Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge ScholarsGooch, Richard
History
Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars
Gooch, Richard
University of Cambridge -- Anecdotes; University of Oxford -- Anecdotes
The celebrated founder of Queen's College, Oxford, who was a native of
Cumberland, and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, gave
the College, for its arms, three spread eagles; but a singular custom,
according to a _rebus_, has been founded upon the fanciful derivation
of his name, from _aiguille_, needle, and _fil_, thread; and it became
a commemorative mark of respect, continued to this day, for each
member of the College to receive from the Bursar, on New Year's Day,
a needle and thread, with the advice, "_Take this and be thrifty_."
"These conceits were not unusual at the time the College was founded,"
says Chalmers, in his History of Oxford, "and are sometimes thought
trifling, merely because we cannot trace their original use and
signification. Hollingshed informs us, that when the Prince of Wales,
afterwards Henry the Fifth, who was educated at this College, went to
Court in order to clear himself from certain charges of disaffection,
he wore a gown of blue satin, full of oilet holes, and at every hole a
needle hanging by a silk thread. This is supposed to prove at least,
that he was an academician of Queen's, and it may be conjectured that
this was the original academical dress." The same writer says, the
Founder ordered that the Society should "be called to their meals by
the sound of the trumpet (a practice which still prevails, as does a
similar one at the Middle Temple, London,) and the Fellows being placed
on one side of the table in robes of scarlet (those of the Doctor's
faced with black fur,) were to oppose in philosophy the poor scholars,
who, in token of submission and humility, kept on the other side. As
late as the last century the Fellows and Taberders used sometimes to
dispute on Sundays and holidays.
ASHTON.
In an arched recess of the ante-chapel of St. John's College,
Cambridge, is the tomb of the celebrated Dr. Hugh Ashton, who took
part with the famous Bishop Fisher (beheaded by Henry the Eighth) in
the erection of the buildings of that learned foundation, and was the
second Master of the Society. His tomb, as Fuller observes, exhibits
"the marble effigy of his body when living, and the humiliating
contrast of his skeleton when dead, with the usual conceit of the
times, the figure of an _ash tree_ growing out of a _tun_."
LAKE LEMAN.
Dyer records of the learned contemporary and antiquarian coadjutor of
the late Bishop of Cloyne, the Rev. Mr. _Leman_, a descendant of the
famous Sir Robert Naunton, Public Orator at Cambridge, and a Secretary
of State, that "his drawing-room was painted _en fresco_ with the
scenery around _Lake Leman_."
SOMETHING IN YOUR WAY.
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