When sage _Mathesis_ calls her sons to fame,
The _Senior Wrangler_ bears the highest name.
In academic honour richly deckt,
He challenges from all deserved respect.
But, if to visit friends he leaves his gown,
And flies in haste to cut a dash in town,
The wrangler's title, little understood,
Suggests a man in disputation good;
And those of common talents cannot raise,
Their humble thoughts a wrangler's mind to praise.
Such honours to an Englishman soon fade,
Like laurel wreaths, the victor's brows that shade.
No such misfortune has that man to fear,
Whom fate ordains the last in fame's career;
His honours fresh remain, and e'en descend
To soothe his family, or chosen friend.
And while he lives, he _wields_ the boasted prize,
Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise;
Displays in triumph his distinguished boon,
The solid honours of the WOODEN SPOON!
That many have borne off this prize who might have _done better_, is
well known too. One learned Cantab in that situation felt so assured
of his fate, when it might have been more honourable, had he been
gifted with prudence and perseverance, that on the morning when it is
customary to give out the _honours_, in the Senate House, in their
_order of merit_, he provided himself with a large _wooden spoon_, and
when there was a call from the gallery, for "_the spoon_" (for then
the Undergraduates were allowed to express their likes and dislikes
publicly, a custom now _suppressed_,) he turned the shafts of ridicule
aside by thrusting the emblem of his honours up high over his
head,--an act that gained him no slight applause. Another Cantab, of
precisely the same _grade_ as to talent, who was second in the
_classical tripos_ of his year, gave a supper on the occasion of the
spoon being awarded to him, which commenced with _soup_, each man
being furnished with a ponderous _wooden spoon_ to _lap_ it with.
Another, now a Fellow of Trinity College, who more than once bore off
the _Porson prize_, being in this _place of honour_, a wag nailed a
large _wooden spoon_ to his door. Hundreds of other tricks have been
put upon _the spoon_, next to whom are--
THE POLL; OR, [Greek: HOI POLLOI]:
Which, said the great Bentley, in a sermon preached before the
University of Cambridge, on the 5th of November, 1715, "is a known
expression in profane authors, opposed sometimes, [Greek: tois
sophois], _to the wise_, and ever denotes the most, and generally the
meanest of mankind." "Besides the mirth devoted character," (_the
wooden spoon_,) says the writer first quoted, there "are always a few,
a chosen few, a degree lower than the [Greek: Hoi polloi], constantly
written down alphabetically, who serve to exonerate the '_wooden
spoon_,' in part, from the ignominy of the day; and these undergo
various epithets, according to their accidental number. If there was
but one, he was called _Bion_, who carried all his learning about him
without the slightest inconvenience. If there were two, they were
dubbed the _Scipios; Damon and Pythias; Hercules and Atlas; Castor and
Pollux_. If three, they were _ad libitum_, the _three Graces_; or the
_three Furies; the Magi_; or _Noah_, _Daniel_, and _Job_. If seven,
they were _the seven Wise Men_; or _the Seven Wonders of the World_.
If nine, they were the unfortunate _Suitors of the Muses_. If twelve,
they became the _Apostles_. If thirteen, either they deserved a round
dozen, or, like the Americans, should bear thirteen stripes on their
_coat and arms_. Lastly, they were sometimes styled _constant
quantities_, and _Martyrs_; or the thirteenth was designated the
_least_ of the _Apostles_; and, should there be a fourteenth, he was
_unworthy to be called an Apostle_!" An unknown pen has immortalized
the [Greek: Hoi polloi], by the following--