19_th April_ 1718.--". . . King William the Conqueror's beard alwayes
shaven, for so was the custome of the Norman. Thus were the Englishmen
forced to imitate the Normans in habit of apparell, shaving off their
beards, service at the table, and in all other outward gestures. The
English before did not use to shave their upper lips."
11_th Nov._ 1720.--"Dr Wynne. . . . This worthy doctor was the man also
that put a stop to the selling of fellowships in All Soul's college, as I
have often heard him say; and I have as often heard him likewise say,
that he always voted for the poorest candidaters for fellowships in that
college, provided they were equally qualified in other respects; a thing
not practised now."
Here is a pleasant inversion of the relation between boy and
schoolmaster:--
21_st Jan._ 1718-19.--"I remember that I heard formerly Tom Rogers, who
was yeoman beadle, say, that when he was that year, when the plague
raged, a school-boy at Eaton, all the boys of that school were obliged to
smoak in the school every morning, and that he was never whipped so much
in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking."
27_th Feb._ 1722-23.--"It hath been an old custom in Oxford for the
scholars of all houses, on Shrove Tuesday, to go to dinner at ten o'clock
(at which time the little bell, called _pan-cake bell_, rings, or at
least should ring, at St Maries), and at four in the afternoon; and it
was always followed in Edmund hall, as long as I have been in Oxford,
till yesterday, when they went to dinner at twelve, and to supper at six,
nor were there any fritters at dinner, as there used always to be. When
laudable old customs alter, 'tis a sign learning dwindles."