CHAPTER XVI

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THE DON—(continued)

The examiners—Perjury and bribery—Method of examining—College Fellows—Election to Fellowships—Gibbon and the Magdalen Dons—Heads of colleges—Their domestic and public character—Golgotha and Ben Numps—St John’s Head pays homage to Christ Church—Drs Marlowe and Randolph.

After the lecture comes the examination, so the examiner shall be the next in line. Now the examiners were appointed by the senior Proctor, who administered to them the following oath: “That they will either examine, or hear examined, all candidates that fall to their lot, in those arts and sciences, and in such manner as the statute requires. Likewise that they will not be prevailed upon by entreaties, or bribes, or hatred or friendship, or hope or fear, to grant any one a testimonium, who does not deserve it, or to deny it to any one that does.” The examiners were, however, in the same parlous condition as the lecturers and tutors.

The most mild of all the adverse criticisms was that of Henry Fynes Cliton, who was at the House in 1799. He said that the examiners discouraged Undergraduates from making a wide choice of authors for their schools, and that if any one anxious for first-class honours took an author not included in the abbreviated list as given out by them, they would find a way to stop him from obtaining the coveted class.

This entirely bears out the statement of Amhurst, who said that the examiners were entirely ignorant of the subjects in which they examined, and that the whole system was a farce and a scandal.“How well the examiners perform their duty,” he wrote with almost apathetic resignation, “I leave to God and their own consciences; tho’ my shallow apprehension cannot reconcile their taking a solemn oath, that they will not be prevail’d upon by entreaties or bribes, or friendship, etc., with their actually receiving bribes, and frequently granting testimoniums to unworthy candidates, out of personal friendship and bottle acquaintance. It is a notorious truth, that most candidates get leave of the proctor, by paying his man a crown (which is called his perquisite) to choose their own examiners, who never fail to be their old cronies and toping companions. The question therefore is, whether it may not be strongly presumed from hence, that the candidates expect more favour from these men, than from strangers; because otherwise it would be throwing away a crown to no purpose; and if they do meet with a favour from them, quaere whether the examiner is not prevail’d upon by intreaties or friendship.”

Another method of procedure then very popular was for the examiner to receive “a piece of gold” or an “handsome entertainment” from each of the candidates, or else to be made drunk by him the night before the examination. The candidate took care to provide sufficient drink to keep his man occupied busily till morning, and then they adjourned, “cheek by joul,” from their drinking room to the school. “Quaere” demanded Terrae Filius again, “whether it would not be very ungrateful of the examiner to refuse any candidate a testimonium, who has treated him so splendidly over night? and whether he is not, in this case, prevail’d upon by bribes?”

Vicesimus Knox of St John’s made very much the same statements about the examiners, and added that during the time when they were closeted with the candidates in the schools they did nothing but discuss the latest drinking bout (which took place the night before), or talk horses, or read newspapers and novels till the clock struck eleven—when they all descended, and the testimonium was signed without a twinge of conscience.

But college Fellowship was, perhaps, one of the most abused offices in existence. Once nominated to a Fellowship, however unfit to occupy the position, a Don was settled for life. He had a fixed income, did no work, and worried about nothing but to retain his own particular corner chair at the King’s Head tavern or elsewhere. He stagnated for the rest of his natural life, and became gross by dint of perpetual drinking. On the sad subject of college Fellows T. J. Hogg, writing of Shelley at Oxford, told us that at the end of the eighteenth century,

“If a few gentlemen were admitted to Fellowships, they were always absent; they were not persons of literary pretensions, or distinguished by scholarship; and they had no more share in the government of the college than the overgrown guardsman....

“A total neglect of all learning, an unseemly turbulence, the most monstrous irregularities, open and habitual drunkenness, vice, and violence, were tolerated or encouraged, with the basest sycophancy, that the prospect of perpetual licentiousness might fill the colleges with young men of fortune; whenever the rarely exercised power of coercion was exerted, it demonstrated the utter incapacity of our unworthy rulers by coarseness, ignorance, and injustice.”

Terrae Filius devoted one chapter, peculiarly conspicuous for its lack of satirical venom, to the dissection of Fellows. His article was occasioned by a report in all the papers of the death of Dr Pudsey, one of the senior Fellows of “Maudlin College (who) died there last week aged near an hundred years.” “This,” said Amhurst, “gives me an opportunity of discoursing upon what I have always thought one great error in the constitution of most colleges; which I will do with only this preface, that I hope no body will think I design, in what I shall say, to reflect on the deceas’d old gentleman before mention’d. The original design of endowing colleges was undoubtedly this, to support such persons as could not bear the charges of a learned education themselves, till they were able to shift in the world, and become serviceable to their country; for this reason all scholars and fellows (of most colleges at least) are obliged to take an oath, that they are not worth so much per annum de proprio, in some colleges more, and in some less; but in all colleges the meaning of the oath is the same, that no person shall benefit of the foundation who can live without it; but this oath, like other oaths, is commented away, and interpreted so loosely, that, at present it does not exclude persons of four or five hundred pounds a year.... When any person is chosen fellow of a college, he immediately becomes a freeholder, and is settled for life in ease and plenty; provided only that he conforms himself to the ceremonies and caprices of the place, which very few will stick at, who delight in such an indolent and recluse state; at first, indeed, he is obliged to perform some insignificant, superficial exercises, and to get a few questions and answers in the sciences by rote, to qualify him for his degrees; but when these are obtain’d, he wastes the rest of his days in luxury and idleness; he enjoys himself, and is dead to the world; for a senior fellow of a college lives and moulders away in a supine and regular course of eating, drinking, sleeping, and cheating the juniors.... In many colleges the fellowships are so considerable, that no preferment can tempt some persons to leave them; they prefer this monastic, and (as they call it) retired life to any employment, in which they would be obliged to take some pains, and do some good.”

Such remarks from the mouth of Terrae Filius are indeed quiet, but however lacking in sparkle, they are filled with the truth. Turn where we may, on every hand, the Fellows of colleges are written down and left without one saving quality.

The state of Magdalen, as related by Gibbon, was no better and no worse than that of any other college. “The fellows or monks of my time,” according to him, “were decent, easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder; their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience; and the first shoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public. As a gentleman commoner, I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.... The example of the senior fellows could not inspire the undergraduates with a liberal spirit or studious emulation.”[27]

The common room, with its accompaniments of tobacco and liquor, formed the scene in which the greater portion of their parts was acted by the Fellows; for the rest, the taverns and coffee-houses, where the meetings of jovial societies, of which they were members, were held. By way of exercise, an occasional horse ride; nothing more. Their other chief hobby was, in the language of the time, “wenching.” Amazingly enough, they still had sufficient energy, after living such a life, to array themselves in all their glory, and sally forth to pay homage at the feet of the toast of the day. In their attempts to cut out the Smarts in the affections of the reigning queen, Merton Wall and Paradise Gardens saw them daily. Liaisons with their neighbour’s wives, bedmakers, and bedmaker’s daughters were everyday occurrences; so openly, indeed, were these things done, that songs were composed in various clubs of the doings of certain Fellows mentioned by name, and satirical poems were written about them; but there the matter ended.

The character of a Head of a college, taken “in a more private view, amongst their fellows in their respective colleges,” was thus delineated by Amhurst. “A director or scull of a college is a lordly strutting creature, who thinks all beneath him created to gratify his ambition and exalt his glory; he commands their homage by using them very ill; and thinks the best way to gain their admiration is to pinch their bellies and call them names, as the most tyrannical princes have always the most loyal subjects; he is very vicious and immoral himself, and therefore will not pardon the least trip or miscarriage in another; he is a great profligate, and consequently a great disciplinarian; he petrifies in fraud and shamelessness, and is never properly in his element but when he is either committing wickedness himself, or punishing the commission of it in others.” So much for his domestic character. In the exercise of his public functions he was one of a gang who “have as persidiously broken as great a trust reposed in them by the Government, the nobility, gentry, and commonality of England; that, under pretence of advancing national religion and learning, they have introduced national irreligion and ignorance; and instead of promoting loyalty and peace have encouraged treason and disturbance; that they have debauched the principles of youth instead of reforming them; that they have been guilty of wicked and infamous practices of all sorts; ought they not, likewise, to be punish’d in the most rigorous manner?”

Amhurst found this a very sore subject, for, later on, he bore out the theory of the promotion of ignorance, and said that they did their utmost to prevent learning. “Whatever portion of commonsense they possess themselves, they take especial care to keep it from those under their tuition, having innumerable large volumes by them, written on purpose to obscure the understanding of their pupils, and to obliterate or confound all those impressions of right or wrong which they bring with them to the universities; their several systems of logic, metaphysics, ethics, and divinity are calculated for this design, being fill’d up with inconsistent notions, dark cloudy terms, and unintelligible definitions, which tend not to instruct, but to perplex, to put out the light of reason, not to assist or strengthen it; and to palliate falsehood, not to discover truth.”

As further evidence of the amazing egoism and brutality of “Sculls,” it is worth while to quote the story of a Head of Balliol who held office in these times. “A young fellow of Balliol College having, upon some discontent, cut his throat very dangerously, the master of the college sent his servitor to the buttery book to sconce (that is, fine) him five shillings, and, says the doctor, tell him that the next time he cuts his throat I’ll sconce him ten!”

Whenever there was important academical business afoot the Vice-Chancellor and Sculls met in solemn conclave in Golgotha, the state room in the Clarendon building. The room was handsomely decorated and wainscotted. The wainscot was said to have been put up by order of a man of humour who went up to Oxford for a degree without “any claim or recommendation.” He promised, however, in exchange for the degree to become a benefactor of the university. The Sculls thereupon hurriedly engaged workmen who began running up the wainscot, and they “clapp’d a degree upon his back.” But as soon as the degree had been granted, the benefactor disappeared, and the Sculls were left to pay the workmen with money out of their own pockets—which, of course, had been previously plundered from the university.

It was in this room that all the weighty business of the university was conducted. In the amusing words of Amhurst, “if any sermon is preach’d, if any public speech or oration is deliver’d in derogation of the church, or the university, or in vindication of the Protestant succession, or the Bishop of Bangor, hither the delinquent is summon’d to answer for his offence, and receive condign punishment. In short, all matters of importance are cognisable before this tribunal: I will instance only one, but that very remarkable. A day or two before the late Queen died, a letter was brought to the post-office at Oxford, with these words upon the outside of it, we hear the queen is dead; which, being suspected to contain something equally mischievous within, was stopt, and carried to the Vice-Chancellor, who immediately summon’d his brethren to meet him at Golgotha about a matter of the utmost consequence: when they were assembled together he produced the letter before them; and having open’d it, read the contents of it in an audible voice; which were as follow:—

“‘St John’s College, July 30, 1714.

“‘Honoured Mother,—I receaved the Cheshear chease you sent ma by Roben Joulthead, our waggoner, and itt is a vary gud one, and I thanck you for itt, mother, with all my hart and soale, and I promis to be a gud boy, and mind my boock, as yow dezired ma. I am a rising lad, mother, and have gott prefarment in college allready; for our sextoun beeing gonn intoo Heryfoordshear to see his frends, he has left mee his depoty, which is a vary good pleace. I have nothing to complayne off, onely that John Fulkes the tailor scores me upp a penny strong a moost everyday; but I’ll put a stopp to it shortly, I worrant ye: I beleave I shall do vary well, if you wull but send me t’other crowne; for I have spent all my mony at my fresh treat (as they caul itt) which is an abominable ecstortion, but I coud not help itt; when I cum intoo the country, I’le tell you all how it is. So no more att this present: but my sairvice to our parson, and my love to brother Nick and sister Kate; and so I rest.—Your ever dutiful and obedient son,

“‘Benjamin Numps.’

“When he had done reading, the Sculls look’d very gravely upon one another for some time, till at length Dr Faustus, late of New college, got up and spoke to them in the following manner:—

“‘Gentlemen,—The words of this letter are so very plain and intelligible in themselves, that I wish there is no latent and mysterious meaning in them. How do we know what he means by the cheese, which he thanks his mother for? or how do we know that he means nothing else by it, but a cheese? Then, he desires his mother to send him t’other crown; now what, I conjure you all tell me, can he mean by that other crown but the elector of Hanover; especially as he tells us on the outside of his letter that the queen is dead? These rebels and roundheads are very fly in everything they do; they know we have a strict eye over them; and therefore if this Benjamin Numps should be one of them, and have any such ill designs in his head, to be sure, if he expected to succeed, he would not express himself to be understood. So that, with all submission to my reverend brethren, I think that we ought to sift this matter thoroughly, for fear of the worst;’ and sat down.”

A gentleman referred to as Father William then rose to reply. The grave Dr Faustus did not overawe him as he overawed the rest. Father William, in scathingly sarcastic language, told him that he was a fool, a John o’ dreams, always suspecting mischief where none was meant. “Who but you,” he said, “would ever have suspected treason in a Cheshire cheese?” The man Numps, he explained to the reverend Sculls, was simply a poor servitor but lately entered into his own college, who had not the brains necessary to think out any plot. Therefore the fellow was sent for. He entered, trembling in every limb at the sight of all these learned authorities sitting in solemn conclave, and acknowledged his fault “full of sorrow and contrition,” and humbly asked their pardon.


Such was the characteristic manner in which the Heads ruled the university, and the above incident is a typical instance of the weighty business which arose from day to day. They were the counterpart of the Pharisees, who strained at gnats and swallowed camels. In connection with the headship of St John’s College there existed a rather curious custom. The Don elected to the Presidentship led the whole college, arrayed in fullest academical garb, down to Christ Church, where they did homage. Dibdin related that when Dr Marlowe succeeded to the President’s Chair of St John’s College they were received at the “House” by Dr Cyril Jackson, then Dean of Christ Church. After the performance of what Dibdin calls a “humbling piece of vassalage” which was conducted with great pomp and formality, the members of St John’s returned, and were duly regaled with a sumptuous repast by the newly-elected President who went to the various common rooms—the masters by themselves, the bachelors by themselves, and the scholars and commoners each in their particular banqueting room. There he drank wine with them, and was loudly toasted. “I remember one forward freshman,” said Dibdin, “shouting aloud on this memorable occasion as the new President retreated—

“‘Nunc est bibendum; nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus!’

“The stars of midnight twinkled upon our orgies; but this was a day never to come again. Dr Marlowe sat for thirty-three years in the Presidental Chair.”[28]

Having read accounts of all the pompous, evil-living and unpopular Heads for whom nobody had a good word, it is refreshing to come across records of thoroughly-liked men like Dr Marlowe of St John’s and Dr Randolph of Corpus, of whom R. L. Edgeworth sang the praises. “Dr Randolph,” he said, “was at that time (1761) president of Corpus Christi College. With great learning, and many excellent qualities, he had some singularities, which produced nothing more injurious from his friends than a smile. He had the habit of muttering upon the most trivial occasions, mors omnibus communis! One day his horse stumbled upon Maudlin bridge, and the resigned president let his bridle go, and drawing up the waistband of his breeches as he sat bolt upright, he exclaimed before a crowded audience, mors omnibus communis! The same simplicity of character appeared in various instances, and it was mixed with a mildness of temper, that made him generally beloved by the young students. The worthy doctor was indulgent to us all, but to me in particular upon one occasion, where I fear that I tried his temper more than I ought to have done. The gentlemen commoners were not obliged to attend chapel on any days but Sunday and Thursday; I had been too frequently absent, and the president was determined to rebuke me before my companions. ‘Sir,’ said he to me as we came out of chapel one Sunday, ‘you never attend Thursday prayers!’ ‘I do sometimes, sir,’ I replied. ‘I did not see you last Thursday. And, sir,’ cried the president, rising into anger, ‘I will have nobody in my college’ (ejaculating a certain customary noise, something between a cough and the sound of a postman’s horn), ‘sir, I will have nobody in my college that does not attend chapel. I did not see you at chapel last Thursday.’ ‘Mr President,’ said I, with a most profound reverence, ‘it was impossible that you should see me, for you were not there yourself.’ Instead of being more exasperated by my answer, the anger of the good old man fell immediately. He recollected and instantly acknowledged, that he had not been in chapel on that day. It was the only Thursday on which he had been absent for three years. Turning to me with great suavity, he invited me to drink tea that evening with him and his daughter. This indulgent president’s good humour made more salutary impression on the young men he governed than has ever been effected by the morose manners of any unrelenting disciplinarian.”[29]

Dr Randolph, Dr Marlowe, and the tutor of The Loiterer are the only three men whom I have been able to discover whose integrity was beyond question. Three out of a whole century of Dons explains many things! It proves the truth of the grave charges of vice, irreligion and perpetual sloth brought against the Dons of the century, by every writer of the time. It explains the bad government of colleges, general licentiousness, and scholastic negligence which were the main characteristics of Georgian Oxford.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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