Chapter VII: Early Days at Oxford (1)

It had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda should be printed at the Oxford University Press, and I found that I had often to go there to superintend the printing. Not that the printers required much supervision, as I must say that the printing at the University Press was, and is, excellent—far better than anything I had known in Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes, each of about 1000 pages, it was but natural that _lapsus calami_ should occur from time to time. What surprised me was that several of these were corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At last I asked whether there was any Sanskrit scholar at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets before they were returned. I was told there was not, but that the queries were made by the printer himself. That printer was an extraordinary man. His right arm was slightly paralysed, and he had therefore been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit. There are more than 300 types which a printer must know in composing Sanskrit. Many of the letters in Sanskrit are incompatible, i. e. they cannot follow each other, or if they do, they have to be modified. Every _d_, for instance, if followed by a _t_, is changed to _t_; every _dh_ loses its aspiration, becomes likewise _t_, or changes the next _t_ into _dh_. Thus from _budh_ + _ta_, we have _Buddha_, i. e. awakened. In writing I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but in the proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected. When I asked the printer, who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit, how he came to make these corrections, he said: “Well, sir, my arm gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another, and there are certain movements that never occur. So if I suddenly have to take up types which entail a new movement, I feel it, and I put a query.” An English printer might possibly be startled in the same way if in English he had to take up an _s_ immediately following an _h_. But it was certainly extraordinary that an unusual movement of the muscles of the paralysed arm should have led to the discovery of a mistake in writing Sanskrit. In spite of the extreme accuracy of my printer, however, I saw, that after all it would be better for myself, and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and I decided to migrate from London to Oxford.

My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old town, which I regarded as an ideal home for a student. Besides, I found that I was getting too gay in London, and in order to be able to devote my evenings to society, I had to get up and begin work soon after five. May, therefore, saw me established for the first time in Oxford, in a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my books and papers from London did not take long. At that time my library could still be accommodated in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to 12,000 volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house. A happy time it was when I possessed no books which I had not read, and no one sent books to me which I did not want, and yet had to find a place for in my rooms, and to thank the author for his kindness.

I at once found that my work went on more rapidly at Oxford than in London, though if I had expected to escape from all hospitality I certainly was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as I was to the Spartan diet of a German _convictorium_, or a dinner at the Palais Royal _à deux francs_, the dinners to which I was invited by some of the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards, halting before every guest till he had helped himself. That railway, I am afraid, is gone now; and what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty evenings spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the past. Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return home after dinner, and junior Fellows go to their books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a married Fellow would have sounded like a solecism. The story goes that married Fellows were not entirely unknown, and that you could hold even a fellowship, if you could hold your tongue. Young people, however, who did not possess that gift of silence, had often to wait till they were fifty, before a college living fell vacant, and the quinquagenarian Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.

What impressed me, however, even more than the great hospitality of Oxford, was the real friendliness shown to an unknown German scholar. After all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words which Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the British Association, had evidently produced an impression in my favour far beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a very strange bird, such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young, but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world. Frequently, when I was walking through the streets of Oxford, I observed how people stared at me, and seemed to whisper some information about me. Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I never owed a penny to anybody; when I wanted money I could always make it by going on faster with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received four pounds a sheet. This seemed to me then a large sum, though many a sheet took me at first more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand, and finally print. If I was interested in any other subject, my exchequer suffered accordingly—but I could always retrieve my losses by sitting up late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares about money, and when I once began to write in English for English journals, I had really more than I wanted. My first article in the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared in October, 1851.

At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of remaining in this academic paradise, never entered my head. I was here to print my Rig-veda and work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years be an M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most exclusive of colleges, nay, a married Fellow—a being not even invented then—and a professor of the University, never entered into my wildest dreams. I could only admire, and admire with all my heart. Everything seemed perfect, the gardens, the walks in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and undergraduates. My ideas were still so purely continental that I could not understand how the University could do such a thing as incorporate a foreign scholar—could, in fact, govern itself without a Minister of Education to appoint professors, without a Royal Commissioner to look after the undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments. And here at Oxford I was told that the Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford the Government, that the only ruling power consisted in the Statutes of the University, that professors and tutors were perfectly free so long as they conformed to these statutes, and that certainly no minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the Regius professors. “If we want a thing done,” my friends used to explain to me, “we do it ourselves, as long as it does not run counter to the statutes.”

But Oxford changes with every generation. It is always growing old, but it is always growing young again. There was an old Oxford four hundred years ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago. To a man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as it was when he was a freshman, seems quite a thing of the past. By the public at large no place is supposed to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet people who knew it forty or fifty years ago, like myself, find it now so changed that, when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place. Even architecturally the streets of the University have changed, and here not always for the better. Architects unfortunately object to mere imitation of the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce something entirely their own, which may be very good by itself, but is not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings. I still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution, the only Palladian building at Oxford, and yet everybody has now grown reconciled to it, and even Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not have done, if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would never lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a letter sadly reproving me for causing Broad Street to be defaced by such a building, when I had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his condemnation of other new buildings. He abused even the New Museum, though he had a great deal to do with it himself. He had hoped that it would be the architecture of the future, but he confessed after a time that he was not satisfied with the result.

In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge, the Bodleian unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was so offended by the new bridge, by the restored Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go ever so far round to avoid these eyesores, when he had to deliver his lectures; and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of course, no use in arguing with him. Most people like the new Magdalen Bridge because it agrees better with the width of High Street; they consider the Bodleian well restored, particularly now that the new stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls, and as to tram-cars, objectionable as they are in many respects, they certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety omnibuses. The new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London police-station, offended him deeply, and with more justice, particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at Corpus.

These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford. The stone, with which most of the old colleges were built, was taken from a quarry close to Oxford, and began to peel off and to crumble in a very curious manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and by moonlight they are certainly picturesque, but the colleges had to think of what was safe. My own college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and had to be restored or replaced by new ones. Every one of these pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested, and wanted repairing or replacing. Many years ago, when I was spending the whole Long Vacation at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man who was supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles. He was armed with a large crowbar, which he ran with all his might against the unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls of any Roman castellum could have resisted such a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and when the builder made his next report to us, we rather objected to the large number of invalids. He was not to be silenced, however, so easily, but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any day on our Warden when he went to chapel. This, he thought, would settle the matter. But no, it made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows, and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in consequence.

It is true that Oxford has always loved what is old better than what is new, and has resisted most innovations to the very last. A well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to see an Oxford petition against it, for that measure was sure to be carried very soon. It should not be forgotten, however, that there always has been a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned as something quite antediluvian, that Oxford, that is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned against the Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts; but it is equally true that not many years later it petitioned for a branch line to keep the University in touch with the rest of the world.

Many things, of course, have been changed, and are changing every year before our very eyes; but what can never be changed, in spite of some recent atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty of its gardens, and the historical character of its architecture. Whether Friar Bacon, as far back as the thirteenth century, admired the colleges, chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know; and even if we did, few of them could have been the same as those which we admire to-day. We must not forget that Greene’s _Honourable History of Friar Bacon_ does not give us a picture of what Oxford was when seen by that famous philosopher, who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose College, probably long before that College existed; but what is said in that play in praise of the University, may at least be taken as a recollection of what Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the _History of Friar Bacon_, Greene introduces the Emperor of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he puts into his mouth the following lines, which, though they cannot compare with Shelley’s or Mat Arnold’s, are at all events the earliest testimony to the natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley’s and Mat Arnold’s lines are well known and are always quoted, so that I venture to quote Greene’s lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply because they are probably known to very few of my readers:

“Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools
Are richly seated near the river-side:
The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks,
The town gorgeous with high built colleges,
And scholars seemly in their grave attire.”

[10] Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College
are connected with this word?

The mountains round Oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence, whether they were meant for Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The German traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598, is more true to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain in which Oxford lies.

But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always been admired and praised by strangers, the doctors and professors of the old University have not always fared so well at the hands of English and foreign critics. I shall not quote from Giordano Bruno, who visited England in 1583-5, and calls Oxford “the widow of true science[11],” but Milton surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against Oxford. Yet he writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard Jones: “There is indeed plenty of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there. There are books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the place.”

[11] _Opere_, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.

These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons seem to go on to the very beginning of our century. The buildings and gardens are praised, but by way of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of jealousy, their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule. Not long ago a book was published, _Memoirs of a Highland Lady_. Though published in 1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as 1809. Nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly more than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very girlish, not to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed some time with the then Master of University, Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she always shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford is spared. She arrived there at the time of Lord Grenville’s installation as Chancellor of the University. Though so young, she was taken to the Theatre, and this is her description of what she saw and heard:—“It was a shock to me; I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit. There were some purple, and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a great crowd, and some stir at times, while a deal of humdrum speaking and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the students, as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in his temple guarded by his priests.” One thing only she was delighted with, that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts. Yet even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang “Gott safe the King.” She evidently was a flippant young lady or child, and with her sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems to have found herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the University.

The room in the Master’s Lodge which appalled her most and seems to have been used as a kind of schoolroom, was the Library, full of Divinity books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace. Here they had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic, history, geography, and French. “And the Master,” she adds, “opened to us what had been till then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this visit to Oxford proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life.”

This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society. But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.

Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale, college home-brewed ale. “How fat we got!” she exclaims. The Master seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of Houses. “The various Heads,” she writes, “with their respective wives, were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style; there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in love with her brother’s tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the lesser clergy, there were young witty ones—odious; young learned ones—bores; and elderly ones—pompous; all, however, of all grades, kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle, considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china, and massive plate.”

“The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the young, riotous community, and to a certain extent the Proctors of the University and the Deans of the different colleges did see that no very open scandal was committed. There were rules that had in a general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even thought of. The very meaning of the word ‘education’ did not appear to be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to deceive the dignitaries.” This was in 1809, and even later.

And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described, and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt, may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master’s Lodge, with the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to the gardens.

One of these young men, who was at University College at the same time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley. What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it deserves to be repeated. “Mr. Shelley,” we read, “afterwards so celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately, out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once. He and his son left Oxford together.”

No one would recognize in this picture the University of Oxford, as it is at present. _Nous avons changé tout cela_ might be said with great truth by the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows of the present day. And yet what the Highland lady, or rather the Highland girl, describes, refers to times not so long ago but that some of the men we have known might have lived through it. How this change came about I cannot tell, though I can bear testimony to a few survivals of the old state of things.

The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the Heads of Houses and of the Hebdomadal Board. That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of Houses, and a most important board it was, considering that the whole administration of the University was really in its hands. The colleges, on the other hand, were very jealous of their independence; and even the authority of the Proctors, who represented the University as such, was often contested within the gates of a college. It is wonderful that this old system of governing the University through the Heads of Houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with considerable power in the administration of his own college, it was supposed that the Head would prove equally useful in the administration of the University. A Head of a House became at once a member of the Council. And, on the whole, they managed to drive the coach and horses very well. But often when I had to take foreigners to hear the University Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking into St. Mary’s in procession, with a most startling combination of colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on their heavy gowns and sleeves, I found it difficult to explain who they were. “Are they your professors?” I was asked. “Oh, no,” I said, “the professors don’t wear red gowns, only Doctors of Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every Head of a House must have something to wear in public, he is invariably made a Doctor.” I remember one exception only, and at a much later time, namely, the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at the Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most valued distinctions never to have worn the gown of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is well known that when Marshal Blücher was made a Doctor at Oxford he asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General Gneisenau, his right-hand man, might at least be made a chemist. He certainly had mixed a most effective powder for the French army under Napoléon.

“But,” my friend would ask, “have you no _Senatus Academicus_, have you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other Christian universities?” “Yes and no,” I said. “We have professors, but they are not divided into faculties, and they certainly do not form the _Senatus Academicus_, or the highest authority in the University.”

It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as soon as a good tutor is made a professor, he is considered of no good for the real teaching work of the colleges. His lectures are generally deserted; and I could quote the names of certain professors who afterwards rose to great eminence, but who at Oxford were simply ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted. The real teaching or coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and Fellows of each college, and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands. Many undergraduates never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching work of the University is concerned, the professorships might safely be abolished. And yet, as I could honestly assure my foreign friends, the best men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite the equals of the best men at Paris or Berlin. The professors may not be so distinguished, but that is due to a certain extent to the small salaries attached to some of the chairs. England has produced great names both in science and philosophy and scholarship, but these have generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres. When I first came to Oxford one professor received £40 a year, another £1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities. A certain amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a certain chair, and every holder of the chair received whatever the endowment yielded. The mode of appointing professors was very curious at that time. Often the elections resembled parliamentary elections, far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A. had a vote, and these voters were scattered all over the country. Canvassing was carried on quite openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and lists were kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for the liberal or the conservative candidate. Imagine a professor of medicine or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal! Some appointments rested with the Prime Minister, or, as it was called, the Crown; and it was quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington, that he, when Chancellor of the University, once insisted that the electors should elect the best man, and they had to yield, though there were electors who would declare their own candidate the best man, whatever the opinion of really qualified judges might be. All this election machinery is much improved now, though an infallible system of electing the best men has not yet been discovered. One single elector, who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a member of his own college, particularly when the feeling that it is dishonourable to disclose the vote of each elector is no longer strong enough to protect the best interests of the University.

It took me some time before I could gain an insight into all this. The old system passed away before my very eyes, not without evident friction between my different friends, and then came the difficulty of learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been devised and sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even among the Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke College, who was credited with having _rajeuni l’ancienne université_. But he was by no means the only, or even the chief actor in University reform. Many of my personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. H. G. Liddell, afterwards Dean of Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson, afterwards Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith as Secretaries, did honest service in the various Royal and Parliamentary Commissions, and spent much of their valuable time in serving the University and the country. I could do no more than answer the questions addressed to me by the Commissioners and by my friends, and this is really all the share I had at that time in the reform of the University, or what was called Germanizing the English Universities. At one time such was the unpopularity of these reformers in the University itself that one of them asked one of the junior professors to invite him to dinner, because the Heads of Houses would no longer admit him to their hospitable boards.

Certainly to have been a member of the much abused Hebdomadal Board, and a Head of a College in those pre-reform days must have been a delightful life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire. The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed to be the property of the Heads, and in some of them the Fellows were really chosen by them, and the rest of the Fellows after some kind of examination. The management of University affairs was likewise entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and it was on rare occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of non-resident M.A.s, and brought them to Oxford to record their vote for or against the constituted authorities. Men like the Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and the Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme, till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as Dr. Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A. P. Stanley, Goldwin Smith and others.

Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old régime. It was rather the want of life that was complained of. It began to be felt that Oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign Universities, not only as a high school, but as a home of what then was called for the first time “original research.” There can be no question that as a teaching body, as a high school at the head of all the public schools in England, Oxford did its duty nobly. A man who at that time could take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well fitted for any work in after life. He would not necessarily turn out an original thinker, a scholar, or a discoverer in physical science, but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly. To take honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength and grasp, and the effort was certainly considerable, as I found out when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author with a young undergraduate friend. What struck me most was the accurate knowledge a candidate acquired of special authors and special books, but also the want of that familiarity with the language, Greek or Latin, which would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease. The young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they knew they knew thoroughly.

The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and answers; while lectures, written and read out, were looked down upon as good enough for professors, but entirely useless for the schools. The social tone of the University was excellent. Many of the tutors and of the undergraduates came of good families, and the struggle for life, or for a college living, or college office, was not, as yet, so fierce as it became afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously. There was perhaps little ambition, little scheming or pushing, but the work of the University, such as the country would have it, was well done. If the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter failures also was not very large.

For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial, though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret, and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the Universities was impossible till the public schools had been thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is, unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men; the real burden falls on the colleges and tutors who have to work hard to bring their pupils up to the standard of a pass degree, and few people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now, because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once, or not at all.

I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves; and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.

Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent, and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent. There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of continuity in the studies and in the government of the University. Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery, though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the interests of each regiment.

When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German, _verrathen und verkauft_. After dinner I saw a number of young men streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively. But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room. They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them, and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told, was called “doing the perpendicular,” and they must have felt much relieved when towards ten o’clock they were allowed to depart, and exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.

At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social life—the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell, Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music, particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play, and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent, audience.

In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole furniture and the plate quite confounded me, and I became still more confounded when I was suddenly called upon to make a speech at a time when I could hardly put two words together in English.

The City society was completely separated from the University society, so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have ventured to ask members of the University to dine.

Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim _seniores priores_, and will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable doctor’s claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his wish to have the _C, anno centesimo_, on his gravestone, for, though tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter; he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years. His edition of the _Enthymemes_ and _Gorgias of Plato_ was published in 1784, his papers on the _Ignatian Epistles_ in 1854. His _Reliquia Sacra_ first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions of historical works, such as Burnet’s _History of his own Time_ and the _History of the reign of King James_, show his considerable acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking round the Parks at Oxford.

However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as above. Many of these stories or “Common-Roomers” as they were called, still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert, and to talk on anything but what was called _Shop_, i. e. Greek and Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if I had never heard them before.

Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality. I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers. I don’t recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette. How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt, in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford, but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.

Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero of many anecdotes. It was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an undergraduate because, whenever he looked out of window, he invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad; to which the undergraduate replied: “How very curious, for whenever I cross the quad, I always see you, Sir, looking out of window.” He had a quiet humour of his own, and delighted in saying things which made others laugh, but never disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had to say a few sharp words to him at “handshaking,” that is, at the end of term. After saying all he wanted, he finished in Latin: “Et nunc valeas Wyndhamme,”—the last two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis. The Master’s regard for his own dignity was very great. Once, when returning from a solitary walk, he slipped and fell. Two undergraduates seeing the accident ran to assist him, and were just laying hands on him to lift him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming. “Stop,” he cried, “stop, I see a Master of Arts coming down the street.” And he dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped on to his legs by the M.A.

Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to everybody, even to a Head of a House. One of these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham, when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to introduce Sir Peregrine Maitland, a most distinguished officer, and a thoroughly good man. When dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine had done in India, he called him again and again Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect was most ludicrous, for everybody was evidently well acquainted with _Roderick Random_, and Sir Peregrine had great difficulty in remaining serious when the Chairman called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to address his somewhat perplexed audience.