In 1717, George I. and his ministers had contrived to make themselves
so unpopular, that the badges of the disaffected, oaken boughs, were
publicly worn on the 29th of May, and white roses on the birth-day
of the Pretender, the 10th of June. Oxford, and especially the
university, manifested such strong feelings, that it was deemed
expedient to send a military force there: Cambridge, more inclined to
the Whig principles of the court and government, was at the same time
complimented with a present of books. Upon this occasion, Dr. Trapp,
the celebrated Oxford poet and divine, wrote the following epigram:--
Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes,
The wants of his two universities:
Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why
That learned body wanted loyalty;
But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning
How that right loyal body wanted learning.
Cambridge, as may be well supposed, was not backward in retorting:
and an able champion she found in her equally celebrated scholar,
physician, and benefactor, Sir William Blowne (founder of a
scholarship and the three gold medals called after his name,) who
replied to Dr. Trapp in the following quaternion:--
The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories know no argument but force:
With equal grace, to Cambridge books he sent,
For Whigs allow no force but argument.
Not that Cambridge was behind Oxford in supporting the unfortunate
Charles the First, to whom the several colleges secretly conveyed
nearly all their ancient plate; and Cromwell, in consequence,
retaliated by confining and depriving numbers of her most
distinguished scholars, both laymen and divines, many of whom died in
exile: and the commissioners of parliament, with a taste worthy of the
worst barbarians, caused many of the buildings to be despoiled of
their architectural ornaments and exquisite pieces of sculpture and
painted glass. It was at this time appeared the following celebrated
poetic trifle, extant in the Oxford Sausage, known as