SOME FELLOWS OF PEMBROKE.

6

481

Tutor and Junior Dean 1848. Ob. July 13, 1860. 'An excellent lecturer,' writes one of his pupils; but I do not think it occurred to him to exercise any influence on us outside the lecture-room.' A polished scholar of the Shrewsbury pattern, he was in the famous First Class in which his contemporary at the College, Jackson, figured. Nineteen years later Henney was one of the first batch of Moderators. Even in his favourite pursuit of fishing he threw the fly and built the stately iambic line simultaneously. Indeed, a thorough wetting while thus preoccupied led to his death. Owing to his sensitiveness to undergraduate false quantities, he kept on his table a bottle of smelling salts, to which from time to time he had recourse. But, morbidly shy, the crudest guesses on the part of the lectured would draw nothing from him but 'Precisely, precisely, precisely.' Bishop Jackson appointed him Prebendary of Lincoln and Examining Chaplain. Henney's bent was, like Jeune's, in a non-antiquarian direction, and, being questioned on returning from his first visit to Lincoln what he thought of the minster, he said, 'I walked round it, but I did not go inside. I thought I should have many opportunities of doing that.' He had been a student of Lincoln's Inn before ordination. Even less ecclesiastically-minded was that amiable, genially grandiose don, THOMAS DOUGLAS PAGE, Scholar 1855-61, Fellow 1861-72, Bursar 1862, Dean 1864, Proctor 1872, who died Rector of Sibston Sept. 26, 1880. He was outlived by a predecessor in the bursarship, HAVILLAND DE SAUSMAREZ, a Cambridge wrangler, who held a King Charles Fellowship from 1836 to 1851; Bursar 1846; Rector of St. Peter's, Northampton, 1850-73; died April 17, 1882. Mr. de Sausmarez was of a retiring disposition, and was not much known to the undergraduates.— WILLIAM GAY, a Rugbeian, afterwards (1869) Vicar of Burley-onthe-Hill, was elected Fellow (1845-54) at the same time as the brothers EDWARD THOMAS WILLIAM POLEHAMPTON (1845-60), Rector and Vicar of Hartfield 1859, and HENRY STEDMAN POLEHAMPTON, killed at Lucknow-of whom I shall have more to say. Three other brothers were at the College, of whom THOMAS STEDMAN POLEHAMPTON (Wightwick kin Scholar 1846-57, Fellow 1857-63), became Vicar of Ellel, Lancashire (1864-69), and of St. Bartholomew-theLess, &c., London (1869-78); Chaplain at Oporto 1878-85.HENRY STUART FAGAN (Fellow 1850-52) was a very able man, of somewhat explosive Home Rule opinions. He was Head-master successively of Bosworth and of Bath Grammar Schools; Rector of Charlcombe, Bath, 1859-70; Vicar of St. Just-in-Penwith, 1870-72; Rector

482 SOME FELLOWS OF THE COLLEGE; ROLLESTON.

of Great Cressingham 1882, in which year he died. His eminent contemporary as undergraduate and Fellow, GEORGE ROLLESTON, died also comparatively young, June 16, 1881. He matriculated Dec. 8, 1846, aged seventeen; Scholar 1850-51; Fellow 1851-62; Honorary Fellow 1862-81; M.D. 1857; Fellow of Merton 1872-81; Fellow of the Royal and Linnæan Societies; Lee's Reader in Anatomy; Linacre Professor of Physiology 1860-81. After his death, in 1883, there was founded to do honour to his memory a University Prize, consisting of two years' income of about £1,200, for research in Morphology, Physiology, Pathology, or Anthropology, open to such members of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge as have not exceeded ten years from their matriculation. Professor Rolleston's striking features are preserved in the crayon drawing presented to the College by Professor Goldwin Smith, who wrote the Latin lines underneath. Dr. CHARLES THOMAS COOTE was Fellow from 1846 to 1851; Radcliffe's Travelling Fellow 1849-59.-EDWARD WILLIAM HAWKINS, Fellow 1860-70, Senior Dean 1865, became Rector of Ringshall in 1870.-THOMAS CHARLES LITCHFIELD LAYTON, Fellow 1854-6, was Rector of St. Aldate's 1856-9.-Among living Fellows of the mid-century whom I have not yet mentioned, the Rev. JOHN ORMOND (Scholar 1846-56, Fellow 1856-57) has been good enough to furnish me with several reminiscences of old days. The names of other Fellows of that time are to be found in Mr. Foster's Oxford Men and their Colleges.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

COLLEGE CUSTOMS, LIFE, CLUBS AND SOCIETIES.

CASTING eyes of retrospect over the Victorian era, we look back to social customs different in many respects from that extreme polish of culture at which we have now arrived. In the memory of living persons dinner was still at four o'clock, undergraduates (in academical costume) promenaded in the High Street, dressed themselves for dinner, and used the skilled offices of the College tonsor. Rude digestion was not unknown, and Fellows drank beer, at any rate in their rooms1. Smoking was viewed by the elegant with some dislike. It was a favourite undergraduate joke, when the daily tankard of Henney, then dean, was carried up to his rooms over the gateway, to follow it on some pretext, as soon as the dean had had time to light his segar, taken from a large assortment of favourite brands, and to remain, while Henney tried to conceal what he was smoking behind his back, till it might be supposed extinguished. Dr. Birkbeck Hill tells me :

He

'I knew an old Somersetshire parson, WILLIAM WILKINS GALE, who entered Pembroke soon after the Peace of 18152. He had learnt to smoke before entering. A day or two after he came into residence, some men of the College found him smoking in his room. They warned him that he would be "cut" if he continued the practice. He would not give it up, however, and before he left smoking had become pretty common. must have been a powerful man in his prime, for he had a large frame. As we were walking up St. Aldate's he stopped in front of the Town Hall, and said that just there he had fought and thrashed a "bargee," a noted bruiser of the town. In later life he was a zealous teetotaller. When he was my guest at one of the undergraduates' tables in Hall, an aged scout -Old Harry he was always called-came bustling up to him bearing a

In the earlier part of the present Master's time, strong beer was drunk in the old Common Room. The windows of the room had no curtains, and the polished oak floor was uncarpeted till Edwin Parker gave a large rug in 1839. Uncushioned Windsor chairs stood around.

2 The Rev. W. W. Gale matriculated June 1, 1818, aged sixteen; died Jan. 2, 1872.

484

LIFE AND MANNERS.

great silver tankard, known as the "Overman'," which would hold half a gallon, and crying out, "I say, Mr. Gale, do you remember drinking off this tankard at a draught?" My friend modestly disclaimed the feat, which indeed the hardest drinker could not have performed. He owned, however, to having drained a quart-a sconce without taking breath, and so, according to the well-known unwritten law, had made the sconcer pay for it.'

But he was

The cosy system of messes, each ordering its own dinner, in lieu of the old unappetizing commons, was started by Robert Paul Bent, already mentioned, about 1848. It was not an economical system, and has lately been modified. Just before 1848, B-, remembered as a London dignitary, by self-denial had kept his batells for the year down to £60. It was one day proclaimed in College: 'B- is going to have a friend to breakfast, and has ordered an egg!' generally respected. There was a good deal of idealism and high seriousness' among young men fifty years since. Mr. Orger speaks of one who entered the College at the end of Dr. Hall's Mastership, HENRY BASKERVILLE WALTON, a first-class man, afterwards Fellow, Tutor and Dean of Merton, and Vicar of St. Cross, Holywell, from 1851 till his death on Oct. 5, 1871. He says: Among the greatest advantages received from his friendship was his introducing to my notice Whytehead's College Life. It opened my eyes to the theory of it, and to the meaning of many things which surround one in the University.' Mr. Walton edited with Mr. Medd Edward VI's First Prayer Book. He was brother-in-law of WILLIAM ROBERT BROWELL (matr. 1824), a former Tutor of Pembroke.

6

The manciple's slate, used in the old Hall, now the Library, hangs there now. It is still his duty to make the round of the tables and note who are dining, for to dine is a part of College rule. The Rev. John Polehampton says:

'All I can remember about old Haskins, the Manciple, is his lanky figure and proportionately lanky MS. book, and his assuring us on one occasion, "Pickles, sir! Why, pickles is out of season." Also I recall myself persuading his simplicity (or his good-nature) that my pet King Charlie' was a cat, and so escaping tax! He used to march in about the middle of dinner and go from table to table, and call each man's name; to which each answered "Bread" or "Beer," or both; for there was always a strong spirit of badinage afloat. He, on receipt of a reply, or even no reply, made a mark against each man's name. We never attached

1 Presented by GEORGE OVERMAN, Counsellor-at-law; matr. 1728. The rule against dogs was not very strictly enforced. Something had to be done, however, when John Polehampton's smuggled spaniel walked into Hall, and begged of Henney at the head of the high table.

GRACE AT MEALS.

485

the slightest importance to the custom, and neither knew, nor cared to know, what it all meant! I should say it lost itself en route to the new Hall. I have no remembrance of it there.'

One custom which survived translation to the new Hall is referred to by the Rev. Frederick Arnold1 thus:

'There is a curious old custom at Merton which corresponds with one at Pembroke. When dinner is over, the senior Fellow strikes the table three times with a trencher. The sound brings up the butler, who then enters on his book what each Fellow has received from the buttery. Then the grace cup is handed round, and the trenchers being struck once more the Bible clerk says grace.'

The present Vicegerent, my friend Mr. ALFRED THOMAS BARTON, tells me: 'It was always the custom when Grace was said regularly after meat to rap one trencher on another twice. This lasted for almost six

They were two of the old

or seven years after I came here in 1865. wooden trenchers always used in the Hall until the new Hall was built, and remembered by Prof. Chandler as used in his undergraduate days for the bread and cheese after dinner. I never saw more than these two, and what became of them I never knew. Probably as individual objects they may have been neither old nor interesting; but as the last relics of a vanished usage they really were.'

Leave being often given to the lower tables to withdraw before the high table had finished dinner, Camden's composition, popularly supposed to contain an allusion to Senatus Populusque Romanus,' but which Johnson told Boswell, towards the end of his life, that he could still repeat, came to be but seldom heard. A grace before meat was therefore introduced in the year 1887. It has points of resemblance to those in use at Corpus Christi, at Christ Church, and at Worcester. The two graces are as follows:

GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

Pro hoc cibo, quem ad alimonium corporis nostri sanctificatum es largitus, nos Tibi, Pater omnipotens, reverenter gratias agimus; simul obsecrantes ut cibum angelorum, panem verum coelestem, Dei Verbum aeternum Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum nobis impertiare, ut Eo mens nostra pascatur, et per carnem et sanguinem Ejus alamur, foveamur, corroboremur. Amen.

1 Oxford and Cambridge. A somewhat similar way of giving the signal for Grace continues, I believe, at Brasenose.