The state of Magdalen, as related by Gibbon, was no better and no worse than that of any other college. “The fellows or monks of my time,” according to him, “were decent, easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder; their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience; and the first shoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public. As a gentleman commoner, I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.... The example of the senior fellows could not inspire the undergraduates with a liberal spirit or studious emulation.”[27]
The common room, with its accompaniments of tobacco and liquor, formed the scene in which the greater portion of their parts was acted by the Fellows; for the rest, the taverns and coffee-houses, where the meetings of jovial societies, of which they were members, were held. By way of exercise, an occasional horse ride; nothing more. Their other chief hobby was, in the language of the time, “wenching.” Amazingly enough, they still had sufficient energy, after living such a life, to array themselves in all their glory, and sally forth to pay homage at the feet of the toast of the day. In their attempts to cut out the Smarts in the affections of the reigning queen, Merton Wall and Paradise Gardens saw them daily. Liaisons with their neighbour’s wives, bedmakers, and bedmaker’s daughters were everyday occurrences; so openly, indeed, were these things done, that songs were composed in various clubs of the doings of certain Fellows mentioned by name, and satirical poems were written about them; but there the matter ended.
The character of a Head of a college, taken “in a more private view, amongst their fellows in their respective colleges,” was thus delineated by Amhurst. “A director or scull of a college is a lordly strutting creature, who thinks all beneath him created to gratify his ambition and exalt his glory; he commands their homage by using them very ill; and thinks the best way to gain their admiration is to pinch their bellies and call them names, as the most tyrannical princes have always the most loyal subjects; he is very vicious and immoral himself, and therefore will not pardon the least trip or miscarriage in another; he is a great profligate, and consequently a great disciplinarian; he petrifies in fraud and shamelessness, and is never properly in his element but when he is either committing wickedness himself, or punishing the commission of it in others.” So much for his domestic character. In the exercise of his public functions he was one of a gang who “have as persidiously broken as great a trust reposed in them by the Government, the nobility, gentry, and commonality of England; that, under pretence of advancing national religion and learning, they have introduced national irreligion and ignorance; and instead of promoting loyalty and peace have encouraged treason and disturbance; that they have debauched the principles of youth instead of reforming them; that they have been guilty of wicked and infamous practices of all sorts; ought they not, likewise, to be punish’d in the most rigorous manner?”
Amhurst found this a very sore subject, for, later on, he bore out the theory of the promotion of ignorance, and said that they did their utmost to prevent learning. “Whatever portion of commonsense they possess themselves, they take especial care to keep it from those under their tuition, having innumerable large volumes by them, written on purpose to obscure the understanding of their pupils, and to obliterate or confound all those impressions of right or wrong which they bring with them to the universities; their several systems of logic, metaphysics, ethics, and divinity are calculated for this design, being fill’d up with inconsistent notions, dark cloudy terms, and unintelligible definitions, which tend not to instruct, but to perplex, to put out the light of reason, not to assist or strengthen it; and to palliate falsehood, not to discover truth.”
As further evidence of the amazing egoism and brutality of “Sculls,” it is worth while to quote the story of a Head of Balliol who held office in these times. “A young fellow of Balliol College having, upon some discontent, cut his throat very dangerously, the master of the college sent his servitor to the buttery book to sconce (that is, fine) him five shillings, and, says the doctor, tell him that the next time he cuts his throat I’ll sconce him ten!”
Whenever there was important academical business afoot the Vice-Chancellor and Sculls met in solemn conclave in Golgotha, the state room in the Clarendon building. The room was handsomely decorated and wainscotted. The wainscot was said to have been put up by order of a man of humour who went up to Oxford for a degree without “any claim or recommendation.” He promised, however, in exchange for the degree to become a benefactor of the university. The Sculls thereupon hurriedly engaged workmen who began running up the wainscot, and they “clapp’d a degree upon his back.” But as soon as the degree had been granted, the benefactor disappeared, and the Sculls were left to pay the workmen with money out of their own pockets—which, of course, had been previously plundered from the university.
It was in this room that all the weighty business of the university was conducted. In the amusing words of Amhurst, “if any sermon is preach’d, if any public speech or oration is deliver’d in derogation of the church, or the university, or in vindication of the Protestant succession, or the Bishop of Bangor, hither the delinquent is summon’d to answer for his offence, and receive condign punishment. In short, all matters of importance are cognisable before this tribunal: I will instance only one, but that very remarkable. A day or two before the late Queen died, a letter was brought to the post-office at Oxford, with these words upon the outside of it, we hear the queen is dead; which, being suspected to contain something equally mischievous within, was stopt, and carried to the Vice-Chancellor, who immediately summon’d his brethren to meet him at Golgotha about a matter of the utmost consequence: when they were assembled together he produced the letter before them; and having open’d it, read the contents of it in an audible voice; which were as follow:—
“‘St John’s College, July 30, 1714.
“‘Honoured Mother,—I receaved the Cheshear chease you sent ma by Roben Joulthead, our waggoner, and itt is a vary gud one, and I thanck you for itt, mother, with all my hart and soale, and I promis to be a gud boy, and mind my boock, as yow dezired ma. I am a rising lad, mother, and have gott prefarment in college allready; for our sextoun beeing gonn intoo Heryfoordshear to see his frends, he has left mee his depoty, which is a vary good pleace. I have nothing to complayne off, onely that John Fulkes the tailor scores me upp a penny strong a moost everyday; but I’ll put a stopp to it shortly, I worrant ye: I beleave I shall do vary well, if you wull but send me t’other crowne; for I have spent all my mony at my fresh treat (as they caul itt) which is an abominable ecstortion, but I coud not help itt; when I cum intoo the country, I’le tell you all how it is. So no more att this present: but my sairvice to our parson, and my love to brother Nick and sister Kate; and so I rest.—Your ever dutiful and obedient son,
“‘Benjamin Numps.’