With such a condition of things it is not very remarkable that the literature of the time should be characterised by coarseness of language and ideas. Its humour was of the riper kind which permitted of no possible misunderstanding. Many of the jokes printed in such periodicals as the Oxford Journal and the Oxford Magazine—both papers in high repute which circulated among Dons, Undergraduates and residents—would be quite unprintable to-day even in the most yellow of the sporting papers. The pen of Amhurst was hampered by no considerations of delicacy or modesty. Whatever he felt on any subject that he wrote, boldly and without mincing, and the fact that his articles were read with interest and delight by male and female alike is proof that there is no blame attaching to him for scurrility. He was merely in the period. There are also instances of women who wrote with almost the same degree of frankness as did Alicia d’Anvers, who had, as I have shown, an immodesty of style unique in the entire century. She satirised all the manners, customs, hobbies and vices of the university with flagrant lack of good taste which, judging by the characteristics of the time, made her poem a great success.
In the eighteenth century there were neither advertisements—except in the Oxford Journal, and they were few in number—nor athletic fixtures. The editors, therefore, had to rely entirely upon the merits of the articles printed in their paper. Their sole hope of life lay in circulation, and as they had not then discovered such “adventitious aids” as idols and open letters, they were forced to do their utmost to make their paper bright and readable. That they did so is obvious from the great number of contributors who sent in articles regularly, and that, too, without any hope of payment.
From the point of view of journalism there is no paper in Oxford to-day which can survive a comparison with Terrae Filius. He did not go outside the university for his subjects, and yet in each paper he was topical, forcible, and to the point. Beyond this he was amusing, and there was a sting in each single word which made the unhappy subject of his attack squirm in his place. He did not indulge in long-winded and abortive discussions about matters of no interest whatever to the university, such as are invariably to be seen in twentieth-century papers. He instinctively hit upon the only subject each week that was before the eye of Oxford, and in straightforward, pithy language wrote it down, laughed at it, or cried over it. In whatever spirit he treated it he left nothing more to be said. He used it up, exhausted it, and turned to the next point. Not having any advertisers to consider—and he would certainly not have considered them had they existed—he said what he wanted to say without fear or favour, and if he did not attain to such financial success as does the milk and water stuff of to-day, he did establish, beyond all argument, a reputation which has already survived two centuries. Which of the existing Oxford journals can hope to compete against such a record?
However much eighteenth-century writers merit the charge of coarseness—and it is not laid at their door in the spirit of blame but merely as an illustration of things as they existed—they undoubtedly attained a higher literary standard than the Undergraduate writers of to-day. As, however, I have said that the modern standard does not rise above mediocrity, I am not paying a very great compliment to the writers of the Rowlandson period. Such is, however, my intention, for I cannot see that there is such great brilliance in the eighteenth-century papers as to justify my launching out into paeans of adulation. In all the publications of the time there were, as I have shown, some excellent pieces of writing. The sonnets and epigrams, dashed off at the coffee-houses to the beauties of the reigning toast, were filled with classical allusions and subtle parallels. This is somewhat remarkable because the Bloods admittedly never did any reading. They had no time for it. However likeable and readable these were, there was no genius, no striking merit in any of them. They certainly showed more promise than the greater part of the work of twentieth-century Oxford men—a point which is emphasised by the fact that our predecessors were generally three or four years younger on going up to the university. To-day we go up at about nineteen years of age. In those days it was the fashion for men to arrive in Oxford in their fifteenth or sixteenth year.
With the exception of Nicholas Amhurst, from whom I have drawn with so much pleasure, there can be found no Undergraduate of Georgian times whose genius, in however crude a form, awoke in the pages of university literature.
CHAPTER XIV
THE OXFORD TRADESMAN
The Student’s opinion of one—A Tradesman’s poem and its result—Dodging the dun—Debt and its penalties—Tradesmen’s taste in literature—Advertising and The Loiterer—Tick—Dr Newton, innkeeper—Amhurst’s confession—Fathers and trainers of toasts.