THEY TAKE THEM AS THEY COME.
A person might very well conclude, from the observations of the enemies of our English Universities, that the governors of them had the power of selecting the youth who are to graduate at them, or that, of necessity, all men bred at either Oxford or Cambridge ought to be alike distinguished for superior virtue and forbearance, great learning, and great talents. They forget, that they must take them as they come, like the boy in the anecdote. “So you are picking them out, my lad,” said a Cantab to a youth, scratching his head in the street. “No,” said the arch-rogue, “I takes ’em as they come.” Just so do the authorities at Oxford and Cambridge. I knew a son of Granta, and eke, too,
THE DARLING SON OF HIS MOTHER,
Whose mind, at twenty, was a chaos, and must from his birth have been, not as Locke would have supposed, a sheet of white paper, ready to receive impressions, but one smeared and useless. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not half so wise as was this scion in his mother’s opinion. She, therefore, brought him to Cambridge, and having introduced him to the amiable tutor of St. John’s College, smirkingly asked him, “If he thought her darling would be senior wrangler?” “I don’t know, madam,” was his reply, in his short quick manner of speaking, pulling up a certain portion of his dress, in the wearing of which he resembled Sir Charles Wetherell, “I don’t know, madam; that remains to be seen.” Poor fellow, he never could get a degree, nor (after having been removed from Cambridge to the Politechnique School at Paris, for a year or two) could he ever get over the Pons Asinorum (as we Cantabs term the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid.) Another
MISCALCULATING MAMMA,
And they are sure to miscalculate whenever they inter-meddle with such matters, declined entering her two sons at Cambridge in the same year, that, as she said, “They might not stand in each other’s way.” Id est, they were to be both senior wranglers. They, however, never caught sight of the goal. I recollect, on one occasion, the second son being floored in his college mathematical examination. He was said to have afterwards carried home the paper (containing twenty-two difficult geometrical and other problems,) when one of his sisters snatched it out of his hand, exclaiming, “Give it to me,” and, without the slightest hesitation (in good Cambridge phrase,) she “floored” the whole of them, to his dismay. This lady was one of a bevy of ten beauties whom their mamma compassionately brought to Cambridge to dance with the young gentlemen of the University at her parties, and after so officiating for some three or four years, notwithstanding they were all Blues, and had corresponding names, from Britannia to Boadicea, the Cantabs suffered them all to depart spinsters. But Papas also sometimes overrate their sons’ talents and virtues. A gentleman, a few years since, on
PRESENTING HIS FAVOURITE SON
To the sub-rector of a certain College in Oxford, as a new member, did so with the observation, “Sir, he is modest, diffident, and clever, and will be an example to the whole College.” “I am glad of it,” was the reply, we want such men, and I am honoured, sir, by your bringing him here.” Papa made his exit, well pleased with our Welshman’s hospitality, for of that country our Sub-Rector, as well as the gentleman in question was. The former, too, had been a chaplain in Lord Nelson’s fleet, in his younger days, and was not over orthodox in his language, when irritated, though a man with a better heart it would have puzzled the Grecian sage to have traced out by candle-light. A month had scarcely passed over, when Papa, having occasion to pass through Oxon, called on the Sub-Rector, of course, and naturally inquired, “How his son demeaned himself?” “You told me, sir,” said the Sub-Rector, in a pet, and a speech such as the quarter-deck of a man-of-war had schooled him in; “you told me, sir, that your son was modest, but d—n his modesty! you told me, sir, he was diffident, but d—n his diffidence! you told me, sir, he was clever; he’s the greatest dunce of the whole society! you told me, sir, he would prove an example to the whole college: but I tell you, sir, that he is neither modest, diffident nor clever, and in three weeks,” added the Sub-Rector, raising his voice to a becoming pitch, “he has ruined half the College by his example!” We can scarcely do better than add to this, by way of tail-piece, from that loyal Oxford scourge Terræ Filius (ed. 1726)—(to be read, “cum grano,” and some allowance for the excited character of the times in which it was written)—