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I have now said enough about the outward and visible signs of the Dublin students-perhaps too much; for I fear that Messrs. Hogan and O'Toole will be mortally offended at my remarks. There was a learned professor, who once commenced his lecture by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, I propose now to give you an outline of the natural history and habits of the donkey." His auditors, for some reasons, took this preface as an insult to themselves, and a murmur of disapprobation arose throughout the Hall; when some one cried out, most opportunely, "I hope he means nothing personal, poor man!" This put the audience in good humour, and the savant changed the subject of his lecture. There! I have suggested a retort for all my injured brethren, if any such there be. In self-defence I may as well add, that the students sitting next me, in the Hall (ironmonger fils was not one of them; after entrance he was drafted into some other division), used playfully to call me "a swell," though no one less deserved the title; unless on the grounds that I kept up the most friendly relations with an eminent blanchisseuse, and was so far acquainted with Mr. Cleaver-who gained the exhibition medal for honey soap-that I daily shook hands with that gentleman, most cordially!

Here I may mention that the under-graduates of this College possess not a spécialité for any one species of amusement-as the Oxford men do for boating; and the German students for beer swilling, duelling, and singing in chorus. Neither are they convivial to any very great extent. I knew a gentleman who paid £300. for one supper his son gave, while at Cambridge.

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"Three hundred pounds! says a Dubliner, "incredible!! Why if Hooligan, Mc. Carthy, and O'Grady, of T. C., D., determined on a spree, were to exert their endeavours to amuse themselves 'regardless of expense,' I wager the sum total of their combined extravagance would not exceed three hundred pence !"

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Thus, when country cousins, fresh from that classic region yclept "The bog of Allen," relate how they went out last night on the grand loose itself," it generally turns out that this expressive phrase comprehends nought more exhilarating nor demoralizing than half price to "The Queen's "-in which theatre the versatile Robson then provoked sidesplitting laughter and a supper at "Jude's," where perhaps they topped off, in the words of James Dodd, "with a vulgar set-out of muttonchops, spatch-cocks, and devilled-kidneys, washed down with that humble potation called punch." At this rate of enjoyment may not one hundred pence per head be fairly assumed as the maximum of their disbursements? I now proceed to describe an examination: and the first step is to appear in proper academic costume. For this purpose all non-resident students repair to a shop about three minutes' walk from the College, where an

obliging University porter keeps their caps and gowns, for the yearly consideration of ten shillings per head; but you may save yourself this expense, as many do, by hiring the trappings by the day, for which the sum of sixpence is the usual remuneration. It would require a strong mind, however, to venture on the last line of action; for, confessedly, the caps exposed for this diurnal purpose present a peculiar oleaginous appearance, as far as regards the lining-resembling, for all the world, the oil pads wherewith your domestic anoints the mahogany tables! I, therefore, expended two pounds on a new tabinet gown, and curious cap, like a cannon ball scooped out and coped with a square of rigid pasteboard, covered over with plain black cloth, without a tassel: an inestimable head-dress, I should say, for market-women and all who carry weights upon their their heads; but, be it avowed, a most grotesque and ridiculous machine for any other purpose!

The examinations take place from half-past nine o'clock, the first day, (and from ten, the second) till twelve; and from two to four, both days; during which period the students have naught to do, save write a theme, and be examined for about the space of fifteen or twenty minutes, all together. The interval is filled up in telling stories, making bad jokes, and criticising everyone and everything round about them. All this colloquial business is carried on through medium of a brogue the most unctuous, contributed by the different dialects of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught; the general effect of which is wondrously suggestive of the confusion of tongues, for it really requires some time, for one brought up in England, to become habituated to the Hibernian accent! It may not be generally known that Latin and Greek are pronounced differently in Trinity College from what they are in the English schools and universities. For instance: a has the sound of ah, eta of a, and iota of e. While on the subject, I cannot forbear mentioning the great advantage which this method has over the English; inasmuch as it wondrously facilitates acquiring the pronunciation of many modern languages, especially the German. Indeed a genuine Irishman may easily learn the true pronunciation of this tongue, in one day whereas, an Englishman, on going off, sticks generally at the first letter of the alphabet, and 't is needless to say all the other vowels puzzle him as well; the guttural sound of ch (final) brings him up, when it comes quite natural to the organs of the Irish; and then those dreadful umlauts ö and ü finish him altogether, while they prove, perhaps, the only difficulty to the Hibernian!

I advocate the expedience of applying this system of pronunciation to the dead languages solely: I should be sorry were the Irish brogue substituted for the pure English accent! And, indeed, it would appear,

from an examination of the continental tongues, that we English enjoy a singularity as regards the pronunciation of our first three vowels. A gentleman of my acquaintance-a learned scholar, sizar, and honor-man of Dublin College-once argued with an English professor as to whether the true sound of a was to be found in far or fate. When my Irish friend had exhausted all his logical powers in endeavouring, in vain, to persuade the Saxon that it was contained in the former, as a last resource he had recourse to the following touching appeal, which may be called a species of ingenious argumentum ad hominem: laying his hand upon the professor's arm, he said

"Now what is the genuine and original sound of our first letter?" Aye!" responded the Englishman.

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Hereupon the Irishman compressed a portion of his arm, betwixt the thumb and finger, and by dint of this process-vulgarly called pinching-caused him quickly to shriek out "Ah! Ah!!"

"There! Who is right now?" cried the representative of T. C., D., with ovation. "Had you been true to your principles, should you not have vociferated 'Aye! Aye?'"

But this digression over, I return to make the by-no-means novel statement that there are some things very stupid in this life, for example: sitting an hour or so in a blank railway station waiting for a train, in company with last month's "Bradshaw;" or walking up and down the street while your friend, who "won't keep you five minutes," pays a protracted visit of fully ten times that period. However, I doubt whether these, and a hundred other instances of a similarly-enlivening tendency, are not preferable to the monotony of sitting in the Hall of Trinity College, Dublin. Anything at such a time for a little amusement.

There was an unfortunate-looking specimen of under-graduate in my class, who appeared to have been framed in direct antagonism to all known principles of anatomy: he was knock-kneed, bandy-legged, and endowed with arms sprouting so abruptly from his shoulders, that had one said they grew elsewhere, and were transplanted lately to their present position, I could not have disbelieved him! His face properly belonged to the pictorial department, for, avowedly, it baffled a mere pen and ink description. In outline it might be pronounced under-jawed: the upper and under teeth so prominent that they agree in forming a sort of dental cheveux de frise, and useless for the purposes of mastication; for the incisors, as stated, were far beyond their work. His forehead rushed back sharp from his eyebrows, to hide itself in a copse of dark tangled hair. So independent of each other were his eyes, that he could complete an entire revolution with both, one, or the other of them! while in comparison with his nose, a pump handle would be termed symmetrical.

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On this young gentleman, the usual compensation for bodily deformity, superior mental endowments, had not been showered down in any measure so lavish as to engender suspicion relative to the probable ignition of the Liffey by him; for, controversy apart, he was aught save over-endued with natural ability, though by some means he managed to pass creditably. through the College. Of course, this genius afforded any amount of fun to the students in his class, who set out by conferring on him the sobriquet of Thersites, and followed it out by firing at this oddity all the artillery of their sarcasm. One favourite amusement was to pass his College-cap from hand to hand, till it reached the top of the table; when the gentleman there seated would watch a favourable opportunity of placing it on the senior lecturer's table, to which Thersites would repair, rouging and trembling, to recover it. In his trips up and down the Hall, they likewise tugged his gown tails, with such desperation that this garment soon became rent in a manner similar to the coat of many colours which once belonged to Joseph! But "the fun" did not stop here. If his outward man received all the slings and arrows of satire, his mental faculty-small though it was-they racked equivalently; for in addition to putting him in a glacial perspiration by informing him how they were to be examined in no end of books, not specified in the College course, they likewise proposed abstruse questions, as subjoined, which they declared were certain to be asked :—

"Given the principal focus of a pair of spectacles, to find when they are in equilibrio."

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Thersites jotted all these down in his book-most religiouslypuzzled, perplexed, and lost himself in this solution; and was then referred, by his fellow students, to the College porter, who, though not over-educated, was (they declared) more than competent to solve and explain the fore-going, which "any fool would know."

Between the hours, he actually applied for help, as directed, to this functionary, who-well understanding the joke-chaffed him likewise: affirming that he was not at liberty to elucidate such child-like queries, but would be happy to afford him instruction in any of the higher branches of literature. Finally, Thersites, by some mystic excursion, would digress into a political argument with the porter, and wind up—as I myself have heard him-with an unintelligible dogma on the doctrine of election!

At one examination, those sitting next him gravely assured him he was "cautioned," (this word is equivalent to the English term "plucked," which is little used in T. C. D. parlance) a statement which considerably deranged his nervous system.

"Why? " said he "shure I haven't been examined yet."
"No! but you've written a theme!" said one.
"Yes! was it very bad do you think?

"Bad! scandalous, sir!" cried a second.

"The false concords are all over Dublin!" remarked a third.

"Faith! I heard a Fellow say you had regularly murdered Marcus Tullius Cicero, and that there was to be a post-mortem examination held on your theme!"

"Ah! what'll I do at all?

'Begad, I don't know! College, you must be expelled.

demanded poor Thersites.

The provost says, for the credit of the

And I hear he has written to your mother to come and be present at the ceremony. Faith! it'll be a great day entirely; the Railways are going to issue return-tickets for the occasion! and they say there will be lunch in the dining-hall, when it's over." With gentle banterings, like these above, they worked on the credulity of the student.

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'Might I ask the senior lecturer to let me off? he nervously enquired.

"Gad! it's your only chance!" his persecutor rejoined-prompting him to this course with anticipation of increased amusement.

Thersites went up, like a condemned prisoner to Calcraft. When he reached the top of the Hall, the lecturer was busy writing: so he stood some minutes, in a wobegone attitude, quivering as if viewed through hot air, caused by an intervening stove.

The tittering, in the Hall, caused the nothing particular, he resumed his pen.

Fellow to look up, when seeing
This was the opportunity for

our under-graduate: advancing, he cried, in pitcous accents,

"Reverend Doctor, am I cautioned?"

The divine had already been pestered by Thersites for his cap, which had been confiscated by the students, in the early part of the day; and here again was he, propounding an absurd question, before the examination was half over! Human nature was not proof against such persecution. Elevating his voice, he roared

"Go to your seat, sir!!"

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The sound re-echoed through the Hall, like a clap of thunder. students exploded. Thersites shrank within himself-like an Indianrubber girder released from tension-and retired to his scat, where he continued blushing till the dismissal bell pealed out!

'T was thus my fellow-students generally killed time in Hall! Before passing on to something more important, I stop to record the fashion which the Trinity-college men have contracted of interlining or "paving" their books, as it is called. Graduates of this University are

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