Читать книгу Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars - Gooch Richard - Страница 8

When first our Alma Mater rose,

Though we must laud her and love her,

Nobody cares, and nobody knows,

And nobody can discover:

Some say a Spaniard, one Cantaber,

Christen’d her, or gave birth to her,

Or his daughter—that’s likelier, more, by far,

Though some honour king Brute above her.

Pythagoras, beans-consuming dog,

(’Tis the tongue of tradition that speaks,)

Built her a lecture-room fit for a hog,[2] Where now they store cabbage and leeks: And there mathematics he taught us, they say, Till catching a cold on a dull rainy day, He packed up his tomes, and he ran away To the land of his fathers, the Greeks. But our Alma Mater still can boast, Although the old Grecian would go, Of glorious names a mighty host, You’ll find in Wood, Fuller and Coe: Of whom I will mention but just a few— Bacon, and Newton, and Milton will do: There are thousands more, I assure you, Whose honours encircle her brow. Then long may our Alma Mater reign, Of learning and science the star, Whether she were from Greece or Spain, Or had a king Brute for her Pa; And with Oxon, her sister, for aye preside, For it never was yet by man denied, That the world can’t show the like beside— Let echo repeat it afar!

[2] The School of Pythagoras is an ancient building, situated behind St. John’s College, Cambridge, wherein the old Grecian, says tradition, lectured before Cambridge became a university. Whether those who say so lie under a mistake, as Tom Hood would say, I am not now going to inquire. At any rate, “sic transit,” the building is now a barn or storehouse for garden stuff. Those who would be further acquainted with this relique of by-gone days, may read a very interesting account of it extant in the Library of the British Museum, illustrated with engravings, and written by a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, to which society, says Wilson, in his Memorabilia Catabrigiæ, “it was given by Edward IV., who took it from King’s College, Cambridge. It is falsely supposed to have been one of the places where the Croyland Monks read lectures.”

It matters little whether we sons of Alma Mater sprung from the loins of Pythagoras, Cantaber, or the kings Brute and Alfred. They were all respectable in their way, so that we need not blush, “proh pudor,” to own their paternity. But let us hear what the cutting writer of Terræ Filius has to say on the subject. “Grievous and terrible has been the squabble, amongst our chronologers and genealogists concerning