Than the foregoing is in the possession of the Society of Jesus College, Oxford, says Chalmers, the gift of the hospitable Sir Watkins Williams Wynne, grandfather to the present baronet. It will contain ten gallons, and weighs 278 ounces: how or when it is used, this deponent sayeth not. Queen’s College, Oxon, says Mr. Pointer, has its—
HORN OF DIVERSION,
So called because it never fails to afford funnery. It is kept in the buttery, is occasionally presented to persons to drink out of and is so contrived, that by lifting it up to the mouth too hastily, the air gets in and suddenly forces too great a quantity of the liquid, as if thrown into the drinker’s face, to his great surprise and the delight of the standers by. Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra.
ANOTHER BIBULOUS RELIQUE
Was the famous chalice, found in one of the hands of the founder of Merton College, Oxford, the celebrated Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of England, upon the opening of his grave in 1659, says Wood, on the authority of Mr. Leonard Yate, Fellow of Merton. It held more than a quarter of a pint; and the Warden and Fellows caused it to be sent to the College, to be put into their cista jocalium; but the Fellows, in their zeal, sometimes drinking out of it, “this, then, so valued relic was broken and destroyed.”
A LAUDABLE AND CHRISTIAN CUSTOM,
In Merton College, says Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia, &c. “is their meeting together in the Hall on Christmas Eve, and other solemn times, to sing a Psalm, and drink a Grace Cup to one another, (called Poculum Charitatis) wishing one another health and happiness. These Grace Cups,” he adds, “they drink to one another every day after dinner and supper, wishing one another peace and good neighbourhood.” This conclusion reminds us of the following anecdote:—
A learned Cambridge mathematician, now holding a distinguished post at the Naval College, Portsmouth, after discussing one day, with a party of Johnians, the propriety of the Dies Festæ, solar, siderial, &c., drily observed, putting a bumper to his lips, “I think we should have jovial days as well.” Every College in both Universities has the next best thing to it,—