Rowlandson's Oxford

by A. Hamilton Gibbs

The foregathering fresher—Dibdin and the “Lunatics”—The Constitution Club—The Oxford Poetical Club—Its rules and minutes—High Borlace—The Freecynics and Banterers.

Year by year the places of those who go down are filled by succeeding generations of public school men—men who are more conservative in ideas than the members of any other class of society. Their immediate ambitions are limited to achieving a Blue, capturing the presidency of the Union or winning one of the big university prizes.

They take things as they find them, and very rarely try to launch out on new lines. They early discover that gregariousness is one of the chief characteristics of an Oxford man. They find it exhibited in the extraordinary number of clubs and societies in each college. Their natural conservatism convinces them that as the forming of clubs is co-existent with university life, they must not hesitate to follow the admirable example of their seniors. With the untiring enthusiasm of youth they concentrate their brains and energies therefore to the formation of new clubs—having already become members of a great percentage of the long-founded university clubs which are open to them. They make the epoch-making discovery that many of their members have cut and dried ideas on politics, and that others are big with new theories on social conditions and the education of the masses. Heedless of the fact that in reality these new theories and political arguments have been discussed and thrashed out by thousands of Oxford men before they were born, they begin in their obsession to institute new clubs—political, musical, literary, debating, social, poetical—clubs of all kinds and conditions. They cultivate gregariousness, if it is not already temperamental, as one of the cardinal virtues. They foregather in each other’s rooms nightly, consume tremendous quantities of tobacco, cake, and coffee, and abide feverishly by every rule of the particular society of which they are the founders.

In the eighteenth century the men were just as fond of foregathering; but they laboured under severe disadvantages in connection with the authorities, who looked upon the formation of clubs and societies as something new and consequently revolutionary and dangerous. As an instance of the hide-bound conservatism of the moss-grown powers that were I cannot do better than take the case of Dibdin and the “Lunatics,” a club which was inaugurated at the very end of the eighteenth century. “Several members of several colleges (in the number of whom I was as proud as happy to be enlisted),” wrote Dibdin, “met frequently at each other’s rooms, to talk over and to concoct a code of laws or of regulations for the establishment of a society to be called a ‘Society for Scientific and Literary Disquisition.’ It comprehended a debate and an essay, to be prepared by each member in succession, studiously avoiding, in both, all topics of religious and political controversy. There was not the slightest attempt to beat down any one barrier of university law of regulation throughout our whole code. We were to meet in a hired room, at a private house, and were to indulge in our favourite themes in the most unrestrained manner, without giving ingress to a single stranger. Over and over again was each law revised, corrected, and endeavoured to be rendered as little objectionable as possible. At length, after the final touches, we demanded an interview with the Vice-Chancellors and Proctors; and our founder, William George Maton, of Queen’s College, Messrs Stoddart, Whitelock, Falconer (of Christ Church, Queen’s and Corpus Colleges) were deputed to meet the great men in office, and to report accordingly.

“Dr Wills was then Vice-Chancellor.... He received the deputation in the most courteous manner, and requested that the laws might be left with him, as much for his own particular and careful examination as for that of other heads of houses or officers whom he might choose to consult. His request was as readily complied with, and a day was appointed when the answer of the oracle might be obtained. In about a week, according to agreement, the same deputation was received within the library of the Vice-Chancellor who, after solemnly returning the volume (containing the laws) into the hands of our worthy founder, addressed them pretty nearly in the following words: ‘Gentlemen, there does not appear to be anything in these laws subversive of academic discipline, or contrary to the statutes of the university—but (ah, that ill-omened But!) as it is impossible to predict how they may operate, and as innovations of this sort, and in these times, may have a tendency which may be as little anticipated as it may be distressing to the framers of such laws, I am compelled, in the exercise of my magisterial authority, as Vice-Chancellor, to interdict your meeting in the manner proposed’”—and then one can see him ringing for the servant to show them out, with a polite smile on his fat face, in the usual red-tape manner. As, however, the deputation was prepared for something of this sort they merely retired politely, breathing murders and slaughterings against the archaism of the institution of Vice-Chancellor. Returning to their room, they came to the conclusion that as they did not intend to be beaten “there was, therefore, one result to adopt—one choice left; and that was, to carry the object, so dear to our hearts, into effect within our private apartments in rotation. There we might discuss, debate, and hear essays read ad infinitum; and, accordingly, our first meeting took place in Queen’s College, at the rooms of our founder, afterwards so long and so well known in the medical world as Dr Maton.”[16]

After this preliminary check from the Vice-Chancellor, who, in charity be it said, probably could not help himself, and was only doing his duty according to his lights, the club throve like a bay tree and became exceedingly famous. “Our society was quickly enlarged, and the present Bishop of Llandaff, then a student of Corpus College, and the Rev. John Horseman, afterwards a tutor in the same college, were enrolled members. The two Moncrieffs of Baliol were also among our earlier acquisitions, and some gentlemen commoners of Trinity College (whose name I have forgotten) together with my oldest, and among my most valued friends, Mr Barwis of Queen’s, Mr Gibson (afterwards called Riddell) of Worcester, and George Foster of Lincoln—all united to give strength and respectability to our association. Our meetings were frequent and full. The essays after having been read, were entered in a book; and I am not sure whether, at this very day, such book be not in existence. The subjects of debate usually were, as of old they ever had been, whether the merits or demerits of such a character (Cæsar or Queen Elizabeth, for instance) were the greater? Or whether the good or evil of such a measure in legislation or in politics, the more predominent. Of our speakers, the elder Moncrieff, and George Forster of Lincoln were doubtless the most fluent and effective; especially the latter, who had a fervency of utterance which was at times surprising. But the younger Moncrieff, in course of time, followed his brother, passibus aequis. Taking the art of speaking and the composition of an essay together, I think Mr (now Sir John) Stoddart of Christ Church beat us all. He was always upon his legs, a fearless opponent, and in the use of a pen the most unpremeditating and successful....

“Meanwhile the fame of our club, or society, began to be noised abroad; and those who felt no inclination to write essays, or to impose upon themselves the toil of reading and research for the purpose of making a speech, were pretty free in using sneering epithets, and in stigmatising by nicknames. There was, however, one nickname which we instantly and courageously took to ourselves and adopted—and that was the ‘Lunatics.’ Mad, indeed we were, and desired so to be called—if an occasional deviation from dull and hard drinking, frivolous gossip, and Boeotian uproar, could justify that appellation.”

Undoubtedly the origin of present-day first year societies, which, unlike the “Lunatics,” are nearly always ephemeral affairs, may be found in the recollections of Richard Graves, in which, referring to William Shenstone, he says, “Our more familiar acquaintance commenced by an invitation from Mr Shenstone to breakfast at his chambers, which we accepted; and which, according to the sociable disposition of most young people, was protracted to a late hour; during which, Mr Shenstone, I remember, in order to detain us, produced Cotton’s ‘Virgil Travestie,’ which he had lately met with; and which, though full of indelicacies and low humour, is certainly a most laughable performance. I displayed my slender stock of critical knewledge by applauding, as a work of equal humour, Echard’s ‘Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy.’ Mr Whistler, who was a year or two older than either of us, I believe, and had finished his school education at Eton, preferred Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock,’ as a higher species of humour than anything we had produced. In short, this morning’s lounge, which seemed mutually agreeable, was succeeded by frequent repetitions of them; and at length, by our meeting likewise, almost every evening, at each other’s chambers the whole summer, where we read plays and poetry, Spectators and Tatlers, and other works of easy digestion, and sipped Florence wine.”[17]

There were many famous clubs in the eighteenth century, each of which had an individuality of its own. Just as the “Lunatics” was literary and debating, the Constitution Club was political and aggressive, the Oxford Poetical Club considered itself really poetical, and the High Borlace was purely social and jovial.

The Constitution Club had its headquarters at the King’s Head Tavern in the High. Its members “included five fellows, a chaplain and four gentlemen commoners of New College, one gentleman commoner and seven others of Oriel, three of Christ Church; Hart Hall, Worcester, All Souls, Merton, St John’s, Trinity, and Wadham contributed at least one member each—usually a gentleman commoner.”[18] The motives of its institution were, according to Amhurst, as follows: “The society took its rise from the iniquity of the times, and was intended to promote and cultivate friendship between all such persons as favour’d our present happy constitution; they thought themselves obliged openly and publickly to avow their loyalty, and manifest their sincere affection to King George upon all proper and becoming occasions, and to check, as much as in them lay, the vast torrent of treason and dissaffection which overflow’d the university. They thought it their duty to show all possible marks of respect to those faithful officers, who were so seasonably sent to that place, by the favour of the government, to protect the quiet part of the king’s subjects, and to suppress the tumultuary practices of the profess’d enemies to his majesty’s person and government; and for constantly adhering to what they thought their duty in those points; and for no other cause, that they can apprehend, they have been so unfortunate as to become obnoxious to the university, and to feel, many of them, the severe effects of their resentments.”