CELEBRITIES AS OXFORD MEN

Academic Oxford of the eighteenth century has been thrown on to the screen in different lights and from different sides. The Don, for the most part inert in his elbow chair, puffing at his glazed pipe, with many bottles and tankards at his elbow in the common room or the coffee-house; turning up his nose at the impudence of any man who wanted to work; too lazy, and in many cases too ignorant, to put skilful questions in the examinations; abusing his trust as an examiner by receiving bribes, in the same manner that he set the Undergraduates a lead in vice of all kinds outside the schools; earnest and eager in political strife of the Vicar of Bray type; keen on nothing but his own personal aggrandisement, either socially or financially—in all these lights he has passed through the picture. We have seen also the Undergraduate in all his class divisions—the humble servitor receiving sixpence a week from each of his gentleman patrons, doing the dirty work and odd jobs, keeping soul and body together on the scraps that fell from the rich men’s table, writing out their impositions and scraping an education in the meanwhile, God knows how; the gentleman commoner and the Smart, swaggering it abroad in the glory of their purple and fine linen, sneering at the dull regulars, cutting lectures and chapels, doing no work, incurring enormous expenses “upon tick,” following the example set by the Dons in drunkenness and wenching. We have seen them amusing themselves, free from any kind of restriction, in taverns, town and gown rows, on the river, in the cock-pit and the prize ring, and dallying with the beauties under Merton Wall.

Looking at all these things and to the general loose living which was the keynote of the eighteenth century, we are apt to feel with Malmesbury that it is a matter of surprise how so many of the Undergraduates made their way so well and so creditably in the world. It has already been remarked that the worth of Oxford lies not in the quality of the degree taken, but in the education which environment and the association with better men undoubtedly gives. The mere cramming of book knowledge would be useless were it not accompanied by the far more important expansion of mind, the broadening of outlook, and the formation of character brought about by the social life of the university. This is palpably so in the case of the eighteenth-century Undergraduate, since work was practically non-existent, and a degree merely a matter of so much ready money. He could not do anything else but take on the colour of the surroundings of vice and intemperance which then reigned supreme.

How is it then that any man emerged from the Oxford of this period and succeeded in inscribing his name on the roll of fame? The reason is that Oxford was a mirror in which was reflected London life. The metropolis was simply Oxford on a larger scale, so that the Undergraduates were learning at the university to do the things which would be expected of them in after life; and the men who distinguished themselves at college were bound to achieve renown later. The fame of such men as Charles Fox, the pre-eminent statesman; Edward Gibbon, the historian; Malmesbury, the diplomat; John Wesley, the founder of Methodism; Collins, the poet; and the immortal Dr Johnson, is written down in the pages of history.

Charles James Fox, one of the greatest statesmen England has ever seen, came up from Eton to Hertford College[30] in 1764, where he was the leading spirit in a little coterie which included James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury, and William Eden, Baron Auckland. By his father he had been initiated, while still at Eton, into the vice of gaming, by which he was very deeply bitten. A still more curious fact is that although Fox as a young man had no inclinations towards loose living he was taken over to Paris and laughed into it by his otherwise doting parent. His innate force of character, however, enabled him to resist what might have wrecked the life of another man less strong, and although outwardly he was at Oxford an idle gamester, yet in secret, in the small hours of the morning, he worked exceedingly hard. Malmesbury has described this circle of friends as a non-working, pleasure-loving body. Fox, as the leader of them, fell, of course, under this category; but the results of his hours of private grinding were quite extraordinary. He read “Aristotle’s ‘Ethics and Politics,’ with an ease uncommon in those who have principally cultivated the study of the Greek writers. His favourite authors were Longinus and Homer, with the latter of whom he was particularly conversant; he could discuss the works of the Ionian bard, not only as a man of exquisite taste, and as a philosophical critic, which might be expected from a mind like his, but also as a grammarian. He was indeed capable of conversing with Longinus, on the beauty, sublimity, and pathos of Homer; with Aristotle on his delineations of man, with a pedagogue on dactyls, spondees, anapaests, and all the arcana of language. History, ethics, politics, were, however, his particular studies.”Yet with all these accomplishments, which, in a period none too famous for its learning, were all the more amazing, this extraordinary man was swayed by his passion for gaming, and never behindhand in expeditions of debauch with his companions. Cards were the favourite pastime then in vogue, and it was round the baize-covered table that Fox cemented his friendship with Malmesbury and Eden. These latter, both, subsequently, men of international fame, also surrendered themselves completely to the slackness of the time, and did their utmost to imitate with thoroughness the London fops of whom they had some slight experiences before coming up. While still gownsmen this triumvirate gave signs of their future greatness. Their card parties were a centre of attraction, not because of the high stakes for which they played, but for the wit and brilliance of their conversation. Fox’s eloquence was even then remarkable, and he had “no cotemporary so erudite in knowledge, none so elegant in mirth.” The enormous possibilities of this Undergraduate were fully appreciated by the college authorities. He was allowed to make trips to London, where, in the company of his father, he went to the Houses of Parliament, and was a keen listener at many of the great debates. When a proposal was on foot for Fox to cross to Paris and make a stay of some months there, the Head of Hertford granted him leave immediately with the unusual remark that such application as his necessitated “some intermission; and you are the only person with whom I have ever had connexion to whom I could say this.”

With characteristic thoroughness Fox outdid the most complete Smart in the elegance of his dress. He made a special journey from Paris to Lyons for the purchasing of waistcoats, and on his return to England was seen in the Mall “in a suit of Paris-cut velvet, most fancifully embroidered, and bedecked with a large bouquet; a headdress cemented into every variety of shape; a little silk hat, curiously ornamented; and a pair of French shoes with red heels; for the latter article of which he considered it of no mean consequence that he was indebted to his own exclusive importation!”

He had a great fondness for literature and poetry and, following the customs of the times, he used occasionally to dash off an indiscreet sonnet, or a more sound criticism of the current publications. Italian, he declared, contained as a language more good poetry in it than any with which he was conversant. The essential quality in any subject was that it should be “entertaining.” Without this, Fox refused to consider it. The exact meaning which he read into the word is, however, somewhat difficult to gather, for, writing to his friend Macarthey, he stated that he was fond of mathematics and would concentrate upon it because it promised to be entertaining.

Oxford remained dear to Fox and the friendships he formed over the card-table, and the various “rags” in which he took part were never forgotten by him. When the triumvirate went down, their ways at first lay separate. Eden’s time was occupied first in getting called to the Bar, and then, through the patronage of the Duke of Marlborough, to Parliament as member for Woodstock. Malmesbury, an incipient diplomatist while still at Winchester, left England and joined the British Embassy at Madrid. Fox left Oxford before the age of twenty-one, and was immediately returned to Parliament for Midhurst. For some twenty years the tide of life kept the three apart, each striving in his own quarter. Then in 1782 Fox, who had climbed higher up the ladder of fame than either of the other two, was reminded of the old friendships of his Undergraduate days. Malmesbury, then Sir James Harris, Knight of the Bath, was invalided home from the Embassy at St Petersburg, and was instantly appointed by Fox to be Minister at the Hague. The year after this, Eden, whose political career under the banner of Lord North was a distinguished one, came again into touch with Fox, and exerted himself to bring about a coalition between his own chief and his old Oxford friend. It is practically certain that the touch of sentiment roused by the remembrance of the old days, when Eden and he played cards and drank claret beneath the spires of Oxford, was the only reason why the coalition was brought about by Eden, for Fox afterwards publicly avowed in the House of Commons, when the rupture between North and himself was final, that “the greatest folly of his life was in having supported Lord North.”

“To the University of Oxford,” wrote Gibbon in after years, “I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.”

A boy of sixteen, thin and delicate, who from his earliest infancy had fallen from one illness into another, possessed of an abnormal brain, and for these two reasons shunning, and shunned by, his school-fellows both in playground and classroom, and therefore compelled joyfully to fall back upon books, with which he ate, drank, and slept—conceive such a boy, and one sees Gibbon at Magdalen. Add to this the facts concerning the debauch, the lack of “bookish fellows,” the gross and inert Dons, all of which characterised the times, and it is easy to appreciate the reasons why a man like Gibbon, a high-strung, dreamy creature to whom any crowd of human beings inspired positive fear, and whose interests were entirely removed from wenching, drinking, and gaming, received no benefit from Oxford. He went up intent on nothing but the pursuit of knowledge. In the course of his dealings with his various tutors—which have already been set forth in a previous chapter—he found that knowledge was to be obtained neither in the lecture rooms nor the common rooms. To these latter, being a gentleman commoner, he received invitations and went high in the expectation of learned conversations and brilliant dialogue. He found instead no subjects under discussion save horses, drink, and political preferment. This beardless boy, practically self-educated and big with ideas upon the important subjects of life, turned with disgust from the society of the “port bibbing” and stagnant Fellows. With no definite course of studies to occupy his attentions, and unchecked by any authority, the unaccustomed feeling of liberty swept him into the infringement of rules and statutes. To his tutor he gave casual excuses for non-attendance at lectures, and disappeared from Oxford for days at a time. The unscholarly condition of the university, and his own physical inability to join in any athletic pursuits, united in preventing Oxford from making any impression upon him. Her history, her architecture, her traditions, seem to have held no interest for him, and he was more interested in making expeditions to London and places in the surrounding country than in remaining in the university and studying Undergraduate life. Even the beauty of Oxford’s old walls, tree-bordered lawns and walks, and winding river, made no appeal to him. He was in sympathy with no single thing. It was a mistake on his parents’ part ever to have sent him up. A man of Gibbon’s peculiar temperament was entirely out of place in any university; more particularly Oxford, in the state in which she then was.

And yet in spite of the incompatibility between Gibbon and Oxford, his university career was marked by an all-important incident in the development of the great historian. By education and training he was a Protestant, but, as was his habit with every subject to which he turned his attention, he did not merely read books and swallow their contents as indisputable facts. Everything he read was deeply pondered, made to pass under his own criticism, and then compared with other authors on the opposite side of the case. Consequently the subject of his own creed underwent deep thought, and after reading Middleton’s “Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the Christian Church,” Gibbon’s religious beliefs were shaken. He decided that Protestantism was inconsistent; he was dissatisfied with it. Filled with the restlessness engendered by uncertainty, Gibbon read many works, including Bossuet’s “Variations of Protestantism” and “Exposition of Catholic Doctrine,” and the writings of the Jesuit priest, Father Parsons. “These works,” he said, “achieved my conversion”—the arguments in favour of Roman Catholicism put forward by the Jesuit priest being the real turning point in the scale.

Having arrived at the conclusion that the Protestant religion paled into insignificance before the Roman Catholic one, the Magdalen man felt that he would know no happiness until he himself should join the ranks of the “Papists.” For once his thoroughness deserted him. He did not consider the question—and the question of a man’s entirely changing his religious beliefs is a very vital one—with his usual exhaustiveness. Like a baby with a new toy, Gibbon, the great and wonderful man of brain, world famous and immortal, made a complete fool of himself. He rushed off to London without more ado, and there, under the influence of a “momentary glow of enthusiasm,” “privately abjured the heresies” of his childhood before a certain Father Baker, also a Jesuit, and became a Roman Catholic. For the moment his belief was red hot, and he wrote a burningly defiant letter to his father announcing his change of creed. The elder Gibbon at once provided an excuse for his being sent down (a circumstance which very probably would have come about on the Magdalen Dons’ own initiative without any excuse being offered to them), and packed him off to the care of the Calvanistic minister at Lausanne, M. Pavilliard. The scattering of the hastily-swallowed, undigested arguments which had brought about Gibbon’s precipitate action, was a matter of a few months to M. Pavilliard, and in less than two years he was once more a fully convinced Protestant. The ex-Magdalen man’s amour propre is fully demonstrated by the unblushing assertion that although the Calvinist minister had “a handsome share in his re-conversion,” yet it was principally brought about “by his own solitary reflections.” Doubtless when he wrote those statements he fully realised the extent and powers of his own brain, and refused to admit that any ordinarily clever man could have, or ever did have, any influence in swaying him from one point of view to another. One is fully justified in assuming that had he not gone to a Calvinist minister, but, instead, continued under the roof of a Jesuit priest, none of the “philosophical arguments,” to which he refers so glibly, would have availed him, and Edward Gibbon, historian, would have remained a Roman Catholic to the end of his days.

“Lord, let me not live to be useless!” was the constant prayer of John Wesley, and it was the keynote of his character. The founder of the Methodists, famous throughout the civilised world, and a man whose personal magnetism and great brain were bound to bring him to the fore in whatever profession he might have chosen, was actuated by a consuming dread of being considered useless. A desire to achieve great things was fostered during his Undergraduate days at Christ Church. He went there with a sound knowledge of Hebrew, and began to achieve some note for his skill in logic. This was the beginning of the growth of ambition, and the fact that he was “noticed for his attainments” brought him great pleasure, for at all times he bubbled over with humour and good spirits in full realisation of his college notoriety. In consequence of this his reluctance at taking orders, when proposed by his family, was marked. He argued the question with himself fully while pacing his rooms at night, and he wrote to his father and explained his reluctance. It is conceivable that the life as led by gentleman commoners, with its wine parties, wild escapades, and general moral carelessness may have been the reason of Wesley’s hesitation. For this clever, amusing lad was popular in his college, and invited to take part in all the jollifications. Be that as it may, the question of devoting his life to religion was a difficult one. Wesley’s self-examination, assisted by his father’s scorn of becoming a “callow clergyman,” was doubtless attended by silent questionings as to what was his speciality. The atmosphere and traditions of Oxford had laid hold of him. The names of great men, sons of Alma mater, filled him with the desire to emulate them, to excel them even. Their names were spoken in awe and admiration. Why should not his be also? He was brilliantly clever, of a clever family, and already had tasted the joys of fame in however humble a manner. Why should he have to follow his father’s lead and enter the Church? Could he not do better for himself outside? Undoubtedly, for there was more scope, less subjection to rules and orders, more individual power. But, on the other hand, these speculations and desires to break away were held in check by filial respect and love. His father and mother were keenly desirous of his embracing a clerical life, and his mother especially was of opinion that the sooner he entered into deacon’s orders the better, as it would be an additional inducement to “greater application in the study of practical divinity.”

Staircase, Christ Church.

Wesley, therefore, looked facts in the face and concentrated his whole mind upon the study of theology. Since he could not be Prime Minister, he would be a great religious man. He began by disagreeing with “The Imitation of Christ,” and held views on the question of humility which lead one to believe that by this time the seeds of his ambition had grown to trees. Jeremy Taylor’s tenet, that we ought, “in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come,” was flatly contradicted by Wesley, who, although admitting absolute humility to God, reserved the right to consider himself a better man than many another; for when he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln, after he had been ordained, he practically showed the door to all those of his visitors whom he thought would do him no good, by reason of their not loving or fearing God. Then an incident happened which had a lasting effect upon Wesley; which changed his whole life. He travelled over to see what was called “a serious man.” Who this man was is unknown, but he was a student of psychology and a man of keen intuition. He summed up John Wesley, and gave forth the remark which had so great an influence upon him. “Sir,” he said, “you wish to serve God and go to Heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone; you must, therefore, find companions or make them: the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.”

Wesley never forgot these words. They were the turning-point in his career. His vast brain and desire to become the greatest of God’s servants would not allow him to be merely a curate in the Established Church, thus to serve God humbly. Even the chance of his eventually emerging as Archbishop was not sufficiently big. Neither was the Roman Church large enough, though from his characteristics it is conceivable that he was in sympathy with the love of power which, in olden times, is said to have marked out the Jesuits. The words of this “serious man” gave him furiously to think. He would make companions, followers, disciples. He, himself, would become greater than any of the men discussed by his fellow Undergraduates by taking over the leadership of a band of religious and ascetic men, who should occupy themselves solely in carrying out the commands of God.

Already his piety and zeal were much discussed in Oxford, for he led the way to George Whitefield in attending the Sacrament daily and doing charitable works. His younger brother, Charles, had formed the nucleus of a religious order by meeting weekly with two or three serious-minded friends and discussing religion. When John Wesley returned to Lincoln after an absence of some two years, during which he had had time to think out matters while filling a country curacy, these lads put themselves under his leadership. It was the first taste of power and individual authority. He ruled the little band sternly, put their practices into order and method, and secured an “accession of members.” He submitted himself to rigorous fasts, and cultivated an eccentric appearance by letting his hair grow. Even his brother, Samuel, himself really religious, perceived that he “excited injurious prejudices against himself, by affecting singularity in things which were of no importance.” His mother suggested cutting his hair off, but the money could not be spared from Wesley’s charities. His brother put forward that it should be merely reduced in length. This Wesley agreed to, and it is recorded that “this was the only instance in which he condescended, in any degree, to the opinions of others.”

The culminating instance of his egoism lies in his absolute refusal, in spite of his father’s earnest entreaty, to take on his cure at the latter’s death. He considered the proposal “not so much with reference to his utility, as to his own well-being in spiritual things.” The question, as it appeared to him, was not whether he could do more good to others there or at Oxford, but whether he could do more good to himself, seeing that wherever he could be most holy himself, there he could most promote holiness. He decided that he could improve himself more at Oxford than at any other place, and at Oxford, therefore, he determined to remain. His father wrote to him, “if you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father, for above forty years in God’s vineyard, be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you consider that Mr M. must in all probability succeed me if you do not, and that in prospect of that mighty Nimrod’s coming hither shocks my soul, and is in a fair way of bringing down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropt; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this poor people has for you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service, and the plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls, whereas you have not many more souls in the university—you may, perhaps, alter your mind and bend your will to His, who has promised if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths.”

In the face of this stirring appeal from an aged father what did Wesley reply? He refused absolutely to entertain the matter. His self-centredness, the while he directed the religious beliefs and operations of the small body of disciples at Oxford, made him forget all considerations of filial duty and love and of God’s commands to obedience. His parents had been the reason of his entering the Church. He would make no further sacrifice for them now that he saw his way clear. His father, mother, the thousands of poor people—nobody and nothing mattered except that he should make himself more holy! The petty duties, worries, and cares, the continual small demands of trifling points entailed by such a curacy were too small for this striving, all-conquering spirit. What mattered it that he should send his father’s grey hairs down in sorrow to the grave?

All this while, he was most certainly turning over the saying of the “serious man”—to make followers. On his father’s death it was proposed that he should go to America. Here was his great chance. Oxford had taught him that to expect to make English people, in their then blind and vicious state, see the truth of the gospel of Christ, was futile and childish. He was a prophet in his own country. But America, with all its unsophisticated, raw children, its ripeness for a strong man to come with the gift of oratory and sweep the country from end to end—there was his chance! And afterwards, on the crest of his fame and success, then would he convert England. His glory would have preceded him, and he would return as one already great, to whom they would lend a more willing ear. But with the astuteness of a really clever man, he peremptorily refused the offer to send him out there. As a natural result the proposers of the scheme argued. By degrees he allowed his willingness to be seen, though he piously pointed out that as he was his mother’s support, the staff of her age, he could not go without her consent. This she immediately gave, as he well knew she would. Accordingly, filled with exultation, buoyed up by a feeling of certainty as to his ultimate success, John Wesley left Oxford and England for the new country on which he intended to stamp his personality, and by whose conquest he was determined to hand down his name to posterity in the profession to which he had reconciled himself at the age of some nineteen years while still an Undergraduate of Christ Church.

Had Wesley not gone up to Oxford, his name might never have been added to the list of England’s famous men. It was Oxford which first showed him the narrowness of a small curacy, Oxford which set him contemplating greatness, Oxford which actually started him in command of disciples. Therefore it is to Oxford that must be attributed the foundation, growth, and fame of Methodism, the means by which John Wesley attained his ends, power, and celebrity.