In offering this little poem to the public, some few words, by way of
explanation, are deemed necessary. Most of the circumstances alluded to
in it will be familiar to Oxford readers of Bishop Heber's standing, but
especially to those of his own college, Brazenose. The origin of the
poem was simply this:--A young friend of his, B----d P----t, went to
call upon him at Brazenose, and, without being aware of the heinous
crime he was committing, cracked a four-horse whip in the quadrangle.
This moved the ire of a certain doctor, a fellow and tutor, and at that
time also dean of the college, commonly called _Dr Toe_ from a defect in
one of his feet. The doctor had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to
most of those of his own college, under-graduates as well as others, by
his absurd conduct and regulations. On the following day Mr P----t
cracked the whip in the quadrangle, when the doctor issued from his
rooms in great wrath, and after remonstrating with Mr P----t, and
endeavouring to take the whip from him, a scuffle ensued, in which the
whip was broken, and the doctor overpowered and thrown down by the
victorious P----t, who had fortunately taken his degree of Master of
Arts. Heber, then an under-graduate of only a few terms' standing, wrote
the first canto the same evening, and the intrinsic merit of the poem
will recommend it to most readers. But it will be doubly interesting
when considered as one of the _first_, if not the _very first_, of the
poetical productions of that eminent and distinguished scholar. In it
may be traced the dawnings of that genius which was afterwards to
delight the world in an enlarged sphere of usefulness.