Whitfield carried about the liquor in leathern jacks here as he had done in his mother’s inn at Gloucester. In this room they attended lectures. Every Nov. 5th there were speeches in the hall. “Johnson told me that when he made his first declamation he wrote over but one copy and that coarsely; and having given it into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed was obliged to begin by chance and continue on how he could, for he had got but little of it by heart; so fairly trusting to his present powers for immediate supply he finished by adding astonishment to the applause of all who knew how little was owing to study” (Piozzi). We read of “a great Gaudy in the College, when the Master dined in public and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.” Johnson told Warton, “In these halls the fireplace was anciently always in the middle of the room till the Whigs removed it on one side.” At dinner till lately the signal for grace was given by three blows with two wooden trenchers, such as were used for bread and cheese till 1848. Hearne laments, “when laudable old customs alter, ’tis a sign learning dwindles.” There were four “College dinners” annually, one of which was an Oyster Feast.[327] The Manciple’s slate still hangs in this room. An undergraduates’ library has lately been established “between quads.” Where, by the bye, is Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia (the original of Rasselas) which Johnson borrowed from the Pembroke library?
It has already been said that the students of Broadgates used Docklington’s aisle for divine service, and the aisle was rented for this purpose by Pembroke College. The pulpit and Master’s pew are now at Stanton St. John’s. The present College chapel dates from 1728, the year of Johnson’s matriculation. It was consecrated July 10th, 1732, by Bishop Potter of Oxford, a sermon on religious vows and dedications being preached by “that fine Jacobite fellow” (as Johnson calls him), Dr. Matthew Panting, then Master, from Gen. xxviii. 20-22. Hearne styles him “an honest gent,” and says: “He had to preach the sermon at St. Mary’s on the day on which George Duke and Elector of Brunswick usurped the English throne; but his sermon took no notice, at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick.” Bartholomew Tipping, Esq., whose arms are on the screen, contributed very largely towards building the chapel. It was then “a neat Ionic structure,” plain and unpretending, but well proportioned and pleasing enough. The picture in the altar-piece was given at a later date by the Ven. Joseph Plymley (or Corbett), a gentleman commoner. It is a copy of our Lord’s figure in Rubens’ painting at Antwerp, “Christ urging St. Theresa to succour a soul in Purgatory.” In 1884 the chapel was elaborately embellished and enriched at an expense of nearly £3000, so as to present one of the most beautiful interiors in Oxford. The work was executed by Mr. C. E. Kempe, M.A., a member of the College. The windows, in the Renaissance manner, are particularly fine. A quantity of silver and silver-gilt altar plate was presented at the same time. The work is not yet finished, and a design for an organ remains on paper. It is worth recording that until twenty-seven years since the Eucharist was administered here, as at the Cathedral and St. Mary’s, to the communicants kneeling in their places. Johnson must, as an undergraduate, have attended St. Aldate’s (where the College worshipped once again for several terms during the recent decoration of the chapel); but when in later years he visited Oxford, people flocked to Pembroke chapel[328] to gaze at the “great Cham of literature,” humblest of worshippers, tenderest and most loyal of Pembroke’s sons.
Dean Burgon connects a bit of old Pembroke with Johnson. The summer common room behind the present hall was, before its demolition, the only one left in Oxford, except that at Merton. He writes (1855): “This agreeable and picturesque apartment was in constant use within the memory of the present Master; but, while I write, it is in a state of considerable decadence. The old chairs are drawn up against the panelled walls; on the small circular tables the stains produced by hot beverages are very plainly to be distinguished: only the guests are wanting, with their pipes and ale—their wigs and buckles—their byegone manners and forgotten topics of discourse. It must have been hither that Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke conducted Dr. Johnson and his biographer in 1776, when the former after a rêverie of meditation exclaimed: ‘Ay, here I used to play at draughts with Phil Jones and Fludyer. Jones loved beer, and did not get very forward in the Church. Fludyer turned out a scoundrel, a Whig, and said he was ashamed of having been bred at Oxford.’” The old brazier, which Mr. Lang surmises Whitfield may have blacked, is, I believe, in existence.
The most important modern addition to the College is the Wolsey Almshouse, purchased in 1888 from Christ Church for £10,000, by the help of money bequeathed by the Rev. C. Cleoburey. This is part of “Segrym’s houses,” held of St. Frideswyde’s Priory, and converted after the Conquest into hostels “for people of a religious and scholastick conversation.” “With the decay of learning they came to be the possession of servants and retainers to the said priory.” They were occupied by Jas. Proctor when Wolsey converted them into a hospital; later, Henry VIII. settled in them twenty-four almsmen, old soldiers, with a yearly allowance of £6 each. Not long ago the bedesmen were sent to their homes with a pension, and the building became the Christ Church Treasurer’s lodging till it was heroically purchased by Pembroke, which thus completed her “scientific frontier.” There is a fine timber roof here, said to have been brought from Osney Abbey. The building has been a good deal altered. Skelton (1823) shows the south part of it in ruins.
The external history of Pembroke since its foundation in 1624 has been comparatively uneventful. When King Charles was besieged in Oxford in 1642, like other Colleges it armed a company to defend the city. Twice the loyal Colleges had given their cups and flagons for their Sovereign’s necessities. Pembroke keeps the King’s letter of acknowledgment, with his signature. When the Parliamentary Commissioners visited Oxford in 1647, they ejected the then Master of Pembroke, who had received them with these words: “I have seen your commission and examined it. … I cannot with a safe conscience submit to it, nor without breach of oath made to my Sovereign, and breach of oaths made to the University, and breach of oaths made to my College: et sic habetis animi mei sententiam,—Henry Wightwicke.” Henry Langley, an intruded Canon of Christ Church, and “one of six Ministers appointed by Parliament to preach at St. Mary’s and elsewhere in Oxon to draw off the Scholars from their orthodox principles,” was put in Wightwick’s room, but removed in 1660. In 1650 “Honest Will Collier,” a Pembrokian, heads a plot to seize the Cromwellian garrison, and is “strangely tortured,” but his life spared.
The College pictures include a splendid Reynolds of Johnson,[329] given by Mr. A. Spottiswoode. Two interesting relics of Johnson are to be seen—the small deal desk on which he wrote the Dictionary, and his china teapot. It holds two quarts, for Johnson once drank five-and-twenty cups at a sitting. He called himself “a hardened and shameless tea-drinker,” who “with tea amuses the evenings, with tea solaces the midnights, and with tea welcomes the mornings.” Peg Woffington made it for him “as red as blood.”
Pembroke since the seventeenth century has been a small College, though it has a large foundation of scholars. It has not been specially noted as either a “rich man’s” or a “poor man’s” College, and while winning at least its fair share of distinction in the schools, it has been known perhaps chiefly as a compact, pleasant, and not uncomfortable Society, whose Promus no longer serves “muddy” beer, and whose Coquus no Latin verses satirize. There is a handsome show of plate. It includes several silver “tumblers” or “tuns,” which when placed on their side tumble upright again, and a large hammered tankard (lately presented) with the “Britannia” mark, and made after the ancient manner with pegs between its thirteen pints to measure the draught to be taken. The oldest inscribed piece of plate is dated 1653. Pembroke has been usually a rowing College. The Eight was Head of the River in 1872; the Torpid in 1877, 1878, and 1879, the Eight then being second. The “Christ Church Fours” are rowed every year for a challenge goblet given by the Christ Church Club in gratitude for an eight lent by Pembroke in a time of need. The racing colours are cherry and white, with the red rose for badge of the Eight and the thistle of the Torpid.[330] The “Junior Common Room” is the oldest of undergraduate wine clubs. There is a flourishing and old-established literary club called the “Johnson,” and there is of course a Debating and a Musical Society. The Master, Fellows, and Scholars of Pembroke are patrons of eight benefices. College meetings are called Conventions.
A few names may be cited from the roll of (Broadgates and) Pembroke worthies—
Edmund Bonner, “Scholar enough and tyrant too much” (Fuller), entered Broadgates in 1512. In 1519 he became Bachelor of Canon and Civil Law; D.C.L. 1535. He was successively Bishop of Hereford and of London, but was deprived and imprisoned under Edward VI. Having been restored by Mary, on Elizabeth’s accession he refused the oath of the Supremacy, and was committed to the Marshalsea, where he died September 5th, 1569. Thomas Yonge, Archbishop of York, 1560. John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1783, began as a servitor at Pembroke. The Duke of Marlborough had then a house in Oxford, and walking with Dr. Adams one day in the street, asked him to recommend a governor for his son, Lord Blandford. Dr. Adams in reply pointed to the slight figure of a lad walking just in front, and said, “That is the person I recommend.” The Duke afterwards brought Moore’s merits under the notice of the King, who placed the Prince of Wales under his care, which led to his ecclesiastical elevation. William Newcome, Archbishop of Armagh, 1795. The primatial sees of Canterbury, York, and Armagh have thus each been filled from Broadgates or Pembroke. John Heywoode, “the Epigrammatist,” one of the earliest English dramatic writers. While attached to the Court of Henry VIII. he wrote those six comedies which are among the first innovations upon the mysteries and miracle-plays of the middle age, and which laid the foundation of the secular comedy in this country. His Interludes, in which the clergy are satirized, are earlier than 1521. Yet he was favoured by Mary Tudor, and was also the friend of Sir Thomas More. George Peele, dramatist. Charles Fitzjeffrey, 1572, “the poet of Broadgates Hall” (Wood). David Baker, entered 1590, a Benedictine monk, historian, and mystical writer, author of the Chronicle. Francis Beaumont, the poet, entered February 4th, 1596, as “Baronis filius æt. 12.” His father dying April 21st, 1598, he left without a degree. His elder brother, Sir John Beaumont, entered Broadgates the same day. He was a Puritan in religion, but fought on the Cavalier side. William Camden, the antiquary, called “the Strabo of England,” entered 1567, aged sixteen; Clarencieux King of Arms; Head-master of Westminster. He died 1623. The Latin grace composed by Camden to be said after meat in Broadgates Hall is still in use at Pembroke. In 1599 entered John Pym, the politician, aged fifteen. Among the contributors to the enlargement of the Hall in 1620 his signature appears, “Johannes pym de Brimont in com. Somerset quondam Aulae Lateportensis Commensalis. 44/. Jo. Pym.” Sir Thomas Browne, author of that delightful book Religio Medici, the quaint thought of which inspired Elia. He entered as Fellow Commoner in 1623. His body lies in St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich. When it was disentombed in 1840 the fine auburn hair had not lost its freshness. Matthew Turner, one of the first Fellows, who wrote all his sermons in Greek. It will be remembered that, not many years before, Queen Elizabeth had received an address in Oxford, and replied to it, in this learned tongue, and that in the period of Puritan ascendancy (1648-1659) the disputations in the schools for M.A. were often in Greek. Other worthies of this House are Cardinal Repyngdon, the Wycliffist; John Storie, whose career closed at Tyburn; Thomas Randolph, constantly employed by Elizabeth on important embassies; Timothy Hall, one of the few London clergy who read James II.’s Declaration. He was made Bishop of Oxford, but in his palace found himself alone, hated, and shunned; Carew, Earl of Totnes; Peter Smart, Puritan poet, Cosin’s assailant; Chief Justice Dyer; Lord Chancellor Harcourt; Collier, the metaphysician; Southern, the Restoration dramatist; Durel, the Biblical critic; Henderson, “the Irish Creichton”; Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society; Richard Valpy; John Lemprière; Thomas Stock, co-founder of the Sunday School system.
In 1694, Prideaux (whom Aldrich sets down as “muddy-headed”) calls Pembroke “the fittest colledge in the town for brutes.” But a Mr. Lapthorne, twenty years later, gives a different picture of it. “I have placed my son in Pembroke Colledge. The house, though it bee but a little one, yet is reputed to be one of the best for sobriety and order.” It is not till the Georgian time, however, that we get a distinct view of the inner life of Pembroke—the time when Shenstone, Blackstone, Graves, Hawkins, Whitfield, and—towering above all—Johnson, were contemporary or nearly contemporary here.