Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock

Author:Thomas Love Peacock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: satire, Gothic, fun, romantic movement, Victorian, philosophy, philosophical, humour, humorous, sarcastic
Publisher: Sovereign
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX.

THE VOYAGE.

Οἰ μέν ἔπειτ’ ἀναβάτες ἐπέπλον ὑγρὰ κέλευθα.

Mounting the bark, they cleft the watery ways.—Homer.

Four beautiful cabined pinnaces, one for the ladies, one for the gentlemen, one for kitchen and servants, one for a dining-room and band of music, weighed anchor, on a fine July morning, from below Crotchet Castle, and were towed merrily, by strong trotting horses, against the stream of the Thames. They passed from the district of chalk, successively into the districts of clay, of sand-rock, of oolite, and so forth. Sometimes they dined in their floating dining-room, sometimes in tents, which they pitched on the dry, smooth-shaven green of a newly-mown meadow: sometimes they left their vessels to see sights in the vicinity; sometimes they passed a day or two in a comfortable inn.

At Oxford, they walked about to see the curiosities of architecture, painted windows, and undisturbed libraries. The Reverend Doctor Folliott laid a wager with Mr. Crotchet “that in all their perlustrations they would not find a man reading,” and won it. “Ay,” said the reverend gentleman, “this is still a seat of learning, on the principle of—once a captain, always a captain. We may well ask, in these great reservoirs of books whereof no man ever draws a sluice, Quorsum pertinuit stipere Platona Menandro? What is done here for the classics? Reprinting German editions on better paper. A great boast, verily! What for mathematics? What for metaphysics? What for history? What for anything worth knowing? This was a seat of learning in the days of Friar Bacon. But the Friar is gone, and his learning with him. Nothing of him is left but the immortal nose, which, when his brazen head had tumbled to pieces, crying “Time’s Past,” was the only palpable fragment among its minutely pulverised atoms, and which is still resplendent over the portals of its cognominal college. That nose, sir, is the only thing to which I shall take off my hat, in all this Babylon of buried literature.

Mr. Crotchet.—But, doctor, it is something to have a great reservoir of learning, at which some may draw if they please.

The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—But, here, good care is taken that nobody shall please. If even a small drop from the sacred fountain, π ίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς, as Callimachus has it, were carried off by any one, it would be evidence of something to hope for. But the system of dissuasion from all good learning is brought here to a pitch of perfection that baffles the keenest aspirant. I run over to myself the names of the scholars of Germany, a glorious catalogue: but ask for those of Oxford,—Where are they? The echoes of their courts, as vacant as their heads, will answer, Where are they? The tree shall be known by its fruit: and seeing that this great tree, with all its specious seeming, brings forth no fruit, I do denounce it as a barren fig.

Mr. Mac Quedy.—I shall set you right on this point. We do nothing without motives.

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