“To be drunk for by Candle,
“At Will’s Coffee-House, in Oxford, on Wednesday next,
“A LIVING,
“Worth near Thirty Pounds per Annum, besides Surplice fees and other emoluments. None but True Blue Parsons to drink for it. Three Gentlemen with White Wigs and Red Faces are already entered.
“N.B.—Very soon will be ate for at the same place, a tollerable Curacy, by those who never get a Dinner but of a Sunday. Codd and Oyster Sauce will be the Subject for this trial. Mr B—lst—ne is excepted against in both Cases as he will spoil Sport.”
Another frequently-appearing notice was an advertisement of a booklet of advice to new-married persons, or the art of having beautiful children. This was surrounded by bills of races, cock fights, arrivals of new dancing masters, who addressed themselves to the nobility and gentry in and about Oxford, quack medicines and ointments which were a never-failing remedy for the itch, announced “by the King’s authority. N.B.—One box is sufficient to cure a grown person, and divided, is a cure for two children.”
For the rest it was the receptacle for articles of every nature from all and sundry. Warton left his antiquarian researches to afford himself a little relaxation by writing for it a version of Gray’s Elegy up to date, or an appreciation of Ben Tyrell’s mutton pies. From the various coffee-houses Jackson received the wonderful effusions of the Bucks of the first head, sonnets to Sylvia’s eyelashes, poems in praise of Oxford ale, and even an occasional Latin verse. “Old Lochard, the newsman,” says J. R. Green in his delightful Oxford chapters, “who, bell in hand, hawked the Journal through the streets, owed to his college patrons not only the antiquated cane and rusty grizzle wig, which they had thrown by after ten years’ service of the tankard at buttery hatch, in return for quick despatches; but the merry rhymes that every Christmas drew a douceur from the tradesman, a slice of sirloin and a cup of October from the squire, or a dram from Mother Baggs.”[22]
In the Journal’s own war paean:—
“Each vast event our varied page supplies,
The fall of princes or the rise of pies;
Patriots and squires learn here with little cost
Or when a kingdom or a match is lost;
Both sexes here approved receipts peruse,
Hence belles may clean their teeth or beaux their shoes,
From us informed Britannia’s farmers tell
How Louisburgh by British thunders fell;
’Tis we that sound to all the Trump of Fame,
And babes lisp Amherst’s and Boscawen’s name.
All the four quarters of the globe conspire
Our news to fill, and raise your glory higher.”
Throughout almost the entire eighteenth century the editorial chairs of the different periodicals seem to have been filled for the most part by St John’s men. Terrae Filius appeared first in 1721 under the guidance of Nicholas Amhurst of St John’s. In 1789 The Loiterers, a literary weekly, was launched before the public by James Austen of St John’s. His brother, H. T. Austen of the same college, materially assisted him by contributing a number of delightful imaginative articles. This paper was filially dedicated by the editor to the President and Fellows of his college, and ran successfully for two years. The present-day members have done their best to maintain the literary traditions of this college, for that nine days’ wonder, the Tuesday Review, was edited and run by two rash men of St John’s.