Several years after the above incident in Paniotti’s fencing school, an article appeared in The Student. It was a fantastic account of “Several Public Buildings in Oxford never before described” and contained the following:—
“The several gymnasia constructed for the exercise of our youth, and a relaxation from their severer studies, are not so much frequented as formerly, especially in the summer; our ingenious gownsmen having found out several sports which conduce to the same end, such as battle-door and shuttle-cock, swinging on the rope, etc., in their apartments; or, in the fields, leap-frog, tag, hop-step-and-jump, and among the rest, skittles; which last is a truly academical exercise, as it is founded on arithmetical and geometrical principles.”
Skinner, the poet, who sailed his yacht down to Sandford and rowed in Dame Hooper’s boats, seems to have been quite an all-round man.
“If day prove only passing fair
I walk for exercise and air
Or for an hour skate,
For a large space of flooded ground
Which Christ Church gravel walks surround
Has solid froze of late.
“Here graceful gownsmen silent glide,
Or noisy louts on hobnails slide,
Whilst lads the confines keep
Exacting pence from every one
As payment due for labour done
As constantly they sweep.”
His touch of “side” is not unfunny—the graceful ’varsity man is a picture of all culture, while the townee is a lout because he slides on vulgar hobnails. On several of the bard’s sailing expeditions, after they had dined chez Beckley, and duly tipped the girl,
“A game of quoits will oft our stay
Awhile at Sandford Inn delay;
Or rustic nine-pins; then once more
We hoist our sail, and tug the oar.”[14]
He must doubtless have looked down upon his fellow quill driver in The Student as several parts of a fool for thinking rustic nine-pins “a truly academical exercise, as it is founded on arithmetical and geometrical principles.”
Cricket and tennis were not of much account. The Lownger described his going after dinner to tennis, returning in time for chapel
“From the Coffee House then I to Tennis away,
And at six I post back to my college to pray,”
while G. V. Cox, in his “Recollections,” remembered that “the game of cricket was kept up chiefly by the young men from Winchester and Eton, and was confined to the old Bullingdon Club, which was expensive and exclusive. The members of it, however, with the exception of a few who kept horses, did not mind walking to and fro.”[15]