Triumph erewhile of Bacon's fabled arts,"
Now well-hung symbol of the student's parts;
'Midst those unhallow'd walls and gloomy cells
Where every thing but Contemplation dwells,
Dire was the feud our sculptured Alfred saw,†
And thy grim-bearded bust, Erigena,
When scouts came flocking from the empty hall,
And porters trembled at the Doctor's call;
Ah! call'd in vain, with laugh supprest they stood
And bit their nails, a dirty-finger'd brood.
E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight,
And John beheld, and chuckled at the sight. §
Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight
With iron pennons more obscured the night-
Thou, too, of British birth, who dost reside
In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide, ||
Say, spirit, say, for thy enlivening bowl
With fell ambition fired thy favourite's soul,
From what dread cause began the bloodless fray
Pregnant with shame, with laughter, and dismay?
Calm was the night, and all was sunk to rest,
Save Shawstone's party, and the Doctor's breast:
He saw with pain his ancient glory fled,
And thick oblivion gathering round his head.
Alas! no more his pupils crowding come,
To wait indignant in their tyrant's room,
No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears,
Or lolling, picks his teeth at morning prayers;
Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate,
And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate.
But now to listless indolence a prey,
Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay;
As not unlike in venom and in size,
Close in his hole the hungry spider lies.
"And oh!" he cries, " am I so powerless grown,
That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone?
Oh! for some nobler strife, some senior foe,
To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!"
He spoke the powers of mischief heard his cries,
And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes.
He slept but rested not, his guardian sprite
Rose to his view in visions of the night,
And thus, with many a tear and many a sigh,
He heard, or seem'd to hear, the mimic demon cry:
All the world has rung with the fame of Roger Bacon, formerly of this college, and of his exploits in astrology, chemistry, and metallurgy, inter alia his brazen head, of which alone the nose remains, a precious relic, and (to use the words of the excellent author of the Oxford Guide) still conspicuous over the portal, where it erects itself as a symbolical illustration of the Salernian adage "Noscitur a naso."
Two medallions of Alfred and Erigena ornament the outside of the Hall, so as to overlook the field of battle.
The Porter of the college.
§ The doctor's servant or scout.
Two wine-merchants residing in Oxford.
To those gentlemen who, for half an hour together, have sometimes had the honour of waiting in the Doctor's antechamber, "Donec libeat vigilare tyranno," this passage will need no explanation; and of his acts of graceful dignity and unaffected piety at chapel, perhaps the less that is said the better.
** It was a Rosicrucian tenet, that the demon was assimilated to the object of his
"Is this a time for distant strife to pray,
When all my power is melting fast away,
Like mists dissolving at the beams of day,
When masters dare their ancient rights resume,
And bold intruders fill the common room,
Whilst thou, poor wretch, forsaken, shunn'd by all,
Must pick thy commons in the empty hall?
Nay more! regardless of thy hours and thee,
They scorn the ancient, frugal hour of three.*
Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread,
And juniors lord it at the table's head;
See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear, †
Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.
Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground,
The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound?
Awake! arise! though many a danger lour,
By one bright deed to vindicate thy power."
He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds,
With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds.
So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd,
Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade,
If weary with his toil perchance, he hears
His master's lash re-echoing in his ears,
Though loath, he lifts his paws, and bounds in air,
And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare.
You the great foe of this Assembly!
I the great foe? Why the great foe?
In that being one of the meanest, barest, poorest,
-Thou goest foremost.-SHAKSPEARE'S Coriolanus.
Forth from his cell the wily warrior hies,
And swift to seize the unwary victim flies.
For sure he deem'd, since now declining day
Had dimm'd the brightness of his visual ray,
He deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes
To purge the bile that in his liver rose.
Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell,
Jobations dire, and Impositions fell.
care; and in this we are confirmed by the authority of the Doctor himself, who treated very largely on the subject of demons in his lecture on Plato's Phædon.
of his mind were never more successfully displayed than when he illustrated his positions by the scriptural instance of the two Galilean demoniacs, who abode in the tombs night and day. It was reserved for his ingenuity and learning to discover that those unfortunate Bedlamites were not mortals, but departed spirits.
*The real friend of collegiate discipline, whose feelings our author would blush to offend, will be pleased to recollect that this deviation from the usual dinner hour took place in the long vacation; that it was introduced for the convenience of study, and that the doctor, could he so far have forgotten his dignity as to have joined the four o'clock party, would have found decorous manners, and more than one brother fellow of the company.
Wisely was it ordained by our founders, that, young men being too apt to laugh in their sleeves at the conduct of their superiors, the academical dress of the undergraduates should, as far as possible, obviate that inconvenience. Thus, also, Tully hath it, "Cedant arma toga."
The two founders of Brazenose College.
And now a cross he'd meditate, and swear*
Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.†
Along the grass with heedless haste he trod,
And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod
That hallow'd sod, that consecrated ground,
By eclogues, fines, and crosses fenced around.
When lo! he sees, yet scarcely can believe,
The destined victim wears a master's sleeve;
So when those heroes, Britain's pride and care,
In dark Batavian meadows urge the war;
Oft as they roam'd, in fogs and darkness lost,
They found a Frenchman what they deem'd a post.
The Doctor saw; and, filled with wild amaze,
He fix'd on P- -t§ his quick convulsive gaze.
Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw,
Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw. ||
Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart,
Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart.
"And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest,
Presume to break a senior's holy rest? T
Full well you know, who thus my anger dare,
To horse-whips what antipathy I bear.
Shall I, in vain, immersed in logic lore,
O'er Saunderson and Allrick try to pore-
I, who the major to the minor join,
And prove conclusively that seven's not nine ?
With expectation big, and hope elate,
The critic world my learned labours wait:
And shall not Strabo then respect command,
And shall not Strabo stay thy insulting hand?
Strabo!** whose pages, eighteen years and more,
Have been my public shame, my private bore?
Hence, to thy room, audacious wretch! retire,
Nor think thy sleeves shall save thee from mine ire.”
He spoke; such fury sparkled in his face,
The Buttery trembled to its tottering base,
The frighted rats in corners laid them down,
And all but P- -t was daunted at his frown;
Firm and intrepid stood the reverend man,
As thrice he stroked his face, and thus began:
"And hopest thou then," the injured Bernard said,
"To launch thy thunders on a master's head?
* It is necessary to explain to non-academic readers, that it is customary for the tutor of a college to put an X opposite the name of an offending member in the Buttery Book, as it is called, by which he is interdicted from having bread buttered, a kind of excommunication.
For the meaning of this expression we refer the reader to the most preposterous imposition ever known in the annals of collegiate punishment; the original MS. of which is preserved in the museum of an eminent collector in Kent. In short, as in Cambridge they sell their butter by the yard, so at Brazenose the cloth measure has been applied with singular success to the works of genius; and perhaps the system may be so far improved upon, that a future under-graduate may have to toil through a furlong of Strabo, or a perch of logic.
This alludes to the hobbling gait of the Doctor, in consequence of the defect in his
Alluding to a notorious malefactor, executed about this time, and hung in chains on Wimbledon Common.
Prophetically spoken, as the Doctor was then only a junior fellow.
**The Doctor, finding that Horace prescribed a nine years' delay for a play or poem, inferred that more than twice that time was necessary for the learned labours of the editor of Strabo.
O, wont to deal the trope and dart the fist,
Half-learn'd logician, half-form'd pugilist,
Censor impure, who dar'st, with slanderous aim,
And envy's dart, assault a H————r's name.
Senior, self-called, can I forget the day,
When titt'ring under-graduates mock'd thy sway,
And drove thee foaming from the Hall away?
Gods, with what raps the conscious tables rung,
From every form how shrill the cuckoo sung!
Oh! sounds unblest-Oh! notes of deadliest fear-
Harsh to the tutor's or the lover's ear,
The hint, perchance, thy warmest hopes may quell,
And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bel." †
At that loved name, with fury doubly keen,
Fierce on the Deacon rush'd the raging Dean;
Nor less the dauntless Deacon dare withstand
The brandish'd weight of Toe's uplifted hand.
The ghost of themes departed, that, of yore,
Disgraced alike, the Doctor praised or tore,
On paper wings flit dimly through the night,
And, hovering low in air, beheld the fight.
Each ill-starr'd verse its filthy den forsakes,
Black from the spit, or reeking from the jakes;
The blot-stain'd troop their shadowy pages spread,
And call for vengeance on the murderer's head.
Digito male pertinaci.-Hor.
§ Shade of Boileau! (who told in deathless lays
A choral pulpit's military praise,)
Thou, too, that dared'st a cloister'd warfare sing,
And dip thy bucket in Castalia's spring!
Forgive, blest bards, if, with unequal fire,
I feebly strike the imitative lyre;
Though strong to celebrate no vulgar fray,
Since P- -t and conquest swell the exulting lay.
Not link'd, alas! in friendship's sacred band,
With hands fast lock'd the furious parsons stand;
Each grasps the whip with unrelenting might
The whip, the cause and guerdon of the fight-
But either warrior spends his strength in vain,
And panting draws his lengthen'd breath with pain,
Till now the Dean, with throat extended wide,
And faltering shout, for speedy succour cried
For the wonderful answers of the learned cuckoo, at logic lecture, we refer to his (the cuckoo's) equally edified class-fellows.
The reader will perhaps be astonished to find, that the Doctor was supposed to flatter himself with the hope that his attentions were not altogether unacceptable to a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments, here alluded to.
66 Obscœnæque volucres signa dabant."
§ The poet invokes his heroi-comic predecessors, the author of the Lutrin, and Alessandro Tassoni, whose Secchia Rapita, or Rape of the Bucket, is well known to the amateurs of Italian poetry.
*To them who in yon grateful cell repose,
Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose-
"Scouts, porters, shoe-blacks, whatsoe'er your trade,
All, all, attend, your master's fist to aid!"
They heard his voice, and, trembling at the sound,
The half-breech'd legions swarm'd like moths around;
But, ah! the half-breech'd legions, call'd in vain,
Dismay'd and useless, fill'd the cumber'd plain;
And while for servile aid the Doctor calls,
By Pt subverted, prone to earth he sprawls.
E'en then were heard, so Brazenose students sing,
The grass plot chains in boding notes to ring;
E'en then we mark'd, where, gleaming through the night,
Aerial crosses shed a lurid light.
Those wrestlers, too, whom naked we behold
Through many a summer's night and winter's cold,
Now changed appear'd, his pristine languor fled,
Expiring Abel raised his sinking head,
While with fix'd eyes his murderer seemed to stand,
The bone half dropping from his nerveless hand.
So, when of old, as Latian records tell,
At Pompey's base the laurel'd despot fell,
Reviving freedom mock'd her sinking foe,
And demons shriek'd as Brutus dealt the blow.
His trenchier-bonnet tumbling from his crown,
Subdued by Bernard, sunk the Doctor down;
But yet, though breathless on the hostile plain,
The whip he could not seize he snapt in twain-
"Where now, base themester,"-Pt exulting said,
And waved the rattling fragments o'er his head—
"Where now thy threats? Yet learn from me to know
How glorious 'tis to spare a fallen foe.
Uncudgel'd, rise-yet hear my high command-
§ Hence to thy room! or dread thy conqueror's hand.”
His hair all gravel, and all green his clothes,
În doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose,
Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain,
And inly groaning sought his couch again;
Yet, as he went, he backward cast his view,
And bade his ancient power a last adieu.
So, when some sturdy swain, through miry roads
A grunting porker to the market goads,
With twisted neck, splash'd hide, and progress slow,
Oft backward looks the swine, and half disdains to go.
"Ah me! how fallen," with choaking sobs he said,
And sunk exhausted on his welcome bed;
No classical stranger could ever pass the porter in his lodge at Brazenose, without being sensibly reminded of a favourite passage in Horace, and exclaiming,
"Quis multâ gracilis-puer in rosâ,
Perfusus liquidis-odoribus
-sub antro."
"Procumbit humi bos." This is not the first time the Doctor has been overcome
"Hinc exaudiri gemitus, et sæva sonare
Verbera, tum stridor ferri tractæque catenæ."
§ With great practical justice and classical elegance, the words of the assailant are retorted upon himself—
"Suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo."
The bouleversement is supposed to have happened on the green adjoining the gravel.
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