Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/235

 10 S. VII. MARCH 9, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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sequently a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta) " and a Christ Church man " : He took up Thucydides and Herodotus in Greek, but in Latin he made no selection ; he took up all omnes aureos auctores is his own expression. Wheeler did the same in Latin, but in Greek offered Sophocles and Longinus. In Hebrew Wilson stood alone. He had first to translate a page of the Greek Testament followed, of which he read part of Mark xiii., and answered questions about the temple erected in the time of Vespasian, and the prophecies concerning it in the Old and New Testament. Livy was then opened, and a page translated ; this led to many historical questions. Latin being finished, Hebrew came on. He took up the whole Hebrew Bible, but the examiner confined himself to the first Psalm and some grammatical questions. His friend having
 * Gentleman's Religion ' into Latin, and the

gassed a similar ordeal, they were now idden to sit down, and others were called on. Whilst they were sitting apart, the junior examiner, as if casually, asked whether Wilson had read physics, and then put certain questions, such as, " Whether the angle of refraction was equal to the angle of incidence ? " " Whether a ray of light passing from a thin into a denser medium would be deflected from the per- pendicular ? " &c. Mathematics, logic, and metaphysics were passed by, one of the sciences only being required by the statute. When Wilson was again formally called up, the third book of Thucydides was selected, and he was put on at one of the speeches, and historical questions succeeded. Xeno- phon followed, instead of Herodotus (which was his book) ; but the passage selected was, he says, neither " obscure nor difficult." Thus ended the examination ; and the senior examiner said in a loud voice that Wheeler and Wilson had done themselves the greatest credit, and obtained the highest honour. The Christ Church man gained his testamur, but nothing more ; and six men were rejected. There were about one hundred auditors.

From this account it appears that the first Oxford Class List (Easter Term, 1802) is certainly (and some of the succeeding ones probably) incomplete, for it should include the names of Wilson and his friend Wheeler with those of the only two who " Exam- inatoribus Publicis se maxime commend- averunt," according to the present list. Wilson's description should be read in con- junction with the account of the same examination in Copleston's First Reply.

The following facts are also important to bear in mind in the same connexion : Copleston was one of the examiners in 1802-3, and Kett in 1804-5. Davison's ' Short Account ' of Kett's ' Elements of General Knowledge ' appeared in 1803 and 1804 ; and Copleston's ' Examiner Exam- ined ; or, Logic Vindicated,' a far severer castigation of the same gentleman in 1809. In the ' D.N.B.' the notice of Copleston refers to the witty ' Advice to a Young Reviewer ' as directed against The Edin- burgh Review, and as a most brilliant parody of the articles therein. Both statements are wrong ; the second one ludicrously so. The little jeu d' 'esprit was called forth by an article in The British Critic on Mant's poems (see Abp. Whately's ' Remains of Edward Copleston,' p. 6). I should have mentioned earlier that Sandford, a few years after the Edinburgh article, made " a very ample and respectful apology, with many expres- sions of deep regret and self-reproach," to Copleston (see foot-note to ' Lord Dudley's Letters,' p. 292).

In justice to the memory of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith I may add that the Oxford they knew was the Oxford of the " term- trotter " of such scholars as Kett, and of White's Bampton Lectures rather than the Oxford of Eveleigh, Parsons, and Cyril Jackson, Davison and Edward Copleston.

J. P. OWEN.

EDINBURGH STAGE : BLAND : GLOVER : JORDAN (10 S. vii. 89, 131). John Bland is such an interesting personality, one does not willingly forego the hope that his descend- ants may yet be discovered. When my previous communications were sent to ' N. & Q.,' giving particulars of his varied military career, I lacked confirmation of the fact that he was taken prisoner at Fontenoy ; but I subsequently obtained it when search- ing that mine of information The Gent. Mag. In vol. xv. p. 249 there is a list of the killed, wounded, and missing at Fon- tenoy ; and among the missing appears the name of Cornet Bland. A first cousin, who saw service with him at Dettingen, was General Johnston (afterwards Governor of Minorca), whose mother, Miss Bland, was John Eland's aunt. This general was known as " Irish " Johnston, to distinguish him from an English contemporary of the same rank and name ; and he is frequently men- tioned under this distinctive designation by Horace Walpole and others. The general's sister was second wife of Lord Napier, and grandmother of the conqueror of Scinde.