GOWSER JUG.
‘MORTIFYING NEGLECT’
There is a very characteristic letter by John Wesley, and close by it a letter by Blackstone, part of which is worth reproducing. Writing on August 28, 1744, Blackstone, then a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, says: “We were last Friday entertained at St. Mary’s by a curious sermon from Wesley ye Methodist. Among other equally modest particulars, he informed us (1) that there was not one Christian among all ye heads of houses; (2) that pride, gluttony, avarice, luxury, sensuality, and drunkenness were ye whole characteristics of all Fellows of Colleges, who were useless to proverbial uselessness; lastly, that ye younger part of ye University were a generation of triflers, all of them perjured, and not one of them of any religion at all. His notes were demanded by ye Vice-Chancellor, but on mature deliberation it has been thought better to punish him by mortifying neglect.” Which is all very humorous, and the phrase “mortifying neglect” distinctly good, as showing that the authorities had taken Wesley’s measure to a nicety, and were maliciously aware that neglect would mortify a person of his essential vanity a great deal more than persecution.
WESLEY.
A striking bust of Wesley stands beside a statuette of Thackeray; but among the chiefest articles of interest in the School Museum are the curious objects illustrating the rural life of Surrey in the olden times: a primitive hand cider-press, from Bramley, a “pot-hook hanger” from Shamley Green, and a “baby-runner” from Aldfold. Other curiosities are a bust of Nelson, cut by a figure-head carver from the main-beam of the “Victory”; “Gowser” jugs and cups, formerly used by gown boys of Charterhouse, and decorated with the arms and crest of Thomas Sutton, together with his pious motto, Deo dante dedi; and an Irish blunderbuss of the most murderous and forbidding aspect.
BUST OF NELSON,
CARVED FROM MAIN-BEAM OF THE “VICTORY.”
‘YE GODS! WHAT GLORIOUS TWISTS’
So much for Godalming, its sights and its memories. But we have halted here longer than the most dilatory coach that ever rumbled into the “King’s Arms” Hotel, that house of good food and plenty in days when men had robust appetites, fit to vie with that of Milo the Cretonian. What glorious twists (for instance) must Peter the Great and his suite have possessed when they lodged here, twenty-one of them, all told, on their way from Portsmouth to London;—that is to say, if we are to take this breakfast and this dinner as sample meals:—