2. Tutorage,................ ..................... 10 10 0
3. Servants (subject to the explanations made above),
say........................................... 5 5 0
4. Battels (allowing one shilling a day beyond what
I and others spent in much dearer times; that is,
allowing twenty-eight shillings weekly), for
thirty weeks,.................................. 40 4 0
-------- £66 9 0
This will be a liberal calculation for the college bill. What remains?
1. Candles, which the reader will best calculate upon the standard of
his own general usage in this particular. 2. Coals, which are remarkably
dear at Oxford--dearer, perhaps, than anywhere else in the island; say,
three times as dear as at Edinburgh. 3. Groceries. 4. Wine. 5. Washing.
This last article was, in my time, regulated by the college, as there
were certain privileged washer-women, between whom and the students
it was but fair that some proper authority should interfere to prevent
extortion, in return for the monopoly granted. Six guineas was the
regulated sum; but this paid for everything,--table-linen, &c., as
well as for wearing apparel; and it was understood to cover the whole
twenty-eight or thirty weeks. However, it was open to every man to
make his own arrangements, by insisting on a separate charge for each
separate article. All other expenses of a merely personal nature, such
as postage, public amusements, books, clothes, &c., as they have no
special connection with Oxford, but would, probably, be balanced by
corresponding, if not the very same, expenses in any other place or
situation, I do not calculate. What I have specified are the expenses
which would accrue to a student in consequence of leaving his father's
house. The rest would, in these days, be the same, perhaps, everywhere.
How much, then, shall we assume as the total charge on account of
Oxford? Candles, considering the quantity of long days amongst the
thirty weeks, may be had for one shilling and sixpence a week; for few
students--unless they have lived in India, after which a physical change
occurs in the sensibility of the nostrils--are finical enough to burn
wax-lights. This will amount to two pounds, five shillings. Coals,
say sixpence a day; for threepence a day will amply feed one grate in
Edinburgh; and there are many weeks in the thirty which will demand no
fire at all. Groceries and wine, which are all that remain, I cannot
calculate. But suppose we allow for the first a shilling a day, which
will be exactly ten guineas for thirty weeks; and for the second,
nothing at all. Then the extras, in addition to the college bills, will
stand thus:
Washing for thirty weeks, at the privileged rate, .. £6 6 0
Candles, ........................................... 2 5 0
Fire, .............................................. 5 5 0
Groceries, ......................................... 10 10 0
--------- Total, ..... £24 6 0
The college bills, therefore, will be sixty-six pounds, nine shillings;
the extras, not furnished by the college, will be about twenty-four
pounds, six shillings,--making a total amount of ninety pounds, fifteen
shillings. And for this sum, annually, a man may defray _every_ expense
incident to an Oxford life, through a period of weeks (namely, thirty)
something more than he will be permitted to reside. It is true, that,
for the _first_ year, there will be, in addition to this, his outfit:
and for _every_ year there will be his journeys. There will also be
twenty-two weeks uncovered by this estimate; but for these it is not my
business to provide, who deal only with Oxford.
That this estimate is true, I know too feelingly. Would that it were
_not_! would that it were false! Were it so, I might the better justify
to myself that commerce with fraudulent Jews which led me so early to
commence the dilapidation of my small fortune. It _is_ true; and true
for a period (1804-8) far dearer than this. And to any man who questions
its accuracy I address this particular request--that he will lay his
hand upon the special item which he disputes. I anticipate that he will
answer thus: "I dispute none: it is not by positive things that your
estimate errs, but by negations. It is the absence of all allowance for
indispensable items that vitiates the calculation." Very well: but to
this, as to other things, we may apply the words of Dr. Johnson--"Sir,
the reason I drink no wine, is because I can practise abstinence,
but not temperance." Yes: in all things, abstinence is easier than
temperance; for a little enjoyment has invariably the effect of awaking
the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting it on edge. I,
therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for _no_
wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give
breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none
at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish.
Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic
seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four.
But, however this be settled, let no mistake be made; nor let that be
charged against the system which is due to the habits of individuals.
Early in the last century, Dr. Newton, the head of a college in Oxford,
wrote a large book against the Oxford system, as ruinously expensive.
But then, as now, the real expense was due to no cause over which the
colleges could exercise any effectual control. It is due exclusively to
the habits of social intercourse amongst the young men; from which _he_
may abstain who chooses. But, for any academic authorities to interfere
by sumptuary laws with the private expenditure of grown men, many of
them, in a legal sense, _of age_, and all near it, must appear romantic
and extravagant, for this (or, indeed, any) stage of society. A tutor
being required, about 1810, to fix the amount of allowance for a young
man of small fortune, nearly related to myself, pronounced three hundred
and twenty pounds little enough. He had this allowance, and was ruined
in consequence of the credit which it procured for him, and the society
it connected him with. The majority have two hundred pounds a year: but
my estimate stands good, for all that.
Having stated, generally, the expenses of the Oxford system, I am bound,
in candor, to mention one variety in the mode of carrying this system
into effect, open to every man's adoption, which confers certain
privileges, but, at the same time (by what exact mode, I know not),
considerably increases the cost, and in that degree disturbs my
calculation. The great body of undergraduates, or students, are divided
into two classes--_Commoners_, and _Gentlemen Commoners_. Perhaps
nineteen out of twenty belong to the former class; and it is for that
class, as having been my own, that I have made my estimate. The other
class of _Gentlemen Commoners_ (who, at Cambridge, bear the name of
_Fellow Commoners_) wear a peculiar dress, and have some privileges
which naturally imply some corresponding increase of cost; but why this
increase should go to the extent of doubling the total expense, as it is
generally thought to do, or how it _can_ go to that extent, I am unable
to explain. The differences which attach to the rank of "Gentlemen
Commoners" are these: At his entrance he pays double "caution money;"
that is, whilst Commoners in general pay about twenty-five guineas, he
pays fifty; but this can occur only once; and, besides, in strict point
of right, this sum is only a deposit, and is liable to be withdrawn on
leaving the university, though it is commonly enough finally presented
to the college in the shape of plate. The next difference is, that, by
comparison with the Commoner, he wears a much more costly dress.
The Commoner's gown is made of what is called _prince's stuff_; and,
together with the cap, costs about five guineas. But the Gentleman
Commoner has two gowns--an undress for the morning, and a full
dress-gown for the evening; both are made of silk, and the latter is
very elaborately ornamented. The cap also is more costly, being covered
with velvet instead of cloth. At Cambridge, again, the tassel is made
of gold fringe or bullion, which, in Oxford, is peculiar to the caps of
noblemen; and there are many other varieties in that university,
where the dress for "pensioners" (that is, the Oxford "Commoners") is
specially varied in almost every college; the object being, perhaps,
to give a ready means to the academic officers for ascertaining, at a
glance, not merely the general fact that such or such a delinquent is a
gownsman (which is all that can be ascertained at Oxford), but also the
particular college to which he belongs. Allowance being made for these
two items of "dress" and "caution-money," both of which apply only to
the original outfit, I know of no others in which the expenditure of
a Gentleman Commoner ought to exceed, or could with propriety exceed,
those of a Commoner. He has, indeed, a privilege as regards the choice
of rooms; he chooses first, and probably chooses those rooms which,
being best, are dearest; that is, they are on a level with the best;
but usually there are many sets almost equally good; and of these the
majority will be occupied by Commoners. So far, there is little opening
for a difference. More often, again, it will happen that a man of this
aristocratic class keeps a private servant; yet this happens also to
Commoners, and is, besides, no properly college expense. Tutorage is
charged double to a Gentleman Commoner--namely, twenty guineas a year:
this is done upon a fiction (as it sometimes turns out) of separate
attention, or aid given in a private way to his scholastic pursuits.
Finally, there arises naturally another and peculiar source of expense
to the "Gentleman Commoner," from a fact implied in his Cambridge
designation of "_Fellow_ Commoner," _commensalis_--namely, that he
associates at meals with the "fellows" and other authorities of the
college. Yet this again expresses rather the particular shape which
his expenditure assumes than any absolute increase in its amount. He
subscribes to a regular mess, and pays, therefore, whether present or
not; but so, in a partial sense, does the Commoner, by his forfeits for
"absent commons." He subscribes also to a regular fund for wine; and,
therefore, he does not enjoy that immunity from wine-drinking which is
open to the Commoner. Yet, again, as the Commoner does but rarely avail
himself of this immunity, as he drinks no less wine than the Gentleman
Commoner, and, generally speaking, wine not worse in quality, it
is difficult to see any ground for a regular assumption of higher
expenditure in the one class than the other. However, the universal
impression favors that assumption. All people believe that the rank of
Gentleman Commoner imposes an expensive burden, though few people ever
ask why. As a matter of fact, I believe it to be true that Gentlemen
Commoners spend more by a third, or a half, than any equal number of
Commoners, taken without selection. And the reason is obvious: those who
become Gentlemen Commoners are usually determined to that course by the
accident of having very large funds; they are eldest sons, or only sons,
or men already in possession of estates, or else (which is as common a
case as all the rest put together) they are the heirs of newly-acquired
wealth--sons of the _nouveaux riches_--a class which often requires
a generation or two to rub off the insolence of a too conscious
superiority. I have called them an "aristocratic" class; but, in
strictness, they are not such; they form a privileged class, indeed,
but their privileges are few and trifling, not to add that these very
privileges are connected with one or two burdens, more than outweighing
them in the estimate of many; and, upon the whole, the chief distinction
they enjoy is that of advertising themselves to the public as men
of great wealth, or great expectations; and, therefore, as subjects
peculiarly adapted to fraudulent attempts. Accordingly, it is not found
that the sons of the nobility are much inclined to enter this order:
these, if they happen to be the eldest sons of earls, or of any peers
above the rank of viscount, so as to enjoy a title themselves by the
courtesy of England, have special privileges in both universities as to
length of residence, degrees, &c.; and their rank is ascertained by
a special dress. These privileges it is not usual to forego; though
sometimes that happens, as, in my time, in the instance of Lord George
Grenville (now Lord Nugent); he neither entered at the aristocratic
college (Christ Church), nor wore the dress of a nobleman. Generally,
however, an elder son appears in his true character of nobleman; but the
younger sons rarely enter the class of Gentlemen Commoners. They enter
either as "Commoners," or under some of those various designations
("scholars," "demies," "students," "junior fellows") which imply that
they stand upon the foundation of the college to which they belong, and
are aspirants for academic emoluments.
Upon the whole, I am disposed to regard this order of Gentlemen
Commoners as a standing temptation held out by authority to expensive
habits, and a very unbecoming proclamation of honor paid to the
aristocracy of wealth. And I know that many thoughtful men regard it in
the same light with myself, and regret deeply that any such distribution
of ranks should be authorized, as a stain upon the simplicity and
general manliness of the English academic laws. It is an open profession
of homage and indulgence to wealth, _as_ wealth--to wealth disconnected
from everything that might ally it to the ancestral honors and
heraldries of the land. It is also an invitation, or rather a challenge,
to profuse expenditure. Regularly, and by law, a Gentleman Commoner
is liable to little heavier burdens than a Commoner; but, to meet the
expectations of those around him, and to act up to the part he has
assumed, he must spend more, and he must be more careless in controlling
his expenditure, than a moderate and prudent Commoner. In every light,
therefore, I condemn the institution, and give it up to the censures of
the judicious. So much in candor I concede. But, to show equal candor on
the other side, it must be remembered that this institution descends
to us from ancient times, when wealth was not so often divided from
territorial or civic honors, conferring a real precedency.
III.
OXFORD.
There was one reason why I sought solitude at that early age, and sought
it in a morbid excess, which must naturally have conferred upon my
character some degree of that interest which belongs to all extremes.
My eye had been couched into a secondary power of vision, by misery,
by solitude, by sympathy with life in all its modes, by experience too
early won, and by the sense of danger critically escaped. Suppose
the case of a man suspended by some colossal arm over an unfathomed
abyss,--suspended, but finally and slowly withdrawn,--it is probable
that he would not smile for years. That was my case: for I have
not mentioned, in the "Opium Confessions," a thousandth part of the
sufferings I underwent in London and in Wales; partly because the misery
was too monotonous, and, in that respect, unfitted for description; but,
still more, because there is a mysterious sensibility connected
with real suffering which recoils from circumstantial rehearsal or
delincation, as from violation offered to something sacred, and which
is, or should be, dedicated to privacy. Grief does not parade its pangs,
nor the anguish of despairing hunger willingly count again its groans or
its humiliations. Hence it was that Ledyard, the traveller, speaking
of his Russian experiences, used to say that some of his miseries were
such, that he never _would_ reveal them. Besides all which, I really was
not at liberty to speak, without many reserves, on this chapter of
my life, at a period (1821) not twenty years removed from the actual
occurrences, unless I desired to court the risk of crossing at every
step the existing law of libel, so full of snares and man-traps, to the
careless equally with the conscientious writer. This is a consideration
which some of my critics have lost sight of in a degree which surprises
me. One, for example, puts it to his readers whether any house such as
I describe as the abode of my money-lending friend could exist "_in_
Oxford-street;" and, at the same time, he states, as circumstances drawn
from my description, but, in fact, pure coinages of his own, certain
romantic impossibilities, which, doubtless, could as little attach to a
house in Oxford-street as they could to a house in any other quarter of
London. Meantime, I had sufficiently indicated that, whatsoever street
_was_ concerned in that affair, Oxford-street was _not_; and it is
remarkable enough, as illustrating this amiable reviewer's veracity,
that no one street in London was absolutely excluded but one; and that
one, Oxford-street. For I happened to mention that, on such a day (my
birth-day), I had turned aside _from_ Oxford-street to look at the house
in question. I will now add that this house was in Greek-street: so
much it may be safe to say. But every candid reader will see that both
prudential restraints, and also disinterested regard to the feelings of
possibly amiable descendants from a vicious man, would operate with any
thoughtful writer, in such a case, to impose reserve upon his pen. Had
my guardians, had my money-lending friend of Jewry, and others concerned
in my memoirs, been so many shadows, bodiless abstractions, and without
earthly connections, I might readily have given my own names to my own
creations, and have treated them as unceremoniously as I pleased. Not
so under the real circumstances of the case. My chief guardian, for
instance, though obstinate to a degree which risked the happiness and
the life of his ward, was an upright man otherwise; and his children are
entitled to value his memory.
Again, my Greek-street _trapexitæs_, the "_foenerator Alpheus_," who
delighted to reap where he had not sown, and too often (I fear) allowed
himself in practices which not impossibly have long since been found to
qualify him for distant climates and "Botanic" regions,--even he, though
I might truly describe him as a mere highwayman, whenever he happened to
be aware that I had received a friendly loan, yet, like other highwaymen
of repute, and "gentle thieves," was not inexorable to the petitions
of his victim: he would sometimes toss back what was required for some
instant necessity of the road; and at _his_ breakfast-table it was,
after all, as elsewhere recorded, that I contrived to support life;
barely, indeed, and most slenderly, but still with the final result of
escaping absolute starvation. With that recollection before me, I could
not allow myself to probe his frailties too severely, had it even been
certainly safe to do so. But enough; the reader will understand that
a year spent either in the valleys of Wales, or upon the streets of
London, a wanderer, too often houseless in both situations, might
naturally have peopled the mind of one constitutionally disposed to
solemn contemplations with memorials of human sorrow and strife too
profound to pass away for years.
Thus, then, it was--past experience of a very peculiar kind, the
agitations of many lives crowded into the compass of a year or two, in
combination with a peculiar structure of mind--offered one explanation
of the very remarkable and unsocial habits which I adopted at college;
but there was another not less powerful, and not less unusual. In
stating this, I shall seem, to some persons, covertly designing an
affront to Oxford. But that is far from my intention. It is noways
peculiar to Oxford, but will, doubtless, be found in every university
throughout the world, that the younger part of the members--the
undergraduates, I mean, generally, whose chief business must have lain
amongst the great writers of Greece and Rome--cannot have found leisure
to cultivate extensively their own domestic literature. Not so much that
time will have been wanting; but that the whole energy of the mind, and
the main course of the subsidiary studies and researches, will naturally
have been directed to those difficult languages amongst which lie their
daily tasks. I make it no subject of complaint or scorn, therefore,
but simply state it as a fact, that few or none of the Oxford
undergraduates, with whom parity of standing threw me into collision
at my first outset, knew anything at all of English literature. The
_Spectator_ seemed to me the only English book of a classical rank which
they had read; and even this less for its inimitable delicacy, humor,
and refined pleasantry in dealing with manners and characters, than for
its insipid and meagre essays, ethical or critical. This was no fault
of theirs: they had been sent to the book chiefly as a subject for Latin
translations, or of other exercises; and, in such a view, the vague
generalities of superficial morality were more useful and more
manageable than sketches of manner or character, steeped in national
peculiarities. To translate the terms of whig politics into classical
Latin, would be as difficult as it might be for a whig himself to give
a consistent account of those politics from the year 1688. Natural,
however, and excusable, as this ignorance might be, to myself it was
intolerable and incomprehensible. Already, at fifteen, I had made myself
familiar with the great English poets. About sixteen, or not long after,
my interest in the story of Chatterton had carried me over the whole
ground of the Rowley controversy; and that controversy, by a necessary
consequence, had so familiarized me with the "Black Letter," that I had
begun to find an unaffected pleasure in the ancient English metrical
romances; and in Chaucer, though acquainted as yet only with part of his
works, I had perceived and had felt profoundly those divine qualities,
which, even at this day, are so languidly acknowledged by his unjust
countrymen. With this knowledge, and this enthusiastic knowledge of the
elder poets--of those most remote from easy access--I could not well be
a stranger in other walks of our literature, more on a level with
the general taste, and nearer to modern diction, and, therefore, more
extensively multiplied by the press.
Yet, after all--as one proof how much more commanding is that part of a
literature which speaks to the elementary affections of men, than that
which is founded on the mutable aspects of manners--it is a fact
that, even in our elaborate system of society, where an undue value
is unavoidably given to the whole science of social intercourse, and a
continual irritation applied to the sensibilities which point in that
direction; still, under all these advantages, Pope himself is less read,
less quoted, less thought of, than the elder and graver section of our
literature. It is a great calamity for an author such as Pope, that,
generally speaking, it requires so much experience of life to enjoy his
peculiar felicities as must argue an age likely to have impaired the
general capacity for enjoyment. For my part, I had myself a very slender
acquaintance with this chapter of our literature; and what little I
had was generally, at that period of my life, as, with most men, it
continues to be to the end of life, a reflex knowledge, acquired through
those pleasant miscellanies, half gossip, half criticism--such as
Warton's Essay on Pope, Boswell's Johnson, Mathias' Pursuits of
Literature, and many scores beside of the same indeterminate class; a
class, however, which do a real service to literature, by diffusing an
indirect knowledge of fine writers in their most effective passages,
where else, in a direct shape, it would often never extend.