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OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY, 
 
 BEING 
 
 TWO SERIES OF PAPERS 
 
 PUBLISHED IN 
 
 THE OXFORD CHRONICLE & BERKS & BUCKS GAZETTE 
 
 DURING THE YEAR 1859. 
 
 OXFORD: 
 
 SLATTEK AND ROSE; 
 
 SOLD ALSO AT THE CHRONICLE OFFICE, AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 MDCOOLIX. 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 o PENCE tells an amusing story of the great French preacher, Bourdelot, 
 that when engaged in the preparation of his sermon for Good Friday, he 
 found his spirits so deprest with the gloom of his subject that he was driven 
 to seek relief in his fiddle, so that the verger, on entering the room to 
 summon him to the delivery of his discourse, was thunderstruck to find the 
 eloquent Father stripped to his cassock, and dancing about his room to the 
 lively notes of a jig. We fear that most readers who open a book at its 
 preface, are inclined to think that the author has reversed the practice of 
 Father Bourdelot, and given the sermon before the jig. 
 
 We must, however, beg leave of our readers to take this opportunity of 
 explaining, in some degree, the causes that have led to such great 
 modifications in the original plan of these papers on " Oxford during the Last 
 Century." It was intended by the Proprietors of the Oxford Chronicle that 
 this series should embrace the whole period from 1 750 to the middle of the pre- 
 
 M69496 
 
ii. PREFACE. 
 
 sent century, detailing in chronological order the more marked events of every 
 year, the municipal changes, the local improvements, the social progress of 
 the town. For the execution, however, of such a project it is plain that the 
 goodwill 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 supposition 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 sug- 
 gest any other. 
 
 We the more regret the frustration of our object because it has pre- 
 vented us from giving prominent notice to the name of one whose services 
 to his fellow-citizens have been conspicuous, and from handing down 
 to posterity, in minute detail, some account of the efforts he has made, at 
 great pecuniary cost, and with much personal labour, to promote the interests 
 of his fellow-citizens, especially in the cause of education. None could have 
 rendered us more valuable aid in this undertaking ; but the gentleman to 
 whom we allude has deprived us of this gratification by an absence of that 
 sympathy with our labours which might have been expected from his well- 
 known attachment to and research in our civic antiquities. We deeply regret 
 this circumstance, as we are not unmindful of his merits, and may yet 
 perhaps have to do full justice to the important matters to which we have 
 just alluded. 
 
PREFACE. Hi. 
 
 After such disappointment we have the greater pleasure in enumerating 
 the kind friends to whose aid so much of the information we have communi- 
 cated has been owing ; and particularly in mentioning the Rev. the Vice- 
 Chancellor (Dr. Jeune), who most courteously granted our request for the 
 loan of a book we could have obtained from no other source ; Dr. Acland, to 
 whom we owe similar acknowledgments ; John M. Davenport, Esq., whose 
 ready offer of volumes procurable from no other private sources, deserves our 
 heartiest thanks ; Frederick J. Morrell, Esq., to whom we are deeply 
 indebted for the facility of access to documents of great interest and value. 
 We are happy to return similar acknowledgments to G. Dayman, Esq., and 
 to Alderman Spiers, who with his usual courtesy, placed unreservedly at our 
 disposal the whole of his extensive collection of works of local interest — an 
 offer of which we have largely availed ourselves. To Alderman W. Thorp 
 we are indebted for valuable information, and Mr. Hammans, Bookseller, 
 High Street, has obliged us by the loan of several scarce and valuable works 
 connected with our subject. 
 
 The information thus kindly communicated, 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 un- 
 interesting events. It was determined, therefore, on the change of 
 authorship at 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 detail- 
 ing 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 
 
IV. PREFACE. 
 
 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 conclu- 
 sion, 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. 
 
 u 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Our special theme is the last hundred years of 
 the events belonging to Oxford ; but we would fain, 
 by way of preface to our notice of this particular 
 period, call attention to the circumstances which 
 make it so much a place of interest and so worthy 
 of attention. The mere mechanical mind points to 
 our looms and factories for the greatness of Eng- 
 land ; but the master mind which informs, directs, 
 and governs all, which " teaches to command the 
 fire and to control the flood," is to be found in our 
 seats of learning ; and there, after all, the presiding 
 genius of commerce and the arts has taken her 
 seat ; " for there is no power on earth which setteth 
 up a throne or chair of state in the spirits and souls 
 of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opi- 
 nions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning." 
 It is this power which gives commandment to the 
 will and the understanding, and to it we are in- 
 debted for the sovereignty and pre-eminence of our 
 country in whatever they consist. King Henry 
 the Eighth well understood what conduced to the 
 good governance of the realm when he judged no 
 land better bestowed than that which is given to 
 our Universities, discriminating between what he 
 called " pulling down sin," in dissolving the monas- 
 teries, and the desire to overthrow our real nurseries 
 of knowledge. Nor was the counsel given to his 
 son and successor, by one who had caught the same 
 sentiment, less pertinent to the end, upon a petition 
 which had been made for dissolving all Collegiate 
 establishments whatever : " If," said the Duke of 
 Somerset to Edward the Sixth on this occasion, 
 "learning decaie, which of wild men maketh civill, 
 
 what else shall we look for but barbarism and tumult." 
 Now, as to Oxford, it cannot fail to strike the student 
 of English history how commonly that name occurs 
 in its pages, evidencing in some degree or other its aca- 
 demical fame and municipal importance. We find it, 
 indeed, linked with the earliest annals of our country 
 in a connexion with the most momentous matters 
 of national concern ; and every succeeding age has 
 something to tell of the story of its institutions and 
 of the great men it has furnished for the guidance 
 of the state by their wisdom and virtues. Nor is 
 the name of Oxford, considered apart from those 
 points of view which associate it in our minds with 
 its endowments for the sake of knowledge — difficult 
 as it will be found in manifold instances of its his- 
 tory to separate the connexion between them — a 
 theme of less stirring interest. 
 
 In regard to its well-established antiquity, we are 
 carried back at the very least to the time when our 
 Mercian Kings had sway, and it clearly existed as a 
 corporation with chartered rights long before the 
 Conquest ; here, too, was wont to be held the wit- 
 tenagemotes of our Saxon ancestors, and here Alfred 
 and his sons and other kings of England actually 
 resided. Long before the existence of the Univer- 
 sity or any colleges, having a status as such, with 
 a body of statutes for their government, and with ex- 
 clusive rights and privileges, the city was a place of 
 resort for learning, and had its halls, its schools and 
 hostels ; and in the particular features of these re- 
 ceptacles for students, of which it is said no less than 
 three hundred have flourished, much of the interest 
 attaching to ancient Oxford exists. 
 
 B 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 It is difficult to point out a spot upon which some 
 one or other of these buildings did not at one time 
 stand. Five only now remain with their ancient 
 titles ; many, from various causes, leading to a de- 
 cline of the establishments from the purposes to 
 which they had been appropriated, reverted to their 
 original owners, the citizens, and experienced the 
 ordinary vicissitudes incidental to property of the 
 kind. They became shops, private residences, and 
 inns or hostels in the modern acceptation of the 
 term ; for, formerly, religious houses afforded enter- 
 tainment to travellers and strangers, and made the 
 wants of these conveniences less necessary. The Star 
 Inn is built on the site of what was a " receptacle 
 for clerks," and there are vestiges of the old struc- 
 ture in the richly-carved wooden gables of the Rail- 
 way Office annexed to it. The Roebuck occupies 
 the place of another academical tenement, formerly 
 called Coventry Hall ; traoes oi' Burwaldscote Hall 
 are still to be found in the Mitre Hotel ; and on the 
 side of tne Aogei ttooc a tenement belonging to 
 " Our Lady's Chapel" in the Church of St. Peter-in- 
 the-East — also a place for the receptacle of clerks. 
 The names and situations of many, though no other 
 signs than these indications of their former exist- 
 ence are left, have been carefully preserved by the 
 research and industry of our antiquaries; there 
 is, nevertheless, hardly a street, lane, or bye-way in 
 Oxford, especially in that portion of it which was 
 included within the city walls, where there is not 
 still standing some one or more of these scholastic 
 tenements. In many instances they are easily dis- 
 cernible by characteristics marking the rules which 
 guided builders of houses in former times, and exhi- 
 bit contrivances adapted to usages very different 
 from our own, a handsome exterior often present- 
 ing them eminence by the side of structures of 
 much more questionable taste, and rebuking the 
 genius of modern architects. The very names of 
 these buildings form an interesting study for the 
 light they throw upon ancient customs and the his- 
 tory of social progress. Glazen Hall, for example, 
 illustrates the period when glass windows came into 
 fashion ; and there are others which, in like manner 
 distinguish the times when stone became the com- 
 mon material for building houses, and slate super- 
 seded thatch ; and when, further, as in the instance 
 of the name of Chimney Hall, the having a fire of 
 charcoal in the centre of the room ceased to be a 
 domestic custom. We shall have occasion here- 
 after, for purposes connected -with our details, to 
 point out the identical spot of many of these halls, 
 and to notice more particularly those which have 
 become the residence of private individuals. 
 
 In the pursuits of those who originally resorted 
 to these places of learning may in part be traced the 
 elements of the present collegiate system. To form, 
 however, a fuller conception of the academical his- 
 tory of Oxford, it would be necessary to remove in 
 our imagination that monument of individual muni- 
 ficence which forms so conspicuous a feature in the 
 grand assemblage of its public buildings, — we mean 
 that splendid edifice the Radcliffe Library. On the 
 area of ground where it stands the Schools were so 
 numerous as to give pre-eminently a name to a 
 street which then ran by them from the High Street, 
 on the west side of St. Mary's Church. Antony 
 Wood enumerates no less than thirty-two of these 
 Schools, all under the government of masters in the 
 different faculties, in this avenue alone. On the 
 east side of the square in Cat Street stood the Halls 
 of Tingewick, St. Thomas, and St. Catherine, from 
 the last mentioned of which it derived its name. 
 Between Cat Street and School Street was a com- 
 munication on the north side of St. Mary's church- 
 yard, where stood Godstow Hall, Pylet Hall, and 
 several others, and to all of these separate Schools 
 were annexed. 
 
 This is after all but a very imperfect description 
 of the places of learning which flourished in Oxford, 
 yet well accounts for the great concourse of scholars 
 who resorted to it from all parts of Europe ; and there 
 is no good reason for thinking the twenty or thirty 
 thousand variously stated to have been residing here 
 at one time in any degree an exaggeration. So nu- 
 merous, indeed, were they that the exercises for de- 
 grees were, from inadequacy of room in the legitimate 
 places, performed in the shops of citizens, or in the 
 larger apartments above them. The fall from this 
 high estate is in many ways to be accounted for. 
 Feuds between the scholars and the citizens, and griev- 
 ous conflicts consequent upon their disputes, fires, 
 plagues, and other visitations caused occasional se- 
 cessions, and eventually the polemical animosities 
 which distracted the nation led to a very general 
 dispersion. 
 
 We have now to contemplate Oxford under another 
 aspect which shows its great antiquity. Some of our 
 present colleges are built upon the site of extinct foun- 
 dations of a similar character ; very slight remains 
 are all that is left besides the records of antiquaries 
 to attest the existence of others. This is the case 
 with regard to the colleges of St. George and St. 
 Mary, the former of which stood within the Castle ; 
 while the old gateway now to be seen opposite New 
 Inn Hall is almost the only relic of the latter, though 
 it had some distinction in the times preceding the 
 Reformation, and was the place of residence of the 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 greatest scholar of the age, Erasmus, when a visitant 
 at the University. 
 
 It is not our purpose, as it is not in our power in 
 this brief and cursory sketch, to trace the rise and 
 progress of all those religious houses which were 
 established in Oxford to give effect to the grand 
 schemes of St. Augustin and St. Benedict and other 
 founders of the conventual system. They were very 
 numerous. Some have merged into foundations 
 which now contribute to give Oxford its great and 
 merited celebrity as a place of education ; others 
 have experienced the fate of similar institutions in 
 the country ; two of them demand more particu- 
 lar notice. Rewley marks the spot where Edmund 
 Earl of Cornwall, a; id grandson of King John, built 
 a monastery for an abbot and fifteen monks of the 
 Cistercian order. Its ninth and last abbot surren- 
 dered it to Henry the Eighth ; and all that we can 
 now see of it is a portion of its garden walls, and a 
 door-way fronting the canal. From the insignificant 
 vestiges of Osney Abbey it is scarcely possible to form 
 an idea of its former magnificence. Now, perhaps, one 
 of the least-attractive spots of our suburbs, it was 
 once, for the splendour and beauty of its buildings, 
 " one of the first ornaments and wonders of this 
 place and nation." That a church, enriched with a 
 variety of chapels and not less than twenty-four 
 altars, with two lofty towers, with the house of its 
 abbot having a hall "more befitting a common 
 society than a private man," with its quadrangle, 
 cloisters, and other appendages common to our old 
 ecclesiastical establishments, and all on a corre- 
 sponding scale of magnificence, should ever have 
 existed on a spot, so varied in its present aspect, and 
 have left hardly a material relic of itself behind, un- 
 less we may reckon the bells of Christ Church as 
 such, would exceed the possibility of belief, but for 
 the well-authenticated record of its grandeur, which 
 has been handed down to us. Its renown and 
 sumptuous style of living attracted the company of 
 kings and nobles ; and the nature of these pilgrim- 
 ages may be understood from the description given 
 of a visit paid to it by Henry III., who is said to 
 have spent a Christmas here with " great revelling 
 mirth." 
 
 A sorrowful reflection in no less degree attends 
 the spectacle of the once-extensive and magnificent 
 domain of the Dominicans and Franciscans. The 
 name of their locality in St. Ebbe's parish is still 
 preserved, but little more to confirm the accounts 
 we read of the two monasteries which stood upon 
 the island — so it is called — which was formed by 
 the course of the Trill Mill Stream and the main 
 river. The present occupants of the Friars will find 
 
 a difficulty in recognising the " delightful spot" it 
 was formerly said to be. Neither Black Friars nor 
 White Friars, however, escaped suspicion of degene- 
 racy from the simple rules of their founders, and 
 they, too, shared the common fate of others, acd 
 fell at the dissolution. 
 
 For a correct comprehension of the original fea- 
 tures of Oxford, it would be requisite to present in 
 one entire view its extinct collegiate churches, the 
 abbies, hospitals, and preceptories which have given 
 place almost in every part of it to houses or other 
 buildings erected in accordance with the demands 
 of an increasing population ; and here there is doubt- 
 less matter for regret in respect of a wanton annihi- 
 lation in some instances of much that was calculated 
 to preserve the traditions of the place, and which, 
 under the name of improvement, has swept away 
 many monuments of its antiquity — a remark which 
 extends to some needless changes of the old names 
 of streets, through ignorance or disregard of the in- 
 teresting localities on which they were built. 
 
 At the outset of this survey of Oxford in the olden 
 times we adverted to various evidences of its im- 
 portance among the towns of England in its civil 
 capacity ; and to what has previously been said on 
 this point may be added the fact of the frequent 
 struggles for the possession of it ; and this circum- 
 stance leads to the consideration of it as having been 
 a fortified place once, and capable of making a defence 
 against all the then known appliances of war ; and it 
 may be here incidentally observed that the history of 
 its old walls and mural mansions affords the most cer- 
 tain proofs of its great antiquity. They are recog- 
 nised in Doomsday Book — in which the Saxon cus- 
 toms of the citizens with their privileges and com- 
 mon pasturage of Port Meadow are also minutely 
 recorded and acknowledged — as having had an exist- 
 ence in the times of Edward the Confessor. It will 
 be requisite, however, to draw considerably upon 
 the imagination for the picture which Oxford pre- 
 sented in that condition. " These walls," in the 
 words of Dr. Ingram, " were of an oblong 
 form, nearly square from the east end to about the 
 middle, where they assumed a kind of parabolic 
 curve on each side gradually contracting towards 
 the west end, so as to form just space enough for a 
 strong fortress or ' castellum,' constructed in the 
 most scientific manner, and surrounded with a deep 
 moat, gates, turrets and drawbridge." The buildings 
 in Long Wall, Holywell, Broad Street, and the north 
 side of the town generally shut out from our 
 view the bastions which remain and other 
 traces of the means Oxford has made use of at dif- 
 ferent periods for resistance to a besieging force. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 All beyond the north wall was, with little excep- 
 tion, an open space, little gardens of the towns- 
 people extending from the line of defence to a 
 stream which flowed down what we now know as 
 Broad Street, though it had previously been called 
 Horsemonger Street, from the custom of holding a 
 fair for horses on the spot, as well as Canditch (Can- 
 dida fossa), from the clearness of the stream which 
 we have mentioned. 
 
 Beaumont Palace, built by Henry I., and memoi*able 
 as the birthplace of Richard Cceur de Lion, and 
 as the favoured residence of the kings of England 
 to the time of Edward the First, was unquestion- 
 ably the most considerable spot in this quarter of 
 the suburbs. Its spacious grounds were bounded 
 on one side by the square — formerly a bowling 
 green — on which now stands the city gaol. The in- 
 tervening space between this and the fortifications 
 consisted of irregular hedges on uneven ground 
 which have given the name to it of " Broken Heyes." 
 
 But it falls within the compass of our present 
 notice of Oxford to give only such an account of it 
 as is sufficient for a contrast to the change it now 
 exhibits. Our scanty limits will not admit of a pre- 
 cise and exact description of many particulars which 
 invest every nook and corner with an interest such 
 as we cannot believe to belong to any other town in 
 the kingdom. We could further desire, but for the 
 impossibility of doing justice to the great mass of 
 our materials, and the difficulty of making such a 
 selection from them of the things which might ap- 
 pear most deserving of notice, to carry our readers 
 
 to every spot associated in its history with any par- 
 ticulars of interest or moment. We could desire to 
 point out where once was a Royal mint, where Par- 
 liaments have been assembled, and a privy council 
 met for deliberation on the affairs of the kingdom 
 Such a description is required to show fully what a 
 prominent station Oxford, whether in its municipal 
 or academical character, occupied in former times 
 as well as the present, and is equally necessary to 
 give just testimony to the privileges, immunities, 
 and franchises it has ever enjoyed. In none, how- 
 ever, of the above remarks, made in reference to the 
 schools of learning which once abounded and the 
 conflux of students which its fame attracted from 
 all parts of the world, do we desire to intimate that 
 any period that has passed under review was the 
 period of its greatest prosperity or the highest 
 point of its most honourable reputation. They 
 have been mentioned as facts in its history : 
 much of the time was formerly spent in frivo- 
 lous disputations and in mastering subtleties 
 which contrast ill with the solid acquirements 
 obtained under the present academical dis- 
 cipline. And so of the City ; while adverting to 
 the high position it has at all times occupied, we 
 keep in mind that the present is that which most 
 distinguishes it and of which we have most reason to 
 be proud ; and our purpose will be attained, if of 
 the much that might be said, enough has been in- 
 troduced to awaken a proper interest on the subject 
 of Oxford. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 In Seventeen Hundred and Fifty-nine— just one 
 century ago — England was engaged in the memorable 
 " Seven Years War," under the administration of the 
 first William Pitt, the history of whose management 
 of the national affairs is a continued series of the 
 most splendid successes. He was the chief moving 
 power of the government, and communicated by his 
 own rapid decisions and fertility of resource that 
 vigour and alacrity to our fleets and armies, the 
 grand result of which was a rich harvest of gain and 
 glory to our arms both by sea and land. 
 
 Oxford was not behind the other corporations of 
 the kingdom in her testimonies to the triumphs of 
 the great genius of the minister, and the enthusiasm 
 of the city in particular is stated to have been un- 
 bounded in the demonstrations of joy exhibited 
 upon the news of our victories at Quebec and Min- 
 den, the principal achievements of 1759. During 
 this eventful year we find the same kind of stir and 
 bustle displayed throughout the whole County as 
 we witnessed but a short time past in meeting the 
 exigencies of the Russian war. " Gentlemen Volun- 
 teers who are willing to serve his Majesty King 
 George in the Black Regiment of Light Horse are 
 invited to meet the Hon. Captain Gordon at Wood- 
 stock, where they may receive three guineas bounty 
 and a crown to drink his Majesty's health, and be 
 mounted on the best hunters that can be procured ;" 
 and the warlike aspirations of others desirous of 
 serving in the Royal Regiment of Light Infantry are 
 encouraged by similar inducements " to be explained 
 to them upon repairing to Colonel Crawford at the 
 Mitre Inn, Oxford." The same activity is displayed 
 
 in an account given of the march through our oity 
 of companies of militia, headed by Sir Roger New- 
 digate, one of the representatives of the University, 
 and of their halt at Woodstock and other places, 
 where "they met with great civilities from the 
 neighbouring gentlemen." Everything we read re- 
 lating to Oxford at this period shows how all-en- 
 grossing the subject of the war was in men's minds 
 to the exclusion of almost every other topic of a 
 political character. There does appear certainly an 
 endeavour to keep up party spirit in the celebration of 
 the anniversary of the election of Sir James Dash wood 
 and Lord Wenman — the members for the county — 
 " to commemorate the noble appearance they made 
 on that occasion," as well as in the quarterly 
 meetings of the " Old Interest" — that shibboleth of 
 one of the factions of the day — at Burford, Chip- 
 ping Norton, and other of our county towns ; and we 
 have before us an advertisement of the landlord of 
 the Hare and Hounds, at Watlington, in which he 
 offers a reward of ten pounds for the discovery of 
 the person or persons who had maliciously reported 
 to his prejudice that he had at some particular time 
 " Drank damnation, on his knees, to all friends of 
 the Old Interest in general." Beyond this neither 
 City nor County give signs of political feeling in 
 1759 ; there were no declaimers on rights and liber- 
 ties, public grievances, or lavish expenditure ; no 
 prophetic sage to admonish on the ruinous conse- 
 quences of the hostilities in which we were engaged. 
 The fact is, that all sense of the calamities incidental 
 to the war in its present burdens, and certain prospect 
 of more aggravated evils in the end, appears to have 
 
6 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 been lost in the attention given to its brilliant suc- 
 cesses. Nor does there seem to have been at the 
 time any ground for discontent on the score of the 
 high prices of commodities in general. If the price 
 of wheat be taken, as it commonly is, as a criterion 
 of the means of subsistence within the reach of 
 those most subject to the inconveniences of scar- 
 city and the pressure of national embarrass- 
 ments, the rate of prices, as quoted from the ex- 
 tant returns, would indicate a period of prosperity 
 and plenty. Throughout the whole year of 1759 
 wheat never exceeded in the Oxford market nine 
 pounds the load, while at some times it was as low 
 as six pounds ten shillings ; and for the better 
 understanding of these averages, as a test of the 
 home demand, we must bear in mind that England 
 was then an exporting country ; she did not sow for 
 herself alone, and a bounty was paid upon every 
 quarter of wheat sent from her ports for con- 
 sumers in other countries. As another instance of 
 the cheapness of provisions at this time, " Fine old 
 Cheshire Cheese" was advertised to be sold in 
 Oxford at threepence halfpenny per pound. 
 
 The trade of Oxford at the period of our survey 
 does not present any striking or remarkable fea- 
 tures, nor anything from which it is possible to in- 
 fer that it was a place of business ; peruke-mak- 
 ers abounded, and travelling tailors came with their 
 assortments of " superfine for gentlemen, fustain or 
 shag for servants, gold and silver lace, scarlet 
 dominies and scarlet cloaks." From these latter 
 particulars may be gathered some acquaintance 
 with the prevailing fashion in articles of apparel, 
 and the contrast it affords to our present usages. 
 But much greater was the difference as to our cus- 
 toms in other respects, in the taste for amuse- 
 ments, in the manner of spending leisure hours, and 
 in the mode of travelling. With regard to the last- 
 mentioned resource, to accomplish the distance be- 
 tween Oxford and London in one day was considered 
 a great accommodation afforded to the public : — 
 " A Flying Machine, allowed by Dr. Randolph, the 
 Vice Chancellor, is advertised to set out from John 
 Kemp's, over against Queen's College, in the High 
 Street, six times a week during the summer season, 
 at five in the morning ;" and to a similar notifica- 
 tion of a like conveyance under the same denomina- 
 tion, the proprietor appends a Nota Bene that 
 " this machine goes in one day all the year." These 
 announcements, however, may rather be taken as a 
 sign of the greater demand for conveyances of the 
 sort than as evidence of very much increased expe- 
 dition in travelling ; for we have in the diary of 
 Anthony Wood the following memorandum :— 
 
 "Monday, April 26, 1669, was the first day that the 
 flying coach went from Oxon to London in one day. 
 A. W. went in the same coach, having then a boot 
 on each side. Among the six men that went, Mr. 
 Richard Holloway, a counsellor of Oxon (afterwards 
 judge) was one. They then (according to the Vice- 
 Chancellor's order, stuck up in all public places) 
 entered into the coach at the tavern door against 
 All Souls' College, precisely at six of the clock in 
 the morning, and at seven at night they were all 
 set downe at their inn, at London." 
 
 The diversions of the people of Oxford a hundred 
 years ago do not evince great refinement, and sport- 
 ing of every kind was in vogue. Cocking found 
 patrons in Lord Lieutenants and others of high 
 degree, when a match was to be fought between 
 "the gentlemen of Oxfordshire" and some other 
 county. Racing, too, held out its temptations to 
 the betting fraternity at almost all our towns in the 
 usual shape of sweepstakes, plate, and cup, to be run 
 for at their respective races. Ringing and singing 
 for a hat, playing at broadsword for a like prize or 
 its equivalent in specie, formed the pastime of the 
 Whitsuntide holidays ; and we meet with a " Notice 
 given to the Public of a Hog to be Barbecued at 
 Tit-up Hall" (a noted place of rendezvous under 
 Shotover Hill) for the further attraction of company 
 at this season. 
 
 Coffee houses were places of great resort and were 
 very numerous in the city ; they were different in 
 their kind from what we now understand by those 
 of the same name. Warton, in his humorous Jen 
 d' esprit, "The Companion to the Guide and the 
 Guide to the Companion," has given them a celebrity; 
 and from this satirical description of the academical 
 routine of study we may see how time was spent in 
 them : — " The prevailing notion is equally erroneous 
 with regard to the number of our libraries. Besides 
 those of Radcliffe and Bodley and the private Col- 
 leges, there have been of late years many libraries 
 founded in our Coffee Houses for the benefit of 
 such of the academics as have neglected, or lost, 
 their Latin or Greek. * * * As there are here 
 books suited to every taste, so there are liquors 
 adapted to every species of reading. Amorous 
 tales may be perused over Arrack Punch and 
 Jellies ; Insipid Odes over Orgeat or Capillaire ; 
 Politics over Coffee ; Divinity over Port ; and 
 Defences of bad Generals and bad Ministers 
 over Whipt Syllabubs. In a word, in these 
 libraries instruction and pleasure go hand in 
 hand ; and we may pronounce, in a literal sense, 
 that learning no longer remains a dry pursuit." 
 The proprietors of these houses had every consider- 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 ation for the convenience of their customers, and 
 we have a clever touch of the poet Laureate's humour 
 in his description of that part of business called 
 booking. " With regard to the manuscripts of these 
 libraries, they are oblong folios, bound in parchment, 
 lettered on the plan of Mr. Locke's Common Place 
 Book, written by and kept under the sole care of 
 the librarian. These manuscripts, which in progress 
 of time amount to many volumes, are carefully pre- 
 served in the archives of each respective library.'' 
 Anthony Wood, to whom we shall often have occa- 
 sion to refer for interesting particulars concerning 
 Oxford, has thought an account of the original esta- 
 blishment of these houses deserving a place in his 
 academical annals. " The first coffee-house in Ox- 
 ford," he informs us, "was opened in the year 1650 
 by Jacob, a Jew, at the Angel, in St. Peter-in-the- 
 East, and there it was by some, who delighted in 
 noveltie, drank. In the year 1654, Cirques Jobson, 
 a Jew and Jacobite, borne near Mount Libanus, 
 sold coffey in Oxon, in an house between Edmund 
 Hall and Queen's College. In this year [1655] Arth. 
 Tillyard, apothecary and great royallist, sold coffey 
 publickly in his house against All Soules' Coll. He 
 was encouraged to do so by som royallists, now 
 living in Oxon, and by others who esteemed them- 
 selves either virtuosi or wits." Among these vir- 
 tuosi was Sir Christopher Wren. We have pre- 
 ferred to give the spelling and quaint style of- the 
 antiquary, to whose researches we are so much in- 
 debted for what is known of the City and Univer- 
 sity, for their peculiar zest, and the insight they give 
 us of the man. 
 
 The great event of the year 1759 was the installa- 
 tion of the Earl of Westmoreland, who had been 
 made Chancellor of the University upon the death 
 of the Earl of Arran. It took place upon the 8th of 
 July, and appears to have created all the interest 
 ordinarily attaching to those solemnities, but no- 
 thing more ; it was, in the main, the same drama 
 we have ourselves seen several times enacted under 
 a new cast of performers, with the usual processions, 
 recitations of academical exercises, speeches, and ora- 
 torios. The reception given to the new Chancellor 
 was questionless a flattering affair, and marked the 
 respect felt for his character, and the distinction con- 
 ferred upon him. He made a public entrance into 
 the city by the East Gate, and was attended by a 
 long train of the coaches and equipages of the no- 
 bility who had accompanied him for some distance 
 on the Wycombe road. In this we observe a cere- 
 monial somewhat differing from the custom of more 
 modern times, as well as in some of the following parti- 
 
 culars which have been given of the event. " Notice 
 was given of his near approach by the ringing of a 
 bell at St. Mary's Church, which called together the 
 gentlemen of the University, who were ranged, ac- 
 cording to their different orders and degrees, on his 
 right hand from the East Gate to St. Mary's Church ; 
 the left hand was reserved for townsmen." Honorary 
 degrees were conferred on this occasion upon nearly 
 fifty individuals of various ranks, amongst whom we 
 notice the name of Arne, the celebrated musical com- 
 poser ; Pye, subsequently Poet Laureate ; and Sir R. 
 Glyn, Lord Mayor and representative of the City of 
 London, who made some figure in the political 
 world ; the others were not men of remarkable 
 note in any public capacity. The greatest cordiality 
 between the City and University was manifested ; 
 and respecting the general good feeling which pre- 
 vailed between Gown and Town we may mention 
 the following circumstance : — The Eev. Mr. Barton 
 has been recently elected Warden of Merton Col- 
 lege, and upon his return to the University to "take 
 possession of his college," he was not only accom- 
 panied by his own Society, but by a " prodigious" 
 number of the principal tradesmen of the town who 
 went out to meet him in the road . 
 
 No impulse had as yet been given to any purpose, if 
 it then existed, of bettering the condition of the 
 inhabitants in respect of the improvement of the 
 streets and houses. The great changes which 
 tended to constitute its present features of attrac- 
 tion, and which we shall notice in their proper 
 place — were of a later date. Nor was there at this 
 time any uniform publicity of the proceedings of the 
 Corporation, which seems to have been moving on 
 in the even tenor of its way without giving any 
 occasion for remark upon its acts or composition. 
 
 The members for the city in 1759 were the Hon. 
 R. Lee and Sir D. Stapleton, who had lately been 
 elected in the place of Mr. Rowney, whose eminent 
 services, rendered to both University and City, 
 will call from us a separate notice hereafter. 
 
 Sir J. Dashwood was High Steward of the City. 
 
 J. Lawrence, a grocer and wine merchant, was 
 Mayor ; J. Gilpin was Recorder ; and T. Walker 
 was Town Clerk. 
 
 No Custos Rotulorum had been appointed to sup- 
 ply the vacancy created by the demise of Charles 
 3rd Duke of Marlborough, who died of a fever 
 in October, 1758, while acting as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the British forces at Munster, in West- 
 phalia. 
 
 A. Hodges, of Harpsden, was High Sheriff of the 
 County. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 Although the times for several years immedi- 
 ately following the period of which we took a sur- 
 vey in our last notice of Oxford were, in a national 
 point of view, characterised by events of great in- 
 terest and moment, we have not been able to meet 
 with any particulars of that participation in them 
 which generally distinguishes the city upon occa- 
 sions calling from the people a display of their loy- 
 alty and attachment to the institutions of the coun- 
 try. George the Second died Oct. 25, 1760, and 
 was succeeded by his grandson George the Third. 
 On this event addresses of congratulation and con- 
 dolence poured forth from all parts of the three 
 kingdoms, all bodies, politic and corporate, vying with 
 each other in testimonies of duty and affection ; but 
 in no chronicle of the occurences of the day do we 
 observe more than what this notice of the acts of 
 the cities in general enables us to infer of the part 
 taken by Oxford in particular. Nor do we find, as 
 might be expected, any specific mention of the 
 claim of the mayor and burgesses to serve, according 
 to their charter, with the citizens of London in the 
 office of butlership to the king on his approaching 
 coronation. This claim was allowed at the corona- 
 tion of his predecessor, when it appears to have 
 been resolved, by a Court which sat for that purpose, 
 to regulate the several pretensions of persons to do 
 service at that solemnity by the precedent of what 
 had occurred at the coronation of James IT. and his 
 queen. As we have observed, this claim of the 
 mayor and burgesses was allowed, with three maple 
 -cups for their fee ; and to the mayor of Oxford was 
 presented a high gilt bowl and cover richly chased, 
 of 110 ounces, as a gift from the king to the city, 
 with his Majesty's arras engraven on it. The origin of 
 
 this high privilege may not be known to all our read- 
 ers, and we will quote from Peshall the account he gives 
 of it — "King Richard I. was born here, and to 
 do honour and service to his native place, espe- 
 cially as he was going abroad into foreign parts, 
 thinking it would advance the strength of his domi- 
 nions at home, confirms a Mayor with the addition 
 of two Aldermen, that the Oxford citizens' rights 
 and privileges should be the same, and in as ample 
 a manner as the City of London ; that the Mayor 
 should be butler at his Coronation Feast, with 
 other privileges to be given ; in return for which 
 tokens of his favour conferred on them, to redeem 
 him out of the imperial hands, where he was a 
 prisoner in Germany, they cheerfully raised a large 
 sum of money. I mention this circumstance as a 
 just commendation due to the Oxonians for their 
 gratitude." It is important to notice in this quota- 
 tion the word confirms (which we have printed in 
 italics) for the privilege had been bestowed upon 
 the citizens by Henry I., son of William the 
 Conqueror. 
 
 There is a more minute account recorded 
 of the proceedings of the University on the occasion 
 of the accession of George III. An address from this 
 body was presented to his Majesty by Dr. Browne, the 
 Provost of Queen's College, in his capacity of Vice- 
 Chancellor, accompanied by the High Steward, Lord 
 Lichfield, both the representatives, Sir R. Newdigate 
 and Peregrine Palmer, and many other distin- 
 guished personages who were at the time or 
 had been members of the University. The 
 protestations of devotion and " fidelity to the 
 monarchy on the most trying occasions," expressed 
 in this address, were subsequently borne in mind by 
 
 I) 
 
10 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Wilkes, who, in a number of the North Briton, sought 
 to test the sincerity of these expressions by reference 
 to the political antecedents of the University, much 
 after the style of Nicholas Amherst, who, when he took 
 up for his theme the loyalty of Alma Mater, said he 
 supposed it meant that she " always espoused one 
 side or the other." 
 
 It might probably occur to some who have 
 a good recollection of the history of parties 
 at that period, that judging from the generalities 
 of the King's answer to this address, he had been 
 influenced by a knowledge of the unswerving at- 
 tachment of the University to the family of Or- 
 monde, and by traditions of some toasts drank to 
 the health of J ames the Third, as well as of some 
 other suspicious evidences of no great devotion to 
 the House of Brunswick ; and we may remark that 
 a riot which had broken out in Oxford on the occa- 
 sion of some young men drinking the health of the 
 Pretender, was one of the historical events of the 
 year no further ago than 1749. The following pas- 
 sage in his Majesty's answer to the address of the 
 University reads indeed like a lesson to those who 
 had something to learn of the more sure road to 
 Royal favour ; " Sound principles of religious and 
 civil duties, and enforced by examples of true 
 piety and loyalty in so eminent a seat of learning 
 cannot fail to diffuse the happiest influence 
 on Church and State, and will always ensure to you 
 my constant favour and protection." Be it as it 
 may, the course adopted by the University was, if it 
 indeed may be considered to have been necessary, 
 calculated to remove the weight of any unfavourable 
 impressions, and with the accession of the King a 
 new political era commenced. In the fervour of 
 their zeal they presented to the King, through their 
 Vice-Chancellor, a printed book of their verses of 
 condolence and congratulations in different lan- 
 guages. These poetical effusions, however, pos- 
 sessed no great merit, if, at least, the following jeu 
 d 'esprit, — of no great merit itself, — is a just criticism 
 of their excellence as .literary compositions : — 
 
 " When good George the second 
 
 By Pluto was beckoned 
 In peace to retire to his cell, 
 
 The grief of the nation 
 
 On this sad occasion 
 Both Oxford and Cambridge must tell. 
 
 Vice Chancellors, Doctors, 
 
 Professors and Proctors, 
 With Lords to ennoble the train, 
 
 In Hebrew and Greek, 
 
 As the muse bade them speak, 
 Each sings a most sorrowful strain. 
 
 " To Isis or Cam, 
 
 For this pitiful sham, 
 The preference where shall I lay ? 
 
 0, Isis ! your song, 
 
 As 'tis four times as long, 
 Has four times the worst of the day." 
 
 Every incident was seized for a renewal of these de- 
 monstrations of loyalty and attachment tothereigning 
 family, and it is observable in the choice of subjects 
 for orations to be delivered in the Theatre, in more 
 than one of the succeeding Commemorations. This 
 circumstance affords the opportunity of remarking 
 that learning in the University found a great pro- 
 moter in Dr. Wilson, a prebendary of Westminster, 
 whom we find giving prizes of four five-guinea 
 pieces each for the best Latin and English compo- 
 sitions in the years 1761 and 1762. In the last- 
 mentioned year the Earl of Westmoreland died. He 
 was succeeded by Lord Lichfield as Chancellor, and 
 installed at his seat at Ditchley. The ceremony 
 usually performed in the University was, " in honour 
 of his Lordship" (the new Chancellor), as we read, 
 dispensed with, though not without precedent. 
 
 We have before adverted to the scantiness of our 
 materials for any particulars relating to the city at 
 the commencement of the reign of George the Third ; 
 and the remark applies to the absence of all notice 
 of occurrences connected with it in the historical 
 registers of events for several subsequent years ; but 
 we hope to supply all important omissions by fur- 
 ther research. One occurrence, however, we do 
 meet with and will mention for the purpose of show- 
 ing the lawlessness of the times, and the contrast 
 they afford to the power possessed by the civil 
 authorities at the present time in controlling 
 ebullitions of popular feeling. Isaac Darling, alias 
 Dumas, the most notorious highwayman of the day, 
 was executed at Oxford March 21, 1761, for robbing 
 Mr. Robert Gammon of his watch and money, near 
 Nettlebed. He displayed the most reckless indif- 
 ference to life at his trial and execution, the thought 
 of being anatomised being the only matter of con- 
 cern with him. A large body of bargemen attended 
 the execution and carried off his body in triumph 
 to the next parish church, where, while some rung 
 the bells, others opened the body and filled it with 
 slack lime and then buried it. This man displayed 
 the greatest coolness at the gallows, adjusting his 
 neck for the rope and throwing himself off the lad- 
 der. He affected the character of Macheath which 
 he delighted to personate in all the delineations 
 given of it in the Beggars Opera, and had been pre- 
 viously acquitted at Salisbury for robbing Lord 
 Percival, with whom he had had a desperate en- 
 counter. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 It is our object to lay before the readers of these 
 papers on Oxford the occurrences connected with it 
 in a regular succession, as far as it is possible, from 
 the period which we took as our starting point, and 
 with as much circumstantial particularity also as 
 will not too greatly interfere with the comprehensive 
 and general purposes of a newspaper. The scanti- 
 ness of materials within our reach with respect to 
 the events of the first period of our century — a 
 circumstance which has already been noticed — pre- 
 sents in our way some obstacles to the perfect 
 execution of this plan ; and we may add, that— per- 
 haps from ignorance of the proper mode of address- 
 ing ourselves to some, capable of rendering us very 
 efficient assistance by means of the information they 
 possess — we have moreover experienced unlooked- 
 for difficulties, so far as the time in question is con- 
 cerned, on matters of local interest to Oxford 
 men, and which all Oxford men ought to know. But 
 an abundant harvest is in prospect, and we now pro- 
 ceed to our gleanings of the three or four years imme- 
 diately following the last detai Is which have been given. 
 The treaty signed at Fontainbleau, in 1762, for the 
 purpose of bringing to an end the hostilities in which 
 England had taken part in order to adjust the politi- 
 cal interests of Europe by a settlement of that diffi- 
 cult problem, the balance of power, was very un- 
 popular ; and the general dissatisfaction it pro- 
 duced throughout the country, on the ground 
 of its inedequate results, extended to Oxford. 
 Nevertheless, the usual demonstrations followed 
 upon the Proclamation of the Peace in the fol- 
 lowing year. An affair of this kind was for- 
 merly one of more than ordinary concern to our 
 citizens. The civic ceremony observed on the like 
 
 occasions in more recent times has not been of a 
 very imposing character, and affords no means of 
 judging of the importance attached to display at 
 the times of which we write. We will give a de- 
 scription from a manuscript, entrusted to us, of the 
 proceedings which took place at Oxford on the 
 proclamation of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Feb. 
 10th, 1748-49, thinking it cannot fail to be read with 
 a considerable degree of interest from the circum- 
 stantial detail it gives of a now obsolete custom. 
 On this occasion we find that, as a preliminary pro- 
 ceeding, additional constables were made for the 
 preservation of order. The various trade Compa- 
 nies of the city assembled, each attended with its 
 own band of French horns, drums, and other musi- 
 cal instruments, on foot* The several Companies of 
 the Shoemakers, Mercers, Grocers, Hatters, Glovers, 
 and Butchers wore red and white cockades. The de- 
 corations of the Masons' Company were of red and 
 blue colour ; the badge of the Smiths was red and 
 orange. The Keeper of Bocardo, the City Marshal, 
 the City Constables, the Mayor's Sergeant, accompa- 
 nied by two trumpeters, all rode on horseback. The 
 city music followed on foot. Then on horseback, 
 also, each having one attendant, came the Bailiff's 
 Sergeants, the Town Clerk, the Macebearer, the 
 Bailiffs, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Assistants, with 
 the other members of the Council. The procession 
 started from the Town Hall, and at the Conduit on 
 Carfax the proclamation of peace was read. Thence 
 the cavalcade took its course down the High Street 
 to St. Mary's Church, where the Vice-Chancellor, 
 Heads of Houses, Noblemen, Professors, and Proc- 
 tors were assembled to meet the Corporation, and to 
 hear the peace proclaimed again. They afterwards 
 
 E 
 
12 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 proceeded round the town to perform the same 
 ceremony at the four different gates of the city, 
 first at East Gate, then at South Gate, then at West 
 Gate, and lastly at North Gate, whence they returned 
 to the Town Hall. All the bells rang a peal at the 
 same time. Flags were flying throughout the day 
 on all the churches. The citizens wore new white 
 cockades. There were fireworks at night, the Con- 
 duit running with wine ! 
 
 The manuscript, which we have almost literally 
 followed in this account of the ceremonial formerly 
 observed on the proclamation of peace, is the diary 
 of a private individual, who appears to have taken 
 a special interest in the affairs of the city without 
 designing his memoranda for publication ; nor did 
 he perhaps contemplate their future service in 
 throwing light on the commercial part of the his- 
 tory of Oxford. Yet here, among other things, we 
 find in existence the various trades of the town 
 severally associated, without question for that pro- 
 tection of their respective interests, which does not 
 now appear to be needful ; and we see at one glance 
 what the commercial character of the place was by 
 the nature of the trades in demand for the uses of 
 the community a little more than a hundred years 
 ago, with the evidence the fact affords of bhe very 
 trifling change in this respect that time and circum- 
 stances have produced. 
 
 We have farther testimony of the kind of state 
 kept up by these Companies in an account, taken 
 from the manuscript memoranda of Dr. Rawlinson, 
 in the Bodleian Library, of the reception given to 
 the Prince of Orange on his visit to Oxford a few 
 years previous to the occurrence just described, 
 when " the Mayor and Aldermen, and all the Com- 
 panies with their banners displayed and drums 
 beating, met him at the North Gate of the city and 
 attended him to the Town Hall, where in the Coun- 
 cil Chamber he was entertained with wine and his 
 freedom." It is perhaps too much to consider these 
 companies as vestiges of the old " Fraternities or 
 Guilds MercatoriaV of Oxford, but we may take this 
 opportunity of observing that incorporation of the 
 trades existed as far back as the Norman Conquest, 
 and a record of the renewal of the Cordwainers' 
 Charter in the time of Henry II. is adduced as a 
 proof, among others, of the great antiquity of the 
 City. 
 
 A Maiden Assizes at Oxford in the summer of 
 1763 is a circumstance which has been thought 
 worthy of note by the chroniclers of the time, and 
 it had its significance when they had to record capi- 
 tal convictions without end on almost every other 
 circuit in the kingdom. Then, indeed, a more san- 
 
 guinary code of penal laws was in force than can be 
 found in the whole history of executive justice, and 
 the numerous executions which took place cannot 
 be held as any proof of the prevalence of crime, when 
 in the eye of the law almost all offences were 
 equally flagitious and were equally punishable with 
 death. 
 
 The county, however, does not meet with such 
 favourable notice in the reports of the administra- 
 tion of the law during the three following years, which 
 included no less than 17 capital convictions, besides 
 many sentences of transportation for life. In 
 the case of three men, upon whom the last-men- 
 tioned sentence was pronounced at the Oxford As- 
 sizes in 1764, and who had been found guilty of 
 stealing money from the box of the club to which 
 they belonged, a point of law was started touching 
 the property, which by the indictment was invested 
 in a Mr. Galten, in whose custody it had been left 
 by the society in question, and for which he had 
 given his note-of-hand as a security ; but Mr. 
 Justice Wilmot overruled the objection on the 
 ground that money accumulated by a society ceased 
 to be the property of individuals, and that the per- 
 son who took charge of it was answerable ; and in 
 this view of the case Mr. Justice Adams, with 
 whom he communicated by note across the court, 
 without stating his own conclusion on the law, con- 
 curred. His Lordship, on overruling the exception 
 taken by the prisoners' counsel, enumerated different 
 cases in which the act of a man stealing his own 
 property was felonious, as, for instance, with regard 
 to things he had pawned, things which he had left 
 with a tailor to make up, and things delivered to a 
 carrier for conveyance. 
 
 Passing to the affairs of the University in 1763 — 
 the Encaenia of that year was selected by the Aca- 
 demical body as the occasion for giving effect to its 
 approval of the management of public affairs ; and 
 this they did by some accessories to the ordinary 
 display at a Commemoration designed to mark it 
 as an event " in honour of the peace." But there 
 was nothing after all in the three days' demonstra- 
 tion, which gives it a title to the character of a re- 
 markable occurrence, or calls for more than 
 this general notice ; unless we may advert to the 
 appearance on the stage of a Terrae Filius, who, 
 despite the danger of an academical mittimus to the 
 Castle or Bocardo, rose up to assert " the privilege of 
 his family." He was not, however, a veritable de- 
 scendant of those quasi statutable personages who 
 claimed a right, as established by the ancient forms 
 of the University, to exercise their talents for satire 
 and raillery at every celebration of the Act, and who, 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 13 
 
 as the occasions of the times supplied matter, were 
 accustomed to make very free on the Rostrum of the 
 Theatre with the public and private character of 
 those drest in authority, until at length their freedom 
 of speech, exceeding all bounds of moderation or 
 decency,brought about adiscontinuation of their office. 
 He, notwithstanding, though announced as a mere 
 out-door actor, produced by the programme of his 
 intended performances no little consternation among 
 unmatriculated, as well as matriculated, equally in 
 dismay at anticipated revelations, as if the sallies of 
 his wit could not touch a gown and cassock without 
 glancing off upon the fame of some town celebrities. 
 It was rumoured that the Mayor and corporation 
 were first seized with the panic, and were for 
 taking steps ; but, upon its being held to be an 
 University business and to fall more properly under 
 the cognizance of the House of Convocation, " from 
 the body corporate," so says our authority, "the 
 cause was removed, by a new kind of certiorari, to the 
 body academical." Yet after all, Teme Filius — and 
 we believe he is the last that has appeared in any 
 shape— proved in the end a harmless satirist, and did 
 nothing seriously to disturb the usual course of the 
 solemnities and festivities. 
 
 There is nothing in the public proceedings of either 
 the City or University during the year 1764, calling 
 for observation or requiring particular detail. But 
 it was not altogether an uneventful period ; a violent 
 storm on the 23rd of June did incalculable damage 
 in the county, and some remarkable physical 
 phenomena — the more striking, for their occurrence 
 in the same year, and being confined to one part of 
 the kingdom — are worthy of notice. The following 
 description is given in the "Philosophical Trans- 
 actions," of a meteor seen at Oxford, on March 5th, 
 at eleven o'clock p.m., by the Rev. J. Swinton. It 
 presented itself to the eye in the form of a pyrami- 
 dal column of very bright light in the southern 
 hemisphere, the base resting on a line apparently 
 between twenty or thirty degrees above the horizon, 
 and afterwards gradually ascended nearly thirty de- 
 grees ; after it had attained its utmost height, it 
 remained fixed, darting out, as it grew fainter, white 
 rays and coruscations towards the west. We read, 
 also, of another, seen by the inhabitants of Oxford 
 on April 23, between 8 and 9 p.m., which is repre- 
 sented as having formed a luminous arch, extend- 
 ing in its span from N.W. to S.E., so as to bisect the 
 heavens. It was exceedingly resplendent, perfectly 
 semi-circular, aud resembled an iris, but of a bright 
 white colour. To these accounts, which we note 
 more particularly for those who make nature and 
 the objects of science their pursuit, we have to add 
 
 the singular effects of a severe frost which happened 
 on the borders of Wychwood Forest on the night of 
 February 13. A noise resembling thunder or some 
 explosion first called attention to the phenomenon, 
 when it was found that arms of huge oaks and elms 
 had been brought to the ground by the weight of 
 the ice, with which they were incrusted, to an in- 
 credible thickness. The roads were so completely 
 blocked up by the fallen branches of the trees that 
 it was necessary to employ labourers in great num- 
 bers to make them passable, and many hundred 
 loads were removed before the object could be 
 accomplished. Upon experiment it was ascertained 
 that the body of ice collected on each plant was 
 twenty times heavier than the plant itself, a fact 
 which can only be accounted for by an immediate 
 and intense congelation of the r ain that had fallen 
 on the trees. The occurrence of a somewhat similar 
 phenomenon in Blenheim Park on the evening of the 
 29th of November, 1797, when nearly a thousand 
 loads of wood were destroyed by a frost, is recorded 
 by Dr. Mavor, who also remarks upon the peculiar 
 circumstance of its effects being confined to that 
 spot. 
 
 But a much greater sensation was produced this 
 year by the shock of an earthquake which was felt 
 at Oxford Nov. 4. Its general effect is described as 
 that of a reverberating agitation throughout the 
 town, attended with a rumbling noise, occasioned, 
 as it were, by the continued falling of something on 
 the floors of the houses. In the bedchambers of 
 the colleges, as well as of other stone-built structures, 
 the doors bounded, and some sprang open as if 
 rushed against or yielding to violent pressure ; and 
 the houses in general were so shaken as to set all 
 their bells ringing, many persons being tossed 
 out from their beds — it happened at 4.15 a.m. — by 
 the force of the shock. All parts of the city were 
 not equally affected, the agitation near the river 
 being most violent and perceptible. A very tem- 
 pestuous hurricane followed, but no great damage 
 was done. 
 
 In carrying out our purpose of noticing the chief 
 occurrences of the period of survey proposed for 
 this Paper, we are brought to the riots of 1766, 
 which, though general in the kingdom, seem to have 
 been marked with such special circumstances of 
 aggravation in the county of Oxford as to demand 
 the special attention of the Government. At the 
 General Quarter Sessions, held Oct. 7, the following 
 letter from the Secretary of State to his Grace the 
 Duke of Morlborough, the Lord Lieutenant of the 
 County, was read : — " His Majesty having received 
 advices of the riots and disorders committed in dif- 
 
14 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 ferenfc parts of the county of Oxford, particularly 
 in the towns of Oxford and Woodstock, under pre- 
 tence of distress from the high prices of wheat and 
 other provisions ; and his Majesty having reason to 
 think that, notwithstanding the several steps taken 
 by the Government by removing the cause of these 
 complaints (by proclamations and orders of council 
 issued, as well as by marching of troops to places 
 where riots have happened), these disorders have 
 rather increased than diminished, and the mobs 
 have become daily more numerous and insolent ; 
 and his Majesty's troops being, in consequence of 
 the many applications from variety of places, almost 
 entirely disposed of in or as near as possible the 
 places infested with these disorders, his Majesty 
 commands his Secretary of State to acquaint his 
 Grace that, having the greatest confidence in his 
 prudence, spirit, and zeal for the public service, he 
 thinks that from his Grace's weight and influence 
 of personal character, and great property in the 
 county, the most essential service may be expected ; 
 his Majesty therefore will, both by his authority and 
 advice, give that vigour and energy to the exercise 
 of the several powers of government which may 
 effectually tend to suppress this evil, in which his 
 Grace is promised all the aid and support with which 
 the Crown or its servants can give on this important 
 occasion. His Grace is likewise assured that if any- 
 thing of consequence shall occur that may appear ne- 
 cessary to be imparted to his Majesty, such advice or 
 information will be received with the utmost regard 
 and attention.'' Upon this official document being 
 read the Magistrates unanimously agreed to use the 
 most vigorous measures for suppressing all future out- 
 rages. These outrages had, indeed, been carried to a 
 great extent; the mob at Oxford had attacked all the 
 adjacent mills, from which they brought away all the 
 flour they could seize upon, and divided it in the 
 market place, and at Henley the Riot Act was read 
 before the rioters could be dispersed. The scarcity 
 and high price of provisions which had produced 
 these disturbances were occasioned by the too free 
 exportation of corn for foreign consumption ; and to 
 
 tranquillize the public mind it was found necessary 
 by the Government to put an embargo upon all 
 ships laden for exportation of grain, and put in 
 force the laws against regrating, engrossing, and fore- 
 stalling. There were perceptible signs of an ap- 
 proaching embarrassment in the preceding year ; and 
 with reference to Oxford, we read that, " Being price 
 day, the clerks of the market fixed the price of 
 wheat at 6s. 6d. per bushel, and malt at 4s. 6d. ;" to 
 which is added the remark, that at this high rate 
 the lessees of College lands pay the reserved rents 
 for the half-year past. Special commissions for the 
 trial of the rioters throughout the country were 
 issued, and at Oxford several conviotions of different 
 offenders took place. 
 
 The miscellaneous character of the above occur- 
 rences do not admit of the coherency of a regular his- 
 toric narrative, nor do the subjects touchedupon much 
 elucidate the social usages of the period. The time 
 is to come for marking a decided movement in the 
 progress of the arts of life and a development of the 
 intelligence of the people. From, however, the letter 
 of the Secretary-of-State above quoted, in reference 
 to the riots of 1766, it is easy to discern the grow- 
 ing influence of a political power, which subse- 
 quently exercised complete sway in both the city 
 and county, though it is now a thing of the past ; 
 and as a guide to the political tendencies of Oxford- 
 shire at the time, it may be observed that Sir F. 
 Dashwood was Chancellor of the Exchequer under 
 the premiership of the great favourite of the Crown, 
 Lord Bute, and that the Duke of Marlborough was 
 Lord High Chamberlain. 
 
 In 1763, W. Ives was Mayor, but dying in his 
 Mayoralty, J. Treacher was chosen in his place. 
 
 In the years 1764, 1765, 1766, R. Tawney, Philip 
 Ward, and J. Phillips were respectively elected to 
 that office. 
 
 In 1766, G. Nares, Sergeant-at-Law, was appointed 
 Recorder, in the place of J. Gilpin. This eminent 
 lawyer had been previously Town Clerk, was subse- 
 quently elected M.P. for the city, and eventually 
 became a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 In no point of view are the events of the year 1767 
 such as to call for much notice. We will, however, 
 mention— just for the value the particulars are 
 worth, and the interest they may afford to some of 
 our readers — what we meet with under the notabilia 
 of the period, as tending to show that the atmo- 
 spheric influences of the county in general are 
 favourable to health and longevity. It is noticed 
 that there were living at this time at fleyford three 
 men and two women, whose united ages amounted 
 to five hundred and three years ; while of Oxford 
 we find it mentioned that within a period of little 
 more than two months, namely, between February 
 and the 21st of May, seven persons died, whose ages 
 put together were six hundred and six.* 
 
 Dismissing, thus briefly, an uneventful period, we 
 come to the year 1768, memorable for a transaction 
 of great discredit to the parties concerned in it, and 
 which has left a blot upon the municipal character 
 of the city. For a better acquaintance with the 
 nature of the affair we are about to narrate, it is 
 necessary, in the first place, to state that evident 
 signs had been given of an approaching dissolution 
 of Parliament, and all the engines of corruption were 
 set in motion among the venal constituencies of the 
 kingdom to secure seats in the ensuing one. So 
 barefaced and flagrant was the practice, at this 
 crisis, of buying and selling seats, that advertise- 
 ments appeared in the public papers, offering 
 
 * Mr. Shepherd, St. Michael parish 88 
 
 Mr. Cox, St. Peter- in -the-East 93 
 
 Mr. Trollope, St. Giles parish 86 
 
 Mr. Howell, St. Giles parish 87 
 
 Mrs. Baggs, Magdalen parish 90 
 
 Mr. Smith, St. Ebbe's 82 
 
 Mr, Bos well, carpenter, Magdalen parish ... 90 
 
 premiums for them. This state of affairs ap- 
 pears to have suggested to the Mayor and Alder- 
 men of the City the idea of its being a good 
 opportunity of getting rid of a certain incum- 
 brance on its finances ; and they consequently 
 wrote a joint letter to their two representatives, Sir 
 Thomas Stapleton and the Honourable Robert Lee, 
 disclosing their pecuniary embarrassment, and offer- 
 ing to re-elect them, provided they advanced a 
 sufficient sum of money — £7,500 — to enable them 
 to discharge the debt, the very interest of which 
 was a disagreeable diminution of the city revenues. 
 With a proper spirit and regard for their honour, 
 Sir Thomas Stapleton and Mr. Lee laid the case be- 
 fore the House of Commons, and received the 
 thanks of the House for their conduct in the trans- 
 action. Those who had signed the letter containing 
 the corrupt offer were forthwith ordered to appear 
 at the bar of the House, and not being able to deny # 
 the charge alleged against them, were committed to' 
 Newgate. The individuals implicated in this affair 
 were Philip Ward, late Mayor of the city ; John 
 Treacher, Sir Thomas Munday, Thomas Wise, John 
 Nicholls, John Philips, Isaac Lawrence, and Richard 
 Tawney, Aldermen of the city ; Thomas Robinson 
 and John Brown, Bailiffs. After a confinement of 
 five days in Newgate, they petitioned the House, 
 acknowledging their guilt, and begging to be re- 
 leased. This expression of their contrition had its 
 weight, and, after receiving upon their knees the 
 following severe reprimand from the Speaker of the 
 House, Sir John Cust, they were discharged : — 
 
 " The offence of which you have been guilty has justly 
 brought you under the severe displeasure of this House. 
 A more enormous crime you could not well commit, 
 
16 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 since a deeper wound could not be given to the constitu- 
 tion itself than by the open and dangerous attempt which 
 you have made to subvert the freedom and independence 
 of this House. 
 
 " The freedom of this House is the freedom of this 
 country, which can continue no longer than while the 
 voices of the electors are uninfluenced by any base or 
 venal motive. For if abilities and integrity are no re- 
 commendation to the electors ; if those who bid highest 
 for their voices aie to obtain them from such detestable 
 considerations, this House will not be the representatives 
 of the people of Great Britain. Instead of being the 
 guardians and protectors of their liberties, instead of re- 
 dressing the grievance of the subject, this House itself 
 will be the author of the worst grievances ; they will be- 
 come the venal instruments of power to reduce this happy 
 nation — the envy and admiration of the world — to the 
 lowest state of misery and servitude. This is the abject 
 condition to which you have attempted to bring your 
 fellow-subjects. 
 
 " Many circumstances concur to aggravate your offence. 
 The place of your residence was a singular advantage. 
 You had at all times the example of the most respectable 
 aud learned bodies of Europe before your eyes. Their 
 conduct in every instance, but especially in the choice of 
 their representatives, was worthy your imitation. 
 
 " You are magistrates of a great city ;— in such a station 
 it was a duty more peculiarly incumbent on you to 
 watch over the morals of your fellow-citizens — to keep 
 yourselves pure from all venality, and to prevent by your 
 influence those under your government from being tainted 
 by this growing and pestilential vice. How have you 
 abused this trust ! You yourselves have set the example 
 of prostitution in the most public aod daring manner. 
 Surely you must have felt some remorse from the gene- 
 rous disdain with whioh your corrupt offer was rejected 
 by your representatives. They thought, and justly 
 thought, that a seat in this House obtained by a free and 
 independent choice of their constituents was the highest 
 honour to which a subject can aspire, and that discharging 
 their duty as such representatives was the noblest of 
 services. Sorry am I to say that these considerations do 
 not appear to have had the least weight with you. 
 
 " However, you have at last acknowledged your guilt ; 
 and by your petition yesterday you seem conscious of the 
 enormity of your offence. This House, in the terror of 
 its judgments, always thinks upon mercy; nor do they 
 ever inflict punishment but for the sake of example to 
 prevent others from becoming the objects of their resent- 
 ment. 
 
 " The censure passed upon you will, they hope, have 
 that effect. 
 
 " You are now the objects of their mercy ; and are 
 brought to the bar to be discharged. 
 
 " May you be penetrated with a due sense of their jus- 
 tice and lenity ! may you atone for your past offence by 
 your constant endeavour to make a right use of the in- 
 valuable privileges which you enjoy as electors ! Con- 
 
 sider those privileges as a sacred trust reposed in you — 
 discharge it with integrity. But before you rise from 
 your present posture I do, in obedience to the commands 
 of this House, Reprimand you. I am now to acquaint 
 you, that you are discharged, paying your fees." 
 
 It was generally affirmed, and as generally believed 
 at the time, that none of the above parties were in- 
 fluenced by motives of personal interest in the part 
 they had taken in this affair, having been solely 
 actuated by the design of benefitting the city in 
 their corporate capacity ; but in a matter so fertile 
 in its serious consequences to the interests of the 
 people at large, it is extremely hazardous to attempt 
 distinctions between public bodies and the indivi- 
 duals by whom they are constituted, where the pur- 
 pose is to find excuse or palliation for their acts. 
 There was also at the time an endeavour at some 
 exculpation of the peccant Mayor and his associates 
 by the precedents and examples to be found of a 
 system of corruption so extensive and unrebuked 
 throughout the country as to amount almost to a 
 recognition of the unconstitutional practice ;* but 
 precedents and examples, which are too often only 
 so many instances of acts of illegality and wrong 
 done before, are now properly appreciated; and in thus 
 pronouncing on one of the most flagrant violations of 
 duty in public men, we may felicitate ourselves on the 
 circumstances of our times which exact such publi- 
 city of the proceedings of governing bodies as to 
 prevent any abuse of the powers and trusts confided 
 in them, or which, at least, takes care that nothing 
 of the sort shall be done with impunity. Mr. Wilkes, 
 in his remarks on this transaction, would not allow 
 the thanks of the House to Sir T. Stapleton and Mr. 
 Lee to be so well merited by them, intimating that 
 their complaint of the corrupt offer made to them 
 did not at the first appear totally undeserving of 
 their consideration, and that it took them some time 
 to measure its value with the dictates of their duty; 
 for which opinion he alleges the fact that some of 
 the letters containing the proposition to them were 
 written in 1766 — one on the 12th of May in that 
 year — whereas their representation of the circum- 
 stance did not take place till January 26, 1768. He 
 
 * Such was the demand for seats in the House of Com- 
 mons at the time, that Lord Chesterfield, in a letter written 
 to his sou in 1767, complains that he could not find a venal 
 borough for him. The borough-jobbers, he said, laughed at 
 his offer of £2,500 for one, stating that they were all 
 monopolized by the East and West Indian proprietors. G. 
 Selwyn notoriously sold Luggershall for £9,000, aud the 
 contest for Northampton cost Lord Spencer £90,000. At 
 Shorebain the corrupt practices were systematically carried 
 out by a party, blasphemously calling itself "The Christian 
 Club," and professing to share in common the profits of 
 their venality. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 17 
 
 states also that an artful attorney, an accomplice in 
 the guilt of the transaction, drew the parties into 
 the snare, and then left them. 
 
 The submission of the corporation, by means of 
 which they obtained their discharge from Newgate 
 does not appear to have been very sincere. Lord 
 Mahon, in his History of England, observes, with 
 reference to the occurrence, that " their punishment 
 had little effect as an example, even upon them- 
 selves. During their very imprisonment, it is said, 
 they completed another bargain for the borough 
 with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon." 
 Certain it is that Sir T. Stapleton and Mr. Lee did 
 not venture to contest the city against the opposed 
 influence of the Corporation, at the ensuing elec- 
 tion, when Mr. Sergeant Nares and the Honourable 
 W. Harcourt were returned by a considerable majo- 
 rity, the defeated candidates being Mr. Craven and 
 Sir James Cotter. * 
 
 The predominance of wealth and aristocratic posi- 
 tion is more distinctly to be seen in the election of 
 Lord Spencer, brother of the Duke of Marlborough, 
 and Viscount Wenman, for the county, who met 
 with no opposition whatever. 
 
 While the occurrences above related with reference 
 to the city were going on, the university was occu- 
 pied with a matter which produced no less sensation 
 in its kind. On the 12th of March six members of 
 St. Edmund Hall were expelled on the ground of 
 deficiency of learning and entertaining views hostile 
 to the doctrines and discipline of the church of 
 England. The charges exhibited against them 
 were, on the whole, of a very vague character, and 
 mixed up with allegations of singular irrelevance 
 to the proper questions to be determined, and 
 which, we wonder, could form the elements of a 
 serious accusation. It nevertheless appears by part 
 of these charges that it was a grave offence for a 
 pious-minded man, who had been formerly engaged 
 in any trade or mechanical occupation, to intrude 
 himself upon the university. Such, however, was 
 the case ; it being part of the indictment against 
 these individuals, that one of them, Joseph Shipman, 
 had been a linen draper ; one, Thomas Jones, a 
 baker ; and that another, James Matthews, had been 
 a weaver by trade. They had attended conventicles, 
 which we know to be a clerical offence against the 
 canons of the church, and suppose to be an infrac- 
 tion of the statutes of the University ; and it was 
 
 * FINAL STATE OF THE POLL. 
 
 
 Mr. Nares 
 
 592 
 
 Mr. Harcourt ... 
 
 562 
 
 Mr. Craven 
 
 332 
 
 Sir J. Cotter ... 
 
 80 
 
 further urged that they had consorted with a Mr. 
 Fletcher and a Mr. Davies, reputed methodists ; had 
 preached in a barn to a mixed multitude, talked of 
 " drawing nigh unto God," and had been heard to say 
 " they must sit down and wait for the Spirit." Such 
 were some of the allegations which formed matter 
 for investigation as to the criminality of the parties, 
 who had frequented the house of one Hewet, a stay- 
 maker in the city, who was known to offer extem- 
 pore prayer. The most tangible ground for accusa- 
 tion was the case of Erasmus Middleton, charged 
 with having officiated in a chapel-of-ease, at Cheve- 
 ley, in Berks. The two others, " deemed worthy to 
 be expelled," and whom we have not already named, 
 were Benjamin Kay and Thomas Grove. Their 
 particular cases were of a similar character to the 
 rest. A charge brought against Benjamin Blatch 
 was dismissed. 
 
 Heresy was made out of the views they held on 
 the doctrines of election, necessity of grace, and re- 
 generation, no difficult matter to accomplish when 
 we consider on what slight pretences the heaviest 
 charges have been brought against persons who have 
 dared to vary but ever so little from an established 
 church ; and, as they found a zealous patron in Mr. 
 Whitfield in a formal defence he made for them, we 
 may suppose their opinions were much the 
 same as those of this celebrated preacher 
 on these points. These opinions, however, what- 
 ever they may have been, were imputed to them as 
 ' crimes? and designated as such by Dr. Durell, the 
 Vice-Chancellor and visitor of St. Edmund Hall, 
 when he pronounced the sentence of expulsion upon 
 the offenders. On the whole it would appear that 
 these six men were pious enthusiasts, who, with 
 honest convictions, endeavoured to draw others to 
 their opinions, but who were verging to that form of 
 dissent from the Established Church, which it could 
 not be supposed the university ought to pass by dis- 
 regarded, though there was a considerable degree of 
 harshness in the tone and character of its proceed- 
 ings in the matter. The Eev. W. Higson, tutor 
 of St. Edmund Hall, exhibited the Articles, and 
 those selected to conduct the inquiry were Dr. 
 Durell, the Vice-Chancellor ; Dr. Randolph, Presi- 
 dent of Corpus Christi College, ; Dr. Nowell, Prin- 
 cipal of St. Mary Hall ; and the Rev. T. Atterbury, 
 of Ch. Ch., the Senior Proctor. 
 
 Upon the dissolution of Parliament, which took 
 place March 11th, a contest took place for the repre- 
 sentation of the university. Sir Roger Newdigate 
 and Mr. Francis Page, of Aston, in this county, were 
 the successful candidates, the latter gentleman 
 supplying the place of Sir W. Dolben, — who had been 
 
18 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 the colleague of Sir R. Newdigate in the previous 
 Parliament, — and defeating Mr. Jenkinson and Dr. 
 Hay, his competitors for the distinction. As in the 
 case of the city, we subjoin the number of votes * 
 polled for each candidate, as a test of the strength 
 of parties and the estimate formed of their respec- 
 tive pretensions by the members of convocation. 
 These numbers also furnish means of judging, in 
 some respect, what was the amount of the consti- 
 tuencies at the time. It is generally known that 
 candidates for the representation of the univer- 
 sity are not permitted to make a personal 
 canvass of the electors. The exemption from 
 this preliminary, deemed so necessary a part 
 of the proceedings in elections among other 
 constituencies of the country, arises in part from 
 the inconvenience which would arise from it, if in- 
 deed it may not be considered as an impracticable 
 affair, the great majority of the electors being scat- 
 tered over every part of the united kingdom ; and 
 it is, besides, incidental to their established rule, that 
 a candidate, for the dignity of the place, and perhaps 
 for his independence, shall be put to no expense 
 whatever on such occasions. We notice this feature 
 in the practice of university elections, because allu- 
 
 * FINAL STATE OF THE POLL. 
 
 Sir R. Newdigate ... ... 362 
 
 Mr. Francis Page ... ... 296 
 
 Mr. Jenkinson ... ... ... 198 
 
 Dr. Hay 62 
 
 sion was made to it by the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, when, in reprimanding the corporation 
 of the city for their attempt to corrupt their mem- 
 bers, he pointed out the advantage they enjoyed in 
 the good example set them by the learned body so 
 close at hand. The privilege of sending bui-gesses 
 to Parliament was granted to the University by 
 James the First. 
 
 Oxford was somewhat enlivened at the latter part 
 of this year, 1768, by the visit of Christian VII., King 
 of Denmark, brother-in-law of George III ., by marriage 
 with his sister, the Princess Caroline. He arrived here 
 on the 17th of September, attended by several Danish 
 nobles, and many officers of state, who formed part 
 of his retinue. On all these distinguished person- 
 ages various degrees were conferred in the Theatre, 
 considerable ceremony having been got up for the 
 occasion. His Majesty, after having been conducted 
 to the different colleges and buildings of the univer- 
 sity, left Oxford, expressing his great admiration of 
 it, and proceeded to pay visits to Blenheim, and 
 Ditchley, the seat of the Chancellor. On the 11th 
 of October following, the Rev. Dr. Wetherell, Vice- 
 Chancellor of the university, accompanied by Dr. 
 Durell, the Principal of Hertford College, had the 
 honour of being introduced to his Danish Majesty, 
 at St. James's Palace, when they presented to him 
 the diploma of his Degree of Doctor in Civil Law 
 The seal annexed to this instrument was inclosed 
 in a gold box of curious workmanship. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 It appears that the famous reprimand of the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons to the members 
 of the corporation of Oxford, for the attempt to cor- 
 rupt their representatives, and which we gave at 
 full length in our last number, created a very general 
 sensation ; and that part of it, in which he told them 
 that the example of the University in every respect, 
 but particularly in the choice of their burgesses, was 
 well worthy of their imitation, gave rise to abun- 
 dance of criticism. First and foremost appeared in 
 the lists the celebrated Mr. Wilkes, whose remarks 
 on the conduot of Sir T. Stapleton and Mr. Lee have 
 already been noticed in our account of the trans- 
 action. His animadversions on the political antece- 
 dents of the university are bitterly severe. " I wish 
 to know," he said, "if the overt acts of treason, 
 daily committed in Oxford in 1715, did not force the 
 government to send General Pepperel there in the 
 same military disposition and with the same order 
 he would have had in marching into Dunkirk. If 
 the conduct of Oxford at that time was worthy of 
 imitation, the conduct of George the First was cruel 
 and oppressive. When the Chancellor, the Duke of 
 Ormond, was attached of high treason, was it worthy 
 of imitation to choose for his successor the Earl of 
 Arran, his own brother ? In the late reign, the 
 conduct of the university, particularly of the Vice- 
 Chancellor, in the affair of the students who had 
 lately drunk the Pretender's health on their knees, 
 was so infamous that the government could not 
 wink at it ; even so mild a prince as George the 
 Second was at last forced to a severity, painful to 
 his nature, but which the public good rendered 
 necessary, against the most inveterate enemies of 
 his person and family. Was the conduct of Oxford, 
 then, worthy of imitation ? Methinks I still hear 
 the seditious shouts of applause given to the pesti- 
 lent harangue of the late Dr. King, when he vilified 
 our great deliverer, the Duke of Cumberland, and 
 repeated with such energy the treasonable redeat. 
 Was the conduct of the university at the opening of 
 
 the Radcliffe Library, by their behaviour to the 
 known enemies of the Brunswick line, and their 
 approbation of every thing hateful to liberty and 
 her friends, worthy of imitation ? When I was told 
 of all times and of every instance in which Oxford 
 had been exemplary in her conduct, I have been led 
 to consider those two instruments of slavery — the 
 Oxford decree in the reign of Charles the Second, 
 and the recognition at the accession of James the 
 Second, either of whioh is a repeal of Magna Charta." 
 There can be no question that the University had 
 been, since the Revolution, tainted to the core with 
 Jacobite principles. Dr. King,* to whom Mr. 
 Wilkes referred in the above invective, had openly 
 espoused the cause of the Pretender, and is known 
 to have said, when time or circumstances had effaced 
 his political prejudice, that there were some living 
 who could remind him of his apostacy on the occa- 
 sion of his appearing at Court upon the accession of 
 George the Third. So great was the disaffection in 
 the University towards the reigning family at one 
 time, that, for the purpose of an efficient cure of it, a 
 proposition — attributed to the Lord Chancellor 
 Macclesfield — was made for taking the election of 
 the Heads of Houses out of the hands of the 
 Fellows of Colleges and vesting it in some high 
 officers of State — a proposition, however, on 
 which Mr. Hallam, the historian, has remarked, 
 that it would probably have had only the effect 
 of substituting a permanent for a temporary evil. 
 This proposition may be read with a variety of 
 other suggestions, by the same hand, for the improve- 
 ment of the state of the university, in a paper enti- 
 tled " A Memorial relating to the Universities," 
 the subject of which is introduced by way of preamble 
 in the following words : — " As the disloyal behaviour 
 of the universities, since his Majesty's happy acces- 
 sion to the crown, seems to have brought on a 
 necessity of finding out some effectual method of 
 amending and regulating them, I thought this a 
 * Principal of St. Mary Hall. 
 
20 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 proper occasion to offer what, I think, would make 
 those bodyes more useful to the nation, by the 
 increase of learning, and augmenting the number of 
 those who might have the benefit of a learned 
 education, as well as by bringing those seats of liter- 
 ature to a better sense of their duty to their 
 king and country." The proposal itself is, " That the 
 person to be chosen head of any college, have the 
 qualifications required by the statutes of the several 
 colleges ; but that henceforward the election of a head 
 be in the great officers of State, and such of the Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops as shall be thought proper."* 
 
 The passage in the Speaker's reprimand, which 
 drew from Mr. Wilkes the remarks we have quoted, 
 brought forth in the pages of the Political Register, 
 another critic, who, in commenting on the rejection 
 of Sir James Cotter for the city, observed, that it 
 was less a matter of surprise to find the worthy citi- 
 zens of Oxford regardless of their liberties than 
 any other constituency in the kingdom, since the 
 University had always been an enemy to freedom ; 
 had always cherished the doctrines of passive 
 obedience and non-resistance, and the indefeasible 
 hereditary right of kings ; and, that among the 
 famous propositions, which it condemned in the 
 reign of Charles the Second, was the one following, 
 namely, that the people are the fountain of all legal 
 power and government, pronouncing it to be false, 
 dangerous, and absurd, and thereby affirming that 
 all legal government is derived from heavenly- 
 appointed kings, who are obliged to allow the people 
 no more liberty than they think proper. And the 
 writer asks " if it can be thought strange, as these 
 principles have always prevailed in the University, 
 that they have at last reached the city, especially 
 when recommended by so powerful an orator as Sir 
 John Cust, who, in the reprimand he gave to the 
 magistrates of Oxford, told them that the example 
 of the university, in every respect, was well worthy 
 of their imitation." 
 
 As the result of the contest for the city in 1768, 
 so far as the defeat of Sir James Cotter was con- 
 cerned, gave rise to the last-mentioned observations, 
 it will be as well to state upon what principle that 
 gentleman thought to recommend himself more 
 powerfully to the freemen of Oxford, especially as it 
 was one which, though it has found favour with 
 some modern politicians, was then a novelty, if not, 
 as we believe it to have been, the very first of its 
 kind upon which a candidate for the representation 
 of an English constituency has founded his claims 
 to notice. This principle goes at once to the 
 responsibility of a member of Parliament, involving, 
 * See Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, No. ix., vol. 2, p. 53. 
 
 as a condition of the choice made of him, that he 
 shall unreservedly follow the instructions of those 
 who have elected him. Nothing can be more ex- 
 plicit than the declaration of Sir James Cotter on 
 this point ; and we will quote from one of his 
 addresses to the freemen, the language made use of 
 by him in reference to it. " As, he says, he does 
 not mean to purchase the electors or any part of 
 their property, so will he then (namely, on the day 
 of election) convince them of his having no inten- 
 tion to sell them, by his solemnly signing and swear- 
 ing a declaration, that he will, without evasion, 
 faithfully and disinterestedly receive and execute, 
 to the utmost of his power and abilities, their 
 instructions and commands, for the interest of their 
 city in particular and of the constitution of this 
 kingdom in general." Just eighty votes testify the 
 degree of acceptance this offer found among the 
 freemen. But those who gave Sir James Cotter 
 this support did not probably much study the in- 
 conveniences which would flowfrom such a condition 
 in the representation. The unmistakeable reference 
 to the venality of the corporation in his address 
 distinctly shows the class of men to whom he looked 
 for support ; and in them we discover the nucleus 
 of an independent party, which eventually became 
 too strong for any sinister influences whatsoever. 
 An endeavour to maintain its spirit may be seen in 
 the account of a meeting at the Mitre Inn on 
 Monday, the 28th of October, in the year following, 
 (1769), the object of which was to draw up a peti- 
 tion to the Mayor,* praying his worship to convene 
 a. common hall for the purpose of considering an 
 address to the King on the critical posture of affairs. 
 On this occasion Sir James Cotter presided, and 
 a petition was drawn up and signed by ninety 
 freemen. Their political opponents describe the 
 affair as "a petitioning farce, the chairman 
 being supported by two distinguished patriots 
 of the junta — namely, on his left by Mr. Charles 
 Scudamore, one of the scouts of Christ Church, and 
 on his right by Mr. Underhill Breeze, who fills the 
 important office of Master of Shoe Blacks at Trinity 
 College." 
 
 For want of an authentic record of particulars we 
 are unable to trace to any definite result the further 
 steps taken in this matter. But petitions and re- 
 monstrances complaining of national grievances and 
 the violation of the electoral rights,t and praying 
 
 * W. Wickham. 
 + The discontent grew out of the proceedings of Govern- 
 ment in the case of Mr. Wilkes and on the taxation of our 
 American colonies. The letters of Junius, which appeared 
 at this time, doubtless contributed in a great degree to the 
 manifestations of popular feeliDg. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 21 
 
 also for a dissolution of the Parliament, were pre- 
 pared in all parts of the kingdom, and supported by 
 a majority of the common people. On the other 
 hand, the Ministry encouraged addresses to the 
 Throne condemningthe spirit of riot and disaffection ; 
 and one from the University, in reference to the 
 general state of affairs in the country, forms an in- 
 cident of the year 1769. In it they express "their 
 grateful sense of the invaluable blessings derived by 
 this nation from the propagation and enjoyment of 
 those civil and religious rights which have been the 
 great and constant objects of his Majesty's paternal 
 care ; but they could not without anxiety and con- 
 cern behold the repeated attempts formed by men 
 who clamour against imaginary abuses of their con- 
 stitutional rights and privileges under pretence of 
 preserving inviolate our civil and religious liberties, 
 to raise and spread discord and turmoil amongst his 
 Majesty's faithful subjects in open defiance of justice 
 and legal authority, and in violation of the peace and 
 and good order of government so happily established 
 under his Majesty's royal protection." They also 
 assure his Majesty " that it has ever been and still is 
 the constant object of their unwearied care to instil 
 into the minds of the youth of this place the genuine 
 principles of religion and liberty, the security of 
 which (under God) essentially depended upon the 
 dignity of the Crown and the authority of the laws, 
 in the due and vigorous execution of which true 
 constitutional liberty consists, and by which alone it 
 can be supported." 
 
 Mr. Wilkes no doubt read with a complacent smile 
 the suggestions in this address of the university 
 for a vigorous execution of the laws on those who 
 clamoured, as they expressed themselves, against 
 imaginary abuses. It is plain, however, that they 
 were smarting under the lash of his indignant satire, 
 and took this opportunity of resenting it. But 
 there is no reason to suppose that the expressions 
 of their attachment to the constitution and the in- 
 stitutions of the country were not then sincere, or 
 to question in any way the existence of an honour- 
 able fidelity to the house of Brunswick from that 
 time to the present day. 
 
 Among the occurrences of this year which we are 
 called upon to notice is a benefaction of the Duke 
 of Marlborough to the city. The ostensible pur- 
 pose of it was to enable the corporation to 
 cancel a debt with which it had been bur- 
 dened for more, it is said, than half a century ; 
 and the whole of this obligation, principal and in- 
 terest, was paid off out of the purse of his Grace, 
 amounting to no less a sum than £5,983 7s. 2d, 
 The event was celebrated by the ringing of bells in 
 
 all the parish churches, and with other demonstra- 
 tions of joy. The freemen were entertained at fifty 
 public-houses, opened at the expense of his Grace, 
 and a cold collation was served up in the Council 
 Chamber for the members of the corporation on 
 this " auspicious day !" We must be particular in 
 marking this " auspicious day !" — it was August the 
 19th, 1769. Now, if it were possible to divest the 
 mind of all political considerations connected with 
 this circumstance, words would be wanting ade- 
 quate to the proper acknowledgment of such princely 
 munificence. But with the particulars so fresh in 
 the memory as the attempt of the corporation to 
 barter away the independence of the city, howcan the 
 event be looked upon in any other light than as the 
 result of a more successful negotiation in the busi- 
 ness. The eating and drinking at the fifty houses 
 opened by the Duke on this auspicious day were 
 the ratification of a compact for the surrender of 
 the political independence of Oxford ; and the conse- 
 quences were felt for more than half a century after- 
 wards, as a reference to every poll-book of the city 
 elections from the time of this event to the rejec- 
 tion of General St. John, in 1820, will prove. 
 
 The inhabitants of Oxford were much more lauda- 
 bly engaged this year in the interest they took in 
 the Shakspere jubilee, which was celebrated at 
 Stratford-on-Avon, September the 9th. Inde- 
 pendently of that veneration for the poet which is 
 felt by all Englishmen, some additional importance 
 may have been attached to the event by the people 
 of Oxford, from the well-known fact that Shakspere 
 in his journeys between Warwickshire and London, 
 was accustomed to frequent the Crown Inn, in the 
 Cornmarket — not the house now known by that 
 name — but one situated on the opposite side of the 
 way, and near the Cross. It was, at the time Shak- 
 spere used to visit it, kept by John Davenant, father 
 of the poet, Sir William Davenant, who was born in 
 the same house. John Davenant was a man of 
 great respectability, and held the office of Mayor of 
 the city in 1621. Antony Wood speaks of him as a 
 great admirer of plays and Shakspere, and says that 
 his wife was a very beautiful woman. Scandal re- 
 ports a too intimate relation between her and the 
 great poet, as may be seen by the following anec- 
 dote : — When Sir W. Davenant, then a boy, was 
 speaking to one of the Heads of Houses of his god- 
 father, Shakspere, the grave don is reported to have 
 said to him, " Don't you know, boy, that you are 
 taught not to take God's name in vain ?" The name 
 of John Davenant, the father, is preserved in a 
 monument in the north aisle of St. Martin's church ; 
 and in the baptismal register of that parish is ,the 
 
22 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 following entry respecting his son : — 1605, W. 
 Davenant, son of John Davenant, vintner, March 5. 
 The royal assent was given this year (April 20th) 
 to a Bill for making a navigable canal from Oxford 
 to Coventry, and the work for carrying its object 
 into effect was at once begun. The canal was 
 finished in 1790, and thus was completed the grand 
 scheme of the Duke of Bridgewater and his cele- 
 brated engineer, the self-instructed Brindley. Of 
 the great importance of this undertaking to the 
 town and the great benefit it has been to the inha- 
 bitants, it is scarcely necessary to speak ; but it is 
 equally well known, that, as a communication between 
 Oxford and the colliery districts, its principal pur- 
 poses have been to a great extent superseded by the 
 introduction of the railroads. Canals, upon an 
 average, and after an allowance for the length of 
 time that must elapse before they can yield any re- 
 turn to their shareholders, are not usually to be 
 considered as very productive enterprises, and are, 
 generally speaking, more beneficial to the public 
 than their projectors. This, however, was not the 
 case with regard to the Oxford canal, which speedily 
 turned out to be a source of very profitable invest- 
 ment. The following extract from the trade list for 
 June, 1843, gives an account of the number of 
 shares, the cost or sum actually expended upon 
 each, the dividend payable upon it, with its selling 
 price at the above-mentioned time, and the periods 
 when the dividends are payable : — 
 
 Number of 
 Shares. 
 
 Amount of 1 Dividend per 
 Shares. [ Share per ann. 
 
 Price per 
 
 Share. 
 
 Dividend 
 payable. 
 
 1,786 
 
 £100 
 
 £30 
 
 £558 
 
 March. 
 Sept. 
 
 We have not at hand the returns for the present 
 time, but we fear they would exhibit a less favour- 
 able picture of the company's state of affairs. The 
 four Carfax Lectureships consist of a donation of 
 ten shares in the Oxford canal, given by Lord Lich- 
 field, who was High Steward of the city, and of five 
 more given by a Mr. Wycombe, a member of the 
 corporation ; and they must have greatly fallen in 
 value for the reason above mentioned. In 1835 they 
 were computed to produce about £530 a- year. 
 
 We have to record an event of singular interest to 
 scientific men, which happened on the 3rd of June 
 in this year — the transit of the Planet Venus. The 
 particulars respecting the places in which it was ob- 
 served in Oxford are minutely recorded in a paper 
 in the Philosophical Transactions [Wl. LTX, p. 192], 
 
 written by Dr. Hornsby, the Savilian Professor of 
 Astronomy at the time, and subsequently Radcliffe 
 Observer. The phenomenon took place in the 
 evening of the above-mentioned day ; and for the 
 purpose of making the requisite observations Dr. 
 Hornsby stationed himself in the upper room of the 
 tower of the Schools ; while Mr. Lucas, fellow of 
 New College, and Mr. Clare, fellow of St. John's, 
 placed themselves in the tower of New College ; an 
 unfurnished room in the Infirmary, commanding the 
 north west, was assigned to Mr. Nitikin, a Russian 
 gentleman, then of St. Mary Hall, and to Mr. Wil- 
 liamson, of St. Alban Hall, afterwards of Hertford 
 College. Observations were also made in different 
 places by Mr. Sykes, Brasenose College, Mr. Shuck- 
 burgh, Balliol College, " by the Rev. Mr. Horsley and 
 Mr. Cyril Jackson, A.B., and Student of Christ 
 Church." Dr. Ingram, whose Memorials we have 
 followed in this account, has remarked that the dis- 
 persion of the observers in different places, not one 
 of which was properly suited to their object, was 
 the consequence of no regular observatory having 
 been yet established in Oxford, though steps had 
 been taken to remove the serious evil. 
 
 Although it is but incidentally connected with 
 Oxford, we introduce the following occurrence as 
 an exhibition of the organised system of brigandage 
 carried on in the times of which we write. Two 
 gentlemen on their way to London from this city in 
 a post chaise were robbed between Turnham Green 
 and Brentford by a single highwayman, on horse- 
 back. After taking their money he told them that 
 they might possibly meet with other " distressed 
 gentlemen" before they reached Town, and if they 
 should be stopped again the parole of the day was 
 Harriet ; after which he politely took his leave of 
 them and rode off towards Brentford. 
 
 The remaining events of the year 1769 are not ac- 
 companied, in the accounts we meet of them, with 
 any circumstantial details, and are briefly told. 
 The Commemoration, June 14, is described as pass- 
 ing off in the usual manner. In the evening the 
 Masque of Acis and Galatea was performed in the 
 presence of an " enormous brilliant audience ;" as 
 was the oratorio of Athaliah on the evening of the 
 following day. — The races took place on the 19th, 
 20th, and 21st of July — the Duke of Marlborough 
 adding to the attraction of the three days' sport by 
 a gift of a fifty-pound plate. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VII. 
 
 In 1770, the year following the events we last 
 described, the city and university were busily occu- 
 pied in the consideration of measures for carrying 
 out a plan, which had been long agitated, for the 
 general improvement of the town ; and it was re- 
 solved at length to apply to Parliament in the 
 ensuing session for an Act to bring this purpose to 
 effect. The chief objects of public utility contem- 
 plated were the establishment of a Market Place for 
 the common convenience of the inhabitants, the 
 paving and lighting the streets, and the widening or 
 rebuilding, as it might seem most desirable, of 
 Magdalen Bridge. The scheme of construction was 
 accompanied with one of demolition, and, as essen- 
 tial to the general design, it was further proposed 
 to ask for power by the same Act to take down the 
 remaining old gates of the city, — East Gate and 
 North Gate, those venerable features of its an- 
 tiquity. We shall hereafter speak more particularly 
 of these undertakings in noticing the events of 1771, 
 when the provisions of the Act, which met with no 
 obstacle, came into operation. 
 
 In the meantime active arrangements were being 
 made for giving effect to the purposes of that most 
 excellent of the institutions of the city of Oxford — 
 the Radcliffe Infirmary. The building had just been 
 completed, and was now supplied with the requi- 
 sites of wards and apartments, and all other con- 
 veniences suited to its benevolent ends. It remained 
 to give laws for its good government and for the 
 furtherance of the intentions in general of the vari- 
 ous donors and trustees. A meeting accordingly 
 took place on the 2nd of June, and as a preliminary 
 course to the opening of the building for the recep- 
 tion of patients, the following resolution was 
 adopted by those who were appointed to conduct 
 the proceedings : — 
 
 " Whereas the trustees of the will of the late Dr. Rad- 
 cliffe have, in pursuance of the said will, and at the sole 
 charge of the trust, erected and furnished a spacious and 
 commodious edifice near the University of Oxford, with 
 
 all conveniences and proper necessaries for a general 
 infirmary, which they have voluntarily offered for the 
 general use of the University and City of Oxford, and of 
 the several counties of Berks, Bucks, and Oxford, we, 
 therefore, being desirous of promoting and carrying into 
 execution the laudable design of the donors and trustees, 
 have agreed to pay into the hands of the Right Honour- 
 able Lord Craven, the Rev. the Vice-Chancellor,* William 
 Drake, Esq., of Amersham, Bucks, Robert Child, Esq., of 
 Temple Bar, London, or one of them, the several and 
 respective sums for carrying the intentions of the said 
 Dr. Radcliffe and his trustees into execution." 
 
 The few rules laid down and agreed to at this 
 stage of the proceedings appear to have been no 
 more than sufficient to give action to the institution, 
 and set in motion some plan for its government. 
 They were seven in number, and as follows :— 
 
 1. That each contributor deposit in advance the amount 
 of one year's intended benefaction at the time of sub- 
 scribing. 
 
 2. That no person subscribing under three guineas per 
 annum, or thirty guineas once paid for life, shall be en- 
 titled to vote as a Governor in the choice of any officer, 
 or in any matter whatever relative to the conduct of the 
 charity. 
 
 3. Every person subscribing one guinea per annum 
 may recommend one in-patient in one year. 
 
 4. All persons subscribing above one guinea and under 
 five guineas may always have one in-patient. 
 
 5. All persons subscribing five guineas and upwards 
 may have two in-patients. 
 
 6. Ladies subscribing as governors may vote upon all 
 occasions by proxy, under their hand and seal. 
 
 7. A general meeting to be held on Saturday, July 21 
 for opening the said infirmary, and for nominating officers. 
 
 On the day fixed for the general meeting, in ac- 
 cordance with the last-mentioned rule, Dr. Lewis, 
 Dr. Foulkes, Dr. Kelly, Dr. Smith and Dr. Vivian 
 were elected physicians to the new infirmary ; while 
 Mr. Mouse, Mr. Hacker, Mr. Towsey, and Mr. Gros- 
 venor were elected surgeons ; Mr. Cabell, house 
 
 Dr. Nathan Wetheretl, Master of University College. 
 
24 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 apothecary ; Mr. W. Taylor, secretary ; Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth. Wheatley and Antony Collison were respec- 
 tively elected to the several offices of matron and 
 porter to the above institution. 
 
 It was not, however, till the 18th of October that 
 the building was actually opened for the reception 
 of patients ; and on that day it was formally deli- 
 vered up to the public by the Earl of Lichfield, who, 
 for the great interest he had taken in promoting the 
 objects of the institution, was elected its first 
 president. 
 
 So extensive are the benefits diffused by the Rad- 
 clift'e Infirmary — for the scheme of benevolence was 
 not confined merely to the town and its immediate 
 vicinity, as is the ease with the generality of provin- 
 cial institutions of the kind — that some further de- 
 tails relative to its projection and endowments 
 cannot fail to be interesting, and may seem to be 
 required. Although, then, as has been already stated, 
 the edifice was not so far completed as to be in a 
 condition for the admission of patients till the year 
 1770, the foundation of it was laid August 27, 1759.* 
 The ground on which it is built, together with a 
 garden of five acres in extent, was the gift of Mr. 
 Rowney, that great benefactor to the 1 ! city in so 
 many other instances ; and one of the wards of the 
 infirmary is designated after his name, in honour of 
 the circumstance. The Duke of Marlborough and 
 his family greatly contributed by their patronage 
 and donations to render the design available to the 
 public. Very substantial aid was likewise afforded 
 by Lords Lichfield, Abingdon, Craven, Barrington, 
 and Wenman ; by Sir James Dashwood and Sir 
 Charles Cotterell Dormer. The Mayor of Oxford, 
 also, Mr. Wickham, gave thirty-one pounds for the 
 furtherance of the designs of the trustees. Nor 
 should we omit to state here that the Earl of Lich- 
 field, who died in 1772, devised the proceeds of a 
 house in Hill-street, London, for the foundation of a 
 Clinical professorship, under trust of the Chancellor 
 of the University, the Bishop of Oxford, and the 
 President of St. John's College. The professor under 
 this foundation is elected by the members of 
 Convocation, and a part of his duties consists in 
 reading lectures in the Radcliffe Infirmary to stu- 
 dents in medicine. Dr. William Lewis, M.D., of 
 Oxford, and one of the first physicians appointed to 
 the Infirmary, made a bequest of a hundred pounds 
 in aid of the funds of the institution, and Mrs. Hay- 
 
 * The burying ground was consecrated by the Bishop of 
 Oxford, Dr. Robert Lowth, Nov. 3, 1770 ; it was a very 
 solemn ceremonial, accompanied with the prayers of the 
 spectators that it might be the only useless part of the 
 establishment. 
 
 ward gave an acre of land adjoining the premises 
 already acquired. The present purpose of these 
 details excludes the notice of its subsequent pro- 
 gress. It will be sufficient to say that there proba- 
 bly does not exist a better example of munificence 
 in any endowment for charitable purposes in the 
 country than in this infirmary. There is scarcely 
 any description of suffering that does not here meet 
 with relief; and it redounds to the imperishable 
 honour of the trustees of Dr. Radcliffe that they 
 should have given such a noble direction to the 
 employment of the property left to their charge. 
 
 Some curious relics formerly found in St. Giles's 
 parish have given rise to various conjectures on the 
 part of antiquaries ; and while the workmen were 
 laying out the garden grounds of the Infirmary, they 
 dug up at the distance of six or seven feet of each 
 other two human skeletons. They lay about 
 eighteen inches beneath the surface of the earth, in 
 a bed of dry gravel, and appeared to have been 
 buried there without coffins. Near the skull of one 
 was found a circular plate, regularly pierced and of 
 skilful workmanship, which had the appearance of 
 having been once plated with silver, and to have 
 been the ornament of some helmet. 
 
 Proceeding to the events of 1771 we have to notice 
 the elevation of Mr. Sergeant Nares to the Bench. 
 By this occurrence, a vacancy was created in the 
 representation of the city ; and, on the 25th of 
 January, Lord Robert Spencer, brother to the Duke 
 of Marlborough, became a candidate for the suffrages 
 of the freemen. His claims were espoused by the 
 corporation, who openly canvassed in his behalf. 
 This step in their procedure was followed by an 
 entertainment to the freemen on the evening of the 
 same day. With the support thus given by the 
 Chamber, and the prestige of the candidate's name, 
 the issue could not remain doubtful ; and his Lord- 
 ship was consequently elected Member for Oxford 
 on the following Thursday. Lord Robert Spencer 
 was not present on the day of election, but his 
 brother Lord Charles attended to return thanks for 
 him, and in the evening, dined with the corporation 
 in the Town Hall. 
 
 The distinction conferred on Mr. Sergeant Nares, 
 by the appointment of him to be one of His Majesty's 
 Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, brought his 
 professional and political connexion with Oxford to 
 an end ; and it reflects great honour on the city, 
 bearing testimony, as it does, to their judicious se- 
 lection of so distinguished an individual to fill suc- 
 cessively the various offices of Town Clerk, Recorder, 
 and Member of Parliament. He was succeeded in 
 the Recordership by the Hon. T. Francis Wenman, 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 25 
 
 though this did not take place till the ensuing 
 year. 
 
 The Act of Parliament for which, at the commence- 
 ment of this Paper we stated it to be the intention 
 of the city to apply, to empower them to carry on 
 their projected improvements, received the Royal 
 assent in the month of March* this year ; and the 
 first meeting of the Commissioners appointed for 
 putting it into execution took place the following 
 April, Mr. James Morrell and John Walker offici- 
 ating as clerks. The first most notable result of the 
 Commissioners' deliberations was the demolition of 
 the remaining city gates. So much interest does not 
 attach to East Gate as the celebrated Bocardo, although 
 Peshall speaks of it as "the prime or chief," adding, as 
 a reason for this pre-eminence, that it was " always 
 the way to the House of the Brethren of the Holy 
 Trinity, St. John's Hospital, and East Bridge, and 
 Petty Pont, which led to London." It had, ac- 
 cording to the same authority, originally two round 
 towers on each side to defend it, as also a pair of 
 gates thwarted with a chain, with the others kept 
 shut and locked in the night season, and another 
 chain crossing the way from the gate leading to 
 Holywell, to secure the suburbs in the tumultuous 
 times of the Barons' wars. Long, however, before 
 its removal it had lost much of its ancient charac- 
 ter, and its importance even as a relic of antiquity 
 had ceased to be regarded. It extended across the 
 High Street between the houses now occupied by 
 the Rev. Mr. Millard, the Head Master of Magdalen 
 College School, and that of Mr. Jones, the chemist. 
 North Gate, or Bocardo, as it was more usually called, 
 was looked upon with a different feeling, historical asso- 
 ciations vesting it with an extreme degree of interest. 
 It was anciently the most strongly fortified point of 
 the city walls, no river running before it to assist 
 in their defence, as was the case with respect to 
 the other gates. When more peaceful times ren- 
 dered the fortifications of the town in general un- 
 necessary, the room over the gate was converted 
 into a prison for malefactors and debtors within the 
 jurisdiction of the city magistrates ; and Dr. In- 
 gram, in his Memorials, which were published in 
 1837, states that there were persons then living who 
 could remember it as such, as well as an ancient 
 custom of the debtors in letting down a hat or purse 
 by a cord from the window to receive the charity of 
 the passers by. " It has also, " says Peshall, " been a 
 prison for the scholars for little faults."* In still 
 earlier times this room, together with the house 
 
 * On the 28th. 
 * Probably quoting A. Wood : vid. Hist, of Oxford. 
 
 adjoining it on the south, is said to have been used 
 as a library for the University when it was in 
 Bellositum or Beaumond. Yet, that which has 
 rendered it most memorable is the circumstance of 
 its having been the place of imprisonment of the 
 martyrs Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, previous to 
 their execution. 
 
 However, these venerable remains appear to have 
 been comprehended under the meaning of the words 
 " nuisances and annoyances," mentioned in the pre- 
 amble of the act ; and, having been sold to the Com- 
 missioners for £306, their fiat went forth, and on 
 Wednesday, August 14th, the workmen began pull- 
 ing them down. In a recess of an upper room a 
 silver Grecian coin was found, having on the ob- 
 verse the figure of an owl, and on the other side the 
 initials of Athence in Greek characters. This 
 interesting relic, which is thought to bear testimony 
 to the tradition of the room having once been used as 
 the muniment room of the old university, went 
 into the possession of the Rev. Mr. Horn, of Wan- 
 sted, in Essex ; the foundation stone is preserved in 
 St. Michael's church. There are various speculations 
 as to the meaning of the name which was given to 
 this gate. A. Wood inclines to the opinion that it 
 is derived with but slight alteration from a Saxon 
 word signifying a library ; others assign to it a 
 Celtic or British etymology denoting both its use 
 and position. It stood in the Cornmarket — then 
 called from it Northgate-street — close to the tower 
 of St. Michael's church, which the views taken in 
 1770 place outside the gate on the north, though 
 the church was, without question, formerly inclosed 
 within the walls. 
 
 Another vestige of the old fortifications — more 
 properly a postern, but called Smith Gate — was also 
 considered an obstruction and removed to make 
 way for the improvements of the city. It formed 
 an outlet from Cat Street towards the Parks, and was 
 contiguous to " our Lady's chapel," of which a part 
 still remains at the entrance of New College Lane, 
 A mutilated piece of sculpture over its old doorway 
 representing the marriage of St. Catherine, is easy 
 to be seen, and must often attract the attention of 
 passers by. This gate, originally but a footway, was 
 made passable for carts and coaches in 1643, " for 
 the pleasure of King James to see the schools 
 erected." It is memorable for the scene of a great 
 conflict in Henry III.'s time between the townsmen 
 and the scholars on the refusal of the former to 
 allow Prince Edward an entrance on his march to 
 Wales, as well as for a spirited defence of it by the 
 members of the University on the attempt of Roger 
 Mortimer to surprise Oxford in the time of Edward 
 
26 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 II. Some very interesting particulars relative to 
 these occurrences are narrated in Sir J. PeshaU's 
 History of Oxford. 
 
 As incidental to the above descriptions, a brief 
 account of the two other great gates of the city will 
 not, perhaps, be deemed unacceptable. They had long 
 been taken down. Of Westgate we meet with very 
 few particulars ; it was situate at the point where 
 the two streets running westward from the churches 
 of St. Ebbe and St. Peter-le-Bailey meet, and over 
 it was engraved on stone the Arms of England. 
 This position indicates the course of the old city 
 wall, which ran over the site of the present County 
 Gaol in the direction of Broken Hayes. Southgate 
 stood between the south-west angle of Christ 
 Church and the end of the Almshouses, opposite to 
 the entrance into Brewer's Lane. Similarly to the 
 other gates it was strongly defended by towers on 
 each side, and is described as having been, from its 
 architectural embellishments, an ornament to the 
 place. The declivity of the ground here was in rela- 
 
 tion to the fortifications of the gate, formerly called 
 Tower Hill. 
 
 The proximity of four churches in Oxford to the 
 four principal gates, two dedicated to St. Michael 
 and two to St. Peter, gave rise to the following 
 Latin distich — 
 
 Invigilat portae ao^trali, boreseque Michael, 
 Exortum Solem Petrus regit atque cadentem. 
 
 These lines have been rendered, though not very 
 
 elegantly, in the following English — 
 
 The North and South Gates St. Michael doth guard, 
 The East and the West St. Peter's care doth ward. 
 
 St. Peter-le-Bailey was also called St. Peter-in-tke- 
 East, and to understand the connexion of St. Michael 
 with South Gate, it is necessary to keep in mind that 
 anciently there was a church dedicated to the 
 Archangel near this spot. It indeed stood exactly 
 where the Hebrew Professor's Lodgings are now built, 
 but was pulled down in order to carry out Cardinal 
 Wolsey's design in the erection of Christ Church. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 No circumstance falling within the compass of 
 these details served to produce a greater sensation 
 in Oxford than one belonging to the period at which 
 we have now arrived, and the particulars of which 
 we are about to relate. Dr. No well, well recollected 
 by some living at this present time, the Principal of 
 St. Mary Hall, and in other respects a personage of 
 some distinction in the university, preached a ser- 
 mon before the House of Commons, at St. Margaret's 
 church, on the 30th of January, 1772, the day ap- 
 pointed for the service in memory of the martyrdom 
 of King Charles the First. As was usually the case, 
 but very few attended on this occasion, the Speaker 
 of the House and about three or four other members 
 only being present. On the following day Sir 
 William Dolben, seconded by Mr. Alexander Pop- 
 ham, made a motion for a vote of thanks to the 
 preacher for his excellent discourse, to be accom- 
 panied with the request of the House that he would 
 print it. This motion was carried as a matter of 
 course, and the mover and seconder were desired 
 to acquaint Dr. Nowell of the resolution come to. 
 After the sermon had been printed and transmitted, 
 according to custom, to the members generally, it 
 was found to contain the most high-flown doctrines 
 derived from the school of Filmer and Dr. Sache- 
 verell, inculcating the duty of passive obedience, the 
 indefeasible right of kings, and to be at variance with 
 the principles which were established by the Revo- 
 lution of 1688. Great excitement prevailed in conse- 
 quence of the discovery thus made. Mr. Boyle 
 Walsingham took an opportunity of sounding the 
 alarm ; and on February 25th moved that the vote 
 of thanks be expunged from the journals of the 
 House of Commons. Several circumstances con- 
 
 spired to place the House and some of its members 
 in a very embarrassing and ludicrous position. A 
 vote had been carried, expressive of the thanks of 
 the House for a sermon, which, after reading it, they 
 asserted to be a libel on the king and the people. 
 The Speaker, who had heard the sermon delivered, 
 to shew how attentive he had been at the time, now 
 asserted his strong disapprobation of its matter ; and 
 the seconder of the motion for a vote of thanks for 
 its great merit, maintained it to be the most exception- 
 able he had ever read . It appears that the latter had 
 uponleaving the church, expressed his objection to the 
 tendency of Dr. Nowell's discourse, but was induced 
 by Sir W. Dolben, who insisted upon his mistake, 
 to become of a different opinion. During a very 
 acrimonious debate which took place, Mr. Thomas 
 Townshend proposed that the sermon should be 
 burnt by the hands of the common hangman. Mr. 
 Sawbridge, one of the members of the city of Lon- 
 don, sarcastically remarked that the only induce- 
 ment Dr. Nowell could have for holding forth such 
 doctrines was that his predecessor, Mainwaring, had 
 done the same, and got a bishopric. Sir Roger 
 Newdigate and Sir W. Dolben, especially the former, 
 warmly espoused Dr. Nowell, and with great zeal 
 and ability defended the university, of which they 
 were the representatives, and which had been mixed 
 up in the charge of Jacobinical principles made 
 against him. The prime minister, Lord North — 
 who was to become this year the Chancellor of the 
 university — while confessing his inability to approve 
 or defend the objectionable matter of the sermon 
 endeavoured to rescue the House from its anoma- 
 lous position by moving the order of the day ; but 
 his motion was rejected by a majority of 152 to 41, 
 
28 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 and the main question was carried for expunging 
 the vote of thanks, while it was further resolved 
 that on all future occasions a sermon should be 
 printed before it received the approbation of the 
 House. Inasmuch as during this debate on Dr. 
 Nowell's doctrines many severe references were 
 made to the church service, ordered for the 30th of 
 January, it was instantly followed up by a motion 
 for repealing the Act for its observance, on the 
 ground that it was blasphemous, as instituting a 
 parallel between our Saviour and King Charles. 
 Some edge may possibly have been given to the 
 feeling on the subject by a remark, which had 
 been made by Lord Folkestone, that the service 
 was composed by Father Peter, confessor to James 
 the Second. Sir Koger Newdigate, with his wonted 
 zeal in every matter where he felt the interests of 
 the university and the Establishment to be con- 
 cerned, most ably defended the Liturgy against the 
 aspersions cast upon it, repudiating the necessity or 
 justice of any interference with it ; and he suc- 
 ceeded in defeating the measure by a majority of 
 125 votes over 97.* Gibbon, the historian, with 
 reference to this debate, says, in a letter written to 
 his friend, Holroyd — "To-day the House was em- 
 ployed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend 
 moved that the sermon preached before the House 
 i. e., three or four members, should be burnt by the 
 common hangman, as containing arbitrary, tory and 
 high-flown doctrines. The House nearly agreed, till 
 they recollected that they had already thanked the 
 preacher for his excellent discourse. Nowell's book- 
 seller is much obliged to the Right Honourable 
 Tommy Townshend. Feb. 25, 1772."f 
 
 The part taken by the members for the univer- 
 sity in these discussions may be considered to indi- 
 cate very clearly the political feelings in general at 
 that time of the body which they represented ; and 
 on that account it has been thought desirable to 
 enter more circumstantially into these details, inde- 
 pendently of the interest otherwise attaching to 
 them. But these were not the only questions re- 
 specting religious policy which in 1772 occupied 
 the public mind, and in which the university was 
 
 * Dr. Johnson gives a qualified approbation to the Act 
 of Parliament, which ratified the insertion for the service for 
 King Charles the Martyr into the Liturgy. " I could have 
 wished it," he said, " to be a temporary Act, to have expired 
 with the century ; but to abolish it would be to declare it 
 was wrong. I should have no objection for another Act 
 to continue for another century, and then let it expire.' 
 The reason he gives for objecting to abolish it is not very 
 philosophical.— [See Life by Boswell. 
 
 t See Miscellaneous Works, vol. I., p. 450. 
 
 interested. In the early part of the year a petition, 
 signed by two hundred and fifty clergymen, and pray- 
 ing for relief from subscription to the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles, was presented to Parliament ; and although 
 a stimulus was given to this proceeding by a work of 
 Archdeacon Blackburne, called ' The Confessional,' it 
 seems to have struck the Hxmse, from the course the 
 debate took on the subject of giving the petition 
 consideration, that the most forcible reason for atten- 
 tion to it was the requirement of subscription 
 to these Articles on the part of members of the univer- 
 sity at the time of their matriculation. Lord North 
 wished to give the petition a civil treatment, and en- 
 deavoured thereby to get it quietly laid on the 
 table ; but the pacific policy of the minister was de- 
 feated by Sir Roger Newdigate, who, though natu- 
 rally a man of the mildest and most amiable disposi- 
 tion, rose up and with great vehemence declared that 
 it aimed at the destruction of the Church, whose 
 existence depended on the Thirty-Nine Articles. He 
 thus gave rise to a very memorable debate, " sustain- 
 ing, as it was said, in the part which he took in it, the 
 character of member for Oxford, with great forti- 
 tude." The supporters of the petition urged the 
 often repeated arguments that the Thirty-Nine Ar- 
 ticles were framed when the spirit of inquiry and 
 liberal notions were in their infancy ; that they were 
 absurd, unintelligible, and contradictory to each 
 other, and that the Scriptures were the proper test, 
 and a belief in them ought to be sufficient. Lord 
 North eventually refused to encourage the petition, 
 observing the tendency of some of the arguments, 
 urged in its favour to affect the Union, which he 
 thought to be too fundamental an affair to be wan- 
 tonly or lightly treated ; and it was consequently re- 
 jected* 
 
 We again quote from Gibbon, who, in another 
 letter to Mr. Holroyd, with characteristic levity thus 
 treats this rather important question: — "Boodles, 
 Saturday night, Feb. 8, 1 772. Though it is very late, 
 and the bell tells me that I have not above ten 
 minutes left, I employ them with pleasure in con- 
 gratulating you on the late victory of our dear 
 mamma, the Church of England. She had last 
 Thursday 71 rebellious sons, who pretended to set 
 aside her will on the account of insanity ; but 21 7 
 worthy champions, ^headed by Lord North, Hans 
 "Stanley, Charles Fox, &c, although they allowed the 
 Thirty-nine Articles of her Testament were absurd 
 and unreasonable, supported the validity of it with 
 infinite humour."t 
 
 • Noes, 217 ; Yeas, 71. 
 + Miscellaneous Works. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 29 
 
 Turning to the occurrences of the city belonging 
 to this year we find that, irrespective of the great 
 changes and improvements set afoot by the opera- 
 tion of the Commissioners' Act, as it is usual to call 
 it, attention became directed — partly, it may be sup- 
 posed, from considerations of self interest, partly by 
 benevolent sympathies, and on the whole by the ne- 
 cessity of the case — to the condition of the poor 
 and a more satisfactory mode of administering to 
 their relief. It had been necessary, for the means 
 of carrying this important object into execution, to 
 apply to Parliament, and in the previous year an 
 Act was obtained " for the better regulating the poor 
 within the city of Oxford." In accordance with the 
 powers thus conferred by the Legislature, the eleven 
 united parishes were placed under the management 
 of the body known by tho name of the Guardians, 
 and the House of Industry was erected. The foun- 
 dation stone of this structure, which was built after 
 a design by Mr. Gwynne, — the architect of the new 
 market and Magdalen Bridge — was laid May the 1st, 
 1772, by the Rev. Sir J. Peshall, accompanied on the 
 occasion by the Mayor of Oxford, the Governor, and 
 the Guardians of the several parishes. A brass 
 plate was affixed to the foundation stone, with the 
 following inscription engraved on it : — Maii Primo, 
 MDCCLXXIL, Joh. Peshall, Bartus, Gubtor et Guar- 
 diani, P. By the terms of the contract it was speci- 
 fied that this building should not exceed i>'4,030, 
 and that it should be completed by Michaelmas 
 Day, 1773. It is not possible to regard the spot of 
 ground on which the House of Industry stands 
 otherwise than with mixed feelings of a very oppo- 
 site character, when recollecting that history records 
 it as a part of the site and environs of the palace 
 which was built by King Henry the Second, and where 
 his son Richard Cceur de Lion was born. 
 
 Another new feature in the aspect of the town — 
 though belonging to the University and entirely 
 connected with its purposes — had its commence- 
 ment this year, namely, the Radcliffe Observatory. 
 The history of this monument of the munificence of 
 the individual after whom it is named, shewing as it 
 also does the increasing importance that began to be 
 attached by the University of Oxford to the study 
 of Astronomy, dates in its origin with the year 
 1768; when, owing to the great inconvenience felt 
 through want of some better arrangements for ob- 
 servations than those which had previously existed 
 — the observers being obliged to betake themselves to 
 different towers, and other elevated buildings of the 
 place as might seem best suited for their present 
 purposes, — Dr. Hornsby, the Savilian Professor, 
 represented the evil to the Chancellor, Lord Lich- 
 
 field, who was also one of Dr. Radcliffe's trustees. It 
 is needless to state that the application was favour- 
 ably received. A sum of seven thousand pounds 
 was granted by the trustees in the Act term of 1771, 
 and in the year following the Duke of Marlborough 
 added to this donation a lease of eight acres and a 
 half of ground which he held under St. John's Col- 
 lege. This brief sketch brings us to the time of 
 which we are writing, when the foundation of the 
 Observatory was laid. The ceremony was performed 
 on the 27th of June, by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. 
 Wetherell, the Savilian Professor, Dr. Hornsby, and 
 the Architect of the building, Mr. Keene. A copper 
 plate, laid on the first stone, bears the name of the 
 trustees, with the expression of their regard for the 
 interests of the University in thus promoting the 
 objects of astronomical science : — 
 
 Pro singulari sua erga Aoademiam voluntate 
 
 Georgius Henricus Comes de Lichfield, 
 
 Carolus Mordaunt, Baronettus, 
 
 Gulielmus Bagot, Baronettus, 
 
 Gulielmus Drake, Armiger, 
 
 Radcliviani Testamenti Curatores. 
 
 P. C. 
 
 AstronomisB Sacrum, 
 
 Anno M.D.CC.LXXII. 
 
 To this account of the inauguration of the 
 Observatory it is necessary to add that the sooiety 
 of St. John's College, in order to promote the ends 
 of the institution, was subsequently induced to sell 
 the fee simple of the land on which the building is 
 erected ; and they obtained the sanction of an Act 
 of Parliament for this purpose (1820). 
 
 On the 19th of September in this year the Chan- 
 cellor of the University, Lord Lichfield, died ; and 
 on the 3rd of the following month Lord North was 
 elected by the members of Convocation to supply 
 his place, without any opposition. On the 6th of 
 October the new Chancellor was formally installed 
 at his residence in Downing Street, the Vice-Chan- 
 cellor, Dr. Wetherell, the Public Orator, Dr. Nowell, 
 and the two Proctors, waiting upon him to invest 
 him in his office. This was about the last public 
 act of Dr. Wetherell, the term of his Vice-Chancel- 
 lorship drawing to a close, and Dr. Fothergill, the 
 Provost of Queen's College, being chosen as his suc- 
 cessor. 
 
 By the decease of Lord Lichfield, the President- 
 ship of the Radcliffe Infirmary also became vacant. 
 Public opinion must approve the choice which the 
 Governors made of the individual to succeed him. 
 They elected the Duke of Marlborough, and it was a 
 becoming tribute to his generous liberality, and the 
 active interest he had taken in furtherance of the 
 useful purposes of the Infirmary. 
 
30 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Among the most conspicuous alterations in the 
 appearance of the town in 1772 was the removal of 
 a terrace which stood in the front of Balliol College 
 towards Broad-street. It extended from the south- 
 eastern angle of the college in an oblique line to the 
 door of the Master's lodgings, and was shaded by 
 lofty elms, much in the same way as the present 
 front of St. John's College, and separated like that by 
 a low wall from the public road. The enclosed 
 ground was surrendered to the Commissioners of the 
 Paving Act to enable them to widen the street. 
 Their general plans for the improvement of the 
 town were further accelerated by an accident which 
 happened this year to Magdalen Bridge, when part 
 of a great arch next to the lodgings of the Physic 
 Garden fell in. The avenue to the bridge was conse- 
 quently shut up, and it became necessary for the 
 convenience of travellers to open a temporary road 
 
 and bridges at Milham until the new bridge was com- 
 pleted. This new bridge, as well as the market — 
 results of the Commissioners' plans of improvement 
 — will shortly demand our notice. The latter had 
 already been advertised, and attention called to the 
 Act against forestallers ; but combinations to 
 enhance the price of commodities were nevertheless 
 carried on ; and to such an extent did they affect the 
 circumstances of the poor, that towards the end of 
 the year a collection was instituted for their relief, 
 when the inhabitants in general contributed for this 
 purpose ,£246, the colleges above £200, the Duke of 
 Marlborough £50, and the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. 
 Lowth), £10 10s. " By this means," says Sir J. 
 Peshall, to whom we are indebted for this particular, 
 " a sixpenny loaf will be sold for three months or 
 more to each one of a family at three pence." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 We have seen the part taken by the representa- 
 tives for the university in the measures brought 
 before Parliament in the year 1772, for procuring 
 relief from subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 and for extending the benefits of toleration to non- 
 conformists generally. The favourable disposition 
 which in the course of the debates on these ques- 
 tions had been shown by members of high authority 
 for granting the exemption required, suggested a 
 renewal of petitions of the same tendency, though 
 under a different shape, before even the session was 
 concluded ; and they were supported by a consider- 
 able part of the ministers, and almost the whole of 
 the opposition. Such was the unanimity in a rather 
 full house on one of the discussions which took 
 place on the subject, as to leave only the names of 
 Sir Roger Newdigate and his colleague, Sir William 
 Dolben, to constitute the minority. But Sir R. 
 Newdigate was not of a temper at any time or under 
 any circumstance of repulse to yield to an altera- 
 tion in the established state of things. To argu- 
 ments urged from the Letters of Locke on Tolera- 
 tion, he answered that it was the work of a 
 speculative philosopher, and that his reasoning was 
 too pure for the depravity of the times ; — that the 
 religion of a country must take the complexion of 
 its government — monarchical in a monarchy, re- 
 publican in a republic ; — that churchmen had tender 
 consciences as well as dissenters, who had moreover, 
 in many respects, advantages superior to the church, 
 especially in the power they possessed of choosing 
 their own ministers. 
 
 The success of these steps in the Commons 
 encouraged the Protestant dissenters in an attempt 
 to obtain a repeal of the Test Act, and a measure to 
 
 that effect was carried in the Lower House, having 
 the support of ministers and their friends, who were 
 supposed to be desirous of engaging in a Protestant 
 league against the Roman Catholics. But it expe- 
 rienced a different fate in the House of Lords, 
 notwithstanding the countenance it received from 
 such names as Lords Camden, Shelbourne, Chatham, 
 and even Mansfield, being opposed by the prelates 
 and rejected by a preponderance in numbers, if not 
 in arguments. It was during the debates on these 
 matters that Lord Chatham is reported to have 
 described the Church of England as Popish in her 
 liturgy, Calvinistic in her articles, and Arminian in 
 her clergy : — " A. shallow witticism," says Mr. Glad- 
 stone, in his work on Church Principles, " unworthy 
 so illustrious a man." 
 
 It will not be considered altogether irrelevant to 
 the scope of these details to state here, — what is not 
 generally known, — that two members for the city of 
 Oxford have been thought to be the authors of the 
 celebrated Test Act. The merit of participation in 
 the Act, whatever it may be held to be, was assigned 
 to them by Bishop Parker ; but the following extract 
 from a curious paper of the Earl of Clarendon in 
 answer to the time-serving prelate, distinctly shows 
 that there was no ground whatever for his assertion : 
 — " Who were the two fathers, or rather midwives 
 (as he calls them) of the first test in 1673 doth not 
 appear by the journals of the House of Commons ; 
 so that his lordship can only have been told that 
 they were the ' two famous burgesses of Oxford? 
 And in that he may have been misinformed in the 
 whole, as I am sure he is in part. For the Alder- 
 man he mentions was not then member of Parlia- 
 ment ; and it can be made appear that the Recorder 
 
 K 
 
32 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 of Oxford, who was one of their burgesses, never 
 opened his lips in that matter."* The burgesses 
 referred to in this controversy must have been W. 
 Wright and Sir Richard Croke. The former was 
 Alderman, but not elected to represent the city till 
 1678 ; both served the office of Recorder. 
 
 It is not surprising that the sanction thus given 
 to the principles of toleration by statesmen of such 
 weight and eminence, as well as the expressed 
 opinion of the generality of all parties, that un- 
 feigned assent to theological doctrines at an age too 
 immature for the comprehension of them was 
 prejudicial in its tendency, should dictate some 
 step on the part of the more liberal members of the 
 university. Taking advantage, therefore, of the con- 
 juncture, which appeared favourable for an endea- 
 vour to obtain some concession on the point, they 
 made a proposition, recommended by the Chancel- 
 lor himself, for substituting a declaration of con- 
 formity to the worship and Liturgy of the Church of 
 England instead of subscription to the Thirty-nine 
 Articles at the time of matriculation. Accordingly, 
 on February the 4th, 1773, a convocation was held 
 for considering the merits of the question, when it 
 is said some excellent speeches were delivered both 
 by its advocates and opponents. The House, how- 
 ever, was not inclined to give its assent to the new 
 formulary proposed, or to make any alteration in 
 the statute upon the subject ; and so the proposition 
 was rejected, by one hundred and eleven votes to 
 sixty-four. This defeat could not have been felt to 
 be very ignominious or decisive, as in the following 
 month two further efforts were made to obtain the 
 same object, in the one instance by means of a pro- 
 posal to subjoin some qualifying explanation to the 
 objectionable statute, and in another by a new form 
 of subscription, but in both cases with less success 
 than that with which the endeavour in the first place 
 to get rid of it altogether was attended. 
 
 The event which chiefly engrossed attention this 
 year, was the installation of Lord North ; and the 
 description given of the proceedings at Oxford in 
 honour of the Chancellor on this occasion, fully 
 justifies the common belief that it surpassed all 
 others of the kind which had previously taken place. 
 Various circumstances occurred to give eclat to the 
 occurrence. Lord North was then Prime Minister, 
 and had taken part in the conduct of some of the 
 most momentous concerns in which the country 
 had ever been engaged, first as a Commissioner of the 
 Treasury in the outset of his political career, then 
 as Paymaster of Fcrces, and afterwards in the man- 
 agement of the national resources as Chancellor of 
 * Collectanea Curiosa. 
 
 the Exchequer. His high political position may 
 have partly recommended him to the university ; but 
 it is impossible to suppose that an amiable disposi- 
 tion, a reputation for classical scholarship, and 
 other great qualities did not greatly influence them 
 in the choice they made of their Chancellor. " He 
 was," says his great political opponent, Burke, " a 
 man of admirable parts ; of general knowledge ; of 
 a versatile understanding, fitted for every sort of 
 business ; of infinite wit and pleasantry ; of a de- 
 lightful temper, with a mind most disinterested." 
 
 To this eulogium of Burke, on one whom he does 
 not hesitate to call " a great man," it has not been 
 thought necessary to append what he added in 
 respect of Lord North's deficiencies for political 
 command during the stormy events of the period, 
 nothing more being here requisite than to shew the 
 qualities which pointed him out to the university 
 for the functions and dignity of the office to which 
 they had unanimously elected him. And in this point 
 of view no one will lightly question the ample fitness 
 of the new Chancellor. He, indeed, fully justified 
 the choice made of him by an invariable regard for 
 the interests of the university, and a constant 
 desire to promote the advancement of academical 
 studies. One of the first steps taken by him in this 
 direction after his appointment was the continua- 
 tion- of the prizes for Latin verse and English prose 
 which had just been given by his predecessor, the 
 Earl of Lichfield. His family connexion with the 
 county, and some other particulars of a local cha- 
 racter, created additional interest in his appearance 
 at Oxford ; for he was member for Banbury, and 
 had represented that borough ever since 1759. 
 
 Lord North arrived in Oxford to receive the 
 honours that awaited him on the 6th of July, and 
 on the following morning held his first levee at 
 Queen's College, the Provost of that society, Dr. 
 Fothergill, being Vice-Chancellor. On the same day 
 he accompanied the anniversary procession of the 
 President and Governors of the Radcliffe Infirmary 
 to St. Mary's Church, when the Bishop of Chester 
 preached a sermon, and £305 10s. 6d. were col- 
 lected at the doors in aid of the funds of 
 the Institution. On the 7th the more regular 
 business of the Enccenia commenced in the Theatre, 
 and nothing, it is said, could exceed the splendour 
 of the appearance which the company made. After 
 the usual opening of the proceedings, the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury was admitted {ad eundem) to 
 the degree of Doctor of Divinity in the university. 
 The other presentations on this day consisted of 
 ten Peers, two Baronets, four sons of the nobility, 
 and many other distinguished personages ; among 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 33 
 
 wh om were the Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Charles 
 Spencer, and Viscount Wennian, the members for 
 the county, and Lord Robert Spencer, the represen- 
 tative for the city. The honorary degree of Doctor 
 in Civil Law was also conferred on Sir George Nares, 
 Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, formerly Town 
 Clerk and Recorder of the City of Oxford. 
 
 Among those on whom, during the two following 
 days of the Installation similar honours were con- 
 ferred, were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the eminent 
 painter ; Pye, poet laureat ; Glover, the author of 
 " Leonidas ;" Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy 
 and author of " The Minstrel ;" and Sir Elijah 
 lmpey, who figured so conspicuously as the coadjutor 
 of Warren Hastings in his government of India. 
 From a long catalogue of other distinguished names 
 we also Belect Sir Henry Dashwood, Mr. Drake 
 and Mr. Oldfield Bowles, owing to their connection, 
 with this county. Independently of the usual prize 
 compositions, Latin and English Poems were recited 
 by different noblemen and other members of the 
 university. The ode was written by Dr. Wheeler, 
 the Professor of Poetry, and set to music by Dr. 
 Hayes, the Professor of Music. Lord North held 
 daily levees — one at Trinity College, of which he 
 was a member. An assembly in the Town Hall, balls 
 and concerts in^the evening, for which the most emi- 
 nent vocalists of the day — Mrs. Sheridan, Miss 
 Linley, and Signora Galli — were engaged, formed 
 part of the arrangements for giving importance to 
 this great event. In the Evening of Thursday 
 Arnold's Opera of the " Prodigal Son" was performed 
 in the Theatre. 
 
 It was during this Enccenia that the eminent lin- 
 guist, jurist, and profound scholar, Sir William Jones, 
 Fellow of University College, took his degree of 
 Master of Arts. He had prepared an oration, with 
 the intention, which for some reason was not 
 executed, of delivering it in the Theatre. This 
 speech, the object of which was to show the trans- 
 cendent advantages of Oxford, and to rescue learn- 
 ing from the aspersions cast on it of being destruc- 
 tive of all manly spirit, was published about ten 
 years afterwards, and shows, in the instance of the 
 
 writer at least, how compatible the pursuits of 
 literature are with liberal opinions and an ardent 
 love of liberty. It is somewhat remarkable that 
 during this year two other Fellows of the same 
 society as that to which Sir William Jones belonged 
 should have earned for themselves marks of honour- 
 able distinction in the university. These distin- 
 guished individuals were Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) 
 Chambers and Mr. William Scott, eventually Lord 
 Stowell. By Lord North's measure for regulating 
 the affairs of the East India Company, a supreme 
 court of judicature was established in Bengal, and 
 Mr. Chambers was appointed one of the puisne judges 
 of the court at Calcutta. The acceptance of this office 
 pointed to the necessity of resigning the professorship ; 
 but the university, reluctant to be deprived of the 
 benefits of his legal knowledge, passed a vote, in 
 full Convocation, on the 9th of July, to allow him the 
 option of returning within three years and to 
 appoint a substitute to discharge the duties of the 
 Professorship in the meanwhile. The other instance 
 to which reference was made is the election of Mr. 
 Scott to the Camden Professorship of Ancient 
 History. This affair, however, did not take place 
 till the end of the year, when there was a spirited 
 contest for the vacant office, Mr. Scott having for 
 his competitors Mr. Bandinel and Mr. Napleton ; 
 but the result of the scrutiny presented a consider- 
 able majority in his favour.* 
 
 Some time during the year 1773 the old buildings, 
 which stood on the present site of Canterbury 
 Quadrangle, were taken down, and the square recon- 
 structed after a new design, principally through the 
 munificence of Dr. Richard Robinson (Lord Rokeby), 
 the Archbishop of Armagh. On this memorable 
 spot of ground formerly stood Canterbury Col- 
 lege or Hall, of which Wicliffe is said to have been 
 Warden and Sir Thomas More a member, who 
 studied there under Linacre and Grocyn, — the first 
 famous for his skill in grammar, and who likewise 
 wrote upon the art ; the latter the first that pro- 
 fessed or publicly taught the Greek tongue in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Dee. 2.— Soott, liO ; Baadiuel, 115 ; Napleton, 99. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. X. 
 
 It would seem that the people of Oxford were in- 
 different observers of the portentous occurrences in 
 North America and the proceedings in the British 
 Parliament with relation to them during the year 
 1774. They do not at least appear to have made 
 their feelings and sentiments on these subjects 
 known through their representatives in any of the 
 discussions which took place upon them in the 
 House of Commons. The same remark applies to 
 the other constituencies of the county. Not a voice 
 was raised by one of them in any of the debates 
 on the remonstrances, and more than a hundred 
 petitions which were presented against taxing the 
 colonies. These and other facts conduce to give 
 support to the opinion that they generally acquiesced 
 in the measures of the Government for subjecting 
 the colonies to an unqualified dependence on the 
 mother country. Although, moreover, it was ob- 
 vious that the Parliament had nearly lived out its 
 constitutional period of existence, and that a disso- 
 lution was not far distant, still no steps were taken 
 for exacting from the representatives any such de- 
 claration of opinion as would entitle them to future 
 confidence, or to seek for others whose views were 
 more in accordance with their own. And yet, in 
 expectation of this event constituencies in other 
 places were demanding of announced candidates for 
 their suffrages assurances of endeavours to get the 
 late American Acts repealed, as well as to obtain a 
 parliamentary reform by measures for excluding 
 placemen and pensioners from the House of Com- 
 mons, for shortening the duration of parliaments, and 
 for effecting a more fair and equal representation of 
 the people. No such spirit of activity was displayed 
 in any of the constituencies of Oxfordshire. The 
 
 aristocratical influence in the county, together with 
 its government connexion will greatly account for 
 this state of things. The Duke of Marlborough had 
 resisted by his votes in the House of Lords every 
 attempt to acknowledge the independence of America. 
 By his interest one of his brothers represented the 
 county and another was member for the city. His 
 Grace's political bias could not of course be without 
 its effect upon the representation of the borough of 
 Woodstock. The Earl of Harcourt at the time was 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his son was the 
 other member for Oxford. With regard to Banbury, 
 Lord North may be said to have represented him- 
 self or his family interests in the neighbourhood, 
 and that without much discontent on the part of 
 the burgesses there. 
 
 It is needless to pursue this line of illustration 
 as to the political character of Oxford and Oxford- 
 shire at this momentous period. Enough has been 
 stated to account for the apathy and supineness 
 among the electors on the approach of the dissolu- 
 tion of Parliament. It is due, however, to a just 
 representation of their position to state, that this 
 affair came with some degree of surprise upon 
 the people, and did not give much time to some, 
 who possessed a spirit of independence as to their 
 electoral rights, to exercise them as they could wish ; 
 for by means of a rather unusual exertion of the 
 prerogative the Parliament was dissolved suddenly 
 by royal proclamation. No similar instance of its 
 exercise had happened for above thirty years, and it 
 gave the ministry great advantages in the election of 
 members. 
 
 The dissolution took place on the 30th of Septem- 
 ber, and the writs were made returnable on, the 
 
36 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 29th of the following month. Whether, then, it be 
 attributable to the suddenness of the event, which 
 allowed no time for preparation, or to general satis- 
 faction with the acts of government, or to a convic- 
 tion of the uselessness of any demonstration adverse 
 to predominant influences, all the elections through- 
 out the county were without a contest or even the show 
 of any difference of opinions. The university is of 
 course not comprehended in any of these supposed 
 grounds for inaction, it being well known to be an 
 unusual thing to disturb the seat of any of its mem- 
 bers when once elected ; nor indeed had the acade- 
 mical body any pretence, according to its political 
 views or on any other grounds, to feel dissatisfaction 
 with its late representatives. They accordingly 
 elected Sir Roger Newdigate and Mr. Francis Page. 
 Lord Charles Spencer and Viscount Wenman were 
 also re-elected for the county. A change took place 
 in the representation of the city, an opening being 
 made by the retirement of Mr. Harcourt, in whose 
 place the freemen returned the Hon. Peregrine Bertie 
 (brother of Lord Abingdon) with their former repre- 
 sentative, Lord Robert Spencer. Mr. John Skynner, 
 a Welsh judge and Attorney-General for the Duchy 
 of Lancaster, was elected for Woodstock with the 
 Hon. Mr. Eden, an Under-Secretary of State ; Lord 
 North as a matter of course for Banbury. It will 
 not be denied that the three last were distinguished 
 public men ; but Lord Wenman and Mr. Bertie 
 alone appear to have taken any part whatever in op- 
 position to the Government. The name of the 
 former is found in the list of the minority on Mr. 
 Wilkes's motion for expunging the resolutions relat- 
 ing to his expulsion from the House of Commons ; 
 and Mr. Bertie opposed the address of thanks to the 
 King, on the opening of the second session of this 
 Parliament, refusing his concurrence in thinking 
 with his Majesty that it " became the part of wisdom 
 and (in its effects) clemency to put an end to the 
 disorders in America by the most decisive exertions, 
 and for that purpose to increase the naval establish- 
 ment and greatly augment the land forces ;" for 
 such was the language of the address. We here 
 perceive an identity in Mr. Bertie's political views, 
 as to the American question, with his brother Lord 
 Abingdon, who invariably supported Lord Chatham 
 in the resistance of that great statesman to all the 
 ministerial measures for coercing the colonies into 
 obedience, and who, when at last necessity com- 
 pelled the Government to some Acts of Parliament 
 for effecting a conciliation, opposed them on account 
 of their inadequacy to the end, the insolent terms in 
 which they were conveyed, and the reservation of 
 the right implied in them to tax the colonies. With 
 
 reference to this last point he said, in his memora- 
 ble protest against these acts, — " T his is no consti- 
 tutional right ; on the contrary, the constitution 
 reprobates and disavows it ; for taxation and repre- 
 sentation are constitutionally inseparable, and Ame- 
 rica is not represented ; of course America cannot be 
 taxed. Whilst America therefore will not accept 
 that by courtesy of Parliament which she holds in 
 right of the constitution, and for the good reason 
 that an Act of Parliament is revocable and the con- 
 stitution is irrevocable, it follows that a renuncia- 
 tion of the right, and not the mere suspension of the 
 exercise was the proper object of the Bill.'' He fur- 
 ther expressed himself dissentient, " because power 
 is given to the commissioners to grant pardons to 
 people who not only say they have been guilty of 
 no offences, but the very Bills themselves say the 
 same thing for them ; for, besides acceding to the 
 claims of America, the Americans are styled his Ma- 
 jesty's faithful subjects, and to pardon faithful sub- 
 jects is an act of supererogation, if not absurdity." 
 
 In endeavouring to form an estimate of the poli- 
 tical status of Oxford at the time when the question 
 of a legal domination over the American colonies 
 and that of a rightful resistance upon constitutional 
 theories by an unrepresented community to any ex- 
 ercise of authority over it were so fiercely agitated, 
 the views of Lord Abingdon could not be well 
 omitted without disregarding the admitted influences 
 of rank and property wherever they are to be found. 
 And if these views are not sufficiently intelligible by 
 the passages cited from his memorable protest, they 
 will not be mistaken in his expressed desire for that 
 kind of conciliation which should " give unequivocal 
 confirmation to American liberties, and place them 
 beyond the reach of Tory disturbance." 
 
 Very considerable impulse seems to have been 
 given at this time to plans for inclosing various 
 common and waste lands in the county ; and it is re- 
 markable with what rapidity Bills for these purposes 
 were carried through both Houses during the first 
 session of the new Parliament. On the 12th of 
 April, 1755, the Royal assent was given to the 
 Broadwell and Filkins Inclosure Act, and on the 
 13th of the same month to that of Great Rollright. 
 On the 14th of March a message came to the 
 Commons from the Lords signifying their assent to 
 the Bill for inclosing the common fields within the 
 hamlet of Burcot, in the parish of Dorchester ; and 
 on the 22nd of May the Royal assent was further 
 given for the Claydon Inclosure Act, in the parish of 
 Cropredy. 
 
 It appears also that during this year (1755) the 
 Oxford Canal Company was obliged to obtain the 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 37 
 
 sanction of the Legislature for farther powers to en- 
 able them to carry their very necessary project into 
 perfect execution. They had been empowered by 
 the previous Bill to raise £150,000, and, if that sum 
 was'insufficient for the object, to raise £50,000 more. 
 They did raise £120,300, and when they had carried 
 on the canal as far as Napton, in Warwickshire, that 
 sum of money was expended. A petition was con- 
 sequently presented to Parliament on the 15th of 
 Feb. to enable the company to borrow any sum of 
 money upon the credit of the rates, tolls, and duties 
 of the navigation to complete the work. The peti- 
 tion was forthwith referred to a committee to exa- 
 mine and report upon it, and an Act of Parliament 
 for its object received the Royal assent on the 
 30th of March. The company held a meeting at 
 Oxford in July in order to set on foot a subscription 
 for raising £30,000, so as to enable them to com- 
 plete the canal to Banbury. 
 
 We have further to notice among the legislative 
 enactments of this session one pertaining to the 
 university, which gave them the right to hold in 
 perpetuity their copyright in books for the ad- 
 vancement of useful learning and other purposes of 
 education. 
 
 The occurrences of a more domestic character be- 
 longing to the period under survey are not of much 
 interest or importance. There was a great flood in 
 the beginning of October, 1774, by which all the 
 roads were rendered impassable. Many sheep and 
 other cattle were destroyed by it in great numbers. 
 The inhabitants of St. Thomas parish were com- 
 pelled to live up two pair of stairs, and obliged to 
 have their provisions brought to them in boats. 
 The walks in Christ Church Meadow were entirely 
 
 washed away, as was likewise that of Merton College. 
 The damage done to the Christ Church walks was 
 calculated to amount to £200. No meadow land 
 was visible for three or four miles around. We can 
 call to mind a similar inundation in our own time. 
 
 This year three new windows of stained glass 
 were fixed up in the north side of New College 
 Chapel. They had been a very long time in painting 
 and only just completed. They represent twenty- 
 four figures of Patriarchs and Prophets, as large as 
 life, each standing on a pedestal, within a niche, and 
 under a canopy of Gothic decoration. 
 
 In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1774 there are 
 some remarks on the character of the buildings in 
 Oxford, and the general appearance of the town. 
 They were elicited by some other observations on 
 the subject in the " North Tour" of Mr. Young, who 
 had stated that the private houses were neat. The 
 writer, however, does not allow them to deserve 
 this commendation, contrasting them with the truly 
 noble public edifices, with the exception of those in 
 the High Street, most of them in the other streets 
 being plastered over and built in " a barbarous 
 method," with the upper stories projecting forward, 
 though not in that respect so ugly as the appear- 
 ance presented by the dwelling places in other 
 towns. He further remarks that the streets of 
 Oxford were excellently paved with the smaller sort 
 of pebbles. They are also described by him as well 
 lighted, an observation which must of course be un- 
 derstood with reference to the general condition of 
 other towns, and the capabilities for public conve- 
 nience which the oil lamps of the time afforded. 
 The foot walks leading from the town are stated to 
 handsomely gravelled for some distance. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XI. 
 
 While the events of the last two or three years 
 which we have described were taking place, a most 
 astonishing progress was being made in giving effect 
 to the Act passed in 1771 for the general improve- 
 ment of the town. No adequate conception can be 
 formed of the magnitude of the undertaking, or of 
 the capacity for business displayed by the Com- 
 missioners in all their operations. Some notice has 
 been already taken of the preliminary business of 
 demolition, resolved upon and promptly executed 
 for the more immediate object of widening, paving, 
 and repairing all the principal streets. The more 
 difficult work of construction remained, and the plan 
 to be carried out in furtherance of other important 
 alterations was on a scale so extensive as to in- 
 volve in many respects an entire transformation, 
 not only in the appearance but in the character of 
 the place. For the general purpose temporary roads 
 and avenues had to be opened, ground treated for 
 and purchased, houses to be pulled down and re- 
 built, localities to be metamorphosed in all that 
 had respect to their previous use and adaptation, 
 with many necessary arrangements for public con- 
 venience during the progress of the great work. 
 The powers conferred by an act of parlia- 
 ment do not remove every difficulty in the 
 way of rightly comprehending the nature of 
 the task which devolves on those who have to 
 carry it into execution. It is in this spirit we 
 should approach the labours of the Commissioners 
 in order to estimate justly the value to be put 
 upon them. Those who at this time are 
 deriving the full benefit of their labours are not 
 very familiar with all that was required to be done 
 in order to give them any participation in it what- 
 
 ever. Their work oomprehended compacts and 
 contracts, purchases of corporate and private pro- 
 perty, outlay of money — first to be borrowed to 
 effect the purchases, — provision for repayment of the 
 money borrowed, a nice regard for the interests of 
 owners and occupiers of property, with many other 
 details incidental to measures of a comprehensive 
 and complicated charaoter. All these things con- 
 sidered, it is impossible to suppose, that without 
 admirable qualifications for business, great judg- 
 ment, and harmonious co-operation, the design of 
 improving the city to the extent contemplated, 
 could have been effected — certainly not with the 
 promptitude and dispatch we find to have taken 
 place. The completion of the New Market is in this 
 respect a more striking object than any other ac- 
 complished with the purpose of conferring per- 
 manent benefit upon the inhabitants of Oxford. 
 Here there would appear to present themselves in- 
 numerable and insurmountable obstacles to the 
 most active spirit of enterprise, if the nature of the 
 locality set apart for the establishment of a market 
 be duly considered. A slight description of 
 its character will fully justify this opinion. The 
 whole area between Jesus College Lane and the 
 High Street was covered with dwelling-houses 
 and their ordinary appurtenances, stables, sta- 
 ble-yards, and gardens. The interior of this 
 portion of the town was approached by various 
 passages on the north and south sides, and by 
 two openings in the Turl, one of which was 
 called Maiden Head Lane. The houses, alternating 
 with the present avenues from the High-street into 
 the Market, and all together constituting its front, 
 replaced others, precisely the same in number and 
 
 M 
 
40 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 occupied by the most respectable citizens, of whom 
 Mr. Tonge, the goldsmith, was one. The residence 
 of this eminent tradesman, who became Chief Ma- 
 gistrate of the city in 1781, was on the extreme left 
 of tbis range of buildings, somewhere about the 
 spot where the present Mayor's house stands, and 
 adjoined an extensive yard belonging to the King's 
 Head. No trace is left by the alterations made of 
 three houses* which fronted Jesus College Lane, or, 
 as it is now named, Market-street. The exact 
 situation of all the buildings taken down, with the 
 names of the owners and occupiers, is preserved in 
 a ground plan of the premises, sketched by Mr. 
 Gwynn, the architect, and now in the possession of 
 Mr. Dayman, to whom we are indebted for all the 
 above particulars relating to tbe Market.f 
 
 Enough can scarcely be said in commendation of 
 that skilful management by which, in so short a 
 time, the face of this locality was so completely and 
 beneficially altered. 
 
 We would willingly, for the interest of various old- 
 established families in Oxford, and particularly as 
 the period marks the limit of all living recollection, 
 give the names and occupations of all the individu- 
 als, between twenty and thirty in number, as noted 
 in Mr. Gwynn's plan ; but the nature of this work 
 does not admit of more than a mere outline of the 
 proceedings which took place in reference to the 
 New Market, and must be confined to the more 
 general details concerning its establishment. The 
 Committee, consisting of the six members of Con- 
 vocation and six of the common Council, severally 
 deputed to act by the two bodies of the university 
 and city, held its first meeting on the 12th of June, 
 1771, and on the 20th of the same month appointed 
 for their treasurer, Mr. William Wickham, and Mr., 
 afterwards Sir William Elias, Taunton, for their clerk. 
 The design and estimate of Mr. Gwynn for the in- 
 ternal arrangements as well as the elevation fronting 
 the High Street having been approved, that gentle- 
 man was chosen for the architect, his plan being 
 facilitated by the subsequent assent of the Duke of 
 Marlborough to the request of the committee that 
 he would, on his part, build the houses forming the 
 
 * They were severally occupied by Mrs. Deane, Mr. 
 Franklin, and Mrs. Hills— the house of the first men- 
 tioned lying nearest towards the Turl, and close upon 
 the back of Lincoln College stables — that of Mrs. Deane 
 nearest towards the Corn Market— Mr. Franklin's house 
 coming in between them. 
 
 f On the site of the present market were the " Apo- 
 thecaria" and " Spiceria," or market for drugs and spices ; 
 so that the ground seemed destined for appropriation to 
 the sale of commodities. Several academical halls also 
 stood more anciently on it. 
 
 elevation in conformity with the architect's sugges- 
 tion. Messrs. Tawney and Roberts delivered a pro- 
 posal for building forty butchers' shops, but it 
 appears that it was only so far accepted as to ter- 
 minate in an agreement for their erection of twenty 
 out of that number for the stipulated sum of 
 £900 16s. Od. ; the remainder were built by Mr. 
 Green, of Waterstock. The market had so far 
 progressed at the beginning of October, 1773, as to 
 enable the Committee to put up the shops to auc- 
 tion, and Mr. Wm. Forte being the best bidder for 
 No. 1 at a rental of £9 15s. Od. per annum, that lot 
 was assigned to him. As a matter of special interest 
 to those of our friends who so ably carry out the 
 purposes of the market by their regular and excel- 
 lent supplies, we will further mention the names 
 of the other best bidders on this occasion. The 
 lots No. 2, 11, 30, 39, 40, went respectively to Mr. 
 Thomas Giles, Mr. David Alibone, Mr. Stephen 
 Collier, Mr. James Stevens, and Mr. William Clarke, 
 at ten pounds per annum each lot ; and each of the 
 successful bidders confirmed his bargain by a deposit 
 of five guineas. On the 22nd of November, 1774, 
 it was ordered to be made known by advertisements 
 that the New Market would be entirely completed 
 and ready for the reception of all persons resorting to 
 it by St. Thomas's Day ensuing, and that every one 
 would be prohibited after that day from exposing 
 to sale in any other place. This, therefore, fixes 
 the exact time of its being opened to the public ; 
 and there can be but one opinion as to its general 
 convenience, and the great benefit it has been to the 
 town. It is our business to narrate rather than 
 criticise ; but in respect to objections that have 
 been broached as to its situation, it is sufficient to 
 remark that there can be no contrivance for bring- 
 ing a general market within half a street's length of 
 every individual's house, and for his own particular 
 accommodation. 
 
 Henceforth the different markets which were pre- 
 viously held in various parts of the town merged in 
 this general one. The names of the Corn Market, 
 Butcher Row, and Butter Bench readily suggest the 
 former places of resort for the sale and purchase of 
 particular articles of consumption. A sort of shed, 
 supported by stone pillars and covered with a leaden 
 roof, for the purpose of protecting the corn in un- 
 seasonable weather, originally ran down the middle 
 of the first-mentioned street ; it was of great anti- 
 quity, but, being found to be a great obstruction to 
 the thoroughfare, was removed in the early part of 
 the last century. The shambles in the middle of 
 the Butcher Row gave way for the improvements to 
 be made under the Commissioners' Act, when some 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 41 
 
 houses and buildings on the north and south sides 
 of Carfax were also removed for the purpose of 
 widening the street. At the same time the Butter 
 Bench ceased to be used for the sale of the article 
 which its name indicates. On its site stood a 
 tavern, more anciently called Swyndlestoc, after- 
 wards, the Mermaid, and at the time of which we 
 write the fleur-de-lis Inn. It is memorable for the 
 occasion of the great conflict on St. Scholastica Day, 
 in 1354, between the citizens and the scholars, of 
 which the account given by Anthony Wood is, that 
 John de Croydon, the vintner or landlord of the Inn, 
 having served the scholars with bad wine and 
 treated them with saucy language on their request 
 to be served with better, they broke his head with 
 the flagon. 
 
 The history of the markets, in Oxford as quoted by 
 Peshall from A. Wood, contains some very remark- 
 able particulars, both in respect of their antiquity 
 and peculiarities. His description is too long even 
 for a convenient abridgment, but an extract relating 
 to the stations assigned to the sellers of different 
 commodities will perhaps be deemed acceptable as 
 not altogether inappoppriate to our subject, and as 
 also throwing some lightonthe origin of the jurisdic- 
 tion of the University in this matter, and with it 
 we will conclude this paper. " The citizens of Ox- 
 ford withdrawing, for what reason I know not, the 
 yearly payment of the fee farm rent from King 
 Edward I., that prince seized the clerkship of the 
 market to the use of the Exchequer, and let out the 
 same sometimes to the constable of Oxford Castle, 
 and sometimes to others who should pay best for it. 
 Hence King Edward II., by virtue of the aforesaid 
 seizure and royal claim (from whence this clerkship 
 
 never returned again to the citizens), by his writ on 
 the 28th May, twelfth of his reign, dated at York, 
 commanded the Mayor and Bailiffs of Oxford that 
 the tradesmen of the town should be divided by 
 limits and bounds, different from strangers, on the 
 standing ol their goods, and by these letters patent 
 it was ordered that if the Mayor, Bailiffs, &c, did not 
 conform hereto the university might do it, exclu- 
 sive of their authority, who therefore ordained, Anno 
 1319, — the market as it had been of old, viz., — That 
 all sellers of wood and straw shall stand with their 
 teams in the middle of High Street, between East 
 Gate and All Hallows Church. That all sellers of 
 faggots and other like fuel in carts and waggons 
 shall stand between Oriel College Lane and the 
 South of High Street. That the timber merchants 
 shall stand between St. Thomas's Hall* and St. 
 Edward's Lane.t The sellers of hops and swine 
 between St. Mary's and All Hallows Church. Beer 
 and ale drapers between St. Edward's Lane and the 
 Chequers' Inn. The sellers of roots and coals by St. 
 Edward's Lane, on the north of High Street. The 
 sellers of gloves and whitawyers between All Hallows 
 Churoh and the house near the Mitre Inn. The 
 bakers between Carfax ConduitJ and North Gate. 
 The furriers and linen and woollen drapers by the 
 two-faced pump.§ The tanners between Carfax and 
 Somner's Inn.|| Sellers of butter, cheese, milk, and 
 eggs, from the corner of Carfax towards the Old 
 Bayley.H The corn sellers between the Cross Inn 
 and North Gate. 
 
 * Near Swan Court. + Alfred Street. £ There is 
 some inadvertency here, as the Conduit was not erected 
 till 1610. § In the High Street. || A little to the 
 
 South of the Cross Inn. U Butcher-row. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XII. 
 
 It is not foreign to the scope of these details to 
 cast a look back upon the state of things — however 
 remote — from which Oxford has advanced through 
 different stages of its progress to its present con- 
 dition. Information of the past can alone give suf- 
 ficient distinctness to the value of the present under 
 all the phases of its character, social or commercial, 
 religious or political ; and in adopting this course of 
 an occasional retrospect in the treatment of a va- 
 riety of subjects which will be brought under the 
 notice of our readers, there is the additional mo- 
 tive of introducing incidentally many features of 
 interest belonging to both the university and city. 
 At the same time it will be our rule to confine our- 
 selves strictly to the events and facts of the last 
 century, for the basis of any contrast with the pre- 
 viously-existing state of circumstances. 
 
 With this claim, therefore, to an allowable digres- 
 sion to more ancient times, we purpose, in relation 
 to the subject of our last Paper, to give some ac- 
 count of the markets formerly held in Oxford. The 
 existence of institutions of this kind mark, as much 
 as the generality of other characteristics, the rank 
 at which a town has arrived, bringing with them in- 
 fallible proofs of a certain progress of society, which 
 in a rude state furnishes no inducements for the 
 attendance of merchants and traders on its wants. 
 It cannot be that when shops in a town are few, and 
 its required commodities are comparatively limited, 
 that it would be much frequented by dealers for 
 the general purposes of traffic. Taking it then for 
 granted that the establishment of a fair or mar- 
 ket for public advantage implies social progress, 
 Oxford was in this respect no mean city before the 
 Conquest. It was a place of resort for merchan- 
 
 dise in the time of Edward the Confessor, and even 
 at an earlier period of history, the fact deriving 
 confirmation from the laws of that king respecting 
 its tolls, — a kind of impost which could not have 
 existed, exclusive of all considerations of commerce, 
 — as well as from the equally satisfactory argu- 
 ment of its appointed mintage for facilitating the 
 exchange of monies in the time of King Ethelstan. 
 At no great distance of time other towns in the 
 county grew into importance, and the establish- 
 ment of markets in them affected the commercial 
 prosperity of Oxford for awhile. King Stephen 
 granted one to the monks of Eynsham, to be kept 
 there on every Lord's Day. Another was appointed 
 at Charlbury ; and Henry the Second conferred the 
 like privilege on the people of Woodstock, to be ob- 
 served every Tuesday throughout the year, the 
 King's bailiff receiving the toll. But the citizens of 
 Oxford appear to have thought their interests more 
 at stake by a patent of the last-mentioned Sove- 
 reign to the monks and people of Abingdon for the 
 establishment of a market in that town ; and per- 
 ceiving the injury likely to accrue to them if it 
 should continue, appealed, though without the de- 
 sired success, for protection of their privileges. 
 Nevertheless*, the great increase of scholars and the 
 otherwise increasing population of the town gave 
 an impulse to its trade which overcame all the ima- 
 gined disadvantages of commercial rivalry ; and 
 so fully, in time, was the market of Oxford attended 
 that, to obviate contentions and the confusion aris- 
 ing from so vast a concourse of traders, and, further, 
 to prevent " those that were not free of any guild 
 thrusting out those that were," an order was made 
 that the tradesmen of the town should be divided 
 
44 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 from strangers by limits and bounds, and tbat, in 
 respect of the standing of their respective goods, 
 each trader or seller, or any one that came with wares 
 to be exposed to sale on the market days — Wednes- 
 days and Saturdays — should each " know his own 
 station." 
 
 In our last Paper we referred to this part of the 
 history of Oxford markets, and pointed out the 
 standings assigned for the sale of the different spe- 
 cies of commodities. There is nothing very remark- 
 able in such an arrangement ; it is the natural sug- 
 gestion of an ordinary capacity for establishing 
 order ; and we introduced the circumstance for the 
 local interest attaching to the places so appropriated, 
 and for a knowledge of the commodities in use with 
 the other requirements of the town at the time. 
 
 The privileges of Oxford with respect to its market 
 continued in this state till the great conflict between 
 the citizens and scholars on the day of St. Scholas- 
 tica, in the year 1354, when the Mayor and Bur- 
 gesses were compelled formally to surrender all 
 their rights and immunities into the King's hands. 
 There was, however, a restitution of those rights the 
 following year, with a reservation in favour of the 
 university, — among other things not relating to our 
 present subject — of the assize of bread, wine, and 
 ale, with the correction and punishment of those 
 who should violate it ; the supervision and assay of 
 weights and measures ; cognizance of all forestallers, 
 regrators, and vendors of unwholesome provisions. 
 Dr. Wallis, in his " Abstract of Divers Privileges and 
 Rights of the University of Oxford," has with some 
 tinge of academical bias, put an enlarged construc- 
 tion on the power thus conferred upon the univer- 
 sity over dealers in the articles of trade just men- 
 tioned, and of its authority in other particulars. 
 We will quote from this rather uncommon work 
 what relates to the point : — " The custody of the 
 assize or assay (as to quantity and quality of bread, 
 wine, and beer or ale (which had before for some 
 little time been granted to the Chancellor or Mayor 
 in common), was (upon a great outrage of the 
 townsmen on the scholars, 29th Edward III.), taken 
 from the Mayor and granted solely and wholly to 
 the Chancellor, which, I presume, doth extend, as 
 was so reputed, to the licensing, suppressing, 
 governing, and punishing the defaults of bakers, 
 brewers, vintners, alehouse keepers, and other 
 victuallers (though now the townsmen, as to 
 licensing alehouses do incroach upon us, and bakers 
 and brewers neglect to take licenses). Pursuant to 
 which, upon broaching each vessel of wine, the 
 Chancellor was to have a taste or assay brought 
 him ; instead of which they now present him with 
 
 a piece of plate every year ; and the like from the 
 brewers for each brewing, instead of which they used 
 to make a present once a year to the Clerks of the 
 market. And the like for the assize and assay of 
 weights and measures, of which the Chancellor (or 
 Clerks of the Market) or his officers are to take an 
 account, allowing and marking such as are just, and 
 destroying what are faulty, appointing others in 
 their stead. And the clerkship of the market, with 
 the perquisites, profits, and forfeitures of all these ; 
 and of regrators, forestallers, incompetent flesh, fish, 
 and other fare brought to market."* 
 
 When the order for the particular standings of 
 traders with their wares in the High-street ceased 
 to be observed, "p, full market for beasts and hogs" 
 was held on a void plot of ground, covering two 
 acres, and situate partly in St. Ebbe, partly in St. 
 Peter-le-Bailey, not far from the west gate of the 
 city, and somewhere about the old entrance to the 
 Castle. This was called the New Market, though it 
 had probably been used by dealers in cattle at a 
 much earlier period ; but, " failing in resort," in the 
 reign of Henry VII. the ground was first let out in 
 garden plots, and afterwards demised to private 
 persons, to be built upon. 
 
 A market, to be held on Wednesday in Broken 
 Heyes and Gloucester Green was subsequently 
 granted to the people of Oxford by Queen Elizabeth, 
 though it is said to have been only once or twice 
 observed. A pleasure fair — fairs and markets are 
 institutions closely allied — now held on the 3rd 
 of May, and a weekly dealing in pigs on the 
 latter spot, would seem to give this market a title, 
 though a slender one, to something more than mere 
 historic existence. It requires, however, a stronger 
 effort to realize an adequate conception of Oxford 
 as a staple town at that distant period even 
 from the account handed down to us of a wool 
 market formerly held on Holywell Green. Here, 
 says A. Wood, the authority to whom we have oc- 
 casion so frequently to refer, according to an old 
 book, which belonged to the weavers of Oxford, 
 twenty-three looms were working at once, and 
 barges passed hereby and came up to it on the river 
 Cherwell ; and he adds, on the information of a note 
 that he had seen, that " seventy fullers and weavers 
 were there some time inhabiting." A part of the 
 ground on which these woolstaplers and manu- 
 facturers dwelt and carried on their occupation is 
 now included in Magdalen College Grove ; it was for- 
 merly called Parry's Mead, and a road led through it 
 to the Mill from the east end of Holywell to the Mill. 
 There also existed close by a street of houses, called 
 * See Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii., p. 35. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 45 
 
 Beauvall-street, and a large stone cross stood upon 
 the Green. There was another emporium for the 
 same kind of traffic, called .Forum Parvys — by which 
 is meant Little Market — in North Gate Hundred, 
 and a roll of 31st Edward 1st recites the attachment 
 of one J. Pylle for receiving a piece of woollen cloth, 
 which had been stolen in the market of Oxford, 
 called Parvy. 
 
 The weavers were doubtless a very important 
 class of tradesmen in Oxford formerly. At the 
 time of the Conquest, or soon after, they formed a 
 guild, and mention is made of them in their corpo- 
 rate character in a roll in the Pipe-office, dated 1155. 
 Fish Street, now St. Toles, and Milk Street, which 
 has exchanged its old name for that of Littlegate, or 
 St. Ebbe, bespeak the callings from which they ob- 
 tained their old appellations. 
 
 The tradespeople more strictly speaking, according 
 to the regulations for the government of the town 
 or from that congenial feeling which dictates asso- 
 ciation with the same class, had separate localities 
 for carrying on their particular line of business ; 
 and curious anecdotes are told of some of their 
 peculiar customs, — some such as are sure to arise and 
 take root among those consigned by their occupation 
 to one spot. The shops and dwellings of the tailors, 
 for the sake of example, were confined to St. Mi- 
 chael's parish, in the North-East Ward ; and there 
 prevailed among them in ancient time what they 
 called revelling. On the vigil of St. John the Bap- 
 tist, they were wont to " carouse themselves with 
 all joviality in meats and drinks," and would after- 
 wards take a circuit through all the streets of the 
 city accompanied with a band of performers on 
 divers musical instruments and sing songs in praise 
 of their profession and patron saint. This practice 
 being carried on to great license — for they greatly 
 disturbed the quiet of the inhabitants— it was with 
 another revelling circuit of some other profession, 
 which took place on the vigil of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 prohibited by the King, Edward III., in his letters 
 sent to the Chancellor for the- purpose. Instances 
 are not wanting to justify the opinion of Dr. Wal- 
 lis, as expressed in our extract from his work, as to 
 the right once possessed by the university in regu- 
 lating the business of the trading community ; they 
 certainly exercised it, and that to a very great ex- 
 tent : we find among other cases that might be ad- 
 duced, that the Vice-Chancellor in 1581, being 
 minded to settle good order among the brewers, 
 appointed certain days for brewing, and that Thos. 
 Smith, a beer brewer of St. Aldate's parish, " deny- 
 ing obedience to his orders, was committed to the 
 Castle and obliged to beg pardon of the Convoca- 
 tion." 
 
 We should, while speaking of the localities as- 
 signed to the different trades of the town, have 
 noticed the Apothecaria and Spiceria, which were 
 on the site of our present market. It might 
 seem strange that a repository for spices should 
 have been in such demand as to form so distinctive 
 a class of dealers in them ; but spiced wines were a 
 very fashionable drink ; and in the accounts of some 
 of the colleges of ancient foundation we frequently 
 find sums of money charged for spices (pro speci- 
 ebus) used in their festivities. And here it may not 
 be out of place to note that manciples of colleges 
 were once very considerable personages ; in so much 
 that to check their ambition it was by an express 
 statute ordered that no manciple should be Principal 
 of a Hall. 
 
 An account of the character of the Oxford Mar- 
 kets immediately preceding the absorption of them 
 in the general one opened in 1774, appeared in our 
 last number, and to it we. have only to append a 
 particular of Mr. Gwynn, the architect under whose 
 judgment and directions the plans of the Commis- 
 sioners with respect to the improvements of the 
 town were so successfully carried into effect. 
 Though not a literary, nor indeed an educated man, 
 Mr. G. possessed great natural talent, and evinced 
 remarkable taste in all that related to his profes- 
 sion. The following anecdote concerning him will 
 show a tact he had for repartee. He was a fellow 
 traveller by coach with Dr. Johnson, when the latter 
 made his visit to Oxford in the year 1776, — the en- 
 gagements of Mr. Gwynn with the city doubtless 
 bringing him there at that time. Boswell 
 was, of course, also of the company, and describes 
 him as "a fine, lively, rattling fellow, whom the 
 Doctor kept in subjection with a kindly authority." 
 It would appear, however, that he had on 
 this occasion a decided advantage in argument 
 over the great master in conversational power, 
 and, for a wonder, got an acknowledgment 
 of his superiority from the usually authoritative 
 disputant. The discussion had turned upon orna- 
 mental architecture, and, as Boswell writes, " the 
 spirit of the artist rose against what he thought a 
 gothic attack, and he made a brisk defence. " What, 
 Sir, (remarked Gwynn) you will allow no beauty in 
 architecture or in statuary ? Why, then, should we 
 allow it in writing 1 Why do you take the trouble 
 to give us so many fine allusions in bright images 
 and elegant phrases 1 You. might convey all your 
 instruction without these ornaments V Johnson 
 smiled with complacency ; but said, " Why, Sir, all 
 these ornaments are useful, because they obtain an 
 easier reception for truth ; but a building is not at 
 all more convenient for being decorated with super- 
 
46 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 fluous carved work." Gwynn was at last lucky 
 enough to make one reply to Dr. Johnson which he 
 allowed to be excellent. Johnson censured him for 
 taking down a church, which might have stood many 
 years, and building a new one at a different place, 
 for no other reason but that there might be a direct 
 road to a new bridge, and his expression was, " You 
 are taking a church out of the way that the people 
 may go in a straight line to the bridge." " No, Sir," 
 said Gwynn, " I am putting a church in the way 
 
 that the people may not go out of the way" John- 
 son, with a hearty loud laugh of approbation, said 
 "Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame on 
 this." See Boswell's Life of Johnson, Croker's 
 edition, vol. vi., pp., 69, 70. 
 
 "We have to express our thanks to Mr. Dayman 
 for calling our attention to this anecdote respecting 
 Mr. Gwynn. N.B. Mr. G. spelled his name Gwynn, 
 not as Bos well does. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. I. — New Series. 
 
 Wb 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 we 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 
 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, uninterrupted 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 
 wider retrospect shows us that this age of severance 
 has its counterpart too — and that the alternation is 
 not an exception but a law. 
 
 And thus it is that we instinctively feel the great, 
 the immeasureable 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 19th, to wake an English- 
 man of the 16th century, to don his ruff, his short 
 cloak, buff jerkin, and trunk 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. 
 Sally forth in well-combed peruke, gold laced coat, 
 and silver shoe-buckles into Pall Mall or 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 perfumes, 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 
 
48 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 the detail of events during thelatteryearsofthelast 
 century, to rebuild from the few facts which we have 
 been enabled to collect, this Oxford of the first 
 George's ; to see what men lived then, and what 
 manner of life theirs was ; £o 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 
 Oxford during the greater part of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 " I cannot but fancy," writes one of Swift's cor- 
 respondents, "that if one of our heads were dis- 
 sected, after passing a winter campaign in town, it 
 would 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, 
 sermons, loose songs, addresses, epigrams, procla- 
 mations, poems, divinity lectures, quack bills, histori- 
 calaccouuts, 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 
 without, 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 buildings were every 
 day rising around, but to those who looked in 
 all this costly display for learning and piety, the 
 University resembled the Jew in Addison's 
 simile — " a toad squatting among the ruins of a 
 mighty temple." N 
 
 For this " aggregation of atoms" however, one cen- 
 tre 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 Novelty," Anthony a Wood says, " it was 
 drunk." But its progress had been rapid ; a 
 brother antiquary, Aubrey, testifies to " the modern 
 advantage of coffee-houses in this city, before which 
 men knew not how to be acquainted, but with their 
 
 own relations and societies." Tom Warton in his 
 panegyric on Oxford ale could soon sing of 
 " The coffee-house 
 Of James or Juggins, where the grateful breath 
 Of loathed tobacco ne'er diffused its balm : 
 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 these commodities, occasioned 
 by their present scarcity, they shall be obliged to 
 advance the price of Chocolate from four-pence to 
 five-pence per dish, and Coffee from four-pence to 
 five-pence per pot. Signed, James Horseman, Chas- 
 King, Elizabeth Coombes, — Hobson, Thomas Had- 
 ley, John King, Thomas Browne, Thomas Roberson, 
 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 brandy : 
 
 Pride of fair Oxford's gaudy streets 
 
 Ye, too, our strain submissive greets ! 
 
 Hear, Horseman, Spindlow, King, and Harper — 
 
 The weather, sure, was never sharper ! 
 
 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 sempstress that blushes at 
 his coarse buffoonery, a scurvy jest for the thread- 
 bare servitor, who scared from entrance by the ter- 
 rible 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 saunters in with 
 red stockings and elaborate peruke conning over a 
 sonnet for the reigning toast, whose health has been 
 sung from Headington to Hincksey. 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 49 
 
 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, who, 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 tost off his morn- 
 ing 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 Monarque or the Great Mogul. 
 There are others waiting for the Monitor— one in 
 particular, to whom we owe so much for the dry 
 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, hair 
 scornful of wig flowing to his shoulders, and ink- 
 stained hand spreading over his unbottoned slovenly 
 waistcoat, chatting with Browne Willis over 
 Grieves' great work on the "Koman Denarius," 
 or the comparative antiquity of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 There M a stir however in the coffee-room now. 
 Topers, doctors, and antiquaries are making their 
 way collegewards, 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 
 Quincy, 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. " Kise at five, dine at nine," says the old 
 French proverb, and 6*ne 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" consequence 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 1723, when Queen Caroline 
 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 
 11 to 12, from people's lying in bed longer than they 
 used to do. " 'Tis an old custom," he writes in 
 1723, " for the scholars of all houses on Shrove 
 Tuesday to dine at 10 o'clock, at which time 
 the little bell, called pancake-bell, rings at St. 
 Maries, and to sup at 4 p.m., which was always fol- 
 lowed in St. Edmund's Hall as long as I have been 
 in Oxford till yesterday, when they went to dinner 
 at twelve and 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 ! 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. II. — New Series. 
 
 " Oxford," sings Spenser, 
 
 " That fair city wherein make abode 
 So many learned imps that shoot abroad 
 And with 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 follow 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 we should find him ready 
 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 spirit 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 among 
 equals, but by menial offices to earn that instruction I 
 
 which the University could afford. 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 ; when Erasmus for a 
 time taught at Cambridge, " his servitor's rooms,' 
 Aubrey notes, " were close above his" at Queen's. 
 He was wholly at his master's command, and some- 
 times at his mistress's. Willis, who afterwards ac- 
 quired such fame and wealth through his discovery 
 of the chalybeate properties of Astrop Wells, " was 
 first servitor," says Aubrey in his memoirs of him, 
 " to Dr. lies, one of the Canons of Christ Church, 
 whose wife was a knowing person in physic and 
 surgery, and did many cures. Tom Willis then wore 
 a blue livery cloak and studied at the lower end of 
 the hall, by the hall door ; was pretty handy, and 
 his mistresse would often 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 
 upon freshmen and simple people, would tell them 
 that sometimes he should meet the spirits coming 
 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 nota- 
 ble Sir John Birkenhead entered as a servitor at 
 Oriel, his brother was a common trooper. Bishop 
 Kobinson was sent up through the kindness of his 
 
52 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 patron from the plough. Whitfield was the son 
 of a tavern-keeper at Glocester, and to quote his 
 own words, " I put on my blue apron and 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 mo- 
 ther hears that there is a possibility of admission at 
 Pembroke and enters him there as a servitor. Of 
 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 nonconform- 
 ist minister, and when at the age of sixteen he 
 walked to Oxford and entered himself as a servitor 
 at Exeter his whole worldly wealth amounted to no 
 more than £2 16s. 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 
 gotprefarmentin college allready, for our sexton being 
 gonn into Heryfordshear has left me his depoty 
 which is a very good place," concludes with believing 
 he shall do very well, " if you will 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, Birkenhead, 
 whom we have before mentioned, was recommended 
 to him as one " that wrote an excellent hand ; who 
 performed this 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 Mercurius Aulicus. " 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 com- 
 pl ains that " some in the university have been very 
 
 * " So the word is printed in his own account. It may be 
 a misprint, for ' Scoggers,' as sleeves worn by cleanly men 
 in dirty employments are called in some parts of England." 
 — Southey. 
 
 troublesome in pressing that their servitors may 
 transcribe manuscripts for them though not capable 
 of being sworn to the Library." Many similar em- 
 ployments 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 be- 
 fore alluded to, Bishop Robinson. Transferred from 
 the plough to trade, his master, " finding him more 
 inclined to books than to business, got him to 
 Brasenose, where he was servant to Sir James 
 Astrey, who was extremely 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 chaplaincy, and the scholarships which 
 he founded at Oriel attest his gratitude to the uni- 
 versity. 
 
 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 uni- 
 versity 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 noto- 
 riety than any of the other menial services which it 
 fell to the servitor's lot to perform, we have re- 
 served them for less prominent mention because in 
 reality they were not peculiar to this order of stu- 
 dents. 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 Dr. Newton, " 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 
 mere 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, 
 said by competent judges to excel Scaliger," vibrates 
 all his days between Oxford Bocardo and the King's 
 Bench, spending his last penny on books and " being'' 
 says Hearne, " in a manner starved to death." Mr. 
 Trap found our Poetry professorship not unwelcome, 
 "being but in mean circumstances." Oakley, the 
 first eastern scholar of his age, studied Arabic and 
 wrote his history in Oxford gaol. Dr. Hyde, who 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 53 
 
 gave the first great impulse to Oriental studies, 
 burnt his unsaleable books to boil his kettle with. 
 Deep-read Mr. Hailes (Hearne recurs to that grim 
 phrase) " All will allow to have been in a manner 
 starved to death." 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 barricade 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 galligaskin— for there 
 is not a candle in his closet. None cares for his 
 society — if he walks, his walk is a solitary one — if 
 he sits in his garret he has no companion but " the 
 tube as black as wintry chimney or a well-polished 
 jet ;" he may scribble a verse now and then, but his 
 musings will be interrupted — 
 
 Whether the plaintive voice 
 Of laundress shrill awake his startled ear, 
 Or barber spruce with sapple 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 sup. 
 perless 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 whichit 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 carried away this 
 fair creature." But it is noted of this same eccen- 
 tric doctor to his honour (and it bears on the ques- 
 tion which we are treating) that " where he observed 
 dilligent boys that he guessed had but a slender ex- 
 hibition from their friends, he would many times 
 putt money in at their windows, 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 me — 
 I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings 
 At least seven years," 
 
 says Ford in his Vittoria Corombona, and though 
 Padua is the scene alluded to, it can hardly be 
 doubted that his description is drawn from the 
 Universities where 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 which Boswell was enabled to col- 
 lect respecting Johnson's life at Oxford. Some of 
 his contemporaries could recollect the awkwardi 
 blear-eyed, convulsive figure, lounging at the college 
 gates, the centre of a circle of gay students, enter- 
 taining 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 awe 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 
 confessed, " though I was too proud to own it." He 
 ruled his college chums as he ruled his associates 
 in after life. " Sir," said Edmonds, an old college 
 associate, when he casually met him years after, " I 
 remember you would not let us say ' prodigious' at 
 college." But all the memories of him were not 
 harsh and stern like these. " I'll convince you," he 
 said to this very friend, " that I recollect you. Do 
 you remember our drinking together at 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 Deum,' and I quoted another fine 
 line from Camden on the death of a king who was 
 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. We 
 can see how grinding it must have been when we 
 find him relinquishing his visits to his friend Taylor, 
 because his shoes were worn out, and it was noticed 
 by the Christ Church men — when a friend in pity 
 places a pair of new shoes at his door, and his 
 pride makes him fling them away with indignation 
 — when the very mention of Dr. Adams's remark 
 " he was caressed and loved by all about him — was 
 a gay frolicsome fellow — and passed there the hap- 
 piest part of his life" forces out from him, when 
 years had passed over these memories, the touching 
 reply " Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent — it was bitter- 
 ness they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor 
 and thought to fight my way by my literature and 
 my wit, so I disregarded all power and all authority." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. III. — New Series. 
 
 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 Ox- 
 ford Freshman. There is no greater difference be- 
 tween the young novice of 1760 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 or- 
 deal 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 Freshmen 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 bob wig, and brazen- 
 hilted sword," swaggering at coffee houses, and 
 giving himself a scholar's airs at the bookshops. We 
 see the country greenhorn, ' f mounted on an easy 
 pad," trotting with father and mother along the Ox- 
 ford road ; or meet in the High the rough country 
 farmer with his equally unkempt hopeful, staring 
 moodily about in " their lindsey woolsey coats, 
 their greasy sunburnt heads of hair, clouted shoes, 
 yarn stockings, flapping hats with silver hatbands, 
 and long muslin neckties, 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 bob- 
 wigs and Oxford-made shoes ; drugget supersedes 
 lindsey 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 gesticu- 
 lations." 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 he rose. Warton, 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 subse- 
 quent statements it seems to have been thought 
 even at that time a piece of gross indolence to re- 
 main in bed after seven in the morning, 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 saun- 
 
56 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 ters for a turn or two upon the Park or under Mor- 
 ton wall " while the dull regulars," the " slow" fel- 
 lows, "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 afternoon. 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 the adventures of Ro- 
 derick Random will remember the bold stroke of 
 that hero when driven to his last resources he ex- 
 pends 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 attached to 
 dress occurs in one of the bits of news which the 
 Oxford Journal for 1755 communicates to its 
 readers. A young gentlewoman, it appears, had 
 thrown herself into the Serpentine " which being 
 seen by the gentlemen and ladies going to Ken- 
 sington, one of the gentlemen, notwithstanding his 
 being very finely drest, had the humanity to 
 run to her relief and jumped in just time enough 
 to save her." With no little care has our lounger 
 studied the rustle of the stiff silk gown, the grace- 
 ful dependence of the long flaxen 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. With 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 Whitfield's "un- 
 powdered hair, woollen gloves, dirty shoes and 
 patched gown," 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 parading before the win- 
 dows 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 well he can 
 chaunt." Chapel ended, he has an assignation to 
 tea with some fair one, whom he amuses with all- 
 importaut discussions, whether any wears " finer lace 
 than his friend Jack Flutter, has handsomer tie-wigs, 
 or cuts a bolder bosh than Tom Paraquet, is a 
 handier 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 mere young gentleman of the University." " He 
 is one that comes here to wear a gown, and to say 
 hereafter he has been at the University. Eis father 
 sent him thither because he heard there were the 
 best dancing and fencing schools ; from these he 
 had his education — from the 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. On foul days for recreation he 
 retires thither and looks over the pretty book his 
 tutor reads to him, for which 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 foran ingle to gold hatbands." 
 
 Most of these exquisites were gentleman-com- 
 moners, a class which 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 posi- 
 tion 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 was taunted with being " mo- 
 rose," and " a heavy bookish fellow ;" if his wine 
 was good, the Fellows would forgive every delin- 
 quency, and excuse even absence from morning 
 chapel. " My own introduction," says Gibbon, "to 
 the University of Oxford forms a new era in my 
 life, and at the distance of forty years I still remem- 
 ber my first emotions of surprise and satisfaction. 
 I 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 academical rank enter- 
 tained 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 57 
 
 money than a schoolboy had ever seen, was at my 
 own disposal ; and I might command among the 
 tradesmen of Oxford an indefinite and dangerous 
 latitude of credit." " The want of experience, of 
 advice, and of occupation soon betrayed me into 
 some improprieties of conduct, ill-chosen com- 
 pany, late hours, and inconsiderate expense. My 
 growing debts might be secret, but my frequent 
 absence was visible and scaudalous, and a tour to 
 Bath, a visit into Buckinghamshire, and four excur- 
 sions to London in the same winter were costly and 
 dangerous frolics. The irksomeness of a cloistered 
 life repeatedly urged 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 ; I eloped 
 again in a few days, 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 
 were multiplied, my behaviour abroad was un- 
 known ; 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 are the reminiscences 
 of the first Lord Malmesbury, then Mr. Harris, less 
 severe on the University system : — " In fact, the 
 two years of my life I look back to as most unprofit- 
 ably spent were those I past at Merton, 1762. The 
 discipline of the University happened at this time 
 to be so low 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, according to the practice of all tutors of the 
 time, gave himself no concern about his pupils. I 
 never saw him but during a fortnight when I took it 
 into my head to study trigonometry. The set of men 
 with 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 regu- 
 
 lar round of evening card parties, to the great de- 
 rangement of our finances. It has often been a 
 matter of surprise to me that 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 cha- 
 racter from the frock suit of green and silver lace 
 bagwig, sword, bouquet, and point ruffles in which 
 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 ad- 
 venture 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 persecu- 
 tion. On one occasion when summoned to receive 
 a reprimand from the insulted dignitary, he pre- 
 sented 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 punishment, and it was not 
 till the audacious rake, on his return from a trip to 
 Bath, dashed through Oxford in a coach and six 
 greys, accompanied by "not very worshipful lady 
 society," tricked out in ridiculous finery, and at- 
 tended, by a couple of footmen, that the authorities 
 took him gravely to task, and though he quitted 
 college in consequence, it is expressly mentioned 
 that his departure was voluntary, and " without any 
 public censure." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. IV. — New Series. 
 
 We have in a previous paper sketched the rapid 
 metamorphosis of a bumpkin into a fop, but it must 
 not be supposed that the 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 inef- 
 fective, 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 
 habitually, and wore my clothes till they were 
 threadbare, partly under the belief that my gown 
 would conceal defects, more from 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, dis- 
 regarded, and " one day I discovered that I had no 
 waistcoat that was not torn, or otherwise dilapi- 
 dated, whereupon, buttoning up my coat to the 
 throat, and drawing my gown close about me, I 
 went into the hall. A grave man, with a superlatively 
 grave countenance, whom I did not personally 
 know, begged to enquire from a friend sitting oppo- 
 site ' whether he had seen the last Gazette, because 
 he understood it contained an order in Council 
 interdicting 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 1 Why, she had been heard to 
 say a thousand times in 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 expec- 
 tations, 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 epigram, and dwindles into the hanger-on of 
 a toast. 
 
 Whatever reason be assigned, it is certain that 
 the toast of a hundred years since occupied a 
 far more conspicuous place in Oxford society than 
 her nameless successors in the present day. Tatlers 
 and Spectators did not deem her beneath their 
 notice ; she was the theme of a hundred songs, jests, 
 satires. Her father — so runs the sarcastic descrip- 
 tion of her which Amherst has given — a good honest 
 tradesman, dreams of raising his family by her 
 marriage with a parson or a lawyer ; the little Miss, 
 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 " her hoop, her gay suit of clothes, and 
 two or three thick 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 
 
 R 
 
60 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 
 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." 
 
 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 fea- 
 tures of the scene — the brilliant medley of smirking 
 beaux and smiling belles, the laughter and jest and 
 repartee, the soft compliment and whispered as- 
 signation, the couples retreating to talk sentiment 
 in the more retired corners, the elders talking 
 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 
 oedar that o'erlooks the crowd," or meet the sis- 
 terly 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" — 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 whose 
 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 "Rhedycina'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 
 poet summons this brilliant troop of her subjects to 
 a closer review. From this point all is indiscriminate 
 flattery. We 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 61 
 
 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 pass- 
 ing " Miss Harris," as it seems, a visitor " from Win- 
 ton's towers the lovely robber came." But, little dis- 
 turbed by the incident, our author is already re- 
 minding 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 
 exstacy 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 we have 
 nearly forgotten the epic and its machinery, but 
 they are suddenly recalled at the close ; the Goddess 
 sees Mira, and constitutes her vice-gerent of the 
 realms of Beauty, and leaves her Cupids as a 
 body-guard. Cumbrous as it is, the 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 Miss 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 re- 
 trenched it to Betty." Absence of mind is an 
 indispensable qualification. They "look upon a man 
 as of 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 the University in which we 
 live, for in love there are no doctors, and we all pro- 
 fess so high a 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. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. V. — New Series. 
 
 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 day. 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 Terroe 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 distinc- 
 tion in "tale, catch, epigram, sonnet, 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 faculties and to clog the subtle 
 wheels of imagination." The members " clear their 
 throats with a glass of port and a loud Hem !" 
 The utmost licence is allowed to inuendo 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 
 woman all agree — 
 
 " Since in this faith no heresies we find, 
 
 To love let our religion be resigned, 
 
 And Cselia 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 licence was probably allowed in the crowd of 
 clubs whom a letter in the Spectator mentions as 
 having sprung up about the beginning of the last 
 century, — the Punning 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 
 rides were embodied in an " Act of Deformity ;" 
 " a visible queerness in aspect ;" a " peculiar cast of 
 countenance ;" " gibbosity," or " obliquity," were the 
 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 on 
 the loss of her front teeth ;" or to Mrs. Andrion " 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 for 1775 : — " The brethren of the Arcadian 
 Society are requested to meet at the Angel Inn, Ox- 
 ford, to ballot for some fresh candidates. (Signed) 
 Alphesibceus, Crook -holder." Here and there we 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 Wickham of Garsing- 
 ton was chosen patroness in room of Miss Storrow 
 
64. 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 that was 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, Bonwell 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, the candles burning 
 dim and blue in the smoky atmosphere. For if our 
 own can yield to no other age in the universal dif- 
 fusion of the habit of smoking, the last century 
 seems to have been especially the aera of old smokers. 
 We meet with no mention of the Common-room of 
 those days without some reference 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 dur- 
 ing the late wars, in the siege, was wholly used for 
 making tobacco pipes." By this time it had con- 
 quered every prejudice against its use. When 
 Raleigh, " standing in a stand at Sir Robert Poyntz's 
 parke at Acton took a pipe of tobacco, it made the 
 ladies quitt it till he had done." And, writing in 
 1680, 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 singers one was the Dean himself. 
 So notorious was his love of smoking that a young 
 gentleman — so runs the story — betted with a friend 
 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, the scaffold being 
 built up at Finmore's, an ale-house. 'Twas thought 
 a journeyman tailor of St. Peter's in the East would 
 
 have it, he smoking faster and being many pipes 
 before the rest, but at last he was so sick 'twas 
 thought he would have died, and an old soldier 
 smoking gently smoked the three ounces quite out, 
 and four or five more 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 ser- 
 vitor, "Dr. Grabe, the great theologian's way of 
 writing was to have a bottle of ale, brandy, or wine 
 by him — and every three or four lines of writing 
 to drink thereof." Hearne does not scruple to call 
 the fellows of University " debauchees ;" their 
 senior fellow passed by the significant name of 
 " Jolly Ward . " The scurrilous Terrse Filius of 1 733, 
 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 should 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 ap- 
 preciate the fine old drinking song — 
 
 " In potu primo purgatur guttur a lirao ; 
 Gaudia sunt nobis solennia quum bibo bis ; 
 Nil valeant vina nisi sit potatio trina ; 
 Cumque quater poto tunc lsetor pectore toto ; 
 Ad quintum potum mens labitur in paradisum ; 
 Sextus vult potus ut nemo sit mihi notus ; 
 Potu septeno frons efficitur 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 Radcliffe Square ; " he 
 had reached the Library, a rotunda then without 
 railings, and, unable to support himself save by 
 keeping one hand on the building, he continued 
 walking round and round till rescued by a friend." 
 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 65 
 
 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 VVatkin 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 for it. University 
 College has witnessed this." " Were the Colleges 
 ever to be reformed," wrote Southey, soon after his 
 entrance, "and reform will not come before it is 
 wanted, I would have a little more of the old disci- 
 pline kept up. Temperance is much needed ; the 
 waters of Helicon are far too much polluted by the 
 wine of Bacchus ever to produce any effect." 
 " Oxford," wrote Crosse to his mother at the very 
 beginning of the present century, " is a perfect hell 
 upon earth. I often saw my tutor carried off, per- 
 fectly intoxicated ; what chance is there for an un- 
 fortunate lad just come from school, with no one to 
 watch and care for him — no guide ?" 
 
 " The undergraduates," says Lord Eldon, " were 
 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 
 Grantley's son as he swept past, " he never drinks 
 but when he's 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 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 re- 
 port that "he never knew him sober but twelve 
 hours, and that he used to drink every morning 
 a quart of brandy, or its equivalent, 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 of a morning ;" Dr. Inett's son " being drink- 
 ing with three others, after drinking ale for some 
 time, they concluded to drink brandy on it, on 
 
 which they 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 Ashmo- 
 lean, from drinking " a pretty deal of bad small beer 
 at Corpus," 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 was drinking late on Saturday night, at 
 his own house, where he entertained, with wine 
 and punch, the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Thomas 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 century 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 
 condition." 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 punch, and turned away to his 
 pipe and ale at " Juniper's Magpie or Town 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, we 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 ; 
 While, haply, to relieve the lingering hours 
 In innocent delight, amusive Put, 
 On smooth-joint stool, in emblematio play, 
 The vain vicissitudes of fortune shows ; 
 Nor reckoning, name tremendous, me disturbs, 
 Nor called for chills 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." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VI. — New Series. 
 
 What were the amusements of Oxford men dur- 
 ing the last century 1 That these constituted no un- 
 important 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 which he himself bore a 
 part at Merton. " Christmas appearing there were 
 fires of charcoal made in the common Hall on All 
 Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day and night, on the holy- 
 dayes, and their nights and eves between that time 
 and Christmas Day. Then on Christmas Eve, 
 Christmas Day and holydayes and their nights, 
 Candlemas Day and night. At all these fires every 
 night, which began to be made a little after five of 
 the clock, the senior undergraduate would bring into 
 the Hall the junior or freshmen between that time 
 and six of the clock, and there make them sit down 
 on a forme in the middle of the Hall, joining to 
 the declaiming desk, which done, every one in order 
 was to speak some pretty apothegm, or make some 
 jest or bull, or speak some eloquent nonsense to 
 make the company laugh. But if any of the fresh- 
 men came off dull or not cleverly, some of the for- 
 ward or pragmatical seniors would 'tuck' them, 
 that is, set the nail of the 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 sometimes 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 public Hall 
 before the undergraduates and servants on Shrove 
 Tuesday night that followed, being always the time 
 for the observation of the 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- 
 graduates, but with an admonition from one of the 
 fellowes (who was the principal of the under- 
 graduates and postmasters) that all things should 
 be carried in good order. While they were at sup- 
 per in the Hall, the cook was making the lesser of 
 the brass pots full of cawdle at the freshman's 
 charge, which, after the Hall was free from the 
 fellowes, was brought up and set before the fire 
 in the said room. Afterwards every freshman ac- 
 cording to his seniority was to pluck off his gown 
 and band, and if possible make himself look like a 
 scoundrel. 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 
 are 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 
 drinke ; 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 ad- 
 mitted into the fraternity, the senior cook was to 
 administer to them an oath over an old shoe, part 
 
68 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 se- 
 niors.' Doubtless though most of these jocular ob- 
 servances were swept away during the reign of the 
 Puritans, yet — as Warton notes on this very pas- 
 sage — customs bearing a very near resemblance to 
 this were still kept up in the eighteenth century. 
 But their chief amusement seems to have lain 
 without the college walls. The times were long 
 past since the scholars amused themselves in Bello- 
 monte (Beaumont) the fields of which were por- 
 tioned out to the different degrees . We have seen them 
 loitering their mornings at the coffee-house, or tak- 
 ing an early tankard at the tavern ; one of the es- 
 pecial enjoyments of the afternoon seems to have 
 been boating. Southey's favourite diversion was a 
 pull with his friend WyDn upon the Isis. "There 
 were but two things I learnt 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, 
 My evening voyage, an unskilful sail, 
 To Godstow bound, or some inferior port, 
 For strawberries and cream. 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 of 1776 : — 
 " April 8th — As Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Bullock, and Mr. 
 Street, of Merton College, were sailing on the river 
 near Kennington, their boat was overset by a sud- 
 den gust of wind, when the two former were un- 
 fortunately drowned." Others of the "regulars," 
 like Warton (and, as we have seen above, Hurdis), 
 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 bulk 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 
 translations and exercises. Rougher diversions were 
 provided 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 — seven's the main, 
 Doctor." Practical jokes and still more daring ex- 
 ploits relieved the monotony of the fast man's 
 existence. It is amusing to find a grave Lord 
 Chancellor telling us of the riotous deeds of plain 
 Mr. Scott. An invalid grumbled that the view from 
 his window down the High-street was intercepted 
 by a tree in All Saints' churchyard. His young 
 associates determined to relieve him. " One night," 
 says Lord Eldon, "when the moon was under a 
 cloud, we set his servant to cut down the tree 
 stationing ourselves to watch. He was long about 
 it, the moon began to appear, and we were in a 
 great fright, and so got over the wall to see what he 
 was about. He was a Yorkshireman, and ' The seg 
 winna wag' — the saw won't move — was all that we 
 could get from him. So we had to help him, down 
 came the tree, and off we scampered. Next day 
 came out handbills and proclamations from the 
 Mayor and magistrates, but none peached, and 
 Nourse said it was the most glorious crime that had 
 ever been perpetrated in favour of a patient." 
 " Bucks and bloods" cocked their newly-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 wine" at 
 Dorchester. 
 
 The smart, however, despised excursions so trivial 
 as these. Tired of billiards, runs with Capt. Bertie's 
 pack, and the bowling-green, he is fluttering day 
 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, 
 " riding 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' " (Aubrey). His observa- 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 69 
 
 tion and acuteness made Willis's fortune, and raised 
 a little village for a time into a fashionable watering 
 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 
 Riot, and a few choice spirits, are on their way to 
 town, and a smart rider Dick makes, in his long 
 blue riding coat, with plate 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- 
 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 
 stay ?" " 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 bis present position ; the briefless bar- 
 rister sauntering from tavern to tavern " in silk gown 
 andpurple slippers," or hurrying from Nandos to Co- 
 vent Garden, 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 — Rode 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," com- 
 ments Colman, " till their purse is exhausted, 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 un- 
 gartered" to reach chapel ere the door was closed, 
 was nowise reluctant 
 
 " To repair 
 To friendly buttery ; there on smoking crust 
 And foamiDg ale to banquet unrestrained." 
 
 * Unlike," adds the poet, " the squeamish sons of 
 modern times," whose practices compelled Dr. New- 
 ton 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 
 
 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 ex- 
 changed by the hands of " Baylis, 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 fu- 
 ture notice, when in our account of Oxford's edu ca- 
 tional 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 addi- 
 tional information we shall not hesitate to resume a 
 subject whose treatment we hope may have fur- 
 nished some little information as well as entertain- 
 ment to our readers. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VII. — New Series. 
 
 Before commencing the series of papers in which 
 we shall endeavour to illustrate the political 
 life of Oxford in the Last Century, we may, per- 
 haps, 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 irregu- 
 lar 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 gratifica- 
 tion in the somewhat irregular plan which we pro- 
 pose to adopt. 
 
 Our information — as we have said — must be 
 gleaned from the newspapers of the day. The 
 Oxford 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 fur- 
 nish even to the reader of to-day no little amuse- 
 ment. Warton did not disdain to turn from odes 
 and antiquarian research to immortalize 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 "anti- 
 quated cane" and " rusty grizzle wig," 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 the subjects of the day, — 
 
 Each 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 ; 
 
 '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 globe conspire 
 
 Our news to fill, and raise your glory higher. 
 
 But spite of this conspiracy 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 succes- 
 sors 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 the morning but five feet one inch high 5 
 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 back- 
 wards, kicked up their heels, and threw down my 
 wife, whose pyramid flew off and was run away with 
 by a tailor's apprentice." The lesson is in vain ; 
 Old Squaretoes 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 the last." A fire, however, destroys these hew 
 erections, the ladies are left doctoring their scorched 
 faces, and with a proposal for a fire-insurance of 
 
 U 
 
72 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 bead-dresses, the lively little extravaganza con- 
 cludes. 
 
 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 ton. 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 advertise- 
 ment from some itinerant vendor of " likenesses." 
 
 To those, however, who would gain a clearer view 
 of the social and material condition of the period, the 
 advertisements furnish 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 Oxford 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 — up- 
 wards of 700 Inclosure Acts were obtained ;" while 
 the passing of 452 Turnpike Acts enormously facili- 
 tated the communications of the country. In the 
 rural districts, as swamps and wastes disappeared, 
 the higher classes began to imbibe that love of the 
 
 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 
 wealth 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 wrought 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 rob- 
 bery 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 Chel- 
 sea to town, were stopt by four footpads, two of 
 whom seized the horses, and put pistols to the 
 postilion's breast, the other two went on each side 
 the carriage, and, on 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 at 
 the back of the head with a scimitar. The two 
 ruffians at the head of the horses then went to their 
 comrades' assistance, when, the postilion 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 Bulstrode-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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 73 
 
 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 Botley, about a mile and a-half from 
 this city, by a single highwayman, well mounted, 
 who took from Mr. Jonas, the celebrated conjuror, 
 his watch and about four guineas." Tis more than 
 probable that either the suddenness of the demand, 
 or the bitter imprecations of the highwayman, might 
 so alarm Mr. Jonas as totally to deprive him of his 
 celebrated art of " conveyance," or we can scarcely 
 suppose he would have suffered the robber to pocket 
 his 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 
 were 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 coachfuL.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 
 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 
 Silenian 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 travel- 
 lers. He was sung in Seven Dials, and famed even 
 in aristocratic boudoirs. But fame could not pro- 
 tect 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's 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 dis- 
 guise 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 
 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. Eor 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 off to 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 with 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 without 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 cariyed off his body in triumph to the next 
 parish church, " where," says the account in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine, from which this is condensed, 
 "while some rang the bells, others opened the belly, 
 filled it with quicklime, 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, 
 &c, 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 
 
74 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 originator of a nearly-successful attempt at escape, 
 which throws light on the condition of the Oxford 
 prisons of 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 win- 
 dow, 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 
 within 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 philanthropist, 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 con- 
 nived at by the gaolers, who were themselves scarce 
 better 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 William Clark, 
 for keeping a house of ill-fame, November, 1774. 
 Men still living can remember the last instance of 
 its exercise in, we believe, 1810, when one Tubb 
 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 were 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 1463, Mr. Hill one of the 
 proctors, coming to seize " one J. Harry, a tailor, of 
 Oxford, who had stabbed a man, on information that 
 it was a place privileged by the Pope, and claim laid 
 by the Master and Convent of St. John's Hospital, 
 he, on some small security, found the benefit of the 
 place, and was dismissed." The privilege in this 
 case seems to have fallen into desuetude about 1530. 
 In Wood's time, " the vestiges of a sanctuary, near 
 St. Edward's church, did not long ago remain in a 
 tradesman's ground abutting down from the High- 
 street to Tresham's-lane." A sanctuary of greater 
 interest will, in our next number, introduce us to 
 the more especial consideration of the civic affairs 
 of Oxford in the period which we are treating. 
 
 Minor offences were visited with punishments 
 which 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 disgust- 
 ing, for, as we have learned from one who had him- 
 self 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 seve- 
 rity 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 noticing the resignation of 
 this office in the year 1776, by "Thomas Francis 
 Wenman, Esq.," and the unanimous election of 
 " John Skinner, Esq., of Little Milton, one of the 
 Justices of the Principality of Wales," we must con- 
 clude this, we confess, somewhat miscellaneous paper. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. VIII. — New Series. 
 
 The Sanctuary to which we 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 Kedemption of Captives, who had 
 been settled in the little chapel by its side, by 
 the patronage 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 pre- 
 sentation to the Barons of the Exchequer for con- 
 firmation 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 re- 
 ceived by the townsmen, assembled in their trades, 
 and " conducted into the city with great huzzaing 
 and rejoicings." 
 
 In the elections for 1774, Mr. Samuel Culley was 
 chosen Mayor ; Mr. Thomas Jones and Mr. Richard 
 Hayes, Chamberlains of the city. The next year 
 presents us with a name still honoured in its con- 
 nection with civic offices, in the unanimous election 
 of "Mr. William Thorpe, junior, assistant of the 
 city," to the Mayoralty, while 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 thousands 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 chie* 
 magistrate of Oxford in the reign of Henry III. 
 And the gradual change of names is already obli- 
 terating even these slight vestiges. Pembroke 
 Street has even recently superseded the old " Penny- 
 farthing" Street, the street that commemorated the 
 name of the great burgher-family, the Penyver- 
 things, of whom one was Provost in Henry the 
 Third's time. The name of a 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 Radulph, men of 
 great possessions in Oxford." These, however, had 
 themselves superseded 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 trans- 
 mutations 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 descend- 
 ants, Alice, had to offer to King John one hundred 
 mares 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 
 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 
 
76 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 of him — that he could neither speak French or 
 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 
 with a severity which 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 tippling houses, pro- 
 hibits coffee to be sold on Sundays, which Dr. 
 Nicholas, Vice-Chancellor, prohibited till after even- 
 ing prayers, 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 inclinations 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-Chancellor and 
 Proctors. Here and there too, the latent opposition, 
 which always existed towards the High Church 
 Tory Corporation, manifested itself in acts of vio- 
 lence. Not ten years after the Revolution of 1688, 
 we find the Puritan, or Whig party, carrying the 
 Townclerkship against the united powers of the 
 Earl of Abingdon and the Corporation, and cele- 
 brating their victory with bonfires and " ringing of 
 bells all 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 
 party, 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 pro- 
 tests, against the system of corporate government, 
 or misgovernment, which was then gradually ap- 
 proaching that uncontested supremacy which it en- 
 joyed in the eighteenth century. Without dwelling 
 on the minute features of the system which the Mu- 
 nicipal Reform 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 sys- 
 tem which that reform established, and influenced, 
 
 in addition, by that very pardonable prejudice which 
 throws an air of sanctity over all that is past, are 
 now and then driven to a cry of regret for " the 
 old corporation" to consider the pitiful position 
 in which that regime placed the city with re- 
 spect to the great noblemen whose possessions sur- 
 rounded it. 
 
 Of these families the first which we find in intimate 
 connexion with the corporate affairs 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 Nor- 
 ris was made Earl of Abingdon, with the ringing of 
 bells. Several colleges had bonfires, All Souls' espe- 
 cially. About 11 at night they brought 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 which 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 plenty from the tavern over the 
 way, guarded by a file of musqueteers, and a drum- 
 mer that beat round the college quadrangle 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 
 thetroop of 60 horse which was raisedby the Univer- 
 sity, committing suspected Puritans — amongst others 
 our severe friend Robert 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 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 con- 
 test for Town Clerk in 1694 was decided in favour 
 of Thurston against Slatford, " by the endeavours of 
 the Earl of Abingdon, who got several country gen- 
 tlemen that were of the house to give votes for the 
 said Thurston. The Commons, enraged at it, spoke 
 vilely of the said Earl and his son, and called them 
 Jacobites. He laid in town that night, and went 
 next day to the Bishop's lodgings, at Magdalen Col- 
 lege, 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 op- 
 position which the family influence experienced 
 from the corporation must have been more trying 
 to his patience. In 1731, Hearne tells us of my 
 Lord's " driving in a coach from Rycot to put up Mr. 
 Lawrance, the chandler, against Mr. Nibbs, uphol- 
 sterer," for the office of Mayor's assistant ; but the 
 drive was in vain, and the Earl had to entertain his 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 77 
 
 supporters at dinner afterwards with what good 
 humour he might. 
 
 By the middle of this century, however, the Kycot 
 was fast being superseded by the Blenheim influ- 
 ence. The great Duke, the rise of whose stately 
 palace had been viewed with such malignant eyes 
 by his Tory neighbours — (Hearnehas handed down 
 to us the exultation of the common-room at the 
 news that the fine stones of the new buildings were 
 already cracking with the frost) — was too busy in his 
 intrigues, too miserly in his expenditure, to meddle 
 in the civic elections. Violent Duchess Sarah seems 
 to have confined herself to occasional presents of a 
 buck to the Whig heads. But the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was the great sera of what Disraeli has called 
 " Venetian" government. The great oligarchic fami- 
 lies were straining every nerve to secure a " follow- 
 ing" in the corrupt House of Commons. Nobles 
 forced their way into the cabinet by a simple 
 enumeration of the votes at their disposal. Im- 
 mense sums were lavished on contested elections. 
 Yorkshire grew famous as the insatiable quagmire 
 that engulphed 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 contest. Corruption was prac- 
 tised without disguise ; indeed one member openly 
 proposed in the House to repeal the Bribery Act. 
 " Arnold Nesbit, Esq.," says a paragraph in one of 
 these Oxford Journals, " M.P. for Cricklade, made a 
 present of £10 each to the voters in his interest at 
 the last election, and entertained them with a gen- 
 teel dinner." At the Hindon contest, " a man, sup- 
 posed to be a clergyman, 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 inn. Worcester saw its members 
 elected, unseated, re-elected and unseated again for 
 the most flagrant bribery, yet a third election se- 
 cured 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 corporations. The vilest means, bribery, drink, 
 abused influence, were employed to secure the com- 
 paratively small body of freemen, who alone pos- 
 sessed the right of suffrage. Should these fail, the 
 corporation could increase its power by a new 
 
 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 representative, to Parliament. 
 
 The corporation of Oxford were encumbered with 
 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 £7,500, 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 Staplyton had been successfully con- 
 cluded with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord 
 Abingdon. The year following saw the city debt of 
 of about £6,000 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 corpora- 
 tion. The honour, however, if honour it were, was 
 not purchased cheaply. Fifty 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 entertain- 
 ments, which would seem to have promoted a feel- 
 ing of fellowship among their partakers. The citi- 
 zens 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 Rob. Field, M.A., born in Grope-lane, 
 St. Mary's parish, and, returning to the Hall again, 
 had a noble entertainment ; which done, there was 
 a collection made to bind one or two boys appren- 
 tices." This seems to have been the first feast of 
 the kind, though many afterwards are recorded in 
 his pages. Open entertainments, indeed, were 
 everywhere given to the freemen on the eve of elec- 
 tions. At Wootten Bassett, the Mayor presided 
 while two fat oxen, the gift of the members, were 
 
78 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 distributed among the electors, and a third was 
 roasted whole for their diversion. 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 Blen- 
 heim, " Lord Rob. Spencer and Miss Vernon open- 
 ing the ininuets ;" whence the ladies, returning at 
 four in the morning, " in passing through the park, 
 experienced uncommon transport on beholding 
 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, besides vege- 
 tables ; 300 bottles of port, 52 of rum, in punch, 
 besides an incalculable quantity of ale and strong 
 beer," which tells well for the heads of the free- 
 holders. Nor were the more indirect means 
 neglected. The members and their patrons were 
 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 
 benefactor to the new gallery at St. Peter'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. 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 was 
 subscribed by the members for the city, Lord 
 Robert Spencer and Mr. Bertie, for the relief of the 
 freemen. 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 9oz. 4dr., while the price of the wheaten 
 quartern loaf was settled at 6Jd. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. IX. — New Series. 
 
 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 realize to ourselves the intense 
 consternation which the mere mention of the scourge 
 produced. The slightest rumour of its presence in 
 any locality was deemed a pernicious libel, and 
 judged worthy of the most authoritative contradic- 
 tion. The surgeons of W"allingford advertise " their 
 protest against the rumour that it has broken out 
 there." June 17, 1774,— "The minister, church- 
 wardens and overseers of Chipping Norton certify 
 that the small-pox is not in the said town, and that 
 those belonging to it who have had the said 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 time, the new remedy of inoculation, which 
 Lady Mary 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 attended two thousand without 
 loss, inoculated his third company this season ;" 
 Mr. Bristow, of Begbroke, " receives a succession of 
 patients at his house at Jericho, near this city, 
 where they are carried through that disease with the 
 utmost safety by his approved and 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 Vice-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 give notice that if any person or 
 
 persons shall hereafter inoculate in private houses, 
 or shall let or take into their respective houses 
 patients under inoculation, or shall let or make use 
 of any house within the said University and City to 
 inoculate patients therein, such person or persons 
 offending in any or either of these cases shall be 
 prosecuted as the law directs. Given under our 
 hands, Thos. Fothergill, Vice-Chancellor ; Samuel 
 Culley, Mayor." These thunderers, however, seem 
 to have roused a spirit of opposition. " Mr. Sutton, 
 just returned 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 
 employer. The one was liable 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 Guilds or Fraternity of 
 Cordwainers," advertises a reward of five pounds to 
 any one who will discover any of the journeymen on 
 strike in May, 1776. A general combination for in- 
 crease of wages seems to have been formed at this 
 time, for immediately above this advertisement ap- 
 pears another, which gives us the names of the 
 master tailors of the time in Oxford. " Twenty or 
 thirty journeymen tailors" are advertised for by 
 " Thomas Joy, P. Price, Richard West, Fred. Rogers, 
 William Fidler, Thomas Benwell, Wm. Davenport, 
 John Giles, Joseph Harpur, Edward Hitchings." 
 The last of these, a name of future eminence in the 
 city, had but recently (as appears from his first 
 advertisement, October 20, 1775) succeeded to the 
 business of Mr. Heme, and his commencement was 
 almost contemporaneous with that of Mr. Deodatus 
 
80 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Eaton, another well-known name, who, in the suc- 
 ceeding week, advertises that " in conjunction with 
 his brother-in-law, W. Thompson," he has suc- 
 ceeded to his mother's business as a wood and coal 
 merchant. 
 
 The 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 Hon. Peregrine 
 Bertie, Sir Warborough D'Aeth, and Francis Brown- 
 sword Bullock, Esq. ; while John Walley, 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 tbe procession which was to welcome 
 King James the Second. "These companies — 
 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 them- 
 selves, and had a flag or ensign, 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 company seems 
 even at this early date to have slipped into non- 
 entity — the Company of Barbers. These, Pechell 
 tells us, " at their first incorporation, by order of Dr. 
 Northwade, then Vice-Chancellor of the University, 
 agreed that they would yearly keep and maintain a 
 light before our Lady in our chapel in St. Frides- 
 wide's church ; for the sure continuance of which 
 every man or woman of the same profession, that 
 kept a shop, should pay two pence a quarter, two 
 journeymen a penny, and keep it always burning, 
 under 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 (1461) 
 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 
 several times Mayor of this City, in the 14th century, 
 the guild was accustomed to oelebrate 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 elec- 
 tion of its officers, and to this the benefaction of 
 Alderman Southam added a sermon, " which," says 
 Pechall, writing in 1773, "they have now besides 
 prayers." 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." 
 
 Another company which the lapse of time had 
 long since extinguished was the craft of weavers ; 
 and it affords a curious instance of the mutations 
 (the whole story of which is itself so curious and 
 entertaining) of locality and trade in Oxford to know 
 that in old times barges came heavily laden up the 
 Cherwell to Parry's Mead, ground now enclosed in 
 the limits of Magdalen College Meadow, 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 cha- 
 racteristic 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 81 
 
 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 
 recalled by its appellation of " Bocbynders' 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 in- 
 struments, trolling out ancient songs in honour of 
 their craft and its patron, and returning after a cir- 
 cuit 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 Royal 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 wakes which 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 were closed in favour of the Stewards' 
 Piepowder Courts, 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 Augustin friars had held on 
 the site of the present Wadham College, had been 
 long forgotten. Fairs, therefore, in the sense of re- 
 sorts for traffic, there were none. Two wakes how- 
 ever remained ; the one Glocester Green, the other 
 St. Giles's. Of the latter we 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 in- 
 habitants of any other town in Great Britain." 
 They were probably neither better nor worse than 
 the citizens of " the other towns." It was, despite 
 its material progress, a rough and rude state of so- 
 ciety, governed by feelings and sympathies differing 
 widely from our own. We need not shrug our 
 shoulders too complacently when 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 ; when the news- 
 
 paper chronicles, as an edifying feat, the "drink- 
 ing three quarts of ale in three minutes" by a la- 
 bourer at the Observatory ; or the constant " deaths 
 from drink" that testify to the prevalence of the 
 vice. Ladies have their vices now, though we 
 should stare to hear — as Hearne tells us then— of 
 the death of a canon's wife at Christ Church from 
 overlove of the brandy bottle, or of attempts at 
 suicide by ladies of rank from inability to pay their 
 gambling debts. If again and again we are horrified 
 in perusing the tedious records of the time to find 
 the constant outrages which 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 hurling into the 
 neighbouring pond. We must remember that a cen- 
 tury 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 with which 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. In justice to 
 ourselves, indeed, we must own that we have at any 
 rate shamed vice out 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 
 person " who is so obliging as to bring her back to 
 her husband the first night's lodging with her in 
 his house." If the times have not grown more vir- 
 tuous, they have at least grown more shamefaced. 
 
 In concluding this account of the three years, we 
 have only to notice the few physical 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 
 
82 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 with 
 
 water for a week, and service interrupted ; while 
 a landslip of an acre of ground, on the south side 
 of Shotover, shifted one hundred yards into the 
 valley beneath. 
 
 Note. — We are aware that in one or two instances in this ■ Second Series' of papers there is some slight repetition of 
 facts, but as they are interwoven with other matters of interest that have not already appeared, we did not deem it worth 
 while to Btrike them out. — Ed. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. X. — New Series. 
 
 In the Papers which have already 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 ser- 
 vitors and poor scholars, its rakes and debauchees 
 — we have whispered the toasts in Merton gardens, 
 and sipped punch in the coffee-house — and, passing 
 on to descriptions 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 fu- 
 ture 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 up an interesting side of her social 
 life in the sketch of " the Don" of that day, "steeped 
 in prejudice 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 every 
 day life of the shop and the counter. 
 
 But this — though the more interesting aspect to 
 us — was not, it must be remembered, the aspeot 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 univer- 
 sity so imperfectly discharged. Nor did the country 
 squire, whose library consisted of the tattered 
 " Baker's Chronicles," and a few books 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 was the one point of interest 
 for both 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 shewn 
 the map in which " H. Sherburne, Esq., a native of 
 the city, and Comptroller of the Ordnance," had 
 graven Oxford " while 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 which 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 troop, fagged 
 and weary from skirmishes as successful — and as 
 fatal to the noble and good — as that of Charlgrove. 
 Such a one was the "old Will Bermida," with 
 
84 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 whom Hearne often, as he tells us, conversed, 
 who used to supply his father's place, as a sen- 
 tinel 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. Men so expelled, so restored, were not 
 likely easily to forget to whom they owed the one 
 benefit or the other. And so it was that when the 
 fever- fit of loyalty, which had succeeded the Restora- 
 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 with 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 princi- 
 ples." But Oxford was ready to stoop to compliances 
 baser even than this. When Charles was baulked 
 in his desire to sacrifice Collins, " 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 
 the moment "non-resistance" was forgotten. The 
 King was defied, and the Prince of Orange welcomed. 
 But the welcome of the Prince augured no welcome 
 for King William. The oath of allegiance forced the 
 waverers to a quick decision. Some, the worthiest, 
 resigned all rather than take it ; the majority swore, 
 and counted the imposition of the oath a new 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 
 re-assume its position during the Great Rebellion. 
 Then, as now, the Stuarts had been driven from the 
 throne— then, as now, a "test" had emptied fellow- 
 ships and preferments — 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. Clifford, 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." Holds- 
 worth, 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 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 " at 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 creep- 
 ing 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 are 
 Tories ; my grandfather lost his estate against Oliver 
 Cromwell ; my father was a great sufferer for King 
 James II. ; and I myself had my head broke in de- 
 fence of Dr. Sacheverill before I was eight years old." 
 One so trained was ready to sit down at his first in- 
 troduction 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 becoming the great 
 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 was 
 to England what Paris is now to France. Other 
 cities bore no comparison with the capital ; manu- 
 factures had not begotten Manchester, nor had com- 
 merce reared Liverpool. London was the great 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 85 
 
 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 ob- 
 stacles which circumscribed the range of the influ- 
 ence 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 traversable and less secure. We 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 " diligence" 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 to see Oxford, and the road 
 going through a lane almost impassable for a coach 
 and very dangerous, a wealthy farmer, whose estate 
 lay contiguous, threw down the hedges and opened 
 the way for his highness to pass through his 
 grounds." 
 
 One consequence was that the provincial districts 
 fell far behind in the progress of intelligence. Ad- 
 dison has humourously sketched a Templar riding 
 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 ar- 
 rival in Cornwall he found the high sheriff priding 
 himself on the fashion of a coat which had been 
 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 Western 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 dissi- 
 pation of town, but the bulk of the country squires 
 vegetated on their estates, cut off from communica- 
 tion with the world without (save by the monthly 
 "Dyer's Letter," humble precursor of our news- 
 papers and reviews) an occupation but that of hunt- 
 ing, or an ambition but that of being the deepest 
 sot among the topers of the quorum. 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 com- 
 mode 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 tur- 
 keys, chickens, and goslings ; it was her 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 un- 
 grateful " 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 capitals. But at this time they were in the 
 heyday of prosperity, and this prosperity was shared 
 by Oxford ; itself a provincial centre, with which 
 no rival could compete. Here the youth, just fresh 
 from the dullness 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 to the Whig attorney of his native town, who 
 contrasted 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 sense- 
 less Toryism. But when the patient firmness of 
 the natural will had foiled again and again her ef- 
 forts 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 humourists, such as Dr. King, smiled at 
 the story of the poor Irish bricklayer, who had 
 betted against the possibility of his comrades carry- 
 ing him up a ladder in his hod, and when safely 
 disembarked on the roof could find no better re- 
 flection on his foolhardiness than " Faix, but I had 
 hopes at the third story." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XI. — New Series. 
 
 In our last Paper we attempted to sketch, in de- 
 tail, the causes which led to the political position 
 whioh the University assumed in the beginning of 
 the eighteenth oentury, 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 
 metropolitan position which Oxford occupied to- 
 wards the young students who nocked to her, the 
 character of those classes from whom she drew her 
 chief reinforcements, the country squires and the 
 country parsons. But, above all, we directed atten- 
 tion to the traditions in which Oxford was bound 
 and entangled, the noble memories of sufferings, 
 manfully borne, for the cause of the Stuarts, the 
 bitter remembrance of injuries, never to be for- 
 gotten, inflicted by the usurpers. A mere glance 
 round the landscape would, in Tory hearts, revive 
 the bitterest reminiscences. The great forest of 
 Bagley, that stretched to the very skirts of Oxford, 
 and enveloped Abingdon in old time, had, indeed, 
 long been curtailed. But, up to the Great Rebellion, 
 the neighbourhood of Oxford was well-wooded ; 
 spite of Fuller's complaints : " Indeed, the woods 
 there 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 cannot possibly hold out, 
 if not seasonably relieved by pit-coaL found here, or 
 sea-coal brought thither." The forests had been 
 dear to the city. " When Shotover woods," we quote 
 the same amusing author, "being bestowed by 
 Charles the First on a person of honour, were likely 
 to be cut down, the University, by letters, favoured 
 their preservation, wherein this, among many other 
 
 parenthetical 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 the design for the present, but in 
 what case the woods stand at this day is to me un- 
 known." 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 'tis common 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 poli- 
 tical importance which Oxford now assumed, we 
 must add that perverseness with which the Univer- 
 sity has so often shown itself the antagonist of 
 national feeling. " Chronica si penses," says the old 
 proverb, 
 
 Cum pugnant Oxonienses 
 Tunc post Bex menses volat ira per Angligenses. 
 
 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 Wycliffe, the reformer could find his 
 stanchest adherents and disciples in the lecture- 
 rooms of Oxford. So violent was the tendency that 
 Richard 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 
 
88 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 termed the Lollards. But the first dawn of the 
 Reformation had been watched by the great prelates 
 who founded Corpus Christ! 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 Wolsey 
 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 associated with the Reformation by that burn- 
 ing 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, Mayn- 
 waryng went forth from Oxford to preach "No 
 resistance," and Laud to counsel ■ Thorough." 
 
 There were 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 
 glorious Revolution, 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. 
 Nonjurors 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 who distinguished themselves in the battle 
 near Mons," says Hearne, "must not be forgot the 
 young King of England, who fought under the cha- 
 racter of the Chevalier de St. George, and 'tis by 
 that title he passes. He showed abundance of 
 courage and resolution, led up his troops with un- 
 speakable bravery, appeared in the xitmost dangers, 
 and at last was wounded." Jacobites, to whom 
 London was dangerous, 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 Wesley s. In a previous Paper we saw him 
 starting, without a penny, to Oxford, and eking out 
 his subsistence as a servitor, by teaching and com- 
 posing 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 ob- 
 noxious " Declaration," and taking for his text the 
 reply of Daniel, " Be it known unto thee, O, King, 
 that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the 
 golden image that thou hast set up." The Revolu- 
 tion came, and Wesley was amongst the foremost to 
 write in its defence ; and the dedication of his work 
 to Queen Mary was rewarded with the living of 
 Epworth, in Lincolnshire. Like his sons, he was a 
 poet, and a poem on the battle of Blenheim pro- 
 cured him a chaplain's place in one of the new regi- 
 ments, 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 contrary effect to what was in- 
 tended. I left my fortunes in God's hands, and 
 resolved to act according to my conscience," he says 
 in his letter. Accordingly, no sooner had he gone 
 down into the country than he threw himself into 
 election struggles, wrote letters, which his enemies 
 charged with treason, was ousted from his chap- 
 laincy, and thrown into prison for debt 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 Lincoln- 
 shire parishioners ; but we must leave his own beg- 
 ging 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 
 parsonage barn was blown down ere I had recovered 
 the taking of my living ; my house, great part of it, 
 was 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, when 
 I was last in London ; my income sunk above one 
 half by the low price of grain ; and my credit ruined 
 by the taking away my regiment. I was brought to 
 Lincoln Castle, and, 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 family's subsist- 
 ence. For which God forgive them." 
 
 The letter was responded to by considerable sub- 
 scriptions on the part of all the colleges, and a vote 
 of .£20 from the justices in session ; but the sym- 
 pathy was not so much for his distress as for his 
 opposition to the Whigs. " There is a gathering in 
 the University for the relief of Mr. Wesley," says 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 89 
 
 Hearne, " to the great mortification of the fanatics." 
 To the same charitable end tended the ceaseless 
 calumnies which Oxford common-rooms poured 
 forth against the character of the Prince whose first 
 arrival they had so vehemently welcomed. To us it 
 would seem simply ridiculous were a grave Don to 
 assert that "King William gave ,£1,000 to those in- 
 famous villains Blackill and Fuller, that were em- 
 barked in a design to take away the lives of Arch- 
 bishop 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 suf- 
 ferers for "loyalty's" sake. Lord Griffin dies in the 
 tower, "confined there," 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 Whigs" 
 almost recalls to our memory O'Connell's "base, 
 bloody, and brutal." A chorus of indignant in- 
 vective saluted any public demonstration of Whig 
 principles. Long after this several of the nobility 
 had to vindicate their characters — as though the 
 aspersion were a grave one — from having met toge- 
 ther purposely to carouse on the 30th of January, 
 the " Martyr's Day." And the Tory annalist com- 
 memorates " an abominable riot committed in All 
 Souls' College. Mr. Dalton and Mr. Talbot, son of 
 the Bishop of Oxford, both fellows, had a dinner 
 drest at 12 a.m., 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, Mr. Ibbetson and 
 Mr. Kogers, to their shame be it spoken, both low 
 churchmen. 'Tis to be noted that this Dalton, an 
 empty fellow, is one of those whom Archbishop 
 Tennison put in on the death of the late Warden. 
 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 Magda- 
 len. 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 support- 
 ers, Sacheverell 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 Corporation, 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 fana- 
 
 tics" for condemning the king of high treason against 
 " his supreme subjects." He taunted the Whig minis- 
 ters, and singled out Godolphin by the nickname of 
 Volpone. Then, turning on the Whig London clergy, 
 who sat in great numbers in the choir — " The 
 Whigs," he thundered out, " are conformists in fac- 
 tion, half conformists in practice, and nonconformist 
 in judgment." The glove thus boldly thrown down 
 was at once taken up by the opposite party. The 
 Government 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 " because 
 of the ill-usage Dr. Sacheverell had received." The 
 populace, wearied with the long war whose 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. Mobs sur- 
 rounded the Queen's coach with shouts of " The 
 Church and Dr. Sacheverell." 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 parsonage 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 
 Marlborough, and the nation was weary of the war. 
 The Sacheverell mania gave a last blow to the tot- 
 tering ministry, and, aided by Mrs. Masham, Harley 
 and Bolingbroke came into power. Peace was made, 
 and the people were contented. Whispers spread 
 abroad of ministerial intrigues for the restoration 
 of the Pretender on the Queen's death, and the 
 Jacobites waited in silence. " Mr. Gifford told us 
 last night," says Hearne, "when several were in 
 company, all honest men, that the young king was 
 in England when the present Queen, as she is 
 styled, was crowned, and further says the Queen kist 
 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 Atter- 
 bury 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 re- 
 serve for our next Paper. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XII. — New Series. 
 
 The accession of Harley to power, the Jacobite 
 sympathies 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 ex- 
 cluded from conversation ; party words — those 
 badges of faction— laid for a while aside. The Whig 
 was silent about the " Pretender ;" the Tory, in re- 
 turn, said little about the " Elector of Brunswick." 
 The one party looked hopefully to Hanover — its 
 rival, to the Ministry and St. Germains. 
 
 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 
 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 Chan- 
 nel, 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 it- 
 self 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 fa- 
 vour 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." Elections 
 for " Toasts" might be decided in clubs rather on 
 political than on personal grounds, and a trifling de- 
 formity be pardoned on account of " honest princi- 
 ples." In the theatres the ladies patched on differ- 
 ent sides as they differed in opinion ; and the audi- 
 ence ranged into parties, selected their respective 
 favourites, and hooted or applauded every chance 
 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 suf- 
 fering 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," re- 
 plied his son Samuel, to whom he communicated his 
 troubles, u 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 at- 
 tended their refusal that the interference of the 
 magistrates was thought necessary. 
 
 a a 
 
92 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 But a more envenomed opposition awaited the 
 triumph of the Whig cause at Oxford. There the 
 correspondents of Atterhury, the confidants of Dr. 
 King, waited, 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 suit," 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. 
 
 " Mr. Mayor,— If you are so honest a man as to 
 prefer your duty and allegiance to your lawfull sove- 
 reign 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 on a right footing, 
 and in a few days you will see 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 Hanover 
 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 inclination to his Majesty's 
 service, have prevailed on them to let me give you 
 this warning. If you would know who 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, 
 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 it- 
 
 self 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 treason- 
 able lampoons beneath the windows of the hated 
 Hanoverians. They were marked out for persecu- 
 tion and scorn. Common-rooms had no mercy on 
 them ; Golgotha — the place of skulls, as the Heb- 
 domadal 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 
 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 in- 
 dividul members might be persecuted, no oppor- 
 tunity could be found for attack on the club. On 
 the 28th of May, 1714, however, came the first anni- 
 versary of the birthday of the new Sovereign. The 
 bells " were jumbled 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 clu broom. It was feared lives 
 would have been lost had not the Constitutioners 
 escaped by the back door, and slunk away to their 
 colleges. Thus baffled, the mob rolled on to attack 
 all illuminated houses. Every Whig window was 
 smashed. The meeting house was entered and 
 gutted. This was the usual mode of showing concern 
 for the Church by men who, like Addison's Tory 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 93 
 
 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 bril- 
 liantly illuminated ; indeed, wherever disregard was 
 shown to the mob's fiat, the windows were broken. 
 It is a sign of the deep disloyalty of the place that 
 even those who had 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 treasonable healths in every tavern. Oxford 
 had seen no such public rejoicing since the Restora- 
 tion. 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 mo- 
 ment 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 Anabaptists 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 dif- 
 ferent. " 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 " extraordinary 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, 
 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 discord 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, aa 
 Irish gentleman, who was indicted for declaring his 
 belief that the soul 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 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 
 where the dead repose till the last judgment day ! 
 After sophistry sad as this we may, perhaps, attach 
 less importance to the logic by which the grand 
 jury condemned the members of the Constitutional 
 Club. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XIII. — New Series. 
 
 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 Vice- 
 Chancellor, Dr. Charlett, and to the Mayor. " The 
 riots," these missives urged, " had been begun by 
 
 scholars, and scholars promoted them 
 
 The Vice-Chancellor did not endeavour to suppress 
 them, and the other magistrates were no less remiss." 
 Old Sherwin, the beadle, was indeed sent up to Lon- 
 don 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 hin- 
 dering any sign of rejoicing. Illuminations indeed 
 were commenced atWadham,but they were promptly 
 extinguished by the Vice-Chancellor. Atterbury's 
 friend, Smalridge, now, in addition to his Bishopric 
 of Bristol, Dean 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 were obliged to drink King James's health 
 either privately or out of town." Hearne, with a 
 party of Balliol non-jurors, made merry at Foxcombe. 
 
 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. On the very day of the coronation of King 
 
 B 
 
 George the Convocation met to confer on Sir Con- 
 stantine Phipps, one of the most active of the Tory 
 partisans, the honorary degree of D.C.L., " with par- 
 ticular marks of honour and esteem." Of their repre- 
 sentatives 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 ap- 
 plied 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 
 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. En- 
 couraged by the forbearance of the " redcoats," the 
 mob surrounded 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 iron- 
 monger ; and the soldiers to revenge the affront be- 
 gan a series of retaliations. There was every prospect 
 of a serious riot ; two or three of the soldiers had re- 
 turned the insults of the Mayor's attendants byfiring, 
 but with powder only. The frightened authorities 
 
 b 
 
96 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 ac- 
 counts 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 which had been caused by the soldiers 
 in different quarters, and especially in Oxford. It 
 was moved, that before proceeding with the Bill an 
 enquiry should be made into the riot in that city ; 
 and, on an address being resolved on, the papers re- 
 lating to it were laid on the table of the House. A 
 grand debate ensued. The episcopal bench mus- 
 tered strong in defence. Dawes, Archbishop of 
 Fork, Eastred, of Chester, Smalridge, of Bristol, 
 Atterbury, of Rochester, were supported by the 
 Lords 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. Illumin- 
 ations 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 " calhng 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 
 round 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 re- 
 joicings during the reigns of the Stuarts. The ig- 
 norance of the authorities could not be urged after 
 they had been informed by the Major ; and so far 
 from the riot being attributable to the 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 assem- 
 
 bled 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 riot 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 whole deputation there was scarce one 
 who did not in his heart wish for Mar's success. 
 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 place 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-Gen. 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 coffee-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 " Leonard Walden, 
 a very worthy young gentleman," just fresh from 
 Christ Church, who, after a temporary imprison- 
 ment, seems to have taken refuge on the continent, 
 and there to have fallen in a miserable squabble 
 with one 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— 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 97 
 
 King George, observing with judicious eyes 
 
 The 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 learning. 
 
 The authorship of this is, we believe, unknown. The 
 reply which was made with almost equal severity 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 Townsend's suggestion. 
 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. Biots took place at Cam- 
 bridge 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 blame 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, acknowledg- 
 ing King George for their rightful sovereign, and 
 promising so to train up the youth under their 
 charge " that they might shew in their conduct an 
 example of that loyalty and obedience which the 
 university, pursuing the doctrines of the Church, 
 has ever maintained." The doctrine of Non-resist- 
 ance 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, ad- 
 dresses poured in from every quarter of the king- 
 dom. "Oxford," 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 domi- 
 nions, were coupled — as a concession to Tory preju- 
 dice — with " the favour lately shown the university 
 in omitting, at their request, the ceremony of burn- 
 ing in effigy the Devil, Pope, Pretender, 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 re- 
 bellion, Smalridge argued, had been long suppressed ; 
 addresses would have no end were one presented on 
 each return of the King from his German domi- 
 nions ; 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. Germain's, 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 com- 
 parative 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. So long as sedition only trumpeted 
 from its pulpits ; so long as their exertions for the 
 Jacobite cause were confined to treasonable toasts 
 and witty epigrams, the Government stood by 
 inactive. Bellarmine — so merciless to heretics— 
 " allowed," says South ey, " 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 interrupt 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 elsewhere, might have given them so 
 much trouble, into this antiquated receptacle, and 
 to leave it untouched, as the monks left their's un- 
 touched—" La Pulciara" — the Fleaery of England. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XIV. — New Series. 
 
 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 cen- 
 tury 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 sympa- 
 thies 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 to- 
 wards their political opponents very different 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- 
 ance to the new family ceased after the first wild 
 outburst of disappointment ; and the baffled dons 
 turned with an old-womanish instinct to worry the 
 luckless partisans whom fortune had placed in their 
 hands. The severer weapons of offence were in- 
 deed no longer in their power. The days were past 
 when A. Wood could record (Sept. 6, 1683) " Banni- 
 mus stuck up to expell Mr. Parkinson from the uni- 
 versity for Whiggism, formerly expelled from C.C.C," 
 and a late expulsion of one of the fellows by a Cam- 
 bridge college for justifying the execution of King 
 Charles had been annulled by the restoration of 
 their victim. But means of annoyance still re- 
 
 mained, as well for the Whig as for the Tory. De- 
 grees were refused to even the most senior appli- 
 cants. Dr. Wills complained of the strenuous op- 
 position that was offered to the conferring of his 
 degree, "which he obtained at last with much diffi- 
 culty 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 1 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 ren- 
 dered justly dear to his Jacobite friends at the uni- 
 versity. 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 undergraduates. Though there seems little doubt 
 that his conduct was by no means so irreproachable 
 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. 
 He sketches vividly enough the hot, ardent boy dis- 
 puting " with his disaffected schoolfellows on 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 considerable 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 college 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 
 
 c c 
 
100 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 toasting "King James, Ormond, and Mar," and 
 " Confusion to the Usurper." The young Whig de- 
 clined drinking 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 "turbulent, contumacious, ungovernable, 
 and an undutiful son of the university." The young 
 " freshman" 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 Hoadley in the famous 
 Bangorian controversy only to add to his other titles 
 that of "Arian, infidel, and atheist." It was in vain 
 that head 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 the 26th of May, 1716. On that evening 
 the Club, with several officers of Handysides' regi- 
 ment, were drinking loyal healths at the King's 
 Head, regardless 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, re- 
 plied 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 impos- 
 sible, with any appearance of loyalty, to refuse ; but 
 the jest was an imprudent one. The offender was 
 summoned next day to the Proctor. He was treated 
 to a tirade against the Constitution Club — " the 
 most profligate fellows in Oxford, who de- 
 served to be expelled for pretending to have more 
 loyalty than the rest of the university. Who were 
 this handful of men," thundered the indignant offi- 
 cial, " that they should venture to set themselves 
 up in a place where there were notoriously ten 
 Tories to one Whig f Meadowcourt was fined, and 
 his name, with that of his companions, put down in 
 the Proctorial Black Book, in spite of the inter- 
 cession of influential friends. They were charged 
 
 in that formidable record with " profaning with mad 
 intemperance" the sacred anniversary of the Restora- 
 tion ; with associating " with those who insolently 
 boast of their loyalty to King George ;" with abet- 
 ting "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 admonition 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. Meadow- 
 court 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 pro- 
 ceeding. In spite of these penalties the Constitution 
 Club advanced in numbers and influence. While 
 the Vice-Chancellors were 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. Gar- 
 diner, 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 
 which 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 !" re- 
 joined his questioner, " not in Merton College, Sir?" 
 " Hum," quoth his professorship, " yes, really, I 
 have heard of strange doings there !" Merton, in 
 fact, was regarded by both parties as the centre and 
 rallying-point of the Whigs. Three of its fellows 
 were among " the associates of the red coats," who, 
 with Meadowcourt, experienced the discipline of the 
 Black Book. A Merton Proctor, Mr. Streat, who 
 with his Pro.'s was commemorating the coronation 
 of the King in a tavern, on the evening of that anni- 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 ,m 
 
 versary, which chanced to be Sunday, was pounced 
 upon by the Vice-Chancellor, " who walked the 
 street that evening," and " dismissed forth 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, so that after service he sent for and repri- 
 manded 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's. 
 There were indeed many exceptions ; Johnson, 
 years after, praised Panting, the Master of Pem- 
 broke, as a " fine Jacobite fellow ;" but the Tory- 
 ism of the Heads was lukewarm when compared 
 with the Toryism of the Undergraduates. 
 
 The " Freshman," who 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 few 
 Whigs outlawed, discountenanced, and jeered at, 
 scouted by the society of their college, disqualified 
 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 (Jeremy Kay- 
 mond) are laughed at in the coffee houses, and 
 applauded by the wits. 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, especially French and Hano- 
 verians," 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 Stubbleshire. 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 assur- 
 ance he must be an Hanoverian. If he walked 
 through the streets, rumours instantly flew about, 
 a mob 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 were 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 uni- 
 versity 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 im- 
 position. If he attended, the dry topics of theo- 
 logy were sure to be so enlivened with a spice of 
 treason or a gird at the Whigs. Sometimes an en- 
 tertaining 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 hap- 
 pened 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 ser- 
 mon on the 16th of June. But he was wise enough 
 to get the Vice-Chancellor to read and approve it 
 before he preached it, and may therefore bid Wad- 
 ham, Merton, Exeter, and Christ Church do their 
 worst." Some were not so fortunate. Mr. Coningsby 
 was summoned before the Vice-Chancellor for a ser- 
 mon whose sedition seems to have consisted in 
 inuendoes,and suspended for two years, but Hearne's 
 comment is remarkable — " I am told it was a good 
 honest discourse, and that all were attentive, without 
 the least smile, as often happens when any stinging 
 passage comes in a sermon." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XV. — New Series. 
 
 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 28, 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 Ox- 
 ford ; 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 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 sum- 
 moned, but as notice had been privately given him, 
 the notes were prudently lost. The only result of 
 the Government interference was that in his Com- 
 memoration speech, the Vice-Chancellor branded 
 Meadowcourt as a "turbulentus delator," — "a 
 troublesome informer," — and alluded to the Council 
 as " a foreign jurisdiction." 
 
 That the Government should interfere, and that 
 in a harsher and more summary manner, had been 
 already suggested by many wise and judicious men. 
 We have already noticed the advice which Locke 
 gave to King William, and in 1719 Archbishop 
 
 D 
 
 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 Univer- 
 sities. Lord Macclesfield went further than a mere 
 suggestion or desire. In a formal memorial he em- 
 bodied his plan for the reformation of the Univer- 
 sities, 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 hence- 
 forward 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 which leads only " to their being overrun 
 with spleen, or taking to sottishness." Conciliation 
 was to be attempted by the founding of Professor- 
 ships, and the gift of pensions of " ,£20 or £30 per an- 
 num,"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 an 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. 
 
104 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 abroad, than the Vice-Chancellor and 
 Proctors — apprehensive of the result — published a 
 declaration of their abhorrence of seditious prac- 
 tices, their resolution 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 West- 
 minster 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 dispropor- 
 tionate sentence was followed up by other acts of 
 rigour. The King's Bench granted an information 
 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-establish- 
 ment 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 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 preferment 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 ever} brain ; 
 Hence frontless crowds, that not content to fright 
 The 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 plausive 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, icsulted 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 
 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 
 eome off 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 
 buffoon, the hard-reader and deep-drinker. He 
 lounged an d 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 
 College. 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 condition." There was 
 little poetical in the appearance of this "little, thick, 
 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 John- 
 son said, "like a turkey cock." But poet, notwith- 
 standing, he was, and, in picturesqueness of descrip- 
 tion, 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 unprovoked 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 — 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 105 
 
 " 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 
 less successful in his compliment to the Jacobite 
 Dr. King, whose oration at the opening of the Rad- 
 cliffe had roused a thousand charges of disloyalty — 
 " See, on yon sage, how all attentive stand, 
 To catoh 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, 
 He blends the speaker's with the patriot's fire ; 
 Bold to conceive, 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. 
 Principal of St. Mary's Hall, and, by turns, secre- 
 tary 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 
 contests of party, or rather of faction. " Imprudens 
 et improvidus," it was thus he wrote of himself, 
 "comis et benevolus, seepe aequo iracundior, haud 
 usquam ut essem implacabilis — ipse et sibi parous 
 et vini parcissimus, cum magis vixi, cum plebeiis, 
 cum omnibus, ut homines noscerem — ut meipsum 
 imprimis — neque etiam 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 knowledge 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 
 kindly feeling towards the young aspirants who 
 enlisted under the standard he had deserted. We 
 can yet see the " tall, lean, well-looking man" read- 
 ing, in the shop of Prince, the bookseller, with a 
 smile of pleasure this eulogium from an unknown 
 hand, and then — no idle thought in an age of John- 
 sons 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 communication 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 Robert Peel. 
 The end of his life was 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 dis- 
 appeared 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 Dry- 
 den sang years before — 
 
 " The court of Constantino was full of glory, 
 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 grum- 
 bling, while the heads of braver and truer men were 
 mouldering on Temple Bar, there is something even 
 in this childish obstinacy, this ineffective resent- 
 ment, above the level, uninterrupted sycophancy 
 which was to follow it. The tale, at any rate, 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. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XVI. — New Series. 
 
 Those who are at all conversant with authorship 
 know that sketches of a period, such as those whioh 
 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 com- 
 mon, daily life, which he is endeavouring to disen- 
 tomb, 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 into the " bye-ways" 
 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 obe- 
 dience, doubt not that every little boy who utters 
 those tabooed syllables, " I won't," is destined to be 
 drowned, buried alive, or devoured by 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 unbreeched. 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. 
 W~e 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 u Captain Ward," who comes raving 
 up street at the moment, with eyes bearing traces 
 
 e e 
 
108 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 
 to run over to the old cakeman beneath the elms 
 of Magdalen Horse-walk, where two or three Mag- 
 dalen school-boys 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 Tippety 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 West's pic- 
 ture of " The Death of General Wolfe," as the sol- 
 dier who, leaning on his musket, is casting a last 
 look of affection on his dying leader. Fame, how- 
 ever, had not saved Jack from penury, and his pre- 
 sent resource was that of vending those old-fashioned 
 matches which lucifers 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 
 favoui'ite 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 
 the branch on which he sat, and came to the ground, 
 He was the usual butt of these wits, and one (a Mr. 
 Tawney, we believe of Exeter) published " The Lu- 
 cubrations of Counsellor Bickerton." 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. Dubbing 
 himself 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 as- 
 tonished his hearers with an oration, which, for 
 once, displayed a trifle of sense and lucidity. His 
 exhibitions, however, were sometimes more lu- 
 dicrous. 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 followed 
 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, pro- 
 secutor, and defendant alike, till expelled from the 
 court. 
 
 "Great wit from madness what thin bounds 
 divide," says Dryden, and the occasional eccentrici- 
 ties of the strong-headed Dr. Tatham not un- 
 frequently rivalled the exploits of poor Bickerton. 
 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 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 109 
 
 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. 1 ' 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 pro- 
 bably 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 
 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 who fell in his 
 country's cause. As volunteering is revived, we 
 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 history 
 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 jour- 
 ney to London to make purchases, the shop was 
 closed for a week until his return — as an evidence 
 of the great revolution which has been created by 
 competition 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 
 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. * 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XVII.— New Series. 
 
 In our sketches of the Smart of the Last Century 
 we had occasion to introduce Amherst's picture of 
 the former of the time, in his " lindsey wolzey coat, 
 greasy sunburnt 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, " metamor- 
 phosed into complete Smarts, d — d the old pests, 
 their fathers with 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 
 among a people as unknown to him as the Anti- 
 podes." The ignorance was reciprocated by 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 sus- 
 picions 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 tra- 
 velled on wheels. The two great turnpikes which 
 crossed the country by Witney and Chipping Nor- 
 ton, 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 car- 
 riage 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 impassible but with real danger." The neigh- 
 bouring 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," writes Young, in 1809, " has taken place, 
 but generally by turnpikes which cross the country 
 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, Abing- 
 don, Wallingford, Henley, Reading, &c, &c, and in 
 every direction, and these lines necessarily intersect 
 the country in every direction. The parish roads 
 are greatly improved, 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 winch De 
 
 Pf 
 
112 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Quincey, in his autobiography, dwells with such de- 
 light, was suggestive of something more than mate- 
 rial progress. To every thoughtful observer they 
 must have seemed the great weapons by which 
 England was gathering up her severed parts into 
 one united whole ; which 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 se- 
 cluded 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 
 weapons 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, or a correspondence with their 
 Sultanas fell into the hands of inquisitive inn- 
 keepers, 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 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 
 would. If travellers run scarce, or the road became 
 dangerous, it was easy to assemble a gang of a dozen, 
 and break into a farmhouse or a rectory. The 
 newspapers of the time are crowded with outrage, 
 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 ques- 
 tion of Police into their own hands. " Divers felo- 
 nies and depredations," says an advertisement in 
 the Oxford Journal, for 1783, "having been lately 
 made and committed on the persons and property 
 of the Inhabitants of Oxford, its suburbs, and neigh- 
 bourhood, it has been resolved to promote an as- 
 
 sociation for a 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 offenders." The Mayor 
 for the time being was, by the rules, constituted 
 Treasurer, and associated in committee with four- 
 teen other members, Mr. Aid. Tawney, Mr. Aid. 
 j Tongue, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Morrell, Mr. Taunton, Mr. 
 I Shortland, Mr. Lock, Mr.Burford, Mr. James Fletcher 
 jun., Mr. John Walker, Mr. Thomas Prickett, Mr. 
 Francis Gurden, 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 pro- 
 I portion for crimes of less consequence. No com- 
 I promise with persons arrested was to be allowed, 
 I and the prosecutor's share of all rewards, given by 
 ; Act of Parliament, was to be added to the premium 
 j offered by the society for their apprehension. A 
 i similar association was formed, with still higher re- 
 1 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 
 I advertisements, spread rapidly over all the neigh- 
 j bouring counties. How little terror these an- 
 j nouncements caused among the fraternity, we may 
 see from the following item of Oxford news, for 
 I February 28, 1784. "Between seven and eight 
 I o'clock last Monday evening, one of the Bath coaches 
 was robbed upon the galloping ground above Botley, 
 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 
 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 diffused 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 for natural beauty was denied to 
 our forefathers. The very phrases which they 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 113 
 
 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 Snowden 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 upon 
 town at the humdrum monotony of a country life. 
 Sir John with his long stories over the bottle, Lady 
 Prue with her geuealogies 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 Tugger — 
 
 " And grant me now, 
 Good reader, thou ! 
 Of terms to use, 
 Such choice to choose, 
 As may delight 
 The country wigbt, 
 
 And knowledge bring ; 
 
 For such do praise 
 The country phraze, 
 The country acts, 
 The country facts, 
 The country toys, 
 Before tbe joys 
 
 Of any thing." 
 
 [In this article a slight repetition of a fact or two that appeared in the First Series will be observed, arising from a change in the 
 
 authorship of the papers. — Ed.] • 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XVIII.— New Series. 
 
 The character of the Oxfordshire farmer expe- 
 rienced a remarkable change during the progress of 
 the last century. The great spread of education, 
 the variations 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 proportional 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 en- 
 closures." The capital of trade was beginning to be 
 thrown into the cultivation of the land. Mr. Taun- 
 ton was paring and burning hundreds of acres of 
 waste land at Ensham, 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 farm- 
 ing. 
 
 But, " Forty years ago," the same writer confesses, 
 " 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 farm- 
 ers 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 communications, the result 
 of enlarged ideas, were contrasted with a dark igno- 
 rance 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 " run" with 
 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 astrolo- 
 ger, whose family were yeomen in the obscure town 
 of Diseworth, in Leicestershire, describes it amus- 
 ingly as " a town of great rudeness, wherein it is not 
 remembered 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 consump- 
 tion. 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 
 
 Gg 
 
116 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 Baldon had a plot of hemp, and all manufactured 
 into linen for their own consumption, selling what 
 they could spare ;" but its close saw the extinction 
 of this household manufacture. " The last," adds 
 Young, writing in 1809, " was given up about six 
 years ago." 
 
 It was a time of transition for much besides hemp 
 plots. The whole face of the country was 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 13 years ago." Culham-heath was still 
 unenclosed. " the nearest land (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 this 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, orsomewhat more than one-fifth of the county. 
 One consequence was a sensible diminution in the 
 wheat produce. The 4,882 acres of wheat grown be- 
 fore these Enclosure Acts actually decreased by 112. 
 Under the head of oats, however, as well as cattle, 
 dairy land, sheep pasture, and turnips, we find a 
 considerable increase. Burford is an instance : 
 " Since its enclosure it has not produced so much 
 corn, but infinitely more mutton and beef." Rents 
 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 Audley was £500 a year, 
 now it is £2,500 : one estate there was offered for 
 £3000, it is now £800 per annum." Rents round 
 Bicester were 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 fastmen taking their morning drive, still 
 hung on to its old " rights," its cow common and 
 common meadows, where wretched cross-bred sheep 
 were tended by "miserable shepherds." Whichwood. 
 still spread over its 7,000 acres, filling its vicinity 
 with "poachers, deer-stealers, and pilferers of every 
 kind. . . Oxford gaol would be uninhabited were 
 it not for this fertile source of crimes." Most stub- 
 born of all was Otmoor, where the "commoners" 
 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 rick yard 
 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 country and farm 
 with no little disgust." The thrashing mill, though 
 a new invention at the close of the last century, 
 was rapidly superseding the flail. Other imple- 
 ments made slower progress. In 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 
 Oxfordshire." 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 to be found on the rich red land north of 
 Banbury. Swedes were in 1807 just beginning to 
 attract attention, but at Milton where Sir C. Wil- 
 loughby, 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 
 Oxfordshire seems to have taken the lead among 
 English counties. In other respects it was not so 
 advanced. Nature had her own water-meadows at 
 Watereaton, where the summer floods would some- 
 times sweep away five hundred pounds worth of 
 
OXFOED DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 117 
 
 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 pro- 
 duced, says a competent witness, half as much again 
 as they did thirty years before, and the increase 
 was attributable 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 18th 
 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 
 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 ge- 
 nerally eaten." Of their occasional hardships, and 
 how much these have been relieved by national pro- 
 gress, we gain a glimpse in the following note. " Be- 
 fore the navigable canal, about 1780, the people at 
 Heyford were greatly distrest for firing, wood being 
 scarce ; they were obliged to burn straw, &c, or 
 anything they could procure, but are now as well 
 supplied with coals as any other village in Oxford- 
 shire." 
 
 Far greater distress, however, than that of the 
 agricultural labourers was the lot of the manufac- 
 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 cen- 
 tury, 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 1 807 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 ma- 
 nufacture 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 18th 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 parte, 
 from the 2s. rates of Kelmscott, to 10s. at Burford, 
 and 14s., in the scarcity, at Bensington. The poor- 
 rate for the city in 1803 (the date of these statis- 
 tics) 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 the 
 present century, the population of the city was 
 estimated at about 13,000, that of the county at 
 96,000. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XIX. — New Series. 
 
 So much interest has been taken in the restora- 
 tion 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 J50 for five-year- 
 olds j 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. During the period of the races, Ox- 
 ford was a scene of gaiety. Public breakfasts al- 
 ternated 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 find the Mayor and con- 
 stables busy in effecting a razzia. Itinerant hair- 
 dressers came down from Loudon to prepare the 
 elaborate head-dresses of the ladies who flocked in 
 from 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. Rudge, of Queen's," 
 was not the only college Fellow who launched 
 these wondrous machines amid the applause of the 
 university ; nor the Marquis of Bland ford 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 
 
 themselves to this frail means of ascent. One of 
 the first of such exploits, in England, was the as- 
 cent of Mr. Sadler from the Physic Garden, No- 
 vember 12, 1784. The accounts notice "a surpriz- 
 ing concourse of people of all ranks ; the roads, 
 streets, fields, trees, buildings, and towers of the 
 parts adjacent being crowded beyond description." 
 After crossing Otmoor, Thame, &c, the balloon de- 
 scended 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 thro' several of the principal 
 streets of this city, and were not content till they 
 had compelled the inhabitants to illuminate their 
 houses." 
 
 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 
 during 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 miscella- 
 neous 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 
 Wantage had its back-sword feast, and Stow-on-the- 
 Wold offered the munificent prizes of " half-a-guinea 
 to any one who breaks a head, and half-a-crown to 
 the man that has his head broken," Oxford was 
 unobtrusively fostering " Florist Feasts," the hum- 
 ble 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 
 
 Hh 
 
120 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 exhibitions, which, from this time, continued to be 
 held annually. 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 do- 
 mains of Lord Harcourt, would seem to point to 
 the first origin of that most enjoyable of all quiet 
 amusements — a water-party to Nuneham. 
 
 It was from Nuneham that King George, with 
 his Queen, and the Princes Ernest, Augustus, 
 Adolphus ; the Princess Royal, Augusta, and Eliza- 
 beth, visited Oxford, September 17th, 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 en- 
 counters with a hostile majority ; had expressed to 
 the King "its 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 im- 
 portant 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 
 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 ren- 
 dered him the object of universal veneration and 
 esteem." This address they even prevailed on their 
 member, Lord Robert 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 accesion 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-Chan cellor, 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 kiss- 
 ing their Majesties' hands, while Dr. Hayes per- 
 formed several overtures on the organ. After visit- 
 ing the Bodleian, New College, St. John's, and the 
 Observatory, the King returned to the Council 
 Chamber, and conferred the honour of knighthood 
 on the Mayor (John Treacher, Esq.), who, with the 
 Aldermen, assistants, and other members of the 
 Corporation, kissed hands. All Souls', Queen's, and 
 Magdalen, having been inspected, the royal party 
 quitted Oxford at a little past five, and returned 
 by Lord Harcourt's to Windsor. It may interest fu- 
 ture investigators into royal costume to know that 
 " his Majesty and the young Princes were in a blue 
 and gold uniform, the Queen in a lilac silk, the 
 Princesses Royal and 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 Mayor, 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 was Mr. 
 John Watson, with Mr. Stephen Haynes and Mr. 
 William Costar, Bailiffs. On the 3rd of April, 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. Pearce and Mr. Bush, Bailiffs. Mr. Halse had 
 previously 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 Maccabseus 
 was performed in St. Martin's. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 121 
 
 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 
 Kobert Spencer and Captain Bertie, though open 
 followers of Fox, were returned without opposition. 
 The scene was hardly more creditable at Banbury, 
 where the territorial influence of Lord North secured 
 his re-election. "Some disgust having been con- 
 ceived at a former election, relative to the beer 
 which had been withheld from the companies of 
 woolcombers, weavers, &c, they peremptorily de- 
 clined accepting any favours from his Lordship, and, 
 determining to have an election of their own, consti- 
 tuted a corporation among themselves. At the time 
 Lord North's election was carrying on, the new- 
 created corporation passed his Lordship in grand 
 procession, with music, flags, and 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 pole. 
 The companies having elected their member, he was 
 chaired amidst the acclamations of a thousand 
 people." The mention of the companies in this 
 extract, from the papers of the time, is illustrated 
 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 shep- 
 herdess, and followed by a band of youths, uniformly 
 dressed in white, with sashes of various-coloured 
 wool, and carrying wands ; next came Bishop Blaize 
 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 uniforms, with sashes of 
 wool, and a banner of the same, closed a scene which 
 gave infinite satisfaction to the spectators." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XX. — New Series. 
 
 The year 1786 began and ended with a great dis- 
 play of activity on the part of the new Street Com- 
 missioners. In February informations were ordered 
 against " such of the inhabitants as shall neglect to 
 have the pavement swept before their respective 
 doors" four times a week, and against " persons suf- 
 fering postchaises, carts, or waggons to remain in 
 the public streets, and particularly in Lincoln and 
 Jesus College Lanes, on Market days." And in the 
 following 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. In the succeeding May workmen were 
 already busy in taking down "the ornaments and 
 imagery from the upper part of the Conduit, these 
 ancient decorations having been presented by the 
 university to the Earl of Harcourt." 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 unappro- 
 priated, a relic of so much civic interest should have 
 been lost to Oxford. 
 
 Nuneham at this period was often honoured with 
 the royal presence, and after a visit to Lord Har- 
 court in the month of August their Majesties, with 
 the Princesses Royal, Augusta, and Elizabeth set out 
 for Oxford on Sunday, the 18th, and were received 
 at the east gate of the Schools by the Vice-Chancel- 
 lor, the Duke of Marlborough, the Marquis of Bland- 
 ford, Heads of Colleges, &c, and escorted to the 
 
 Theatre. Here an address was presented overflow- 
 ing with protestations 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 which (the Mayor de- 
 clining to accept that dignity) the honour of knight- 
 hood 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 Arch- 
 duke Ferdinand of Austria, and his consort Beatrice, 
 Princess of Modena, 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 confined 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 
 wood yard 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 re- 
 
 I 1 
 
124 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 prieved, 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 fre- 
 quency 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 Panton, of 
 Little London, for five shillings, to whom she was pub- 
 licly delivered soon after with a halter about her neck ; 
 but it seems Panton was very soon sick of his bar- 
 gain, for in the afternoon of the same day he gene- 
 rously made a present of her to Sadler, the Wood- 
 ward of Bagley." And in the year 1 789 we find the 
 new Oxford market-place selected as the scene of 
 one of the brutal barters by a "navvy" employed 
 on the canal, who " 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 pur- 
 chaser 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 wedding ring, which 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 flitohings being elected 
 Bailiffs. In the next month the honorary free- 
 dom of the city was presented to Sir Charles 
 Nourse and Mr. William Jackson, the originator 
 and proprietor of the Oxford Journal. The same 
 honour was in the course of the next year con- 
 ferred on Lord Heathfield, 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 the recollection 
 that at this very time Lord Kenyon was busy preach- 
 ing 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 plenti- 
 fully 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 com- 
 pliments 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 Journal. 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 forgotten predecessor in the 
 occupation of those last few feet of earth, " a buckle 
 about the bigness of a crown piece," and " some fine 
 silver threads which might probably have belonged 
 to the fringe of his girdle." 
 
 At the civic election for the year 1788 we find Mr. 
 Francis Gulden elected Mayor ; Mr. William Hyde 
 and Mr. James Tagg bailiffs ; Mr. Thomas Benwell 
 and Mr. John Cox chamberlains ; while the vacan- 
 cies in the Council Chamber were filled up by the 
 election of Mr. William Slatter, Mr. Simon Brown, 
 and Mr. Richard 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 Regiment of Militia" 
 — quartered inthecity for theirannual 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 war- 
 like 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 267 pa- 
 triotic members of the House of Commons, who 
 strenously asserted and maintained the constitu- 
 tional right of the Lords and Commons of this 
 realm to supply the defect of the personal exercise 
 of the Royal authority," in opposition to the he- 
 reditary 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 Ox- 
 ford. A public 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 not a cottage in the suburbs neg- 
 lected to display its owner's loyalty. The Duke of 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 125 
 
 Leicester, who, with the rest of the Irish deputa- 
 tion, sent to offer the unrestricted Regency 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 stage-waggons, 
 stripped of their tilts, with the naked hoops studded 
 over with lights, and groups 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 without pause dur- 
 ing the whole time of their stay. The mere threat 
 of an attempt at a repeal of the Test and Corpora- 
 tion Act, revived in 1790 the vigour of civic Tory- 
 ism ; 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 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 fall- 
 ing 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 " right 
 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 por- 
 tion of its timber was applied by the College to the 
 construction of a large and highly-ornamented 
 chair, and numerous snuff-boxes still remain as me- 
 mentoes of its existence. 
 
 The Mayor for the year 1789 was Mr. John Par- 
 sons, 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 be- 
 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 
 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. An- 
 nesley 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 Cordwain- 
 ers Companies ; "upon which occasion the two 
 honorary members,"' — Captain Parker and Lord 
 Parker — " were each presented with a taylor'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 magnificent gilt chandelier and chain." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XXI.— New Series. 
 
 The year 1792 found Oxford, in common with the 
 rest of the kingdom, eagerly watching the progress 
 of revolution 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 be- 
 came 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 
 political Utopia, the lesson is no valueless one 
 France hewed her way through abuses and anoma- 
 lies 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 failed 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 our coun- 
 try," and of binding them to " oppose, detect, and 
 suppress all seditious, treasonable, and inflammatory 
 publications, whether in newspapers, handbills, lu- 
 dicrous or caricature prints, &c," and to assist the 
 magistrates in the suppression of any riot or dis- 
 turbance ; 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 whose support the Vice-Chancellor was en- 
 abled 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 the 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 com- 
 mitted to the flames on the top of Carfax. " The 
 figure was dressed in black, with the Rights of Man 
 in his left hand and a pair of stays under his right 
 arm." The same ceremony was performed in the 
 course of the next week at Headington, with some- 
 what more state and dignity. "Colonel Langton, 
 and Richard Lloyd, Esq., were particularly active 
 and zealous on this occasion ; and previous to the 
 
 Kk 
 
128 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 
 success on our arms, and for restoring the blessings 
 of peace to this kingdom," which was afterwards ob- 
 served 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 " widows and 
 children of seamen or soldiers who may die or be 
 killed in his Majesty's services during the present 
 war," which was headed by the Corporation with a 
 donation of £50. 
 
 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 
 Dromore — better known to lovers of English litera- 
 ture as the collector of " The Reliques of Ancient 
 English Poetry," 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 
 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 Revolu- 
 tionary 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 cam- 
 paigning 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 pre- 
 parations 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 with fights, 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 
 cockades, and entertained by the gentry of the 
 neighbourhood. The ebullitions of popular loyalty 
 were, howevef, sometimes more ardent than wise, 
 for in the course of this year we find the Dissenting 
 Minister at Oxford violently assaulted by a party 
 of recruits " under a misconception of his political 
 sentiments." 
 
 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 thon half-price, for the space 
 of eleven weeks," while the Corporation ordered all 
 necessitous persons to be supplied with the best 
 coals at fourteen pence per hundred, and the defi- 
 ciency 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 hun- 
 dred. 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 shil- 
 ling for every additional child, and that where the 
 family earnings were less, the overseer should make 
 up the deficiency. The scarcity did not cease with 
 the winter, and the usual amount of folly in the 
 shape of proposals 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." 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 129 
 
 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 recommend the same to 
 their respective societies." In this they did but 
 follow the example of the Privy Council, 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 quixotio attempts pro- 
 duced no great impression, and, in July, 1795, a 
 general subscription is again set on foot for the re- 
 lief of the poor, and the reduction of the price of 
 bread in their case to fourteen pence 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, 1796, "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, and 
 a curious tornado, whioh visited the city in the 
 
 beginning of 1792. "A meeting of the Bursars," 
 held in 1793, "for the purpose of taking into 
 consideration 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 
 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 matri- 
 culation 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 privi- 
 lege 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 hesi- 
 tation, in favour of the City. A serious mutiny of 
 the Oxfordshire Militia, stationed, in 1795, at Bletch- 
 ingdon, must have excited a painful interest in the 
 county. It was a rough attempt to effect what their 
 superiors were just as clumsily attempting — a reduc- 
 tion 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 his flour to the amount of i>5,000, 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. 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No. XXII.— New Series. 
 
 "Imagination," said the 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 con- 
 secrated all under the name of "The Good Old 
 Times." There would be little harm in all this, if, 
 in doing justice to the past, we did not often do less 
 than justice to the present. Comparisons 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 authors 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 was impossible to do so 
 without provoking some comparison with the 
 present — without the expression of a firm convic- 
 tion 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 sever- 
 ing the two most dissimilar seras 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 
 concluded even within the walls of Newgate, at the 
 fifty open public-houses, and the cold collation to 
 the members of the Corporation, which celebrated 
 the sale of the seat to the Duke of Marlborough. 
 Those who still profess to regret the changes ef- 
 fected by the Municipal Reform Act can scarcely 
 regret changes which, at any rate, abolished the 
 bribery, the gin-bottles, the unscrupulous employ- 
 ment of influence which made a civic election a 
 bye-word. The fellows of St. John's no longer 
 think it a nocturnal enjoyment to sally forth for a 
 bottle at the neighbouring alehouses. The Three 
 Tuns no longer affords a means of convivial plea- 
 sure 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 highway- 
 man, mounted like Dumas, would be as much stared 
 at as a mermaid ; we never think of looking care- 
 fully to our pistols as we take our railway ticket. 
 Our prisons are not the scene of the foulest ex- 
 cesses, and the most horrible outbreaks ; the pil- 
 lory 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 
 
 Ll 
 
130 
 
 OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 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 longer catch 
 the whispers of flirtation, or the click of Flavia's 
 fan. Baylis and Blenkensop 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 
 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 was 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 beginning 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, j 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 witlTTfte glorious news of 
 Blenheim, of Ramillies, of Malplaquet ; the House 
 of Bourbon is the terror of Europe, and a grand 
 confederacy is clipping the 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 exa- 
 mination 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 Whitfield forth to sow 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 Chipping 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 im- 
 plements 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 progress in the city. 
 The corporation is as corrupt in the beginning as in 
 the close of this sera, as busy in 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. 1 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 forthi Concerts grow more and more frequent. 
 Flower shows, shows of carnations, trips to Nuneham, 
 
OXFORD DURING THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 131 
 
 trivial as they may seem to us», are yet the straws 
 that shew the set of the tide of refinement. The 
 building of the RadclifFe Infirmary forms an im- 
 portant sera in the charities of Oxford. Meanwhile 
 the whole aspect of the city is undergoing a change 
 by the operation of the Improvement Act of the 
 latter part of the century. A market-place is esta- 
 blished, 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 cannot 
 but regret while we approve it — by the construction 
 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 
 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 play- 
 ing whist with Eden and Charles Fox ; the brilliant 
 though discursive writer whom we have so recently 
 lost, De Quincy, was there, entering hall with coat 
 buttoned to the throat, and gown drawn close about 
 
 him to conceal the rents in his threadbare habili- 
 ments ; Collins was parading about Queen's or Mag- 
 dalen 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 cloisters of Magdalen in his velvet cap" and silk 
 gown, sneering at the port-bibbing dons whom he 
 mixes with in common-room, and sneered at by 
 them in turn as they see him poring over his D'Her- 
 belot ; 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 John- 
 son's gaunt convulsed form lounging at Pembroke 
 gate, a wit, 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 spin- 
 ning-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 Cen- 
 tury on which we have been landing so lately, ifc 
 seems 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 
 Reformation — but the Age of the Georges is 
 vanished for ever. 
 
y 
 
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