Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/52

30 "Fellow Commoner" in Evelyn's day was a somewhat superior sort of Commoner, who was allowed to pay his board at the Common Table of the Fellows.

Evelyn was the recipient of an Honorary Degree, on the occasion of the opening of The Sheldonian Theatre in 1699, and he describes fully the event. "The assembly now returned to the Theatre," he says, "where the Terræ Filius [The University Buffoon] entertained the auditory with a tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsody, most unbecoming the gravity of the University, and that so grossly that, unless it be suppressed, it will be of ill-consequence . . . The old facetious way of rallying upon the questions was left out, falling wholly upon persons, so that it was rather licen- tious, lying railing, than genuine and noble wit. In my life I was never witness of so shameful an entertainment." From this it may be inferred, perhaps, that Evelyn was the subject of some of the abusive, sarcastical, personal, rhapsody in question!

Another famous Diarist, Samuel Pepys, visited Oxford several times. His minutes of June 9th, 1666, read like an extract from a journal of to-day: "We came to Oxford, a very sweet place." He wrote, "Paid our guide one pound two and sixpence; barber two and six; boy that showed me