another college, in a moment of thoughtlessness, exclaimed, "This is a beggarly college indeed, the plate that our founder stole would build another as good." For this irreverent exclamation, Cuffe was formally deprived of his fellowship, sacrificed for a jest to the outraged memory of the joke-loving Sir Thomas; and Warton, with amusing gravity, justifies the expulsion, because "he wantonly converted one of his practical jokes, a species of humour not uncommon among our festive ancestors, into a petty larceny."[1]
An incident in the life of Bathurst may excite a smile. No college in Oxford suffered more severely in the Civil Wars than Balliol. After the Restoration, Trinity, which had been more fortunate, soon recovered itself, but the blackened walls of Balliol remained for years a picture of desolation, and a sad memento of the fury of factious animosity. One side of the building looks into the gardens of Trinity, and Bathurst, then head of his
- ↑ Poor Cuffe! his joviality had a sad termination:
"Doctus eras Græce felixque tibi fuit Alpha
At fuit infelix Omega Cuffe tuum."One of the best Greek scholars of his day, a wit, an author, and the friend of Camden, he was tried for his life and hanged at Tyburn. Arraigned as a culprit, he had to endure the unfeeling insolence of Coke, and when he was no more, Lord Bacon stooped to blacken his memory; his only apparent crime was, that he had been secretary to the unfortunate Earl of Essex. The following has been handed down as the speech he delivered at the place of execution, which, though its authenticity cannot be precisely determined, merits preservation for its nervous brevity, and an energy so characteristic of its reputed author: "I am here adjudged to die for acting an act never plotted, for plotting a plot never acted. Justice will have her course; accusers must be heard; greatness will have the victory. Scholars and martialists (though learning and valour should have the pre-eminence) in England must die like dogs, and be hanged. To mislike this, were but folly; to dislike it, but time lost; to alter it, impossible. But to endure it, is manly; and to scorn it, magnanimity. The Queen is displeased, the Lawyers injurious, and Death terrible. But I crave pardon of the Queen; forgive the Lawyers and the world; desire to be forgiven, and welcome Death." He died on the 30th of March, 1601.
