OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE LETTERS
On unions and usurpers
GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS,
Your ingeniose contrivance of a pigeon- post has now caught on marvellously, and here in Oxon our skies are dark with pigeons converging daily from all the Mercuries. Cantabrigiensis, like you, is now regular (though little happens at that place), and on 14th Feb., being St. Valentine's day, a strong- wing'd bird coming from the North brought me a most witty, delicate card which, for sundry reasons (and a morsel of haggis wedg'd in an interstice of it), I ascribe to our good friend Mercuria Glasguensis. Such is now the confluence of those usefull birds that we have been obliged to set up a controul- station on Master Pringle's great zoological' tower in the Parks, to regulate the traffique, prevent aeriall collisions, misdirection of aca- demick secrets, etc, etc.
Of the blessed saint and martyr Rudi Dutschke there is no more news, all men being by now weary of his name, save only the great Apostle of Oriel coll., Master Seton-Watson, who, having been converted (like St. Paul) after the crucifixion of the Messiah, is now busy founding a new church for his worship, compleat with gospels, epistles (very long and taedious), and an agape or love-feast where the faithful may nibble and absorb some particles of his divinity. He is at work also on a register of the oracles and miracles of the saint, and has drawn up a monstrous petition, praying (as 'Lis said, for I have not seen it) for the return ofhis body, or at least some reliques of it from Denmark, so that we in Oxon may have the benefit of expected pilgrimages; whereto hear that he has even sollicited the signature of Master Vice-chancellour Bullock, who has properly snibbed him for such absurdity. He is also pressing us to abandon our old dis- tinctions of BC and AD and speak instead of the ante-Detschke and post-Dutschke aeras —as if Were not trouble enough to have deoimaliz'd our good old shillings and pence, which have served us since the time of the emperour Charlemain, without also dutsch- kizing our traditional' chronometry, which we have used since the days of the Venerable Bede, if not longer. Lord, what fools these portly old Peter Pans be. who strip them- selves naked to run ever ahead of their more nimble pupills, and see not that they do but expose themselves alone, none following 'em. We have suffered a lamentable loss this se'nnight by the untimely death of that worthy physician Sir Lindor Brown, whom all men loved for his universall affability, hospitable manners, and pregnant wit. He was Principal of Hertford coll., which will now be hard put to find a fit successor to him. Some think that this blow of fortune should be parried by a bad stroke, for which the time is now ripe, viz: the union of that coll, with the Old-smiles club, which lies contiguous to it; by which con- trivance, they say, the problemes of both societies would be neatly resoly'd. For whereas Hertford coll, is a poor and cra.mp'd body (having failed in its attempt, anno 1966, to gobble up its other neighbour, the Indian Institute), the Old-soules club is rich and empty and needs nothing so much as a few sprightly undergraduates to hold it together (or blow it apart); so that by such a union the needs of both would be satisfied and we should have in Oxon a noble new college, well supplied not only with studious youth and sound, orthodox tutors to teach 'em, but also, like other great coils, with brave professors (Master Honore, Master Beloff, Master Barraclough et al.) to sway above 'ern, like incandescent orbs, casting light over the whole place, and what is more, with abundance of oil both to feed those lamps
and also to grease and lubricate the whole machine, now grown clogg'd and rusty.
Truly I am almost in love with this new modell of a college, which would unques- tionably regenerate both places, giving us, instead of two lame and thwarted bodies, one majesticall society, like Christ-church or Magdalen coll. 'Tis true, some object that such surgery is too drastick for old bodies; but I answer that 'tis not so, for this university has ever thriven by such unions, every great coll, having at times swallow'd up some private halls, as Merton coll, has digested St. Alban's hall, Oriel coll. St. Mary's hall, etc. etc. Nay, Hertford coll, itself is but a new-risen -tnushrump, not a hundred years old, swoln by the substance of more antient and glorious bodies, as Hart hall (an old popish hall) and Magdalen hall (where my lord Clarendon, Master Hobbs, and other ingeniose men studied); so that there can be neither shame nor novelty. in such a new engraffing or emphyteusis; which could be atchiev'd, at this stage, very simply, by the nicer election of a single head, leaving the fur- ther integration of the two bodies to a second and later operation, as the two kingdoms of England and Scotland were at first united in the person of their monarch, the late King James of blessed memory, and after- wards, in due time, incorporated together irs a more perfect union.
But alas, I fear 'twill not be done; for Master Warden Sparrow likes not change, no, nor undergraduates neither—at least not the scruffy sort; and if the Fellows of Hert- ford coll, were to elect him as their Principal, in commendam, as I propose, I fear that he might end by shutting 'em all out of their own coll., and the young men too, as Master Wigan did at New Inn hall, anno 1732 (see Master Hearne, his Remaines, vol. tit, p. 83), and turning that place, by such depopulation, into a bowling-green or pleasaunce for the members of the Old-soules club to idle in, or perhaps into a meer solitude or zone of silence to protect the club from noyse on its northern side, while he is busy polishing his epitaphs, or ruminating about his bollards; of which last matter I have as yet but darkly hinted but shall later, if time serves, adver- tize you at large, for it has consum'd a whole session of our legislature and will require a full sheet of my paper; of which having now but short supply, and not wishing to stay your pigeon, which is scratching and fidgeting beside me, I close this letter and subscribe myself Your loving friend MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS rs. If you should meet our Master Seton- Watson in London (where he now resides), pray tell Win from me that the correct latin for porpoise is not porcus-piscis (a gross vulgarisme) but itsrsio. See Uncle Pliny his Natural' History, who has a short passage on the creatures. He writes that they are like dolphins, but sad-visag'd through lack of venery. I doubt not but our modern zoologists have rectified these old errours.
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