Chapter I: Front Matter

ROWLANDSON’S OXFORD

ROWLANDSON’S OXFORD

BY A. HAMILTON GIBBS
(ST JOHN’S COLLEGE)

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD.
1911

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I THE UNDERGRADUATE THEN AND NOW

Blissful ignorance--The real education--Empty schools--
Manhood--Lonely freshers--The “pi” man--The newcomer’s
metamorphosis--The Lownger’s day--Regrets at being down 1-8

CHAPTER II THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FRESHER

First arrival--Footpads and “easy pads”--Farewell to
parents--A forlorn animal--Terrae Filius’s advice--Much
prayers--“Hell has no fury like a woman scorned”--The
disadvantages of a conscience 9-17

CHAPTER III THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FRESHER--(_continued_)

Ceremony of matriculation--Paying the swearing-broker--
Colman and the Vice-Chancellor--Learning the Oxford
manner--_Homunculi Togati_--Academia and a mother’s
love--The jovial father--Underground dog-holes and
shelving garrets--The harpy and the sheets--The first
night 18-28

CHAPTER IV THE SMART

Valentine Frippery and his letter--Boiled chicken and
pettitoes--Lyne’s coffee-house and the _billet doux_--
Tick--Liquor capacity--A Smart advises _The Student_--
Latin odes for tradesmen only 29-38

CHAPTER V THE TOAST

Terrae Filius sums her up--Merton Wall butterflies--Hearne
comments--Flavia and the orange tree--Dick, the sloven--
The President under her thumb--Amhurst’s table of cons.--
King Charles and the other place 39-45

CHAPTER VI THE SERVITOR

The germ of Ruskin Hall--Description of himself--George
Whitefield--College exercises--Running errands and copying
lines--Samuel Wesley--Famous servitors 46-54

CHAPTER VII SPORTS AND ATHLETICS

Rowing--Dame Hooper’s--Southey at Balliol--Cox’s six-oared
crew--The river-side barmaid--Sailing-boats--Statutes
against games--Bell-ringing--Hearne and gymnasia--Horses
and badger-baiting--Cock-fights and prize-fights--
Paniotti’s Fencing Academy--Old-time “bug-shooters”--
Skating in Christ Church meadows--Cricket and the
Bullingdon Club--Walking tours 55-68

CHAPTER VIII CLUBS AND SOCIETIES

The foregathering fresher--Dibdin and the “Lunatics”--The
Constitution Club--The Oxford Poetical Club--Its rules and
minutes--High Borlace--The Freecynics and Banterers 69-82

CHAPTER IX WORK AND EXAMINATIONS

Tolerated ignorance--Lax discipline--Gibbon and Magdalen--
The “Vindication”--Opposing and responding--“Schemes”--
Doing austens--Perjury and bribes--Receiving presents--
Magdalen collections 83-94

CHAPTER X ’VARSITY LITERATURE

Present-day ineptitude--Jackson’s _Oxford Journal_--
Domestic intelligence--Election poems--Curious
advertisements--Superabundance of St John’s editors--
Terrae Filius 95-108

CHAPTER XI ’VARSITY LITERATURE--(_continued_)

_The Student_--Cambridge included--Its design--The female
student--Poem by Sir Walter Raleigh--Bishop Atterbury’s
letter--The manly woman 109-121

CHAPTER XII ’VARSITY LITERATURE--(_continued_)

The _Oxford Magazine_--Introduction of illustrations--Odd
advertisements--Attention paid to the Drama--Prologue to
the _Cozeners_, written by Garrick--Visions, fables, and
moral tales--_The Loiterer_--Diary of an Oxford man, 1789 122-135

CHAPTER XIII ’VARSITY LITERATURE--(_continued_)

_The Oxford Packet_--_Academia: or the Humours of Oxford_--
_The Oxford Act_--_The Oxford Sausage_--Present and latter
day literature summed up 136-141

CHAPTER XIV THE OXFORD TRADESMAN

_The Student’s_ opinion of one--A tradesman’s poem and its
result--Dodging the dun--Debt and its penalties--
Tradesmen’s taste in literature--Advertising and _The
Loiterer_--Tick--Dr Newton, innkeeper--Amhurst’s
confession--Fathers and trainers of toasts 142-152

CHAPTER XV THE DON

Tutors--Their slackness--The real and the ideal tutor--Dr
Newton on tutors’ fees--Dr Johnson’s recommendation of
Bateman--Public lecturers--Terrae Filius and a Wadham
man’s letter 153-162

CHAPTER XVI 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 163-174

CHAPTER XVII THE DON--(continued)

Proctors--The Black Book--Personal spite and the taking of
a degree--The case of Meadowcourt of Merton--Extract from
Black Book--The taverner and the Proctor--Isaac Walton and
the senior Proctor--Amhurst’s character sketch of a
certain Proctor 175-183

CHAPTER XVIII CELEBRITIES AS OXFORD MEN

Charles James Fox--Earl of Malmesbury--William Eden--Cards
and claret--Midnight oil--Oxford friendships remembered
afterwards--Edward Gibbon--Delicate bookworm--Antagonism
towards Oxford--Becomes a Roman Catholic--Subsequent
apostasy--John Wesley--Resists taking orders--Germs of
ambition--America the golden opportunity--Oxford
responsible for Methodism 184-198