HUSBANDS MAY BEAT THEIR WIVES.
Fuller relates in his Abel Redivivus, that the celebrated President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Dr. John Rainolds, the contemporary of Jewel and Usher, had a controversy with one William Gager, a student of Christ-Church, who contended for the lawfulness of stage-plays; and the same Gager, he adds, maintained, horresco referens! in a public act in the university, that “it was lawful for husbands to beat their wives.”
ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE LADIES
Is contained in Antony Wood’s “angry account” of the alterations made in Merton College, of which he was a fellow, during the wardenship of Sir Thomas Clayton, whose lady, says Wood, “did put the college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous expenses, among which were a very large looking-glass, for her to see her ugly face, and body to the middle, * * * * * which was brought in Hilary terme, 1674, and cost, as the bursar told me, above 10£.; a bedstead and bedding, worth 40£., must also be bought, because the former bedstead and bedding was too short for him (he being a tall man,) so perhaps when a short warden comes, a short bed must be bought.” There were also other
EXTRAORDINARY DOINGS AT MERTON.
When the Vandals of Parliamentary visiters, in Cromwell’s time, perpetrated their spoliations at Oxford, one of them, Sir Nathaniel Brent, says Wood, actually “took down the rich hangings at the altar of the chapel, and ornamented his bedchamber with them.”
DIGGING YOUR GRAVES WITH YOUR TEETH.
The late vice-master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Rev. William Hodson, B.D., and the late Regius Professor of Hebrew, the Rev. William Collier, B.D., who had also been tutor of Trinity College, were both skilled in the science of music, and constant visiters at the quartett parties of Mr. Sharp, of Green Street, Cambridge, organist of St. John’s College. The former happened one evening to enter Mr. Sharp’s sanctum sanctorum, rather later than usual, and found the two latter just in the act of discussing a brace of roast ducks, with a bowl of punch in the background. He was pressed to join them. “No, no, gentlemen,” was his reply, “give me a glass of water and a crust. You know not what you are doing. You are digging your graves with your teeth.” Both gentlemen, however, out-lived him.