Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford Part 2

Either of your time, or of your money, waste as little as possible upon newspapers. I admit, that of all periods of history, the time in which we actually live is, _to us_, the most interesting. I admit that, both with a view to your taking part in the conversation of general society, as well as upon other accounts, some knowledge of pa.s.sing events is desirable, or even necessary. For such purposes, a rapid glance at the newspaper, or even what is picked up by hearsay, will, generally speaking, be sufficient. While reading for your degree, however, you really cannot spare time to read the newspapers _through_. The most important portions of them are, perhaps, the debates during the session of parliament, and the trials. Of the debates, a considerable part is very trifling and unprofitable; and, in order to read with real advantage those speeches which are most deserving of attention, it is necessary to be possessed of a considerable portion of that knowledge of history, of legislation, of political economy, of mercantile and financial transactions, the _foundations_ of which you are at Oxford engaged in laying. It is not to be wished that an under-graduate should affect to be an experienced politician, prepared to give a strong and decided opinion upon subjects, upon which able and experienced men, possessed of ten times his knowledge, find a difficulty in making up their mind. In the reports of trials, many curious facts, and much interesting information are to be found. In order to understand many of them, however, it is requisite to have a more intimate acquaintance with the rules of English jurisprudence, and with the practice of the courts, than can be expected in a young man as yet hardly set free from the eggsh.e.l.l of school. Upon the subject of newspapers, however, I will say no more. I well know, that in merely touching upon it, I tread upon delicate and debateable ground.

Take sufficient time for relaxation; but let your relaxations, as far as you can, be intellectual and improving.

Oxford now presents opportunities, both of acquiring some knowledge of natural history, and of cultivating a taste in the fine arts, which it by no means possessed when I was an under-graduate. For these we are princ.i.p.ally indebted to those two admirable brothers[66:1], who have so long devoted their time, their money, their distinguished talents, and their various attainments, in the first place, to plans of beneficence, and in the next, to the advancement of science and the cultivation of taste. It is to them that we owe the enlargement, the arrangement, and in fact the greater part of the contents, of the Museum, which now contains a very interesting collection of specimens, particularly in British ornithology. To them we are indebted for the excellent casts (in the Ratcliffe Library) from the most perfect specimens of sculpture, and for the beautiful models (in the Picture Gallery) of the most celebrated remains of ancient architecture. The Picture Gallery itself contains many paintings, which, if not of any great excellence as works of art, yet are well deserving of attention on very many accounts; and the copies from the Cartoons, especially if you can be a.s.sisted with a few hints from Richardson or Sir Joshua Reynolds, are most interesting objects of study and contemplation. I am surprised that the young men in Oxford make so little use of these advantages. Many of them seem hardly to be aware of their existence.

Among other modes of relaxation, not unconnected with intellectual improvement, I should advise you to make yourself a little acquainted with our early English architecture. If you can buy or borrow either Bentham's Essay on Gothic Architecture, or Milner's accurate and elegant Treatise on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of England during the middle ages, you will need no other a.s.sistance, excepting, indeed, a friend disposed to go along with you in this pursuit. Oxford and its immediate neighbourhood will furnish you with many interesting specimens from the Saxon and Norman, in the cathedral, St. Peter's in the East, and Iffley church, down to the utter depravation of the art, or rather the total change of style, in the time of Henry the Eighth.

These interesting pursuits, however, I mention, as you must follow them, if you follow them at all, merely _by the by_. They must not be suffered to interfere with your severer studies. When engaged in those studies, give them your whole undivided attention. _Whatsoever your hand, or your head, findeth to do, do it with all your might._

The habits of study and of intellectual improvement, which you acquire at Oxford, you should carry with you into the vacation. During the vacation, you may, perhaps, take more time for society--the society especially of your own immediate family--and more for relaxation; but still do not _waste_ your time; still consider yourself as responsible for the right employment of it. Make sure of the ground which you gained during the term, by going over by yourself, what you then read with your tutor. Improve your acquaintance with the standard writers of our own country, and acquire some knowledge of modern history. In short, make the most of your leisure. Read Bishop Home's sermon on redeeming the time, and the papers in the Spectator and the Rambler to which he refers. Read, _and learn by heart_, what is said on the loss of time in the second of Young's Night Thoughts:

"Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment but in purchase of its worth."

But my letter grows long, and (you will say) tedious.

I remain, My dear Nephew, Your affectionate Uncle.

FOOTNOTES:

[62:1] Vol. I. No. 14.

[66:1] John Duncan, Esq. and Philip Duncan, Esq. of New College.

LETTER VI.

PUNCTUALITY.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

I ventured to give you some advice respecting the employment of your time; perhaps I ought to follow up that letter with a few remarks upon PUNCTUALITY. Unless you acquire the habit of punctuality, you will be apt, not only to lose your own time, but to make unjustifiable inroads upon the time of other persons.

Endeavour, therefore, to _keep to your time_ in every appointment, whether the appointment be made by yourself or by others, (the college authorities for instance,) whether it be with a superior, an equal, or an inferior. Whether it be in a matter of business or in a matter of pleasure, try always to be true to it. Let this be your system and your habit. Some deviations from punctuality may now and then be unavoidable; but do not let them occur unless they _really are_ unavoidable in fairness and reason. If you have yourself made an appointment, your word is, to a certain degree, pledged to your keeping to it. The case is in some measure the same, when, though the appointment is actually made by others, you have acceded to it.

Want of punctuality seems to proceed either from pride and superciliousness, or from some infirmity, some weakness of character.

Most men try to be punctual in any appointment with a man of rank superior to themselves, especially if they have any object, any interest, in conciliating his favour. And, on the other hand, too many persons seem to feel themselves at liberty to be unpunctual in an appointment with an inferior. It is not worth while, they think, to care about being exact with one so much beneath them. "Let him wait till I am at leisure to attend to him," exclaims such a man, in the proud consciousness of superiority; and, perhaps, some trifle, or mere indolence, is all that he has to plead for his neglect.

You, my dear nephew, have, I trust, long since learned, that you have no right to treat any man, however low his rank may be, with disrespect,--with any thing approaching to contempt. You well know, that both reason and religion require us to regard all men as our brothers, and that one of the golden rules of the latter is, _in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself_. Whatever a man's rank in life may be, he has a right to punctuality as he has a right to truth; and you have no right, by your unpunctuality, to rob him either of his time or his patience. Certainly you have no right to give him by such means the painful feeling that he is neglected, and neglected because he is despised.

And thus, also, with men of your own age and your own rank in life; in all the little engagements and appointments, whether of business or of pleasure, which occur in the common intercourse of society, endeavour still to maintain the habit of punctuality. As every man wishes to have the character of being true to his word, so it will be to your credit to have the character of being true to your engagements, whether those engagements relate to great matters or to small.

But though want of punctuality is sometimes occasioned by pride, it must more frequently proceed from a certain degree of weakness of character, or from mere indolence. A man acknowledges punctuality to be right and desirable, but cannot muster up sufficient energy and resolution. He cannot prevail upon himself to quit his bed, or his easy chair, or his fire-side, or the employment by which he chances to be occupied, till the time fixed on has pa.s.sed away. His friends are kept waiting; those who have business to transact with him lose their temper; they, again, are perhaps disappointing others, and all because he had not sufficient decision of character, sufficient command of himself, to be punctual.

You may remember seeing at my house my friend Mr. M.[78:1] He was at Oxford a very good-humoured fellow, and every body liked him; but he never could contrive to be in time for any thing. He got imposition upon imposition for being too late for chapel; he came to dine in hall when other men were going away; and his friends were almost afraid of making an appointment with him, either for business or for amus.e.m.e.nt, because they knew beforehand that he would not keep it. When, after leaving Oxford, he established himself as a country gentleman in his paternal mansion, the same habit still clung to him. No time was fixed for any thing, or if it was fixed, it was never kept. Neither his guests nor his servants knew at what hour either breakfast, or dinner, or any other domestic arrangement, would take place. Consequently, their time and their spirits were wasted in uncertainty. When engaged to dine at a neighbour's, perhaps he would forget the engagement altogether; or, if he chanced to remember it, would not arrive till the master of the feast had given him up in despair, after allowing possibly an extra half hour, during which, the solemn pause which sometimes takes place before dinner, had become more solemn, from the annoyance of seeing a whole party kept waiting by the unpunctuality of one person. The servants, meanwhile, were yawning and fidgetting backwards and forwards in the listlessness of expectation; the cook perplexed with the sore dilemma of seeing all the productions of her skill, either chilled with cold from being kept back, or burnt to a cinder; and the temper even of the lady of the house a little out of tune, from the certainty that the dinner would be spoiled. Of all these various vexations, the sole cause was to be found in Mr. M.'s want of energy. He could not bring himself, perhaps, either to shorten a pleasant ride, or to lay down a book which interested him, or to quit his own chair by the fire-side, in order to dress. The convenience and comfort, and for a time the good humour, of a whole company, were to be sacrificed to his indolence, his _vis inertiae_, and unpunctuality.

Never permit yourself, my dear nephew, thus to trifle with the time or the temper of any persons, whether high or low, with whom you have any intercourse. Make a point of always being in time. I think it is said of Lord Nelson (though I cannot hit upon the pa.s.sage in his life), that when some friend was fixing an appointment of importance at a certain hour, the hero added, "Say a quarter _before_--to that quarter _before_, I have owed all my success in life." I do not advise you actually to be _before_ the time of an engagement, which some people will complain of as being worse than being too late, but be so much beforehand as to be master of your time, or to have it in your power to be punctual almost to a minute. When you are received as a guest in a friend's house, consider compliance with the hours and habits of the family, as a natural return for the hospitality which is shown to you. There is something incongruous in seeing a young person deranging, by his unpunctuality, the economy and regularity of a whole household. And do not suffer the kindness and indulgence of your parents to induce you, when with them, to be less attentive to punctuality than you are, when with other persons of superior age or rank to yourself. Never let them wait for you; make a point of being always ready. An excellent friend of mine lays it down as a maxim, that _habitual unpunctuality is positive incivility_.

I have alluded to the unpunctuality of one of my college friends: I will contrast it with the punctuality of another. The latter when at Oxford was distinguished for lively talents, and for an exuberance of spirits bursting forth into every possible variety of fun. He is now the owner of a s.p.a.cious and splendid mansion, with a large establishment of servants, and often a considerable number of guests, attracted by his many amiable and excellent qualities. He still retains his playfulness of wit, but his domestic arrangements are a model of punctuality. Family prayers, and every meal, are to a minute. His guests and servants, consequently, know exactly what they have to depend on, the arrangements of the day, whether for business or for amus.e.m.e.nt, can be made with precision, and every thing is done at its proper time. This is punctuality on a greater scale. You and I, my dear nephew, must attend to it in smaller matters.

I remain, My dear Nephew, Your affectionate Uncle.

FOOTNOTES:

[78:1] Mr. M. is imaginary.

LETTER VII.

AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

In a former letter I recommended to you certain modes of relaxation, having some connection with intellectual improvement. You will, perhaps, tell me that you want relaxation more entire and complete; that the intellect requires perfect rest; that you must have _amus.e.m.e.nt_ in the strict etymological sense of the word. You may be right. I have already advised you to take sufficient time for _exercise_, and the exercise of the body will generally give rest and refreshment to the mind.

In your choice of amus.e.m.e.nt, however--amus.e.m.e.nt, I mean, as combined with exercise--you must have strict regard to economy, both of money and of time. Do not think me an old woman, if I add, that regard for _both_ should keep you from any excessive bodily exertion, such as will unfit you for study, or seriously affect your health. I am told that the latter effect has of late, not unfrequently, been the result of over fatigue in _rowing_; that many young men have died at an early age; that others live on with all their powers debilitated, from having overstrained their nerves, and their whole muscular system, in boat-races. Rowing is in itself a salutary and delightful species of exercise; and the facility of practising it, is one among the many advantages of Oxford; but when carried to the excess which I have alluded to, it is foolish and culpable.

I would have a young man regardless of danger, willing to risk limbs, health, or life itself, for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. He should, like Hamlet, "hold his life at a pin's fee," when any adequate object is to be answered by putting it in jeopardy. But a man has _no right_ to risk either his life or his limbs for a bravado, in mere idle vanity and ostentation. Such wanton risk is cruelty to his parents and friends, and a presumptuous tempting of Providence.

_Riding_, for riding's sake, must, with your finances, be out of the question. The utmost that you ought to allow yourself, is a hack once or twice a term, for some specific purpose--to visit a distant friend, perhaps, or to see some interesting object lying beyond the range of a walk. What I have said of riding, applies, with ten-fold force, to hunting, which entails expense--(the hire of a hunter, the hire of a hack probably to take you to cover, sundry ostlers and helpers, and very likely a jovial dinner at an inn)--utterly inconsistent with an average allowance; which entails, also, a waste of time, which, in the short period of an Oxford residence, can ill be spared.

What shall I say of _cricket_? I have great respect for cricket, as a national and a manly game. The demand which it makes upon your Oxford time is confined to the short term between Easter and the long vacation, and it does not require a very large portion of the day. It is not _necessarily_ attended with any expense. Whether the incidental expenses of _uniform_ (if you belong to a club), tent, dinner, &c. &c. are such as you can fairly afford, is for your consideration. They need not be high, and, in my good will to the game, I am anxious that they should be kept down.

_Tennis_ is an animated game, of much variety in itself, and requiring great variety of muscular exertion. It is connected with many historical and chivalrous recollections, and carries the mind back to our Henry the Fifth and the "mocking Dauphin" of France. As it cannot be played without a s.p.a.cious and expensive edifice, it is altogether an aristocratic game, and demands an aristocratic purse. It is a game which requires a good deal of practice, and, consequently, a good deal of expenditure, in order to acquire a tolerable degree of skill; and your skill will seldom have an opportunity of showing itself after you have quitted Oxford, as you will seldom fall in with a tennis-court. I have no hesitation in saying, that you, my dear nephew, have no money that you have a right to spend upon yourself in this manner.

You will never, I trust, annoy any of the neighbouring country gentlemen, by attacking their game. You know how tender a point this is, and how susceptible most landed proprietors are upon the subject; and your own good feeling, and sense of propriety, and common fairness, will prevent you from trespa.s.sing in this manner. You can imagine how indignant you would yourself feel at such an invasion, and will not be guilty towards another of a wrong, of which you would complain loudly if it were offered to yourself.

After all, _walking_ is the cheapest exercise, and, perhaps, the best.

If you wish to give it variety, you will find plenty of ditches to leap, steeps to ascend, and hills to run up or down. And, dull as are most of the great roads leading into Oxford, the country round abounds in interesting objects within reach of a walk. There is much natural scenery, possessed of a good deal of variety and picturesque character; and there are many buildings, and remains of buildings, which either from something in themselves, or from advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances, well deserve to be looked at. The church at c.u.mnor, for instance, not only has within itself much to interest a man fond of architectural or antiquarian investigation, but, in common with the remains or site of c.u.mnor hall, and the village of Dry Sandford, have acquired a sort of cla.s.sical notoriety from the magical pen of Sir Walter Scott. The picturesque ruins of the kitchen, and other buildings at Stanton Harcourt, the slight vestiges of G.o.dston Nunnery, the Town Hall, the Gaol, and the two churches at Abingdon, may all become, each in its turn, the object of a pedestrian expedition. The residence of the Speaker, Lenthall, at Bessilsleigh, may deserve notice, from historical recollections, though for no other reason. The Saxon church in Iffley I have already mentioned. The recently-built Saxon chapel at Kennington is done in excellent taste, and is a most gratifying instance of the munificence and piety of an individual clergyman, devoting, I believe, almost all his resources to the work. The church at Wytham will show you that a church very lately erected may, by correct judgment, be made to present the appearance of having been built five hundred years ago. But I must not go on in this way, or you will think that you have got hold of an Oxford guide. Most of the villages and village churches in the neighbourhood, have some character of their own worth examining.

So much for amus.e.m.e.nts connected with exercise, which has led me into something like a repet.i.tion of some of the sentiments in a former letter.

A few words on sedentary amus.e.m.e.nts.

If you read _in earnest_, and are bent upon making the most of your time, you will have little of it left for amus.e.m.e.nts of a sedentary nature.

The less you have to do with cards the better. Young men can have no occasion for the a.s.sistance of cards in order to pa.s.s their time; and there seems to be something almost incongruous in the idea of _their_ sitting down to a rubber. Nor do they need the excitement: if they wish for it, that very wish is a reason why they ought not to have it. If they play for money--or, at all events, if they play for such sums as make the winning or losing an object of any degree of consequence--they become gamblers; and of the many bad pa.s.sions which gambling sometimes calls into activity, and of the destructive consequences which it entails, no one is ignorant. If you once get into the habit of playing, you will, perhaps, not know when to stop. Cards are very seductive, and you may find yourself become a gambler almost before you are aware of it. Perhaps the best plan is _not to know_ how to play, which furnishes an answer always ready.

Chess is a game of elegance and interest, and the being a good chess-player, carries with it a certain impression of general ability and of intellectual activity and resource. Perhaps I may allow that playing at chess adds a certain degree of interest to the perusal of the history of a campaign, whether ancient or modern, with its various moves, its checks and counter-checks, its retreats and _castlings_. But chess is a fascinating game, and will be apt to make larger demands upon your time than you can afford. If you indulge in it at all, you must be peremptory with yourself in resisting its tendency to incroach either upon your time or your _temper_. Sometimes, too, it requires so much exertion of thought,--is such a strain upon the mind,--that it hardly can answer the purposes of relaxation. If you play, by all means read Franklin's Essay on the Morals of Chess. For clearness of head, for truth-telling simplicity and honesty of purpose, and for perspicuity and liveliness of style, Franklin has, perhaps, no superior.

Always recollect that improvement, moral and intellectual, is the great object for which you were sent to Oxford. With that object nothing must be suffered to interfere.