Viewing page 225 of 285

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

140  ANNUAL REGISTER For the YEAR 1772.  141

fellowes would go to supper before fix, and making an end sooner than at other times, they left the hall to the libertie of the Under Graduats, but with an admonition from one of the fellowes (who was the Principal of the Under-Graduats and Postmasters) that all things should be carried in good order. While they were at supper in the hall, the cook (Will. Noble) was making the lesser of the brass pots full of cawdel at the Freshmen's charge; which, after the hall was free from the fellowes, was brought up and set before the fire in the said hall. Afterwards every Freshman, according to seniority, was to pluck off his gowne and band, and if possibly, to make himself look like a scoundrell. This done, they were conducted each after the other to the high table, and there made to stand on a forme placed thereon ; from whence they were to speak their speech with an audible voice to the company; which, if well done, the person that spoke it was to have a cup of cawdle and no salted drink ; if indifferently, some cawdle and some falters drinke; but if dull, nothing was given to him but salted drink, or salt put in college beere, with tucks to boot. Afterwards when they were to be admitted into the fraternity, the senior cook was to administer to them an oath over an old shoe, part of which runs thus: Item tu jurabis, quod Pennyless Bench non vistabis, &c. the rest is forgotten, and none there are that now remembers it. After which spoken with gravity, the Freshman kist the shoe, put on his gowne and band, and took his place among the seniors. 

Now for a diversion and to make you laugh at the folly and simplicity of those times, I shall entertaine you with part of a speech, which A. Wood spoke, while he stood on the forme, placed on the table, with his gowne and band off and uncovered. 

"Most reverend Seniors,

"May it plese your gravities, to admit into your presence a kitten of the muses, and a mere frog of Helicon, to croak the cataracts of his plumbeous cerebrosity before your sagacious ingenuities. Perhaps you may expect, that I should thunder our Demicannon words, and level my sulphurious throat against my fellowes of the Tyrocinian crew; but this being the universal judgment of wee fresh water academicans, behold, as so many Stygian furies, or ghosts risen out of their winding sheets, wee present ourselves before your tribunal, and therefore I will not sublimate nor tonitruate words, nor swell into gigantic streins : such towring ebullitions do not exuberate in my aganippe, being at the lowest ebb. I have been no chairman in the committee of Apollo's creatures, neither was I ever admitted into the cabinet councils of the Pyerian dames, that my braines should evaporate into high hyperboles, o that I should bastinado the times with a tart satyr of a magic pen. Indeed I am but a fresh water soldier under the banners of Phœbus, and therefore cannot as yet set quart-pots or doublejugs in battalia, or make a good shot in sack and claret, or give fire to the pistoletto tobacco pipes, charged with its Indian powder; and therefore having but poor skill in such service, I were about to turn Heliconian dragooner, but as I were mounting my dapper nagg Pegasus, behold Shrove-Tuesday day night arrested me, greeting me in the name of this honourable convocation, to appear before their tribunal, and make answer for myself, which, most wife seniors, shall be in this wife. 

"I am none of those May-pole Freshmen, that are tall cedars before they come to be planted in [the] academian garden, who fed with the papp of Aristotle at twenty or thirtie yeares of age, and fuck at the duggs of theit mother the University, though they be high Colossu[s]'s and youths rampant.

"These are they, who come newly from a bagg-pudding and a good brown loaf to deal with a penny-commons, as an elephant with a poor fly, tumbles it and tosses it and at last gives him a chop, that tug as hard for a post-master’s place, as a dog at mutton.

"I am none of the University blood-hounds, that feek for preferment, and whole noses are [as] acute as their eares, that lye perdue for places, and who good faints do groan till the visitation comes. These are they that esteem a tavern as bad as purgatory, and wine more superstitious than holy water; and therefore I hope this honourable convocation will not suffer one of that tribe to tast of the sack, [left they] should be troubled with a vertigo, and their heads turne round.

"I never came out of the country of Lapland. I am not of the number of beasts. I meane those greeedie dogs and kitchen haunters, who noint their chops every night with greese, and rob the cook of his fees, Etc.

"Thus he went forward with smart reflections on the rest of the Freshmen and some of the servants, which might have been here set downe, had not the speech been borrowed of him by several of the seniors, who imbezl’d it. After he has concluded his speech, he was taken downe by Edm. Dickenson, one of the Bachelaur-Commoners of the Houfe, who with other Bachelaurs and the senior Under-Graduats made him drink a good dish of cawdle, put on his gowne and band, placed him among the seniors, and gave him sack.

"This was the way and custome that had been used in the College, time out of mind, to initiate the Freshmen ; but between that time and the restoration of K. Charles II. it was disused, and now such a thing is absolutely forgotten."

Certayne Queftyons, wyth Awnsweres to the fame, concernynge the Mystery of Maconrye; wrytenne by the Hande of Kynge Henrye the Sixthe of the Name, and faithfullye copyed by me John Leylande, Antiquarius, by the Commander of his Highneffe. They be as followethe:

Quest. What motte ytt be?

Answ. Ytt beeth the skylle of nature, the understondynge of the mygthe that us hereynne, and its foundry worckynges; sonderlyche, the skylle of rectenyngs, of waights, and metynges, and the treu manere of saconynge al thynges for mannes ufe; headlye, dwellynges, and buyldynges of alle kyndes, and al odher thynges that make gudde to manne.

Quest. Where dyd ytt begyne?

Answ. Ytt dyd begynne with the siyrste menne yn the Este, whych were before thr ssyrfte manne of the weste, and comynge westlye, ytt hathe broughte herwyth alle comfortes to the wylde and comfortleffe.

Quest. Who dyd brynge ytt westlye?

Answ.

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-21 20:12:26