AN OXFORD HOAX AND A PURITAN DETECTED.
A certain Oxford D.D. at the head of a college, lately expected a party of maiden ladies, his sisters and others, to visit him from the country. They were strangers in Oxford, therefore, like another Bayard, he was anxious to meet them on their arrival and gallant them to his College. This, however, was to him, so little accustomed to do the polite to the ladies, an absolute event, and it naturally formed his prime topic of conversation for a month previously. This provoked some of the Fellows of his College to put a hoax upon him, the most forward in which was one Mr. H——, a puritan forsooth. Accordingly, a note was concocted and sent to the Doctor, in the name of the ladies, announcing, that they had arrived at the Inn in Oxford. “The Inn!” exclaimed the Doctor, on perusing it; “Good God! how am I to know the Inn?” However, after due preparation, off he set, in full canonicals, hunting for his belles and the Inn! The Star, Mitre, Angel, all were searched; at last, the Doctor, both tired and irritated, began to smell a rat! The idea of a hoax flashed upon his mind; he hurried to his lodgings, at his College, where the whole truth flashed upon him like a new light, and the window of his room being open, which overlooked the Fellows’ garden, he saw a group of them rubbing their hands in high glee, and the ringleader, Mr. H——, in the midst: he was so roused at the sight, that, leaning from the window, he burst out with—“H——! you puritanical son of a bitch!” It is needless to add, that the words, acting like a charm, quickly dissolved their council: but the Doctor, too amiable to remember what was not meant as an affront, himself afterwards both joined in and enjoyed the laugh created by the joke.
MORE THAN ONE GOOD SAYING
Is attributed to the non-juring divine, celebrated son of Oxon, and excellent English historian, Thomas Carte, who, falling under the suspicions of the Government, as a favourer of the Pretender, was imprisoned at the time the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, in 1744. Whilst under examination by the Privy Council, the celebrated Duke of Newcastle, then minister, asked him, “If he were not a bishop?” “No, my Lord Duke,” replied Carte, “there are no bishops in England, but what are made by your Grace; and I am sure I have no reason to expect that honour.” Walking, soon after he was liberated, in the streets of London, during a heavy shower of rain, he was plied with, “A coach, your reverence?” “No, honest friend,” was his answer, “this is not a reign for me to ride in.”
HORACE WALPOLE A SAINT.
Cole says, in his Athenæ Cant., that Horace Walpole latterly lived and died a Sceptic; but when a student at King’s College, Cambridge, he was of “a religious enthusiastic turn of mind, and used to go with Ashton (the late Dr., Master of Jesus College,) his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the castle.” Dyer gives the following poetical version of
A CAMBRIDGE CONUNDRUM,
In his Supplement, on Doctors Long, Short, and Askew:—