When first our ALMA MATER rose,
Though we must laud her and love her,
Nobody cares, and nobody knows,
And nobody can discover:
Some say a Spaniard, one CANTABER,
Christen'd her, or gave birth to her,
Or his daughter--that's likelier, more, by far,
Though some honour king BRUTE above her.
Pythagoras, beans-consuming dog,
('Tis the tongue of tradition that speaks,)
Built her a lecture-room fit for a hog,[2]
Where now they store cabbage and leeks:
And there mathematics he taught us, they say,
Till catching a cold on a dull rainy day,
He packed up his _tomes_, and he ran away
To the land of his fathers, the Greeks.
But our ALMA MATER still can boast,
Although the old Grecian would go,
Of glorious names a mighty host,
You'll find in Wood, Fuller and Coe:
Of whom I will mention but just a few--
BACON, and NEWTON, and MILTON will do:
There are thousands more, I assure you,
Whose honours encircle her brow.
Then long may our ALMA MATER reign,
Of learning and science the star,
Whether she were from Greece or Spain,
Or had a king Brute for her Pa;
And with OXON, her sister, for aye preside,
For it never was yet by man denied,
That the world can't show the like beside,--
Let echo repeat it afar!
[2] The School of Pythagoras is an ancient building, situated
behind St. John's College, Cambridge, wherein the _old
Grecian_, says tradition, lectured before Cambridge became a
university. Whether those who say so _lie_ under a mistake,
as Tom Hood would say, I am not now going to inquire. At any
rate, "sic transit," the building is now a barn or storehouse
for garden stuff. Those who would be further acquainted with
this relique of by-gone days, may read a very interesting
account of it extant in the Library of the British Museum,
illustrated with engravings, and written by a Fellow of
Merton College, Oxford, to which society, says Wilson, in his
_Memorabilia Catabrigiæ_, "it was given by Edward IV., who
took it from King's College, Cambridge. It is falsely
supposed to have been one of the places where the Croyland
Monks read lectures."
It matters little whether we sons of _Alma Mater_ sprung from the
loins of Pythagoras, Cantaber, or the kings Brute and Alfred. They
were all respectable in their way, so that we need not blush, "proh
pudor," to own their paternity. But let us hear what the _cutting_
writer of _Terræ Filius_ has to say on the subject. "Grievous and
terrible has been the squabble, amongst our chronologers and
genealogists concerning