TRAITS OF DR. BATHURST’S WIT AND HABITS.
When the Doctor was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, a captain of a company, who had fought bravely in the cause of his royal master, King Charles the First, being recommended to him for the degree of D.C.L., the doctor told the son of Mars he could not confer the degree, “but he would apply to his majesty to give him a regiment of horse!”
HE FREQUENTLY CARRIED A WHIP IN HIS HAND,
An instrument of correction not entirely laid aside in our universities in his time; but (says Tom) he only “delighted to surprise scholars, when walking in the grove at unseasonable hours. This he practised,” adds Warton, “on account of the pleasure he took in giving so odd an alarm, rather than from any principle of reproving, or intention of applying so illiberal a punishment.” One thing is certain, that in the statutes of Trinity College, Oxford (as late as 1556,) scholars of the foundation are ordered to be
WHIPPED EVEN TO THE TWENTIETH YEAR.
“Dr. Potter,” says Aubery, while a tutor of the above college, “whipped his pupil with his sword by his side, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the Inns of Court.” This was done to make him a smart fellow. “In Sir John Fane’s collection of letters of the Paston family, written temp. Henry VI.,” says the author of the Gradus ad Catabrigiam, “we find one of the gentle sex prescribing for her son, who was at Cambridge,” no doubt with a maternal anxiety that he should
BE A SMART FELLOW,
as follows:—“Prey Grenefield to send me faithfully worde by wrytyn, who (how) Clemit Paston hathe do his dever i’ lernying, and if he hath nought do well, nor will nought amend, prey hym that he wyll truely BELASH hym tyl he wyll amend, and so dyd the last mastyr, and the best eu’ he had at Cambridge.” And that Master Grenefield might not want due encouragement, she concludes with promising him “X m’rs,” for his pains. We do not, however, learn how many marks young Master Clemit received, who certainly took more pains.—Patiendo non faciendo—Ferendo non feriendo.