‘It is I,’ quoth Battle. ‘Visit me,’ quoth the Vice-Provost. Which, indeed, we were all obliged to do the next morning, with a distich, according to custom. Mine naturally turned upon, ‘So fiddled Orpheus, and so danced the brutes;’ which having explained to the Vice-Provost, he punished me and Sleech with a few lines from the Epsilon of Homer, and Battie with the whole third book of Milton, to get, as we say, by heart.” Another College scene, in which Battie played a part, when a scholar at King’s, is the following:—
CASE OF BLACK RASH,
Given on the authority of his old college chum, Ralph Thicknesse, who, like himself, became a Fellow. There was then at King’s College, says Ralph, a very good-tempered six-feet-high Parson, of the name of Harry Lofft, who was one of the College chanters, and the constant butt of all both at commons and in the parlour. Harry, says Ralph, dreaded so much the sight of a gun or a pair of pistols, that such of his friends as did not desire too much of his company kept fire-arms to keep him at arm’s length. Ralph was encouraged, by some of the Fellows, he says (juniors of course,) to make a serious joke out of Harry’s foible, and one day discharged a gun, loaded with powder, at our six-feet-high Parson, as he was striding his way to prayers. The powder was coarse and damp and did not all burn, so that a portion of it lodged in Harry’s face. The fright and a little inflammation put the poor chanter to bed, says Ralph. But he was not the only frightened party, for we were all much alarmed lest the report should reach the Vice-Chancellor’s ears, and the good-tempered Hal was prevailed with to be only ill. Battie and another, who were not of the shooting party (the only two fellow-students in physic,) were called to Hal’s assistance. They were not told the real state of the case, and finding his pulse high, his spirits low, and his face inflamed and sprinkled with red spots, after a serious consultation they prescribed. On retiring from the sick man’s room, they were forthwith examined on the state of the case by the impatient plotters of the wicked deed, to whose amusement both the disciples of Galen pronounced Hal’s case to be the black rash! This, adds Ralph, was a never-to-be-forgotten roast for Battie and Banks in Cambridge; and if we may add to this, that Battie, in after life, sent his wife to Bath for a dropsy, where she was shortly tapped of a fine boy, it may give us a little insight into the practice of physic, and induce us to say with the poet—
“Better to search in fields for wealth unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.”
The same Ralph relates a humorous anecdote of
THE FATE OF THE DOCTOR’S OLD GRIZZLE WIG.
The Doctor, says Ralph, was as good a punch as he was a physician, and after he settled at Uxbridge, in the latter character, where he first opened his medical budget, with the proceeds of his Fellowship at King’s College alone to depend on, Ralph took advantage of a stay in London to ride over to see his old college chum and fellow-punster, and reached his domus in the Doctor’s absence. Ralph’s wig was the worse for a shower of rain he had rode through, and, taking it off, desired the Doctor’s man, William, to bring him his master’s old grizzle to put on, whilst he dried and put a dust of powder into his. But ere this could be accomplished, the Doctor returned, as fine as may be, in his best tye, kept especially for visiting his patients in. As soon as mutual greetings had passed, “Why, zounds, Ralph,” exclaimed the Doctor, “what a cursed wig you have got on!” “True,” said Ralph, taking it off as he spoke, “it is a bad one, and if you will, as I have another with me, I will toss it into the fire.” “By all means,” said the Doctor, “for, in truth, it is a very caxon,” and into the fire went the fry. The Doctor now began to skin his legs, and calling his man, William, “Here,” said he, taking off his tye, “bring me my old wig.” “Mr. Thicknesse has got it, said William. “And where is it, Ralph,” said the Doctor, turning upon his visiter. “Burnt, as you desired; and this illustrates the spirit of all mankind,” said Ralph; “we can see the shabby wig, and feel the pitiful tricks of our friends, overlooking the disorder of our own wardrobes. As Horace says, ‘Nil habeo quod agam;’—‘mind every body’s business but your own.’” Talking of gunpowder reminds me of
TWO OTHER SHOOTING ANECDOTES.
All who know anything of either Oxford or Cambridge scholars, know well enough, that their manners are not only well preserved at all seasons, but that when they are in a humour for sporting, it is of very little consequence whether other folk preserve their manners or not. When the late eccentric Joshua Waterhouse, B. D. (who was so barbarously murdered a few years since by Joshua Slade, in Huntingdonshire,) was a student of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow, he was a remarkably strong young man, some six feet high, and not easily frightened. He one day went out to shoot with another man of his college, and his favourite dog, Sancho, had just made his first point, when a keeper came up and told Joshua to take himself off, in no very classic English. Joshua therefore declined compliance. Upon this our keeper began to threaten. Joshua thereupon laid his gun aside, and coolly began taking off his coat (or, as the fancy would say, to peel,) observing, “I came out for a day’s sport, and a day’s sport I’ll have.” Upon which our keeper shot off, leaving Joshua in possession of the field, from which he used to boast he carried off a full bag. At another time