Good Brother Cantabrigiensis
Mercurius Oxoniensis
Good brother Cantabrigiensis, I am truly sorry to read of your late Cambridge stirs, which have obliged you to call in that great legislator and arbiter of all publick affairs, my Lord Devlin, to set you aright; but you must remember that 'twas all in February, mense nefastd, when the young men are always, as it were, on heat. But now March is come, when that periodicall lunacy, according to the great cycle of Dame Nature, passes on to our innocent fellow-creatures, the hares. Therefore be not dismay'd. Even here we have had some faint February palpitations, which, though otherwise unworthy of note, yet I will recount for your consolation; for truly, in these days, one university should say to another
Hand ignara mall miseris succurrere disco.
The occasion of these -palpitations is the vast machine which for the past two years has been cluttering Master Registrar's L'umber Room, viz: the great systeme of rationall self-government by under graduates set up by our own domestick legislator, to whom my Lord Devlin now pays such tribute, Master Verulamius Hart. You will recall that Master Hart was put on work by Master Vice-chancellour to devise such a system; and that he, being himself perfectly rationall, and supposing that the young men were no less rational! and really desired those things that they clamour'd for, constructed a noble fabrick wherein all their demands, how diffuse and aery soever, were drawn together, and gratify'd, in a systeme of perfect symmetry. This majestick machine was then wheel'd into archbishop Sheldon's Theatre, like the Trojan horse, surrounded by a great troupe of the Elect, chanting dithyram6s, and crying out that 'twas a sacred object let down from Heaven and a sure means to save our university from the fanatiques by handing it over to the busybodies. Whereupon the members of Congregation came, week by week, into that theatre to see this new portent, and having pull'd it apart, and examined each severall wheel, cog, ratchet and pinion, and declared 'em all perfect, and having shown their criticall spirit and zeal for the publick good by making long rhapsodical! speeches, and pouring in drops of oil here and there, and crowning the thing with garlands, they carried it up in triumph to Master Registrar's Lumber Room, where it has stood ever since: a great nuisance and impediment to all business, like the whitened bones of those dusty old dinosaurs which our grave and portly men of science must labour to circumnavigate in the University Musaeum, being of no apparent use, but too quaint, elaborate and costly to throw away.
Meanwhile, the young busybodies, for whom all this was done, having left Oxon, and the greater part of the new young men caring for none of these things, the poor residue of the fanatiques, craving for some cordiall to revive their drooping spirits, and learning that this great engine of power is mouldering in a garret, have resolv'd to capture it and turn it to their own use. So they waited till February, when the seasonall oestrus or prick should be at work in our placid herd, and then cry'd out that 'twas pity to leave so noble a machine untended, and that, rather than let it rust, they would themselves undertake to man and manage it, but upon their own conditions only, which, at the beginning, were but three.
First, they demanded that their President and officers be elected by them not indirectly through their colleges, as Master Hart had proposed; for that, they said, was a meer trick to ensure the choice of known men of good repute, whereby they themselves would never come to rule. Secondly, they demanded that the necessary quorum of their assemblies be reduced to a meer remnant, or Rump, which they could easily dominate. Thirdly, they requir'd that their President, having been elected directly by the acclamation of this faithfull rump, should enjoy what they impertinently called a sabbatique year: that is, that during his year of office he should be released from all study and be altogether idle and free only to agitate.
To this our governours demurred, saying (very rationally) that such freedom was neither desirable nor necessary in this our university. For first, we ourselves have no such custom, our domestick rulers continuing their duties in their colleges, and we poor tutours bravely shouldering such added burthens as to be dean, or sit in committees, or take care of our winecellars, etc.; and what is sauce for the gander (said they) will serve also for the goose. And secondly they remarked that there are here no great buildings, offices, assembly-halls, etc. for these young busybodies to manage, and few problemes of equall concern to all undergraduates, they being dispers'd in their several] colleges, where, on such great issues as the smuggling in and out of girls, the price of victual's, ale, etc. etc., they must wrastle not centrally, in a publick arena, with Master Vice-chancellour, but locally, in corners, with their college deans, who know all their tricks and can give 'em a shrewd fall, now and then, and with their college bursars, who, being mostly admiralls, bearing honourable scars of tempest, battle and bottle, are not to be frighted by a flock of idle gulls and kittiwakes flapping about the bilge.
These rationall answers, you can be sure, satisfied not the fanatiques, who have always hated our confederation of colleges as an obstacle to their demagogick power and will in no wise accept it as final!; and indeed they have sought, in past months, to find a central! hall to be their Kremlin, or headquarters, and thereby to justify their large demands; and to that end they have cast envious eyes upon the Oxon Union, the nursery of our statesmen, where infant Pitts their tender voyces try, in anticipation of the hustings and the Parliament-house. But herein they were foiled by Master Maclagan of Trinity coll., the former Lord Mayor of Oxon, and his brethren, the loyall guardians of that place. So, finding no escape from their colleges, and no support within 'em, the poor fanatiques resolv'd to go it alone, and put their demands directly to the Hebdomadall Council, as an ultimatum, saying that if they were not granted, they would do great things—what they would be, they knew not, but they would shake the earth; and to show their strength, they summoned all the faithfull to come and besiege my Lord Clarendon's building whilst our councillors were sitting therein, deliberating these demands. So on February 12, in response to that call, a small group assembled there, bearing a banner declaring 'em to be the Communist Society of Warwick University; which university, being on strike (as they say), has this poor stage-army at its disposall, to send hither and thither, to support the Good Old Cause.
This brave show of force did not terrify our councillors into submission, and so now the poor fanatiques, being at a stand, have met together and made long speeches and, though not a quorum, have nevertheless resolved upon their next move: which is, to declare their independence of the university (while still enjoying all its rights, privileges, etc.) and to repudiate those parts of Master Hart's machine which are not to their liking, and to elect their President by private acclamation of themselves, and to offer him a year of idleness whether his college will or no, and to call upon the National! Union of Students (their faery godmother) to pay the cost of this extravagancy. Which resolution Master Vice-chancellour has noted, and says gravely that he will cross that bridge when he comes to it, and meanwhile he will attend to more important business; but if these poor creatures will go forward as they say, then he will draw out the consequences, and act accordingly. For what our Congregation (which is the sovereign legislature of the University) resolved to accept was not a meer jumble of such odd parts as the fanatiques may condescend to leave untouch'd, but an entire systeme of exquisite order and cohaerency; and therefore, if the fanatiques will rudely pluck out and cast away those vital] parts which displease 'em, he will equally cast away the remainder; and so that whole , huge engine, being dismember'd certatim from either side, will disappear in the twinkling of an eye, and become a meer phantasme in the memory; and although a modell of it may yet be preserved in our Musaeum for the edification of posterity, or a silver replica be used in Brazen-nose coll, to grind the snuff or push round the port-decanter, yet the originall will have no more substance than the paper parliaments of the Levellers or Master Harrington's Rota; and so this university will go on as it has done for the last eight hundred years, to the great satisfaction of all lovers of learning and good manners. and especially of Your loving friend Mercurius Oxoniensis P.S.: We have elected a new Publick Oratour to articulate our quaint Latin speeches on grand occasions. The Welshmen of Jesus coll, have prevailed, after a sharp contest: 'twas a rash venture to seek to forestall 'em. So now, though the Muse of Latinity be doomed to desert the earth, yet she shall utter her last syllables in the accent of Turl-street.
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