CELEBRITIES AS OXFORD MEN
Charles James Fox--Earl of Malmesbury--William Eden--Cards and
claret--Midnight oil--Oxford friendships remembered afterwards--Edward
Gibbon--Delicate bookworm--Antagonism towards Oxford--Becomes a Roman
Catholic--Subsequent apostasy--John Wesley--Resists taking
orders--Germs of ambition--America the golden opportunity--Oxford
responsible for Methodism.
Academic Oxford of the eighteenth century has been thrown on to the screen
in different lights and from different sides. The Don, for the most part
inert in his elbow chair, puffing at his glazed pipe, with many bottles
and tankards at his elbow in the common room or the coffee-house; turning
up his nose at the impudence of any man who wanted to work; too lazy, and
in many cases too ignorant, to put skilful questions in the examinations;
abusing his trust as an examiner by receiving bribes, in the same manner
that he set the Undergraduates a lead in vice of all kinds outside the
schools; earnest and eager in political strife of the Vicar of Bray type;
keen on nothing but his own personal aggrandisement, either socially or
financially--in all these lights he has passed through the picture. We
have seen also the Undergraduate in all his class divisions--the humble
servitor receiving sixpence a week from each of his gentleman patrons,
doing the dirty work and odd jobs, keeping soul and body together on the
scraps that fell from the rich men’s table, writing out their impositions
and scraping an education in the meanwhile, God knows how; the gentleman
commoner and the Smart, swaggering it abroad in the glory of their purple
and fine linen, sneering at the dull regulars, cutting lectures and
chapels, doing no work, incurring enormous expenses “upon tick,”
following the example set by the Dons in drunkenness and wenching. We have
seen them amusing themselves, free from any kind of restriction, in
taverns, town and gown rows, on the river, in the cock-pit and the prize
ring, and dallying with the beauties under Merton Wall.
Looking at all these things and to the general loose living which was the
keynote of the eighteenth century, we are apt to feel with Malmesbury that
it is a matter of surprise how so many of the Undergraduates made their
way so well and so creditably in the world. It has already been remarked
that the worth of Oxford lies not in the quality of the degree taken, but
in the education which environment and the association with better men
undoubtedly gives. The mere cramming of book knowledge would be useless
were it not accompanied by the far more important expansion of mind, the
broadening of outlook, and the formation of character brought about by the
social life of the university. This is palpably so in the case of the
eighteenth-century Undergraduate, since work was practically non-existent,
and a degree merely a matter of so much ready money. He could not do
anything else but take on the colour of the surroundings of vice and
intemperance which then reigned supreme.
How is it then that any man emerged from the Oxford of this period and
succeeded in inscribing his name on the roll of fame? The reason is that
Oxford was a mirror in which was reflected London life. The metropolis was
simply Oxford on a larger scale, so that the Undergraduates were learning
at the university to do the things which would be expected of them in
after life; and the men who distinguished themselves at college were bound
to achieve renown later. The fame of such men as Charles Fox, the
pre-eminent statesman; Edward Gibbon, the historian; Malmesbury, the
diplomat; John Wesley, the founder of Methodism; Collins, the poet; and
the immortal Dr Johnson, is written down in the pages of history.
Charles James Fox, one of the greatest statesmen England has ever seen,
came up from Eton to Hertford College[30] in 1764, where he was the
leading spirit in a little coterie which included James Harris, Earl of
Malmesbury, and William Eden, Baron Auckland. By his father he had been
initiated, while still at Eton, into the vice of gaming, by which he was
very deeply bitten. A still more curious fact is that although Fox as a
young man had no inclinations towards loose living he was taken over to
Paris and laughed into it by his otherwise doting parent. His innate force
of character, however, enabled him to resist what might have wrecked the
life of another man less strong, and although outwardly he was at Oxford
an idle gamester, yet in secret, in the small hours of the morning, he
worked exceedingly hard. Malmesbury has described this circle of friends
as a non-working, pleasure-loving body. Fox, as the leader of them, fell,
of course, under this category; but the results of his hours of private
grinding were quite extraordinary. He read “Aristotle’s ‘Ethics and
Politics,’ with an ease uncommon in those who have principally cultivated
the study of the Greek writers. His favourite authors were Longinus and
Homer, with the latter of whom he was particularly conversant; he could
discuss the works of the Ionian bard, not only as a man of exquisite
taste, and as a philosophical critic, which might be expected from a mind
like his, but also as a grammarian. He was indeed capable of conversing
with Longinus, on the beauty, sublimity, and pathos of Homer; with
Aristotle on his delineations of man, with a pedagogue on dactyls,
spondees, anapaests, and all the arcana of language. History, ethics,
politics, were, however, his particular studies.”
Yet with all these accomplishments, which, in a period none too famous for
its learning, were all the more amazing, this extraordinary man was swayed
by his passion for gaming, and never behindhand in expeditions of debauch
with his companions. Cards were the favourite pastime then in vogue, and
it was round the baize-covered table that Fox cemented his friendship with
Malmesbury and Eden. These latter, both, subsequently, men of
international fame, also surrendered themselves completely to the
slackness of the time, and did their utmost to imitate with thoroughness
the London fops of whom they had some slight experiences before coming up.
While still gownsmen this triumvirate gave signs of their future
greatness. Their card parties were a centre of attraction, not because of
the high stakes for which they played, but for the wit and brilliance of
their conversation. Fox’s eloquence was even then remarkable, and he had
“no cotemporary so erudite in knowledge, none so elegant in mirth.” The
enormous possibilities of this Undergraduate were fully appreciated by the
college authorities. He was allowed to make trips to London, where, in the
company of his father, he went to the Houses of Parliament, and was a keen
listener at many of the great debates. When a proposal was on foot for Fox
to cross to Paris and make a stay of some months there, the Head of
Hertford granted him leave immediately with the unusual remark that such
application as his necessitated “some intermission; and you are the only
person with whom I have ever had connexion to whom I could say this.”
With characteristic thoroughness Fox outdid the most complete Smart in the
elegance of his dress. He made a special journey from Paris to Lyons for
the purchasing of waistcoats, and on his return to England was seen in the
Mall “in a suit of Paris-cut velvet, most fancifully embroidered, and
bedecked with a large bouquet; a headdress cemented into every variety of
shape; a little silk hat, curiously ornamented; and a pair of French shoes
with red heels; for the latter article of which he considered it of no
mean consequence that he was indebted to his own exclusive importation!”
He had a great fondness for literature and poetry and, following the
customs of the times, he used occasionally to dash off an indiscreet
sonnet, or a more sound criticism of the current publications. Italian, he
declared, contained as a language more good poetry in it than any with
which he was conversant. The essential quality in any subject was that it
should be “entertaining.” Without this, Fox refused to consider it. The
exact meaning which he read into the word is, however, somewhat difficult
to gather, for, writing to his friend Macarthey, he stated that he was
fond of mathematics and would concentrate upon it because it promised to
be entertaining.
Oxford remained dear to Fox and the friendships he formed over the
card-table, and the various “rags” in which he took part were never
forgotten by him. When the triumvirate went down, their ways at first lay
separate. Eden’s time was occupied first in getting called to the Bar, and
then, through the patronage of the Duke of Marlborough, to Parliament as
member for Woodstock. Malmesbury, an incipient diplomatist while still at
Winchester, left England and joined the British Embassy at Madrid. Fox
left Oxford before the age of twenty-one, and was immediately returned to
Parliament for Midhurst. For some twenty years the tide of life kept the
three apart, each striving in his own quarter. Then in 1782 Fox, who had
climbed higher up the ladder of fame than either of the other two, was
reminded of the old friendships of his Undergraduate days. Malmesbury,
then Sir James Harris, Knight of the Bath, was invalided home from the
Embassy at St Petersburg, and was instantly appointed by Fox to be
Minister at the Hague. The year after this, Eden, whose political career
under the banner of Lord North was a distinguished one, came again into
touch with Fox, and exerted himself to bring about a coalition between his
own chief and his old Oxford friend. It is practically certain that the
touch of sentiment roused by the remembrance of the old days, when Eden
and he played cards and drank claret beneath the spires of Oxford, was the
only reason why the coalition was brought about by Eden, for Fox
afterwards publicly avowed in the House of Commons, when the rupture
between North and himself was final, that “the greatest folly of his life
was in having supported Lord North.”
* * * * *
“To the University of Oxford,” wrote Gibbon in after years, “I acknowledge
no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am
willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen
College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of
my whole life.”
A boy of sixteen, thin and delicate, who from his earliest infancy had
fallen from one illness into another, possessed of an abnormal brain, and
for these two reasons shunning, and shunned by, his school-fellows both in
playground and classroom, and therefore compelled joyfully to fall back
upon books, with which he ate, drank, and slept--conceive such a boy, and
one sees Gibbon at Magdalen. Add to this the facts concerning the debauch,
the lack of “bookish fellows,” the gross and inert Dons, all of which
characterised the times, and it is easy to appreciate the reasons why a
man like Gibbon, a high-strung, dreamy creature to whom any crowd of human
beings inspired positive fear, and whose interests were entirely removed
from wenching, drinking, and gaming, received no benefit from Oxford. He
went up intent on nothing but the pursuit of knowledge. In the course of
his dealings with his various tutors--which have already been set forth in
a previous chapter--he found that knowledge was to be obtained neither in
the lecture rooms nor the common rooms. To these latter, being a gentleman
commoner, he received invitations and went high in the expectation of
learned conversations and brilliant dialogue. He found instead no subjects
under discussion save horses, drink, and political preferment. This
beardless boy, practically self-educated and big with ideas upon the
important subjects of life, turned with disgust from the society of the
“port bibbing” and stagnant Fellows. With no definite course of studies to
occupy his attentions, and unchecked by any authority, the unaccustomed
feeling of liberty swept him into the infringement of rules and statutes.
To his tutor he gave casual excuses for non-attendance at lectures, and
disappeared from Oxford for days at a time. The unscholarly condition of
the university, and his own physical inability to join in any athletic
pursuits, united in preventing Oxford from making any impression upon him.
Her history, her architecture, her traditions, seem to have held no
interest for him, and he was more interested in making expeditions to
London and places in the surrounding country than in remaining in the
university and studying Undergraduate life. Even the beauty of Oxford’s
old walls, tree-bordered lawns and walks, and winding river, made no
appeal to him. He was in sympathy with no single thing. It was a mistake
on his parents’ part ever to have sent him up. A man of Gibbon’s peculiar
temperament was entirely out of place in any university; more particularly
Oxford, in the state in which she then was.
And yet in spite of the incompatibility between Gibbon and Oxford, his
university career was marked by an all-important incident in the
development of the great historian. By education and training he was a
Protestant, but, as was his habit with every subject to which he turned
his attention, he did not merely read books and swallow their contents as
indisputable facts. Everything he read was deeply pondered, made to pass
under his own criticism, and then compared with other authors on the
opposite side of the case. Consequently the subject of his own creed
underwent deep thought, and after reading Middleton’s “Free Enquiry into
the Miraculous Powers which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the
Christian Church,” Gibbon’s religious beliefs were shaken. He decided that
Protestantism was inconsistent; he was dissatisfied with it. Filled with
the restlessness engendered by uncertainty, Gibbon read many works,
including Bossuet’s “Variations of Protestantism” and “Exposition of
Catholic Doctrine,” and the writings of the Jesuit priest, Father Parsons.
“These works,” he said, “achieved my conversion”--the arguments in favour
of Roman Catholicism put forward by the Jesuit priest being the real
turning point in the scale.
Having arrived at the conclusion that the Protestant religion paled into
insignificance before the Roman Catholic one, the Magdalen man felt that
he would know no happiness until he himself should join the ranks of the
“Papists.” For once his thoroughness deserted him. He did not consider the
question--and the question of a man’s entirely changing his religious
beliefs is a very vital one--with his usual exhaustiveness. Like a baby
with a new toy, Gibbon, the great and wonderful man of brain, world famous
and immortal, made a complete fool of himself. He rushed off to London
without more ado, and there, under the influence of a “momentary glow of
enthusiasm,” “privately abjured the heresies” of his childhood before a
certain Father Baker, also a Jesuit, and became a Roman Catholic. For the
moment his belief was red hot, and he wrote a burningly defiant letter to
his father announcing his change of creed. The elder Gibbon at once
provided an excuse for his being sent down (a circumstance which very
probably would have come about on the Magdalen Dons’ own initiative
without any excuse being offered to them), and packed him off to the care
of the Calvanistic minister at Lausanne, M. Pavilliard. The scattering of
the hastily-swallowed, undigested arguments which had brought about
Gibbon’s precipitate action, was a matter of a few months to M.
Pavilliard, and in less than two years he was once more a fully convinced
Protestant. The ex-Magdalen man’s _amour propre_ is fully demonstrated by
the unblushing assertion that although the Calvinist minister had “a
handsome share in his re-conversion,” yet it was principally brought about
“by his own solitary reflections.” Doubtless when he wrote those
statements he fully realised the extent and powers of his own brain, and
refused to admit that any ordinarily clever man could have, or ever did
have, any influence in swaying him from one point of view to another. One
is fully justified in assuming that had he not gone to a Calvinist
minister, but, instead, continued under the roof of a Jesuit priest, none
of the “philosophical arguments,” to which he refers so glibly, would have
availed him, and Edward Gibbon, historian, would have remained a Roman
Catholic to the end of his days.
* * * * *
“Lord, let me not live to be useless!” was the constant prayer of John
Wesley, and it was the keynote of his character. The founder of the
Methodists, famous throughout the civilised world, and a man whose
personal magnetism and great brain were bound to bring him to the fore in
whatever profession he might have chosen, was actuated by a consuming
dread of being considered useless. A desire to achieve great things was
fostered during his Undergraduate days at Christ Church. He went there
with a sound knowledge of Hebrew, and began to achieve some note for his
skill in logic. This was the beginning of the growth of ambition, and the
fact that he was “noticed for his attainments” brought him great pleasure,
for at all times he bubbled over with humour and good spirits in full
realisation of his college notoriety. In consequence of this his
reluctance at taking orders, when proposed by his family, was marked. He
argued the question with himself fully while pacing his rooms at night,
and he wrote to his father and explained his reluctance. It is conceivable
that the life as led by gentleman commoners, with its wine parties, wild
escapades, and general moral carelessness may have been the reason of
Wesley’s hesitation. For this clever, amusing lad was popular in his
college, and invited to take part in all the jollifications. Be that as it
may, the question of devoting his life to religion was a difficult one.
Wesley’s self-examination, assisted by his father’s scorn of becoming a
“callow clergyman,” was doubtless attended by silent questionings as to
what was his speciality. The atmosphere and traditions of Oxford had laid
hold of him. The names of great men, sons of _Alma mater_, filled him with
the desire to emulate them, to excel them even. Their names were spoken in
awe and admiration. Why should not his be also? He was brilliantly clever,
of a clever family, and already had tasted the joys of fame in however
humble a manner. Why should he have to follow his father’s lead and enter
the Church? Could he not do better for himself outside? Undoubtedly, for
there was more scope, less subjection to rules and orders, more individual
power. But, on the other hand, these speculations and desires to break
away were held in check by filial respect and love. His father and mother
were keenly desirous of his embracing a clerical life, and his mother
especially was of opinion that the sooner he entered into deacon’s orders
the better, as it would be an additional inducement to “greater
application in the study of practical divinity.”
[Illustration: STAIRCASE, CHRIST CHURCH.]
Wesley, therefore, looked facts in the face and concentrated his whole
mind upon the study of theology. Since he could not be Prime Minister, he
would be a great religious man. He began by disagreeing with “The
Imitation of Christ,” and held views on the question of humility which
lead one to believe that by this time the seeds of his ambition had grown
to trees. Jeremy Taylor’s tenet, that we ought, “in some sense or other,
to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come,” was flatly
contradicted by Wesley, who, although admitting absolute humility to God,
reserved the right to consider himself a better man than many another; for
when he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln, after he had been ordained, he
practically showed the door to all those of his visitors whom he thought
would do him no good, by reason of their not loving or fearing God. Then
an incident happened which had a lasting effect upon Wesley; which changed
his whole life. He travelled over to see what was called “a serious man.”
Who this man was is unknown, but he was a student of psychology and a man
of keen intuition. He summed up John Wesley, and gave forth the remark
which had so great an influence upon him. “Sir,” he said, “you wish to
serve God and go to Heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone; you
must, therefore, _find_ companions or _make_ them: the Bible knows nothing
of solitary religion.”
Wesley never forgot these words. They were the turning-point in his
career. His vast brain and desire to become the greatest of God’s servants
would not allow him to be merely a curate in the Established Church, thus
to serve God humbly. Even the chance of his eventually emerging as
Archbishop was not sufficiently big. Neither was the Roman Church large
enough, though from his characteristics it is conceivable that he was in
sympathy with the love of power which, in olden times, is said to have
marked out the Jesuits. The words of this “serious man” gave him furiously
to think. He would make companions, followers, disciples. He, himself,
would become greater than any of the men discussed by his fellow
Undergraduates by taking over the leadership of a band of religious and
ascetic men, who should occupy themselves solely in carrying out the
commands of God.
Already his piety and zeal were much discussed in Oxford, for he led the
way to George Whitefield in attending the Sacrament daily and doing
charitable works. His younger brother, Charles, had formed the nucleus of
a religious order by meeting weekly with two or three serious-minded
friends and discussing religion. When John Wesley returned to Lincoln
after an absence of some two years, during which he had had time to think
out matters while filling a country curacy, these lads put themselves
under his leadership. It was the first taste of power and individual
authority. He ruled the little band sternly, put their practices into
order and method, and secured an “accession of members.” He submitted
himself to rigorous fasts, and cultivated an eccentric appearance by
letting his hair grow. Even his brother, Samuel, himself really religious,
perceived that he “excited injurious prejudices against himself, by
affecting singularity in things which were of no importance.” His mother
suggested cutting his hair off, but the money could not be spared from
Wesley’s charities. His brother put forward that it should be merely
reduced in length. This Wesley agreed to, and it is recorded that “this
was the only instance in which he condescended, in any degree, to the
opinions of others.”
The culminating instance of his egoism lies in his absolute refusal, in
spite of his father’s earnest entreaty, to take on his _cure_ at the
latter’s death. He considered the proposal “not so much with reference to
his utility, as to his own well-being in spiritual things.” The question,
as it appeared to him, was not whether he could do more good to others
there or at Oxford, but whether he could do more good to himself, seeing
that wherever he could be most holy himself, there he could most promote
holiness. He decided that he could improve himself more at Oxford than at
any other place, and at Oxford, therefore, he determined to remain. His
father wrote to him, “if you are not indifferent whether the labours of an
aged father, for above forty years in God’s vineyard, be lost, and the
fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you consider that Mr M. must
in all probability succeed me if you do not, and that in prospect of that
mighty Nimrod’s coming hither shocks my soul, and is in a fair way of
bringing down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; if you have any care
for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropt; if
you reflect on the dear love and longing which this poor people has for
you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service, and the
plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls,
whereas you have not many more souls in the university--you may, perhaps,
alter your mind and bend your will to His, who has promised if in all our
ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths.”
In the face of this stirring appeal from an aged father what did Wesley
reply? He refused absolutely to entertain the matter. His
self-centredness, the while he directed the religious beliefs and
operations of the small body of disciples at Oxford, made him forget all
considerations of filial duty and love and of God’s commands to obedience.
His parents had been the reason of his entering the Church. He would make
no further sacrifice for them now that he saw his way clear. His father,
mother, the thousands of poor people--nobody and nothing mattered except
that he should make himself more holy! The petty duties, worries, and
cares, the continual small demands of trifling points entailed by such a
curacy were too small for this striving, all-conquering spirit. What
mattered it that he should send his father’s grey hairs down in sorrow to
the grave?
All this while, he was most certainly turning over the saying of the
“serious man”--to _make_ followers. On his father’s death it was proposed
that he should go to America. Here was his great chance. Oxford had taught
him that to expect to make English people, in their then blind and vicious
state, see the truth of the gospel of Christ, was futile and childish. He
was a prophet in his own country. But America, with all its
unsophisticated, raw children, its ripeness for a strong man to come with
the gift of oratory and sweep the country from end to end--there was his
chance! And afterwards, on the crest of his fame and success, then would
he convert England. His glory would have preceded him, and he would return
as one already great, to whom they would lend a more willing ear. But with
the astuteness of a really clever man, he peremptorily refused the offer
to send him out there. As a natural result the proposers of the scheme
argued. By degrees he allowed his willingness to be seen, though he
piously pointed out that as he was his mother’s support, the staff of her
age, he could not go without her consent. This she immediately gave, as he
well knew she would. Accordingly, filled with exultation, buoyed up by a
feeling of certainty as to his ultimate success, John Wesley left Oxford
and England for the new country on which he intended to stamp his
personality, and by whose conquest he was determined to hand down his name
to posterity in the profession to which he had reconciled himself at the
age of some nineteen years while still an Undergraduate of Christ Church.
Had Wesley not gone up to Oxford, his name might never have been added to
the list of England’s famous men. It was Oxford which first showed him the
narrowness of a small curacy, Oxford which set him contemplating
greatness, Oxford which actually started him in command of disciples.
Therefore it is to Oxford that must be attributed the foundation, growth,
and fame of Methodism, the means by which John Wesley attained his ends,
power, and celebrity.