The Student, liking the tone of her first letter, encouraged her to write further, and from time to time she sent in various articles, such as a scathing criticism of Academical Gallantry, in which she roundly chaffed all gownsmen for their bragging propensities and gallant follies, and gave an account of the various Dons and their habits who had laid vain siege to her heart, and a discussion on the sin of living single, and the fustiness of old maids—a plight in which she admitted herself to be, though not by “desire or inclination.”
In spite of the editorial desire to give umbrage to no person or party, certain of the Bucks seem to have considered her an unamusing, brazen creature, whose inclusion in The Student was a sad mistake, for she received the following crushing letter from one of their number.
“—— Coll., Oxford, June 11, 1751.
“Madam,—As the character I bear in this University is that of a profess’d critic-general on pamphlets, and as my opinion is look’d upon as infallible and oracular in a certain coffee-house frequented by Wits, where a subscription is carried on for raking together the dulness of the age, I think I may take the liberty (without being styled Prig, Fop, Witling, or Poetaster) of transmitting you my full and candid sentiments on your monthly productions. And first, Madam Student, with as much laconic politeness as possible, I beg leave to inform you that you pretend to that choice ingredient of good writing Humour, without having one syllable of it. In a word, Madam, if you have any Humour at all, it is that low species of it, never so much as heard of in Greece and Rome, originally invented by Tom Brown of blackguard memory, and now first revived by the Female Student.
“This species (if it may call itself a species), I, myself, in right of the sublime critical character with which the sensible Men of our house have invested me, have christen’d Jack-Pudding Humour. To define it were utterly impracticable. However, thus much may be said of it, that it is made up of ill-breeding and ill-nature, and discovers a remarkable want of classical reading, and a relish for authors of true taste. It treats of subjects of a vague nature, and is (beside its Jack-pudding affinity) of a mere Jack-lanthorn nature, neither here nor there; in short, it is a topsy-turvy, rhapsodic, miscellaneous method of writing. But, to come to the point. What I would recommend to you is to leave off scribbling, and sit down seriously to sewing.
“Why, Madam, you are nothing more than a bankrupt in beauty, a mere discarded toast! I assure you, Mrs Student, you have no more chance of getting reputation by your pen than you had of getting a husband by your person.—Yours,
“Frank Fizz-Puff.”
Whether this letter really caused the good lady to take up sewing in earnest it is impossible to say, but the fact remains that she was no more seen in The Student—not even to the extent of an indignant feminine outburst against Mr Fizz-Puff.
Among the “never before” printed verses which the editor secured for his columns were some written by Sir Walter Raleigh at Winchester in 1603, as he lay under sentence of death. They were printed from a manuscript with due care to preserve the spelling exactly as it was. The editor, however, was in ignorance of the fact that they had already been published in 1608 in the second edition of Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody.
“Goe, soul, the bodyes gueste,
Upon a thankless arrante,
Fear not to touche the beste,
The truth shall be thy warrante.
Goe, since I needs must dye,
And give them all the lye.
“Goe, tell the court it glowse,
And shines like painted woode;
Goe, tell the church it shows
What’s good, but does no good.
If court and church replye
Give court and church the lye.”