The English Spy Part 28

MRS. PEAKE (in her night-gown). Stand out of the way, Peake; let me speak to the gentlemen. Gentlemen, doey, gentlemen, consider my reputation, and the reputation of ray house. O dear, gentlemen, doey go somewhere else--we've no sticks here, I azzure ye, and we're all in bed.

Doey go, gentlemen, pray do.

TRANSIT. Dame Peake, if you don't open your doors directly, we'll break them open, and unkennel that old bagg'd fox, your husband, and drink all the black strap in your cellar, and--and play the devil with the maids.

MRS. PEAKE. Don'te say so, don'te say so, Mr. Transit; I know you to be a quiet, peaceable gentleman, and I am zure you will befriend me: doey persuade 'em to go away, pray do,

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MARK SUPPLE. Dame Peake

MRS. PEAKE. Oh, Mr. Mark Supple, are you there I talk to the gentlemen, Mr. Mark, pray do.

MARK SUPPLE. It's no use, dame Peake; they won't be gammon'd, take notice. If you have any old broom-handles, throw 'em out directly, and if not, throw all the brooms you have in the house out of window--throw out all your sticks--throw Peake out. I'm for the gown, _take notice_.

Down with the town! down with the town!

BILL MAGS. (The waiter, at a lower window.) Hist, hist, Mr. Echo; Mr.

Eglantine, hist, hist; master's gone to the back of the house with all the sticks he can muster; and here's an old kitchen-chair you can break up and make bludgeons of (throwing the chair out of window), and here's the cook's rolling-pin, and I'll go and forage for more ammunition.

HORACE EGLANTINE. You're a right good fellow, Bill; and I'll pay you before I do your master; and the Brazen-nose men shall make your fortune.

TOM ECHO. But where's the academicals I sent old Captain Cook for 1 We shall be beating one another in the dark without caps and gowns.

CAPTAIN COOK. (A scout of Christ Church.) Here I be, zur. That old rogue, d.i.c.k s.h.i.+rley, refuses to send any gowns; he says he has nothing but n.o.blemen's gowns and gold tufts in his house.

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THE HON. LILLYMAN LIONISE. By the honour of my ancestry, that fellow shall never draw another st.i.tch for Christ Church as long as he lives.

Come along, captain: by the honour of my ancestry, we'll uncase the old _snyder_; we'll have gowns, I warrant me, n.o.ble or not n.o.ble, gold tufts or no tufts. Come along, Cook.

In a few moments old Captain Cook and the exquisite returned loaded with gowns and caps, having got in at the window and completely cleared the tailor's shop of all his academicals, in spite of his threats or remonstrances. In the interim, old Mark Supple and Echo had succeeded in obtaining a supply of broom-handles and other weapons of defence; when the insignia of the university, the toga and cap, were soon distributed indiscriminately: the numbers of the university men increased every moment; and the yell of the town raff seemed to gain strength with every step as they approached the scene of action. Gown! gown! Town! town!

were the only sounds heard in every direction; and the clamour and the tumult of voices were enough to shake the city with dismay. The authorities were by no means idle; but neither proctors or pro's, or marshal, or bull-dogs, or even deans, dons, and dignitaries, for such there were, who strained their every effort to quell the disturbance, were at all attended to, and many who came as peace-makers were compelled in their own defence to take an active part in the fray.

From the bottom of the High-street to the end of the corn-market, and across again through St. Aldate's to the old bridge, every where the more peaceable and respectable citizens might be seen popping their noddles out of window, and rubbing their half-closed eyes with affright, to learn the cause of the alarming strife.

~253~~Of the strong band of university men who rushed on eager for the coming fray, a number of them were fresh light-hearted Etonians and old Westminsters, who having just arrived to place themselves under the sacred banners of Academus, thought their honour and their courage both concerned in defending the _togati_: most of these youthful zealots had as usual, at the beginning of a term, been lodged in the different inns and houses of the city, and from having drank somewhat freely of the welcome cup with old schoolfellows and new friends, were just ripe for mischief, unheedful of the consequences or the cause.

On the other hand, the original fomenters of the strife had recruited their forces with herds of the lowest rabble gathered from the purlieus of their patron saints, St. Clement and St. Thomas, and the sh.o.r.es of the Charwell,--the bargees, and butchers, and labourers, and sc.u.m of the suburbians: a huge conglomerated ma.s.s of thick sculls, and broad backs, and strengthy arms, and st.u.r.dy legs, and throats bawling for revenge, and hearts bursting with wrathful ire, rendered still more frantic and desperate by the magic influence of their accustomed war-whoop. These formed the base barbarian race of Oxford truands,{1} including every vile thing that pa.s.ses under the generic name of raff. From college to college the mania spread with the rapidity of an epidemic wind; and scholars, students, and fellows were every where in motion: here a stout bachelor of arts might be seen knocking down the ancient Cerberus who opposed his pa.s.sage; there the iron-bound college gates were forced open by the united power of the youthful inmates. In another quarter might be seen the heir of some n.o.ble family risking his neck in the headlong leap {2}; and near him, a party of the _togati_ scaling the sacred battlements with as much energetic zeal as the ancient crusaders would have displayed against the ferocious Saracens.

1 The French _truands_ were beggars, who under the pretence of asking alms committed the most atrocious crimes and excesses.

2 It was on one of these occasions that the celebrated Charles James Fox made that ill.u.s.trious leap from the window of Hertford College.

~254~~Scouts flying in every direction to procure caps and gowns, and scholars dropping from towers and windows by bell-ropes and _sheet-ladders_; every countenance exhibiting as much ardour and frenzied zeal, as if the consuming elements of earth and fire threatened the demolition of the sacred city of Rhedycina.

It was on the spot where once stood the ancient conduit of Carfax, flanked on the one side by the venerable church of St. Martin and the colonnade of the old b.u.t.ter-market, and on the other by the town-hall, from the central point of which terminate, south, west, and north, St.

Aldate's, the butcher-row, and the corn-market, that the scene exhibited its more substantial character. It was here the a.s.sailants first caught sight of each other; and the yell, and noise, and deafening shouts became terrific. In a moment all was fury and confusion: in the onset the gown, confident and daring, had evidently the advantage, and the retiring raff fell back in dismay; while the advancing and victorious party laid about them with their quarter-staves, and knuckles drawing blood, or teeth, or cracking crowns at every blow, until they had driven them back to the end of the corn-market. It was now that the strong arm and still stronger science of the st.u.r.dy bachelors of Brazen-nose, and the square-built, athletic sons of Cambria, the Jones's of Jesus, proved themselves of sterling mettle, and bore the brunt of the battle with unexampled courage: at this instant a second reinforcement arriving from the ca.n.a.ls and wharfs on the banks of the Isis, having forced their way by George-lane, brought timely a.s.sistance to the town raff, and enabled them again to rally and present so formidable an appearance, ~255~~that the _togati_ deemed it prudent to retreat upon their reserve, who were every moment acc.u.mulating in immense numbers in the High-street: to this spot the townsmen, exulting in their trifling advantage, had the temerity to follow and renew the conflict, and here they sustained the most signal defeat: for the men of Christ Church, and Pembroke, and St.

Mary's Hall, and Oriel, and Corpus Christi, had united their forces in the rear; while the front of the gown had fallen back upon the effective Trinitarians, and Albanians, and Wadhamites, and men of Magdalen, who had by this time roused them from their monastic towers and cells to fight the holy war, and defend their cla.s.sic brotherhood: nor was this all the advantages the gown had to boast of, for the _scouts_, ever true to their masters, had summoned the lads of the fancy, and Marston Will, and Harry Bell, and a host of out and outers, came up to the scratch, and floored many a _youkel_ with their _bunch of fives_. It was at this period that the conflict a.s.sumed its most appalling feature, for the townsmen were completely hemmed into the centre, and fought with determined courage, presenting a hollow square, two fronts of which were fully engaged with the infuriated gown. Long and fearful was the struggle for mastery, and many and vain the attempts of the townsmen to retreat, until the old Oxford night coach, in its way up the High-street to the Star Inn in the corn-market, was compelled to force its pa.s.sage through the conflicting parties; when the bull-dogs and the constables, headed by marshal Holliday and old Jack Smith, united their forces, and following the vehicle, opened a pa.s.sage into the very centre of the battle, where they had for some time to sustain the perilous attacks of oaths, and blows, and kicks from both parties, until having fairly wedged themselves between the combatants, they succeeded by threats and entreaties, and seizing a few of the ringleaders on ~256~~both sides, to cause a dispersion, and restore by degrees the peace of the city.

It was, however, some hours before the struggle had completely subsided, a running fight being kept up by the various straggling parties in their retreat; and at intervals the fearful cry of Town and Gown would resound from some plebeian alley or murky lane as an unfortunate wight of the adverse faction was discovered stealing homewards, covered with mud and scars. Of my college friends and merry companions in the fray, Tom Echo alone remained visible, and he had (in his own phraseology) _dropped his sash_: according to Hudibras, he looked

"As men of inward light are wont To turn their opticks in upon't;"

or, in plain English, had an _invisible_ eye. The "_disjecta fragmenta_"

of his academical robe presented a most pitiful appearance; it was of the ragged sort, like the _mendicula impluviata_ of Plautus, and his under habiliments bore evident marks of his having bitten the dust (i.e. mud) beneath the ponderous arm of some heroic blacksmith or bargee; but yet he was lively, and what with blows and exertion, perfectly sobered. "What, Blackmantle? and alive, old fellow? Well clone, my hearty; I saw you set to with that fresh water devil from Charwell, the old Bargee, and a pretty milling you gave him. I had intended to have seconded you, but just as I was making up, a son of Vulcan let fly his sledge-hammer slap at my _smeller_, and stopped up one of my _oculars_, so I was obliged to turn to and finish him off; and when I had completed the job, you had bolted; not, however, without leaving your marks behind you. But where's Eglantine? where's Transit? where's the Honourable? By my soul the _roue_ can handle his _mauleys_ well; I saw him floor one of the raff in very prime style. But come along, my hearty; we must walk over the ~257~~field of battle and look after the wounded: I am desperately afraid that Eglantine is _booked inside_--saw him surrounded by the _bull-dogs_--made a desperate effort to rescue him--and had some difficulty to clear myself; but never mind, ''tis the fortune of war,'

and there's very good lodging in the castle. Surely there's Mark Supple with some one on his back. What, Mark, is that you?" "No, sir--yes, sir--I mean, sir, it's a gentleman of our college--O dearey me, I thought it had been a proctor or a bull-dog--for Heaven's sake, help, sir! here's Mr. Transit quite senseless, _take notice_--picked him up in a doorway in Lincoln-lane, bleeding like a pig, _take notice_.

O dear, O dear, what a night this has been! We shall all be sent to the castle, and perhaps transported for manslaughter. For Heaven's sake, Mr.

Echo, help! bear his head up--take hold of his feet, Mr. Blackmantle, and I'll go before, and ring at Dr. Tuckwell's bell, _take notice_."

In this way poor Transit was conveyed to the surgery, where, after cleansing him from the blood and dirt, and the application of some aromatics, he soon recovered, and happily had not sustained any very serious injury. From old Mark we learned that Eglantine was a captive to the bull-dogs, and safely deposited in the castle along with Marston Will, who had fought n.o.bly in his defence: of Lionise we could gain no other tidings than that Mark had seen him at the end of the fray climbing up to the first floor window of a tradesman's house in the High-street, whose daughter it was well known he had a little intrigue with, and where, as we concluded, he had found a balsam for his wounds, and shelter for the night. It was nearly three o'clock when I regained my lodging and found Mags, the waiter of the Mitre, on the look-out for me: Echo had accompanied me home, and in our way we had picked up a wounded man of University College, who had suffered severely in the contest. It was worthy ~258~~the pencil of a Hogarth to have depicted the appearance of the High-street after the contest, when we were cautiously perambulating from end to end in search of absent friends, and fearing at every step the approach of the proctors or their bull-dogs: the lamps were almost all smashed, and the burners dangling to and fro with the wind, the greater part extinguished, or just emitting sufficient light to make night horrible. On the lamp-irons might be seen what at first sight was most appalling, the figure of some hero of the _togati_ dangling by the neck, but which, on nearer approach, proved to be only the dismembered academical of some gentleman-commoner hung up as a trophy by the town raff. Broken windows and shutters torn from their hinges, and missiles of every description covering the ground, from the terrific Scotch paving-pebble torn up from the roads, to the spokes of coach-wheels, and the oaken batons, and fragments of lanterns belonging to the town watch, skirts of coats, and caps, and remnants of _togas_ both silken and worsted, bespoke the quality of the heroes of the fray; while here and there a poor terrified wretch was exposing his addle head to the mildews of the night-damp, fearing a revival of the contest, or anxiously watching the return of husband, brother, father, or son.{3}

3 This picture of an Oxford row is not, as the general reader might imagine, the mere fiction of the novelist, but the true description of a contest which occurred some few years since; the leading features of which will be (although the names have been, except in one or two instances, studiously suppressed) easily recognised by many of the present sons of Alma Mater who shared in the perils and glory of the battle. To those who are strangers to the sacred city, and these casual effervescences of juvenile spirit, the admirable graphic view of the scene by my friend Bob Transit (see plate) will convey a very correct idea.

To the credit of the more respectable and wealthy cla.s.s of Oxford citizens it should be told, they are now too sensible of their own interest, and, besides, too well-informed to mix with these civil disturbances; the lower orders, therefore, finding themselves unequal to the contest without their support, submit to the _togati_; and thus the civil wars that have raged in Oxford with very little interruption from the days of Alfred seem for the present extinguished.

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On our arrival at the Mitre, poor Mrs. Peake, half frightened to death, was up and busy in administering to the sufferers various consolatory draughts composed of bishop, and flesh and blood{4} and _rumbooze_; while the chambermaids, and Peake, and the waiters were flying about the house with warm water, and basins, and towels, to the relief of the numerous applicants, who all seemed anxious to wash away the dirty remembrances of the disgusting scene.

Hitherto I had been so busily engaged in defending myself and preserving my friends, that I had not a moment for reflection. It has been well observed, that "place an Englishman in the field of battle, no matter what his political feelings, he will fight like a lion, by instinct, or the mere force of example;" so with the narrator of this contest. I had not, up to this time, the least knowledge of the original cause of the row. I have naturally an aversion to pugilistic contests and tumultuous sports, and yet I found by certain bruises, and b.u.mps, and stains of blood, and stiffness of joints, and exhaustion, and the loss of my upper garment, which I had then only just discovered, that I must have borne a _pretty considerable_{5} part in the contest, and carried away no small share of victorious laurels, since I had escaped without any very visible demonstration of my adversaries' prowess; but for this I must acknowledge myself indebted to my late private tutor the Eton cad, Joe Cannon, whose fancy lectures on noseology, and the science of the milling system, had enabled me to

4 Brandy and port wine, half and half.

5 An Oxford phrase.

~260~~defend my bread-basket, cover up my peepers, and keep my n.o.b out of chancery{6}: a merit that all

6 The use of a peculiar cant phraseology for different cla.s.ses, it would appear, originated with the Argoliers, a species of French beggars or monkish impostors, who were notorious for every thing that was bad and infamous: these people a.s.sumed the form of a regular government, elected a king, established a fixed code of laws, and invented a language peculiar to themselves, constructed probably by some of the debauched and licentious youths, who, abandoning their scholastic studies, a.s.sociated with these vagabonds.

In the poetical life of the French robber Cartouche, a humorous account is given of the origin of the word _Argot_; and the same author has also compiled a dictionary of the language then in use by these people, which is annexed to the work. Hannan, in his very singular work, published in 1566, ent.i.tled "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursitors (runners), vulgarly called Vagabones," has described a number of the words then in use, among what he humorously calls the "lued lousey language of these lewtering beskes and lasy lovrels." And it will be remembered that at that time many of the students of our universities were among these cursitors, as we find by an old statute of the xxii of Hen. VIII.; "that scholars at the universities begging without licence, were to be punished like common cursi- tors." The vagabonds of Spain are equally celebrated for their use of a peculiar slang or cant, as will be seen on reference to a very curious work of Rafael Frianoro, ent.i.tled" _Il Vagabondo, overo sferzo de bianti e Vagabondi_." _Viterbo_, 1620, 12mo. As also in those excellent novels, "Lazarillo do Tormes," and "Guzman de Alfarache." The _Romany_ or gipsies' dialect is given with the history of that singular people by Mr. Grellman; an English translation of which was published in 1787, by Roper, in quarto: from those works, Grose princ.i.p.ally compiled his "Lexicon Ballatronic.u.m." In the present day we have many professors of slang, and in more ways than one, too many of cant; the greater part of whom are dull impostors, who rather invent strange terms to astonish the vulgar than adhere to the peculiar phrases of the persons they attempt to describe. It has long been matter of regret with the better order of English sporting men, that the pugilistic contests and turf events of the day are not written in plain English, "which all those who run might read," instead of being rendered almost unintelligible by being narrated in the language of beggars, thieves, and pickpockets--a jargon as free from true wit as it is full of obscenity.

~261~~Keate's{7} learning would not have compensated for under the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which I was placed.

It was now that the mischief was done, and many a sound head was cracked, and many a courageous heart was smarting 'neath their wounds in the gloomy dungeons of the castle, or waiting in their rooms the probing instrument and plasters of Messrs. Wall, or Kidd, or Bourne, that a few of us, who had escaped tolerably well, and were seated round a bowl of bishop in the snug _sanctum sanctorum_ of the Mitre, began to inquire of each other the origin of the fray. After a variety of conjectures and vague reports, each at variance with the other, and evidently deficient in the most remote connexion with the true cause of the strife, it was agreed to submit the question to the waiter, as a neutral observer, who a.s.sured us that the whole affair arose out of a trifling circ.u.mstance, originating with some mischievous boys, who, having watched two gownsmen into a cyprian temple in the neighbourhood of Saint Thomas, circulated a false report that they had carried thither the wives of two respectable mechanics. Without taking the trouble to inquire into the truth or falsehood of the accusation, the door was immediately beset; the old cry of Town and Gown vociferated in every direction; and the unfortunate wights compelled to seek their safety by an ignominious flight through a back door and over the meadows. The tumult once raised, it was not to be appeased without some victim, and for this purpose they thought proper to attack a party of the _togati_, who were returning home from a little private sport with a well-known fancy lecturer: the opportunity was a good one to show-off, a regular fight commenced, and the raff were floored in every direction, until their numbers increasing beyond all

7 The highly respected and learned head-master of Eton College.

~262 comparison, the university men were compelled to raise the cry of Gown, and fly for succour and defence to the High-street: in this way had a few mischievous boys contrived to embroil the town and university in one of the most severe intestine struggles ever remembered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: page262]

_A true chronicle of ye bloodie fighte betweene the Clerkes of and Scholairs of Oxenforde, and the Townsmen of the Citie, who were crowdinge rounde the Easterne Gaite to see the Kinge enter in his progresse wostwarde._

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Sir Gierke of Oxenforde, prepare Your robis riche, and n.o.ble cheere. Ye kinge with alle his courtlie trane Is spurring on your plaice to gane.

And heere ye trumpet's merrie note, His neare approache proclaims, I wote; Ye doctors, proctors, scholairs, go, And fore youre sovereigne bend ye lowe. Now comes the kinge in grande arraie; And the scholairs presse alonge the waye, Till ye Easterne gaite was thronged so rounde, That pa.s.sage coulde no where be founde. Then the sheriffe's men their upraised speares Did plye about the people's eares. And woe the day; the rabble route Their speares did breake like gla.s.se aboute. Then the doctors, proctors, for the kinge, Most l.u.s.tilie for roome did singe; But thoughe theye bawled out amaine, No pa.s.sage throughe the crowde coulde gane. Ye Northern gownsmen, a bold race, Now swore they'd quicklie free the plaice; With stalwart gripe, and beadle's staffe Theye clefte the townsmen's sculls in half.

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