Literary Landmarks of Oxford/Merton
MERTON
Merton claims to be the Mother of the Colleges of Oxford. It was founded in 1264, by Walter de Merton, at Malden, in Surrey; and ten years later it was removed to Oxford, where its Founder established it as a precedent for all the colleges, and made its constitution a model for the other institutions in both the English Universities.
Ingram, in his "Memorials of Oxford," says: "The students were no longer dispersed through the streets and lanes of the city, dwelling in isolated houses, halls, inns or hostels, subject to dubious control and precarious discipline; but placed under the immediate superintendence of tutors and governors; and lodged in comfortable chambers. This was little less than an academical revolution; and a new order of things may be dated from this memorable era." Wade adds that not only was the first Common-room fitted up at Merton, but that Merton established the first College Library.
Murray's "Guide," usually reliable, says that the present Common Room, at Merton, dating from 1667, is the oldest now standing in the University, and it puts on record one of the customs of the place—"When dinner is ended here, as at Pembroke, the table is struck, by the Senior Fellow, three times with a trencher. These strokes summon the butler, who enters in his book what each Fellow has had of the buttery supplies. The grace-cup is then handed round, and another stroke of the trencher summons the Bible-clerk to say grace."
Wade describes, in a foot-note, the curious observance in ancient days of what was called "Merton Black Night," which was "a species of diversion observed when the Dean kept the Bachelors at disputation until twelve at night. It consisted in breaking open the buttery and kitchen doors, rifling them of their stores, and making merry with the spoil." When Deans and Bachelors so diverted themselves and made merry, what could be expected of the students, who, by the Founder, were so kindly and so thoughtfully placed under the careful charge of the Bachelors and Deans in question?
Mr. Anthony Wood has preserved some accounts of Merton hazing, in his days (about 1647–1650), in which the traditional horse-play sometimes took serious forms. On All Saints' Eve, and on other Eves, and Saints' Days, up to Christmas, as well as on Shrove Tuesdays, the freshmen, in state of absolute nudity, were put upon a form placed upon the High Table, where they were forced to orate, in prose or in verse—to sing a song, tell a story, or turn a hand-spring—always to be punished for their efforts by some brutal treatment. We learn, from later chronicles, that "under the Commonwealth these Old World jovialities were disused at Merton; and soon afterwards died out." It is to be regretted that New World "jovialities" of the same nature should, under the Republic in America, survive so long and die so hard a death!
The American Undergraduate can, however, be a gentleman, even in his "jovialities"—when he tries. And not infrequently he tries! As was said, one night not long ago at a certain Football Dinner, given to celebrate a great Football victory, when the Toastmaster was peculiarly complimentary to the Poet:
"Oh the toughness of their toughness, when they're tough!
And the roughness of their roughness, when they're rough!
But the toughness of their toughness,
And the roughness of their roughness,
Are not in it with the guffness of their guff."
"Guff" is undergraduate for taffy!
It is not an easy matter now to determine what, or who, were the University Sports before the development of Cricket and Football, and before Boat-racing became a national pastime in Britain. In the multitudinous literature of Oxford, one finds, here and there, allusion, in early days, to poaching in the forest. Merton had a ball court, at the west end of the Chapel, until the Eighteenth Century. One writer of that period speaks of no less than three tennis-courts, together with billiard-tables, nine-pin and skittle-alleys, as "being frequented by the Academical youth." He also alludes to boating, to gunnery, to phaëton-driving, to horsemanship, to tumbling in the hay, to leaping, to wrestling, to playing at quoits, to archery, and to fives. There are ancient rules against bull-baiting and cock-fighting and against the attending of the same. But, nevertheless, G. V. Cox, in his "Recollections of Oxford," tells of a prize fight, in 1824, where an undergraduate Viscount acted as second for one professional combatant, while an undergraduate Baronet held the sponge for another.
The same historian, a delightfully gossipy old gentleman, with a wonderfully prolonged power of recollection, for he begins to recollect in 1789, and he stops recollecting in 1860, says that "in the spring of 1819 appeared a silly sort of anomalous vehicle, called a Velocipede, in which the motion was half-riding and half-walking; it had a run," he says, "but turned out to be no go." The italics are his own. "The only gentleman" [italicized] "I ever saw venturning to use one, was a Fellow and Tutor of New College. His name, curiously enough, was Walker [also italicized]. When he dismounted he exclaimed (like the Irishman who took a ride in the bottomless sedan-chair), 'Well, if it were not for the fashion, I would as lieve walk.'"
In 1899 the son, or rather the daughter, of the velocipede, calling herself a bicycle, absolutely infested Oxford, like a plague of locusts. She was "all the go" there was; her inhabitant, in ninety cases out of a hundred, was a young woman, going somewhere, with a handle-bar and an umbrella in one fist, a handle-bar and a book or a parcel in the other; and no man who could get into a fly or on top of a tram-car "would as lieve walk" through High Street or the Cornmarket, if she were in his wake. For she had no hand left to sound her gong; and if she did not run into him or on to him, she made him wish he were armorplated by a sedan-chair!
The Hon. George C. Broderick, in his "Memorials of Merton," says that while there is no inherent impossibility of Roger Bacon having taught, or lectured, at Merton, as tradition hath it, there is no proof of his not having done so!
He is said to have died at the Franciscan Monastery not far from the Castle. But no sign of it is now left.
As in the case of Bacon, so in the case of Chaucer, everything is left in uncertainty and in doubt. Both the Universities claim him. Cambridge, on the strength of his familiarity with that town, as shown in one of the "Tales"; Oxford, on account of the knowledge of Oxford which he exhibits in another "Tale." In each instance this acquaintance may have been the result of some undergraduate experience, or it may have been merely the result of close observation during some unrecorded Pilgrimage to either place. At all events, it has been pretty clearly established that the Philosophical Strode, one of the most illustrious ornaments of Merton, was a friend, and perhaps at Merton the host, of Chaucer; and Merton, therefore, may set down Chaucer as one of its Literary Landmarks with a shadow more of reason than have any other of the sister institutions in the sister University.
Wood says that "Wycliffe was educated from his first coming to Oxford, at this College [Merton]; but that he left the College because it was weary of him, being a man of turbulent spirit." He was, according to other and varied authorities, first a Commoner of Queen's, then a Fellow of Merton, and then a member, or perhaps a Fellow, of Balliol.
Thomas Bodley, whose lasting monument, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is one of the most marked of the Literary Landmarks of the world, was graduated from Magdalen in 1563, to become a Probationary Fellow of Merton. In 1564 he was an actual Fellow. The next year he began a series of Greek lectures in the College Hall, without stipend, but so much to the benefit of his pupils and to the satisfaction of his peers, that the Society granted him an annual fee of four marks, and made the lectureship permanent. He received his degree of M. A. in 1566, and he lectured on Natural Philosophy in the University Schools. In 1569 he became a Proctor; and as such he closed his active participation in university life.
In 1597–98 he offered to restore to its former use that room which was then all that remained of the old Public Library. "And thus I concluded," he said, "to set up my staff at the Library door in Oxon, being thoroughly persuaded that, in my solitude and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs, I could not busy myself to any better purpose than by converting the place to the public use of students."
It is recorded that so long as Bodley remained in Oxford he passed whole days in that Library, for books could not be taken out; but the Library was open to all scholars for seven or eight hours each day. "You might therefore always see," he said, "many of these greedily enjoying the banquets prepared for them, which gave me no small pleasure."
Bodley was buried, with great pomp and ceremony, in Merton Chapel. He left a large sum of money to buy mourning for his funeral and to furnish a dinner thereafter, the same to be distributed among many persons, including sixty-seven poor scholars; that is, scholars poor in purse but not in intellect.
Anthony Wood was not only a Gownsman, but a Townsman, of Oxford. He was born in Oxford, in one of the old houses opposite Merton; he was, as a boy, at the Choir School of New College, he was matriculated at Merton, and at Merton he died and was buried. His birthplace is set down by Thomas Hearne, as having been Portionist's, or Postmaster's Hall, in St. John the Baptist Street, now Merton Street.
His first school was at the west end of the present Queen Street, opposite the south end of New Hall Street.
Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson, "B. A. Oxon," author of a most readable book called "The Annals of Oxford," in which he modestly asserted that he knew "nearly everything about Oxford in the dark ages," spoke in 1870 rather disrespectfully concerning Anthony Wood, whom he termed "the strangest and least agreeable creature who ever rendered important service to English literature." "A large, lean, gaunt man, with a sour face, stooping shoulders and shambling gait, Anthony Wood," he wrote, "had a sharp, spiteful temper, that in no way belied the querulous expression of a countenance which was forbidding without being misshapen."
If Mr. Wood really did have "a sharp, spiteful temper," which is not unlikely, it is perhaps fortunate for Mr. Jeaffreson that Mr. Wood had been dead for some time when these lines were printed. Mr. Jeaffreson went on to say that Wood, "possessing no intellect that qualified him for higher work than the labor of grubbing and ferreting through old parchments for facts of comparatively small importance, spent his life in the congenial toil of an antiquary, surrounded by materials adapted to his peculiar kind of curiosity." This, as coming from Mr. Jeaffreson, might have hurt the feelings of the present chronicler and grubber after facts, were it not for his realization of the truth that Mr. Jeaffreson had, in two good-sized volumes, been doing the very same thing himself, frequently quoting Mr. Anthony Wood in the doing of it. And this encourages the present ferreter to quote, not only Mr. Wood, but also Mr. Jeaffreson, and through them the musty old parchments which they have searched.
Let us hope that the following view of Wood's character, as given by Sir John Peshall, is the true one: "He had a natural propensity to discover, and an undaunted mind to speak, the truth. He had a sincere abhorrence of everything mean and servile; and if he is guilty at any time of misrepresenting the character of others, it is owing to his first being deceived himself."
Anthony for a time was coached at Merton by his elder brother Edward Wood, who, now and then, applied bodily punishment to the junior. "Edward was inclined to be peevish," and would ever and anon become angry if Anthony could not take in or understand logical notions as well as he. He would sometimes—the statement is Anthony's own—become so angry that he would beat Anthony, and turn him out of his chamber. This went so far at last that Anthony reported the matter at home, and Mrs. Wood—mother-like—made other arrangements!
Anthony, at this time, was seventeen years of age, and it was a long time ago. But elder brothers are still elder brothers!
Anthony was a Postmaster and Landlord of his house, which is still standing, but altered and lacking the porch shown in the rare old prints of it. It is opposite the great Gateway. Like other landlords, then and now, he was not always popular, but he says that "by music and rare books which he found in the Public Library his life, at this time and after, was a perfect Elysium."
There are eighteen Postmasters now at Merton. Mr. Moore tells us that "the Postmaster is an institution peculiar to this foundation, which originated in 1380, for the endowment of a certain number of exhibitioners or poor students, afterwards called Postmasters. They formerly resided in an old Hall nearly opposite, and the abode of Anthony Wood. In 1600 they were received into the College."
There is a curiously sombre and weird story, preserved by Hearne, to the effect that a certain Mr. Wylde, going into St. John's Church (Merton Chapel) one dark and bleak afternoon in November, 1695, found Master Wood "a grave-digging," and was told by the digger that the grave was for Wood himself. His distemper was such that he felt that he had not long to live (and he was quite right), and he wished to see that the hole which he was to occupy was properly excavated and in the right place; to wit, "close to the wall, next to the north door"; and there to this day lies what is left of Wood (if anything is left of him); as the slab still asserts.
Hearne, a very useful writer, says that in 1705 he saw and examined a cast of Wood's head, taken in plaster of Paris, which "shows him to have been a melancholy, thoughtful man." But Hearne does not say that this face was sour, or that its expression was forbidding; nor do these traits appear, in any marked degree, in the original drawing of Wood's face, which is still preserved in the Bodleian.
Whatever became of that death-mask, unfortunately not in the Collection at Princeton University, no man now knows.
Richard Steele was matriculated at Christ Church in 1690; but he became a Postmaster of Merton the next year, when he continued to keep up his intimacy with Addison, then a "Demy" at Magdalen. Steele had some reputation as a student at Merton; and he even tried his 'prentice hand on a comedy there, which he was advised to burn. He left Oxford without a degree in 1694, to enter the army; having made no decided impression upon Oxford in any way.
Henry Edward Manning was a Fellow of Merton in 1832, but the interest of his career at Oxford centres around Balliol, where we have already seen something of him as an undergraduate.