Part 13

Landor of Trinity, be it observed, was the contemporary of Southey of Balliol. Like Southey, he distinguished himself by refusing to have his hair powdered, in the conventional style, for dinner; but Southey only knew him by repute, as he told Humphry Davy on the publication of “Gebir.” Landor, Southey then wrote, was “notorious as a mad Jacobin.” He would have sought his acquaintance, he said, for the sake of the Jacobinism, if the concomitant madness had not deterred him; and he concludes, giving chapter and verse for the madness: “He was obliged to leave the University for shooting at one of the Fellows through the window.” But that was not quite true. The story, after the way of stories, had both gained and lost something on its short journey from Trinity to Balliol; and Landor himself has left a record of the rights of it in a letter written shortly after the occurrence.

He was a Rugby man, of the days before Rugby had gone in for “moral seriousness.” He exhibited the roughness of Rugby, together with a spasmodic uncertainty of temper which was all his own; and, though he was an excellent Grecian, he did not imitate the Greeks in mixing water with his wine. In the rooms opposite to his there lived a man named Leeds whom he did not like—a man of whom he writes that “with a figure extremely disgusting, he was more so in his behaviour,” and that “he was continually intruding himself where his company was not wanted.”

One evening it happened that Leeds and Landor were both giving wines; Leeds’s party consisting, according to Landor, of “servitors and other raffs of every description.” The weather was warm, and both parties had their windows open. Neither party, one suspects, was more than relatively sober; and so, feelings running high, the two parties began to express their opinions of each other in a slanging match, until presently Leeds’s party, tired of the wordy war, closed the window, and fastened the shutters. Then Landor, as a final expression of his contempt, discharged a shot-gun at the shutters.

Nobody was hurt—nobody could have been hurt; but Leeds complained and the President sent for Landor; and Landor’s awkward temper was his undoing. Availing himself of the fact that the shot had proceeded, not from the sitting-room, but from the bedroom, he told the President that no gun had been fired from the room in which his company were assembled; and he added that, as no definite person was accused of the offence, he did not feel called upon to reply to this vague charge. The President, however, as it happened, was not the sort of man to be fooled or bluffed.

“Have you got a gun, Mr. Landor?” he asked; and Landor admitted that he had.

“Will you show it to me?”

“Certainly.”

“Has it been fired lately?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, Mr. Landor, and as I have also taken occasion to question your guests——”

So the dialogue ran; and the cross-examination established, if not the legal proof, at least the moral certainty of Landor’s guilt. But he still tried to bluff.

“Mr. President,” he said, “it is against the law of England to require a prisoner to incriminate himself”; but the President retired to consult the Senior Common-room, and returned to pronounce sentence.

“Mr. Landor,” he said, “it is the opinion of the Fellows that you be rusticated for two terms.” And so it happened; and Oxford lost another of her poets—more through the poet’s fault, it must be admitted, than through her own.

* * * * *

The link of poetry, though there is no other, may couple Landor’s name with Newman’s. The most momentous events of Newman’s Oxford career have been spoken of in the Oriel chapter; but he was a Trinity undergraduate, and Trinity’s claim to him must be recognised. “Trinity,” he has written, “has never been unkind to me”; and in 1885 he presented the College library with a set of his works, expressing the hope that the yearly festival of the College might be “as happy a day to you all as in 1818 it was to me.”

Yet there are indications that Newman’s happiness at Trinity was diversified by spiritual distress, and by pained disapproval of the frivolity of others. He had but lately been “converted”; and his conversion made him a wet blanket in merry company. His thoughts, apart from his studies, were not confined to the “snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman’s rooms” of which he afterwards spoke with a poet’s grateful recollection. His Evangelicalism (for he was then an Evangelical) was shocked by the too bibulous propensities of his fellow-men. He could not share in such jollities, like Landor; and at the approach of the College Gaudy, his letters take the tone of a Commination Service:

“To-morrow is our Gaudy. If there be one time of the year in which the glory of our College is humbled, and all appearance of goodness fades away, it is on Trinity Monday. Oh, how the angels must lament over a whole society throwing off the allegiance and service of their Maker, which they have pledged the day before at His table, and showing themselves the sons of Belial!”

Is it really well, one wonders, for a young man to be quite so good as that at quite such an early age? Probably not. The sentences seem to echo the artificial ring of the Evangelicalism of the decadence, which is a displeasing sound; and one turns, not without relief, from Newman to the Gentlemen Adventurers.

* * * * *

It has been mentioned that the first Earl of Chatham was once Pitt of Trinity; and it was under his direction that England conquered the Empire “in a fit of absence of mind”—an Empire which, by the way, Lord North of Trinity went the right way to lose. His name, therefore, though no stories of his Oxford adventures have been preserved, fittingly introduces our list.

The first name on the list is that of Sir Francis Verney, of whom many interesting stories may be read in the “Memoirs of the Verney Family”; he was, in turn, a galley-slave, a common soldier, and a pirate on the Barbary coast, and died miserably in the hospital at Messina in 1615. The second name is that of Calvert, of Trinity, who became Lord Baltimore, and founded the colony of Maryland. The third—to pass over minor names—is that of Richard Burton.

“Readers must be prepared,” says Lady Burton, writing of her husband’s Oxford curriculum, “not to hear the recital of the College course of a goody-goody boy of yesterday”; and though Burton did row in the Trinity torpid, and compete for two scholarships, which he failed to win, his proceedings were, on the whole, irregular. He had lived much abroad, and came to Oxford with ideas somewhat different from those of the ordinary public school boy.

The first thing that happened to him on his arrival was that the College authorities requested him to shave off his moustache. He declined to do so unless they put their request in the shape of a formal written order. Some undergraduates then laughed at his moustache; and he handed them his card, and called them out, though the threatened duel was prevented from taking place. He was next advised to sport his oak, lest he should be ragged; but instead of doing that, he left the door wide open, and thrust the poker in the fire, prepared to give his persecutors a warm reception if they came. The opinion gained ground that he was a desperate character, and he was left unmolested.

His studies were as unconventional as his behaviour—he began to learn Arabic—and so also were his recreations. Those were the days of rowdyism—the days in which, as has just been related, the Marquis of Waterford painted the door of the Dean and Canons of Christ Church red; and Burton thoroughly enjoyed diversions of that order. He once caused himself to be let down with a rope into the garden of the Master of Balliol, pulled up that old gentleman’s choicest flowers, and planted staring marigolds in their place. He also, when the Master of Balliol was watering his flowers, shot at the watering-pot with an air-gun. But, taking one consideration with another, nothing was quite so characteristic of his life at Oxford as his leaving of it.

He had told his father, during the vacation, that he would like to take his name off the books; but his father had insisted on his returning. He returned with the firm resolve of overreaching the parental authority by doing something that would bring about his expulsion; and a race-meeting in the neighbourhood gave him his opportunity.

Undergraduates were not only forbidden to attend that race-meeting; they were ordered to be present without fail at lectures, at the hour at which the races took place. “Tyranny! Unjustifiable interference with the liberty of the subject!” exclaimed Burton and a few other of the wilder spirits; and they ordered tandems to be in waiting for them, behind Worcester, and drove out of Oxford at a spanking pace at the very hour at which the roll was being called.

Of course they were missed; and of course they were sent for, and asked for explanations. The explanations of the others were of a humble character; but Burton’s explanations made matters worse. He blurted out that he saw no harm in attending a race-meeting, and was aware of no reason why undergraduates should be treated like babies in arms; and he not only said that, but went on to moralise.

“Trust begets trust,” he solemnly said, “and they who trust us elevate us”; and it was not to be expected that the dons would put up with that.

Nor did they. They expelled Burton, while contenting themselves with rusticating his companions; and he received the sentence with the same imperturbably high moral tone. He hoped, he said, “that the caution money deposited by his father would be honestly returned to him.” At that there was “movement.” It seemed, for the moment, as if the dons proposed to expel Burton not only from the College, but from the room. He brought his heels together, bowed to them in the courtly Austrian fashion, wished them happiness and prosperity, and withdrew. Then he went down.

But not immediately, and not without a demonstration; and the description of the final scene may be taken from the Life by Mr. Francis Hitchman:

“One of his rusticated friends—Anderson of Oriel,” writes Mr. Hitchman, “had proposed that they should leave with a splurge—‘go up from the land with a soar.’ There was now no need for the furtive tandem behind Worcester College: it was driven boldly up to the College doors. Richard’s bag and baggage were stowed away in it, and, with a cantering leader and a high-trotting horse in the shafts, carefully driven over the beds of the best flowers, they started for the High Street and the Queen’s highway to London, Richard energetically performing upon a yard of tin, waving adieux to his friends, and kissing his hand to the pretty shop-girls.”

SAINT JOHN’S COLLEGE

Founded by Sir Thomas White—Raised to fame by Archbishop Laud—Calvinistic opposition to Laud—He triumphs over it and makes Oxford a High Church University—His disciplinarian regulations—His magnificent entertainment of royalty—The entertainment of Admiral Tromp—He gets drunk and is taken home in a wheelbarrow—Dean Mansel—His pugnacious Bampton Lectures and his excruciating puns.

Saint John’s College was founded in the reign of Queen Mary, a year after the foundation of Trinity, by Sir Thomas White, a City merchant of the Dick Whittington type, and one of the originators of the Muscovy Company. Its connection with the Merchant Tailors’ School was early established; and merchants generally recognised it as the most fitting college for them to send their sons to. It blossomed into glory under its second founder, Archbishop Laud, who added, among other things, that “garden front” which is one of the architectural gems of Oxford.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE.

[To face p. 241.]

Laud’s, in fact, is the chief name to be reckoned with in the College annals. He occupied almost every position there, from the humblest to the highest. He was, successively, commoner, Scholar, Fellow, Tutor, President. While Tutor, he was also, for a time, Proctor. After being President, he became Visitor of the College and Chancellor of the University. One associates his name, in politics, with reaction; but he was, in University matters, a reformer. He and his successor Juxon—the Juxon who attended Charles I. on the scaffold—raised the College to its highest pinnacle of honour. It led the van in education, and gave the country two successive Primates.

* * * * *

Born in 1573, Laud matriculated in 1589, won his scholarship in 1590, was elected to his fellowship in 1593, took deacon’s orders in 1600 and priest’s orders in 1601, became a Doctor of Divinity in 1608, and was chosen President in 1611. He held that office until he became Bishop of St. David’s in 1621; but his interest in the College did not cease with his preferment, as the new Statutes which Oxford owed to him bear witness.

His period, as the dates show, was chiefly that of the first two Stuart Kings; and the Stuarts, whatever their defects, were always full of regard for the most ancient of the English seats of learning. They valued its loyalty and liked to visit it in state; and Oxford repaid the attention which it received from them by modifying its theological point of view. Laud was the moving spirit of the transformation. The Oxford to which he went was a Calvinistic Oxford. The Oxford which he left was a High Church Oxford; and the change was more due to his influence than to that of any other man. He got his way there by firmness and tact, wearing down opposition, and making his enemies his friends.

The records of his early Oxford days are scanty; but we know him always to have been on the side of ceremony, alike in academic and in religious observances. Of the former kind of ceremony we find a quotable example in the account preserved of the reception of James I., on his visit to Oxford, at the gate of Saint John’s:

“Three young youths” (we read) “in habit and attire like nymphs confronted him, representing England, Scotland, and Ireland, and talking dialogue-wise each to other of their state, at last concluding yielding themselves up to his gracious government. The scholars stood all on one side of the street, and the strangers of all sorts on the other. The Scholars stood first, then the Bachelors, and at last the Masters of Arts.”

Laud, we cannot doubt, had a hand in that performance; and we may also presume him to have had something to do with the management of the comedy which was played before the King, two days later—not, it is true, with such unqualified success as the company might have desired:

“It was acted” (we are told) “much better than either of the others that he had seen before, yet the King was so over-wearied that after a while he distasted it and fell asleep. When he awaked, he would have been gone, saying, ‘I marvel what they think me to be,’ with such other like speeches, showing his dislike thereof. Yet he did tarry till they had ended it, which was after one of the clock.”

It was in connection with religion, however, that Laud’s appreciation of splendid ceremony was most important. There is a legend to the effect that he kept a set of Roman vestments in his rooms, and dressed up in them and admired himself before the looking-glass when he thought that he was alone and unobserved; but that story is probably untrue. Certainly the fact that the College treasures include Roman vestments is no proof of it. Personally, Laud was a man of very simple tastes. Fuller says so, and illustrates the statement with an anecdote.

“Once” (Fuller writes) “at a visitation in Essex, one in orders (of good estate and extraction) appeared before him very gallant in habit, whom Dr. Laud (then Bishop of London) publickly reproved, showing to him the plainness of his own apparel. ‘My Lord’ (said the minister), ‘you have better cloaths at home and I have worse,’ whereat the Bishop rested very well contented.”

That is not the language of a man who desired priests to simulate birds of paradise; and Laud’s chief anxiety was that the conduct of public worship should be decent, decorous, and dignified. He found the administration of the Holy Communion conducted in a slovenly manner. The table was kept in the middle of the Church, and communicants had acquired a habit of putting their hats and sticks on it. Laud railed it off, at the East end, so that it could no longer be used as a hat-rack and umbrella-stand; and he also preached sermons before the University in favour of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and of the divine origin of the episcopacy.

This, at first, made him very unpopular. His election to the office of President was only effected in the face of strenuous opposition—one vehement antagonist presuming to seize the voting papers and tear them up, in the vain hope of invalidating the election; and he was preached at by the Regius Professor of Divinity in the University Church. “What!” exclaimed the preacher, pointing at the future Archbishop. “Do you think there be two heavens? If there be, get yourself to the other, and place yourself there, for into this where I am ye shall not come.”

To that sort of abuse Laud had to listen for hours together. It is said that he listened patiently. Perhaps he listened with a smile. At any rate he was in a position to smile, for he could see that he was winning.

Probably other people did not see it; for Laud was neither overbearing in manner nor formidable in appearance. Fuller describes him as “low in stature, little in bulk.” When he was Proctor, a citizen of Oxford, whom he discovered drunk on a bench and accosted with the voice of authority, addressed him as “thou little morsel of justice” and bade him go away. Apparently he went away. The Proctor’s Black Book contains no record of punishment in his time, and in his college he had a reputation for lenity. One can only in short, infer him to have been a disciplinarian from the fact that he did, somehow or other, enforce discipline.

He not only enforced discipline, indeed, but conciliated the recalcitrant. The very man who had tried to invalidate his election to the Presidency by destroying the voting papers became one of his most loyal supporters, served as Vice-Chancellor during his Chancellorship, and sent him regular reports of the progress of University affairs. In the end, therefore, he was able to carry matters with a high hand, informing the Heads of the other colleges that, if they did not institute the reforms suggested to them, “his Majesty’s commissions will reform whatsoever you do not,” and “this breach once made upon your privileges might lay open a wider gap in many other particulars,” and “it will be ordered in a sourer way not so agreeable to your liberties.”

Laud, in short, was, like Lord Curzon, a Chancellor who took his Chancellorship seriously; and no matter was too great or too little to receive attention from him. He enriched the University with gifts of rare and precious manuscripts; he procured fresh privileges for the University Press; he revised the relation of the colleges to the University; and, in addition to all that, he drafted regulations as to the conduct of junior members of the University which we may assume to have been as necessary in his time as they would be out of place in ours.

He forbade, for instance, long hair, top boots, and slashed doublets, and all garments of “light and garish colours.” He also forbade “the hunting of beasts with any sort of dogs, ferrets, nets or toils,” and any use or carrying of “muskets, crossbows or falcons,” and prescribed that “neither rope-dancers, actors, nor shows of gladiators” should perform in the precincts of the University without special leave. His schedule of prohibited games included football and knuckle-bones; and the sanction of his Draconian rules was to be “corporal punishment if, by reason of age, it be becoming, fines, postponement of the degree, expulsion for a time or for ever”; and though it is difficult for us to picture the state of things which required to be amended by this drastic code, there is testimony that the change which it introduced was for the better. Sir John Coke may be our witness.

“Scholars” (writes Sir John in 1636) “are no more to be found in taverns nor seen loitering in the streets or other places of idleness or ill-example, but all contain themselves within the walls of their colleges and in the schools and public libraries.”

It is a picture of an Oxford very different from the Oxford which we know—a picture of an Oxford of old heads on young shoulders. Let Laud be given all the credit that is due to him for creating such an Oxford, even though the elements of permanence were lacking to his creation. He did not altogether ignore the need for recreation, though he thought rough games undignified, and would have been appalled by the spectacle of an undergraduate in a blazer. He admitted plays and pageants; and as our account of him began with a pageant, so it may end with one. Only three years before his arraignment and execution, he organised a pageant of triumphant splendour for the entertainment of the King and Queen, the Elector Palatine, and Prince Rupert.

There was first a dinner of a unique description, with “baked meats” disguised by the cook to look like Archbishops, Bishops, and Doctors of Divinity. Then there was a play—“very merry,” Laud writes, “and without offence.” He was very proud to think that Saint John’s was able to stage the piece without needing to borrow a single actor from any other college; and the costumes were so tasteful that the Queen borrowed them for a subsequent performance by her own players at Hampton Court. All things, in short, were in such very good order that “no man went out at the gates, courtier or other, but content,” and all passed off “to the great satisfaction of the King and the honour of that place.”

It was a great day for Saint John’s, and a great day for Laud. He proceeded to Oxford for the occasion with a retinue of from forty to fifty horsemen, and he defrayed the whole cost of the entertainment—£2,666—out of his own pocket. But the glory was like the glory of the sunset which precedes the dark. Laud’s further progress was to be to the prison and the block; and the College was presently to be called upon, like the other colleges, to yield up its plate to the King, and to devote a portion of its revenues to the payment of the King’s soldiers. The King promised “on the word of a king” to repay the money advanced within a month; but he did not keep his promise; and presently the Parliamentarians began bombarding, and a cannon ball which lodged in the gateway tower is still preserved.

* * * * *