THE OXFORD TRADESMAN

Like Nemesis, the Oxford tradesman has sooner or later to be reckoned with. His methods are, and for that matter always were, rather spider-like. He sets out a beautiful and enticing web in his shop window, and sits placidly in the darkness of his back parlour to await results. One after another the Undergraduates, foolish flies, dash in; and then, when they have been given sufficient time—a year or so—the spider pounces and demands his just, but frequently exorbitant, dues. Sometimes he does not get them. Spiders, however, rarely come in for any sympathy.

The old-time Oxford tradesman was undoubtedly a man of parts. In all the periodicals of the time are to be found odes, couplets, and prose-writings all singing his praise. He constituted a factor of importance in the daily routine of eighteenth-century life. It must, indeed, have been a sick Smart who did not visit daily his barber and perruquier, his horse-dealer, his tobacco merchant, his mercer and tailor, his coffee-house. These worthy townsmen seem to have been, in fact, the sole raison d’Être of the Smart’s university career, and their pseudo erudition and quite exceptional powers were the cause of an enthusiastic article from the pen of The Student.

“A tradesman of Oxford,” he wrote, “is no more like another common tradesman than some collegians are like other men ... the very sign-posts express their taste for learning and superiour education. Our mercers, milliners, taylors, etc., etc., have shewn their nice judgments in the art of designing, by the many curious emblematical devices that so eminently adorn the entrances to their shops. How sublime are the signs of our innkeepers! the Angel, the Cross, the Mitre, the Maidenhead, with many others, are too well known to need mentioning. A tooth drawer amongst us denotes his occupation by an excellent poetical distich; a second with great propriety stiles himself operator for the teeth: and my printer who sells James’s fever powder, Greenough’s tinctures, Hoopers’ female pills, and the like, exhibits to our view in large golden letters over his door the pompous denomination of Medicinal Warehouse. Nor are we at all surprised to see written in this learned university, tho’ over a female bookseller’s door, ‘BIBLIOPOLIUM MARIAE,’ etc.

“Not to dwell too minutely on externals, every tradesman with us is a mathematician, or philosopher, or divine, or critick, and what not? But they are all to a man particularly famous for their skill in arithmetick. For my own part I never dealt with one yet who was not thoroughly practised in addition and multiplication.

“I know an ale-houseman (he sells an excellent pot of ale) who has made several experiments in electricity, but without a machine: I know a grocer, a profound reasoner and speculative moralist, a bookbinder deeply read in Geography, Chorography, etc., and a glazier, a great mathematician, who has squar’d the circle several time all but a little bit. A barber has published a cutting poem lately, which is universally admired, and all his own making. It is not to be doubted that our Oxford booksellers are excellent criticks. They can tell you the character of a book by only looking at the title page. My own, in particular, is so fine a judge of composition, that he begs me not to send anything to the press till it has been submitted to his correction. Besides, I know he has a strong desire to begin author himself, but his singular modesty will not permit him to own it. He has, therefore, prevailed with me to erect a small box, with a slit, in his door to receive the contributions of those writers who chuse to be concealed. As I know the man’s vanity will oblige him sometimes to put in his mite, I desire the reader, when he meets with anything particularly dull, to suppose it written, not by me, but my bookseller.

“I have often heard two learned tradesmen chop logick together on the most sublime topicks. Once, in particular, I was present at a very important dispute, when a shoemaker (a very honest fellow) affirmed, to the general satisfaction of his audience, that the world was eternal from the beginning, and would be so to the end of it. At another time, the discourse running upon politics, a mercer (no small man, I can assure you) wonder’d what a duce we would have. ‘I’m sure,’ says he, ‘there’s not a happier Island in England than Great Britain; and a man may chuse his own Religion, that he may, whether it be Mahometism or Infidelity.’ A little while ago I lent my Smith’s harmonicks to my Musick-master, who has since return’d it, assuring me that it is not worth a farthing; for ’twould teach me the Thievery mayhap, but as for the Practicks, he’ll put me into a betterer method. I could produce many more such instances which I have gleaned from their conversations; but these will be sufficient to convince the world that no subject is too high, no point too intricate for their exalted capacities.... I cannot conclude better than by giving a specimen of an Oxford tradesman’s poetical genius, in an extract of a letter from my taylor, who (in the college phrase) put the dun upon me. In my answer I advised him to peruse Philips’s description of a dun in his splendid shilling: to which he made me this reply.... ‘But now to that which, you say, breaks all friendship, a dun, horrible monster! I have bruis’d Philips, though, in some places too hard. As to the appellation, I cannot think it rightly apply’d.’

“For I
Ne’er yet did thunder with my vocal heel,
Nor call’d yet thrice with hideous accent dire;
But only with my pen declar’d my dread,
What most I fear’d, the horrid catch-pole’s claw.
“But you,
Whom fortune’s blest with splendid shilling worth,
Ne’er fears the monster’s horrid faded brow,
Fed with the produce of blest Alb’on’s isle,
With juice of Gallic and Hispernian
Fruits, that doe chearful make the heart of man,
Thus sink my muse into the deep abyss,
As low as Styx or Stygia’s bottom is.”

“N.B.”—wrote The Student in italics at the foot of this wonderful poem, “I have paid him.”

There is a certain amount of pathos underlying that delightful piece of mock praise. The thought of the mercers, grocers, shoemakers, and the rest honestly believing themselves to have attained to a most unusual degree of learning, by reason of their propinquity to a university, and parading their monumental ignorance under that belief, is a very painful one. It is even more painful, looking to the fact that most tradesmen, connected in any way with Academic Oxford, read The Student regularly, to know that the above stream of ridicule did not enlighten them as to the truth.

Another man who had evidently had the dun put upon him, not once but many times, by sulky tradesmen, received (so at least it is to be supposed) an unexpected windfall with which he settled all outstanding debts. The wonderful and unaccustomed feeling of showing a clean slate was so strong that he was moved to an ecstasy of versification to relieve himself.

“The man, who not a farthing owes,
Looks down with scornful eye on those
Who rise by fraud and cunning,
Tho’ in the Pig-market he stand
With aspect grave and clear-starched band,
He fear’s no tradesmen’s dunning.
“He passes by each shop in town,
Nor hides his face beneath his gown,
No dread his heart invading;
He quaffs the nectar of the Tuns
Or on a spur-gall’d hackney runs
To London, masquerading.
“Place me on Scotland’s bleakest hill,
Provided I can pay my bill,
Hang every thought of sorrow,
There falling sleet, or frost, or rain
Attack a soul resolv’d in vain;
It may be fair to-morrow.”

From the fact that the man in debt had to hide his head beneath his gown in order to get past the shops safely or else to pursue the longer but less risky method of slinking down back streets so as to avoid meeting creditors, it is certain that the shopkeeper who had lost his patience, and was intent on nothing but getting his money back, was looked upon as a fearsome and dreaded creature. His war tactics, aided by free access to his customer’s rooms, consisted of serving writs freely—putting the dun upon his victims. One way to evade the serving was to sport the oak and remain in voluntary confinement. Such a method was not, however, popular as there was no alternative but work to relieve the tedium of such imprisonment. Another way was described in the diary of a modern Oxford man in The Loiterer. This “modern” gentleman was slacking away the boring hour after breakfast in the perusal of “Bartlett’s Farriery” when there came a tap at his door, and in strode a dun with an insolent smirk. The Undergraduate politely explained that he was shortly expecting a very healthy windfall from home, upon receipt of which he would immediately pay what was owing. The dun received this news with cold disbelief and refused to be put off. Upon being offered brandy he became “sulky,” and refused with a touch of irritation. Then the Undergraduate, enraged at such insolence, rose in his wrath and kicked the fellow down stairs to stop him from becoming more impertinent.

The dun must have possessed a curious character. Knowing well the propensities of Undergraduates, he did not, like a wise man, imbibe the liquid refreshment so generously offered to him, and depart with the knowledge that payment, for that day at least, was impossible. Instead, he refused brandy and waited to be kicked out—without, apparently, having served his writ.

The question of advertising was in those days only in its infancy. The tradesman patronised Jackson’s Oxford Journal to a certain extent. In it are to be found curiously worded announcements of medicines, books, cock-fights, curacies to be drunk or eaten for, dancing masters who were exclusive to the peerage, election paragraphs, and public notices; while advertisements for wives and husbands, or loans of money, were not infrequent. One of the most up-to-date and cunning methods then practised was for two rival tradesmen to get up a mock ink-slinging match in the columns of some periodical, and week after week furiously to denounce each other as cheats, tricksters, and knaves, the one saying that the other sold inferior goods, and vice versÂ.The Loiterer, prowling round incognito in search of copy for his next issue, witnessed a “circumstance” as he calls it, connected with advertisements, which is not unamusing. He was seated in his favourite elbow chair in his usual corner at King’s coffee-room, and had almost despaired of picking up an idea, when he noticed a very reverend and respectable gentleman who was apparently quite unknown to every one in the room, and who seemed more engrossed in his own thoughts than amused by the newspaper he was reading or the laughter and talk from the others in the coffee-room. Suddenly, calling for his bill, he finished reading a paragraph in the paper with upraised eyebrows and a note of horrified surprise in his voice. “Upwards of forty thousand persons of both sexes! Good God,” he said, “what a state must the cities of London and Westminster be in!” The elderly gentleman rose, and on his way out placed the paper into The Loiterer’s hand. Every one in the room had heard his remark and observed the manner of his exit. Immediately, therefore, there was great excitement, every one wondering what amazing thing had happened that could have escaped his notice while reading that very paper. The Loiterer began calmly to read solidly through column after column to find this wonderfully exciting paragraph. While he was doing so a thin, emaciated man “with a sallow and diseased countenance who, I have now reason to believe was one of the forty thousand, stepped forward and elucidated the mystery in a moment.”

He rapped out an oath and swore that the old gentleman had been meditating on the advertisement of Leake’s Justly Famous Pill.

From this perturbing episode in the coffee-house The Loiterer got the idea of using his paper for the discussion of the peculiarities of advertisement indulged in by tradesmen, local and otherwise. “I shall pass over,” he says, “the various wants of mankind, together with the pompous Descriptions, the florid and luxuriant Language of Auctioneers which is capable of converting a paltry Cottage into an elegant Villa. Nor shall I dwell on a curious Phenomenon, a political Advertisement for the Sale of Perfumery and the Dressing of Hair. But it is impossible with the same indifference to pass over the ingenious Mr —— who sells his Wines ‘for the p?da? ???? of ready Money only, Wines in which neither the eyes of Argus, nor the Taste of Epicurus, can discover the least sophistication.’

“One advertisement informs us, that Chimney pieces, another that Candlesticks, are ‘fashioned according to architectonic Models, and agreeable to the affecting chastity of the Antique.’ A third lets us know how much we are obliged to the Legislature, ‘that he is now enabled to offer Pomatum to the public agreeable to the commercial Treaty’.... What Lady, ‘who excites admiration on account of the superior charms that animate her Complexion,’ can withstand an Advertisement of the Palmyrene Soap? Every systematical old Fellow that wishes to know the exact number of yards which he walks in a day, will certainly furnish himself with ‘the Pedometer, or Way-wiser.’ And I make no manner of doubt that all the Gentlemen Sportsmen of this University will find it impossible to resist the persuasive nonsense and absurdity of ‘Guns matchless for shooting; or twisted barrels, bored on an improved plan, that will always maintain their true velocity, and not let the Birds fly away after being shot, as they generally do with Guns not properly bored, this method of boring Guns will enable every Shooter to Kill his Bird, as they are sure of their mark at ninety yards; he bores any sound Barrel for Two Guineas, and he makes them much stronger than before.’ If we take this Fellow’s own word we must allow him, without a pun, to be the greatest Borer in the kingdom.”The system of “tick” seems to have been very simple. It was only necessary to enter a shop and order things in large quantities for the tradesman to allow credit. In the case of dirty Dick, who was lured into becoming a fop by the report of the appreciative remarks which the lady Flavia was supposed to have made about him, the only thing which had to be done to gull the ever-obliging tradesman was to spread a rumour that the sloven had come in for a legacy. The result was instantaneous, and Dick became a Smart; but whether anybody was ever paid is not on record. The various inns, ale-houses, coffee-houses and wig-makers had little need to advertise. The Undergraduates did that for them. In nearly every poem and sonnet that ever was written the praises are sung of Tom’s or James’s or Clapham’s or Lyne’s or Hamilton’s, while the great Tom Warton immortalises three “Peruke-Makers” in his Ode to a Grizzle-Wig.

“Can thus large wigs our Reverence engage?
Have Barbers thus the Pow’r to blind our Eyes?
Is Science thus conferr’d on every Sage,
By Bayliss, Blenkinsop, and lofty Wise?”

While on the subject of innkeepers there is an example of the consummate impudence of Terrae Filius which is most worthy of note. He compared the Rev. Dr Newton, Principal of Hart Hall, to an innkeeper, in a letter upon Dr Newton’s book entitled “University Education.”

“Some persons it seems,” wrote Amhurst, “have entertained a notion, that your hall is no more than an inn, of which you are the host, and your scholars the guests. I am sorry, sir, to say that there seems to be some reason in this notion, however merrily you may please to treat it. For do you not, like other innkeepers, get your living, and maintain your family by letting lodgings, and keeping an ordinary for all comers? Are you not licens’d for so doing, like other innkeepers and retalers of beer, though by a different hand? Indeed, you sell logick and other sorts of learning, as well as provisions for eating and drinking; but that cannot destroy the character of an innkeeper, which you certainly are in all other respects, but only proves that you deal in some particulars which your brethren of the trade do not.... You have, no doubt, the same right, with other innkeepers, to bring in a bill, and demand your reckoning, when you please; which I do not hear that Mr Seaman, or any other of your guests ever refused to pay; but I believe you are the only landlord in town who would offer to detain his guests by force, after they had paid their reckoning, and oblige them to spend more of their money in his house, whether they will or not.”

All these subtle parallels were, of course, not intended as compliments. To call a Head of a Hall an innkeeper is not exactly to take off one’s hat to him. But Amhurst forgot that in a previous chapter he made a proud confession of his own humble origin. His discourse was of great men sprung from small beginnings.

“What,” he asked, “was of old the famous Cardinal Wolsey but a butcher’s son?... Nay, to go no farther, even I myself, overgrown as I am in fame and wealth, stiled by all unprejudiced and sensible persons the instructor of mankind, and the reformer of the two universities, am by birth but an humble plebeian, the younger son of an ale-house keeper in Wapping, who was for several years in doubt which to make of me, a philosopher, or a sailor: but at length birthright prevailing, I was sent to Oxford, scholar of a college, and my elder brother a cabin boy to the West Indies.”

But why drag in Wolsey?

In King Charles’s letter against the women of the university of Cambridge he banned the houses of all taverners, inn-holders or victuallers. It was this class of tradesmen in Oxford who brought up their daughters as toasts. This was the reason why a statute was passed “Prohibiting all scholars, as well Graduates as Undergraduates, of whatever faculty, to frequent the houses and shops of any tradesmen by day, and especially by night....”