At Length My Companion Stopped To Take Leave Of Me, And Said He Should Now Go To His College.

"And I," said I, "will seat myself for the night on this stone bench and await the morning, as it will be in vain for me, I imagine, to look for shelter in a house at this time of night."

"Seat yourself on a stone!" said my companion, and shook his head. "No, no! come along with me to a neighbouring ale-house, where it is possible they mayn't be gone to bed, and we may yet find company." We went on a few houses further, and then knocked at a door. It was then nearly twelve. They readily let us in; but how great was my astonishment, when, on being shown into a room on the left, I saw a great number of clergymen, all with their gowns and bands on, sitting round a large table, each with his pot of beer before him. My travelling companion introduced me to them, as a German clergyman, whom he could not sufficiently praise for my correct pronunciation of the Latin, my orthodoxy, and my good walking.

I now saw myself in a moment, as it were, all at once transported into the midst of a company, all apparently very respectable men, but all strangers to me. And it appeared to me extraordinary that I should, thus at midnight, be in Oxford, in a large company of Oxonian clergy, without well knowing how I had got there. Meanwhile, however, I took all the pains in my power to recommend myself to my company, and in the course of conversation, I gave them as good an account as I could of our German universities, neither denying nor concealing that, now and then, we had riots and disturbances. "Oh, we are very unruly here, too," said one of the clergymen as he took a hearty draught out of his pot of beer, and knocked on the table with his hand. The conversation now became louder, more general, and a little confused; they enquired after Mr. Bruns, at present professor at Helmstadt, and who was known by many of them.

Among these gentlemen there was one of the name of Clerk, who seemed ambitious to pass for a great wit, which he attempted by starting sundry objections to the Bible. I should have liked him better if he had confined himself to punning and playing on his own name, by telling us again and again, that he should still be at least a Clerk, even though he should never become a clergyman. Upon the whole, however, he was, in his way, a man of some humour, and an agreeable companion.

Among other objections to the Scriptures, he started this one to my travelling companion, whose name I now learnt was Maud, that it was said in the Bible that God was a wine-bibber. On this Mr. Maud fell into a violent passion, and maintained that it was utterly impossible that any such passage should be found in the Bible. Another divine, a Mr. Caern referred us to his absent brother, who had already been forty years in the church, and must certainly know something of such a passage if it were in the Bible, but he would venture to lay any wager his brother knew nothing of it.

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