travels. "Whither shall I go?" said I to myself, as I
stood upon the lower step of tlie door-way. " To St. Rha-
degund's," whispered my conscience; for I felt persuaded
I ought to pay my devoirs at her shrine first. " About
ship," said I to myself: and I accordingly took my way
towards that best beloved of all imiversity attractions. 1



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 259:

coiild not be but struck with the silence and solemnity
which reigned in undisputed sway over the streets through
wliich I wandered ; and, as I cast a glance towards the
venerable gateway of tliat learned pile, where Newton had
pondered, and Barrow had studied, I thought of the liun-
dreds I had seen on some saint's day, or its eve, arrayed in
vestal white, crowding from evening chapel. AU-Saint's
church-yard seemed all gloom : and Sidney Street, that
field of many a fray and feud, that territory of the whiskered
king, seemed as still as if the name of " gownsman " had
never echoed in it ; the poplars waved to and fro with a
sort of melancholy motion, over the heavy red-brick walls,
and, save the insects whicli flitted amongst their leaves,
were the only representatives of motion in the street, from
Magdalen Bridge to Trinity Church : not a coach ; not a
bargee ; not even he of the " three-nuikt hat " and the
quiz-glass, — the notorious Jemmy Gordon. I hastened
down, almost involuntarily, the narrow serpentine lane,
which in religious times was looked upon with a degree of
sacredness, as its name implies ; not a footstep, save mine
own, paced along the pavement ; and I thought that, had
Mr. Maberley (the Jose^ih of Cambridge, and the Virtuvius
of Chesterton) ever seen it so still, he might have been
spared the mortification of seeing his edifying pamphlet on
the corioiptions of that street, divested of its hypocrisy. I
thought of tlie changes and tlie chances of the Freshman's
life, from the time of his coming up from boarding-school,
a raw and inexperienced spooney, to the time of liis going
down again, — less liable to insult, but more liable to
laughter, — the knight of the spoon ; and whilst I thought
thereon I sighed ; — but not for myself. I had a friend who
thus went oflf with triinnphing in his disappointment, proud
and pleased, through very spite of himself, at his mighty
honour, like the sun from the clouds of November, smiling

« 0.



260 FACETI^ CANTABRIGIENSES.

amidst gloom : but, alas ! his joy was short, and the stigma
attached unjustly to that man who happens to have a name
best suited for tlie occasion of the ridiculous epithet, caused
such depression of spirits and consequent loss of health,
that the church-yard shortly received him fresli from the
senate-house, amidst the countless nuiltitudes who had, un-
honoured, yet more honoured, staid their time on earth,
ere called away. Surely the planners of our university
laws have somewhat to answer for, in thus allowing their
favours to bring disgrace upon, perhaps, their worthiest
members ; and, whilst the name of Senior Wrangler and
the gradations of Senior Optimis bring respect— whilst they
have golden and silver spoons in abundance, — why add to
their store of distinguishments the paltry wooden one, —
that which causes more disgrace to attach to individuals,
colleges, and examiners, than all the benefits derived from
the institutions of their benefactors can do away with?
Oxford proceeds on a better plan; and, contented, if it
cannot speak in praise, to be silent, in a happy measiu-e
mingles all in one common lot. Why, when the sister uni-
versity has set the example, and her precedent has been
followed in nearly the most trivial circumstances, will the
hand of power refrain from blotting out the decree from its
rolls, which thus stigmatizes all, from the highest to the
lowest ?

Behold me, then, once more, at the gate-way of the
" ever-honoured Jesus," as Mr. Coleridge, himself a Jesuit,
has excellently said. The trees which overhang the lofty
wall on each side shed a melancholy gloom over the road,
and darkened the almost untenanted " barracks." The
long avenue was still ; not a step was heard, nor a voice
came from the inner courts ; the windows in the long front
were all blinded ; and the very weeds, which are so beau-
tiful an ornament to the walls on either side (and which a



I



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 261

barbarous taste would, a year or two ago, have rooted up),
seemed rioting in desolation. The hands on the chapel-
dial pointed to the hour of six, the well-known hour when
I have listened with pleasure to the heavy peal of the soli-
tary bell, which told the time of — -

" Prayers, and thanks, and bended knees;"

And, as the numbered tones fell upon my ear, memory,
for the moment, aroused the dearest associations which
connected me with the walls I was gazing on, and these
gave place to feelings of a more agonizing nature. Still-
ness was over all, as of a canopy. No rustling of gowns ;
no hurrying of time-saving worshippers (frequenters of
chapel not for the love of God, but the dread of the dean) ;
no passing salutations, as acquaintances met, betrayed the
character of the place I then stood in. I half doubted whe-
ther I ought to proceed, — " Shall I not," said I, inwardly,
" be an intruder on this solitude ? — but, no ! these gates
will never forbid mi/ entrance ;" and I hastened forward.
The porter's lodge was barred. The gate was open — and I
entered the first of our three small, though neat quadrangles.
An air of miusual gloom was here also ; the grass had at-
tained an enormous length for the time of year, and plainly
showed that neither scythe nor foot had lately touched it :
there was a time, when I had strayed over it, in spite and
defiance of the herb-loving fellows, merely to sliow that I
did not regard their whims a blade of grass ; but I could
not then, and I would not have intruded upon the sacred
plot for all the hay in Christendom. I was doubtftil whe-
ther to return or explore yet further ; when the figure of
chanticleer, over the enti'ance to the cloisters, invited me
to wander there. As I passed along, the awful silence and
darkness of the place again awoke me to remembrance of
long-past days, and I thought on " Auld-lang-syne," till



262 FACETI/E CANTABRIGIENSES.

every action of my college life rose before me like the spirits
of the murdered, to Macbeth. It was in this part of the
college that I had kept the better part of my time. I
ascended the stairs leading to my old apartments. The
door, as we were wont to say, was sported, yet bearing, upon
its rough coat of black, the impressions of my friend

W 's knuckles. The sight recalled his image to my

mind, and I bethought me of his merry-looking face,^ — his
neat gentleman-like appearance ; and, withal, that fund of
inexhaustible humour which sparkled in his eye. I be-
thought me of days long gone, when he and I had, in the
warmth of feeling, and hey-day of youth, strolled forth from
that very door-way, for our noon-tide saunter, or evening
voyage : I thought of that witching time of night, when,
after taking our " pint-stoup" of negus or our beaker of
milk-punch, Ave had gone foi'th " like the Chaldeans to
watch the stars ;" or, like Brutus's dog, to " bay the
moon*," or rather like the university wakes, as they may
justly be called, to serenade the fellows with " song, and
harp, and minstrel lore." " Days of my youth," thought

J, with the Honourable Mr. , of Virginia, "ye are

vanished away." Time has passed heavily with me since
these walls echoed to my ears the merry laugh or still
merrier choiiis ? " As I mused thereon," a sound came
from the opposite side of the court ; was it, thought I, from
those rooms where the other worthy member of our tri-
umvirate has joined us so often in the praise of wine and
song ? — but he too was away : and the sound which I heard
was the dull shriek of a starling from the chapel-tower. As
I was about to retire, the entrance to the hall met my
vision ; how could I pass unnoticed the scene of our feast-
ings and our examination ? I scrambled up the steps, and
again stood beneath the roof where I had so often stood
• Shakspeare, Jul. Cxs. Act. IV. the Tent-Scene.



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 2G3

before ; tlie heavy cloth-covered door creaked on its hinges
with a dull and monotonous sound, and then shut with a clap
which plainly told it closed upon a solitude. All was qiuet
here, the tables shining from their unstained varnish, and
the venerable features of Tobias Rustat and the Archbishops
Sterne and Cranmer, in the same position as when I last
gazed on them ; " it is," said I, with the motto above them,
" semper eadem." But there was an air of gloom in their
house of feasting. The very portraits on the dark walls
seemed anxiously looking for the wonted banquet. "And
was it here that I have often tasted pudding a la college
and charlotte worthy the palate of a Lucullus, and cracked
puns worthy the ears of a Johnian? Was it here," said I,
"that I have plied the graceless knife and graceful joke ?
Was it here I fagged at -\- and — , .r and g, till I almost

forgot my a, b, c ? Was it here I funked at Mr. 's

jjlai/i and literal translation ?" and in order to save a place
"above the marl,'' as the Oxonians say, that I murdered
chronology as easily as Napoleon did his janissaries; that I
metamorphosed logarithms and differences so much like
my predecessor of the nose, good master Ovid, that I, at
last, found the difference between philosophy and common
sense to be a maximum in my case, and discovered my
head to be a log, and that Lacroix's book, like that of the
associate calcnlists, was all d — d stirft'? " Was it here"

1 was proceeding, like a hero of the buskin, in my

soliloquy, when my lucubrations were jirevented by the
entrance from the combination-room, of, as I thought, one
of the fellows. "Well," said I, "my Jesuit, thy house is
not left unto thee desolate?" The person who entered bore
all the appearance, by his dress, of a gentleman ; and,
imagining ho might be a friend, I accordingly doffed my
beaver and bared my fist for a salute ; but ye gods ! what
did I see, why my own ggj), dandified to a degree of



2G4 FACET1.E CANTABRIGIENSES.

wonderment, liis collar starched as stiff as buckram, his
cloth as knowing as any fellow-commoner's, or London
appi-entice's on a Sunday, — his coat of the newest fashion,
and his legs — O ye sons of Crispin, like those of whom
Homer has sung, — the vjwr.fj.ihg Ayjwii, well booted and
spurred. Said I, after a gaze of some minutes, astonished

and half mad at the fellow's foolery, " Why, , what the

deuce has become of you all ? fellows, fellow-commoners,
pensioners, and all gone and vanished away, as if such had
never been I I have rambled througli courts, cloisters, and
hall ; and at last have discovered, that there is yet an in-
habitant in tlicse walls, though like the bottle whose wine
is gone, and filled with air. Now all tlie wit and wisdom
and power is departed, fools and asses fill their places :
where are they all?" The maulkin answered witli a
conge, as low as his laundress's labour would allow him,
" 'Tis the long vacation, sir ; and you know, sir, our masters
are all gone down, and" — and, rejoined I, impatiently,
" left their servants to keep up the stupidity and absurdity,
by presenting themselves as living caricatures of their
puppyism and folly ! But where is the master ?" — " In
town, sir."— "The dean ?"— "At Cheltenham, sir."— "The
tutor?" — "On the continent, sir." — "And so," said I, as
soon as I could collect the true account of their absence,
" the tutor is 'j^ricking' over the Apennines, on a broken-
kneed mule, or tracking the path of Hannibal over the
Alps, or scribbling bad Greek and radicalism in a monkish
album, in imitation of my Lord Byron, or some other
curiosity of the day, or, perhaps, scratching the symbolic
representations of Q ^ or \/, or any other a h surd idea,
upon the glaciers of Mont St. Bernard, and chuckling over
the fancy tliat some future traveller will put them down
in his note-book, as proofs that the ice has existed before
the flood, and that these are tlie remains of some proe-



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 265

Adamitic inscription ; and, as if this were not enough, the
dean is, I suppose, squandering his health, his manners,
and his chapel-fines, at a watering place ; and the master
gone preferment-himting to Carlton House ; and these
ancient and religious foundations left to jackdaws and jack-
asses and jackanapes ! Shades of Alcock and Cranmer,
look not down in wrath upon the walls ye did adorn and
build, hut rather in pity and forgiveness ; the tide will soou
return and bear the weeds which now sail so gaily do\vn
the channel to their own native ooze, and all will again be
right." As I spake this, I left the hall and the yyp, the
latter wondeiing whether his old master had taken a lease
of the witlings of Bedlam, or whether his senses had taken
leave of him. I was sorry afterwards I had spoken so
severely of those good friends of order and preservers of
old institutions, the officers of the place ; for I have often
had reason to speak well of their kindness and attention,
which, notwithstanding the momentary forgetfulness of
them which my "man of men" occasioned, I can never
wholly eradicate from my mind. Peace be with them, and
my humble henison ! Their lot is not the most agreeable,
and though, perhaps, they enjoy the "ofium cum di(/)i/fafe,"
yet they often feel the reversed lot of single blessedness."
I now walked out towards the grove, passed the closed
doors of buttery and kitchen, those storehouses of punch
and beef-steaks, where I had often issued orders for a
nightly frolic or Sunday-morning festival. You must re-
member the little court with its narrow sward and lilac
trees, and the traceries of the hall- window, jutting from
amidst the ivy which creeps up the old wall of the college,
and the iron gateway at the end, and the green fields peep-
ing through the insterstices of the rails, and the distant fiow
of the river, all affording a pleasing and not unenviable
change to the darkness and obscurity of cloisters and cor-



266 FACETIAE CANTABRIGIENSES.

ridors. And 1 have reason to remember it too. Often
have I scaled those walls and that gate, at the hazard of
my neck and my tenns, to save a sixpenny fine, or escape
a twenty-line imposition for keeping late hours ; and often
have I sat like " Niobe, all tears," in a dead fmik at top of
that little building in the corner, when a solitary step ap-
proaching has alarmed me in my fancied cuniiingness, lest
I should be discovered. Oh, I never shall forget the time
when a tile, which my careless foot had loosened, fell before
a poor Freshman, who was musing in careless loneliness
at the murky midnight of one December Satm'day ; away
he scampered, believing that St. Rhadegund, or some of
her nuns, had come out to accompany him in his dreams of
imagination : poor wretch ! I believe he was planning a
poem upon evening, and had come out for poetical ideas
upon the subject. The report next morning was, that the
college was haunted, and that the said Freshman poet and
poetical Freshman, in the fury of inspiration, "his eye

rolling in fine frenzy," to the roof of , actually saw the

spirit of old Alcock, in a flannel dressing-gown and red
nightcap, in a posture of humiliation, looking like Marius
over the ruins of Carthage, upon the walls he had founded.
And, to tell the truth, I was glad it was credited; for it was
generally understood that I personated the worthy bishop
that evening ; in my hurry I having dr()])pcd the cap which
I borrowed of a friend (my own being lost in a " row" with
the bargees). This cap was known by its owner's private
mark, " Golgotha," and, as it was brought to me next
morning, I said, "Golgotha! rightly art thou named, for
the place of a skull thou art, and a precious nmnshdl too !
Tliis, and many other scenes of /might-errantry came fresh
to my memory, and, as I saimtered up the walk, " I fought
all my old battles o'er again," and lived again in all the
fancied pleasures and freaks of college term-keeping. But,



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 261

alas ! how changed was this place, since I last walked in it,
in the pride of cap and gown. The grass was growing
between the flints which paved the narrow pathway, and
the span-ows alone proved that life was not wholly gone.
I reached the gate, and on the brick pillar which forms one
support for it, I gazed involuntarily ; for it had often plea-
sured nie to look upon a name which, cut there, had rendered
it immortal : that name, yet remaining, was that of Gilbert
Wakejicld, a man ever dear to the scholar or the man of
feeling ; and can you wonder, as a Jesuit, I should have
I'ecognised the characters with acuteness of enjoyment?
Perhaps, in a moment of cnniti, — perhaps when a Fresh-
man, it was sculptured there, little thinking, that he should
thereafter raise, by his own industry and from his brain, a
monument far more lasting, — far more pleasing, than pillars
of brick and stone. Fame has immortalized him, and he
might have left to his gyp, the short-lived reputation which
a piece of Sheffield cutlery has here betrayed to have been
his desire. He may say, indeed, with Horace, —
" Exegi momunentum sere perennius
Regalique situ pyramidum altius ?"

I took a parting glance, and, returning through the shades
of the cloisters and courts, again found myself at the ex-
terior gateway of the college.

It was now approaching towards sunset : the evening was
beautiftilly mild, the sky of a deep blue, set off by some
light clouds, which partly shone in their native purity, and
partly gUttered in the farewell beams of the descending
luminary. The west was one blush of crimson, the town
was silent and dark, save where the many-figured spires
and turrets of the college gates and chapels smiled in the
last blaze of splendour. I sauntered off to enjoy the mUd-
ness of the season, upon the " pieces" which separate,



268 FACETI/E CANTABRIGIENSES.

thougli serving to connect, the respective mansions of our
acadeniical residonce.

But 1 Iktu fbuiul that tlie town was yet aUvc ; — the road
from Barnwell was literally crowded and covered with the
families of the townsfolk returning from their evening
walk. I recognised many (/jipa and college servants
amongst them, all aping, by their demeanour, the manners
of their betters, and elocutionizing, in strains of Ciceronian
volubility, upon subjects of every kind, whether calculated
jOr not for the abilities of the speaker to express, or the
mind of the hearer to comprehend. There appeared the
same studied kind of false gentility amongst the trades-
people; and I could not help being amused as the successive
parties passed me, at the ideas presented to me by this
motley group of borrowed manners, and perhaps I should
not be wrong to say, stolen consequence.

The men endeavoured to look honest, and the women, I
could observe, wished to be thought modest. As I vras
hastening from them, and about to turn down towards
Emmanuel, I was accosted by the only gownsman I had

yet seen, my old friend N . A mutual start of surprise

was followed by mutual congratulations and mutual in-
quiries, and the conference ended by our joining company,
and adjourning to his quarters. As soon as I could get an
opportunity of asking him a few questions, unconnected
with the immediate cause of our satisfaction at meeting
thus unexpectedly, I stated to him my disgust at finding
Cambridge so much altered from what I liad known it.
" I have been," said I, " to the north, rambling amidst
mountains, and lakes, and waterfalls, and drinking in the
inspiration of song and quietude, from the most beautiful
scenes of nature, and am now, on my retvu'ii to my friends,
refreshed and delighted with my t(mr. I thought, however,
to have derived some gratification by taking this good old



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 269

place in my way, not doubting that I should have met with,
at least, some old faces and old friends ; but I am horribly
disajjpointed, and after having come with the determination
to stay a week or two, I find myself, after a few hours'
residence, re-detemiined to do no such thing. I shall in-
stantly away, and leave my promised stay to some future
time, when loneliness will not alone reign predominant."
— " You are right, " said he, " you are right; and, when
we have discussed a few cups of that beverage of which it
has been said, —

' Nee tecum vivere possum, nee sine te,'

I will give a few plain and positive reasons for the propriety
of such a measure." We had by this time reached the
walks of Trinity, now untenanted, except where a few bed-
makers were studying attitudes on the brink of the river :
and, in a few minutes, were once more within the sound of
gyp-room and s'lzings. We quafled our chalked milk and
water quietly enough, and passed a pleasant evening very
agreeahhj, as the cockney has it ; and, tliough our con-
versation was not so edifying as one might imagine it would
have been, had the bard of Rimini and his friend '^Jupiter,'
and that " magnum Jovis incrementum," the late (or as
R — , of St. John's, would say, the " defunkit") Johnny
Keats, been present ; yet, on the whole, it was " mighty
good, truly." After bitch had been removed (we request
our female readers not to be alarmed — the Gradus ad
Cantab, a work eminently useful, when reading of Cantabs

and their amusements, will satisfy their scruples), N

addressed me " as follows" (so saith the reporter of the
radical meetings in this part of the world) ; but as I had
forgotten to liring my scril)e with me, and I cannot write
s/icir/-hand (as may be evidenced by the length of tliis



270 TACETIiE CANTABRIGIENSES.

article, wliich I crave pardon for, of your thousands of
readers), I will not take upon me to say I report verbatim ;
nevertheless, the observations my friend made will serve to
show tliat my original theorem (for I must regard the
Kuclidizing Fresliman), was not without proof. " I have
been," said he, " a constant resident in the university, tenn
and non-term, since the beginning of last October, and have,
of course, seen Cambridge in all the gaiety whicli the return
of the men never fails to bring, and in all the dulness which
tlieir going down always produces. I have resided here
tlirough the greater part of four successive years, and have
enjoyed the idleness of a college life, as well as bowed my
back beneath the weight of college discipline ; and I do
assure you, candidly, that I would rather be subjected to
the bore of lectures, schools, and senate-house, for twenty
years to come, than have the task of residing again through
' the long vacation.' We rise late or early, as we please ;
no sound of the matin-bell to awake us to devotion and
mathematics, no vesper-bell to call us away from wine and
wit, to pray out our ' times,' no dread of being ' put out of
sizings and commons,' at the whim or the caprice of a
'senior,' or 'dean,' to disturb oiu- serenity of mind. But
tliese blessings, if snch they maij he called, are amply com-
pensated by a ' number numberless' of contrary circum-
stances. The few who stay here during the summer are
put to sad shifts to amuse themselves, when tired with
reading : there are no morning calls to be made or received ;
no invitations to ' wine' to be given or rejected ; no plans to
be laid for the next mom's ramble. One cannot always be
' at work ;' and to fly to a newspaper for relaxation, and
puzzle the brain with politics, after six hours' liard fag at
Thucydides or Newton, is no sinecure, particularly as the
speculations of modem writers are almost as intelligible,
and certainly as unedifying, as the ' riddle of the Sphinx,'



CAMBRIDGE PARTIES. 2VI

therefore, as we say in argument, the Union is but little
looked to in summer. I sometimes feel inclined to play a
rubber at billiards, but there is no one to play with ; and if
I would try my hand at a cricket-bat, the ground is covered
with none but ' snobs;' — so, from day to day I linger on,
amidst books and papers, sickened and unsatisfied, like the
starling which Sterne tells of, always exclaiming, — ' I can't
get out :' for, if I would, there is a drawback on my scheme,
and I must suffer other hands than my own to gather the
fruit in my own garden ; other ai-ms to support the slender
forms of those who would fly to me for protection ; other
eyes to behold, and other ears to listen to, the sweet, fond,
and kind speeches of my fair friends at home ; whilst, with