CHAPTER V.
In some interval which preceded my removal to the university, I came in contact with Porson. At a succeeding period of life, I lived for a continued series of years in considerable intimacy with him, but it so happened, that after this our first interview, we did not for a very long time, meet again. It was at the house of a clergyman, whose kindness encouraged, and whose judgment often directed my studious pursuits. I was informed by him that I was to meet an extraordinary boy, one from whom the greatest things were expected, he having already excited both surprize and admiration. I proceeded to the house with emotions of respect and awe, prepared to listen and admire. I was alone with him for an hour: he discovered the greatest talents for silence; I could not get a word from him. After dinner, as I had the prerogative of being older, I tried again; it would not do; he was invincibly reserved, and we parted with little, or rather with no colloquial communication—I, with the impression that he was sullen, which I do not think he was, and he probably with the idea that I was a great chatterer; in which, perhaps, he was not much mistaken. I had, however, sufficient sagacity to discover that he was “no vulgar boy,” and I retained this impression so forcibly, that not long afterwards, finding myself in the village where he was born, I visited the schoolmaster who was his first teacher, and made enquiries concerning him. The old gentleman, who joined to his occupation of schoolmaster, those also of exciseman and shopkeeper, was not displeased with my curiosity. “There,” says he, “is where Dick used to sit, and this is his slate, but he soon got beyond me.” I have more than once mentioned this circumstance to Porson, and he assented to its truth, though I have seen statements of his earlier life, which seemingly contradict it.
At length the momentous period arrived, big with my future fate, when I was to be fixed at the university. I entered upon this career, with all the ardour of hope and expectation, with the resolution to acquire both knowledge and reputation. Alas! a very short interval convinced me how vain and unsubstantial were the dreams I had indulged. Reputation, it appeared, was only to be obtained by the acquisition of a branch of knowledge, of which I at present possessed very little, and for which I had rather repugnance than inclination. However, there was no alternative, and I set doggedly about it. I so far succeeded, that at my departure, I did no discredit to the society of which I was a member. At this point, let me be allowed to digress a little on the subject of our universities. They do indeed seem to require a strong and powerful reforming hand.
When an East Indiaman first arrives off the Hoogly river, in Bengal, a crowd of black merchants, and other orientals of various descriptions, hurry on board, as if to seek whom they may devour. One of these gentry will go up to a young Englishman on the quarter-deck, and accost him with—“Massa, what appointment are you come out with?” “I am a cadet.” “Oh, Massa, very bad—no gold mohurs—no pagodas—very bad.” To another he will say, “Well, Massa, what appointment have you got?” “A writership.” “Oh, Massa, excellent good—plenty of mohurs, pagodas, rupees—make me Massa’s debash, head-man—Massa want no money—no nothing—Massa pay one time or other.”
Well would it be, if when young men first entered at the university, even such a distinction was made, that the poor cadet was left to himself to make his way as he can, and that only the Massa writer (alias the known inheritor of wealth and distinction) was encouraged in the career of sensuality and extravagance. But this is far from being the case; and lamentable it is to say, that every young man, without distinction, on shaking off the trammels of school, at his very first appearance in the character of a man, at Oxford or Cambridge, has every facility afforded him to pursue a career of thoughtless expence; nor does he recover himself, if he does recover at all, till remorse harasses his spirits, and fetters every better propensity by the compunctious recollection, that he has involved himself in debts and difficulties, which it must require the exertion and the labour of years to remove.
Surely this ought not to be possible. But where is the remedy, or rather, where the preventive? It is beyond doubt a matter of considerable difficulty; but still something might be done. Something like sumptuary laws might be established to prevent the sons of peers, and the sons of honest commercial persons, of private gentlemen, or of clergymen, from being confounded and immersed in one common vortex of dissipation and expence. I have a letter before me from Oxford, dated Baliol college, 1766, in which a person of considerable experience in that university states, that fourscore pounds a year is a sufficient allowance for a commoner, but that a gentleman commoner should be allowed two hundred. I had personal knowledge of an individual at Cambridge, the whole of whose college expences did not exceed forty pounds. This perhaps would hardly now be practicable, but surely the heads of the universities, and the tutors of colleges, might, by their firm and salutary interference, prevent such extraordinary and extravagant excesses, as now pollute their discipline, and disgrace their establishment.
Might not parents be protected by a fiat from the caput, from enormous bills incurred at taverns, livery-stables, and confectioners? Might not tutors, without invidiousness, quietly communicate with the tradesmen of their respective colleges, on the subject of the present means and future expectations of the young men under their protection, and thus prevent any great accumulation of credit on one side, and of debts on the other? Might not private dinners in private rooms be strictly prohibited, and the possibility of making foolish, expensive, and pernicious jaunts to London, and elsewhere, be prevented? I am satisfied that something might be done, and I am certain that something ought to be done. I speak feelingly, smarting as I do in the persons of near and dear connections, and knowing no inconsiderable number of parents and guardians who sympathize with me. Formerly, and at the period which I am about to describe more at length, I verily believe that, except in the rooms of noblemen, and of a very few young men of great and known hereditary property, the more expensive wines were utterly unknown; whereas, at present, most of the young men have, occasionally at least, their claret and champagne; and a friend of mine shewed me the other day a bill for three months only, amounting to a hundred pounds, for these articles, incurred by a jackanapes, dependent upon the liberality of distant relatives, without a sixpence of his own.
Formerly an occasional excursion to Gogmagog Hills, or on some gaudy day to Huntingdon or Newmarket, satisfied the Cantab’s ambition, with the addition of but a few pounds to his annual expences; but now fifty, sixty, eighty pounds a year, run up at a livery-stable, is thought no mighty matter; and sorry am I to say, that the fellows who keep these places, encourage the young men in their extravagance, with the delusive expectation that they will be paid some time or other.
Formerly the collegians met sociably, after dinner in the hall, to drink wine in each other’s apartments, and expended two shillings, or perhaps half a crown, on something like a desert, which usually consisted of a few biscuits, apples, and walnuts. Now forsooth, two pounds will hardly suffice for this indulgence, which is carried to a most pernicious and culpable excess: now there must be ices, the most costly fruits, sweetmeats, and the like. The expence of a desert was formerly so trifling, that it hardly came into the calculation of expences. Now it forms a very serious part of a young man’s items of incumbrances; and I have seen a bill for this unnecessary luxury, incurred in the period of a year, by a youth whose parents were obliged to practise much self-denial and forbearance to maintain him at college, exceeding fifty pounds. Now ought this to be? And may it not, with a little exertion on the part of the superiors at the universities, in part at least be remedied? I could say much more on this subject, for a thousand abuses, absurdities, and irregularities, press upon my mind, but it is time that I should return to myself, and the good old time.
Flagrantior æquo
Non debet dolor esse viri nec vulnere major.