The History of the Sheldonian.
The Sheldonian was not in existence during the period when University history was most picturesque. Its associations therefore are nearly all academic, and academic functions, however interesting to those who take part in them, do not appeal to the great world. Perhaps the most romantic scene that the Sheldonian has witnessed was the Installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor in 1833, when the whole theatre went mad with enthusiasm as the writer of the Newdigate, Joseph Arnould of Wadham, declaimed his lines on Napoleon,—
And the dark soul a world could scarce subdue
Bent to thy genius, chief of Waterloo.
The subject of the poem was 'The Monks of St. Bernard'.
But the enthusiasm was almost as great, and the poetry far superior, when Heber recited the best lines of the best Newdigate on record:—
No hammer fell, no ponderous axes swung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence.
This happy reference to the manner of building of Solomon's Temple was suggested by Sir Walter Scott.
Another almost historic occasion in the Sheldonian was when, at a Diocesan Conference, the late Lord Beaconsfield made his well-known declaration, 'I for my part prefer to be on the side of the angels.' But these scenes only indirectly touch Oxford. More intimately connected with her history are the famous Proctorial Veto of 1845, when Dean Church and his colleague saved Tract No. 90 from academic condemnation, and the stormy debates of twenty years ago, when the permission to use Vivisection in the University Physiological Laboratory was only carried after a struggle in which the Odium Scientificum showed itself capable of an unruliness and an unfairness to opponents which has left all displays, previous or subsequent, of Odium Theologicum far behind.
Commemoration Scenes.
There is no doubt that the organized medical vote on that occasion holds the record for noise in the Theatre. And the competition for the record has been and is still severe; every year at Commemoration, we have a scene of academic disorder, which can only be called 'most unbecoming of the gravity of the University', to use John Evelyn's words of the performance of the Terrae Filius at the opening of the Sheldonian. It is true that the proceedings of the Encaenia have been always able to be completed, since the device was hit on of seating ladies freely among the undergraduates in the upper gallery; this change was introduced in 1876. The disorder of the undergraduates' gallery had culminated in 1874, and in 1875 the ceremony was held in the Divinity School. But the noise is as prevalent as ever, and it must be confessed that undergraduates' wit has suffered severely from the feminine infusion. However, our visitors, distinguished and undistinguished alike, appreciate the disorder, and it certainly has plenty of precedent for it in all stages of University history.