Some Old Oxford Magazines
Wyndham, Horace
SOME OLD OXFORD MAGAZINES By HORACE WYNDHAM SIXTY years ago, or so, ephemeral literature did not flourish at Oxford as it does today. Yet, the university was not altogether unfertile soil for...
...Early in his career, Spectator makes the not uncommon editorial discovery that the heart of man is vain, and has to bewail the fact that "the undergraduate is an animal fond of seeing himself in print...
...Assuredly the fault, mainly, of those who patronize them...
...Thus remarks the author, in the year 1861: Russia is stretching her dominions toward the regions of Bokhara...
...per yard I gain 8 percent, what will be my rate of profit if I see it at 8s.4d...
...In the same year appeared the first number of Dark Blue...
...The contents—all of which were anonymous—were eminently solid...
...i. e., one who only appears at college feeds...
...Despite the official intimation that "number two (price 4d...
...Despite this promising program, there was only one more issue...
...Some little time elapsed before any sustained effort was made to provide Oxford with a magazine that should maintain a sufficiently high standard to render it acceptable to the university at large...
...One example was as follows: "A," an undergraduate member of the University of Oxford, unprovided with academicals, is accosted by "B," a proctor, who requests him to call at his rooms on the following morning...
...The task set them was to solve certain problems, typical of those engendered by university life...
...The pages of Ye Rounde Table, first issued just forty-four years ago, contain particulars of an interesting competition in which readers were invited to participate...
...The demand ever creates the supply...
...Plays are represented which should never be seen upon "the boards," and the dreadful exhibition of the ballet continues...
...Thus, the mental pabulum of the preliminary issue comprised articles on Hereditary Influence on Character, and The Republic and Christianity, together with Modern Hellenism, and other entrancing subjects...
...In the realms of prose the criticism on The Early English Dramatists is the best feature of the contents of number one...
...Our papers will handle those subjects most likely to engage general interest...
...Unfortunately, very few of these were destined to enjoy more than a most brief spell of existence...
...The place of honor in the initial number is given to a political article on The Present Crisis...
...It seems to be scarcely uncalled for, when the critic points out that the volume under examination bristles with such parallels as "a seraph's rainbow-cinctured pieties," and "the blue raptures of predominating larks...
...There is also a clever paper on the works of Bishop Colenso...
...On the contrary, who is not better for his faithful portraiture of virtue and vice...
...These are the things that lower the character of the stage, and give cause to shallow opponents to condemn it altogether...
...So recondite a theme as mathematics failed to present any difficulties to the staff bard...
...Poets, however, seem to have been sternly discountenanced...
...Is not the window of the leading silversmith choked with a collection of splendid cups, all destined to be the incentives to new efforts in this direction...
...a tendency to loudness in dress, the members of this class have an elan which does them great service, especially in procuring male votes, but they also lack education, and their refinement is questionable...
...He taught, indeed, morality to the natives—he showed them that nakedness was a crime —he clothed them—and he took them in...
...Italy is instinct with new life...
...Conspicuous among such early efforts was Undergraduate Papers, the first number of which was published in December, 1857, at one shilling per copy...
...The newcomer bore the title of the Shotover Papers, and its contents, although generally amusing, nevertheless bore too clearly the trade mark of amateurishness to gain for them any measure of lasting success...
...A" has never been introduced...
...Is there not a growing impression, though perhaps, as yet, unexpressed, that this muscle worship is occupying too much of our attenton...
...Yet, the university was not altogether unfertile soil for such productions, and almost every college had at one time or another its own journalistic organ...
...The morality of actors is a very different thing...
...Of no school and no party, our aim is to supply a pleasant recreation for leisure hours...
...Poetry is represented by a lyrical trifle, 118 verses in length, entitled Queen Yseult...
...but the words that he hears, and the deeds that he sees, are founded upon unchanging and eternal nature...
...Unfortunately, they too had ere long to mourn the untimely decease of their own journalistic offspring...
...This was the Oxford Spectator...
...that the second number did actually make its appearance...
...In the verses entitled Nugae Mathematicae, he is inspired to sing: A tutor, some ladies to vex, Said a circle would osculate x; But they cried "How improper...
...Visitor: From viz., namely, and eater, a feeder...
...At any rate, it is not included among the advertised table of contents...
...Behold the answer in his own words: "If by selling fine high cloth at Ss...
...the persons may be actors...
...The article bears the title The Stage: Its Interest and Morality...
...In its place, however, is a very trenchant review of a certain minor bardlet's works...
...The scenery may be that of the artist...
...Nothing, it is hoped, will appear in these numbers which will unworthily represent the average ability of the university...
...An early paper on Words and Their Derivations has these rather happy renderings: The High A street in Oxford, so called because the rent of the rooms, and the price of commodities there, is excessive...
...Prussia, instead of Austria, concentrates in herself all German rights, and aims at still further aggrandizement...
...would be issued in the following January," it was not until two months later, and then at a cost of is.6d...
...An Oxford magazine, capable of asking such delicate questions of etiquette, was, in the year of grace 1878, evidently in advance of its period...
...This was certainly a pity, for the tone of this new journal was distinctly in advance of those that preceded it...
...Perhaps the proposed combination of "poetry and politics" was too much for Oxford, or, possibly, the contemplated infliction of "waifs of verse" had something to do with it...
...You really should stop her, She's quite a disgrace to her sex...
...Its authorship was attributed to a lately deceased bishop: Benjamin J-----endeavored to say He believed in the Bible and Tyndall, For both do agree how mighty may be The flame a small matter may kindle...
...The conductors, too, had high aspirations...
...Nevertheless, the results but seldom justified their enterprise...
...Jowett, Master of Balliol, excited considerable controversy at the time...
...Greece is awakening from the long sleep under which she has been bound...
...The prattlings of this lattertime Addison were exceedingly amusing, and his shafts were even aimed at the most cherished traditions of the undergraduate heart...
...The responsible editor appears to have had a somewhat catholic taste, for the range of subjects discussed in his pages is a remarkably wide one...
...A break of five years now seems to have occurred in the flood of university magazines, and it was not until 1874 that another competitor made a bid for popular favor...
...As might be expected, in writing in this strain the journal wrote its own epitaph...
...Such things must, to some extent, demoralize both audience and actors...
...The sentiments of the writer are admirably expressed, and the liberal views that he takes of so burning a subject are scarcely what one would expect to find in a university journal of more than sixty years ago: Who can go away from the representation of some of Shakespeare's dramas a worse man...
...Among others who came under the ban of editorial disfavor was the girl of the period...
...per ell...
...Yet it enlisted the services of some very able contributors...
...In outward appearance the newcomer was modest and unassuming, and the slim, green, paper-covered volume ran to but forty pages...
...In the following sorrowful plaint he bitterly laments the inconsequent striving after rewards for prowess displayed in the arena: It is useless to ignore the fact...
...Nowadays, the outraged maidens of Girton would doubtless arise in their wrath and inflict summary vengeance on any university journalist bold enough to thus impugn their "education and refinement...
...In the autumn of 1861 the attempt was made, in the launching of Great Tom upon the stormy sea of Oxford ephemera...
...A periodical that created some little stir made its bow in November of the following year...
...It is difficult to conceive how anyone, however rigid in his views, can found his objection to theatres upon a disapprobation of our best dramas...
...His critic asks: Why did Colenso accept the bishopric of Natal...
...The following epigram on Dr...
...and, drunk with the pride of present success, repudiates the Church with which she has been so long identified...
...Ribald attempts to poke fun at the majesty of the proctors was an unpardonable sin, and Ye Rounde Table was very soon withdrawn from circulation...
...The sentence "I owed £3,746.173.3d...
...Alas, this also was not destined to last for any great length of time, and at a very early stage in its career the fatal intimation "to be discontinued" is sorrowfully announced...
...The first canto only is here published...
...There is quite a prophetic ring about much of it...
...What course must he pursue...
...Theatres are not managed as they should and might be...
...Colenso was not long uncertain...
...Chaucer's motto: "And gladly wolde he learn, and gladly teach," appears on the title page...
...and scarce a month elapsed, but marked, for one reason or another, the untimely decease of a periodical, which its promoters fondly hoped was to be the one university magazine that was to eclipse all others...
...Their conductors were young and hot-blooded, and threw themselves heart and soul into their work...
...Managers of theatres have no inordinate liking for maudlin plays, or improper dancing, but they must earn a living, and this can only be done by pleasing their patrons...
...for whiskey," extracted from the author's well-known "miscellaneous examples," is made the peg upon which is hung an amusingly written discourse...
...We propose to treat of poetry and politics in a free and catholic spirit...
...Concerning her occur these severely critical comments in an article aptly entitled, The Transit of Venus...
...As with most of its predecessors, the annonymity of its staff was strictly conserved...
...The next candidate for public favor was the Oxford University Magazine and Review...
...Conscious of this, and in profound anxiety as to the future, the nations everywhere are adopting defensive measures...
...Here is their editorial greeting: In issuing a series of Undergraduate Papers, we mean to be guided in our selection by one standard alone: that of literary excellence...
...Short essays on questions of social philosophy will find place in our pages, along with sketches of a lighter nature, pieces of criticism and waifs of verse...
...the spirit of the stadium is dominant among us...
...However, it was all conceived in a good-natured spirit...
...In the issue for December is a paper that might very well have furnished inspiration for the recent utterances of a certain distinguished dramatic critic...
...But whose fault is it that these things are so...
...In the Introduction thereto the editors naively remark: "We ought not to be dispirited by recollecting that former Oxford magazines have not been successful, nor long-lived...
...at any rate, their effusions were kept within severely reasonable limits...
...Any moment may therefore see the commencement of a war which threatens to embrace the whole of Europe...
...The second was, apparently, not on hand when number two went to press...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 23
