the disputes upon INDIA--a topic on separate grounds equally interesting
to us all, as the mightiest of English colonies, and the superbest
monument of demoniac English energy, revealing itself in such men as
Clive, Hastings, and soon after in the two Wellesleys. To my mother, as
the grave of one brother, as the home of another, and as a new centre
from which Christianity (she hoped) would mount like an eagle; for just
about that time the Bible Society was preparing its initial movements;
whilst to my uncle India appeared as the _arena_ upon which his
activities were yet to find their adequate career. With respect to the
Christianization of India, my uncle assumed a hope which he did not
really feel; and in another point, more trying to himself personally, he
had soon an opportunity for showing the sincerity of this deference to
his spiritual-minded sister. For, very soon after his return to India,
he received a civil appointment (_Superintendent of Military Buildings
in Bengal_), highly lucrative, and the more so as it could be held
conjointly with his military rank; but a good deal of its pecuniary
advantages was said to lie in fees, or perquisites, privately offered,
but perfectly regular and official, which my mother (misunderstanding
the Indian system) chose to call "bribes." A very ugly word was _that_;
but I argued that even at home, even in the courts at Westminster, in
the very fountains of justice, private fees constituted one part of the
salaries--a fair and official part, so long as Parliament had not made
such fees illegal by commuting them for known and fixed equivalents.
It was mere ignorance of India, as I dutifully insisted against
"Mamma," that could confound these regular oriental "nuzzers" with the
clandestine wages of corruption. The _pot-de-vin_ of French tradition,
the pair of gloves (though at one time very costly gloves) to an English
judge of assize on certain occasions, never was offered nor received in
the light of a bribe. And (until regularly abolished by the legislature)
I insisted--but vainly insisted--that these and similar _honoraria_
ought to be accepted, because else you were lowering the prescriptive
rights and value of the office, which you--a mere _locum tenens_ for
some coming successor--had no right to do upon a solitary scruple or
crotchet, arising probably from dyspepsia. Better men, no doubt, than
ever stood in _your_ stockings, had pocketed thankfully the gifts of
ancient, time-honored custom. My uncle, however, though not with the
carnal recusancy which besieged the spiritual efforts of poor Cuthbert
Headrigg, that incorrigible worldling, yet still with intermitting
doubts, followed my mother's earnest entreaties, and the more
meritoriously (I conceive), as he yielded, in a point deeply affecting
his interest, to a system of arguments very imperfectly convincing
to his understanding. He held the office in question for as much (I
believe) as eighteen or nineteen years; and, by knowing old bilious
Indians, who laughed immoderately at my uncle and my mother, as the
proper growth of a priory or some such monastic establishment, I have
been assured that nothing short of two hundred thousand pounds ought,
under the long tenure of office, to have been remitted to England. But,
then, said one of these gentlemen, if your uncle lived (as I have heard
that he did) in Calcutta and Meer-ut, at the rate of four thousand
pounds a year, _that_ would account for a considerable share of a mine
which else would seem to have been worked in vain. Unquestionably, my
uncle's system of living was under no circumstances a self-denying
one. To enjoy, and to make others enjoy--_that_ was his law of action.
Indeed, a more liberal creature, or one of more princely munificence,
never lived.
It might seem useless to call back any fragment of conversations
relating to India which passed more than fifty years ago, were it not
for two reasons: one of which is this,--that the errors (natural at that
time) which I vehemently opposed, not from any greater knowledge that I
had, but from closer reflection, are even now the prevailing errors
of the English people. My mother, for instance, uniformly spoke of
the English as the subverters of ancient thrones. I, on the contrary,
insisted that nothing political was ancient in India. Our own original
opponents, the Rajahs of Oude and Bengal, had been all upstarts: in the
Mysore, again, our more recent opponents, Hyder, and his son Tippoo,
were new men altogether, whose grandfathers were quite unknown. Why
was it that my mother, why is it that the English public at this day,
connect so false an image--that of high, cloudy antiquity --with the
thrones of India? It is simply from an old habit of associating the
spirit of change and rapid revolution with the activities of Europe;
so that, by a natural reaction of thought, the Orient is figured as the
home of motionless monotony. In things religious, in habits, in costume,
it _is_ so. But so far otherwise in things political, that no instance
can be alleged of any dynasty or system of government that has endured
beyond a century or two in the East. Taking India in particular, the
Mogul dynasty, established by Baber, the great-grandson of Timour, did
not subsist in any vigor for two centuries; and yet this was by far
the most durable of all established princely houses. Another argument
against England urged by my mother (but equally urged by the English
people at this day) was, that she had in no eminent sense been a
benefactress to India; or, expressing it in words of later date, that
the only memorials of our rule, supposing us suddenly ejected from
India, would be vast heaps of champagne-bottles. I, on the other hand,
alleged that our benefits, like all truly great and lasting benefits
(religious benefits, for instance), must not be sought in external
memorials of stone and masonry. Higher by far than the Mogul gifts of
mile-stones, or travelling stations, or even roads and tanks, were the
gifts of security, of peace, of law, and settled order. These blessings
were travelling as fast as our rule advanced. I could not _then_ appeal
to the cases of Thuggee extirpated, of the Pindanees (full fifteen
thousand bloody murderers) forever exterminated, or of the Marhattas
bridled forever--a robber nation that previously had descended at
intervals with a force of sometimes one hundred and fifty thousand
troopers upon the afflicted province of Bengal, and Oude its neighbor;
because these were events as yet unborn. But they were the natural
extensions of that beneficent system on which I rested my argument. The
two terrors of India at that particular time were Holkar and Scindiah
(pronounced _Sindy_), who were soon cut short in their career by the
hostilities which they provoked with us, but would else have proved,
in combination, a deadlier scourge to India than either Hyder or his
ferocious son. My mother, in fact, a great reader of the poet Cowper,
drew from _him_ her notions of Anglo-Indian policy and its effects.
Cowper, in his "Task," puts the question,-- "Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still?"
Pretty much the same authority it is which the British public of this
day has for its craze upon the subject of English oppression amongst the
Hindoos.
My uncle, meantime, who from his Indian experience should reasonably
have known so much better, was disposed, from the mere passive habits of
hearing and reading unresistingly so many assaults of this tone against
our Indian policy, to go along with my mother. But he was too just, when
forced into reflection upon the subject, not to bend at times to my
way of stating the case for England. Suddenly, however, our Indian
discussions were brought to a close by the following incident. My uncle
had brought with him to England some Arabian horses, and amongst them a
beautiful young Persian mare, called Sumroo, the gentlest of her race.
Sumroo it was that he happened to be riding, upon a frosty day. Unused
to ice, she came down with him, and broke his right leg. This accident
laid him up for a month, during which my mother and I read to him by
turns. One book, which one day fell to my share by accident, was De
Foe's "Memoirs of a Cavalier." This book attempts to give a picture of
the Parliamentary war; but in some places an unfair, and everywhere a
most superficial account. I said so; and my uncle, who had an old craze
in behalf of the book, opposed me with asperity; and, in the course of
what he said, under some movement of ill-temper, he asked me, in a way
which I felt to be taunting, how I could consent to waste my time as I
did. Without any answering warmth, I explained that my guardians, having
quarrelled with me, would not grant for my use anything beyond my school
allowance of one hundred pounds per annum. But was it not possible that
even this sum might by economy be made to meet the necessities of the
case? I replied that, from what I had heard, very probably it was. Would
I undertake an Oxford life upon such terms? Most gladly, I said. Upon
that opening he spoke to my mother; and the result was, that, within
seven days from the above conversation, I found myself entering that
time-honored university.
OXFORD.
I.
OXFORD.
It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that I
first entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, or
rather with a view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous story
is told of a young candidate for clerical orders--that, being asked by
the bishop's chaplain if he had ever "been to Oxford," as a colloquial
expression for having had an academic education, he replied, "No: but he
had twice been to Abingdon:" Abingdon being only seven miles distant.
In the same sense I might say that once before I had been at Oxford:
but _that_ was as a transient visitor with Lord W----, when we were both
children. Now, on the contrary, I approached these venerable towers in
the character of a student, and with the purpose of a long connection;
personally interested in the constitution of the university, and
obscurely anticipating that in this city, or at least during the period
of my nominal attachment to this academic body, the remoter parts of
my future life would unfold before me. All hearts were at this time
occupied with the public interests of the country. The "sorrow of the
time" was ripening to a second harvest. Napoleon had commenced his
Vandal, or rather Hunnish War with Britain, in the spring of this year,
about eight months before; and profound public interest it was, into
which the very coldest hearts entered, that a little divided with me
the else monopolizing awe attached to the solemn act of launching myself
upon the world. That expression may seem too strong as applied to one
who had already been for many months a houseless wanderer in Wales, and
a solitary roamer in the streets of London. But in those situations,
it must be remembered, I was an unknown, unacknowledged vagrant; and
without money I could hardly run much risk, except of breaking my neck.
The perils, the pains, the pleasures, or the obligations, of the world,
scarcely exist in a proper sense for him who has no funds. Perfect
weakness is often secure; it is by imperfect power, turned against its
master, that men are snared and decoyed. Here in Oxford I should be
called upon to commence a sort of establishment upon the splendid
English scale; here I should share in many duties and responsibilities,
and should become henceforth an object of notice to a large society. Now
first becoming separately and individually answerable for my conduct,
and no longer absorbed into the general unit of a family, I felt myself,
for the first time, burthened with the anxieties of a man, and a member
of the world.
Oxford, ancient mother! hoary with ancestral honors, time-honored, and,
haply, it may be, time-shattered power--I owe thee nothing! Of thy vast
riches I took not a shilling, though living amongst multitudes who owed
to thee their daily bread. Not the less I owe thee justice; for that
is a universal debt. And at this moment, when I see thee called to
thy audit by unjust and malicious accusers--men with the hearts of
inquisitors and the purposes of robbers--I feel towards thee something
of filial reverence and duty. However, I mean not to speak as an
advocate, but as a conscientious witness in the simplicity of truth;
feeling neither hope nor fear of a personal nature, without fee, and
without favor.
I have been assured from many quarters that the great body of the public
are quite in the dark about the whole manner of living in our English
universities; and that a considerable portion of that public, misled by
the totally different constitution of universities in Scotland, Ireland,
and generally on the continent, as well as by the different arrangements
of collegiate life in those institutions, are in a state worse than
ignorant (that is, more unfavorable to the truth)--starting, in fact,
from prejudices, and absolute errors of fact, which operate most
uncharitably upon their construction of those insulated statements,
which are continually put forward by designing men. Hence, I can well
believe that it will be an acceptable service, at this particular
moment, when the very constitution of the two English universities is
under the unfriendly revision of Parliament, when some roving commission
may be annually looked for, under a contingency which I will not utter
in words (for I reverence the doctrine of _euphæmismos_), far worse
than Cromwellian, that is, merely personal, and to winnow the existing
corporation from disaffection to the state--a Henry the Eighth
commission of sequestration, and levelled at the very integrity of
the institution--under such prospects, I can well believe that a true
account of Oxford _as it is_ (which will be valid also for Cambridge)
must be welcome both to friend and foe. And instead of giving this
account didactically, or according to a logical classification of the
various items in the survey, I will give it historically, or according
to the order in which the most important facts of the case opened
themselves before myself, under the accidents of my own personal
inquiry. No situation could be better adapted than my own for eliciting
information; for, whereas most young men come to the university under
circumstances of absolute determination as to the choice of their
particular college, and have, therefore, no cause for search or inquiry,
I, on the contrary, came thither in solitary self-dependence, and in the
loosest state of indetermination.
Though neither giving nor accepting invitations for the first two years
of my residence, never but once had I reason to complain of a sneer,
or indeed any allusion whatever to habits which might be understood to
express poverty. Perhaps even then I had no reason to complain, for
my own conduct in that instance was unwise; and the allusion, though a
personality, and so far ill-bred, might be meant in real kindness. The
case was this: I neglected my dress in one point habitually; that is,
I wore clothes until they were threadbare--partly in the belief that my
gown would conceal their main defects, but much more from carelessness
and indisposition to spend upon a tailor what I had destined for
a bookseller. At length, an official person, of some weight in the
college, sent me a message on the subject through a friend. It was
couched in these terms: That, let a man possess what talents or
accomplishments he might, it was not possible for him to maintain his
proper station, in the public respect, amongst so many servants and
people, servile to external impressions, without some regard to the
elegance of his dress.
A reproof so courteously prefaced I could not take offence at; and at
that time I resolved to spend some cost upon decorating my person. But
always it happened that some book, or set of books,--that passion being
absolutely endless, and inexorable as the grave,--stepped between me and
my intentions; until one day, upon arranging my toilet hastily before
dinner, I suddenly made the discovery that I had no waistcoat (or
_vest_, as it is now called, through conceit or provincialism), which
was not torn or otherwise dilapidated; whereupon, buttoning up my coat
to the throat, and drawing my gown as close about me as possible, I went
into the public "hall" (so is called in Oxford the public eating-room)
with no misgiving. However, I was detected; for a grave man, with a
superlatively grave countenance, who happened on that day to sit next
me, but whom I did not personally know, addressing his friend sitting
opposite, begged to know if he had seen the last Gazette, because he
understood that it contained an order in council laying an interdict
upon the future use of waistcoats. His friend replied, with the same
perfect gravity, that it was a great satisfaction to his mind that his
majesty's government should have issued so sensible an order; which
he trusted would be soon followed up by an interdict on breeches,
they being still more disagreeable to pay for. This said, without the
movement on either side of a single muscle, the two gentlemen passed to
other subjects; and I inferred, upon the whole, that, having detected
my manoeuvre, they wished to put me on my guard in the only way open to
them. At any rate, this was the sole personality, or equivocal allusion
of any sort, which ever met my ear during the years that I asserted my
right to be as poor as I chose. And, certainly, my censors were right,
whatever were the temper in which they spoke, kind or unkind; for a
little extra care in the use of clothes will always, under almost any
extremity of poverty, pay for so much extra cost as is essential to
neatness and decorum, if not even to elegance. They were right, and I
was wrong, in a point which cannot be neglected with impunity.
But, to enter upon my own history, and my sketch of Oxford life.--Late
on a winter's night, in the latter half of December, 1803, when a
snow-storm, and a heavy one, was already gathering in the air, a lazy
Birmingham coach, moving at four and a half miles an hour, brought
me through the long northern suburb of Oxford, to a shabby coach-inn,
situated in the Corn Market. Business was out of the question at that
hour. But the next day I assembled all the acquaintances I had in
the university, or had to my own knowledge; and to them, in council
assembled, propounded my first question: What college would they,
in their superior state of information, recommend to my choice?
This question leads to the first great characteristic of Oxford, as
distinguished from most other universities. Before me at this moment lie
several newspapers, reporting, at length, the installation in office
(as Chancellor) of the Duke of Wellington. The original Oxford report,
having occasion to mention the particular college from which the
official procession moved, had said, no doubt, that the gates of
University, the halls of University, &c., were at such a point of
time thrown open. But most of the provincial editors, not at all
comprehending that the reference was to an individual college, known by
the name of University College, one of twenty-five such establishments
in Oxford, had regularly corrected it into "gates of the University,"
&c. Here is the first misconception of all strangers. And this feature
of Oxford it is which has drawn such exclamations of astonishment from
foreigners. Lipsius, for example, protested with fervor, on first seeing
this vast establishment of Oxford, that one college of this university
was greater in its power and splendor, that it glorified and illustrated
the honors of literature more conspicuously by the pomps with which
it invested the ministers and machinery of education, than any entire
university of the continent.
What is a university almost everywhere else? It announces little more,
as respects the academic buildings, than that here is to be found the
place of rendezvous--the exchange, as it were, or, under a different
figure, the _palæstra_ of the various parties connected with the
prosecution of liberal studies. This is their "House of Call," their
general place of muster and parade. Here it is that the professors and
the students converge, with the certainty of meeting each other. Here,
in short, are the lecture-rooms in all the faculties. Well: thus far we
see an arrangement of convenience--that is, of convenience for one of
the parties, namely, the professors. To them it spares the disagreeable
circumstances connected with a private reception of their students
at their own rooms. But to the students it is a pure matter of
indifference. In all this there is certainly no service done to the
cause of good learning, which merits a state sanction, or the aid of
national funds. Next, however, comes an academic library, sometimes a
good one; and here commences a real use in giving a national station
to such institutions, because their durable and monumental existence,
liable to no flux or decay from individual caprice, or accidents of
life, and their authentic station, as expressions of the national
grandeur, point them out to the bequests of patriotic citizens. They
fall also under the benefit of another principle--the conservative
feeling of amateurship. Several great collections have been bequeathed
to the British Museum, for instance--not chiefly _as_ a national
institution, and under feelings of nationality, but because, being such,
it was also permanent; and thus the painful labors of collecting were
guaranteed from perishing. Independently of all this, I, for my
part, willingly behold the surplus of national funds dedicated to the
consecration, as it were, of learning, by raising temples to its honor,
even where they answer no purpose of direct use. Next, after the
service of religion, I would have the service of learning externally
embellished, recommended to the affections of men, and hallowed by the
votive sculptures, as I may say, of that affection, gathering in amount
from age to age. _Magnificabo apostolatum meum_ is a language almost
as becoming to the missionaries and ministers of knowledge, as to
the ambassadors of religion. It is fit that by pompous architectural
monuments, that a voice may forever be sounding audibly in human ears
of homage to these powers, and that even alien feelings may be compelled
into secret submission to their influence. Therefore, amongst the number
of those who value such things, upon the scale of direct proximate
utility, rank not me: that _arithmetica officina_ is in my years
abominable. But still I affirm that, in our analysis of an ordinary
university, or "college" as it is provincially called, we have not yet
arrived at any element of service rendered to knowledge or education,
large enough to call for very extensive national aid. Honor has thus
far been rendered to the good cause by a public attestation, and that is
well: but no direct promotion has been given to that cause, no impulse
communicated to its progress, such that it can be held out as a result
commensurate to the name and pretensions of a university. As yet there
is nothing accomplished which is beyond the strength of any little
commercial town. And as to the library in particular, besides that in
all essential departments it might be bought, to order, by one day's
common subscription of Liverpool or Glasgow merchants, students very
rarely indeed have admission to its free use.