COLE: DEUM.
An admirably turned pun, which, I may add, for the benefit of my English readers, signifies, Worship God. I have already noticed the mathematical “Pons Asinorum” of our mother of Cambridge. One of her waggish sons has likewise contrived, for their amusement, a classical Pons Asinorum, known as
THE FRESHMAN’S PUZZLE.
I knew a Trinity man of absent habits, who actually, after residing two years in college, having occasion to call upon an old school fellow, a scholar of Bene’t (id est, Corpus Christi College,) before it was rebuilt, was so little acquainted with the localities of the university, that he was obliged to inquire his way, though not two hundred yards from Trinity. Such a man could scarcely be expected to know, what most Cantabs do, that Qui Church, which is situated about four miles from Cambridge, “rears its head” in rural simplicity in the midst of the open fields, seemingly without the “bills of mortality;” for not so much as a cottage keeps it in countenance. This gave occasion for a Cambridge wag to invent the following puzzle:—
“Templum Qui stat in agris,”
Which has caused many a freshman a sleepless night, who, ignorant of the status Qui, has racked his brains to translate the above, minus a Quod pro Qui.
A SLY HUMOURIST.
Edmund Gurnay, B.D., Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1601, was a sly humourist. The Master had a great desire to get the garden to himself, and, either by threats or persuasion, get all the rest of the fellows to resign their keys; but upon his application to Gurnay, he absolutely refused to part with his right. “I have got the other fellows’ keys, quoth the master. “Then pray, master, keep them, and you and I will shut them all out.” “Sir, I expect to be obliged; am I not your master?” “Yes, sir (said Gurnay;) and am I not your fellow?” At another time he was complained of to the bishop, for refusing to wear the surplice, and was cited to appear before him, and told, that he expected he should always wear it; whereupon, he came home, and rode a journey with it on. This reminds one of