Oxford Letter

Good brother Calif orniensis

Mercurius Oxoniensis

Good brother Californiensis,

What you have heard is, alas, but too true: the Old-soules' Club has indeed been burn'd

down, at least its most exquisite part, being' the old Warden's lodgings, which are now a charr'd and blacken'd ruine. But since Dame Rumour, in crossing the intervening Ocean, has amplified the details of the disaster, I shall now give you a full and accurate accompt.

The fire was lit (involuntarily) by our worthy Zoroastrian magus, Master Zaehner, the Spalding Professor of Oriental Religion, who occupied those delicate panell'd rooms. He, being studious of exotique enthusiasts, as Holy Rollers, Whirling Dervishes, Assassins, etc., and desiring to repair the credit of the club (much sunk in that respect) by writing a work of scholarship and devotion, went over to your parts, as I am told, to discuss certain nice points of doctrine with Master Charles Manson, the high priest of your mysticall murtherers, now awaiting just execution for his barbarous crimes. But the governor of your state prison, not understanding these arguments, and fearing some bold conspiracy for the escape of his prisoner, denied access; and so our poor professor must return, re infecta to the Club; where, being wearied by that long journey, he poured out for himself an ample draught of strong waters, lit himself a cigarette, and, sinking into his chair, fell straightway into a delicious sleep; from which afterwards awaking, and finding the cigarette fallen from his lips into a deep crevice of his chair, he snuff'd it out (as he thought) by pouring the unconsum'd residue of his strong waters into the same crevice and retir'd to his bed to continue more cozily his interrupted slumbers. But alas, those embers being not wholly quench'd, the hidden fire smoulder'd on in the chair and at last brake forth; and so, in the small hours of the morning, our poor professor was smoak'd like a badger from his earth, and having crept and stumbled through the fumes, came coughing and blinking to the Club lodge. There the Porter, an aged but stout and gallant man (as all that tribe are), being rous'd from his pallet, straightway fetch'd the Fire Brigade and reported the matter to Master Warden Spar row; who came forth as he was, in his toga, carrying his fiddle; for he had, of course, been fiddling while the Club burn'd.

And now, suddenly, from nightly torpor, all was life and motion. For five great fire-engines came with great speed and noyse to the Club; scaling-ladders were hoist aloft, hose pipes uncoil'd, great waterspouts discharged, the whole place drench'd; and Master War den, resuming his old character of a colonel of his late Majesty's Guards, cast aside his fiddle, darted his experienced eye this way and that, and barked imperious orders to all men. Whereby in the end the flames were put out, but not before those incomparable lodg ings, betwixt fire and water, had been wholly destroy'd; and 'twas but chance (as Ucalegon Corn ubiensis never ceases to remind the poor

professor) that the whole Club was not destroy'd too, and all the Fellows roasted alive in it, like wasps in their nest, and one of 'em in particular, which buzzes higher, and stings sharper, than them all.

Such is the true history of the Great Fire of the Old-soules' club. The other event of this last term was the election of a new Publick Oratour; upon which, the office being sufficiently curious, and the election itself somewhat unusual!, I shall now venture to dilate a little.

Know then that our Publick Oratour is an officer of the university, of antient dignity, elected by our whole body to be our spokesman and ambassadour on solemn occasions, delivering our publick speeches (as my lord Crew's oration) and presenting to the Chancellour those great persons upon whom he bestows our honorary degrees; for which function we choose one of fine presence, courtly address, golden voyce, shapely legs, . familiarity with the world, etc., etc.; who also, of course, must speak the Latin tongue (which we use for such purposes) with some fluency and elegancy. Howsoever, of late years, while the functions of our oratour have grown (for anno 1912 he took over the rights of certain professors who, till then, had presented in their own provinces of learning), the knowledge of the Latin tongue has (alas) dwindled, and that to such a point that the oratour is now customarily elected from amonst the teachers of Latin, as if they only could be fully qualified; which is a sad confession of our weakness, and perhaps not wholly or necessarily true.

So I come to our late election, which was occasion'd by the superannuation of our present oratour, Master Hardie of Magdalen coll., who, having filled that post with dignity for several years, is now to retire and take his ease in a fair house in Sussex. Which fact being declar'd, a group of publick-spirited senatours caballed together and propounded, as his successor, one Master Bond of Pembroke coll., who, they said, had all the gifts requisite for that offite. So they publish'd his name, and their own, which they assured themselves (they being heads of houses, professors of Greek, and suchlike Panjandrums) would effectually shut out all other candidates and prevent the inconvenience of a contest; in which, however, they were mistaken, as others before 'em.

For at this point of time there were heard, in my own Turl-street, some strange, highpitch'd, polysyllabicall squeaks, in a Welsh accent, and behold, from a dark corner of Jesus coll., up starts one Master Griffith who for these thirty years has taught the young fry there to parse and construe and how to imitate Tully his clausulae and turn bus-tickets and laundry-lists into Pindarique odes and Ovidian elegies. This Master Griffith would by no means suffer himself to be overlook'd, but cry'd out that as he yielded to no man in the exquisite curves of his legs or the melody of his voyce or the gravity of his conversation, so no man knew better than he how to cook up a Latin oration, seasoning it with ingeniose conceits and exotique words' (as bubulci, opiliones, etc.), to give it a rich fragrance of the lexicon and the lamp; and he added, besides all this, that he was a Senior Man, and so head of the queue, and that 'twas an impertinency for any other to jump in front of him, and especially for Master Bond, who (said he) was but a mushroom of a night's growth compared with himself who had borne the heat and burden of the day, etc„ etc. Which said, he trotted off down Brazen-nose lane to Brazen-nose coll., where his old father (who had taught natural philosophy there) was kindly remember'd, and there bewail'd the gross injustice done to himself, and call'd upon the Hungarians and other minority races to join in defence of their threaten'd liberties, and bade 'em go rustle up the Science laboratories (the finest brute vote in the university); and meanwhile he writ

. privy letters to professors, uttering dark threats that, if he were not elected, he would retire to his tent, like Achilles, and would withdraw his labour, or part of it, from that Faculty, so that the young fry would no longer know where to learn their Greek accidence and accents, particles and participles, etc., and all antient letters would thereby founder, and the new Dark Age, long prophesied by Master Beloff, would suddenly rush in upon us, and we should never see the cheerful dawn, never hear the bird of morning sing. Which ingeniose reasons so far prevail'd with the Brazen-nose men, the men of science, the Hungarian interest, etc., that Master Griffith, by a plurality of votes, was carried to victory, and so the succession is now determin'd to him, and henceforth we are to know that whereas we are free to elect whom we will as our oratour, yet the only proper candidate is the Senior Man, whoever he may be, among those who teach the boys Latin and Greek.

This election has been the cause of much triball rejoicing in Jesus coll. and in the mountains of Wales, where 'tis noted that both the next Vice-chancellour and the next Publick Oratour are of that nation and that college; but in other coils, there is some murmuring, and 'tis even propounded by some that Master Vice-chancellour should be pray'd to quash this election, as procur'd by strange

. practices and inducements. But others think this too extream a course and say that we

must put up with our present lot, since no election is free from some such practices, but that, for the future, we must look to our liberties, for 'tis against reason that our right of election should be so limited; and they add that if 'tis true that so few of us can speak Latin, then our orations should be in English, so that next time we can elect our oratour for his lively oratory, not for his pendantick and Mechanicall skill in laying out the corpse of a dead language. But to this others reply that We should in no way abandon the Latin toneue which, besides its admirable brevity, is necessary upon such occasions like the Ital-. ian in our opera-houses, to conceal the insipidity of the thought; and therefore we should divide the two offices and elect an oratour to act the part but (if he be not perfect in latinity) yet fee another to write his speeches for him; for which there is good warrant both Within this university and without. And such is the present state of that controversy.

Now, to conclude, I must correct an errour In one of my earlier letters to you. For whereas I inform'd you (as was generally reported here) that our incomparable Professor Dr Dame Helen Gardner had tragically perish'd, impaled on the left tusk of a Cornish mastodon, then rampaging, I am now happy to say that this report has since prov',..; exaggerated. How the lady was snatch'd from certain death is not yet clear. 'Tis said by some that her guardian angel interven'd, substituting an eidolon, or ghostly dummy, in the place

Of danger, and whisking her away, in a dense Cloud, to safety in Eynsham, where she has since been seen by the disciples receiving visits from the beau monde, who bring her Presents of oysters, champagne, truffles, calves' foot gelly, etc., to restore her nerves after that fearful experience. But however that May be her miraculous delivery has caused universall delight among us litterati, for truly She is the undisputed queen of good letters amongst us, whom none admires more than Your loving friend Mercurius Oxoniensis