fire-place in the hall, and the barbaric braziers in which first
charcoal and afterwards coke was burned, were actually the only heating
apparatus known in the immense halls of Trinity and St. John's till
within the last twenty years! The magnificent hall of Trinity actually
retained till 1866 the brazier _which had been in use for upwards of
160 years!_ The clumsy attempt to fight the bitter cold which was usual
in our mediaeval churches and manor-houses, by strewing the stone floor
with rushes, was carried out too in the college halls, and latterly,
instead of rushes, sawdust was used, at least in Trinity. "It was laid
on the floor at the beginning of winter, and turned over with a rake as
often as the upper surface became dirty. Finally, when warm weather set
in, it was removed, the colour of charcoal!" Well might the late
Professor Sedgwick, in commenting upon this practice, exclaim; "The
dirt was sublime in former years!"
Yet in the earliest times a lavatory was provided in the college halls,
and a towel of eight or nine yards long, which at Trinity, as late as
1612, was hung on a hook--the refinement of hanging a towel on a
_roller_ does not appear to have been thought of. These towels were for
use _before_ dinner; _at_ dinner the fellows of Christ's in 1575 were
provided with table-napkins. If they wiped their fingers on the
table-cloth they were fined a penny. The temptation must have been
strong at times, for _no forks were in use_--not even the iron-pronged
forks which some of us remember in hall in our young days. The oldest
piece of furniture in the college halls were the stocks, set up for the
correction of refractory undergraduates who should have been guilty of
the enormity of bathing in the Cam or other grave offence and scandal.
Of the amusements indulged in by the undergraduates at Cambridge in the
early times we hear but little. The probability seems to be that they
had to manage for themselves as best they could. Gradually the
bowling-green, the butts for archery, and the tennis-courts were
provided by several colleges. Tennis seems to have been the rage at
Cambridge during the sixteenth century, and the tennis-courts became
sources of revenue in the Elizabethan time, It is clear that by this
time the old severity and rigour had become relaxed, the colleges had
become richer, and in another hundred years the combination-rooms had
become comfortable and almost luxurious before the seventeenth century
closed. In Queens' College in 1693 there were actually _flowers_ in the
combination-room, and at Christ's College in 1716 a card-table was
provided "in the fellows' parlour."
It may be said that the immense expansion of the University, as
distinct from a mere aggregate of colleges, dates from the beginning of
the eighteenth century. Up to that time the colleges had for four
hundred years been steadily growing into privileged corporations, whose
wealth and power had been too great for the Commonwealth, of which they
were in idea only members. With the Georgian era the new movement
began. When Bishop Moore's vast library was presented by George II. to
the _University,_ when the first stone of the Senate House was laid in
1722, when the _University_ arranged for the reception of Dr.
Woodward's fossils in 1735--these events marked the beginning of a new
order of things. Whatever confusion may have existed in the minds of
our grandfathers, who had a vague conviction that the University meant
no more than the aggregate of the colleges, and a suspicion that what
the University was the colleges made it--we, in our generation, have
been assured that the colleges owed their existence to the sufferance
of universities; or, if that be putting the case too strongly, that the
colleges exist for the sake of the University. The new view has at any
rate gained the approval of the Legislature; the University is in no
danger of being predominated over by the colleges in the immediate
future; the danger rather is lest the colleges should be starved or at
least impoverished for the glorification of the University, the
college-fellowships being shorn of their dignity and emoluments in
order to ensure that the University officials shall become the
exclusive holders of the richest prizes.
For good or evil we have entered upon a new career. The old Cambridge,
which some of us knew in our youth, with its solemn ecclesiasticism,
its quaint archaisms, its fantastic anomalies, its fascinating
picturesqueness, its dear old barbaric unintelligible odds and ends
that met us at every turn in street and chapel and hall--that old
Cambridge is as dead as the Egypt of the Pharaohs. The new Cambridge,
with its bustling syndics for ever on the move--its bewildering
complexity of examinations--its "sweet girl-graduates with their golden
hair," its delightful "notion of grand and capacious and massive
amusement," its glorious wealth of collections and appliances and
facilities for every kind of study and research, is alive with an
exuberant vitality.
What form will the new life assume in the time that is coming? Will the
Cambridge of six centuries hence be able to produce such a record of
her past as that which she can boast of now? Among her alumni of the
future will there arise again any such loyal and enlightened historians
as these who have raised to themselves and their University so noble a
monument?
VII.
_THE PROPHET OF WALNUT-TREE YARD._
"Did you ever hear tell of Lodowick Muggleton?"
"Not I."
"That is strange. Know then that he was the founder
of our poor society, and after him we are frequently,
though oppro-briously, termed Muggletonians, for we
are Christians. Here is his book; I will sell it cheap."
--LAVENGRO.
Scrupulous veracity was hardly a characteristic of the late George
Borrow. A man of great memory, he was also a man of fertile
imagination, and where the two are found in excess, side by side in the
same intellect, they are apt to twine round one another, so to speak,
and the product is something which the matter-of-fact man abhors. I do
not doubt that Borrow did meet a Muggletonian at Bristol--I think it
was there--some sixty years ago; but I am pretty sure that he knew very
little indeed about the Muggletonians, and that he could have hardly
opened the book which he implies that he purchased, and which I am
almost certain he never read. I have a strong suspicion that he very
much antedated the incident which he narrates, for I myself knew an old
secondhand bookseller in a back street at Bristol, who was a
Muggletonian, with whom I made acquaintance when a lad. He was a
slow-speaking, wary, suspicious, and dirty old man, and as I had not
sufficient funds to be a good customer, I daresay he did not think it
worth his while to be communicative, but he told me one day that he had
been one of the original subscribers to the _Spiritual Epistles_ which
were reprinted in quarto years before I was born; though, as he
confessed, his name does not appear on the list of names printed at the
end of the preface, which list, he assured me, was very incomplete, as
he from his own knowledge could certify. This old man would have been
very old indeed if he had been old when Borrow was a youth; and yet, as
I say, I suspect he was the very man of whom mention is made in the
extract I have given above. He was the only Muggletonian I ever knew,
but he certainly was not the last of his sect, and I should not be at
all surprised to hear that it is a flourishing sect still, and that it
still has its assemblies, its votaries, its literature, and its
propaganda. It is true that the name _Muggletonians_ does not appear in
that astonishing list of religious denominations which the
Registrar-General was enabled to compile for the year 1883; but that
proves little, inasmuch as the closer a religious corporation is, the
more exclusive, the less does it care to register the name of the
building in which it may choose to assemble for worship; and I observe
that the Southcotians are no longer to be found upon that list, though
I happen to know that they are not extinct yet, nor has their faith in
their prophetess and her mission quite died out from the face of the
earth.
This is certain, that as late as 1820 an edition of the _Spiritual
Epistles,_ which must have cost at that time two or three hundred
pounds to print, was subscribed for, and that nine years afterwards
appeared _Divine Songs of the Muggletonians_--they were not ashamed of
the name--printed also by subscription, filling 621 pages, and showing
pretty clearly that there had of late been a strange revival of the
sect: an outburst of new fervour having somehow been awakened, and an
irrepressible passion for writing "Songs" having displayed itself,
which had not been without its effect in resuscitating dormant
enthusiasm. The vagaries of the human mind in what, for want of any
better designation, we call "religious belief" have always had for me a
peculiar fascination, as they have for others. Epiphanius, whose name
is and used to be a terror to her Royal Highness in days gone by, when
I insisted upon reading to her about the peculiar people who made it a
matter of faith to eat bread and cheese at the Eucharist--Epiphanius is
to me positively entertaining, and Pagitt's _Heresiography_ is none the
less instructive because it is a vulgar catch-penny little book, made
up, like Peter Pindar's razors, to sell. To me it seems that to dismiss
even the wildest and foolishest opinion _which makes way,_ as if it
were a mere absurdity that does not deserve notice, is to show a
certain flippancy and shallowness. Do not all thoughtful men pass
through certain stages of intellectual growth, and are not the
convictions of our youth held very differently from those which we find
ourselves swayed by in our later years? The beliefs which the multitude
take up with are such as the untrained and the half-trained are always
captivated by, whether individually or in the mass. There are limits to
our powers of assimilation according as our development has been
arrested or is still going on, and he who hopes to understand the
course of human affairs or to make any intelligent forecast of what is
coming can never afford to neglect the study of morbid appetites or
morbid anatomy in the domain of mind.
There is a strong family likeness among all fanatics; and this is
characteristic of them all, that they are profusely communicative and
absolutely honest. Prophets have no secrets, no reserve, no doubts,
they are always true men. John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton are no
exception to the general rule. We can follow their movements pretty
closely for some years. The book of _The Acts of the Witnesses of the
Spirit_ furnishes us with quite as much as we want to know about the
sayings and doings of the grotesque pair and their early extravagances;
and Muggleton's letters cover a period of forty years, during all which
time he was going in and out among the artisans and small traders of
the city, obstinately asserting himself in season and out of season,
and leaving behind him in his eccentric chronicle such a minute and
faithful picture of London life among the middle--the lower
middle--class during the last half of the seventeenth century as is to
be found nowhere else. The reader must be prepared for the most
startling freaks of language, for very vulgar profanity, the more
amazing because so manifestly unintended. When people break away from
all the traditions of the past and surrender themselves to absolute
anarchy in morals and religion the old terminology ceases to be
employed in the old way, ceases indeed to have any meaning. The prophet
or the philosopher who sets himself to invent a new theory of the
universe or a new creed for his followers to embrace, can hardly avoid
shocking and horrifying those who are content to use words as their
forefathers did and attach to these words the same sort of sacredness
that the Hebrews did to the Divine name. There is no need to do more
than allude to this side of the Muggletonian writing. What we are
concerned with is the story of the prophet's life, which has been told
with the utmost frankness and simplicity; a more unvarnished tale it
would be difficult to find, or one which bears more the stamp of truth
upon its every line.
_The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit_ is a posthumous work written
by Muggleton when he was very old, and left behind him in manuscript
with directions that it should be published after his death. It is a
quarto volume of 180 pages and is a book of some rarity. It was
published in 1699, with an epistle dedicatory to all true Christian
people, apparently written by Thomas Tomkinson, one of the chosen seed.
After preparing us for what is coming by dwelling upon the wonderful
stories in the Old Testament and the New, Muggleton plunges into his
subject by giving us a brief account of his own and his brother
prophet's parentage and early biography. Let the reader understand that
here beginneth the third chapter of _The Acts of the Witnesses_ at the
third verse:--
"3. As for John Reeve, he was born in Wiltshire; his father was clerk
to a deputy of Ireland, a gentleman as we call them by his place, but
fell to decay.
"4. So he put John Reeve apprentice here at London to a tailor by
trade. He was out of his apprenticeship before I came acquainted with
him; he was of an honest, just nature, and harmless.
"5. But a man of no great natural wit or wisdom; no subtlety or policy
was in him, nor no great store of religion; he had lost what was
traditional; only of an innocent life.
"7. And I, Lodowick Muggleton, was born in Bishop-gate Street, near the
Earl of Devonshire's house, at the corner house called Walnut-tree Yard.
"8. My father's name was John Muggleton; he was a smith by trade--that
is, a farrier or horse doctor; he was in great respect with the
postmaster in King James's time; he had three children by my mother,
two sons and one daughter, I was the youngest and my mother loved me."
His mother died, his father married again, whereupon the boy was sent
into the country--_boarded out_ as we say--and kept there till his
sixteenth year, when he was brought back to London and apprenticed to-a
tailor--one John Quick--"a quiet, peaceable man, not cruel to servants,
which liked me very well." Muggleton took to his trade and pleased his
master. The journeymen were a loose lot, "bad husbands and given to
drunkenness, but my nature was inclined to be sober." Hitherto the
young man had received no religious training; when he had served his
time, however, "hearing in those days great talk among the vulgar
people and especially amongst youth, boys, and young maids, of a people
called Puritans.... I liked their discourse upon the Scriptures and
pleaded for a holy keeping of the Sabbath day, which my master did not
do, nor I his servant."
This must have been about the year 1630--for Muggleton was born in June
1610--when the Sabbatarian controversy was at its height, and the
feeling of the country was approaching fever heat, and when Charles the
First had resolved to try and govern without a Parliament, and when
Archbishop Abbot was in disgrace, and Laud had begun to exercise his
predominant influence. Muggleton was but little impressed by "the
people called Puritans," and he went on his old way. When he had nearly
served his time, he began to look about him. The tailor's trade did not
seem likely to lead to much, unless it were combined with something
else, and a brilliant opening offered itself, as he was at work for a
pawnbroker in Hounsditch. "The broker's wife had one daughter alive.
The mother, being well persuaded of my good natural temper, and of my
good husbandry, and that I had no poor kindred come after me to be any
charge or burthen to her daughter, ... proposed to me that she would
give me a hundred pounds with her to set up.... So the maid and I were
made sure by promise, and I was resolved to have the maid to wife, and
to keep a broker's shop, and lend money on pawns, and grow rich as
others did." Muggleton had not yet been admitted to the freedom of the
city, and the marriage was arranged to take place after he should have
done so. In the meantime he found himself working side by side with
William Reeve, Prophet John Reeve's brother, at this time a "very
zealous Puritan," with whom he talked of his prospects. "I loved the
maid, and desired to be rich," he tells us; but these Puritan people
were horrified at his deliberately intending to live the life of a
usurer, and they "threatened great judgments, and danger of damnation
hereafter."
It is clear that the frightful eschatology of the time was exercising a
far greater power upon the imagination of the masses than anything
else. People were dwelling upon all that was terrible and gloomy in the
picture of a future life; the one thought with the visionaries was
this--Save yourselves from the wrath to come. "I was extremely fearful
of eternal damnation," says Muggleton, "thinking my soul might go into
hell fire without a body, as all people did at that time."
There was evidently a struggle between conviction and inclination, and
it ended as we should have expected--the marriage was broken off. Then
followed some years of vehement religious conflict; "Neither did I hear
any preach in these days but the Puritan ministers, whose hair was cut
short. _For if a man with long hair had gone_ into the pulpit to
preach, I would have gone out of the Church again, though he might
preach better than the other." All through this time visions of hell
and torment, and devils and damnation troubled him; now and then there
were "elevations in my mind, but these were few and far between; a
while after all was lost again." He soon consoled himself for his
matrimonial disappointment; he married and had three daughters, then
his first wife died. He throve in his calling, "only the spirit of fear
of hell was still upon me, but not so extreme as it was before." He
took a second wife, and the civil war began.
"And generally the Puritans were all for the Parliament, and most of my
society and acquaintance did fall away and declined in love one towards
another. Some of them turned to Presbytery, and some turned
Independents; others fell to be Ranters, and some fell to be mere
Atheists. So that our Puritan people were so divided and scattered in
our religion, that I was altogether at a loss; for all the zeal we
formerly had was quite worn out. For I had seen the utmost perfection
and satisfaction that could be found in that way, except I would do it
for loaves, _but loaves was never my aim."_
The civil war ran its course, but Muggleton cared nothing for the
general course of events. What were kings and bishops and Lords and
Commons to him? he was living in quite another world. As for Laud and
Strafford, and Pym and Hampden, he does not even once name them. He
makes not the slightest allusion to the death of Charles the First,
though he was living within half a mile of Whitehall when the king's
head fell on the block. Prophets of the Muggleton type are so busied
about their own souls and their own spiritual condition, that the
battles, murders, and sudden deaths of other men, great or small, give
them no concern whatever.
A couple of years or so after the execution of the king, "it came to
pass I heard of several prophets and prophetesses that were about the
streets.... Also I heard of two other men that were counted greater
than prophets--to wit, John Tannye and John Robins. John Tannye, he
declared himself to be the Lord's High Priest, therefore he circumcised
himself according to the law. Also he declared that he was to gather
the Jews out of all nations,... with many other strange and wonderful
things. And as for John Robins, he declared himself to be God Almighty.
Also he said that he had raised from the dead several of the prophets,
as Jeremiah and others. Also I saw several others of the prophets that
was said to be raised by him, _for I have had nine or ten of them at my
house at a time, of those that were said to be raised from the dead."_
Is madness contagious? Or is it that, while the sane can exercise but a
very limited power over the insane, there is no limit to the influence
which the insane can gain over one another? Living in a world of their
own, where delusions pass for palpable facts, where the logical faculty
accepts the wildest visions as of equal significance with actual
realities, these dreamers have a calculus of their own which includes
the symbols in use among the sane, but comprehends besides a notation
which these latter attach no meaning to, reject, and deride.
"Would you be so kind as tell me, sir, what's a ohm?" said the worthy
Mr. Stiggins to me the other day. "It's a modern term used in
electricity, which I am too ignorant to explain to you." He looked full
at me for more than five seconds without a word then he said, "I'm
thinking that this man was a fool to talk about ohms when not even you
knew what a ohm means. And he came from Cambridge College too, and he's
got a vote! I reckon when a man can't talk the same as other folks he'd
ought to be shut up." Indignant Stiggins! But are we not all intolerant?
John Robins had acquired an almost unlimited ascendency over his crazy
prophets, and speedily acquired the like ascendency over Muggleton.
What specially fascinated him was that all John Robins's prophets "had
power from him to damn any that did oppose or speak evil of him. So his
prophets gave sentence of damnation upon many, to my knowledge, for
speaking evil of him, they not knowing him whether he was true or
false." Muggleton was profoundly impressed, but according to his own
account he was a silent observer, and waited. One of the prophets often
came to his house and was welcome; he "spake as an angel of God, and I
never let him go without eating and drinking," for Muggleton was a man
of large appetite and demanded large supplies of food, nor did he stint
himself of meat and drink or withhold creature comforts from those he
loved.
Just at this time Muggleton "fell into a melancholy." He had arrived at
the prophetic age--he had completed his fortieth year. "Then did two
motives arise in me and speak in me as two lively voices, as if two
spirits had been speaking in me, one answering the other as if they
were not my own spirit." So that our noble laureate was anticipated by
two centuries, unless indeed the "two lively voices" make themselves
heard at times to most men who have ears to hear them. Muggleton's
voices were not very high-toned voices; they were voices that spake of
heaven and hell, nothing more. Love and duty never seem to have formed
the subject of his meditations. "For I did not so much mind to be
saved, as I did to escape being damn'd. For I thought, if I could but
lie still in the earth for ever, it would be as well with me as it
would be if I were in eternal happiness... for I did not care whether I
was happy so I might not be miserable. I cared not for heaven so I
might not go to hell. These things pressed hard upon my soul, even to
the wounding of it."