OXFORD LETTER

On signs and portents

MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS

GOOD BROTHER LONDINIENSIS,

Alack, alack, we are now both utterly un- done! How to explain that fatall miscarriage of my long letter concerning the Old-soules club, which I directed to you with such secresy, I know not; but since Master Lawson has got his hands on it, and has publish'd it to the world, all our hopes are dash'd to the ground, and now you are no more likely to be elected to a visiting fellowship'of that club than I am to be bid- den to its annual collation on the day of our Encaenia, now imminent. Indeed, happy shall I be if I escape a worse fate; for 'tis reported thence that our good Dr Rowse, whom I meant only to flatter by my observa- tions, has taken 'em so much amiss that he is now using high language against me and threatens to sue out a writ of scandalum magnatum for my supposed impertinency. So now I must skulk in the country, an outlaw from my college and humane society, having left strict instructions to the college porter, and to my good scout Mudge. on no accompt to accept delivery of any document, how innocent-seeming soever, which might prove to be a writ from that implacable Doc- tor.

But indeed, all this past se'ennight there has been nothing here but a series of ill omens. For first, on Thursday 11 June. the Provost and certain Fellows of the Queen's coll, being in solemn session in their upper common room, it pleased God to launch a fearful thunderstorm, in the course of which those worthy governours saw the great stone eagle, which sits on the pediment of their library as the embleme of their power. sud- denly struck by lightning and dissolved before their eyes; after which the roof above 'em began to crack and gape, and a great body of rainwater, plaister and other detritus to fall upon 'em, so that 'twas only by headlong flight that that whole assembly escaped certain death; which would have been a sad loss to that society.

'Tis true, the college would not have been left quite without lawful authority, for two of its Fellows, by divine premonition, were absent from that meeting, having chosen that time to go out preaching orthodox morality; but this special favour shown to those two just men has only increased the fears of the rest of us, as seeming to vindicate those pro- phets who, in times past, have branded our society with the crimes, and threatened it with the chastisement, of Sodom and Gomorrah. I need not to remind you of Master Professor Kilpatrick his eloquent sermon in the university church some ten years ago (the last time he preach'd in that place); wherein he adjured the congregation (which, apart from Master Vice-chancellour, the Proctors, the bedells, etc., consisted mainly of a girls' school, brought thither by their headmistress for edification) that that nameless vice was now so prevalent in Oxon that no un- dergraduate was safe from his tutour, and that fire and brimstone would infallibly des- cend from heaven upon us; as they have now done, even upon his own college.

Nor is this all; for only two nights later, we were affrighted (and I most particularly) by an even more dismal! portent. For on 13 June, chancing to enter the great quadrangle of Christ-Church in order to learn from Master Dean (a rare theologian) his in- terpretation of this prodigy, Good Lord! what should I see before me? You must know that in the centre of that court, which the late Cardinal Wolsey began and Dr Fell has since compleated, there is an elegant

stone bason containing a lily-pond and gold- fishes, over which hovers an exquisite ef- figies, being none other than Mercury himself, the tutelary deity of all us lesser Mercuries; which effigies stands poised by one great-toe upon the lips of Aeolus (as I presume), who puffs him forth on his aerial errands.

The whole is raised aloft on a stone pedestal, around which, on feast-days, a cir- cle of fountains plays merrily in all direc- tions, so that our nimble patron seems to be volant at once through all the elements. This delicate image is much cultivated, both in day-time, by hundreds of visitors who take pictures of the god and feed his sacred fish, and at night, by the members of that college, whose devotion is of a less formall kind: for they leap and howl around the image, and cast strange offerings into the water; and sometimes they clothe the god curiously, or paint his pudenda with bright colours, or crown him with a jordan or chamber-pot; and 1 have even seen one of her Majesty's swans swimming around him, a captive votary, wearing a black bow-tie in proper homage; which rites, or reliques of gentilism, are held to honour the god and secure his protection for that coll., as its palladium or guardian deity.

But now, proh nefas, how changed, how fall'n! For when I entered that quadrangle, where was he, where Mercury? Instead of that graceful statue, what should I find but ruine and bareness everywhere, the stone basis being snapt clean across and the god himself lying prone and twisted, head- downwards under the water. Truly no such omen of disaster has befallen any society since the Athenian Mercuries were so shamefully mutilated at the setting out of that great expedition to Sicily, whose sad event was thereby presaged. Of which mutilation the historian tells us that the perpetrators were not known, but commonly thought to be wild young men egg'd on by Alcibiades; which at least distinguishes it from this modern outrage: for I am assur'd that its authours were grave young men who that night had been hospitably entertain'd by the chaplain.

I must add that this is not the only time that this god has been barbarously used in that convivial society; for his image, having been first set up Mum 1695, was in 1817 smash'd in pieces (the reliques are still preserv'd in the Library) by a troupe of young Mohocks led by the late earl of Derby, since prime minister (the same who so prettily english'd Homer his Was); after which the pedestal remained void for more than a hundred years. till the lacuna was fill'd by the present delicate statue, the gift of the late Master Bompas. 'Tis a replica of that exquisite work which the Flemish artist Master Jean de Boulogne, by some call'd Giambologna, wrought for the Grand Duke of Tuscany; and sure the originall was never more nobly placed in Florence than this copy in that Arcadian quadrangle whence it is now remov'd for repair; and 'tis to be hoped that we shall not wait another hundred years for his restauration.

Other strange portents have been reported in Oxon at this time: as, that it has rained blood in the Nuffield college of Psephology; that sewers have run backward to their source in Wadham coll.; and that the very

stones of Balliol coll., like the statue of Memnon. have sighed and groaned at the goings-eat in that place. A heifer on Port Meadow, being rounded up by my Lord

Mayor (our worthy Master Maclagan of Trinity coll., the great herald, now Poursui- vant Portcullis), turned and addressed him in the antient Greek tongue, not forgetting the correct accents (but in the obsolete pro- nunciation of the late bishop of Winton, so that my lord mayor lost some of the finer shades of meaning). The entrails of a battery-fed duck, chosen for dinner on Sun- day by the Provost of Oriel coll., were found, when opened, to be purple-spotted. A pullet's egg, being pierced at breakfast by the Prin- cipal of Jesus coll., cry'd out piteously, 'Free Wales!' But being offer'd full participation in all college committees, it fell silent and submitted to be eaten quietly by the Prin- cipal; etc. etc.

These are strange times, good brother Londiniensis, and I pray that no great catastrophe is to befall us. For myself, after the overthrow of the Christ-Church Mercurius, in whom I had placed my trust, I have fled altogether from Oxon and have been, since Thursday last (since squire Todhunter is away fishing in Ireland). delitescent in the country, where I have put myself under the protection of another god, viz: Pan, whom the poet calls Mercuric/inn: curios virorum; and till that statue is restor'd to its place, and I am cleer of trouble from the Old-soules club, and assued that our cor- respondence has become inviolable, you must expect to hear no more from Your distress'd brother to serve you

MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS

Ps: Here in the country is no news, so I know not the issue of our general! election. The last I heard in Oxon was that Master Wilson and his crew were assur'd of victory; only the margin in doubt. The Nuffield psephologists (whose science is now- declar'd by them infallible) pronounced that it would be massive, and the Principal of St Andrews' university, being in Oxon that very day, and intimate with the great contrivers of that Party, offer'd odds of five to one. From such oracles there can be no dissent, so I assume their victory and ask only for details concern- ing our friends. How vast was Captain Max- well's majority (he is squire Todhunter's member)? Is Master G. Brown again of the cabinet-council? Are the Beatles yet made knights, and Sir G. Weidenfeld a baron, and my lord Annan a duke?