R. F. Murray [9]
to meet once a year. Here be they who were too fond when Culdees ruled, or who loved young monks of the Priory; here be ladies of Queen Mary's Court, and the fair inscrutable Queen herself, with Chastelard, that died at St. Andrews for desire of her; and poor lassies and lads who were over gay for Andrew Melville and Mr. Blair; and Miss Pett, who tended young Montrose, and may have had a tenderness for his love-locks. They are a triste good company, tender and true, as the lovers of whom M. Anatole France has written (La Messe des Morts). Above the witches' lake come shadows of the women who suffered under Knox and the Bastard of Scotland, poor creatures burned to ashes with none to help or pity. The shades of Dominicans flit by the Black Friars wall--verily the place is haunted, and among Murray's pleasures was this of pacing alone, by night, in that airy press and throng of those who lived and loved and suffered so long ago -
`The mist hangs round the College tower, The ghostly street Is silent at this midnight hour, Save for my feet.
With none to see, with none to hear, Downward I go To where, beside the rugged pier, The sea sings low.
It sings a tune well loved and known In days gone by, When often here, and not alone, I watched the sky.'
But he was not always, nor often, lonely. He was fond of making his speech at the Debating Societies, and his speeches are remembered as good. If he declined the whisky and water, he did not flee the weed. I borrow from College Echoes -
A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT
So in the village inn the poet dwelt. His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch, His cousin's work, her empty labour, left. But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung And lingered all about the broidered flowers. Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch, `Smoke plug, mon,' whom he looked at doubtfully. Then came the grocer saying, `Hae some twist At tippence,' whom he answered with a qualm. But when they left him to himself again, Twist, like a fiend's breath from a distant room Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt His fancies with the billow-lifted bay Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship.
And on that night he made a little song, And called his song `The Song of Twist and Plug,' And sang it; scarcely could he make or sing.
`Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain; And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain; I know not which is ranker, no, not I.
`Plug, art thou rank? then milder twist must be; Plug, thou art milder: rank is twist to me. O twist, if plug be milder, let me buy.
`Rank twist, that seems to make me fade away, Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay, I know not which is ranker, no, not I.
`I fain would purchase flake, if that could be; I needs must purchase plug, ah, woe is me! Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy.
His was the best good thing of the night's talk, and the thing that was remembered. He excited himself a good deal over Rectorial Elections. The duties of the Lord Rector and the mode of his election have varied frequently in near five hundred years. In Murray's day, as in my own, the students elected their own Rector, and before Lord Bute's energetic reign, the Rector had little to do, but to make a speech, and give a prize. I vaguely remember proposing the author of Tom Brown long ago: he was not, however, in the running.
Politics often inspire the electors; occasionally (I have heard) grave seniors use their influence, mainly for reasons of academic policy.
In December 1887 Murray writes about an election in which Mr. Lowell was a candidate. `A pitiful protest was entered by an' (epithets followed by a proper name) `against Lowell, on the score of his being an alien. Mallock, as you learn, was withdrawn, for which I am truly thankful.' Unlucky Mr. Mallock! `Lowell polled 100 and Gibson 92 . . . The intrigues and corruption appear to be almost worthy of an American Presidential election.' Mr. Lowell could not accept a compliment which pleased him, because
`The mist hangs round the College tower, The ghostly street Is silent at this midnight hour, Save for my feet.
With none to see, with none to hear, Downward I go To where, beside the rugged pier, The sea sings low.
It sings a tune well loved and known In days gone by, When often here, and not alone, I watched the sky.'
But he was not always, nor often, lonely. He was fond of making his speech at the Debating Societies, and his speeches are remembered as good. If he declined the whisky and water, he did not flee the weed. I borrow from College Echoes -
A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT
So in the village inn the poet dwelt. His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch, His cousin's work, her empty labour, left. But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung And lingered all about the broidered flowers. Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch, `Smoke plug, mon,' whom he looked at doubtfully. Then came the grocer saying, `Hae some twist At tippence,' whom he answered with a qualm. But when they left him to himself again, Twist, like a fiend's breath from a distant room Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt His fancies with the billow-lifted bay Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship.
And on that night he made a little song, And called his song `The Song of Twist and Plug,' And sang it; scarcely could he make or sing.
`Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain; And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain; I know not which is ranker, no, not I.
`Plug, art thou rank? then milder twist must be; Plug, thou art milder: rank is twist to me. O twist, if plug be milder, let me buy.
`Rank twist, that seems to make me fade away, Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay, I know not which is ranker, no, not I.
`I fain would purchase flake, if that could be; I needs must purchase plug, ah, woe is me! Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy.
His was the best good thing of the night's talk, and the thing that was remembered. He excited himself a good deal over Rectorial Elections. The duties of the Lord Rector and the mode of his election have varied frequently in near five hundred years. In Murray's day, as in my own, the students elected their own Rector, and before Lord Bute's energetic reign, the Rector had little to do, but to make a speech, and give a prize. I vaguely remember proposing the author of Tom Brown long ago: he was not, however, in the running.
Politics often inspire the electors; occasionally (I have heard) grave seniors use their influence, mainly for reasons of academic policy.
In December 1887 Murray writes about an election in which Mr. Lowell was a candidate. `A pitiful protest was entered by an' (epithets followed by a proper name) `against Lowell, on the score of his being an alien. Mallock, as you learn, was withdrawn, for which I am truly thankful.' Unlucky Mr. Mallock! `Lowell polled 100 and Gibson 92 . . . The intrigues and corruption appear to be almost worthy of an American Presidential election.' Mr. Lowell could not accept a compliment which pleased him, because