OXFORD LETTER

On how the great debate began

MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS

GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS I am much disquieted to learn that my long letter on the Old-soules club has come to your hands so slowly. I would accuse no man rashly, but at this time (as we know from daily examples), even the most confidentiall papers may go astray. Pray examine the seals: are they still inviolate? If that letter has miscarried, I do protest that our cor- respondence will cease. But I trust that no such disaster has befallen us, for our news already is bad enough.

First, our hopes of a national! student strike, which had risen so high, are now quite

dash'd. The new term has begun, and not an undergraduate is missing. Tis true, a few days before term, in an attempt to save the last reliques of their credit with their fol- lowers, our chief fanatiques went up to your city, saying that they would seize the citadel of the National! Union of Students and thence proclaim their generall strike. But they failed dismally; for the leader of that Union, one Jack Straw (a sturdy peasant), being roused suddenly from his pallet, hastily fetch'd up his coadjutor Wat Tyler and other allies and beat off those poor cod's-heads, who limped back hither, with bloody noses and bruised buttocks, to be a laughing-stock to their own silly myrmidons. So that now we can say that civill warre has indeed broke out amongst 'em, as we had hoped; which is some consolation for all that we must now suffer, both by their presence and by a second burden which we are to carry this term.

For now at last our Congregation, or legislature, is to debate, clause by clause, that great Report (about which I have already writ to you) of Master Verulamius Hart. Tis now a full year since Master Hart laid this Report at the feet of Master Vice- chancellour, who had set him a-work; and throughout this last year our Hebdomadal! Council, with the Clerks of the Registry, have been transforming it (sometimes amended) into draft statutes for our deliberation; which draft statutes having been publish'd at the close of our last term, 'tis now our part to consider whether we will vote upon 'em, as presented to us, or have them amended. So, all through this last vacation, our publick-_ spirited brethren have caballed together in common-rooms and coffee-houses, and now, throughout this term, Tuesday after Tuesday, we poor college snails must uncoil and disnestle ourselves from under our comfort- able old stones, and creep to the Congrega- tion-house to debate the twenty-nine in- geniose amendments which from all sides have been propounded.

This great debate began last Tuesday 8th May; which day had scarce dawned before the trumpeters on both sides sounded the call to battle. For first, our worthy legislators, while still somnolent and but slowly uncurl- ing over their breakfast muffins, were startled to learn from Master Beloff (the coryphaeus

of the Liberal Party among us, who blows his top from time to time in your London Times)

that all our universities are being led by their vice-chancellours into ,a new Dark Age, and that if we stand not firm against Master Hart and suchlike innovators, we must expect bar- barian inundations, the extinction of letters, and a thousand years of monkery and popery, chaos and old Night. Then, on venturing out of doors, our blood was further chilled by chalk-scribbles in all the streets calling on the fanatiques to gather with their tom-toms and tomahawks at Captain Maxwell's late bookshop and thence march boldly upon archbishop Sheldon's theatre (where Congre- gation was to meet) and see justice done to their demands. And indeed, in the afternoon, when we assembled there, we did find a few scruffy creatures lounging at the outer gates of that theatre, with a placard which none heeded. for it was held the wrong way.

Within the theatre, the first to speak were those who wished to return to the golden age when Saturn was king and all men behaved civilly without the need of laws. Their oratour was Master Lucas, a philosopher (but of Merton coll.: not one of our chop- logicians). He holds, with his praedecessors in that coll., that the present state of things is always right and good, provided that it does not diverge from the previous state, which would not have existed had it not been approved by God : a very sound doctrine which, being generally accepted in Merton coll., has contributed to the undisturbed peace of that place. However, for all his rare eloquence, he won but few votes, the major part of the assembly holding that those golden days had gone, alas, for ever.

After this rose the friends of liberty and progress (so-call'cl). These would put all discipline in the hands of undergraduate tub- preachers, who should make and change the rules without any statutes save one to secure them that liberty, or any penalties except by their leave: so that they could come naked to lectures, or drop curds in Master Vice-chan- cellour's throne, or copulate contra naturam in their college chapels. This party was sup- ported by. a canting fanatique from St John's coll. (formerly of Ruskin coll.), who stood up wearing no coat (but a Phrygian cap) and told us that we must not consider what was just or rational!, but yield what he and his friends demanded, which was all power to the people, i.e. themselves; which speech was applauded loudly by a parcel of undergraduates in the gallery (who should have kept silence) but by none whatsoever in the chamber. This party (God be prais'd) was soundly thrashed; for when the poll was taken, they had no more than 21 votes against 232, and those only from long-haired sociologists. Balliol men, etc., whose votes should not have been allowed, had the good old order been kept: for coming into the chamber in bare feet or sandals and without coats or ties, they should have been thrust out by the bedells instead of being suffered to shamble out through the Ayes' gate and there be counted.

Others also put forth other amendments, among whom Master Hart himself persuaded us to remove a clause making incitement to disorder itself penal!: which he held to be too imprecise and so dangerous to liberty. Truly loam almost in love with his Socratique rationality : for he asks not how far we should yield, or where resist, but proceeds always by cker reason from generall truths. But some fear that he errs in presuming all men to be as rationall as he. They say that 'tis a mistake to exchange traditionary authority for novel paper constitutions, how perfect soever, when there are fanatiques abroad who might have been controuled by the one but will soon find means to evade or exenterate the other. Those who will not suffer her Majesty's Secretary of State to expound his reasons in their Union will hardly listen to those of Master Hart in the mouth of a Proctor; and 'tis not to be forgot how the pupills of Socrates himself did acquit themselves in the politiques.

Thus the victory, at all times, went to the

moderate men who would apply Master Hart's doctrines. But 'tis too soon to con- clude, for there are twenty-five other amend- ments still to be debated, and many pro- found and witty speeches still to be made: as, e.g. on student participation by Master Warden Sparrow, who, being happily un- encumber'd by undergraduates in his own college, has no wish to meet 'em on com- mittees, at least until there be a statute obliging 'em to wash and shave; which Master Hart has omitted to supply. Besides, who knows how punctually our legislators will attend those continuing debates, on sum- mer afternoons, when they might be reading novells in their college gardens or watching cricket-games in the Parks? Tis to be hoped that all our brethren will prefer their duty to their pleasure, lest by a surprise vote, in a thin house, we suddenly find ourselves in Master Beloff's Dark Age, or the millennium of the fanatiques.

To compleat our sorrows we have suf-

fer'd, this last sen'night, some grievous losses. Of Mistress Starkie I have writ before: she was an original!, whom all men loved for her warm heart, convivial! ways, and colour'd clothes. She dress'd herself as a French sailor, out of love for that nation and its letters, which she taught in Somerville coll., leading those tender virgins through the works of Messieurs Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Gide etc: which must have enlarg'd their vocabulary, if not their experience; but these are yielding times. Of Sir John Beazley, the incomparable pot-critick, I need not tell you: among Grecians he is already fama super aethera notus. He was of a ripe age, 84, and had survived his lady, a notable character. She was of Smyrna, and wore a turban of many colours. At one time they contriv'd to live in Christ-church, in a canonry (quaere, how managed?), with their domestick goose as a companion, which they cherished mightily, and put to graze in the Great Quadrangle. 'Twas to this same bird (which pre-deceased 'em) that Master Harold Acton, our Florentine virtuoso, then an undergraduate, showed such memorable civility. (He had stumbled over it in the twi- light, returning, in a grey top hat, from the horse-races at Ascot.) My lady Beazley never forgot that courtesy. 'Tis unlikely that any of our modern undergraduates, even of that coll., would show such deference, at least to a reall goose.

Finally, we are now to lose another worthy colleague. For Master Professor Gallagher, our learned historian of the Plantations, is shortly fleeing to Cambridge. 'Tisoa sad blow to us, perhaps irreparable; but his chair here is annex'd to Balliol coll., from which the flight of good men is now generall. As you say, that coll. is past hope of recovery till it

,,ibto4e a Maftter agtrin.,I hear that the Iate Dr

repo tted : 'fresh flowers set daily on his grave, etc. 'Twas precipitate of the young men to string him up, besides being an ill precedent, which I hope will never be repeated either on your person or on that of your loving brother to serve you MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS