Amhurst has pointed out that the Smarts never read anything but plays, novels, and French comedies. When The Student appeared, however, they took it up more or less whole-heartedly. In these days of photographic (that being the polite way of spelling pornographic) weeklies, a new venture in ’varsity journals is greeted as a nine days’ wonder. However good the contents provided, the Oxford man prefers to look upon the fetching features—and limbs, of footlight favourites in papers provided free of charge in the Junior Common Room. Consequently the rash starter of a “’varsity rag” is compelled to retire from the lists after the first two or three issues. In the old days, however, even the blasé Smart had some initiative left to him in matters of literature. He supported the new paper with enthusiasm and read every number carefully. After some time he found that the editor was catering too freely for the Dons. Instead, however, of discontinuing his subscription he wrote to the editor and appealed on the grounds that The Student was becoming too prosy and Spectator-like, and urged him to keep it lighter in tone. The following is an extract from the letter sent in:—
“——’s Coffee-house, May 4.
“Brother Student,—Without a compliment I am much pleased with your scheme, and heartily wish you success. Hitherto I think you bid fair for it, and seem to meet with general applause. But will you forgive my offering a word or two of advice? Let us have no more of your abstract speculations, as you call them; indeed they are not popular. Last night, in a full assembly of pretty fellows at this place (all your admirers), Billy Languish read your fourth number. We all agreed that your ‘Impudence’ is inimitable, but your ‘letter in defence of religion,’ tho’ it did not startle us (as you apprehended it would) somewhat amazed us, I must own. Consider, Mr Student, you write for the publick of which three fourths are ignoramuses, and therefor, tho’ we may allow you now and then in compliment to your taylor and mercer and other learned folks, to insert a Latin ode or epigram, yet I must needs tell you, that we don’t relish your metaphysics. For which reason I am directed by all the Smarts at ——’s, to acquaint you, that we expect (especially if it be English), at least to understand what we read. We consider your book as a monthly feast or entertainment; and if we pay our ordinary, ’tis but reasonable the dishes you set before us should be such as we are able to taste. We cannot indeed always expect rarities, and may now and then admit of a trifle or puff by way of make up; but prithee don’t surfeit us with ambigu’s and inconnu’s. At the same time I must tell you, that we are much pleased with your last Sapphic, that we reverence Tony Alsop’s memory, and have resolv’d one and all to subscribe to his works. Billy Languish and Dick Dimple indeed say, the ‘verses on the grotto’ are better; and Dick (who you know is a wit as well as a beau) gave us off hand a translation of them, but I have indeed since found out where he borrows it.—I am yours,
Harry Didapper.”
The habitués of the unknown coffee-house, all pretty fellows, looked upon The Student as a “monthly feast of entertainment!” For all their soaking and “wenching” and slacking they would seem to have had a certain amount of brain and appreciative capability left to them.
In a subsequent chapter I shall set down the methods by which these men obtained their degrees after having spent some six or seven years inside the old walls of the university. They had as little time for work as the “bloods” of to-day whose every moment is claimed by matters of far greater moment than mere study! To a certain extent the Smarts, though they perhaps did not know it, were philosophers. They said to themselves that life was short and youth shorter still, that therefore it behoved them to cram in to the six years of their university career as much pleasure, excitement, and amusement as was possible. The eighteenth century lent itself whole-heartedly to this programme. The Dons, who should have been intent on governing Oxford, had other game afoot. The Undergraduates were thus left to their own devices, and the Smarts were the first to take advantage of such Arcadian conditions. They delayed the hour of rising until the sun grew weary of calling them out. There was no stern shepherd to round them into chapel at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock. Like butterflies they flitted from place to place at the caprice of the moment. They held Bacchanalian revels in and out of college without regard to Dons and statutes. Their paramours, far from being ejected from the city, were shared with the authorities, thus proving that they had a better understanding of real socialism than the exponents of to-day. The same cobbled streets that hear us shouting our way home in the small hours, saw the Georgian men staggering along with tight-linked arms in the silvery moonlight, while Big Tom boomed out the birth of a new day.
As year after year slipped relentlessly off the calender they absorbed the unique atmosphere of Oxford, fully appreciating under their mask of blasé scorn the traditions and the unforgettable charm of Alma mater. They carried their love and reverence for her to the grave, and gave proof of it by sending their sons and grandsons to swell the never-ending procession of men who sing the praises of Oxford.