As you enter through a low archway under the main building you come into
a quadrangle formed by a dormitory and an examination hall at the right.
Beyond that is a library. Another dormitory stands on the left, and the
chapel and the dining-hall (the last two have Grecian porticos), and
directly before you a bell tower of beautiful and original design
erected about one hundred years ago. Beyond the first quadrangle is
another, which is gloomy and uninviting. The buildings are plain, and
the dark stone of which they are made is not cheerful. The students call
it "Botany Bay," because of the prison-like style of the architecture
and its uninviting appearance. The buildings surrounding it are
dormitories, and in one of them, No. 11, Oliver Goldsmith roomed. He
wrote his autograph with a diamond upon one of the panes of glass, which
has since been removed and preserved in the library, where it lies in a
case beside the original manuscript of Handel's oratorio, "The Messiah,"
which was given there for the first time in 1745. A portion of it was
written in England, but it was completed in Dublin and sung by a Dublin
choral society immediately after.
In "Botany Bay" is a pump of great age and much history. In early days
it was the focus of academic disorder, and any policeman, sheriff, or
bailiff who dared violate the sacred precincts of Trinity was purged of
his guilt by a thorough ducking. The origin of this form of punishment
is attributed to a famous Dr. Wilder, who for many years was provost of
the college. He happened to be crossing the campus one day, when a
bailiff, who had a writ to serve, was being baited by a group of
students, and called out to them something like this: "Young gentlemen,
be careful that you do not put him under the pump," and they took the
hint.
[Illustration: QUADRANGLE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN]
Another version of the story is that Dr. Wilder cried out, "Young
gentlemen, for the love of God don't be so cruel as to nail his ears to
the pump;" and certain authors have claimed that they interpreted him to
mean the reverse, and did what he had forbidden them. But I am assured
by competent authority that the former and more humane version is the
true one, and all agree that ever since those boisterous days every
officer of the law who has been caught within the college grounds has
been given an involuntary bath from "Old Mary."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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