’VARSITY LITERATURE

There is some indefinable element in the atmosphere of Oxford which has always excited an itch for writing. The sister university can, of course, point to many sons whose names stand high in the literary firmament, but they do not amount to a tithe of the number of great writers who have passed through Oxford. Oxford may be the home of lost causes, but she is also the cradle for infant pens. Generations of pens splutter their first incoherencies behind the comparative shelter of the city walls through which the harsh criticism of maturer writers cannot penetrate. In stilted phraseology and doubtful grammar they cover numberless sheets with emotional outpourings. There may be future literary geniuses hidden among them, but from those early imitative strivings it is difficult to single out even one. They are novices who humbly apprentice themselves to the profession of letters. From time to time some quite brilliant piece of work throws up more vividly the amateurishness of the rest. Such meteoric flashes are, however, rare, and thus the general standard does not rise above mediocrity. It is because all Undergraduate pens are very young and inexperienced that the present-day ’varsity papers can make no claim to literary distinction. To their credit be it said that they do not. They are content to remain just ’varsity papers—which is synonymous with saying that they are either tediously over-academic or peculiarly inane; that their light articles are excellent imitations of the halfpenny comic papers, that their serious efforts are most praiseworthy for their capacity for inflicting boredom, and that their editorials border upon the inept.

It is not an unknown thing for a present-day Undergraduate paper, which is supposedly conducted by Undergraduates for Undergraduates to be owned and financed by a local tradesman. He, being thus in supreme command, maintains a private blue pencil, and, obsessed by the idea that because he sells pens and inks he is therefore a man of parts and literary consideration, rules the poor devil of an Undergraduate editor with a rod of iron. What is the result? It is that the average ’varsity paper is composed of childish leaders edited by the financier; a series of vastly foolish and unentertaining remarks which may or may not have been heard in the Broad; pages of notes which are half-frightened comments on the week’s doings written invariably by critics who have not sufficient pluck to say that they consider the person or thing under criticism to be either thoroughly bad or supremely excellent; a mawkish account of the speeches delivered in the Union Society’s Debates, written with the condescending patronage of the old stager, by some self-satisfied ex-official, himself a thoroughly bad speaker and so totally unqualified to criticise; a collection of dramatic criticisms of the bi-weekly pieces at the New Theatre, scribbled by some musical comedy enthusiast who, in addition to a total ignorance of the drama, has been warned by the financier of the paper to say nice things however bad the play or the acting in order to secure free seats from the theatre; and, lastly, a fulsome and objectionably personal article which purports to be a biography of a well-known Oxford man.

Perhaps under these Gilbertian conditions it is no wonder that the literary efforts of Georgian times put those of the present to shame. In the eighteenth century university journals were at least independent. They looked for no pecuniary assistance from local ironmongers or haberdashers. The consequence is that although the contributors were beginners whose efforts were the result of the itch for writing brought on by that indefinable element which was in the atmosphere of Oxford then as now, their work was unhampered by any outside considerations. The literary standard was not of the highest order. How could it be when the writers were lads varying from eighteen to twenty years of age? It was, however, higher than that of to-day. On turning over the various ’varsity papers of two centuries ago, an uncomfortable sensation of that most unusual emotion—humility—inevitably results, because there is undoubtedly found in them much that is witty, fearless, original, vivid, and entertaining.

In those days the editor drew up a scheme for running his paper, and adhered to it in defiance of Don and man. Now, however, in his frantic efforts to keep life in his moribund sheet, the editor does not see that his copy is good and worth printing, copy guaranteed to sell largely. That is not the idea. The only way to secure financial soundness is, he finds, to pander to the advertisers by the shifty method of writing puffs for cigarettes, soaps, wines, and so on, in a column which bears a disguised and misleading heading, and which is an insult to the intelligence of his youngest reader.

In analysing the university journals of the eighteenth century I will begin with the year 1753, when the inhabitants of Oxford and the surrounding counties were enlivened by Jackson’s Oxford Journal. As to its make-up the editor announced that, “This paper will be more complete than any that has hitherto appeared in this Part of the Kingdom. For besides the Articles of News, Foreign and Domestic, in which we shall endeavour to surpass every other Paper, our Situation will enable us to oblige our readers with a particular account of every Transaction relating to the present Opposition in Oxfordshire, as also with a Variety of curious Pieces in Prose and Verse, on both sides of the Question; which no other Paper can procure.” Having made this declaration of his modus operandi Jackson adhered to it rigidly and fully. His columns of foreign news were stocked with items of note and interest. Foreign politics, wars, rumours of wars, agricultural depressions or rises were all included, and came from the uttermost parts of the earth. The domestic intelligence covered the movements of the King and royal family, meetings of celebrated London societies, and chatty descriptions of assaults and batteries. In one issue there was a sporting account of how “a young man ran from Queen Street, Cheapside, to Hornsey Wood, and back again, in one Hour and four minutes.” The next paragraph related that “the same Morning was found drowned in the River, William Andrew, a Master Taylor in Spital Fields. His watch and Money, with two Rings on his Finger, were found upon him.” This little tragedy was immediately followed by an incident of comedy which occurred in the London streets.

“Between Five and Six o’clock on Sunday Evening an uncommon Scheme was put in Execution by a Gang of Pickpockets in St James’s Park. A Person very well dressed fixing himself with great Attention, as tho’ he saw something particular in the Air, occasioned a Number of People to enquire the Reason and join in the Speculation, when he asserted he saw a very bright Star; and while he was busy in pointing out the Constellation to the Spectators several of them lost their handkerchiefs, but the Star gazer got off.”

Jackson’s news columns were every bit as full in comparison as the London papers to-day. With politics, too, he dealt very fully. In a short and pithy editorial, however, he assured his readers that his own political views did not count—he was merely running the paper. This, odd as it may seem, was sound diplomatic policy, because in those days, with ever-changing party feeling, it was a mere matter of five minutes to issue an injunction, stop the press, and confiscate the whole plant. Devoted as he was to political interest Jackson printed many of the promised “curious Pieces of Prose and Verse.”

The other political contribution took the form of an election song, the sort of thing that the Undergraduates of those times would seize upon and parade the streets of the university, chanting right lustily in gangs.

“ADVICE TO FREEHOLDERS.
“Ye honest Freeholders, bestir all your stumps;
For all now depends upon who turns up Trumps.
Be sure that you chuse
Neither Placemen nor Jews.
Nor such as are likely their trust to abuse.
To the devil you’re sold if the Conj’rer prevails;
If Israel’s Black Seed, beware of your Tails.
Chorus.
“Alas! that poor Britons should lose for their Sins
Their Liberties, Properties and their Fore-Skins.”In addition to such contributions in prose and verse, the columns of the Journal were open to any keen correspondent who cared to air either his views or his grievances—an opportunity of which the fullest advantage was taken. In every issue urgent appeals and exhortations to voters and freeholders appeared over various names. The advertisement columns, such as they were, contained frequent announcements of the publication of political pamphlets addressed to the “Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the country of Oxford.” These columns contained also the most curious hotch-potch of unexpected posts and requests, such as:

Another frequently-appearing notice was an advertisement of a booklet of advice to new-married persons, or the art of having beautiful children. This was surrounded by bills of races, cock fights, arrivals of new dancing masters, who addressed themselves to the nobility and gentry in and about Oxford, quack medicines and ointments which were a never-failing remedy for the itch, announced “by the King’s authority. N.B.—One box is sufficient to cure a grown person, and divided, is a cure for two children.”

For the rest it was the receptacle for articles of every nature from all and sundry. Warton left his antiquarian researches to afford himself a little relaxation by writing for it a version of Gray’s Elegy up to date, or an appreciation of Ben Tyrell’s mutton pies. From the various coffee-houses Jackson received the wonderful effusions of the Bucks of the first head, sonnets to Sylvia’s eyelashes, poems in praise of Oxford ale, and even an occasional Latin verse. “Old Lochard, the newsman,” says J. R. Green in his delightful Oxford chapters, “who, bell in hand, hawked the Journal through the streets, owed to his college patrons not only the antiquated cane and rusty grizzle wig, which they had thrown by after ten years’ service of 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 a cup of October from the squire, or a dram from Mother Baggs.”[22]

In the Journal’s own war paean:—

“Each vast event our varied page supplies,
The fall of princes or 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.”Throughout almost the entire eighteenth century the editorial chairs of the different periodicals seem to have been filled for the most part by St John’s men. Terrae Filius appeared first in 1721 under the guidance of Nicholas Amhurst of St John’s. In 1789 The Loiterers, a literary weekly, was launched before the public by James Austen of St John’s. His brother, H. T. Austen of the same college, materially assisted him by contributing a number of delightful imaginative articles. This paper was filially dedicated by the editor to the President and Fellows of his college, and ran successfully for two years. The present-day members have done their best to maintain the literary traditions of this college, for that nine days’ wonder, the Tuesday Review, was edited and run by two rash men of St John’s.

Amhurst took it upon himself to fill the post of cat-o’-nine-tails to the University, and in his “secret history” lashed at everybody and thing that was not to his liking, or that seemed to him to constitute in any way an abuse. He discovered for himself, in all their abundance, the manifold troubles of an editor, but was not to be coerced or cajoled into anything that he did not consider fit and proper.

“In a work of this nature,” he wrote in the preface to the second edition of Terrae Filius, “it is very hard to please any, and impossible to please all. The different tempers and tastes of men cannot relish the same style or manner of writing any more than the same dish or the same diversion: fops love romances; pedants love jargon; the splenatic man delights in satire; and the gay courtier in panegyric; some are pleased with poetry; others with prose; some are for plain truths, and some for disguise and dissimulation. I was aware of this when I began, and, in my second paper, reserved to myself a liberty to be in what humour I pleased, and to vary my manner as well as my subject, hoping thereby to please most sorts of readers; but I quickly found myself disappointed in my expectations, having often received, by the same post, complaints from some of my correspondents, that I was too grave for the character of Terrae Filius; and from others, that I affected levity too much for one who styled himself a reformer. In answer to both of the objections I shall beg my readers to consider that as, on one hand, it ought not to be expected that a man should keep his face upon the broad grin for half a year together; so, on the other, I cannot apprehend that it is at all necessary for a reformer to be a puritan, always in the dumps, and always holding forth with a dismal face and a canting tone:—

“‘... ridiculum acri
Fortis et melius magnas plerumque secat res.’

“... I can see nothing in it to repent of, but the want of sufficient abilities to treat a subject of such general importance in the manner which it deserves. But I hope the reader will excuse some imperfections, when he considers the nature of my stunted education, that I was allow’d to continue but three years at Oxford, and was not twenty-four years of age when I compleated this undertaking.”

In self-explanation Terrae Filius started off his campaign with sundry paragraphs calculated to make the authorities uneasy as to their own future safety, and to cause Undergraduates to champion him against them at all hazards.

“It has, till of late,” he explained, “been a custom, from time immemorial, for one of our family to mount the rostrum at Oxford at certain seasons, and divert an innumerable crowd of spectators, who flock’d thither to hear him from all parts, with a merry oration in the fescenine manner, interspersed with secret history, raillery, and sarcasm, as the occasions at the times supply’d him with matter. If a venerable head of a college was caught snug a bed with his neighbour’s wife; or shaking his elbows on a Sunday morning; or flattering a prime minister for a bishopric; or coaxing his bedmaker’s girl out of her maidenhead; the hoary old sinner might expect to hear of it from our lay-pulpit the next Act. Or if a celebrated toast and a young student were seen together at midnight under a shady myrtle tree, billing like two turtle doves, to him it belonged, being a poet as well as an orator, to tell the tender story in a melancholy ditty, adapted to pastoral music.”

Claiming to follow the precedents established by his old-time predecessors, Terrae Filius set about showing up the scandalous old Heads, disguised in thinly-veiled names. As a consequence he was many times prohibited by Vice-Chancellors and preached down, and cordially loathed and execrated by all the college Heads and Fellows of his time, whom he attacked either directly or indirectly.

“Why should a poor Undergraduate,” he asked, “be called an idle rascal, and a good-for-nothing blockhead, for being perhaps but twice at chapel in one day; or for coming into college at ten or eleven o’clock at night; or for a thousand other greater trifles than these; whilst the grey-headed doctors may indulge themselves in what debaucheries and corruptions they please, with impunity, and without censure? Methinks it could not do any great hurt to the universities if the old fellows were to be jobed at least once in four or five years for their irregularities, as the young ones are everyday, if they offend.”

Abuses of such a nature are long dead, and a Terrae Filius to-day would rapidly die of starvation by reason of the lack of matter. Then, however, he not only lived, but waxed fat on the news he ferreted out—rather in the manner of a leech applied to a festering sore. Advertisements to him meant nothing. They were unsought, and would have been refused if offered. He was pro bono publico, ever ready with advice, satire, criticism, explanation, and always humour. His pen was untiring in writing a subject up or down, according to its merits or demerits. Political, religious, academic, and social abuses were thrown on to the screen fearlessly. His paternal advice to freshmen, although written in a vein of biting irony, was, nevertheless exactly suited to the times, and, if followed unswervingly, must assuredly have been of vast assistance in coping with the wily, time-serving sculls and beer-swilling tutors. His advice as to their morale was penned with his tongue in his cheek; but in substance it was none the less straight and praiseworthy. His political views were consistent and very strenuous, and the opposition received a royal scourging from his stinging and lengthy lashes. His contempt for Smarts was only exceeded by his scorn for drink-soddened, incapable Fellows, and the scandalous manner in which they neglected the statutes and allowed everything to run to seed. His boldness in choice of subjects was unparalleled, the outspoken manner of setting them forth absolutely inimitable. The results achieved by his work must have been considerable, though to a large extent unperceived publicly, because a new leaf turned frankly and openly would have been an avowal of guilt on the part of the persons concerned. The proof that he was largely read lies in the fact that he was preached about in no measured terms in public pulpits, prohibited by various authorities, roasted by aggrieved parties in coffee- and ale-houses, and, in fact, was a household word on every one’s tongue.

A lengthy disquisition upon the way in which the truth was mangled, disguised, covered up, and turned about by priests, statesmen, and every “old libertine in authority” was followed by the ensuing declaration:—

“I, Terrae Filius, a free-thinker, and a free-speaker, highly incensed against all knavery and imposture, and not thinking Truth such a terrible enemy to religion and good order, as it has been represented, do hereby declare war against all cheats and deluders, however dignified, or wheresoever residing; the fear of obloquy and ill-usage shall not deter me from this undertaking, nor shall any considerations rob me of the liberty of my own thoughts and my own tongue. In the pursuit of this design, I shall not confine myself to any particular method; but shall be grave and whimsical, serious or ludicrous, prosaical or poetical, philosophical or satirical, argue or tell stories, weep over my subject, or laugh over it, be in humour or out of humour, according to whatever passion is uppermost in my breast whilst I am writing.”

In token of this promise there stands the truth on every page, however bedded in satire, philosophy, poetry, or ridicule. He saw to it that his daily path was studded with nails, and in his passage he hit them each one on the head. As a result the pages of Terrae Filius are from cover to cover a source of immense joy. For an example of bold and delightful satire I cannot find a better instance than the ne plus ultra in skits on the Poetical Club. Of course he gave the president and learned professors who composed it fictitious names, but it is palpable that those caricatured recognised themselves, and, if they had the least grain of humour in their compositions, they must have enjoyed it thoroughly. As, however, the question of their possessing a sense of humour is open to grave doubts—a fact proved by the very formation of the club and the secrecy of its doings—it is infinitely more likely that the club writhed under his well-pointed jibes and consigned the author to eternal perdition. Then, too, the bland and smiling manner in which he turned aside the violent pulpit denunciations of his hard-hit victims is exhilarating to a degree. He received, for instance, a letter from an anonymous friend (hidden behind the title “John Spy”) who sent him an account of the heated charges laid at his door by a certain grave college Head. Terrae printed the letter and smilingly pointed out the reasons of the man’s wrath in a tone of charming tolerance.

“You see, reader,” he said, “that I had no sooner undertaken this task but I raised a nest of holy wasps and hornets about my ears; an huge old drone, grown to an excessive bulk upon the spoils of many years, has thought fit, you see, to call me terrible names before his learned audience, at St Mary’s Church in Oxford; it is, it seems, an hellish attempt to bring about a reformation of the universities; and it is daring and impious in me to style myself a free-thinker and a free-speaker: poor man! poor man! What! art afraid I should tell tales out of school, how a certain fat doctor got his bedmaker with child, and play’d several other unlucky pranks? That would be daring and impious indeed. No, no, never fret thyself, man; I love a pretty woman myself, and I never desire any better usage in this world than as I do unto others to be done unto myself.”

Turning to politics, Terrae Filius summed up the attitude of the authorities in Oxford in one short paragraph—which was made a hundred times more severe by his assertion upon honour that religion received the same treatment at their hands.

“In politics my advice is the same as in religion—not to let your upstart reason domineer over you, and say you must obey this king or that king; or you must be of this party, or that party; instead of that, follow your leaders; observe the cue, which they give you; speak as they speak; act as they act; drink as they drink, and swear as they swear; comply with everything which they comply with; and discover no scruples which they do not discover.”

Upon a Whig and a Tory enquiring what was their exact position, he told them that one day the Whig might be safe and have things all his own way, but that the next the certainty of the Tory’s being uppermost was absolute. Finally he urged upon them that the only safe method of proceeding was to employ what are called nowadays the Winston tactics—one side one day, the other the next, according to one’s greater individual advantage.

He dealt exhaustively with the peculiarly slack method of conducting, or rather the practical non-existence of, university examinations. On reading his account alone, it would very naturally be supposed that he was drawing the long bow, caricaturing the existing conditions out of all shape and possibility of recognition, and we laugh unreservedly. But further study of other writers’ criticisms of the times very quickly turns our smile into a gasp of amazement. Terrae Filius was not caricaturing. All his absurd and quite impossible relations of bribery and corruption were true. It is precisely the same with all his papers. He has wisely written them in the style of caricatures, and at times, no doubt, has indulged his humour overmuch; but, on going into his inimitable showings up of drinking and immoral Dons, political conflicts, university statutes, toasts, smarts, or any one of the innumerable subjects dissected by him, and then comparing his work with other eighteenth-century documents, one finds that Terrae Filius carried out his boast and kept to the truth.

Is there any man to-day who, at the age of twenty-four, has achieved such notoriety, done such brilliant work, and proved himself to be such a master of his craft?