THO A MASTER OF TRINITY. HOUGH William Lort Mansel, Public Orator, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Bristol, has now been dead nearly eighty years, his epigrams and witty sayings are not entirely forgotten, and, as time goes on, some of them have been credited to men of later days. On the death of Dr. Jowett, Master of Balliol in Oxford, one of Dr. Mansel's epigrams was revived, and attributed to the late H. Longueville Mansel. This was, however, set right by the late Lord Forester in the Times newspaper. It is mentioned in the "Table Talk" of Samuel Rogers, the poet, that he greatly admired Mansel's epigrams, and wished that some one would take the trouble to collect them, and it is to carry out this wish that the present collection of them has been made. It may not be out of place, however, before relating the epigrams, to give some information as to Dr. Mansel's origin. He was born at Pembroke in the year 1753; his father belonged to one of the first families in South Wales, his mother was the daughter of Major Roger Lort, killed at the battle of Fontenoy in 1745. His mother's brother, Michael Lort, was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge—a great collector of books and prints. The collection which he made was so enormous, that when it was dispersed by Leigh and Sotheby in 1791, the lots amounted to 6,665, and the sale occupied fifteen days. Dr. Mansel was admitted at Trinity College in 1770. The journey from Pembroke must have been a serious undertaking, as there were no coaches, and even some thirty-four years later, when Donovan, the author of "British Zoology," was at Pembroke, he said there was neither horse nor carriage to be hired in Pembroke. Probably the most difficult part of the journey was accomplished by a coasting vessel to Bristol. He had not long been in residence at Trinity before his humour displayed itself. On going into the rooms of one of his friends, who was absent, he saw on the table the opening lines of a poem, in the following lofty style: The sun's perpendicular heat Illumined the depths of the sea; and taking up a pen, he completed the stanza in the following witty way: The fishes beginning to sweat, Cried, Hang it, how hot we shall be ! Dr. Watson, Regius Professor of Divinity, had at one time been tutor of Trinity, and when he was made Bishop of Llandaff, an honest publican in Cambridge, who kept an inn called the "Bishop Blaise," out of respect to Dr. Watson, changed his sign, and replaced the head of Bishop Blaise by that of Bishop Watson. This transfer drew from Mansel, who probably had some grudge against the late tutor, the following epigram: Two of a trade can ne'er agree, No proverb ere was juster; Dr. Hinchliffe, Bishop of Peterborough and Master of Trinity, once filled up a vacancy in the college choir, by appointing a man of no musical talent, and with very little voice; the main qualification in the master's mind being that he possessed a vote for Northamptonshire. This was an occasion which Mansel could not let slip, and the following epigram was the result: A singing man, and yet not sing! My voice is in another county. In the year 1795 Dr. Douglas was made Master of Corpus Christi College, and then married Miss Mainwaring, a daughter of the Lady Margaret Professor of Theology. As both were very thin, Mansel wrote as follows: St. Paul has declared that persons, though twain, And cried, These two splinters shall make but one bone. Sir Isaac Pennington, M.D., the Regius Professor of Physic, was not only most particular in his dress, but, when he prescribed for a lady, was most careful to write as elegantly as possible, which led to Mansel writing the following epigram: When Pennington for female ills indites, Studying alone, not what, but how he writes, 1 Benet, an old name for Corpus Christi College. The ladies, as his graceful form they scan, Cry, with ill-omened rapture, "Killing man!" The epigram to which Lord Forester drew attention in the Times, arose from the following circumstances :-There was a bare space on the south side of the entrance to Trinity Hall (the college of that name) which had long been a receptacle for street sweepings and other rubbish. To prevent these unsightly accumulations, Dr. Jowett, one of the fellows, had the angle fenced off with palings, and planted with flowers; but finding this little garden caused some ridicule, he did away with the flowers, and laid the space down with gravel, which drew from Mansel the following epigram: A little garden little Jowett made, He changed it to a little gravel walk. And now, if more you'd know of little Jowett, This little garden won't a little show it. On one occasion, when Dr. Mansel had been making humorous verses on several of the colleges, the Rev. Christopher Hunter, a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, was present, and felt hurt that his own college had not been noticed, and took Mansel to task for his neglect. "I will soon put that right," he said, and at once produced the following verse: There's little Sidney Sussex, too, And why should I affront her? -Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, having been educated at that college. One day Dr. Mansel met two undergraduates of his college, who passed him without paying the respect due to their master by raising their caps. He stopped them, and inquired if they knew him: they flippantly replied that they really did not. "How long have you been in college, then?" he said. "Only eight days" they answered. "That accounts for your blindness," the master replied; "puppies never see till they are nine days old." During the time that Dr. Mansel was Master of Trinity there was a well-known character at Cambridge called "Jemmy Gordon." He was respectably born, and well educated, and brought up as a solicitor, and might have done very well; but after a time he became so degraded by drink and debauchery that he was a regular outcast, and lived by pestering anyone whom he knew to give him a trifle. Passing through Trinity College one day, he saw Dr. Mansel walking backwards and forwards in front of his lodge. Gordon accosted him, 'My Lord, give me a shilling," to which his Lordship replied, “If you can find a greater scoundrel than yourself, I will give you half-acrown." Jemmy made his bow, and shortly after meeting Beverley, one of the Esquire Bedells, said, "His Lordship wishes to see you on particular business." Beverley hastened to Trinity, Jemmy following at no great distance. "I understand you wish to see me, my Lord.” "You have been misinformed," said the Bishop. At that moment Jemmy joined them, and taking off his hat, said, "I think, my Lord, I am entitled to the half-a-crown." Beverley's character did not stand very high, as he sometimes diverted to his own use the fees that he received in virtue of his office, instead of handing them over to the proper authorities. Lord Byron, the poet, was at Trinity, taking his degree in 1808. In "Thoughts suggested by a College Examination," he alludes to Dr. Mansel in the following terms : High in the midst, surrounded by his peers, Lord Byron says, in a note on this passage, "No reflection is here intended against the person mentioned under the name of Magnus. Indeed, such an attempt could only recoil upon myself, as the gentleman is now as much distinguished by his eloquence, and the dignified propriety with which he fills his situation, as he was in former days for wit and conviviality." It would be unjust to Dr. Mansel's memory to look upon him merely as a wit. His scholarship is proved by his elevation to the office of Public Orator of the University of Cambridge (once held by Erasmus); and the reality of his religion by his friendship with Mrs. Hannah More, the Rev. Charles Simeon, Robert Hall, the great Baptist minister, and others of similar views, in a day when religion was of a formal character, and with little vitality. EDWARD PEACOCK. THE PROGRESS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOP EMPIRE. EOPLE have by this time quite forgotten the tremendous sensation created by the announcement of the Franco-Russian Alliance. Yet if we look back we may see at a glance how farreaching have been its results-beneficial in every way to both nations. Prior to the alliance Russia was unable to force herself into the arena of Western European politics. The English press never regarded her as more than an Eastern power. The average education of an Englishman generally includes, even to-day, the careful instilling of exaggerated accounts of Siberian prison horrors. He is taught to believe that the ordinary Russian is in daily dread of being suddenly taken from his home and marched off to some Siberian mine, where he must work for years if not for life, where he must bear patiently every insult and cruelty imposed on him by his task-masters, and where he can obtain no redress or hope of regaining freedom except through the caprice of these task-masters. Unfortunately the popular writers of stories dealing with Russia have taken up this easy vein, and worked it for all it was worth, whilst the quiet, gradual development of the nation has remained hidden from us. From ignorance of her internal development the natural thing was to drift on to the false conclusion that she was on the downgrade. Coupled with this was our fancy that the frequent discovery of plots against the Government presaged the breaking-up of the Empire in the near future. The expression of such views had for its natural sequence the feeling of contempt and animosity which until quite recently has animated the press of our own country. I say "until quite recently," because a very noticeable change has come to be marked. Our animosity may still be as bitter, but the effect of Russian diplomacy has been such that, rather than adding contempt, it has caused us no inconsiderable trepidation as to what would be their next coup. They have not held by the accepted canons of good faith, but they have shown more than Eastern skill and shrewdness in their foreign policy, which is terribly progressive. |