قراءة كتاب Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars
tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">198
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE
NUTS TO CRACK;
OR,
QUIPS, QUIRKS, ANECDOTE AND FACETE.
WAS OXFORD OR CAMBRIDGE FIRST FOUNDED?
“Oxford must from all antiquity have been either somewhere or nowhere. Where was it in the time of Tarquinius Priscus? If it was nowhere, it surely must have been somewhere. Where was it?”—Facetiæ Cant.
Here is a conundrum to unravel, or a nut to crack, compared to which the Dædalean Labyrinth was a farce. After so many of the learned have failed to extract the kernel, though by no means deficient in what Gall and Spurzheim would call jawitiveness (as their writings will sufficiently show,) I should approach it with “fear and trembling,” did I not remember the encouraging reproof of “Queen Bess” to Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall”—so dentals to the task, come what may. A new light has been thrown upon the subject of late, in an unpublished “Righte Merrie Comedie,” entitled “Trinity College, Cambridge,” from which I extract the following
JEU DE POESIE.
When first our Alma Mater rose,
Though we must laud her and love her,
Nobody cares, and nobody knows,
And nobody can discover:
Some say a Spaniard, one Cantaber,
Christen’d her, or gave birth to her,
Or his daughter—that’s likelier, more, by far,
Though some honour king Brute above her.
Pythagoras, beans-consuming dog,
(’Tis the tongue of tradition that speaks,)
Built her a lecture-room fit for a hog,[2]
Where now they store cabbage and leeks:
And there mathematics he taught us, they say,
Till catching a cold on a dull rainy day,
He packed up his tomes, and he ran away
To the land of his fathers, the Greeks.
But our Alma Mater still can boast,
Although the old Grecian would go,
Of glorious names a mighty host,
You’ll find in Wood, Fuller and Coe:
Of whom I will mention but just a few—
Bacon, and Newton, and Milton will do:
There are thousands more, I assure you,
Whose honours encircle her brow.
Then long may our Alma Mater reign,
Of learning and science the star,
Whether she were from Greece or Spain,
Or had a king Brute for her Pa;
And with Oxon, her sister, for aye preside,
For it never was yet by man denied,
That the world can’t show the like beside,—
Let echo repeat it afar!
[2] The School of Pythagoras is an ancient building, situated behind St. John’s College, Cambridge, wherein the old Grecian, says tradition, lectured before Cambridge became a university. Whether those who say so lie under a mistake, as Tom Hood would say, I am not now going to inquire. At any rate, “sic transit,” the building is now a barn or storehouse for garden stuff. Those who would be further acquainted with this relique of by-gone days, may read a very interesting account of it extant in the Library of the British Museum, illustrated with engravings, and written by a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, to which society, says Wilson, in his Memorabilia Catabrigiæ, “it was given by Edward IV., who took it from King’s College, Cambridge. It is falsely supposed to have been one of the places where the Croyland Monks read lectures.”
It matters little whether we sons of Alma Mater sprung from the loins of Pythagoras, Cantaber, or the kings Brute and Alfred. They were all respectable in their way, so that we need not blush, “proh pudor,” to own their paternity. But let us hear what the cutting writer of Terræ Filius has to say on the subject. “Grievous and terrible has been the squabble, amongst our chronologers and genealogists concerning
THE PRECEDENCE OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.
What deluges of Christian ink have been shed on both sides in this weighty controversy, to prove which is the elder of the two learned and most ingenious ladies? It is wonderful to see that they should always be making themselves older than they really are; so contrary to most of their sex, who love to conceal their wrinkles and gray hairs as much as they can; whereas these two aged matrons are always quarrelling for seniority, and employing counsel to plead their causes for ’em. These are Old Nick Cantalupe and Caius on one side, and Bryan Twynne and Tony Wood on the other, who, with equal learning, deep penetration, and acuteness, have traced their ages back, God knows how far: one was born just after the siege of Troy, and the other several hundred years before Christ; since which time they have gone by as many names as the pretty little