The living Cambridge worthy, William Sydney Walker, M.A. (who at the
age of sixteen wrote the successful tragedy of Wallace, and recently
vacated his fellowship at Trinity College "for conscience-sake,")
walking hastily round the corner of a street in Cambridge, in his
peculiarly near-sighted _sidling_ hasty manner, he suddenly came in
contact with the _blind_ muffin-man who daily perambulates the town.
The concussion threw both upon their haunches. "Don't you _see_ I'm
blind?" exclaimed the muffin-man, in great wrath. "How should I,"
rejoined the learned wag, "when I'm blind too."
* * * * *
COMIC PICTURE OF THE ELECTION OF A PROVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
Upon the death of a provost of King's College, Cambridge, the fellows
are obliged, according to their statutes, to be shut up in their
celebrated chapel till they have agreed upon the election of a
successor, a custom not unlike that to which the cardinals are subject
at Rome, upon the death of a pope, where not uncommonly some half
dozen are brought out dead before an election takes place. "The
following is a comic picture of an election," says Judge Hardinge, in
Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, from the pen of Daniel Wray,
Esq. dated from _Cambridge_, the 19th of January, 1743. "The election
of a provost of King's is over--_Dr. George_ is the man. The fellows
went into chapel on Monday, before noon in the morning, as the statute
directs. After prayers and sacrament, they began to vote:--22 for
_George_; 16 for _Thackery_; 10 for _Chapman_. Thus they continued,
scrutinizing and walking about, eating and sleeping; some of them
smoking. Still the same numbers for each candidate, till yesterday
about noon (for they held that in the forty-eight hours allowed for
the election no adjournment could be made,) when the Tories,
_Chapman's_ friends, refusing absolutely to concur with either of the
other parties, _Thackery's_ votes went over to _George_ by agreement,
and he was declared. A friend of mine, a curious fellow, tells me he
took a survey of his brothers at two o'clock in the morning, and that
never was a more curious or a more diverting spectacle: some wrapped
in blankets, erect in their stalls like mummies; others asleep on
cushions, like so many _Gothic_ tombs. Here a red cap over a wig,
there a face lost in the cape of a rug; one blowing a chafing-dish
with a surplice-sleeve; another warming a little negus, or sipping
_Coke upon Littleton_, _i. e._ tent and brandy. Thus did they combat
the cold of that frosty night, which has not killed any one of them,
to my infinite surprise." One of the fellows of King's engaged in this
election was Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord High Chancellor of England,
and father of the present Marquis of Camden, who, writing to his
amiable and learned friend and brother Etonian and Kingsman, Dr. Sneyd
Davies, archdeacon of Derby, &c. in the January of the above year,
says, "Dear Sneyd we are all busy in the choice of a provost. _George_
and _Thackery_ are the candidates. _George_ has all the power and
weight of the Court interest, but I am for _Thackery_, so that I am at
_present a patriot_, and vehemently declaim against all unstatutable
influence. The College are so divided, that your friends the _Tories_
may turn the balance if they will; but, if they should either absent
themselves or nominate a third man, _Chapman_, for example, _Thackery_
will be discomfited. Why are not _you_ a doctor? We could choose you
against all opposition. However, I insist upon it, that you shall
qualify yourself against the next vacancy, for since you will not come
to _London_, and wear lawn sleeves, you may stay where you are, and be
provost,"--which he did not live to be, though he did take his D.D.
* * * * *