“Christ’s Coll., Cambridge,
May 11, 1671.”
There are other letters amongst the State Papers on the same subject, including one from Dr. Cudworth, to Williamson, excusing himself for supporting the Duke instead of the Earl.
Charles II. visited Cambridge on the 4th of October in the same year, and the whole body of students wearing academical habits, according to their several degrees, lined the streets as His Majesty visited the various buildings. He was received by the new Chancellor and the other authorities, who presented him with a “fair Bible,” accompanied by a short speech from the public orator. The King visited the University’s libraries and the Colleges of Trinity and St. John, and after dining at Trinity he saw a comedy acted there, with which he expressed himself well pleased.[365] In 1674, the Duke of Monmouth succeeded the Duke of Buckingham in the Chancellorship, and in that year we find the former sending a curious communication to the Eastern University.
By His Majesty’s desire he noticed the liberty which several persons in holy orders had taken to wear their own hair and perukes of an unusual and unbecoming length, and rebuked them for it, strictly enjoining that all such, who professed the study of Divinity, should wear their hair in a manner more suitable to the gravity and sobriety of their profession. He also blamed them in His Majesty’s name for reading sermons, and commanded that preaching from MS., which took a beginning with the disorders of the late times, should be wholly laid aside, and that preachers should deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory or without book, as being a way of preaching which His Majesty judged most agreeable to the use of all foreign Churches, to the former custom of the University, and the nature and intention of the holy exercise itself.[366] These injunctions were anticipated at Oxford, where James, Duke of Ormond, continued Chancellor from 1669 to 1688.
UNIVERSITIES.
“It is not long since,” writes Dr. Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity, “we had notice of the Duke of Monmouth’s letter, written by His Majesty’s command, to the University of Cambridge, against long hair and the reading of sermons. It was here thought advisable to obviate the like reproof to ourselves, by an early compliance with His Majesty’s desires, though we think ourselves much more blameless than they, especially in the last particular. To this end, I have this day published a programme, the copy whereof I have made bold to send you.”[367]
With this amusing insight into academic life, may be coupled another of earlier date. Williamson, Secretary of State, presented to Queen’s College, a silver trumpet and two pairs of banners. Thanks were returned by Dr. Thomas Barlow, in the name of the Society, and the gift was described as “most welcome, not only for its cost and curiosity, but for its congruity to them who by statute are to be called to dinner with a trumpet, though fitter for him to give than for a poor College to receive, to call them to a mess of pottage and twopenny commons. It will be used on all solemn days, but at other times their old brass trumpet will serve the turn.” In another letter, it is remarked, “The Provost, and all the company, highly extol them, and are very grateful for them. The trumpet was long sounded in the quadrangle, wine was drunk through the hall, and venison pasties were at every table, there being a whole buck from Lady Foster, of Aldermaston,” besides Williamson’s from Woodstock.[368] Old Christmas and Candlemas customs were revived, and the senior undergraduates amused themselves at night before the charcoal fires by bringing in the freshmen, and making them “sit down on a form in the middle of the hall, joining to the declaimer’s desk,”—where they were required to “speak some pretty apothegm, or make a jest or bull;” and if the thing were not done cleverly, the unhappy wight was punished by the seniors, who would “tuck him—that is set the nail of their thumb to his chin, just under the lip, and by the help of their other fingers under the chin, they would give him a mark which sometimes would produce blood.”[369] A picturesque usage occurred on Holy Thursday, when the Fellows of New College walked to Bartholomew’s Hospital, which was decked with fruit for the occasion, and then, after reading the Scriptures, and the singing of hymns, they offered silver to be divided amongst poor men; then they proceeded to Stockwell, where, after reading the epistle and gospel for the day, the Fellows in “the open place, like the ancient Druids, echoed and warbled out from the shady arbours, melodious melody, consisting of several parts, then most in fashion.”[370]
UNIVERSITIES.
The conduct of persons who from time to time acted the part of Terræ filius, had been complained of under the Commonwealth; it continued to be complained of after the Restoration. The excesses into which these lawless students were wont to run, with other corresponding extravagances, appear to have reached their greatest height in 1669, at the opening of the Sheldon theatre. South once, as University orator, delivered a long oration, in which he satirically inveighed against Cromwell, the Fanatics, the Royal Society, and the new philosophy:—and then pronounced encomiums upon the Archbishop, the building, the Vice-Chancellor, the Architect, and the Decorator, concluding with execrations, cast upon Fanatics, Conventicles, and Comprehension, “damning them ad inferos, ad Gehennam.” At the same Commemoration, the Terræ filius gave so general offence, that Dr. Wallis says: “I believe the University hath thereby lost more reputation than they have gained by all the rest.” “The excellent Lady,” he adds, “which your letter mentions, was, in the broadest language represented as guilty of those crimes, of which, if there were occasion, you would not stick to be her compurgator.”[371]
Complaints of the same kind were made years afterwards. The Bishop of Oxford, writing December 14, 1684, complains:—“The Terræ filii in this place have of late taken to themselves such licenses as were altogether intolerable, their scurrilous discourses passing not only the bounds of decency but of common humanity, so that it was necessary for the University to oppose sharp remedies to so prevailing an evil.”[372]