The Colleges of Oxford: Their History and Traditions: XXI Chapters Contributed by Members of the Colleges
History
The Colleges of Oxford: Their History and Traditions: XXI Chapters Contributed by Members of the Colleges
University of Oxford -- History
By emphasizing these points and suppressing contradictory evidence,
Tatham persuaded the Visitor to decree that for the future the Rector’s
Fellowship should receive double of _all_ the allowances of an ordinary
Fellowship. Tatham was known as a forcible but most unconventional
preacher; and one phrase of his, used in the University pulpit,[189]
has become almost proverbial, that namely in which he wished that “all
the Jarman[190] philosophers were at the bottom of the Jarman ocean,”
forgetting in the heat of his rhetoric to make it plain to his audience
whether he meant the writers or their writings. In University business
Tatham was at war with the Hebdomadal Board, and used to brow-beat its
members, accusing them of “intrigues, cabals, and subterfuges.” He was
therefore well-hated by many of his contemporaries, and a great subject
of those pasquils and lampoons which, orally and in writing, circulated
freely in the University. In several of these Tatham had been compared
in features and disposition to the “devil,” who, after the fashion of
the similar grotesque at Lincoln Cathedral, “looked over Lincoln” from
his niche on the quadrangle-side of the gate-tower. Irritated at this,
Tatham ordered the leaden figure to be taken down.[191] Then came out
a lampoon, longer and more bitter than any before, in which the wit
consists in making the word “devil” occur as often as possible in every
quatrain, and the point is to suggest that when Tatham was returning
from dining out (“full of politics, learning, and port was his pate”)
the devil, tired of standing so long inactive, had flown off with him
into space; where leaving him, the devil returned to establish himself
in person in the Rectorship and to govern the College with the help of
“two imps, called tutors.” During the later years of his life Tatham
availed himself of the large liberty of non-residence allowed the
Rector by the then statutes, and lived chiefly in the rectory-house at
Combe. There he enjoyed the pleasures of a rough country life, farming
the glebe, and devoting himself with marked success to the rearing
of his special breed of pigs. He rarely visited Oxford; and when he
did, always brought with him in his dog-cart a pair of his pigs to be
exposed for sale in the pig-market, which was then held in High Street
beside All Saints Church. On these occasions his dress is described by
a contemporary to have been so strictly in keeping with his favourite
pursuit that he ran no risk of being mistaken for a Doctor of Divinity
or the head of a College. There was, however, one occasion on which
Tatham came out in his “scarlet,” with great effect. The College had
some rights in the naming of the master of Skipton Grammar School,
Yorkshire. On occasion of a vacancy the local governors were disposed
to dispute the claim. Tatham went north, at the previous stage put on
his Doctor’s robes, drove into Skipton attired in their splendour, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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