Manners and Customs—Food and Smoking.
The time for "Hall," that is to say for college dinner, was five p.m., and the scene was calculated to astonish a youngster brought up on the Continent. The only respectable part of it was the place itself, not a bad imitation of some old convent refectory. The details were mean in the extreme, and made me long for the meanest table d'hôte. Along the bottom of the Hall, raised upon a dwarf dais, ran the high table, intended for the use of fellows and fellow-commoners. The other tables ran along the sides. Wine was forbidden, malt liquor being the only drink. The food certainly suited the heavy strong beers and ales brewed in the college. It consisted chiefly of hunches of meat, cooked after Homeric or Central African fashion, and very filling at the price. The vegetables, as usual, were plain boiled, without the slightest aid to digestion. Yet the college cooks were great swells. They were paid as much as an average clergyman, and put most of their sons into the Church. In fact, the stomach had to do the whole work, whereas a good French or Italian cook does half the work for it in his saucepans. This cannibal meal was succeeded by stodgy pudding, and concluded with some form of cheese, Cheshire or double Gloucester, which painfully reminded one of bees'-wax, and this was called dinner. Very soon my foreign stomach began to revolt at such treatment, and I found out a place in the town, where, when I could escape Hall, I could make something of a dinner.
The moral of the scene offended all my prepossessions. The fellow-commoners were simply men, who by paying double what the commoners paid, secured double privileges. This distinction of castes is odious, except in the case of a man of certain age, who would not like to be placed in the society of young lads. But worse still was the gold tuft, who walked the streets with a silk gown, and a gorgeous tassel on his college cap. These were noblemen, the offensive English equivalent for men of title. Generosus nascitur nobilis fit. The Grandfathers of these noblemen may have been pitmen or grocers, but the simple fact of having titles, entitled them to most absurd distinctions. For instance, with a smattering of letters, enough to enable a commoner to squeeze through an ordinary examination, gold tuft took a first class, and it was even asserted that many took their degrees by merely sending up their books. They were allowed to live in London as much as they liked, and to condescend to college at the rare times they pleased. Some Heads of Colleges would not stoop to this degradation, especially Dean Gaisford of Christ Church, who compelled Lord W—— to leave it and betake himself to Trinity; but the place was, with notable exceptions, a hotbed of toadyism and flunkeyism. When Mr. (now Sir Robert) Peel first appeared in the High Street, man, woman, and child stood to look at him because he was the son of the Prime Minister.
After dinner it was the custom to go to wine. These desserts were another abomination. The table was spread with a vast variety of fruits and sweetmeats, supplied at the very highest prices, and often on tick, by the Oxford tradesmen,—model sharks. Some men got their wine from London, others bought theirs in the town. Claret was then hardly known, and port, sherry, and Madeira, all of the strong military ditto type, were the only drinks. These wines were given in turn by the undergraduates, and the meal upon meal would have injured the digestion of a young shark. At last, about this time, some unknown fellow, whose name deserved to be immortalized, drew out a cigar and insisted on smoking it, despite the disgust and uproar that the novelty created. But the fashion made its way, and the effects were admirable. The cigar, and afterwards the pipe, soon abolished the cloying dessert, and reduced the consumption of the loaded wines to a minimum.
But the English were very peculiar about smoking. In the days of Queen Anne it was so universal that dissident jurymen were locked up without meat, drink, or tobacco. During the continental wars it became un-English to smoke, and consequently men, and even women, took snuff. And for years it was considered as disgraceful to smoke a cigar out of doors as to have one's boots blacked, or to eat an orange at Hyde Park Corner. "Good gracious! you don't mean to say that you smoke in the streets?" said an East Indian Director in after years, when he met me in Pall Mall with a cigar in my mouth. Admiral Henry Murray, too, vainly endeavoured to break through the prohibition by leading a little squad of smoking friends through Kensington Gardens. Polite ladies turned away their faces, and unpolite ladies muttered something about "snobs." At last the Duke of Argyll spread his plaid under a tree in Hyde Park, lighted a cutty pipe, and beckoned his friends to join him. Within a month every one in London had a cigar in his mouth. A pretty lesson to inculcate respect for popular prejudice!
After the dessert was finished, not a few men called for cognac, whisky, and gin, and made merry for the rest of the evening. But what else was there for them to do? Unlike a foreign University, the theatre was discouraged; it was the meanest possible little house, decent actors were ashamed to show themselves in it, and an actress of the calibre of Mrs. Nesbitt appeared only every few years. Opera, of course, there was none, and if there had been, not one in a thousand would have understood the language, and not one in a hundred would have appreciated the music. Occasionally there was a concert given by some wandering artists, with the special permission of the college authorities, and a dreary two hours' work it was. Balls were unknown, whereby the marriageable demoiselles of Oxford lost many an uncommon good chance. A mesmeric lecturer occasionally came down there and caused some fun. He called for subjects, and amongst the half-dozen that presented themselves was one young gentleman who had far more sense of humour than discretion. When thrown into a deep slumber, he arose, with his eyes apparently fast closed, and, passing into the circle of astonished spectators, began to distribute kisses right and left. Some of these salutations fell upon the sacred cheeks of the daughters of the Heads of Houses, and the tableau may be imagined.
This dull, monotonous life was varied in my case by an occasional dinner with families whose acquaintance I had made in the town. At Dr. Greenhill's I once met at dinner Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Newman and Dr. Arnold. I expected great things from their conversation, but it was mostly confined to discussing the size of the Apostles in the Cathedral of St. Peter's in Rome, and both these eminent men showed a very dim recollection of the subject. I took a great fancy to Dr. Newman, and used to listen to his sermons, when I would never give half an hour to any other preacher. There was a peculiar gentleness in his manner, and the matter was always suggestive. Dr. Newman was Vicar of St. Mary's, at Oxford, and used to preach, at times, University sermons; there was a stamp and seal upon him, a solemn music and sweetness in his tone and manner, which made him singularly attractive, yet there was no change of inflexion in his voice; action he had none; his sermons were always read, and his eyes were ever upon his book; his figure was lean and stooping, and the tout ensemble was anything but dignified or commanding, yet the delivery suited the matter of his speech, and the combination suggested complete candour and honesty; he said only what he believed, and he induced others to believe with him.[2] On the other hand, Dr. Pusey's University sermons used to last for an hour and a half; they were filled with Latin and Greek, dealt with abstruse subjects, and were delivered in the dullest possible way, and seemed to me like a mauvais rêve or nightmare.
At Dr. Greenhill's, too, I met Don Pascual de Gayangos, the Spanish Arabist. Already wearying of Greek and Latin, I had attacked Arabic, and soon was well on in Erpinius's Grammar; but there was no one to teach me, so I began to teach myself, and to write the Arabic letters from left to right, instead of from right to left, i.e. the wrong way. Gayangos, when witnessing this proceeding, burst out laughing, and showed me how to copy the alphabet. In those days, learning Arabic at Oxford was not easy. There was a Regius Professor, but he had other occupations than to profess. If an unhappy undergraduate went up to him, and wanted to learn, he was assured that it was the duty of a professor to teach a class, and not an individual. All this was presently changed, but not before it was high time. The Sundays used generally to be passed in "outings." It was a pleasure to get away from Oxford, and to breathe the air which was not at least half smoke.