An elegant term, that is in equal request at the sister university, as well as amongst the coxcombs of the day, adds Wilson, though the members of St. John’s are celebrated for the origin of the term “to cut,”—i. e. “to look an old friend in the face, and affect not to know him,” which is the cut direct. Those who would be more deeply read in this art, which has been greatly improved since the days in which it originated, will find it at large in the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.
CROMWELL’S SOLDIERS AT A DISPUTATION AT OXFORD.
It was a custom of Dr. Kettel, while President of Trinity College, Oxford (says Tom Warton, citing the MSS. of Dr. Bathurst, in his Appendix to his Life of Sir Thomas Pope,) “to attend daily the DISPUTATIONS in the college-hall, on which occasions he constantly wore a large black furred muff. Before him stood an hour-glass, brought by himself into the hall, and placed on the table, for ascertaining the time of the continuance of the exercise, which was to last an hour at least. One morning, after Cromwell’s soldiers had taken possession of Oxford, a halberdier rushed into the hall during this controversy, and plucking off our venerable Doctor’s muff, threw it in his face, and then, with a stroke of his halberd, broke the hour-glass in pieces. The Doctor, though old and infirm, instantly seized the soldier by the collar, who was soon overpowered, by the assistance of the disputants. The halberd was carried out of the hall in triumph before the Doctor; but the prisoner, with his halberd, was quickly rescued by a party of soldiers, who stood at the bottom of the hall, and had enjoyed the whole transaction.” It was in the grove of this college, during Monmouth’s Rebellion of 1685, that Sir Philip Bertie, a younger son of Robert Earl of Lindsay, who was a member of Trinity College, and had spoken a copy of verses in the theatre at Oxford, in 1683, to the Duke and Dutchess a York, &c., trained a company, chiefly of his own college, of which he was captain, in the militia of the university.
TROOPS BEING RAISED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
Says Warton, in Monmouth’s Rebellion. It reminds me of a curious anecdote concerning Smith’s famous Ode, entitled Pocockius, which I give from MSS., Cod. Balland, vol. xix. Lit. 104:—“The University raised a regiment for the King’s service, and Christ Church and Jesus’ Colleges made one company, of which Lord Morris, since Earl of Abingdon, was captain, who presented Mr. Urry (the editor of Chaucer,) a corporal (serjeant) therein, with a halberd. Upon Dr. Pocock’s death, Mr. Urry lugged Captain Rag (Smith) into his chamber in Peckwater, locked him in, put the key in his pocket, and ordered his bed-maker to supply him with necessaries through the window, and told him he should not come out till he made
A COPY OF VERSES ON THE DOCTOR’S DEATH.
The sentence being irreversible, the captain made the Ode, and sent it, with his epistle, to Mr. Urry, who thereupon had his release.” “The epistle here mentioned,” adds Tom, “is a ludicrous prose analysis of the Ode, beginning Opusculum tuum, Halberdarie amplissime,” &c., and is printed in the fourth volume of Dr. Johnson’s English Poets, who pronounces it unequalled by modern writers. This same Oxonian, Smith, had obtained the soubriquet of