(At what little profit I may) My hoods, and my gowns, and whole rows of 'I must sell all my logical questions, The sweepings and dregs of the Schools; 'Besides, there's my "Law-disputations 1 " And "Arguments," bare as you please; Time has been when, somewhat elated, Poor Bill would be laid on the shelf. 123 It is a fact that before the recent Statute, which appoints a real, bona-fide Examination for the degree of B.C.L. (and has woefully diminished the number of Law degrees), the only Exercises consisted of a repetition of a set of worn-out Arguments in Dodd's possession. The unreal title also of S.C.L. (which had been much abused) has been made real, being allowed only to examined persons,-I should rather say, 'persons who had successfully passed an Examination;' for there is a story that an S.C.L. of the old Statute described himself (on applying for an appointment) as an 'Examined Student,' reserving the fact of his having failed till farther enquiry! 'By the glories of Athens and Roma! By those statues I leave with a sigh1! And be dubb'd Dr. Dodd ere I die.' A.D. 1830. [B.A. 291. M.A. 179. Hon. D.C.L. at Commemoration, 3.] In the early part of this year2 two attempts to improve the Examination Statute failed, by aiming at too much at The Statute of 1825 therefore remained in force,— till the Michaelmas Term following, when a fourth class was added,—with a fifth class of which only the total number was to be given. once. doctors said, 'of a Fate was busy at this June 25. George IV died, as the diseased organization of the heart3 time with the bearers and wearers of sceptres and crowns; in August, Charles X of France was deposed, and Louis Philippe became, by acclamation, not exactly King of France, but 'King of the French1.' July 19. An address of condolence, and also of congratulation, from the University of Oxford, was presented to King William IV. The Chancellor, Lord Grenville, being unwell, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jones, read the address and presented the Delegates with much dignity. At the beginning of September, the enforcement of the 1 The Pomfret Statues' were at that date placed in one of the Schools, under the care of the Clerk of the Schools. 2 This year began with very severe weather; it was not till Feb. 8 that the frost broke up, after forty days' continuance, during the latter part of which coal was sold in Oxford at 5s. the cwt. 3 That disease was generally supposed to have been, in some shape or other, of long standing. 4 Apparently but a nice distinction without a difference, but really expressive of his being an elected king. 1830 OTMOOR INCLOSURE ACT. 125 Otmoor Inclosure Act was resisted by the people of that neighbourhood; thirty rioters were escorted to the Oxford jail by a small force of Yeomanry-cavalry; but as they were being thoughtlessly conducted through the great crowd assembled at St. Giles's Fair, the Oxford mob pelted the Yeomanry with such violence that the prisoners were allowed to escape1, instead of being lodged in the County jail. By-the-bye, is it not a fact that those new enclosures and embankments on Otmoor have caused more frequent, sudden, and larger floods at Oxford? Certainly Dr. Buckland used to assert, in his lectures, that a great mistake, in this respect, was made in the Otmoor Inclosure; for, instead of bringing the superfluous water (as now) by the circuitous bed of the Cherwell into the Thames at Oxford, it ought to have been (and might just as easily have been) carried directly into the Thame-river and so into the Thames several miles below Oxford 2. Sept. 14. Poor Alfred Bennett, Mus. Bac. and Organist of New College, was killed by the upsetting of an overloaded coach, on his way to Worcester Music Meeting. He was a talented musician and excellent teacher. His body was brought back to Oxford and buried in New College Cloisters. A tolerably large subscription was raised for his young widow and infant son. 6 1 This naturally caused some alarm at the Horse-Guards,' and a company of the Guards was despatched to Oxford; at Oxford, however, that unpremeditated local riot had not attracted much attention or produced any anxiety. Indeed the Bill against the Oxford rioters was ignored by the Grand Jury at the following Assizes. 2 Imperial Rome is said to have done the same sort of thing (but by design) in turning the waters of the Chiana from the Tiber into the already overcharged Arno; thus producing frequent and disastrous floods about Florence, German at this time began to be more studied than it had been. Mr. Bramsen, for many years a teacher of German in Oxford, sent to a German University and ('by return of post') got his Diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy! He was an amiable old gentleman, but, as being a professed 'diner-out,' he was called by his pupils 'Dr. (or Herr) Speisen - sie.' On his tombstone (in Magdalen Parish Churchyard) he is grandly called 'a traveller in three quar ters of the globe.' Michaelmas Term, 1830, was the period of 'Swing' riots, machine-breaking, and rick-burning. The University authorities were alarmed, special constables were sworn in, and 300 cavalry sent for,-the latter chiefly for the protection of the surrounding country. No actual riots ensued. The burning of thrashing machines was made a subject of playful wit at Eton: Dr. Keate, Dr. Keate, there's distress in your beat, So the suff'rers assert, great and small; And 'tis plain to be seen that your threshing-machine Has something to do with it all.' Dr. K.'s Reply. 'My pupils perhaps have deserved my hard raps, But this cannot apply to my system, for I Do the whole of my threshing by hand.' In November, the Provost and a deputation of the Fellows of Queen's College presented an address to Queen Adelaide, who, as Queen-Consort, was a sort of Patroness of their College. I can hardly bring myself to credit the possibility of such remissness as I find stated in a memorandum in my own writing, 'sed litera scripta manet:'-Oct. 8, 1830. The Vice-Chancellor was re-admitted for his third year,-not 1830 THE OLD TERRAE-FILIUS. 127 one of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors, nominated by him, being present at the ceremony!' Oct. 18, being St. Luke's day, one of the nominated but not yet admitted Pro-ViceChancellors went to St. Mary's as Vice-Chancellor, afterwards matriculated one or two young men, and was about to commit a delinquent to prison, when luckily the inchoate nature of his authority was recollected, before he had actually committed himself! Surely we all (even the accurate Registrar) must have been walking in our sleep! What a subject was here offered to a Terrae-filius, if such a character had then existed! On this personage (the old Terrae-filius) Huber says 'he certainly possessed a sort of official and statutory authority.' His antiquity is undoubted, but he never could have had an official, statutable appointment. It was rather a traditional, assumed privilege, connived at, like that of a Court-fool (Huber's comparison), for its witty, fearless sallies, and, though liable to abuse, often valuable as a rough vehicle of criticism1, and relieving the dull and formal exercises of the Act. As a vestige of the traditional character of the Terrae-filius in Oxford, I recollect in my early days to have heard the term applied as a reproach by an angry man to a still more angry woman, 'O you scold! you terry-phillis !' 1 Si quis erat dignus describi— -multâ cum libertate notabant. |