"As men of inward light are wont
To turn their opticks in upon't;"
or, in plain English, had an invisible eye. The "disjecta fragmenta" of his academical robe presented a most pitiful appearance; it was of the ragged sort, like the mendicula impluviata of Plautus, and his under habiliments bore evident marks of his having bitten the dust (i.e. mud) beneath the ponderous arm of some heroic blacksmith or bargee; but yet he was lively, and what with blows and exertion, perfectly sobered. "What, Blackmantle? and alive, old fellow? Well clone, my hearty; I saw you set to with that fresh water devil from Charwell, the old Bargee, and a pretty milling you gave him. I had intended to have seconded you, but just as I was making up, a son of Vulcan let fly his sledge-hammer slap at my smeller, and stopped up one of my oculars, so I was obliged to turn to and finish him off; and when I had completed the job, you had bolted; not, however, without leaving your marks behind you. But where's Eglantine? where's Transit? where's the Honourable? By my soul the roué can handle his mauleys well; I saw him floor one of the raff in very prime style. But come along, my hearty; we must walk over the field of battle and look after the wounded: I am desperately afraid that Eglantine is booked inside—saw him surrounded by the bull-dogs—made a desperate effort to rescue him—and had some difficulty to clear myself; but never mind, ''tis the fortune of war,' and there's very good lodging in the castle. Surely there's Mark Supple with some one on his back. What, Mark, is that you?" "No, sir—yes, sir—I mean, sir, it's a gentleman of our college—O dearey me, I thought it had been a proctor or a bull-dog—for Heaven's sake, help, sir! here's Mr. Transit quite senseless, take notice—picked him up in a doorway in Lincoln-lane, bleeding like a pig, take notice.
O dear, O dear, what a night this has been! We shall all be sent to the castle, and perhaps transported for manslaughter. For Heaven's sake, Mr. Echo, help! bear his head up—take hold of his feet, Mr. Blackmantle, and I'll go before, and ring at Dr. Tuckwell's bell, take notice." In this way poor Transit was conveyed to the surgery, where, after cleansing him from the blood and dirt, and the application of some aromatics, he soon recovered, and happily had not sustained any very serious injury. From old Mark we learned that Eglantine was a captive to the bull-dogs, and safely deposited in the castle along with Marston Will, who had fought nobly in his defence: of Lionise we could gain no other tidings than that Mark had seen him at the end of the fray climbing up to the first floor window of a tradesman's house in the High-street, whose daughter it was well known he had a little intrigue with, and where, as we concluded, he had found a balsam for his wounds, and shelter for the night. It was nearly three o'clock when I regained my lodging and found Mags, the waiter of the Mitre, on the look-out for me: Echo had accompanied me home, and in our way we had picked up a wounded man of University College, who had suffered severely in the contest. It was worthy the pencil of a Hogarth to have depicted the appearance of the High-street after the contest, when we were cautiously perambulating from end to end in search of absent friends, and fearing at every step the approach of the proctors or their bull-dogs: the lamps were almost all smashed, and the burners dangling to and fro with the wind, the greater part extinguished, or just emitting sufficient light to make night horrible. On the lamp-irons might be seen what at first sight was most appalling, the figure of some hero of the togati dangling by the neck, but which, on nearer approach, proved to be only the dismembered academical of some gentleman-commoner hung up as a trophy by the town raff. Broken windows and shutters torn from their hinges, and missiles of every description covering the ground, from the terrific Scotch paving-pebble torn up from the roads, to the spokes of coach-wheels, and the oaken batons, and fragments of lanterns belonging to the town watch, skirts of coats, and caps, and remnants of togas both silken and worsted, bespoke the quality of the heroes of the fray; while here and there a poor terrified wretch was exposing his addle head to the mildews of the night-damp, fearing a revival of the contest, or anxiously watching the return of husband, brother, father, or son.{3}
3 This picture of an Oxford row is not, as the general
reader might imagine, the mere fiction of the novelist, but
the true description of a contest which occurred some few
years since; the leading features of which will be (although
the names have been, except in one or two instances,
studiously suppressed) easily recognised by many of the
present sons of Alma Mater who shared in the perils and
glory of the battle. To those who are strangers to the
sacred city, and these casual effervescences of juvenile
spirit, the admirable graphic view of the scene by my friend
Bob Transit (see plate) will convey a very correct idea.
To the credit of the more respectable and wealthy class of
Oxford citizens it should be told, they are now too sensible
of their own interest, and, besides, too well-informed to
mix with these civil disturbances; the lower orders,
therefore, finding themselves unequal to the contest without
their support, submit to the togati; and thus the civil
wars that have raged in Oxford with very little interruption
from the days of Alfred seem for the present extinguished.
On our arrival at the Mitre, poor Mrs. Peake, half frightened to death, was up and busy in administering to the sufferers various consolatory draughts composed of bishop, and flesh and blood{4} and rumbooze; while the chambermaids, and Peake, and the waiters were flying about the house with warm water, and basins, and towels, to the relief of the numerous applicants, who all seemed anxious to wash away the dirty remembrances of the disgusting scene.
Hitherto I had been so busily engaged in defending myself and preserving my friends, that I had not a moment for reflection. It has been well observed, that "place an Englishman in the field of battle, no matter what his political feelings, he will fight like a lion, by instinct, or the mere force of example;" so with the narrator of this contest. I had not, up to this time, the least knowledge of the original cause of the row. I have naturally an aversion to pugilistic contests and tumultuous sports, and yet I found by certain bruises, and bumps, and stains of blood, and stiffness of joints, and exhaustion, and the loss of my upper garment, which I had then only just discovered, that I must have borne a pretty considerable{5} part in the contest, and carried away no small share of victorious laurels, since I had escaped without any very visible demonstration of my adversaries' prowess; but for this I must acknowledge myself indebted to my late private tutor the Eton cad, Joe Cannon, whose fancy lectures on noseology, and the science of the milling system, had enabled me to
4 Brandy and port wine, half and half.
5 An Oxford phrase.
defend my bread-basket, cover up my peepers, and keep my nob out of chancery{6}: a merit that all
6 The use of a peculiar cant phraseology for different
classes, it would appear, originated with the Argoliers, a
species of French beggars or monkish impostors, who were
notorious for every thing that was bad and infamous: these
people assumed the form of a regular government, elected a
king, established a fixed code of laws, and invented a
language peculiar to themselves, constructed probably by
some of the debauched and licentious youths, who, abandoning
their scholastic studies, associated with these vagabonds.
In the poetical life of the French robber Cartouche, a
humorous account is given of the origin of the word Argot;
and the same author has also compiled a dictionary of the
language then in use by these people, which is annexed to
the work. Hannan, in his very singular work, published in
1566, entitled "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursitors
(runners), vulgarly called Vagabones," has described a
number of the words then in use, among what he humorously
calls the "lued lousey language of these lewtering beskes
and lasy lovrels." And it will be remembered that at that
time many of the students of our universities were among
these cursitors, as we find by an old statute of the xxii of
Hen. VIII.; "that scholars at the universities begging
without licence, were to be punished like common cursi-
tors." The vagabonds of Spain are equally celebrated for
their use of a peculiar slang or cant, as will be seen on
reference to a very curious work of Rafael Frianoro,
entitled" Il Vagabondo, overo sferzo de bianti e
Vagabondi." Viterbo, 1620, 12mo. As also in those
excellent novels, "Lazarillo do Tormes," and "Guzman de
Alfarache." The Romany or gipsies' dialect is given with
the history of that singular people by Mr. Grellman; an
English translation of which was published in 1787, by
Roper, in quarto: from those works, Grose principally
compiled his "Lexicon Ballatronicum." In the present day we
have many professors of slang, and in more ways than one,
too many of cant; the greater part of whom are dull
impostors, who rather invent strange terms to astonish the
vulgar than adhere to the peculiar phrases of the persons
they attempt to describe. It has long been matter of regret
with the better order of English sporting men, that the
pugilistic contests and turf events of the day are not
written in plain English, "which all those who run might
read," instead of being rendered almost unintelligible by
being narrated in the language of beggars, thieves, and
pickpockets—a jargon as free from true wit as it is full of
obscenity.
Keate's{7} learning would not have compensated for under the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed.