
 wife to a person of the name of Pantin, of Little 
 London, for five shillings, to whom she was publicly
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 219 
 
 delivered soon after with a halter about her neck ; 
 but it seems Pantin was very soon sick of his bargain, 
 for in the afternoon of the same day he generously 
 made a present of her to Sadler, the Woodward of 
 Bagley."^ And in the year 1789 we find the new 
 Oxford market-place selected as the scene of one of 
 the brutal barters by a "navvy" employed on the 
 canal, wlio " tied a penny slip round the waist of his 
 wife, the end of which he held fast till he had pocketed 
 three shillings in part payment, the purchaser not 
 abounding in cash ; he then put the cord into the 
 hands of the new husband and took a French leave. 
 The woman immediately called for her second wed- 
 ding ring, Avhich being put on she eagerly kissed the 
 fellow, with whom she walked off.""^ 
 
 The Mayor chosen for the year beginning Septem- 
 ber 1786 was Mr, Richard Weston ; Mr. William 
 Forty and Mr. Edward Hitchings being elected 
 Bailiffs.^ In the next month the honorary freedom 
 of the city was presented to Sir Charles Nourse and 
 Mr. William Jackson, the originator and proprietor 
 of the Oxford Journal.^ The same honour Avas in the 
 course of the next year conferred on Lord Heath- 
 field, better known as General Elliott, the gallant 
 defender of Gibraltar, on his casual passage through 
 the city.^ We find the corporation during the year 
 1787 distinguishing itself by a crusade against " the 
 unlawful practice of forestalling and regrating which 
 has lately prevailed in the market of this city " ; ^ but 
 our smile at such folly will perhaps be tempered by
 
 220 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 the recollection that at this very time Lord Kenyon 
 was busy preaching much the same sort of political 
 economy from his seat on the King's Bench. The 
 Commemoration of this year was enlivened by a 
 public breakfast in Trinity College Gardens.^ "The 
 tables were plentifully and elegantly covered under the 
 shade of the lime tree walk near the shrubbery." ^ We 
 instinctively think of Tom Warton, " gobbling " and 
 punning from one table to another, and listening by 
 turns to the compliments of the ladies, and what was 
 always such a magnet to him, the strains of "the 
 Oxford band." Year after year his birthday and 
 congratulatory odes meet us now in the columns of 
 the Jmirnal. They do not cease till we meet with 
 the announcement of his burial (May 1790) in the 
 college chapel, the funeral being attended by all the 
 dignitaries of the university. Antiquarian, one 
 might think, even in death, there were found, in 
 digging for his grave, some few remains of a for- 
 gotten predecessor in the occupation of those last 
 few feet of earth, "a buckle about the bigness of 
 a crown piece," and "some fine silver thread which 
 might probably have belonged to the fringe of his 
 girdle."^ 
 
 At the civic election for the year 1788 we find 
 Mr. Francis Guiden elected Mayor; Mr. William 
 Hyde and Mr. James Tagg bailiffs ; Mr. Thomas 
 Benwell and Mr. John Cox chamberlains ; while the 
 vacancies in the Council Chamber were filled up by 
 the election of Mr. William Slatter, Mr. Simon
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 221 
 
 Brown, and Mr. Eichard Cox.^ The mayoralty was 
 signalised by another passage of the royal party 
 through the city on their way to Cheltenham.'^ In 
 May of this year we find " the Oxfordshire Kegiment 
 of Militia " — quartered in the city for their annual 
 exercise of one month — reviewed on Port Meadow 
 by their colonel, Lord Chas. Spencer, and dismissed 
 after a dinner in the Council Chamber.^ From this 
 time the corps seems to have been regularly exercised 
 at Bullingdon and elsewhere, and to have excited an 
 amount of warlike enthusiasm similar to that which 
 is every day springing up more and more around us, 
 England was, in fact, unconsciously training for her 
 death struggle with that revolutionary power which 
 was rapidly rising into greatness on the other side of 
 the Channel. Whiggism was beginning to be con- 
 founded with Jacobinism, and the loyal corporations 
 were everywhere rallying round William Pitt. In 
 his struggle with Fox and the Carlton House Whigs, 
 on the Regency question, he received the thanks of 
 the City of Oxford, in common with " the 2G7 
 patriotic members of the House of Commons, who 
 so nobly maintained the rights and privileges 
 of the two Houses of Parliament" to supply 
 the defect of the personal exercise of the Royal 
 authority, in opposition to the hereditary claims 
 of the Prince of Wales.* The strife was ended 
 by the recovery of the King from his temporary fit 
 of insanity, and nowhere was that recovery hailed 
 with louder rejoicings than at Oxford. A public
 
 222 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 dinner was given by the corporation, the city flag 
 was displayed from the tower of St. Martin's, the 
 bells rang incessantly throughout the day, and 
 drums and fifes paraded the streets. The night was 
 the signal for a general illumination, in which the 
 colleges ("for the first time," it is noted) shared; the 
 walls and palisades of the churches, and the "City 
 Colonade " on Carfax, were decorated with lights, 
 and scarce a cottage in the suburbs neglected to display 
 its owner's loyalty. The Duke of Leinster, who, 
 with the rest of the Irish deputation, sent to offer 
 the unrestricted Eegency to the Prince of Wales, had 
 been met in Oxford by the news of the King's 
 restoration to health, saw the poor watchmen each 
 contributing his pound of candles to ornament his 
 box; and a stage-waggon, stripped of its tilt, with 
 the naked hoops studded over with lights, and a group 
 of loyal fellows seated within, trolling out loyal 
 songs, and passing round the health of King George 
 till break of day.^ Pitt was not forgotten in the 
 general exultation. In October 1789 we find him 
 passing through the city, in the company of Lord 
 Auckland and Lord Henry Spencer, the bells ringing 
 almost without pause during the whole time of their 
 stay.^ The mere threat of an attempt at a repeal 
 of the Test and Corporation Act revived in 1790 the 
 vigour of civic Toryism ; by an unanimous vote of the 
 council, the city members and the High Steward 
 were requested to oppose the project,^ and the Duke 
 of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon showed ready
 
 OXFORD DtTRING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 223 
 
 deference to the wishes of what was almost their 
 pocket-borough. 
 
 The most interesting event of the year 1789 was 
 the falling of the "Founder's Oak" in Magdalen 
 Water walks. It stood at their entrance,'^ and, by its 
 dimensions and antiquity, had become an object of 
 great curiosity. In girth it exceeded 21 feet, in 
 height 71 feet, and its cubic contents 754 feet. For 
 more than nine feet from the ground it was a mere 
 shell, and had for a long time been kept from falling 
 by two or three roots " scarcely so large as a two- 
 inch cable." Its age was estimated at upwards of 
 six centuries, and in the fifteenth century it was 
 already so notable an object, that William of Wayn- 
 flete expressly ordered his college to be built " nigh 
 to it." It is curious that its fall was attributed to 
 injuries received so far back as the reign of Charles 
 II., when the present walks were laid out.^ A portion 
 of its timber was applied by the College to the con- 
 struction of a large and highly-ornamented chair, and 
 numerous snuff-boxes still remain as mementoes of its 
 existence. 
 
 The Mayor for the year 1789 was Mr. John 
 Parsons, mercer, Mr. William Wright and Mr. James 
 Rowland being chosen bailiffs.^ The next year saw 
 Mr. William Thorp, senior, elevated to the mayoralty, 
 while Mr. John Johnson and Mr. Thomas Hardy l)e- 
 came bailiffs, Mr. James Halse and Mr. John Swift 
 being elected chamberlains.^ How carefully the city 
 was nursed by this corporation may be seen from
 
 224 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 the transactions connected with the election of Mr. 
 Annesley in 1790. Immediately on the arrival of 
 the news of Captain Bertie's death, the Mayor con- 
 vened the Corporation and the Council, who unani- 
 mously put in nomination Arthur Annesley, Esq., 
 of Bletchingdon, who was at once ushered into the 
 town by many gentlemen of the corporation, and a 
 large body of the freemen, with drums, music, and 
 colours. A canvass was commenced ; upwards of a 
 hundred houses opened for the entertainment of the 
 freemen ; and the candidate, after dining with the 
 electors at the Angel, was drawn in triumph by the 
 crowd, which took the horses from his carriage, 
 through the principal streets. The freedom of the 
 city was presented him in a gold box, and Mr. 
 Annesley returned the compliment by a grand enter- 
 tainment to the Council and Chamber in the Town 
 Hall. In spite, however, of this elaborate prepara- 
 tion an opposition candidate was at the last moment 
 started, a Mr. Ogilvie, who, however, succeeded in 
 polling only 103 votes against the 613 which were 
 recorded for his opponent and the Corporation.^ 
 Civilities were bandied briskly enough between the 
 civic dignitaries and the neighbouring peers, who 
 were desirous of a seat for younger sons. Captain 
 Parker is presented with the freedom of the city, 
 and his father, the Earl of Macclesfield, entertains at 
 the Star the members of the Tailors and Cordwainers 
 Companies ; " upon which occasion the two honorary 
 members,"— Captain Parker and Lord Parker — " were
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 225 
 
 each presented with a tayloi's silver thimble and a 
 silver-bladed shoemaker's awl in an ivory handle." ^ 
 The Town Hall was restored and made commodious 
 in 1790, by the orders and at the expense of the 
 Marquis of Blandford, while his father, the Duke of 
 Marlborough, presented the room with "a magni- 
 ficent gilt chandelier and chain."-
 
 XXI 
 
 The year 1792 found Oxford, in common with the 
 rest of the kingdom, eagerly watching the progress 
 of revohition in France. Whatever sympathy the 
 first outbreak of liberty had excited was being fast 
 extinguished by the excesses into which the revolu- 
 tion had by this time plunged ; and that reaction 
 was commencing which was eventually to defer for 
 nearly half a century later the slightest approaches 
 to a just reform of the representation. The king's 
 head which, to use Danton's daring phrase, France 
 threw down as her gage of defiance to Europe, was 
 for England the symbol of a Tory despotism founded 
 on the horror which that deed of blood excited. 
 Addresses of confidence in existing institutions 
 became the order of the day. Fearful of the dark 
 and stormy sea into which France was so daringly 
 launching forth, England clung to the worst and 
 most effete abuses, as though a familiar evil were 
 better than so obscure and uncertain a good. To 
 those who are willing to cast aside every obstruction 
 or anomaly in their eager reaching forward to a
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 227 
 
 political Utopia, the lesson is no valueless one. 
 France hewed her way through abuses and anomalies 
 to the despotism of the second of December ; England 
 amid abuses and inconsistency waited patiently the 
 development of her freedom in the great charter 
 of 1832. 
 
 Addresses of confidence, as we have said, poured 
 rapidly in, in answer to the vigorous exertions of 
 the small knot of English republicans who circulated 
 so diligently the writings of Tom Paine. Such an 
 address we find presented to the Crown in June 
 1792 by the Corporation of Oxford. "Kingly 
 power," said that address, " wisely limited, is the 
 surest safeguard of the rights and liberties of a great 
 nation. We have to regret that no branch of the 
 British Constitution has faileil to meet its full share 
 of reproach and calumny. The church, the nobility, 
 the representation of the people, have each in their 
 turn become the object of direct attack, malignant 
 invective, and insidious ridicule."^ In the month 
 of December, in the same year, a "Loyal Associa- 
 tion " was formed in the city under the presidency 
 of Thomas Walker, Esq., and with the patronage of 
 the authorities both of the university and city, for 
 the purpose of declaring the firm attachment of its 
 members to " the happy Constitution of this country," 
 and of binding them to "oppose, detect, and suppress all 
 seditious, treasonable, and inflammatory publications, 
 whether in newspapers, printed handbills, ludicrous or 
 caricature prints, etc.," and to assist the magistrates
 
 228 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 in the suppression of any riot or disturbance ; and to 
 the resolutions of this society the Taylors' Company, 
 the most important body in civic politics, gave in 
 its formal assent.^ (We may notice in passing that 
 the then Mayor, Edward Lock, Esq., had in August 
 been elected an honorary member of this company.)^ 
 The university was at the same time busy in the 
 relief of the French refugee clergy, towards whoso 
 support the Vice-Chancellor was enabled in November 
 to transmit the sum of £500, as a first instalment, 
 and in December a further sum of more than £600.^ 
 These expressions of political feeling were not confined 
 to the higher classes. In January 1793 we find the 
 rabble " parading the streets of this city with lighted 
 torches, and bearing about the effigy of Tom Paine," 
 amid the shouts of a mob of boys, until the evening, 
 when it was committed to the flames on the top of 
 Carfax. " The figure was dressed in black, with the 
 Eights of Man in his left hand and a pair of stays 
 under his right arm." * The same ceremony was per- 
 formed in the course of the next week at Headington, 
 with somewhat more state and dignity. "Colonel 
 Langton and Eichard Lloyd, Esq., were particularly 
 active and zealous on this occasion ; and previous to 
 the execution a band of music attended the procession, 
 and God save the King was performed, vocally and 
 instrumentally, for near five hours, during all which 
 time the utmost decorum was observed."^ As the 
 contest became graver we find the first institution 
 of that " general fast and humiliation for imploring
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGIITJEENTII CENTURY 229 
 
 success on our arms, and for restoring the blessings 
 of peace to this kingdom," which was afterwards 
 observed throughout the whole of the war, on April 
 19, 1793.^ And we are reminded of that dark back- 
 ground of war, which we are so tempted to lose 
 sight of in its more dazzling details, in the long list 
 of subscriptions for the relief of the " Avidows and 
 children of seamen or soldiers who may die or be 
 killed in his Majesty's service during the present 
 war," which was headed by the Corporation with a 
 donation of fifty guineas.- 
 
 An agreeable variation of these sadder features 
 of Oxford history is afforded in the account of the 
 Duke of Portland's inauguration after his election 
 to the office of Chancellor of the University, vacated 
 by the death of Lord North. After attending at a 
 grand choral service at St. Mary's, whose " galleries 
 were occupied by a brilliant assemblage of ladies," 
 the new Chancellor dined with the governors of the 
 Radcliffe at a public ordinary in the Town Hall, and 
 heard Mrs. Billington sing at Dr. Hayes' concert in 
 the evening. On the next morning he proceeded 
 to the Theatre, and conferred degrees on the Bishop 
 of Dromore — better known to lovers of English 
 literature as the collector of The Fcliqiics of Ancient 
 Englhh PorfrT/, the amiable and accomplished Dr. 
 Percy ; on the Duke of Devonshire, Lords Bute, 
 Spencer, and George Cavendish ; on the Right Hon. 
 William Wyndham, and a crowd of other noblemen 
 and statesmen. The same ceremonies on the two
 
 230 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 following days, the graver features of the scene being 
 relieved by the balls and promenades of the evening, 
 and the whole being brought to a close by a grand 
 performance of the Messiah in the Theatre.-^ 
 
 The employment of the Oxfordshire regiment of 
 Militia (July 1793) in escorting a thousand French 
 prisoners from Southampton to Salisbury,^ plunges 
 us at once into the bustle of the great Eevolutionary 
 War which ended in 1815, and in November of the 
 same year the Council is voting twenty guineas 
 towards the use of the soldiers under the command 
 of the Duke of York, at that time campaigning in 
 Flanders;^ and in April 1794 a sum of £300 was 
 voted by the Corporation in aid of the subscription 
 for internal defence, in addition to the individual 
 contributions of each of its members. The money 
 was applied towards the raising of two troops of 
 Fencible Cavalry in the county to serve during 
 the war, which were soon organized under Major 
 Parker and Captain Auriel, and marched off into 
 Northamptonshire.* In the midst of these prepara- 
 tions came the news of the great naval victory 
 of Lord Howe, which was celebrated by a grand 
 illumination. The front of Queen's, its parapet, and 
 cupola, were covered Avith lights, bands of music 
 played loyal airs, and the bells rang throughout the 
 day. The streets were crowded until midnight.^ 
 Admiral Bowyer, one of the heroes of the day, on 
 his return to his seat at Radley, was escorted by 
 the townsmen of Abingdon in blue ribbons and
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 231 
 
 cockades, and entertained by the gentry of the 
 neighbourhood.^ The ebullitions of popular loyalty 
 were, however, sometimes more ardent than wise, 
 for in the course of this year we find the Dissenting 
 Minister of Oxford violently assaulted at Woodstock 
 by a party of recruits " under a mistaken opinion of 
 Mr. H., the minister's, political character." ^ 
 
 With war came war-prices and starvation. Every 
 winter had been accompanied by voluntary subscrip- 
 tions for the relief of the indigent poor, but these 
 attempts produced scarcely any impression on the 
 general distress. Yet the committee could state 
 that "considerably more than four thousand persons 
 have been regularly supplied with bread, twice in 
 the week, at little more than half-price, for the space 
 of eleven weeks," while the Corporation ordered all 
 necessitous persons to be supplied with the best 
 coals at fourteenpence per hundred, and the de- 
 ficiency to be made good by the City Treasurer, on 
 a consumption which in less than five months 
 amounted to six hundred tons.^ What a boon this 
 was we see from the joy with which the arrival of a 
 canal boat, in the opening of March, was welcomed. 
 The canal had been closed by a frost for more than 
 ten weeks ; coals had been brought by land carriage 
 from Birmingham, and sold at four shillings a 
 hundred.^ The county magistrates decided that for 
 a man and his wife, wages to the amount of at least 
 six shillings a week were necessary, adding one shilling 
 for every additional child, and that where the family
 
 232 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 earnings were less, the overseer should make uj) the 
 deficiency.^ _ The scarcity did not cease with the 
 winter, and the usual amount of folly in the shape 
 of i^roposals for its relief began to crop up. The 
 farmers around Burford resolved " to sell their corn 
 only to mealmen and bakers who shall consume the 
 same at or near home, and not to any jobber, for 
 they have found," adds the editor, "that persons of 
 this description buy up various sorts of grain, and 
 send it by different canals out of the country. The 
 above laudable resolution, if universally adopted, 
 will put an effectual stop to these proceedings." ^ 
 Such nonsense as this was not confined to farmers. 
 Lord Dudley informed his tenants "that if they do 
 not sell their wheat at what may be deemed a fair 
 and reasonable price, he will, according as they sell 
 exorbitantly, advance their rents at Michaelmas, and 
 give the sum arising from such advance to the poor." ^ 
 It is scarcely possible to conceive that the Wealth 
 of Nations had been many years in existence, and 
 that Adam Smith's pupil, William Pitt, was the first 
 minister of Great Britain. The Duke of Marlborough 
 and Lord Harcourt showed greater sense in the 
 example which they set of ploughing up a great part 
 of their parks to raise grain.* The Vice-Chancellor 
 and Heads of Houses unanimously agreed to " reduce 
 the consumption of wheat in their own families by at 
 least one-third of the usual quantity, and to recom- 
 mend the same to their respective societies."^ In this 
 they did but follow the example of the Privy Council,
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 233 
 
 who had entered into a similar agreement to consume 
 only bread with a mixture of one-third of barley-flour. 
 As might be expected, these quixotic attempts pro- 
 duced no great impression, and, in July 1795, a 
 general subscription is again set on foot for the 
 relief of the poor, and the reduction of the price of 
 bread in their case to fourteenpence the half-peck, 
 which the corporation headed by a donation of one 
 hundred guineas.^ Sufferings such as these were 
 hardly compensated by great victories like that at 
 Camperdown, for which we find Oxford busy in a 
 general thanksgiving in December 1797, sermons 
 being ** preached before the University by the Rev. 
 Dr. Collinson, Provost of Queen's College ; and before 
 the Corporation by the Rev. William Green, A.M., of 
 Magdalen Hall." ^ 
 
 We have passed over in this hasty sketch of 
 Oxford, at the close of the last century, some 
 events of miscellaneous interest, such as the great 
 eclipse which was very visible here in September 
 1793,2 and a curious tornado, which visited the city in 
 the beginning of 1792.* " A meeting of the Bursars," 
 held in 1793, "for the purpose of taking into con- 
 sideration the late advance of two shillings per 
 barrel laid on beer by the Oxford brewers," in which 
 they invite " proposals from such brewers in the 
 country as may be inclined to serve the different 
 colleges," is worth mentioning in these days of 
 "strikes."^ A trial of great importance for the trade of 
 Oxford was that of the Corporation against William
 
 234 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Taman, who, being matriculated and privileged as a 
 barber, had tried a variety of other occupations, as a 
 tallow-chandler, earthenware man, and cutler. The 
 University contended that his privilege from matricu- 
 lation entitled him to the exercise of all or any of 
 these in addition to his tonsorial profession. The 
 City relied on charters, etc., to prove that the 
 privilege was limited to that particular trade of 
 barber, which he was entitled to exercise as a 
 matriculated person. The jury, with the approbation 
 of Heath, the presiding judge, gave their verdict, 
 without hesitation, in favour of the City.^ A serious 
 mutiny of the Oxfordshire Militia, stationed, in 1795, 
 at Bletchingdon, must have excited a painful interest 
 in the county. It was a rough attempt to eflfect what 
 their superiors were just as clumsily attempting — a 
 redxiction in prices. They cleared the butchers' stalls 
 of their contents, selling them at fourpence a pound ; 
 insisted on a farmer's selling wheat at £12 a load, 
 and carried off flour to the amount of £5000, to 
 sell at a " fair price " at Lewes market next day. 
 For the night they encamped at Newhaven, where 
 they were surrounded and made prisoners by the 
 Lancashire Fencibles, who were in the neighbour- 
 hood, but their comrades in barracks, sallying out to 
 effect their rescue, boldly attacked a troop of Horse 
 Artillery which disputed their progress, and were 
 not dispersed without bloodshed. Heavy punish- 
 ments were inflicted, and four ringleaders shot for 
 this crime."
 
 XXII 
 
 "Imagination," said tho Greeks of old, "is the 
 daughter of memory." To those who have accom- 
 panied us through the series of papers, of which 
 this forms the conclusion, the converse may appear 
 equally true. Our memory of the past must indeed 
 be ever tinged deeply with Imagination. We look 
 back on a past century as the traveller looks back 
 on a distant landscape, where the grey of evening 
 is blotting out one by one the coarser features of 
 the scene, the miry roads, the squalid huts, the 
 filthy peasantry, and leaving but the dark masses of 
 long colonnades of elms, or the distant spires and 
 pinnacles standing out sharp and black against the 
 amber sky. As we, too, look back on the century 
 which we have been sketching, we see how its 
 fouler and more degrading features have passed 
 away from men's memories ; how its finer and more 
 romantic points have been magnified through the 
 haze of our fancy, till we have summed up and 
 consecrated all under the name of " The Good Old 
 Times." There would be little harm in all this, if,
 
 236 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 in doing justice to the past, we did not often do less 
 than justice to the present. Comimrisons are pro- 
 verbially odious ; but the comparisons which some 
 of the older among us are so fond of instituting be- 
 tween the present and the past are the most odious, 
 because they are the most erroneous of all. It has 
 been the fate of the author of these papers to have 
 to strip away much of the romance that enshrouded 
 the deformity of the Last Century ; to lay bare its 
 low mean aims, its grossness, its utter want of moral 
 tone or energy, and it Avas impossible to do so with- 
 out provoking some comparison with the present — 
 without the expression of a firm conviction that the 
 advance from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century 
 has indeed been a passing from darkness into light — 
 a crossing of the great gulf, which we alluded to in 
 our first paper, as severing the two most dissimilar 
 aeras of our history. 
 
 It is not without reason that " we boast," as old 
 Homer sang long ago, " to be far better men than 
 our forefathers." Low as, in the opinion of some, 
 the standard of our politics has sunk, it would be 
 hard to wring a consent, even from the lowest of 
 Oxford pot-wallopers, to the unblushing sale of the 
 civic representation in Parliament. The stoutest of 
 reactionaries would stand aghast at a public repri- 
 mand delivered at the bar of the House to civic 
 functionaries guilty, on their own confession, of open 
 and flagrant corruption, at a second bargain con- 
 cluded even within the walls of Newgate, at the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 237 
 
 eighty open public-houses, and the cold collation to 
 the members of the Corporation, which celebrated 
 the sale of the seat to the Duke of JMarlborough. 
 Those who still profess to regret the clianges eirected 
 by the Municii)al Keform Act can scarcely regret 
 changes which, at any rate, abolished the bribery, the 
 gin-bottles, the unscrupulous employment of influence 
 which made a civic election a bye-word. The fellows 
 of St. John's no longer think it a nocturnal enjoy- 
 ment to sally forth for a bottle at the neighbouring 
 alehouses. The Three Tuns no longer affords a means 
 of convivial pleasure to the dignitaries of All Souls. 
 The present Professor of Poetry does not rival his 
 predecessor, Warton, in his love for a pot-house ; nor 
 is it a common event for noblemen to rise in the 
 morning after the whet of a quart of brandy. A 
 highwayman, mounted like Dumas, would be as much 
 stared at as a mermaid ; we never think of looking 
 carefully to our pistols as we take our railway ticket. 
 Our prisons are not the scene of the foulest excesses, 
 and the most horrible outbreaks ; the pillory is gone 
 with the stocks and whipping at the cart's tail. The 
 poor, tattered, supperless servitor has almost vanished. 
 If the Smart survives, his "smooth unruffled stream" 
 has at least to break over the rocks of Examiners and 
 Testamurs; even a gentleman -commoner may be 
 studious without fear of a taunt of being " a bookish 
 fellow " from his tutor. " Toasts " and beauties 
 abound, let us hope, still ; but Merton Gardens no 
 lonser catch the whisners of flirtation, or the click of
 
 238 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Flavia's fan. Baylis and Blenkinsop have disappeared 
 with the wigs they so deftly manufactured ; and the 
 barber is no longer seen hurrying to college to pre- 
 pare the student's peruke for Hall. With the 
 barber other trades have sunk into comparative in- 
 significance. The Guild of Cordwainers, the Com- 
 pany of Tailors, only afford subjects of interest to 
 the civic antiquary. If we turn from city to county 
 we can scarce recall the farmer of a hundred years 
 ago, " fixed fungus-like on his peculiar spot," know- 
 ing nothing, caring nothing for improvement of the 
 outer world, amid the present bustle of Farmers' 
 Clubs and Agricultural Societies. The iron road 
 along which we whirl in a day from London to 
 Edinburgh has carried us almost beyond the memory 
 of the Turnpike of the end of the Last Century, quite 
 beyond that of the mud-lane of its opening. 
 
 This age, however, of the Georges was by no 
 means an age of inaction. Materially it was an sera 
 of gigantic progress. While the mind and con- 
 science of Europe were waiting, as it were, for the 
 thunder-burst of the French revolution to wake them 
 from their death -sleep, mechanical ingenuity and 
 commercial activity were rapidly raising England 
 to the position which it holds at this day as the 
 manufacturing centre of the world. Little as yet was 
 generally known of the laws by which this commerce 
 was regulated. Lord Kenyon was charging grand 
 juries, and Oxford magistrates were advertising 
 against the practices of forestalling and regrating, the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIGIITEENXn CENTURY 239 
 
 Court in its anxiety to alleviate a general famine 
 could think of no other device but that of ceasing 
 to eat puddings and pastry. But heedless of little 
 follies like these, the great river Avas cutting out its 
 own channels and spreading fertility in its own way 
 around. And it is from this rapid material progress 
 of the last century that there is almost as great a 
 contrast between itself in its beijinning and in its 
 close, as between itself as a whole and its successor. 
 Nowhere is this contrast more vividly presented 
 to us than in the papers of this series. As they 
 open Oxford is hurrahing for Dr. Sacheverell, perse- 
 cuting Hanoverians, illuminating for the birthday 
 of the Pretender, and toasting King James in every 
 tavern and coffee-house. The "deep disloyalty" of 
 the place is the subject of discussion among the 
 Lords, and for the last time in the history of Oxford 
 it is occupied by a hostile garrison. A hundred 
 years pass, and with them pass all traces of Jacobit- 
 ism and " Major-General Pepper's dragoons " ; a 
 Hanoverian monarch is still on the throne, but to 
 whisper a jest upon him is counted a sign of re- 
 publicanism. Tom Paine is being burnt in effigy, a 
 loyal association is the fashion of the day, and 
 crowds throng the streets to huzzah King George 
 the Third when he honours with frequent visits 
 his loyal city and university. When 1700 opens 
 England is thrilling with the glorious news of 
 Blenheim, of Ramillies, of Malplaquet; the House 
 of Bourbon is the terror of Europe, and a grand
 
 240 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 confederacy is clipping tlie ambitious wings of the 
 Grand Monarque ; when it closes the descendant 
 of Louis XIV. is a refugee at Hatfield, and another 
 great confederacy is on foot for his restoration to 
 the throne of the Bourbons. Nor is the contrast 
 less in our own internal progress. If 1700 witnessed 
 the university's greatest inactivity and degradation, 
 1800 saw the first beginnings of that system of 
 examination which led the way to higher and nobler 
 intellectual efforts. If religion during the first years 
 of the eighteenth century seemed dormant within 
 her walls, the middle of the century sent Wesley 
 and Whitefield forth to sov/ the good seed which 
 may almost be said to have saved England from 
 the fate of her sister countries of the Continent. 
 The county was not behind hand. It is the great 
 sera of enclosures ; commons are disappearing, the 
 great range of open country from Banbury to Chip- 
 ping-Norton is being parcelled out into fields and 
 farms ; the value of land is doubling and trebling, 
 and yet the farmers find no reason to complain. The 
 old race of agriculturists is dying silently away before 
 the dawn of a better system of culture ; the close of 
 the century sees a new race springing up eager to 
 test and adopt the new implements that are to work 
 a revolution in their modes of farming, — the drill and 
 the thrashing mill, the scarifier and the horse-hoe. 
 Externally, indeed, there seems little change or pro- 
 gress in the city. The corporation is as corrupt in 
 the beginning as in the close of this sera, as busy m
 
 OXFORD DURING THP: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 241 
 
 fixing the assize of bread, in prohibiting inoculation, in 
 putting down strikes and combinations for wages. 
 "Backsword-play" goes on in Gloster-green, and 
 cock-fighting at the pit in Holywell. St. Giles's fair 
 remains, even far into the next century, the type in 
 brutality and excess of St. Bartholomew's. The 
 streets ring with the oaths and curses of ruffians who 
 cared little for the watchman or the staff of the 
 city marshal. But even in amusements signs of a 
 gradual amelioration peep forth. Concerts grow 
 more and more frequent. Flower shows, shows of 
 carnations, trips to Nuneham, trivial as they may 
 seem to us, are yet the straws that shew the set of 
 the tide of refinement. The building of the Kadclifte 
 Infirmary forms an important ?era in the charities of 
 Oxford. Meanwhile the whole aspect of the city is 
 undergoing a change by the operation of the Improve- 
 ment Act of the latter part of the century. A 
 market-place is established, the lumbering array of 
 signs and penthouse shops are swept away, the streets 
 are paved and lighted, the kennel over which Johnson 
 stood so long astride, wrapt in meditation, disappears. 
 The entrances of the city are widened by the removal 
 of the old gates — a sweeping measure which we can- 
 not but regret while we approve it — by the construc- 
 tion of the present fine bridges, and by the removal 
 of the ruinous blocks of houses which disfigured the 
 approaches to them. 
 
 It is a topic on which one would be tempted to 
 enlarge in an age when the importance of local and 
 
 R
 
 242 OXFORD Sl-UDIES 
 
 sanitary improvements and the connexion of wide 
 open streets and free-air circulation with health is 
 becoming daily more recognized. But our limits 
 bid us pass on to another topic which may have 
 struck, perhaps, the readers of this series. Interest- 
 ing books have been written on the boyhood of great 
 men ; it was one of the felicities of our subject that 
 it introduced us to not a few of England's greatest 
 intellects at a time of still greater interest than their 
 boyhood, the time of brief rest ere that plunge into 
 the life-ocean which some were to buffet so manfully, 
 where some were to suffer so terrible a shipwreck. 
 We saw the father of the Wesleys, with his allowance 
 of five shillings from his friends, copying, running 
 errands, teaching, for a livelihood ; Foote acting 
 Punch through the streets, ridiculing the pedantry 
 of Provost Gower, and dashing through Oxford in a 
 coach and six greys. Malmesbury met us, the future 
 diplomatist, drinking claret and playing whist with 
 Eden and Charles Fox ; the brilliant though dis- 
 cursive writer whom we have so recently lost, De 
 Quincey, was there, entering hall with coat buttoned 
 to the throat, and gown drawn close about him to 
 conceal the rents in his threadbare habiliments ; 
 Collins was parading about Queen's or Magdalen in 
 laced hat and the finery of an exquisite ; a greater 
 poet, a still more unhappy man, Shelley, is staining 
 his carpet with vitriol or making ducks and drakes 
 in the pool below Shotover, or snatching up the 
 children whom he met for a kiss. Gibbon paces the
 
 OXFORD DURING THE EIOHTEENTH CENTURY 243 
 
 cloisters of Magdalen in his velvet cap and silk 
 goAvn, sneering at the port-bibbing dons whom he 
 mixes Avith in common-room, and sneered at by them 
 in turn as they see him poring over his D'Herbelot ; 
 making tours to Bath, to Buckinghamshire, to London ; 
 and poring over Arabic and bills with the same cynical 
 indifference. Tom Warton has strolled with us up 
 Headington Hill or round the Cherwell meadows, 
 amusing us with his poetry and his puns, his gobbled 
 criticisms, his enthusiasm at a fife and a drum. 
 Greatest of all we have seen Johnson's gaunt con- 
 vulsed form lounging at Pembroke gate, a Avit, a 
 rebel, a king among his fellows, at once so proud and 
 so poor. 
 
 They are gone — these men of the last century — 
 and their age is gone with them. We inherit the 
 material wealth it bequeathed to us ; its manufac- 
 tures and its commerce, its roads, canals, and spinning- 
 jennies — but the age has gone — it has left us nothing 
 of itself. There is, as we said at the very outset, a 
 great gulf between our aims, our purposes, our 
 standards of what is high and excellent, and the 
 aims, purposes, standards of the age which we have 
 been investigating. The fishermen of the Northern 
 Seas believe that seamen sometimes land on what 
 seems a great island, and whilst reposing in fancied 
 security, the Kraksa^ — for the island is that fabled 
 monster — sinks and is seen no more. As we turn 
 our eyes away from this Eighteenth Century on 
 which Ave have been landing so lately, it seems
 
 244 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 like the Kraksa to sink into the deep sea of 
 oblivion — we gaze easily beyond to the firm solid 
 land — the age of Cromwell, of Elizabeth, of the Re- 
 formation — but the Age of the Georges is vanished 
 for ever.
 
 YOUNG OXFORD
 
 Thkre are few earthly surprises at once so old and 
 so pleasant as the surprise with which, after a few 
 years' absence from Oxford, one returns to find one- 
 self an anachronism. It is not merely that the 
 ordinary social changes of life have gone on more 
 rapidly there than elsewhere, that a little world 
 which renews itself every three or four years presents 
 new faces and new voices to us, that, if we seek for 
 some enduring element amid the chaos of novelty, 
 we are driven to make friends with a veteran scout, or 
 to gaze with a sigh of relief on an immortal bedell. 
 It is not the faces only, but the whole atmosphere of 
 Oxford that has changed. The puns, the sermons, 
 the Newdigates, the heroes of the past are utterly 
 forgotten. It is one peculiarity of a place at first 
 sight so eminently traditional, that there is no tradi- 
 tion ; the great boating deeds of Smith, the great 
 proctorate of Brown, the wit of Eobinson, the learning 
 of Jones, vanish with the generation that knew them. 
 We find ourselves in the midst of a world that has no 
 past, in which a modern life is for ever ebbing
 
 248 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 and flowing through time-honoured cloisters and 
 beneath immemorial elms, where the most 
 venerable of living beings is the man in his last 
 term. 
 
 It is difficult to express the sense of fogyism with 
 which one reads the innumerable Oxiovd jenx d'esprit 
 that float down to hall or parsonage as Charlie comes 
 home for vacation ; such amusing little essays, for 
 instance, as these which have just been collected in 
 the form of the Oxford Spectator. There is all the old 
 fun, the old sense of social case and brightness and 
 freedom, the old medley of work and indolence, of 
 jest and earnest, that made Oxford life so picturesque. 
 But every form in which this spirit embodied itself is 
 changed. We have to begin our Oxford again, as we 
 had to begin it when we faced the Vice-Chancellor at 
 our matriculation. All is new, all is strange to us, 
 and we are plunged once more into the " Freshman's 
 Dream " which has been so ingeniously sketched by a 
 writer in these essays : — 
 
 I dreamed that I was wandering at midnight in the 
 Christ-church meadows. The sun was shining, and all 
 the trees bore the similitude of the colossal heads which 
 form the new decoration of the Tlieatre. I was hasten- 
 ing to Iffley to attend a lecture lor which I was in no 
 measure prepared. One tree gravely requested me to 
 subscribe to the Botanical Gardens, while another asked 
 me with great affability to wine. Then the ground 
 beneath my feet turned suddenly to cinders, and I was 
 exhorted to feel my stretcher, because it was the last lap. 
 I rose in the air, and found myself on my feet at the
 
 YOUNG OXFORD 2-19 
 
 Union, unable to speak ; I sat clown, and was straightway 
 dining in Hall without cap or gown, where my old Bchool- 
 raaster glared at me from a I'ranie upon the wall. Then 
 came Alcestis, whose face was still that of the College 
 Porter. With one hand she solved a quadratic equation, 
 and with the other she whispered in tones of silvery 
 sweetne.«s, " the Proctor's compliments, sir, and are you a 
 member of the University ? " ^ 
 
 It is the contrast of this social novelty with the 
 historic and unchanging aspect of the place, of its real 
 life and its ideal life, which gives such a strange 
 charm to Oxford. The future Antony-a-Wood who 
 sets himself to describe the true and not the merely 
 official history of Alma Mater will find himself face 
 to face with the most picturesque, because the most 
 rapidly changing, panorama in the Avorld. Without 
 stirring the dust of the middle ages he will recall the 
 martial tramp of the academical Cavalier as he 
 mustered in Broken Heyes or swept out with Rupert 
 to the fight at Chalgrove Field, the jests of the 
 sturdy Jacobites who ogled the Toasts in Merton 
 Gardens or pelted the soldiers of King George, the 
 earliest Methodists fasting and praying beneath the 
 eyes of the "pretty fellows," the tap of the martial 
 drum that could alone draw Professor Warton from 
 his alehouse, the gaunt figure of Whately stalking 
 round the meadow, the geological cavalcade behind 
 Buckland, the sudden adoption of tail-coats and the 
 most courteous of droops by which Oxford signalized 
 its worship of Newman and the origin of the new
 
 250 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 " Movement," the debates at the Union, the boats 
 on the river, the delights of the Long. What will 
 strike him most, perhaps, in the Oxford of to-day is 
 the disappearance of the Don. Oxford is Young 
 Oxford. The queer figures, strange compounds of 
 shyness and hauteur, who formed the still background 
 to all the movement and variety of academical life, 
 have faded away into quiet parsonages. With them 
 Oxford has lost its last relic of continuity, the last 
 bond that linked its generations together, the last 
 memorials of a tradition of discipline. It has not 
 lost sweetness in them or light, but it certainly has 
 lost individuality. They were not as other men are. 
 They had in fact a deep, quiet contempt for other 
 men. Oxford was their world, and beyond Oxford 
 lay only waste wide regions of shallowness and 
 inaccuracy. They were often men of keen humour, 
 of humour keen enough at any rate to see and to 
 mock at the mere pretences of "the world of 
 progress " around them. Their delight was to take a 
 " progressive idea " and to roast it over the common- 
 room fire. They had their poetry; for the place 
 itself, and the reverence they felt for it, filled them 
 with a quiet sense of the beautiful ; and this refine- 
 ment and this humour both saved them from bowing 
 before the vulgar gods of the world without. They 
 did not care much for money ; they saw their con- 
 temporaries struggling for it, and lingered on 
 content with their quiet rooms and four hundred a 
 year. They cared very little for fame, at least the
 
 YOUNG OXFORD 251 
 
 fame that lives in the light of Mudie's countenance, 
 although most of them had a great dream-work on 
 hand, of which not a chapter was ever written. What 
 they did care for was strangely blended of the 
 venerable and the ridiculous, for their real love of 
 learning was mingled with a pedantry both of mind 
 and of life, and a feminine rigour over the little 
 observances of society and discipline. Such as they 
 were, however. Young Oxford has no type of 
 existence to show so picturesque, so individual. 
 Its one really new product is the "D. F. Niente, 
 Esq.," whom the essayists of the Spectator set before 
 us in the various stages of his academical career. 
 He 
 
 wears the form of a slim and graceful youth, well dressed 
 and highly perfumed ; his voice is soft, and his manners 
 attractive, if perhaps a trifle artificial. First you ask his 
 name, and admire him at a distance for a week ; then 
 you meet him in company, and are in a moment his 
 willing captive. He soon allures you to his lair, a spot 
 strewn with every elegance of luxury and art, with albums 
 full of fair faces or amusing "sketches," with graceful 
 trifles from foreign lands, and little notes from all the 
 ladies in Oxford. There he feeds you with the most 
 delicate viands, over which you linger like them of old 
 who could not leave the lotus-beds ; then, before this 
 enjoyment begins to pall, he leads you forth, and slowly 
 up and down the High Street, through a long delightful 
 afternoon, till, before the bell of your College rings for 
 dinner, you are ensnared. Struggle as you will, you 
 cannot get free. Henceforth you will act in private 
 theatricals, and sleep till mid-day ; you will never row or
 
 252 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 run again ; you will be often photographed ; in short, as 
 your captor is so will you be.^ 
 
 No doubt there is a more serious side to Young 
 Oxford. If dons have fled before this advent of 
 " shooting stars," of whist, of athletics, of art, before 
 the endless jangle of pianos and the rattle of billiard- 
 balls, some of the better elements of the world with- 
 out have come in. Lepidus, as these essayists paint 
 him, may be "dainty, delicate, delightful, superficial"; 
 we may get a little sick of his raptures over De 
 Musset, his egotistical philosophy, his art gossip, the 
 pretentious little essay which he polishes in a couple 
 of years till it is too sparkling to be readable, his 
 feminine fussiness over the last Liberal statute, his 
 fleers at "the barbarians," his patronage of goodness 
 and nobleness " from an jsesthetic point of view " ; 
 but with all his affectation Lepidus is quietly 
 changing this old world into a new^ If Oxford is to 
 educate Englishmen, and not merely to drill them, to 
 act as an intellectual, and not merely as a social force, 
 it is time that she knew something and taught some- 
 thing of Turner and Alfred de Musset. Ten years 
 ago we should have found no Oxford man daring 
 enough to talk through a whole paper, as one of these 
 gentlemen does, about the drawings in the Taylor 
 buildings, and to talk with a certain amount of 
 knowledge and good sense. Ten years ago it would 
 have been hazardous in a mere author of fugitive 
 papers to suppose such an interest in literature, in the 
 
 (
 
 YOUNG OXFORD 253 
 
 humours of Charles Lamb, in the style of Addison, as 
 these papers in their very form take for granted. 
 And tlie result of this extension of Oxford sympathies 
 is apparent, wo think, in u new geniality and fairness 
 of tone. Oxford has given much in the way of 
 impulse, of energy, to England, but her impulse has 
 been narrow, and her energy has been hard. Who 
 does not recall the bitter, fighting, intolerant temper 
 that marred much that was lofty and beautiful in the 
 earlier Oxford movement ; the blind party-spirit, the 
 cliqueishness, the self-sufficiency that has so often 
 disenchanted men of Oxford Liberalism 1 To men 
 living in a little world, and never looking outside it, 
 mole-hills become mountains, and to Oxford men 
 Headington Hill was an Alp. We can forgive much 
 art-gossip, much prattle over Sainte-Beuve, if it takes 
 men out into the larger world, where they may gain 
 a sense of proportion, and add a little sweetness to 
 their lio-ht. Their contact with the actual life around 
 them, however trivial may be the forms it takes, 
 their sympathy with the actual hopes and aims of men 
 at large, may help Oxford in the days that are to 
 come. For whatever may be the changes that are 
 impending, it is plain that changes must be, and that 
 they will be changes that will set our academical 
 education in a far closer and more practical relation 
 to the general instruction of the country than its 
 present system and tradition allows. Whether 
 Oxford can adapt herself to new national require- 
 ments will depend not so much on new " Liberal
 
 254 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 statutes" as on the development of a temper in 
 harmony with the temper of that " world without " 
 which she has so long despised. And it is because of 
 the promise of such a development, a promise none 
 the less significant that its form is so light and 
 unpretending, that we have noticed these little pages 
 of the Oxford Spectator.
 
 OXFORD AS IT IS
 
 Commemoration is Oxford in masquerade, and the 
 mob of country visitors who celebrate its carnivals of 
 balls and prize essays during the present week are 
 simply looking on Hamlet with the part of Hamlet 
 left out. Oxford is in Pall Mall, or up the Rhine, or 
 scaling the Matterhorn, or doing the Caucasus, and 
 it has left only its tail behind it. Chancellors and 
 beadles and doctors of civil law, and a few belated 
 undergraduates groaning against fate and the caprice 
 of pretty cousins, form indeed a tail such as no other 
 place can boast. Some faint shadow of the real life 
 which has Hitted away lingers in the grand incon- 
 gruities which remain — Abyssinian heroes robed in 
 literary scarlet, degrees conferred by the suffrage of 
 virgins in pink bonnets and blue, a great academical 
 ceremony drowned in an atmosphere of Aristophanean 
 chaff. The shadow of Oxford is better than the 
 substance of other places, no doubt; but we can 
 hardly wonder that the pretty cousin goes home 
 again as wise as she came. She has failed to see 
 Oxford, as Leicester failed to see the Spanish fleet, 
 
 s
 
 258 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 "because it was not in sight," It is the season, not 
 the method of her inquiry, which is at fault. The 
 one place to study Oxford in is Oxford herself ; a 
 walk down the High tells more of its actual life than 
 all the books and treatises in the world. Nowhere 
 does one get less help from sentiment or speculation ; 
 nowhere can one trust so implicitly to the eye and 
 ear. The charm of the place lies in a single differ- 
 ence from the world without it, and that difference is 
 betrayed in almost ostentatious individualities of 
 speech, of manner, of costume. It is natural enough 
 for the pretty cousin, as she peeps into Oriel quad or 
 wanders round Magdalen cloister, to associate Oxford 
 with the speculations it has suggested or the traditions 
 to which it seems to cling. It is hard not to shrink 
 with a little awe before the long procession of Doctors 
 and Heads which floods with a gorgeous river of 
 colour the middle aisle of St. Mary's. But Oxford is 
 in truth neither historic nor theological nor aca- 
 demical. It is simply young. The first impression 
 one receives is the true one ; half the faces one meets 
 are the faces of boys ; everywhere there is the freedom, 
 the geniality, the noise of a big school. 
 
 There is the indolence and the lawlessness too. 
 The true life of Oxford begins after luncheon. It 
 lounges about the quad in the sunshine of noon. It 
 plays bowls on the smooth sward of St. John's, or 
 does a little lazy archery beneath the elms of New 
 College. It paddles down to Sandford, or moors its 
 indolent punt among the water-lilies of Cherwell.
 
 OXFORD AS IT IS 259 
 
 It seeks comfort in Symonds's stables, and discusses 
 with ostler-pundits the odds for the Oaks. Its cricket 
 drag rattles down High on its way to Bullingdon, its 
 fours drift down the river and receive comfort and 
 counsel from the bank. Night brings the magnilo- 
 quence of the Union, Jones's first speech, and 
 Robinson's smashing reply. Choral and quartet 
 parties burst forth on the evening stillness of the 
 quads. Brown settles himself in the coziest of sofas 
 for an hour with his French novel ; Smith wends his 
 way to the little room in the corner, where the 
 faithful gather to celebrate the mysteries of whist. 
 It is a life possibly without grandeur or high aims, 
 hardly perhaps the ideal life of a great university 
 but a life at any rate free and genial and young. It 
 is difficult, of course, to bring young Oxford into any 
 very definite relation with the traditional Oxford 
 which surrounds him. His one relation is that of 
 picturesque contrast. One turns into the gloomy 
 quad of S. Leoline's, and every window and drop- 
 stone of the blackened walls is etched out with gay 
 lines of flowers. It is in the same gay, flower-like 
 spirit that young Oxford etches out the grim, dark 
 outlines of the Oxford of centuries ago. There is a 
 certain grace even in the revolt which flung aside 
 academic costume and permitted dress to attain its 
 highest pitch of negligence in the one Spot where it 
 is still regulated by statute. A long line of founders 
 and benefactors look doAvn on the results of their 
 munificence in the group of boyish strollers got up in
 
 260 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 boating flannels and red comforters, or gracefully 
 lounging beneath mediaeval porches in the itbandon of 
 a wide-awake and a pea-jacket. It is in vain that 
 Heads lecture and tutors preach, and proctors insist 
 on a morning call and a statutory fine. The whole 
 thing melts in an atmosphere of laughter and fun. 
 The Head whom nobody cares for, the sermons that 
 nobody goes to, the halls that fade away into boating 
 suppers, the tutors that submit to a terminal screw- 
 ing-in, the proctor who stifles his smile as he pockets 
 the half-crown, dissolve into unreal beings beneath 
 the jests of young Oxford. We dress this jeiinesse 
 dorie in the philosophic toga and set it before ex- 
 aminers in bands and white tie, but it is impossible 
 to make it believe in statutes or testamurs. The 
 young barbarian believes that he has been sent to 
 these venerable cloisters to play. The scene at Com- 
 memoration, the chaff which breaks upon the Latin 
 poem, the interruptions of the portly orator, the roar 
 of laughter which greets the Vice-Chancellor's appeal 
 for a little gravity in the proceedings, convey simply 
 the undergraduate's impression that everything which 
 aims at not being play is a joke. 
 
 Oxford is young, and oddly enough it is this 
 peculiar characteristic of the place which has been 
 especially intensified by modern reforms. The old 
 Don of port and prejudice has disappeared. The 
 new teachers are hardly older than the boys they 
 teach. The country parson who brings up his son 
 for matriculation stares at the beardless Vice-President, 
 
 i
 
 OXFORD AS IT IS 2G1 
 
 at the g.ay group of unwhiskered young Fellows round 
 the High Table, who are tossing from one to another 
 the grave titles of Tutor and Dean. The chaff, the 
 vivacity of common room, strike him as dumb as if 
 he had looked in casuallj'' upon Convocation and 
 caught bishops playing high jinks. And no doubt 
 among the actors themselves there is a slight sense 
 of unreality. Graduate and undergraduate hardly 
 meet without a smile ; the tutor displays somewhat 
 defiantly a shade of his old interest in the cricket- 
 score ; it is difficult to bring home to the friends of 
 last term the impropriety of bonneting the Dean. 
 The Dean himself longs sometimes for a grey hair or 
 two when it is necessary to impress on young Oxford 
 the principles of decorum and self-respect. Still on 
 the whole the experiment is a success. There is a 
 great deal more unity and good-feeling about the 
 place than could possibly exist when a gulf of twenty 
 years separated governors and governed. Discipline 
 is quite as efficiently maintained by friendly appeals 
 to men's good sense as by the puerile severity of 
 college meetings, and religion can hardly be said to 
 have suffered from the abolition of compulsory 
 chapels. The place in fact has quietly changed from 
 a school into a university, and a discipline originally 
 framed for boys of fifteen, and which had become an 
 anachronism with men of twenty, has at last been 
 adapted to the altered circumstances of the time. 
 Nor has the change been unfavourable to the Don 
 himself. No doubt he is young ; young, for instance,
 
 262 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 in dandyism and a tendency to soft living, a youthful 
 taste for sybarite little dinners in common room, a 
 weakness in the way of flirtation, a certain poetic 
 effervescence, a juvenile drift towards laborious 
 pleasantry and elephantine jest. His muscular energy 
 has a youthful rawness about it; he is proud of 
 doing Constantinople in the four weeks of an Easter 
 vacation, he revels in the Alpine peaks of the Long. 
 Intellectually he has a boy's want of balance, a wide, 
 unconscious ignorance, Avhich satisfies itself easily 
 with parrot-like phrases and a general reliance on 
 cram ; a juvenile narrowness of mental range, and an 
 absolute blindness to the greater lines along which 
 human knowledge is destined to advance. He is 
 totally ignorant of history in one of the most historic 
 cities of the world. He knows nothing of science, 
 though he votes thousands in a lordly way towards 
 its support from the University chest. He is young 
 in the intensity of his worships, in the precocity of 
 his criticism. Before Balliol he falls down, like 
 Sisera, dead. German has a strange power over him, 
 as a language in which all human science is summed 
 up. He contemptuously refers the Professor of 
 History to a Leipzig treatise, which turns out to be a 
 summary of Hallam, and bursts upon the Physio- 
 logical Reader with a scientific Eureka, which proves 
 to be a translation of Darwin. He has, like most 
 people of his years, a tendency to epigram, an intoler- 
 ance of bores and boredom, a turn for paradox. His 
 youth breaks out in defiant heterodoxies and ortho-
 
 OXFORD AS IT IS 263 
 
 doxies, in a fiery party-spirit, in a passionate loyalty 
 to acadoniical wire-pullers, in an abhorrence of 
 " caves " and moderation, in a preference for strict 
 party votes. He moves heaven and earth to frustrate 
 the reactionary intrigues which aimed at substituting 
 a comma for a semicolon in the statute on blunder- 
 busses. He has the last news from the lobby about 
 the Tests Bill, and shakes his head distrustfully over 
 the Solicitor-General. But with all this he is honest 
 and hard-workiniij. The number of books turned 
 out from Oxford just now is probably greater than at 
 any time since the years of the Newmania, and the 
 intellectual energy which produces them is far wider 
 in temper and actual extent of interest than the 
 energy of 1840. The Aaulemy is a good index to 
 the nature of Oxford activity — a little too impatient 
 of vulgarity, too contemptuous of fine writing, 
 aiming too passionately perhaps at thoroughness and 
 originality, but still genuine and useful so far as it 
 goes. In a word, the young Don is a little priggish, 
 as young people are apt to be. But he is for the 
 most part eminently genial and good-humoured. His 
 gaiety and vivacity give life and colour to the place. 
 People never meet each other without a good story or 
 a piquant little jest. Nowhere are differences so 
 wide or so keenly expressed, but nowhere do they 
 tell less upon the grace and courtesy of social con- 
 verse. The philosophers who have been rending one 
 another in pamphlets and on platforms are in common 
 room the best friends in the world.
 
 264 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 It is curious to watch the influence of the young 
 Don upon the world into which he is thrown. On 
 the place itself it tells rapidly, because it is a place 
 without a tradition, without a past. No place lives 
 so absolutely in the present, and nowhere is the 
 present so short. The "old resident," who was the 
 one chain that linked the generations together, is 
 quietly drifting away. If he stays, the atmosphere 
 of youth around him turns Oxford into a Medea's 
 kettle. He prides himself on being younger than the 
 youngest. He cracks jokes, he trots out his little 
 anecdotes, he is the life of the common room, he is 
 fatal on the croquet-ground. It is on the croquet- 
 ground that the new social aspects which young 
 Oxford has introduced can be best studied. Beyond 
 the classic fields of St. Giles stretches the land 
 of Professors and Professors' wives, hundreds of 
 mediaeval little villas where learned young ladies 
 invite young Oxford to early tea. The old celibate 
 spirit has vanished before this invasion of the vestals. 
 There is a curious action and reaction; the young 
 tutor becomes a shade over-festive, the maiden some- 
 times a shade over-blue. She is generally Liberal, 
 learned in University politics, divided in her affec- 
 tions between boating-men and first classmen, cautious 
 not to get entangled with penniless barristers, and 
 secretly dreaming of blissful union with a "tuft." 
 Her tea is a little weak, but she is very strong in 
 croquet, and strongest of all in a chat beneath the 
 willows. Grave "Heads "wield the mallet for her,
 
 OXFORD AS IT IS 265 
 
 and grave Professors vary their lectures with pretty 
 little stories which are rewarded with her smiles. 
 She mourns over the scarcity of balls and at the 
 perpetual monotony of musical evenings. But she 
 quickens into new life at the advent of Summer Term. 
 There are the Art Lectures to begin with, and art is 
 always pleasant to dabble in. What can be more 
 delightful than the Master of St. Simon's and the 
 charming little sketches he leaves on the blotting- 
 book at every delegate's meeting? What more 
 entrancing than the new Art-Professor, and the 
 wonderful fireworks which throw their magical light 
 over every subject on earth but the subject of his 
 chair ? Quiet art-students there have been in Oxford 
 for a long time ; its art-circle is one of the most real 
 and worthy results of the life of young Oxford ; but 
 the Vestal of the Parks votes their talk a bore, and 
 hurries off to the Taylor to see a great genius crown 
 itself with foolscap and burn the Church Catechism 
 in effigy before the nose of the Vice-Chancellor. But 
 the Vestal is only one instance of the wider world 
 into which young Oxford plunges. The great am- 
 bition of the modern Don is to turn Oxford into a 
 suburb of town. The non-resident Fellow forms the 
 link between society and Alma Mater. Troops of 
 lions and lionesses, poetesses and novelists, Comtists 
 and Cardinals, flutter down on the Saturday, to 
 return on IMonday morn. Sunday is spent in 
 " academical regeneration," in breakfasts and boating, 
 barges to Nuneham and breaks to Woodstock, lioniz-
 
 266 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ing, flirting, cliatting, dining. In this way Oxford is 
 "saturated with modern thought." So at least 
 thinks young Oxford, as he rests from his flirtations, 
 and turns back with a 
 grind. 
 
 sigh to the old-fashioned
 
 NOTES 
 
 p. 27. — ^ It has been thought best to alter nothing in 
 the wording of the following papers; the expressions "this 
 century," "present century," "last century" have therefore 
 been left as they originally stood. The reader will under- 
 stand that, as these papers were written in 1859, "the last 
 century" stands throughout for the eighteenth, and "the 
 present century " for the nineteenth century. 
 
 r. 29. — ^ The largo shop in the High Street occupied by 
 the late Mr. Wyatt (printscller) was formerly the well-known 
 "Tom's" coffee-house. The front part was the general room, 
 but the small back room was the sanctum of dons, and Mr. 
 Wyatt used to point out the Chippendale chairs which had 
 been there more than a century, and tell how the room was 
 always known as "The House of Lords," set apart for men 
 like Tom Warton or Dr. Johnson. The chairs had been sat 
 on by many a learned talker, while he and his listeners enjoyed 
 their pipes and coffee. — J. R. 
 
 P. 30.— 1 Lord Bathurst to Swift, June 30, 1730. Swift's 
 Works, ed. Scott, 182-1, vol. xvii. pp. 304-5. 
 
 - "The man of God doubted not but that very soon Oxford 
 would be sought for, even in Oxford." Amherst, Terrce Films, 
 No. 5. "Oxonium quferas in Oxonio." lb. No. 44. 
 
 P. 31. — ' "Wood's Autobiography, a. 1650. 
 ^ Aubrey, Lives of Eminent Men (published with Letters 
 vrritten by Eminent Persons, 2 vols. 1813), vol. ii. p, 198 ;
 
 268 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Clark's edition (1898), vol. ii. p. 10. It should be noted that 
 " this city " in the text means London. 
 ^ Oxford Sausage (1764). 
 
 P. 32. — ^ Jackson's Oxford Journal, April 14, 1759, 
 2 lb. April 21, 1759. 
 
 P. 33. — ^ This reference has not been identified. For the 
 gentleman commoner see prologue to Colnian's Oxonian in 
 Town. 
 
 P. 34. — 1 Zach. Conrad von Uffenbach, who visited Oxford 
 in 1710, relates that the Protobibliothecarius of the Bodleian, 
 "Bookseller" Hudson, left the making of the new catalogue 
 to the Hypobibliothecarii, Master Crab and Master Hearne. 
 "This Hearne is a man of 30 year, a poor starveling mean 
 little creature, yet diligent withal and of good scholarship. 
 He is only keeper (Bcschlicsser) of the Library, and shows the 
 Anatomy Camera, wherefore he is very eager for the fee. He 
 has not much from the Library, and as he assured me, only 
 £10." Uffenbach's Itinerary (1754), iii. 158, quoted in 
 Wordsworth's University Society, p. 21, note 2. The German 
 words represented by "a poor starveling, mean little creature " 
 are sehr tmansehnlich. 
 
 2 Dr. Routh of Magdalen College used to tell in 1848 
 (being then in his ninety-third year) how he " well remembered 
 the time when every academic of any fashion resorted to the 
 coffee-house during the afternoon, 'Tom's,' nearly opposite the 
 present market, being frequented by the most gay and ex- 
 pensive ; ' Horseman's, ' also in the High Street, nearly 
 opposite the house of the Principal of Brasenose, received the 
 members of Merton, All Souls', Corpus and Oriel ; ' Harper's, ' 
 the corner house of the lane leading to Edmund Hall, those of 
 Queen's and Magdalen; 'Bagg's,' the stone house (built out 
 of the surplus materials from Blenheim by Sir John Vanbrugh), 
 at the corner of Holywell, facing the King's Arms, used 
 by New College, Hertford and Wadham ; and 'Malbon's,'a 
 diminutive tenement some feet below the present street, at 
 the north-east corner of the Turl, was filled from Trinity, and 
 by the members of the neighbouring colleges." — Wordsworth's 
 University Society, p. 145.
 
 NOTES 2G9 
 
 p. 35. — ' "Last week the bp. of Winchester sent half ;i 
 buck to Magd. Coll., Oxford (the president himself 
 being absent) for the fellows, and about tlie same time Queen 
 Carolina sent them a whole buck (it being had from Which- 
 wood forest), and they eat it on Monday last, September 11, 
 going to dinner at one o'clock." — Hearne's Diary, Sept. 
 14, 1732. 
 
 - " Whereas the University disputations on Ash Wednesday 
 should begin exactly at one' o'clock, they did not begin this 
 year 'till two or after, which is owing to several colleges 
 having altered their hour of dining from eleven to twelve, 
 occasioned from people's lying in bod longer than they used to 
 do."— iZ». Feb. 10, 1721-2. 
 
 » Ih. Feb. 27, 1722-3. 
 
 * See Colman's liandom Records, vol. i. p. 274. 
 
 P. 37. — ^ Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. p. 343. 
 
 2 lb. pp. 585-86. 
 
 P. 38.— 1 Mr. Thomas Allen, of Gloucester Hall (Worcester 
 College) ; see Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. pp. 201-3. There is a 
 portrait of Allen in the Bodleian picture-gallery. He died at 
 about ninety-six years of age ; " a very cheerfuU, facetious man, 
 and everybody loved his company, and every house on their 
 Gaudie-dayes were wont to invite him. He had a great many 
 instruments and glasses in his chamber, and his servitor 
 thought it for his credit to serve such a master. Allen used, 
 every long vacation, to ride into the counti'y to visitt his old 
 acquaintance and patrons, to whom his great learning, mixt 
 with much sweetness of humour, rendered him very welcome. 
 One time being at Home Lacy, in Herefordshire, at Mr. John 
 Scudamore's (grandfather to the Lord Scudamore), he happened 
 to leave his watch in the chamber windowe (watches were 
 then rarities). The maydes came in to make the bed, and 
 hearinge a thing in a case cry Tick, Tick, Tick, presently 
 concluded that that was his Devill, and tooke it by the string 
 with the tongues, and threw it out of the windowe into the 
 mote (to drowne the Devill). It so happened that the string 
 hung on a sprig of an elder that grew out of the mote, and 
 this confirmed them that 'twas the Devill. So the good old 
 gentleman gott his watch again."
 
 270 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ^ Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. p. 238. 
 ^ Hearne's Diary, Aug. 17, 1721. 
 
 ■* Whitefield, Short Account of God's Dealings, etc. (1740), 
 pp. 14, 18, 19. 
 
 P. 39. — 1 "In Dr. Whitehead's Lives of the Wesleys and in 
 the life which is prefixed to the collected edition of Mr. 
 AYesley's Works, it is said that Wesley the father was about 
 sixteen when he entered himself at Exeter College. But as 
 he was born 'about the year 1662, or, perhaps, a little earlier,' 
 he must have been not less than two-and-twenty at that time, 
 as the following extracts from the registers of Exeter College 
 will prove : ' Deposit of Caution Money. Sept. 26, 1684. 
 Mro. Hutchins pro Samuele Westley, paup. schol. de Dorchester, 
 £3,'" etc.— Southey, Life of Wesley, 3rd ed. (1846), vol. i. 
 p. 8, note, 
 
 2 Amherst, Terrce Filius, N"o. 11. 
 
 P. 40. — ^ Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. p. 238. 
 ^ Nov. 28, 1754. Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Birkbeck 
 Hill, vol. i. p. 276. 
 
 ^ No reference has been found for this. 
 
 P. 41.— 1 Hearne's Diary, Aug. 17, 1721. 
 
 ^ Tail's Ediiihurgh Magazine, new series, vol. ii. p. 374. 
 
 ^ Salmon, Present State of the Universities (1744), p. 423. 
 
 P. 42.-1 Hearne's Diary, March 4, 170.5-6. 
 2 lb. July 14, 1708. 
 
 ^ The preface to Ockley's History of the Saracens, vol. ii., 
 was written in Cambridge gaol. 
 
 ^ Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 457. 
 
 5 Hearne's Diary, March 4, 1705-6. 
 
 6 Philips, The Splendid Shilling (1709). 
 
 P. 43. — ^ Warton's Panegyric on Oxford Ale. 
 
 ^ The Splendid Shilling. 
 
 ' Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. pp. 421-22. 
 
 * Ih. p. 425. 
 
 P. 44. — 1 Mr. Green himself received a prize at Magdalen 
 School from the hands of Dr. Routh, the last man who wore a 
 wig in Oxford, who had seen Dr. Johnson stand in the High
 
 NOTES 271 
 
 Street, lost in thought, with one foot on either side of tlie 
 kennel down the middle of the way, surrounded by a group of 
 street -boys, "none daring," as Dr. Routh used to tell, "to 
 interrupt the meditations of the great lexicographer." 
 
 - Boswell's Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill (1887), vol. i. p. 74, 
 3 n. vol. iii. p. 303. 
 
 P. 45.— 1 Ih. vol. iii. p. 304. 
 
 - lb. vol. i. p. 73. 
 
 P. 47. — ^ Amherst, Terrce Filius, No. 31. 
 
 - lb. No. 41. 
 2 lb. No. 46. 
 
 * lb. No. 31. 
 5 lb. No. 41. 
 8 lb. No. 46. 
 
 P. 48.—^ Hogg's Life of Shelley (1858), vol. i. p. 66. 
 
 2 "The Lownger," Oxford Sausage, p. 92. 
 ' Amherst, Terra; Filius, Nos. 30, 46. 
 
 P. 49. — ^ Jackson's Oxford Journal, Sept. 27, 1755. 
 ^ Amherst, Terrce Filius, No. 46. 
 
 * Whitefield, Short Account, p. 39. 
 
 P. 50. — ^ Amherst, Terrce Filius, No. 46. 
 
 ^ " Uffenbach {lieisen, iii. 171) thus describes Paradise 
 Garden : ' This is hard by an end of the town near a tavern 
 which is in connexion with it, and at the back of which, on 
 the water, are countless little boxes partitioned by hedges, 
 where the Fellows drink in summer.' . , . This pleasaunce 
 appears in the map of T. Neale and R. Agas (1566-78), en- 
 graved by Loggan a century later, as ' Paradise ' ; and in 
 Loggan's own (1675) as 'Paradise Garden' — at the bend of 
 the river to the south of the castle. ' Paradise Walks ' is the 
 scene of the three first acts of The Humoxirs of Oxford, a play 
 by James Miller of Wadham (1703 ; d. 1744)." AVordsworth, 
 Universitij Society, pp. 365, 366. The garden had belonged 
 to the Grey Friars. Oxford Historical Society's Publications, 
 vol. xvii. pp. 395-6. Its name is preserved in the present 
 Paradise Square and Paradise Street. 
 
 3 "Thus I tope all the night, as I trifle all day."— "The 
 Lownger," Oxford Sausage, p. 93.
 
 272 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 r. 51. — 1 Earle, Mkrocosmofjraphic (1628), c. 25. 
 ^ Amherst, Terrce Filius, No, 9. 
 
 P. 52.— 1 Gibbon's Auiobiography (1869), pp. 23, 29. 
 
 P. 53. — ^ Diaries and correspondence of the first Earl of 
 Malmeshury (1844), vol. i., introductory memoir, p. ix. 
 
 P. 54.— 1 Quarterly Revieiu, Sept. 1854, p. 492. 
 
 P. 56. — ' Tail's Edinburgh Magazine, new series, vol. ii. 
 (1835), p. 79. 
 
 P. 57.—'' Amlierst, Terrce Filius, No. 19. 
 
 2 Ih. No. 28. 
 
 ' In the life of Dr. Kettle of Trinity, the builder of Kettle 
 Hall (Aubrey's Lives, ii. 417-430), the story is told of his 
 rebuke to Lady Isabella Thynne (who "lay" at Balliol) and 
 her friend Mrs. Fenshawe, who "would have a frolick to 
 make a visitt to the President." " 'Tis probable this venerable 
 Dr. might have lived some years longer, and finisht his 
 centui'y, had not these civill warres come on ; which much 
 grieved him, that was wont to be absolute in the coUedge, to 
 be alfronted and disrespected by rude soldiers. I remember, 
 being at the Rhetorique lecture in the hall, a foot-soldier came 
 in and brake his hower-glasse." "The dissoluteness of the 
 times, as I have sayd, grieving the good old Doctor, his dayes 
 were shortned, and dyed. . . . Anno Dni. 164-, and was 
 buried at Garsington." 
 
 P. 58. — ^ "On Miss Polly Foote's unexpected arrival at 
 Oxford, 1758." Oxford Sausage, pp. 101-3. 
 
 2 The meaning and derivation of High Borlace are not 
 known. Wordsworth {Univ. Soc. j^p. 153-4) says: "Of 
 clubs at Oxford (in addition to the Constitution and The 
 Club, with others which I have already mentioned), there 
 were the Banterers (1678) . . . the Free Cynics (1734), 'a 
 kind of philosophical club who have a set of symbolical words 
 and grimaces unintelligible to any but those of their own 
 Society.' There was also the 'High Borlace,' a Tory Club 
 which had a convivial meeting held annually at the King's 
 Head Tavern in Oxford on the 18th of August, or if that fell 
 on a Sunday, on the 19th ; as in 1734, on which occasion Dr.
 
 NOTES 273 
 
 Leigh, Master of Balliol, Avas 'of the High Borlacc,' and the 
 first clergyman wlio hud attended. It seems to liavo been 
 patronised by the county families, and it is not improbable 
 that there was a ball connected with it. The members chose 
 a Lady Patroness ; in 1732, Miss Stouhouse ; in 1733, Miss 
 Molly Wickham of Garsington ; 1734, Miss Anne Cope. . . , 
 On that occasion Mr. Mosclcy of Merton was proposed as 
 member of the said Borlace, but rejected, j^robably because he 
 was a member of a Wliig college." See p. 165. 
 
 ^ Oxford Sausage, p. 109. 
 
 P. 59.— 1 Oxford Sausage, pp. 101-104. 
 
 - lb. p. 108. 
 
 ' "Some years agoe came out at Oxford a poem called 
 Merton Walks, the walks in the garden of that place being 
 every Sunday night, in the pleasant time of the year, thronged 
 with young gentlemen and young gentlewomen, which grow- 
 ing scandalous, the garden gate was, at last, shut up quite, 
 and thereupon the young gentlemen and others betook them- 
 selves to Magdalen College walk, which is now every Sunday 
 night in summer-time strangely filled, just like a fair." — 
 Hearne's Diary, July 30, 1723. 
 
 P. 63.—^ Spectator, No. 30, 
 
 P. 64.— 1 Amherst, Terra: Filius, Nos. 25, 26. 
 
 P. 66.— 1 Spectator, No. 17. 
 ^ Oxford Journal, July 15, 1775. 
 3 Hearne's Diary, Aug. 22, 1733. 
 * " Epigram on an Epigram. 
 
 One day in Christ Church meadows walking, 
 Of Poetry and such things talking, 
 
 Says Ralph, a merry wag, 
 An Epigram, if right and good, 
 lu all its circumstances should 
 
 Be like a Jelly-Bag. 
 
 Your simile, I own, is new, 
 
 But how dost make it out, quoth Hugh ? 
 
 Quoth Ralph, I'll tell thee, Friend ; 
 Make it at Top both wide and tit 
 To hold a Budget-full of Wit, 
 
 And point it at the End. 
 
 T
 
 274 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 N.B. This Epigram is printed from the original Manu- 
 script, preserved in the Archives of the Jelly-Bag Society." 
 Oxford Sausage, pj). 87, 88. "Ralph" is said to have been 
 Ralph Bathurst. Wordsworth, Univ. Soc. p. 150. 
 
 P. 67. — ^ Plot, Natural History of Oxfordshire, ch. iii. 
 sec. 43. 
 
 ^ Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. p. 512. 
 
 P, 68.— 1 Oxoniana (1807), vol. iv. pp. 115, IIG. 
 
 ^ Hearne's Diary, Sept. 5, 1723. 
 
 3 lb. Jan. 3, 1726-7. 
 
 * Ih. June 25, 1727. 
 
 P. 69.— 1 Ih. June 12, 1727. 
 
 ^ This speech was suppressed and printed. A copy is in 
 the Bodleian, Pamph. 384. 
 
 3 Amherst, Terroc Films, No. 34. "Coll.," Amherst ex- 
 plains in a footnote to No. 33, stands for "college ale." 
 
 ■* Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon, vol, i. p. 53. 
 
 P. 70. — ^ This letter has not been identified. Adelung in 
 his Worterluch (1808) says the Latin form "Supernaculum" 
 had lately come in to describe the ancient "Nagel-Probe," 
 i.e. the pouring of the last drop of liquid on the nail to prove 
 the cup was empty. He quotes the English phrase ' ' to drink 
 supernaculum." See Brand's Poindar Antiquities, ii. 209, 
 210, and for etymology, p. 200. Colman in his Random 
 Records, vol. i. p. 136, describes the decayed old-fashioned inn at 
 Oxford where the landlord (1775) brought out his "smeared 
 decanter, containing sloe-juice, which he called a bottle of his 
 supernaculum." The word was in use among old peasants in 
 Connaught twenty-five years ago. 
 
 2 See on this bowl A. Clark, Colleges of Oxford (1891), p. 
 387. It was given in 1732. 
 
 2 Boswell's Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, vol. iii. p. 245. 
 
 * Southey's Life and Correspondence (1849), vol. i. p. 177. 
 ^ Memorials of Andrew Crosse (1857), pp. 32, 33. 
 
 P. 71.—^ Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon, vol. i. p. 54. 
 2 Memorials of A. Crosse, p. 32. 
 ^ Hearne's Diary, May 11, 1712. 
 
 4 lb. Feb. 17, 1712-13.
 
 NOTES 275 
 
 P. 72.— 1 Hearne's Diary, Nov. 13, 1726. He dates the 
 event "about the year 1704." 
 
 2 lb. Oct. 23, 1729. 
 
 2 Ih. Sept. 1, 1721. 
 
 * A number of names of taverns have been preserved in 
 Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards, p. 33, under the 
 title of Signs of Love at Oxford, by an Inu-consolable Lover. 
 
 " She's as light as the Grey-hound — as fair as the Angel, 
 Her looks thau the Mitre more sanctified are ; 
 But she Hies like the Roebuck and leaves me to range ill, 
 Still lookiug to her as my true polar Star. 
 New /H?i-veutious I try witli new art to adore, 
 But my fate is, alas ! to be voted a Boar. 
 My Goats I forsoolc to contemplate her charms, 
 And must own she is lit for our noble King's Arms. 
 Now Cross'd and now Jockey'd, now sad, now elate, 
 The Chequers appear but a map of my fate. 
 I blush'd like a Blue-Cur to send her a Pheasant, 
 But she call'd me a Turk and rejected my present. 
 So I mop'd to the Barley-Mow, giiev'd iu my mind 
 That the Ark from the tlood ever rescu'd mankind. 
 In my dreams Lions roar and the Green Dragon giins. 
 And friends rise in shape of the Seven Deadly Sins — 
 When I ogle the Bells, should I see her approach, 
 I skip like a JVag, aud jump into the Coach. 
 She is crimson and white like a Shmilder of Mutton, 
 Not the red of the Ox was so bright when first put on. 
 Like the Uolly-bush prickles she scratches my liver. 
 While I moan aud die like a Swan by the river." — J. R. 
 
 " T. Warton's Poetical JVorks, ed. Mant (1802), intro- 
 ductory memoir, vol. i. p. ciii. 
 
 P. 73.— 1 Philips, TJic SjJlendid Shilling. 
 
 - Amherst, Terra: Filius (1726), appendix, p. 327. 
 
 P. 76. — ^ " Penniless Bench is a seat joyning to S. Martin's 
 Church apud Quadrivium" [Carfax], "where butter- women 
 and hucksters use to sit," says Anthony Wood in a note to 
 this passage {Autobiograjihy, Feb. 1647-8). See the Uni- 
 versity regulation in 1584, "that no schollars shall sit 
 on bulkes or penniless bench, or otlier open places " {Oxoniana, 
 vol. iv. p. 17G). "On the left hand, under the east end of
 
 276 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 St. Martin's Church, yee see that seate, which is called Penne- 
 lesse Bench, builded by the Cittie, as well for their solace and 
 prospect every waie, as for the convenience of the Market 
 Women in the tyme of Raine " (Hutten's Survey, 0. H. S. 
 vol. xxxix. p. 59). It was first built in 1545, "re-sedified with 
 stone pillars, July 1667," says Wood (0. H. S. vol. xvii. p. 86) ; 
 Peshall adds (p. 180), "since pulled down, and instead thereof 
 an alcove." "Adjoining to the east end of Carfax Church are 
 to be found the imperfect traces of a place properly dedicated 
 to the Muses, and described in our statutes by the familiar but 
 forbidding denomination of Pennyless Bench. History and 
 tradition rejiort that many eminent poets have been Benchers 
 here. To this seat of the Muses we are most probably in- 
 debted for that celebrated poem The Sploidid Shilling of 
 Philips ; and that the author of the Panegyric on Oxford Ah 
 was no stranger to this inspiring bench may be fairly con- 
 cluded from these verses where he addresses the God or 
 Goddess of Ticking — 
 
 'Beneath thy shelter, pennyless I quaff 
 The cheerful cup.' " 
 
 A Companion to the Chiide (by T. Warton), pp. 15, 16. See 
 also Fletcher's Carfax Church (Oxford, 1896), pp. 12, 13, and 
 pi. iii. 
 
 2 Wood's Autobiography, Dec. 1647, Feb. 1647-8 ; Huddes- 
 ford and Warton, Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood (1772), 
 vol. ii. pp. 44-46. 
 
 P. 77. — ^ Probably fields on the west side of St. Giles's 
 Street, now built over, 
 
 2 Southey's Life, voL i. p. 176. 
 
 * Hurdis, The Village Curate. 
 
 P. 78.— 1 Built in 1742. Wordsworth, Univ. Soc. p. 201. 
 2 Tail's Edinburgh Magazine, new series, vol. ii. (1835), 
 p. 542. 
 
 ^ Amherst, Terrce Films, No. 1. * 
 
 P. 79.— 1 Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon, vol. i. pp. 56, 57. 
 ^ Warton, The Phaeton and the One-horse Chair. 
 
 P. 80.— 1 Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. pp. 585-86. 
 
 i
 
 NOTES 277 
 
 p. 82. — ' No reference has been found for this. 
 
 ^ Warton, FuHcgyric on Oxford Ale. 
 
 ^ Wordsworth, Uiiiv. Soc. p. 128, quotes from a letter written 
 by an undergraduate of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1792, who 
 used to breakfast at 8.30 with his neighbour — 
 
 Friend WaiTen takes accustomed seat, 
 Pours tea ou sugar very sweet, 
 
 And cream not over rich ; 
 And rolls he cleverly does spread, 
 Or from brown George toasts slice of bread. 
 
 " Brown George " is the name of a loaf in a poem of Samuel 
 Wesley the elder. 
 
 ■*"... misspending the morning; since (as you [i.e. 
 Dr. Newton] once ingeniously express'd it) nothing more can 
 be expected from those Jeutacular Confabulations." Amherst, 
 Terrce Filius (1726), appendix, p. 330. 
 
 P. 83.—^ Oxford Sausage, pp. 17-20 
 
 - Warton, Ode to a Grizzle Wig. 
 
 P. 85. — ^ Warton, Newsman's Verses, 1770. 
 P. 86. — ^ These lines have not been found. 
 P. 87. — ^ Oxford Journal, Juno 1, 1776. 
 
 P. 90.— 1 Ih. March 18, 1775. 
 
 - lb. Nov. 26, 1774. 
 3 lb. Nov. 9, 1776. 
 
 P. 94. — ^ Trial and Memoirs of Isaac Darkin, alias Duvias. 
 Oxford, 1761. Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxi. p. 139. 
 
 ^ Oxford Journal, Feb. 10, March 9, July 20, Sept. 7, 1776 ; 
 March 8, April 5, 1777. 
 
 3 lb. Oct. 19, 1776. 
 
 ^ lb. June 10, 1775. 
 
 P. 95.— 1 lb. Nov. 5, 1774. 
 
 P. 96. — ^ "In the middle of the street, facing Colesbourne 
 Lane ; " the exact position of the lane is not known. 0. H. S. 
 vol. xxxix. p. 69. 
 
 " The pillory of Holywell manor, in the jurisdiction of 
 Mertou College. lb. p. 136.
 
 278 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ' The stocks replaced the gallows before 1800. The gallows 
 got the name of "Gownsman's Gallows" about 1780. Dr. 
 Routh, President of Magdalen, gave the reason. " What, sir, 
 do you tell me, sir, you never heard of Gownsman's Gallows ? 
 Why, I tell you, sir, I have seen two undergraduates hanged 
 on Gownsman's Gallows in Holywell — hanged, sir, for highway 
 robbery, " 0. H. S. vol. xxxix. p. 136. 
 
 * An account of the rights of Merton College, and the 
 former rectors of St. Peter's-in-the-East, to hang olienders on 
 this gallows will be found in Peshall's edition of Wood's City of 
 Oxford, pp. 243-44, with the case of Bogo de Clare. 
 
 ^ The little house between the passage into Amsterdam and 
 the new gateway to Brasenose College occupies the site of this 
 Hall. Borouwaldescote Inn took the name of Broadgates Hall 
 about 1426. 0. II. S. vol. xxxix. p. 176. See also Peshall's 
 Wood, p. 48, 
 
 6 Peshall's Wood, pp. 48, 49. 
 
 7 lb. p. 117. 
 
 P. 97. — ^ "A 'Butter Bench' still remained within living 
 memory in the corner of Carfax where Boffin's shop now is." 
 0. H. »S'. vol. XV. p. 47, note 10. This was a part of the old Butter- 
 bench which stood on the west side of Fish Street (now St. 
 Aldate's) and perhaps down the Great Bayly (now Queen 
 Street), running round the corner opposite to that occupied by 
 Penniless Bench (see above, p. 76, note 1). Both Benches 
 were originally made to shelter the market-women; see 
 Peshall's Wood, p. 181. The stocks are figured in a woodcut 
 opposite p. 15 of Warton's Companion to the Guide (2nd ed. 
 1762), with the following note: "This Structure formerly 
 stood on the South Side of Carfax Conduit ; from whence it 
 was removed to the City Hill, as a more convenient Situation, 
 in the mayoralty of Thomas Munday, Esq., Anno MDCCLIX." 
 
 2 Oxford Journal, April 13, 1776. 
 
 P. 98. — ^ A stone bridge with pointed arches, widened with 
 wooden additions on the north side ; it was known as Tu- 
 brugge, from crossing the two Cherwells. 
 
 ^ No reference for this has been found. It may be noted 
 that in September 1761 Thomas Munday, Mayor, accompanied
 
 NOTES 279 
 
 by two aldermen, the bailiffs, two assistants, and the Town 
 Clerk, went to London to assist on the Coronation day, with the 
 Lord Mayor of London, as Chief Butler of England. Oxford 
 Journal, Sept. 19 and 26, 1761. 
 
 P. 99.— 1 lb. Oct. 1, 1774. 
 
 2 lb. Sept. 23, 1775. 
 
 ' Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. p. 303. 
 
 P. 100.— ■• The family was flourishing c. 1210. 0. 11. S. 
 vol. xxxix. p. 67. A Lambert Burcwald is mentioned 1262 ; 
 and Dionysia Burewald, c. 1424. lb. pp. 153, 139. 
 
 2 Kepeharme's Hall was near St. Edward's Church, the 
 foundations of which have been found north of Blue Boar 
 Lane and west of Alfred Street. lb. p. 195. 
 
 3 Peshall's Wood, p. 156. 0. H. S. vol. xv. p. 199. 
 ■• Oxford Journal, Oct. 5, 1776. 
 
 P. 101.— 1 Wood's Auiohiograi)hy, Sept. 15, 1673. 
 2 lb. Sept. 29, 1679. 
 
 P. 102.— 1 lb. Sept. 15, 1673. 
 2 lb. Feb. 2 and Sept. 20, 1695. 
 
 P. 103.— 1 lb. Nov. 27, 1682. 
 
 ■ lb. June 28, 1685. 
 
 =* lb. June 22, 1685. 
 
 ^ " Broken Hcys, limited on the south and west sides with 
 the castle and Stockwcll Street, on the north and east by the 
 King's Pallace (since the White Fryers), and the street on 
 the west side of Magdalen parish church, hath bin from all 
 antiquity till within 24 years a rude, broken, and undigested 
 place. " "Magdalen parish taketh it to be a common belong- 
 ing to their parish. The tounc look on it as theirs because 
 (they are) Lords of North Gate Hundred, build houses round 
 it and set trees, anuo 1671. The toune levelled it and made 
 it a bouling green anno 1638 or 1639." Wood's City of Oxford, 
 0. H. S. vol. XV. p. 363. Stockwell Street is now Worcester 
 Street ; the King's Palace of Beaimiont, afterwards the White 
 Friars, stood near the north-west corner of the present Beaumont 
 Street. In Peshall's map, 1773, the name of Broken Heys is 
 replaced by that of Gloucester Green, which the place still
 
 280 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 retains ; but " the rough land to the east of tlie well " (from 
 which Stockwell Street took its name) "is still known as 
 Broken -hays among the older population, and the floors of 
 some of the old cottages there are even now most undecided 
 ^vhich level to take." 0. H. S. vol. xxxix. p. 97. Tlie name 
 Broken Hayes is now attached to a small passage leading out of 
 George Street into Bulwarks Alley at the west end of the play- 
 ground of the Oxford High School. 0. IT. S. vol. xv. p. 363, 
 note 2. 
 
 ^ Wood's Autobiogrcqjhy, June 30, 1685. 
 
 P. 104.— 1 lb. July 24, 1694. 
 ^ Hearne's Diary, Dec. 14, 1732. 
 P. 105.— 1 lb. Nov. 1, 1705. 
 ^ Oxford Journal, Jan. 21, 1775. 
 
 3 lb. Feb. 11, 1775. The Journal does not say that the 
 man was supposed to be a clergyman. 
 
 P. 106.—^ Oxford Jourmi.l, Aug. 27, 1774. 
 
 ■■^ lb. Sept. 3, Oct. 8, 1774. 
 
 P. 107.—^ " The late Mayor of Oxford, with several gentle- 
 men of the Corporation, were called before the House for mal- 
 practice with respect to the ensuing election of members for 
 that city. They were severely reprimanded and committed to 
 Newgate." Gentleman's Magazine, 'Seh. 17 Qd,. " The speech 
 of the Speaker of the House of Commons when he reprimanded 
 Philip Ward, late Mayor of the City of Oxford ; John Treacher, 
 Sir Thomas Munday, Thomas Wise, John Nichols, John 
 Philips Isaac Lawrence, Richard Tawnay, all of the said 
 city ; Thomas Robinson and John Brown, late bailiffs of the 
 said City, upon their knees at the Bar of the said House, upon 
 Wednesday the 10th day of February 1768," is given in 
 Gentleman'' s Magazine, March 1768. "The Mayor and Alder- 
 men of Oxford had written word to their members that they 
 should be re-elected if they would pay £7500, to discharge 
 the debts of the Corporation. With proper spirit the members 
 laid the case before the House, and the House committed the 
 peccant Mayor and Aldermen to Newgate for five days, when 
 having acknowledged their guilt and asked pardon they were 
 discharged. . . . During their very imprisonment it is said 
 
 I
 
 NOTES 281 
 
 they completed another bargain J'or their borougli with the 
 Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon." Muhon, Hist, of 
 England, vol. v. p. 190. This incident, which made so great 
 a stir, is not alluded to in the Oxford Journal. 
 
 2 Ooford Journal, Aug. 19, 1769. 
 '^ lb. Aug. 6 and Oct. 8, 1774. 
 
 •• Now Grove Street. 0. R. S. vol. xv. p, 137, 
 
 P. 108.— J Wood's Autobiography, April 15, 1669. 
 
 - Oxford Journal, Jan. 21, 1775. "A third ox was roasted 
 whole in the market-place for the benefit of the populace ; and 
 by way of diversion there was backsword playing and other 
 amusements." 
 
 * No reference has been found for this. 
 ^ Oxford Journal, Aug. 27, 1774. 
 ^ lb. Nov. 5, 1774. 
 
 P. 109.— 1 Peshall's Wood, p. 84. 
 
 - Oxford Journal, Feb, 10, 1776. 
 
 3 lb. Feb. 24, 1776. 
 ^ lb. Oct. 14, 1775. 
 
 P. 110.— 1 lb. July 29, 1775. 
 2 lb. March 4, 1775. 
 
 P. 111.— 1 Ih. Nov. 26, 1774. 
 
 P. 112.-1 2b. Dec. 31, 1774. 
 
 2 lb. Jan. 7, 1775. 
 
 3 Ih. May 4, 1776. 
 
 P. 113.-1 lb. May 4, 1776. 
 
 2 lb. Oct. 28, 1775. 
 
 3 Ih. March 23, 1776. 
 
 P- 114.-1 Wood's Autobiography, Sept. 3, 1687. 
 2 Peshall's Wood, p. 123. 
 
 P. 115.-1 lb. pp. 40, 41. See also 0. H. S. vol. xvii. p. 
 111. 
 
 2 Peshall's Wood, p. 39. 
 
 3 lb. p. 175. 
 
 P. 116.— 1 "Pary's Meadow, roughly the Physic Garden." 
 0. H. 8. vol. xxxix. p. 31.
 
 282 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 ^ Shydyard Street was formerly derived from "Scheda," a 
 roll of paper or strip of papyrus. An older vei'sion of the 
 name, however, is " Sid-therd-street " (side-thread-street), or 
 Silk-thread Street. It used to run south to the city wall, and 
 was first leased by the city to Corpus in 1556. 0. H. S. vol. 
 xxxix. p. 180. 
 
 P. 117.— 1 Peshall's Wood, p. 332. 
 2 lb. pp. 335-337. 
 
 P. 118. — ^ "The name Gloucester Green in Loggan's map, 
 1675, is attached to an open space which is now that part of 
 Walton Street which is over against the Provost of Worcester's 
 garden ; in Peshall's map, 1773, it is attached, as it is now, 
 to what in Loggan's map is called Broken Hays." 0. R. S. vol. 
 XV. p. 363, note 3. See above, p. 103, note 4. In 1601 Queen 
 Elizabeth granted three fairs "to be kept every year in 
 Broken Hoys and Gloucester Grene . . . but," says Wood, 
 "this I suppose was either neglected for the same causes with 
 the market that was to be kept here and granted at the same 
 time, or else by the seldome recourse or paucity of people 
 thereto." 0. H. S. vol. xv. pp. 504-5. Peshall, p. 338, says : 
 "A Fair was attempted some years ago for beasts of all sorts, to 
 be held on Gloucester Green. Some faint efforts were made for 
 its restoration, but soon vanished and disappeared, as hereto- 
 fore. At present we have no fair, a wake is at St. Giles's, 
 called St. Giles's Wake, yearly, the Monday after St. Giles's 
 day. The other on Gloucester Green the 3rd of May." 
 
 2 Oxford Journal, Sept, 23, 1775. 
 
 " Salmon, Present State of the Universities (1744), p. 410. 
 
 ■* Oxford Journal, June 22, 1776. 
 
 ^ Hearne's Diary, Feb. 16, 1723-4. 
 
 " Oxford Journal, May 7, 1774. 
 
 P. 119. — ^ See the Chronicle given in Annual Register, 
 1770-76. 
 
 P. 120.— 1 Oxford Journal, Aug. 12, 1775. 
 
 2 Ih. Sept. 16 and 23, 1775. 
 
 3 lb. March 12 and 19, 1774. 
 
 P. 123.— 1 Peshall's Wood, p. 88.
 
 NOTES 283 
 
 2 "He says, that the trarlitiou used to be, that Blake's 
 oak (as wo go to Abbington) was so called, because Blake was 
 hanged there upon it (he being a great Parliamentary villain) 
 for betraying three Christian kings." Hearne's Diary, Feb. 
 21, 1723-4. This " Will Breniicham, of S. Peter's parish in the 
 East," was then in his ninety-hrst year, and had never lived 
 out of Oxford, " unless it were before he was in breeches, when 
 he was not two years of age, that he staid a little while at 
 Norleigh." 
 
 P. 124. — ^ Wood's Autobiography, Aug. 15, 17, and 31, 
 1681. 
 
 P. 125.—^ Bliss, note to Hearne's Diary, Oct. 23, 1711. 
 - Hearne's Diary, Sept. 3, 1720. 
 
 P. 126.— 1 Ih. Feb. 14, 1720-1. 
 
 2 Ih. Nov. 11, 1720. 
 
 3 Amherst, Terrcc Filius, No. 32. 
 
 P. 127.—^ Hearne's Diary, March 15, 1733. 
 
 P. 132.— 1 Fuller, Worthies of England, cd. Nuttall (1840), 
 vol. iii. J). 2. 
 
 2 Plot, JVat. Hist, of Oxfordshire (1677), ch. iii. sec. 2. 
 
 P. 134. — ^ Edmund Miller, Account of the University of 
 Cambridge (1717), p. 196. 
 
 P. 135.-1 Hearne's Diary, Sept. 19, 1709. 
 
 2 lb. Oct. 18, 1705. 
 
 ' Southey, Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 9-11. 
 
 P. 136.— 1 Hearne's Diary, Sept. 28, 1705. 
 
 P. 137.-1 lb. 
 2 lb. Nov. 9, 1705. 
 ' lb. Nov. 13, 1705. 
 * lb. March 4, 1709-10. 
 
 P. 138.-1 lb. March 1, 1706-7. 
 
 P. 139.-1 lb. Nov. 11, Dec. 5, 1709 ; March 4, 1709-10. 
 See also the letter of Sacheverell to the Vice-Chancellor of 
 Oxford, Feb. 5, 1709-10, in Letters written by Eminent Ferssns 
 (1813), i. 200-1. He had taken his degree of D.D. 1708.
 
 284 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 2 Cf. Hearne's Diary, July 20, 1710. 
 
 P. 140.— 1 Ih. Oct. 23, 1711. 
 
 P. 143.— 1 Southey, Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 23. 
 
 P, 144.—^ Hearne's Diary, Aug. 5, 1714. 
 
 P. 145.— 1 li. Aug. 4 and 5, 1714. 
 
 ^ A room in the old Clarendon, described in Amherst's 
 TerrcE Filius, No. 11 : "That famous apartment, by idle wits 
 and buffoons nicknamed Gokjotha, i.e. the place of Sculls or 
 Heads of Colleges and Halls, where they meet and debate 
 upon all extraordinary affairs which occur within the precincts 
 of their jurisdiction," etc. 
 
 s Ih. No. 50. 
 
 P. 146.— 1 lb. 
 
 2 Hearne's Diary, May 28, 1715. 
 
 P. 147.—^ Amherst, Terra; Filius, No. 50. Hearne's Diar?/, 
 May 29, 1715. 
 
 2 Hearne's Diary, May 29, 1715. 
 
 p. 148.— 1 Amherst, Terrce Filius, No. 50. 
 2 Hearne's Diary, May 29, 1715. 
 
 P. 149.—^ Amherst, Terra: Filius, No. 50. 
 2 Hearne's Diary, July 29, 1707. 
 
 P. 150.-1 lb. June 5, 1715. 
 
 P. 151.-1 lb. June 10, 1715. 
 
 2 lb. Sept. 10, 1715. 
 
 3 lb. Oct. 20, 1714. 
 
 4 Parliamentary Debates, vol. vi. pp. 325-28. Sir William 
 Whitlocke, member for Oxford University, "made a kind of 
 excuse for what he said " ; Sir William Wyndham refused to 
 apologise and Avas reprimanded by the House. 
 
 s Oct. 30, 1715. 
 
 6 " The Officers and Soldiers of Sterne's Regiment quartered 
 there." Political State of Great Britain, vol. x. p. 506. 
 
 P. 152.— 1 March 25, 1717. 
 
 P. 154.— 1 A full account of the riot of October 30, 1716, and 
 the subsequent proceedings in Parliament is given in Political 
 State, vol. xii. pp. 505-531; vol. xiii. pp. 420-444.
 
 NOTES 285 
 
 2 The riots above described occurred on October 30, 171C, 
 aud the parliamentary proceedings on them in March and 
 April 1717. The address hero referred to was sent up, and 
 rejected by the king, in August 1715. "The University of 
 Oxford had also prepared an address to be presented to his 
 Majesty ; but the Deputies they had sent up to Loudon for 
 that purpose were given to understand ' That as they had 
 shewn a manifest Disrespect to his Majesty's Person aud 
 Government in all their late Proceedings, so his Majesty 
 expected they should convince him of their Loyalty by their 
 Actions and not by Words.'" Polit. State, vol. x. p. 121. 
 There had been riots in Oxford on August 27, 1715, at the 
 very time when the address was sent. 
 
 P. 155.— 1 October 5, 1715. 
 
 ^ "One Lloyd, the famous Jacobite Coffee-man at Charing 
 Cross, near Whitehall, who formerly followed the same em- 
 ployment in Dublin." Polit. State, vol. x. p. 345. For the 
 trial and execution of the conspirators in November see ih. 
 pp. 535-36. 
 
 ^ Brigadier Handasyde. 
 
 * October 28, 1715. 
 
 ^ The whole account of Owen, Pepper, and Handasyde is in 
 Polit. State, vol. x. pp. 343-46. On Pepper and Owen see also 
 Amherst, Terrce Filius, Nos. 6, 29, 41. 
 
 P. 156.—^ Hearne's Diary, Aug. 26, 1720. A letter from 
 Oxford in September 1715 says : "I think myself very happy 
 in being settled in this so loyal a place, and only want your 
 good Company to compleat it ; for here we fear nothing, but 
 drink James's Health every day." Polit. State, vol. x. p. 342 
 (wrongly numbered 332). 
 
 " The author was Dr. Trapp ; see TJie Book of Parities in 
 the University of Cambridge, by Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, 1829. 
 —J. R. 
 
 P. 157.—^ Monk, Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 377. 
 
 P. 158. — ^ Smollett, History of England, ed. Hughes, vol. 
 viii. p. 203. 
 
 P. 161. — ^ Dr. Wintle. Amherst, Terrce Filius, dt^\cd.tion, 
 p. X., 2nd ed.
 
 286 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 P. 162.— 1 They shewed (1721) in the battlements of the 
 gateway turret at St. John's a hole said to be made by Oliver 
 Cromwell's cannon shot, when he besieged Oxford. Amherst, 
 Tcrrce Films, No. 34. 
 
 P. 163.— 1 Ih. No. 45. 
 
 ^ Richard Meadowcourt, B.A., Merton, 1714 ; afterwards 
 (1735) canon of Worcester. — A. C. 
 
 P. 164. — ^ One of them is of special interest : " D^- Carte 
 e ColL Univ." This must be the historian ; matriculated at 
 University, 1698; B.A., Brasenose, 1702; M.A., King's, 
 Cambridge, 1706 ; but still, apparently, with his name, as a 
 B.A., on the books at University College. Carte never 
 sought a repeal of the sentence against him. — A. C. 
 
 '- On June 28, 1716.— A. C. 
 
 ^ On November 28, 1718.— A. C. 
 
 4 Amherst, Terree Filius, Nos. 22, 23, 24, 50. 
 
 P. 165.-1 Ih. No. 50. 
 ^.Hearne's Diary, Aug. 26, 1734. 
 ^ Amherst, Terroe Filius, No. 5. 
 
 P. 166.— 1 lb. No. 50. 
 
 2 Hearne's Diary, Oct. 22, 1723. 
 
 3 Ih. May 29, 1727. 
 
 ^ "On Saturday (Sept. 5) came to Oxford two of the 
 daughters of Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, pro- 
 tector, one of which is married to Dr. Gibson, the physician, 
 who writ the Anatomy ; the other is unmarried. They are 
 both presbyterians, as is also Dr. Gibson, who was with them. 
 They were at the presbyterian meeting-house in Oxford on 
 Sunday morning and evening ; and yesterday they and all the 
 gang of them dined at Dr. Gibson's, Provost of Queen's, who 
 is related to them and made a great entertainment for them, 
 expecting something from them, the physician being said to 
 be worth £30,000. They went from Oxford after dinner." 
 Hearne's Diary, Sept. 8, 1719. 
 
 ® Boswell's Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, vol. i. p. 73. 
 
 P. 167. — 1 Amherst, Terra; Filius, No. 3. 
 
 2 " The Cushion Plot," Oxford Sausaye, pp. 105-6.
 
 NOTES 287 
 
 ' Amherst, Terrcc Filius, No. 35. 
 
 P. 168.— 1 Amherst, Terrcc Filius, No. 35. 
 2 Wood's Autobiography, Jan. 30, 1693-4. 
 
 P. 169.—^ Jackson, Life of Charles Wesley (1841), vol. i. 
 p. 33. 
 
 2 Hearne's Diary, Feb. 23, 1726-7. 
 
 P. 171.— 1 Amherst, Terrce Filius, Nos. 14, 15, 16, 39. 
 
 P. 172. — ^ Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa (1781), vol. ii. pp. 
 53-73. 
 
 p. 173.— 1 Hume and Smollett, History of England, ed. 
 Hughes, vol. ix. pp. 154-5. 
 
 P. 175. — ^ Warton, Poetical Works, ed. Mant, introductory 
 memoir, vol. i. p. xxii. 
 
 2 Ih. pp. xcviii-ciii. 
 
 P. 176.-1 Ih. p. cvi. 
 
 p. 177.-1 William King, Anecdotes (1818), pp. 251-52. 
 
 P. 178. — 1 Warton, Poetical Works, ed. Mant, introductory 
 memoir, vol. i. p. xv. 
 
 P. 181. — 1 Mrs. Hewlitt. See Introduction, p. xx. 
 
 p. 184. — 1 See Introduction, p. xx. John Bickerton 
 matriculated at St. Edmund Hall in 1793, then aged 
 twenty-eight, and took B.A. in 1799. Later in life he is 
 said to have taken possession of some rooms in Hertford 
 College, then tumbling to decay, and become a squatter 
 there. For the "squatting" at Hertford College see G. V. 
 Cox's Recollections of Oxford, 2nd ed. p. 190. 
 
 P. 186. — 1 See Introduction, pp. xix, xx. 
 
 P. 190. — 1 A.Young, View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire 
 (1809), p. 324. 
 
 - Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. i. p. 236 ; 
 vol. vii. pp. 78, 79. 
 
 P. 191. — 1 Young, Agriculture of Oxfordshire, p. 324. 
 
 P. 193.— 2 Oxford Journal, Oct. 11, 1783. 
 
 P. 194.— 1 Ih. Oct. 25, 1783. 
 
 2 lb. Nov. 8, 1783.
 
 288 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 P. 198. — ^ Young, Agriculture of Oxfordshire, p. 35. 
 2 Ih. p. 232. 
 
 P. 199.— 1 lb. p. 35. 
 
 P. 200. — ^ William Lilly, History of his Life and Times 
 (1715), p. 1. 
 
 2 Young, Agriculture of Oxfordshire, p. 204. 
 
 P. 201.— 1 lb. p. 4. 
 
 2 lb. p. 91. 
 
 3 JJ. p. 11. 
 
 * 7&. p. 87. 
 
 P. 202.-1 lb. pp. 91-94. 
 •■2 /&. p. 231. 
 
 P. 203.— 1 lb. p. 239. 
 
 2 lb. pp. 227-29. 
 
 3 /i. p. 19. 
 
 * lb. p. 75. 
 
 ^ "I have so rarely met with horse-hoeing in Oxfordshire, 
 which is so much wanting in their bean culture, that I hope 
 the practice will gradually travel from Henley." — lb, p. 77. 
 
 •= lb. pp. 110 e< scq. 
 
 P. 204.-1 n. pp. 173-76. 
 
 2 lb. p. 207. 
 
 3 /J. p. 268. 
 
 4 16. p. 264. 
 
 5 /&. p. 315. 
 « /&. p. 268. 
 
 P. 205.— 1 lb. i^i). 317-22. 
 
 2 lb. p. 23. 
 
 3 76. p. 323. 
 
 P. 206. — 1 The chain was sent to France ; it was sold for 
 163,600 times the worth of the pig-iron, taking that at less 
 than ^d. the two ounces.— R. R. 
 
 2 Young, pp. 325-330. 
 
 P. 207.— 1 lb. pp. 43-44, 59. 
 
 - lb. p. 340. 
 
 P. 208.— 1 Oxford Journal, July 24, 1784.
 
 NOTES 289 
 
 p. 209.— 1 (keford Journal, July 27, 1782. 
 
 2 "Mr. Sadler of Oxford was the first Englishman who 
 ascended with a balloon. He constructed one himself, with 
 which he rose from Oxford on the 4th of October, and a second 
 time on the 12th, and sailed 15 miles in 18 minutes." Imison, 
 Elements of Science, ed. by Webster, i. 168 (London, 1822). — 
 R. R. See Oxford Journal, Feb. 14, June 12, July 24, Sept. 
 25, 1784. 
 
 ^ Oxford Journal, Feb. 21, June 5, 12, 1784. 
 
 4 lb. Nov. 13, 1784. See June 25, 1785. 
 
 P. 210.— 1 lb. June 25, 1785. 
 
 2 lb. July 27, 1782. 
 
 3 lb. Aug. 23, 1783. 
 
 P. 212.-1 jj Yeh. 14, 1784. 
 P. 213.-1 ji^ Sept. 17, 1785. 
 
 2 lb. Sept. 21, 1782. 
 
 3 lb. Sept. 20, 1783. 
 ^ lb. April 3, 1784. 
 
 5 lb. July 24, 1784. 
 
 ^ lb. July 31, 1784. He was succeeded in September by 
 Mr. John Treacher, brewer. lb. Sept. 24, 1784. 
 ' lb. Sept. 24, Oct. 1, 1784. 
 
 P. 214.— 1 lb. Oct. 4, 1783. 
 
 2 lb. April 16, 30, 1785. 
 
 3 lb. April 3, 1784. 
 
 P. 215.— 1 lb. April 10, 1784. 
 2 lb. Aug. 7, 1784. 
 
 P. 216.— 1 lb. Feb. 4, 1786 ; Dec. 2, 1786. 
 
 ' Built in 1610 by Otho Nicholson, M.A., of Christ Church, 
 one of the Examiners of the Chancery (0. H. S. vol. xv. pp. 62, 
 441, 446 ; at the first reference the date is ^vi'ong), " who for the 
 publike good both of the Universitie and Citty, builded the 
 same, every Colledge from thence haveing a Cock to their 
 Kitchins, and the wholl Towne recourse thereunto for their 
 Water." Hutten's Survey, O.II.S. vol. xxxix. p. 58. It stood 
 on the site of the old Bull Ring, and at the time of its erection 
 there was plenty of room for it ; but fifty years later the 
 
 U
 
 290 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 encroachment of houses and shop-fronts had so narrowed the 
 space around it that it was already complained of as a 
 nuisance. 0. H. S. vol. xv. pp. 62-63, 441-46, where it is fully 
 described. 
 
 3 Oxford Journal, Oct. 28, 1786. 
 
 P. 217.—^ Ih. May 5, 1787. 
 2 Ih. Aug. 19, 1786. 
 
 P. 218.— 1 Ih. Sept. 16, 1786. 
 
 2 Ih. April 7, 1787. 
 
 3 Ih. Jan. 7, 1786. 
 
 * Ih. March 18, April 1, 29, 1786. "The indictment 
 against the actor and abettors before the fact for stealing 
 plate out of the chapel belonging to Magdalen College in 
 Oxford " is in The Crown Circuit Companion, pp. 98, 99 
 (London, 1820). Not long after Le Maitre robbed the Ash- 
 molean (1776), Tho. Gerringand Miles "Ward robbed Magdalen 
 Chapel ; see the Newgate Calendar, vol. iii. p. 37 (London, 
 1824).— R. R. 
 
 P. 219.-1 Oxford Journal, Aug. 5, 1786. 
 
 2 Ih. Dec. 12, 1789. 
 
 3 Ih. Sept. 23, 1786. 
 
 * lb. Oct. 21, 1786. 
 5 Ih. Sept. 1, 1787. 
 « Ih. June 30, 1787. 
 
 P. 220. — 1 An Hart Hall man goes to Trinity because they 
 had a fine garden there which he hoped would be of advantage 
 to his health. " I do acknowledge it is a very fine garden. 
 I question whether there are finer evergreens in any garden in 
 Europe than in that of Trinity College." Newton, University 
 Education, p. 82, in Amherst, appendix to Terroe Filius (edition 
 1726), pp. 165, 166. Newton maintains, quoting Spenser, 
 Faerie Queen, I. i. 9, that the yews were meant to teach 
 undergraduates obedience to their benders and pruners. — R. R. 
 
 2 Oxford Journal, June 23, 1787. 
 
 3 Ih. May 29, 1790. 
 
 P. 221,-1 7j_ Sept. 22, Oct. 6, 1787. 
 
 2 lb. July 12, 19 ; Aug. 16, 1788. 
 
 3 lb. May 31, 1788.
 
 NOTES 291 
 
 ■• Oxford Journal, Jan. 10, 1789. 
 
 P. 222.— 1 Ih. March 14, 21, 1789. 
 2 lb. Oct. 31, 1789. 
 ' lb. Jan. 30, 1790. 
 
 P. 223.—* It is placed in Loggan's map of 1675 to your 
 left as you cross the bridge into the Water Walk, beyond an 
 arched gateway of stone. 
 
 ^ Oxoniana, vol. ii. pp. 155-56 ; Oxford Journal, July 4, 
 1789. 
 
 ^ Oxford Journal, Sept. 27, 1788. 
 
 * lb. Sept. 26, Oct. 3, 1789. 
 
 P. 224.— 1 lb. Aug. 28, Dec. 25, 1790. 
 
 P. 225.— 1 lb. Sept. 4, 1790. 
 
 2 lb. Aug. 7, 1790. 
 
 P. 227.— 1 lb. June 9, 1792. 
 
 P. 228.-1 lb. Dec. 8 and 15, 1792. 
 
 - lb. Aug. 4, 1792. 
 
 3 lb. Nov. 10, Dec. 22, 1792, In March 1795 Convoca- 
 tion voted that two thousand copies of the New Testament in 
 Latin, from the University Press, should be placed at the 
 service of the French refugee clergy in England. They 
 ]iad most of them escaped from France without books or any- 
 thing else, and this distribution of these copies of the Vulgate 
 was received with thankfulness. — J. R. See Oxford Journal, 
 March 14, 1795. 
 
 * Ou-ford Jotcrnal, Jan. 12, 1793. 
 ° lb. Jan. 26, 1793. 
 
 P. 229.-1 jj ^pj.ii 20, 1793. 
 
 2 lb. May 18, 1793. 
 
 P. 230.-1 j5_ ju]y 6, 1793. 
 
 - lb. July 13, 1793. 
 
 3 lb. Nov. 16, 1793. 
 
 * lb. April 12, 19, May 31, June 7, and Oct. 25, 1794. 
 ^ lb. June 14, 1794. 
 
 P. 231.-1 lb. Nov. 1, 8, and 15, 1794. 
 2 lb. June 7, 1794.
 
 292 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 5 Oxford Journal, March 28, 1795. 
 * lb. March 7, 1795. 
 
 P. 232.-1 76. Jan. 24, 1795. 
 " lb. July 4, 1795. 
 3 76. Sept. 26, 1795. 
 ■» 7&. Dec. 19, 1795. 
 5 76. Dec. 26, 1795. 
 
 P. 233.— 1 76. July 11, 1795. 
 
 2 76. Dec. 23, 1797. 
 
 3 76. Sept. 7, 1793. 
 
 4 76. May 5, 1792. 
 
 5 76. Nov. 16, 1793. 
 
 P. 234.-1 jrj_ j^^^g_ 2, 9, 1794. William Taman appears 
 in Foster's Ahimni Oxonienses with the description " tonsor 
 privilegiatus," and the date of matriculation, April 13, 1778. 
 
 2 Oxford Journal, April 25, June 20, 1795. 
 
 P. 243. — 1 Kraken or Kraxen. See Pigott, Scandinavian 
 Mythology, p. 177. 
 
 P. 249.— 1 Oxford Spectator, No. 1, Nov. 26, 1867. 
 
 P. 252.— 1 76. No. 5, Dec. 5, 1867.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbot, Lord Tenterden, 71 
 Abingdon — 
 
 Abbey of, 6, 12, 13 
 
 Earls of, 103, 107, 153, 203, 
 
 208, 222 
 Adams, Dr., 45 
 Addison, quoted, 127, 147 
 Adynton, Stephen, Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 100 
 iEtlielred the Unready, 15 
 Age of the Georges, 27 - 29, 
 
 235-44 
 Agriculture in Oxfordshire, 88, 
 
 198-204, 240 
 Aldrieh, Henry, 67 
 All Hallows' or All Saints, 114 
 America, comment on war with, 
 
 178 
 Amherst, persecution of, as a 
 
 Whig, 161-63 
 Anne, Queen, Jacobite sym- 
 pathies, 140 ; death of, 142 
 Annesley, Arthur, election of, 
 
 224 
 Architecture of old Oxford, 7, 
 
 10 
 Arran, Earl of, 151 
 Astrey, Sir James, 40 
 Astrop, village of, 80 
 Athelm, Abbot, 12 
 Atkins, Mr., City Marshal, 
 
 187 
 
 Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, 
 
 139, 140, 141, 143, 153, 
 
 161 
 Aubrey, John, quoted, 31, 37, 
 
 43, 57, 67 
 Auckland, Lord (William 
 
 Eden), 222, 242 
 Auriel, Captain, 230 
 Austin Fair, 117 
 Austria, Ferdinand, Archduke 
 
 of, visit to Oxford, 217 
 
 Bagley Forest, 131 
 
 Bailly, the, 12 
 
 Barbers, company of, 114 
 
 Bathurst, 43 
 
 Bayley, Mr., 106 
 
 Beatrice, Princess of Modena, 
 
 visit to Oxford, 217 
 Beaumont, Royal Manor of, 7, 
 
 19 
 Benwell, Thomas, 113, 220 
 Berry, John, Mayor of Oxford, 
 
 115 
 Bertie — 
 
 Captain, 79, 208, 214 ; death 
 
 of, 224 
 Family, 103 
 Hon. Peregrine, 113 
 Mr., charitable donations, 109 
 Billington, Mrs., 229 
 I Birkenhead, Sir John, 38-40
 
 294 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Blackett, 137 
 "Blake's Oak," 123 
 Blandford, Marquis of, 209, 
 
 217, 225 
 Blaze, Bishop, 215 
 Blenheim Palace, 104 
 Blowfield, Mrs. Anue, 32 
 Bodleian Library, 122 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, 140, 142 
 Bowler, Mr., 208 
 Bowyer, Admiral, 230 
 Bradshaw, Dean, 166 
 Bremicham, "Old Will," 123 
 Brickenden, Miss, 58, 85 
 Bristow, Mr., Ill 
 Broadgate Hall, 96 
 Broadwater, Mr., Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 144 
 Bromley, 151, 156 
 Broom, sale of a wife, 218 
 Brown, Simon, 220, 221 
 Browne — 
 Thomas, 32 
 Sir William, 156 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 153 
 Buckland, Dr. William, 249 
 Bullock- 
 Francis Brownsword, 113 
 John, 32 
 Mr., 77 
 Burewald, Dionysia, 100 
 Burford, Mr., 193 
 Bush, Mr., 213 
 Bute, Lord, 229 
 
 Cambridge, politics of, 156 ; 
 Duke of Newcastle ap- 
 pointed Chancellor, 174 
 Campbell, Archibald, 168 
 Camperdown victory, 233 
 Carfax, centre of the old town, 23 
 Castle of Oxford, built by 
 
 Eobert D'Oilly, 7, 11-14 
 Castlemaine, Lady, 57 
 Catalani, 210 
 Cavendish, Lord George, 229 
 
 Charles II., devotion of Oxford 
 
 to, 124 
 Charles X., refugee at Hatfield, 
 
 240 
 Charles Edward, Prince, birth 
 
 of, 125, 126 
 Charlett, Dr., 150 
 Charters granted to Oxford, 18, 
 
 22 
 Chatterton, Thomas, 127 
 Chevalier St. George, name 
 taken by the Pretender, 1 26 
 Chillingworth family, 99 
 Churches — 
 
 All Hallows or All Saints, 
 
 114 
 Christchurch Chapel (St. 
 
 Frideswide), 3 
 Holywell, 13 
 Magdalen Chapel, robbery 
 
 from, 218 
 St. Aldate, 6 
 St. Ebbe, 6, 13 
 St. Edmund, 6 
 St. Edward's, 96 
 St. Frideswide (Christchurch 
 
 Chapel), 3, 7, 114 
 St. Giles, 19 
 St. Martin's, 6, 23, 115 
 St. Michael's, 13, 100 
 St. Mildred's, 6 
 St. Peter's-in-the-East, 1 3, 
 
 107, 109 
 St. Peter le Bailly, 12 
 St. Thomas', 120 
 Clubs, 64-67. See also Consti- 
 tution Club 
 Cnut, King, assembly at Oxford, 
 
 15 
 Cockburn, Captain, robbery of, 
 
 92 
 Cock-fighting, 118, 208 
 Coffee-houses, origin and de- 
 scription of, 31-34 
 Colledge, " The Protestant 
 Joiner," 124
 
 INDEX 
 
 295 
 
 CoUey, Jonathan, 166 
 
 Collins, William, 242 
 
 Collinsou, Rev. Dr., 233 
 
 Collis, John, 213 
 
 Colnian, George, 66 
 
 Companies or Guilds, 112- 
 117 
 
 Coningsby, Mr., 169 
 
 Constitution Club, Whig Politi- 
 cal, 146-49, 153, 163-65 
 
 Coombes, Eliz.ibcth, 32 
 
 Conlwainers, Company of, 224 
 
 Cornbury, Lord, 71 
 
 Costar, William, 213 
 
 "Counsellor Bickerton," 184-86 
 
 Country, isolation and non- 
 progress of, causes of, 127, 
 128, 189-207, 238 
 
 Cowper, Lord, 153 
 
 Co.x— 
 John, 220 
 Richard, 221 
 
 Craggs, Secretary of State, 171 
 
 Cross, Mr., 214 
 
 Crosse, quoted, 70, 71 
 
 Culley, Samuel, Mayor of Ox- 
 ford, 99 
 
 D'Aeth, Sir Narborough, 113 
 Dalton, Mr., 138 
 Darkins, Isaac. See Dumas 
 D'Avenaut, Sir William, 99 
 Davenport, William, 113 
 Dawes, Archbishop, 153 
 Dennet, Barber, 188 
 Dennis, Dr., Vice-Chancellor, 
 
 212 
 De Quincey, at College, 242 ; 
 
 quoted, 34, 41, 55, 78, 191 
 Derwentwater's Rebellion, 155 
 " Deus-cum-crescat," 8 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 229 
 Dei^-y familv, 100 
 D'Oilly, family of, 11-14 
 " Don. The," disappearance of, 
 
 250 
 
 Dormer, Colonel, Pope's visits 
 
 to, 190 
 Dover, Farmer, 90 
 Drinking, 68-72, 118 
 Dryden, John, quoted, 178 
 Du Cain, Mr., 149 
 Dudley, Lord, 232 
 Dumas, the Highwayman, 89- 
 
 94, 237 
 "Dyer's Letter," 128 
 
 Eadric, minister of .^thelred, 
 15 
 
 Earle, Dr., quoted, 50 
 
 Early rising, 47 
 
 Earthquake in 1775, 120 
 
 Eastred, Bishop, 153 
 
 Eastwich, Sampson, 67 
 
 Eaton, Deodatus, 113 
 
 Eclipse of 1793, 233 
 
 Eden. See Auckland 
 
 Education in the country, 199 
 
 Eighteenth century, changes in, 
 239-241 
 
 Eldon, Lord, reminiscences of 
 Oxford, 69, 70, 79 
 
 Elliot, N., 112 
 
 Elliott, General (Lord Heath- 
 field), 219 
 
 Enclosure Acts, 88, 201-203, 
 240 
 
 Erasmus, 37, 133 
 
 Fairs and wakes, 117, 118, 241 
 
 Fane, Mr., 204 
 
 Farmers of Oxfordshire, 198- 
 
 200, 203, 238 
 Fell, Dr., 122 
 Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, 
 
 visit to Oxford, 217 
 Fidler, William, 99, 113 
 Field, Rev. Robert, 107 
 Finch, Dr., 138 
 
 Fishmongers, Company of, 116 
 Fleming, Richard, Bishop of 
 
 Lincoln, 133
 
 296 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Fletcher — 
 
 James, juii., 193 
 
 William, Mayor of Oxford, 
 
 213 
 Miss Rebecca, 87 
 Flood iu 1774, 120 
 "Florist Feasts," 210 
 Foote — 
 
 Samuel, 53, 242 
 Miss Polly, 59, 85 
 Forbes, Mr., 156 
 Ford, quoted, 44 
 " Forestalling and regratiug," 
 
 109, 219, 238 
 Forty, William, 219 
 "Founder's Oak," falling of, 
 
 223 
 Fox, Charles James, 211, 221, 
 
 242 
 France, effect of Revolution on 
 
 England, 226 
 " Freshman's Dream, The," 248 
 Freshmen. SeennderVniversity 
 Fuller, Thomas, 132, 137 
 
 Gardiner — 
 
 Dr., 126, 146, 165 
 Sir James Whalley, 208 
 Garrick, David, 127 
 George I., accession of, 142 
 George III., visits to Oxford, 
 211-213, 217, 221 ; gift of 
 money to poor debtors, 
 218 ; temporary insanity 
 of, 221 
 Georges, age of the, review of, 
 
 27-29, 235-244 
 Gibbon, Edward, 51, 242 
 Gibson, Head of Queen's, 166 
 Giffard, Mr., 140 
 GifiFord, Sir Toin, 72 
 Giles, John, 113 
 Gloucester, Duke of, 217 
 Glovers, Company of, 114 
 Godolphin, Sidney, Earl of, 139 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 127, 195 
 
 Government, attitude towards 
 Oxford during Jacobite 
 troubles, 155, 158, 171- 
 173 
 
 Gower, Provost, 54, 242 
 
 Grabe, Dr., 68 
 
 Grampound, 19 
 
 Great Rebellion, Oxford mem- 
 ories of, 131, 132 
 
 Green — 
 
 Rev. William, 233 
 Mr., organ-builder, 214 
 
 Grey, Lord, 153 
 
 Griffin, Lord, 137 
 
 Gulden, Francis, 194 ; Mayor 
 of Oxford, 220 
 
 Gailds or Companies, 112-117 
 
 Hacker, Mr., 109 
 
 Hadley, Thomas, 32 
 
 Hales, Mr., 42 
 
 Hall, Anthony, Mayor of Ox- 
 ford, 101 
 
 Halse— 
 James, 223 
 
 Nicholas, Mayor of Oxford, 
 213 
 
 Haudyside's Regiment of Foot, 
 155 
 
 Harcourt, Earls of, 153, 210, 
 212, 217, 232 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, 223 
 
 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, 
 140, 142 
 
 Harper, William, 32 
 
 Harpur, Joseph, 113 
 
 Harry, J., 96 
 
 Hawkins, Mr., 77 
 
 Hayes — 
 
 Dr., 212, 214, 229 
 Richard, 99 
 
 Haynes, Stephen, 213 
 
 Hearne, Thos., described, 34 ; 
 quoted concerning college 
 life, 35, 42, 66, 68, 118 ; 
 Earl of Abingdon, 104 ;
 
 INDEX 
 
 297 
 
 Jacobite cause, 134, 137, 
 
 140, 145, 146, 155, 165, 
 
 166, 169; "Old Will 
 
 Bremicham,"123; Wesley, 
 
 137 
 Heath, Judg , 234 
 Heathfield, Lord (Gen. Elliott), 
 
 219 
 Henry I. and II., Charters 
 
 granted to Oxford, 18 
 Henry III., " Provisions of 
 
 Oxford " granted by, 16 
 Heme, Mr., 113 
 "High Borlace Club," 58, 66, 
 
 165 
 Highwaymen, 89-94, 192-194, 
 
 237 
 History of Oxford, early, 4- 
 
 24 
 Hitchings, or Hitchins, Edward, 
 
 113, 219 
 Hoadley, 162 
 Hobbes, 47 
 Hobson, 32 
 Holdsworth, 125 
 Holt, Mr., of Magdalen, Pro- 
 proctor, 163 
 Holy Trinity, Order of, for the 
 
 Redemption of Captives, 
 
 98 
 "Honest," term for Jacobite, 
 
 125 
 Horseman, James, 32 
 Howe, Lord, 230 
 Hurdis, Professor, quoted, 77 
 Hurst, ironmonger, 152, 153 
 Hyde— 
 
 Dr., 40, 42. 122 
 William, 100, 220 
 
 Ibbetson, Mr., 138 
 lies. Dr., 37 
 Immorality, 119 
 Inett, death of, 71 
 Inoculation for smallpox, new 
 remedy, 110-112 
 
 Jackson — 
 Mr., 193 
 
 William, proprietor of Oxford 
 Jdumal, 219 
 Jacobitism. See under Uni- 
 versity 
 Jenner, Sir William, 110 
 Jews, establishment of, in Ox- 
 ford in eleventh century, 
 
 7 ; protection accorded to, 
 
 8 ; wealth and influence, 9- 
 11 ; "Jews' Mount," 14 ; 
 separate jurisdiction, 19 
 
 "Johnny," 188 
 Johnson — 
 John, 223 
 
 Samuel, "poor scholar" at 
 Oxford, 44, 243 ; capacity 
 for drinking, 70 ; attracted 
 to Loudon, 127; quoted, 40 
 Jonas, Mr., 91 
 Jones — 
 Thomas, 99 
 William, 100 
 Joy, Thomas, 113 
 
 Kenyon, Lord, 220, 238 
 
 Kettle, Dr., 43 
 
 King- 
 Charles, 32 
 Dr., I'rincipal of St. Mary's 
 
 Hall, 130, 143, 176-178 
 John, 32 
 
 Labour in Oxfordshire, 112, 
 
 204 
 Langton, Col., 228 
 Laud, Archbishoi), 134 
 Lawrance — 
 
 Isaac, Mayor of Oxford, 213 
 
 Mr., 104 
 Laws, arbitrary, 112 
 Leak, 125 
 Lee — 
 
 Mr., 107 
 
 Sir William, 209
 
 298 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Leinster, Duke of, 222 
 
 Lelaud, John, quoted, 13 
 
 Le Maitre, 94 
 
 Leslie, " Memorial of the 
 Church of England," 135 
 
 Lilly, William, 200 
 
 " Little Dickey James," 187 
 
 Lloyd — 
 Mr., 66 
 Richard, 228 
 
 Lochard, the newsman, 85 
 
 Lock, Edward, Mayor of Ox- 
 ford, 100, 193, 228 
 
 Locke, John, 124, 134 
 
 Lollards, the, 133 
 
 London, league with Oxford, 
 
 17 ; compared with Oxford 
 as to municipal growth, 
 
 18 ; the centre of civilisa- 
 tion, 126 
 
 Lovelace, Lord, 71 
 "Loyal Association," 227 
 Lydiatt, Mr., 41 
 Lyne's Coffee-house, 48 
 
 Macadam, 129 
 Macclesfield, Lord, 171, 224 
 "Mad Parliament," the, 16 
 Malmesbury, Lord, 53, 242 
 Manufactures, 205, 206 
 Mar, Earl of, rebellion of, 142, 
 
 154-158 
 Mara, 210 
 
 Marlborough, Dukes of, Parlia- 
 mentary elections, 104- 
 108, 237 ; charitable dona- 
 tions, 109 ; royal visit to 
 Oxford, 217 ; present to 
 Oxford, 225 ; Test and 
 Corporation Act, 222 ; 
 poor relief during war, 232 
 Masham, Mrs., 140 
 Mason, 174 
 
 Massey, Mr., quoted, 95 
 Maud, Empress, besieged at 
 Oxford Castle, 14 
 
 Maynwaring, 134 
 
 Mayor, authority of, in old 
 
 days, 4 
 Meadowcourt. Mr., 163, 164, 
 
 170 
 Mercers, Company of, 114 
 Merchant Guilds, 17, 22 
 " Merton Walks, or the Oxford 
 
 Beauties," 60 
 Milton, John, 47 
 " Monitor, The," 33 
 Monmouth's Rebellion, 103 
 Montague, Lady Mary, 111 
 Moutfort, Earl Simon de, 
 
 16 
 Moore, Bishop, Library of, 156, 
 
 157 
 Morcar, assassination of, 
 
 15 
 Morrell, Mr., 193 
 Moseley, Mr., 165 
 Moss, Dr., 139 
 " Mother Goose, " 184 
 Municipal affairs of Oxford. 
 
 See under University 
 Municipal life in England com- 
 pared with that of foreign 
 
 towns, 21 
 Municipal Reform Act, 102, 
 
 237 
 Music room, the, 210 
 
 Nares, Sergeant, 107 
 
 Nash, Beau, 63 
 
 Nesbitt, Arnold, 105 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, Chancellor 
 of Cambridge, 174 
 
 Newton, Dr., quoted, 73 
 
 Nibb, Mr., 104 
 
 Nicholas, Dr., 101 
 
 Nicholson, attempted assassina- 
 tion of the King, 217 
 
 Norris, Lord, made Earl of 
 Abingdon, 103 
 
 North, Lord, 153, 214 ; death 
 of, 229
 
 INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 Nor til wade, Dr., 114 
 Noursc, Sir Charles, '219 
 Nuneliam, residence of the 
 Harcourts, 210 
 
 Ockley, Mr., 42 
 
 Ogilvie, Mr., Parliamentary 
 
 candidate, 224 
 Orange, Prince of, journey to 
 
 Oxford, 127, 191 
 Ordric, Abbot, 17 
 Orniond, Duke of, 141, 151 
 Osney, Abbey of, 7, 13 
 Owen, Col., 155, 100 
 Oxford Journal, the, William 
 
 Jackson, originator and 
 
 proprietor, 219 ; specimen 
 
 of contents, 85-97 ; quoted, 
 
 31, 66, 105, 193 
 Oxford Spectator, the, extract 
 
 from, 248 
 Oxfordshire Regiment of Militia, 
 
 221, 230, 234 
 
 Paine, Tom, 227, 228 
 
 Pautin, sale of a wife to, 
 
 218 
 Panting, Master of Pembroke, 
 
 166 
 Parker, 153 
 Parker, Captain, 224 
 Parker, Lord, ib. 
 
 Parker, Major, 230 , 
 
 Parliamentary elections, bribery 
 
 and corruption, 105-108 
 Parsons, John, Mayor of Oxford, 
 
 223 
 Pauling, Robert, Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 101, 103 
 Pears, Mr., 213 
 Peckwether, Radulph, 99 
 Pennyfarthing Street, 99 
 Penyverthing family, 99 
 Pepper, Major-Gen., 155 
 Percival, Lord, robbery of, 89, 
 
 93 
 
 Percy, Dr., collector of Jieliques, 
 
 229 
 Peshall, quoted, 109, 114, 115 
 Philips, Sir Coustantine, 151 
 Pillory, the, 95, 96 
 Pitt, William, 211, 214, 221, 
 
 222 
 Plot, Dr., quoted, 67, 132 
 Police, inadequacy of, 89, 193 
 "Poor Jack the matchman," 
 
 183 
 Poor — 
 Rates, 206 
 Relief during the war, 231- 
 
 233 
 "Poor scholars," 41-45 
 Pope, Alexander, 190 
 Population of Oxford town and 
 
 county, 207 
 Portland, Duke of, 229 
 Portmannimote, 6, 22 
 Port-meadow, 6, 17 
 Pretender, the. See Jacobite 
 
 Cause, under University 
 Prickett, Thomas, 193 
 Prince, bookseller, 178 
 Prisons, condition of, 94 
 Progress, absence of, in country 
 
 compared with towns, cause 
 
 of, 127, 189-207 
 Provincial towns, importance 
 
 of, 129 
 " Provisions of Oxford," 16 
 Punishments, 95-97 
 Purnell, Dr., 173 
 
 Races, city, 208 
 Radcliffe Infirmary, 241 
 Raymond, Jemmet, 167 
 Reformation, the, attitude of 
 
 Oxford University, 133 
 Regency, question in 1788, 221 
 Religion in eighteenth century, 
 
 240 
 Reliqties of Ancient English 
 
 Poetry, by Dr. Percy, 229
 
 300 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 Rice, P., 113 
 
 Roads, condition of, 127, 190- 
 
 192 
 Roberson, Thomas, 32 
 Robinson, Bishop, 38, 40 
 Rogers — 
 
 Fred., 113 
 
 Mr., Proproctor, 138 
 Rowland, James, 223 
 Riidge, Mr., 209 
 Rupert, Prince, 123 
 
 Sacheverell, Dr., imi^eachment 
 
 of, 134, 138 
 Sadler — • 
 
 Present of a wife, 219 
 Mr., balloon of, 209 
 St. Aldate, 6 
 St. Ebbe's, 6, 13 
 St. Edmund's, 6 
 St. Edward's, 96 
 St. Frideswide Church, 3, S, 
 
 114 ; monastery, 5 ; fair, 
 
 117 
 St. Giles, 19 
 St. John's Hospital, 96 
 St. Martin's, 6, 23, 115 
 St. Michael's, 13, 100 
 St. Mildred's, 6 
 St. Peter's-in-the-East, 13, 107, 
 
 109 
 St. Peter le Bailly, 12 
 St. Thomas, 120 
 Salmon, quoted, 118 
 Sampson, Mr., Ill 
 Sancroft, Archbishop, 137 
 Sanctuary, right of, 96, 98 
 Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 
 
 139 
 Scott, John (Lord Eldon), 71 
 Segrim family, 100 
 Servitor, the, 36-41, 237 
 Shakespear, 99 
 Shelley, 242 
 
 Sherwin, the beadle, 150 
 Shirburne, H., 122 
 
 Shoemakers, Company of, 113 
 
 Shortland, Mr., 193 
 
 Shotover Woods, 132 
 
 Sigeferth, assasisnation of, 15 
 
 Skinner, John, 97 
 
 Slatford, contest for town 
 clerkship, 104 
 
 Slatter, William, 220 
 
 Smallpox, new remedy of in- 
 oculation, 110-112 
 
 Smalridge, Bishop, 139, 140, 
 150, 153, 158 
 
 Smith, Adam, 232 
 
 Smith, "The Linen Draper," 
 187 
 
 Smoking, 67 
 
 Sotham, Mr., 202 
 
 Southey, quoted, 70, 77, 159 
 
 Spectator, the, 78 
 
 Spencer — 
 Earl, 229 
 Family, 105 
 Lord Charles, 221 
 Lord Henry, 222 
 Lord Robert, 107, 109, 153, 
 208, 212, 214 
 
 Spinning, 200 
 
 Spratt, Bishoji, 137 
 
 Stanley, Lord, robbery of, 89 
 
 Stapylton, Mr., 107 
 
 Steele, Sir Richard, quoted, 
 62 
 
 Stephen, King, siege of the 
 Empress Maud, 14 ; as- 
 sembly at Oxford, 16 
 
 Stephenson, George, 129 
 
 Stocks, the, 97 
 
 Stodely, J., Mayor of Oxford, 
 114 
 
 Stone houses first built by Jews, 
 10 
 
 Stonhouse, Miss, 66 
 
 Streat, Mr., 166 
 
 Street, Mr., 77 
 
 Streets, 99, 100, 116, 216, 241 
 
 Sunderland, Earl of, 153, 159
 
 INDEX 
 
 301 
 
 Swegen, death of, 15 
 
 Swift- 
 Dean, quoted, 189 
 John, 223 
 
 Tagg, James, 220 
 
 Talbot, Mr., 138 
 
 Tanian, William, trial of, 233, 
 
 234 
 Tatham, Dr., 186 
 Tannton, Mr., 193, 198 
 Taverns and ale-houses, 72 
 Tawuev, Edward, Maj-or of 
 O.xford, 213 
 Kichard, 193 ; knighthood 
 conferred on, 217 
 Taylors, Company of, 113, 224, 
 
 228 
 Tenuison, Archbishop, 138 
 Test and Corporation Act, 
 
 222 
 Thompson, W., 113 
 Thornton, Bonwell, 66 
 Thorp, Wni., sen.. Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 223 
 Thorpe, Wm., Mayor of Oxford, 
 
 99 
 Thurston, contest for Town 
 
 Clerkship, 104 
 Thynne, Lady Isabella, 57 
 "Toast, the," influence of, on 
 
 college life, 57-63 
 TongTie, Mr., 193 
 Town- 
 Architecture, 7-10 
 Boundaries of jurisdiction in 
 
 early days, 19 
 Charters granted by Henry I. 
 
 and II., 18, 22, 23 
 Early history of, 4-24 
 Jews' settlement in {see Jews) 
 League with Loudon, 17 
 Loyalty at end of eighteenth 
 
 century, 221, 227 
 Municipal affairs, 100, 102, 
 216-225, 241 
 
 Prosperity of, in early days, 
 
 3-5, 18, 23 
 " Provisions of Oxford," 16 
 Streets, 99,100, 116. 216. 241 
 War, distress during the, 
 231, 233 
 Town-mote, 23 
 Townshend, Lord, 153, 156, 
 
 159 
 Trapp, Mr., 42 
 Treacher, Sir John. Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 212, 218 
 Trevor, Lord, 153 
 Tyrrel, Ben, 82, 85 
 
 University — 
 
 Amusements, 74-83, 241 
 
 Clubs, 64-67 
 
 Coffee-houses, 31-34 
 
 Dinner-hour, 34 
 
 Don, the, disappearance of, 
 250 
 
 Drinking, 68-72, 118 
 
 Early rising, 47 
 
 '•Freshman's Dream," 248 
 
 Freshmen, life of, 46-63, 166, 
 168 
 
 German universities, com- 
 pared with, 160 
 
 Hatred of foreiguers, 167 
 
 Jacobite sympathies, causes 
 of, 122 - 130 ; attitude, 
 130-140, 146-149, 151- 
 154 ; Mar's rebellion, 142, 
 154-158 ; forbearance of 
 Government, 155, 158, 
 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 ; Whigs and Tories, 
 160-173 ; disappearance of 
 Jacobitism and lovalty to 
 the Georges, 178, 211, 239 
 
 Plans of reformation of the 
 colleges, 171 
 
 " Poor scholars," 41-45 
 
 Reformation, attitude during, 
 133 
 
 Servitor, the, 36-41, 237
 
 302 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES 
 
 University — Continued. 
 Smoking, 67 
 
 Taverns and ale-houses, 72 
 Toast, the, influence on col- 
 lege life, 57-63 
 "Young Oxford," 247-2CG 
 
 Vernon, Miss, 108 
 Villiers, Barbara, 57 
 Vives, Ludovicus, 133 
 
 "Wake, Archbishop, 171 
 Wakes, 118 
 Walden, Lionel, 155 
 Walker- 
 John, 193 
 
 Thomas, President of " Loyal 
 Association," 227 
 Walley, John, 113 
 War, the, how it aifected Ox- 
 ford, 226-233 
 Ward, Tippety, 183 
 Warton — 
 
 Tom, jun., college life, 48, 
 175, 243; Court laure- 
 ate, 212 ; death of, 220 ; 
 quoted, 31, 32, 73, 82 
 Tom, sen., 64, 170 
 Watson, John, Mayor of Ox- 
 ford, 213 
 Waynflete, William of, 223 
 Wealth of Nations, 232 
 Weavers, Company of, 115 
 Wenman, Thomas Francis, 97 
 Wesley — 
 Charles, 168 
 John, 168, 240 
 Samuel, sen., 39, 135, 143, 242 
 Samuel, jun., 143 
 West, Richard, 113 
 Weston, Richard, Mayor of 
 
 Oxford, 99, 219 
 Whately, 249 
 
 Whigs and Tories at Oxford, 
 160-173 
 
 Whitefield, George, 38, 240 
 
 Wiiiteside, 72 
 
 Whitlock, 151, 156 
 
 Wickham, Miss Molly, &Q 
 
 Wife, saleof a, 119, 218 
 
 Williams, Rev. John, 87 
 
 Willis- 
 Browne, 34 
 Dr. Thomas, 37, 80 
 
 Willoughby, Sir C, 204 
 
 Wills, Dr., 161 
 
 Witchcraft, 119 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 133 
 
 Wood, Anthony a, quoted, 
 coffee, 31 ; municipal elec- 
 tions, 101, 102 ; Earl of 
 Abingdon, 103 ; public en- 
 tertainments, 107 ; com- 
 panies, 114 ; Whigs and 
 Tories, 161 ; memoranda, 
 123 
 
 Woods near Oxford, 132 
 
 Woolcombers, Company of, 215 
 
 Wright, William, 223 
 
 Wyatt, Mr., Principal of Mary 
 Hall, 168 
 
 Wycliflfe, 133 
 
 Wyndham, 151 
 
 Wyudliam, Right Hon. William, 
 229 
 
 Wynn, Sir Watkin, punch-bowl 
 bequeathed to Jesus Col- 
 lege, 70 
 
 Wynne, Dr., 126 
 
 Yeats, Christopher, 213 
 Yoimg, Arthur, quoted, 191, 
 
 198, 201, 203 
 Young Oxford, 247-266 
 Ymtng Travellers, or a Visit to 
 Oxford, 181 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh 
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 The Eversley Series. 
 
 Globe Zvo. Cloth, ^s. per volume. 
 The Works of Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Essays in Ckiticism. First Series. 
 
 Essays in Criticism. Second Series. 
 
 Early and Narrative Poems. 
 
 Lyric and Elegiac Poems. 
 
 Dramatic and Later Poems. 
 
 American Discourses. 
 
 Letters. Edited by G. W. E. Russell. Two Vols. 
 
 The Holy Bible. Arranged in paragraphs, with an Introduction 
 
 by J. W. Mackail, M.A. In Eight Volumes. 
 
 Vol. L Genesis — Numbers. Vol. IL Deuteronomy — 2 Samuel. 
 
 Vol. in. I Kings— Esther. Vol. IV. Job — Song of Solomon. 
 
 Vol. V. Isaiah — Lamentations. Vol. VI. Ezekiel — Malachi. 
 
 Vol. VII. Matthew — John. Vol. VIII. Acts— Revelation. 
 
 Essays by George Brimley. Third Edition. 
 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Edited by A. W. Pollard. 
 
 Two Vols. 
 
 Dean Church's Miscellaneous Writings. Collected Edition. 
 Nine Vols. 
 Miscellaneous Essays. | Dante : and other Essays. 
 
 St. Anselm. I Spenser. | Bacon. 
 
 The Oxford Movement. Twelve Years, 1833-1845. 
 The Beginning of the Middle Ages. (Included in this Series by 
 
 permission of Messrs. Longmans & Co.) 
 Occasional Papers. Selected from The Guardian, The Times, The 
 Saturday Review, 1846-1890. Two Vols. 
 
 Life and Letters of Dean Church. Edited by his Daughter, 
 Mary C. Church. 
 
 Lectures and Essays by W. K. Clifford, F.R.S. Edited by 
 Leslie Stephen and Sir F. Pollock. New Edition. 
 Two Vols. 
 
 Emerson's Collected Works. Six Vols. With Introduction by 
 
 John Mokley. 
 
 Miscellanies. | Essays. | Poems. 
 English Traits and Representative Men. 
 The Conduct of Life, and Society and Solitude. 
 Letters and Social Aims. 
 
 Letters of Edward FitzGerald. Edited by W. A. Wright. 
 Two Vols. 
 
 Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble, 1871-1883. 
 Edited by W. A. Wright. 
 
 More Letters of Edward FitzGerald. [In the Press. 
 
 Pausanias and other Greek Sketches. By J. G. Frazer, M.A. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 The Eversley Series — Continued. 
 
 Goethe's Prose Maxims. Translated, with Introduction, by 
 T. B. Saunders. 
 
 \* The Scientific and Artistic Maxims were selected by Professot 
 Huxley and Lord Leighton respectively. 
 
 Thomas Gray's Collected Works in Prose and Verse. Edited 
 by Edmund Gosse. 
 Vol. I. Poems, Journals, and Essays. Vols. II. and III. Letters. 
 Vol. IV. Notes on Aristoi'hanes and Plato. 
 
 Works by John Richard Green. 
 
 Stray Studies from England and Italy. 
 
 History of the English People. Eight Vols. 
 
 The Making of England. With Maps. In Two Vols. 
 
 The Conquest of England. With Maps. In Two Vols. 
 
 Oxford Studies. 
 
 Guesses at Truth. By Two Brothers. 
 
 The Choice of Books, and other Literary Pieces. By Frederic 
 Harrison. 
 
 Earth-work out of Tuscany. By Maurice Hewlett. 
 
 Poems of Thomas Hood. Edited, with Prefatory Memoir, by 
 Alfred Ainger. In Two Vols. With Vignettes and 
 Portraits. 
 Vol. I. Serious Poems. Vol. II. Poems of Wit and Humour. 
 
 R. H. Button's Collected Essays. 
 
 Literary Essays. 
 
 Essays on Some of the Modern Guides of English Thought 
 
 in Matters of Faith. 
 Theological Essays. 
 
 Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, iwo Vols. 
 Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought. Selected from 
 
 The Spectator, and Edited by his Niece E. M. Roscoe. With 
 
 Portrait. 
 
 Thomas Henry Huxley's Collected Works. Nine Vols. 
 
 Vol. I. Method and Results. 
 
 Vol. II. Darwiniana. 
 
 Vol. III. Science and Education. 
 
 Vol. IV. Science and Hebrew Tradition. 
 
 Vol. V. Science and Christian Tradition. 
 
 Vol. VI. Hume. With Helps to the Study of Berkeley. 
 
 Vol. VII. Man's Place IN Nature: and other Anthropological Essays. 
 
 VoliviII. Discourses, Biological and Geological. 
 
 Vol. IX. Evolution and Ethics, and other Essays. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW.
 
 3 1205 01489 2556 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 ll|ll|l|l|lll!tl!lllllllllllllllllllllll|IM|l{|M|l<l<llll 
 
 AA 000 241591 7
 
 /■A: 
 
 
 :^>' 
 
 ». /• 
 
 <, / 
 
 .,.f' 
 
 yir 
 
 vj'. ■■'. 
 
 #'■*/ 
 
 'l.^-^-iV'V. 
 
 :.v.-(' 
 
 '.^:7;»' 
 
 ':■.<■ 
 
 i^/;^^• 
 
 V ' * ■'•' I/ .' ■"■ •*' 
 
 
 ; ■ 1- 
 
 >.:. !,