The Eagle 1970 (Easter)
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The Eagle A MAGAZINE SUPPORTE D BY ME MBERS OF ST JO H N'S COLLE GE, CAMBRID GE FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY VOL. LXIV JUNE 1970 NO 274 Editorial 48 The Wordsworth Bi-Centenary 49 Letter to the Editors 56 "Those Were The Days" 59 "My Friend The Gangster" by K. C. B. Hutcheson 60 "A Diversion For A Sunday Afternoon" by Ian Thorpe 62 "A Quiet Corner of Old Cambridge" by Da/Jid Thistlethu;aite 63 Poetry by John Elsberg 58 Charles Reid-Dick 61 Roger Anderson 64 Charles Boyle 66 Reviews 67 College Intelligence 69 Obituaries 73 College Chronicle 77 College Notes 82 Frontispiece: Photograph by Alan Parkinson Cover : "Hair" ; Ludwig van Beethoven, 200 years old this year and Jimi Hendrix, a more recent musical phenomenon by Peter Cunningham Editorial Committee Mr LINE HAN (Senior Editor), Mr HINSLEY (Treasurer), K. C. B. HUTCHESON (junior Editor), PETER CUNNINGHAM (Art Editor), JOHN ELSBERG, GRAHAMl HARDING and SEAN MAGEE. All contributions for the next issue of the Magazine should be sent to the Editors, The Eagle, St John's College. 45 Tax not the rqyalSaint 11lith Ilain expense Editorial The Wordsworth Bi-Centenary mark the bi-centenary of the birth of William W/ordsworth (B.A. 1791), a poetry TIME for a few hosannas to be sung for that hard working bunch, the J.C.R. To reading was held in the Combination Room on Saturda , 18 A ril 1?70, follo ed Committee. It is due in no small part to the retiring Committee that the programme y: p � by luncheon in Hall. There were pres nt ' together wlth theu ladle s, the VlCe of disciplinary relaxation and reform within the college has been so successful. � . Chancellor, various Heads of Houses, pnnclpal Officers of the UmversIty, Trustees St John's can rarely have been such a pleasant place to live in as it is now, though of Dove Cottage, members of the Faculty of English, Fellows of the College, and the liberality of the rules is now so much a part and parcel of our lives here that it undergraduates reading English. is sometimes difficult to credit that it could ever have been different. But five or . Below we reproduce the Master's opemng address, and the texts o� the readmgs six years ago" apparently, people still had to wear gowns on the streets after dusk! and of the Toast of Words worth, which was proposed by M r Boys Smith. Bureaucracy, it need hardly be said, is wearing and unglamorous, but here it seems to have triumphed in making authority flexible, and in making life a little brighter. * * * And praise, too-why not ?-for the sportsmen of the college. The Soccer .x 1 "The Evangelist St John my patron was:" Castlereagh and Wordsworth. It was re went from triumph to triumph in both league and cup, while the Rugby XV had Whatever may have been the shortcomings of markable in more senses than one. There was stirring runs of success in both their competitions, arousing near-fanatical support Wordsworth's "patron", as a College at the near coincidence in time, and there was from huge sections of the college. Sport is one aspect of college life which it least we have not been unmindful of the most the actual and seemingly unpropitious time. has not been very fashionable to harp on recently. This was a reaction against illustrious of our sons. On 22 April 1950 In Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", the traditional "heartiness" of the sportsmen: which has, by and large, died out. the Centenary of Wordsworth's death was published in 1776 (the year in which Wilber Sport has never ceased, true enough, to be an important part of college life, but marked by the assembly in this Combination force graduated), there was one index entry hitherto it has been important only to a minority-now it seems that the intellectual Room of a distinguished company to do for Oxford, which read "Professorships, and the sporting sides of life are not mutually exclusive. honour to his memory. The Master, Mr Sinecures at" and, perhaps fortunately, none * * * Benians, spoke on Wordsworth's life in Col for Cambridge ; while Wordsworth at John's lege ; there were readings from Wordsworth's -as Leslie Stephen observed I-enjoyed what At a recent luncheon attended by, amongst others, various dignitaries of the poems by two undergraduates, and after ever advantages could be derived from the college and university, a toast was proposed-"Solidarity with the people of Greece lunch the Toast of Wordsworth was proposed neglect of his teachers. Perhaps we should in their struggle against tyranny and oppression". There was no dissent : but one by G. M. Trevelyan, the Master of Trinity. ponder more upon them ! wonders if this were not, in effect, mere self-righteousness on the part of the people Our celebration of the bi-centenary of Words Of the three J ohnians I have mentioned, present. This was a protest which involved no sacrifice, not even any effort, and worth's birth is to follow the same pattern, two have a clearly defined place in history was aimed to no practical effect. even to the point of our having, and being so Castlereagh as peacemaker at Vienna and Theodorakis is free: and it is surely due more to pressures put on the Junta by fortunate as to have, John Wilders, now Wilberforce with his death-bed "nunc dimittis" the type of events such as those at the Garden House Hotel last term, than to any Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and as he learned of the crowning of a lifetime's toastings at respectable luncheon parties. Peter Croft, now Rector of Washington, labours with the passage of the bill to abolish The request, of course, is for those dignitaries who were present-among with us once again as readers and commentators slavery through the House of Commons. them an ex-Home Secretary-to put their public voice where their private one was, on the poems. After lunch Mr Boys Smith But Wordsworth's is less easy to determine. will propose the Toast of William Wordsworth That is not, I think, merely because he was a and come out openly in support of the unfortunates who were detained by the joined with that of the Dove Cottage Trustees poet, but rather because he was a poet whose police after those events. Their protest did require both effort and-if they are on whose behalf Dr Mary Moorman will influence ran deep rather than clear. His to be pilloried, as seems likely-sacrifice as well. K. C. B. H. reply. The thought may possibly occur to torians in the past, to take one illustration, some of you that centenary and bi-centenary have followed Newman in declaring the celebrations have come in rather close success romantics and especially Wordsworth and EAGLES come and Eagles go, but every so often even the Senior Editor has to write ion-but such is the price of longevity among Scott to be part cause of the Oxford Move a book or deliver a course of lectures. Reluctantly Mr Brogan was forced by the famous, and not many of us here today are ment, though I notice that the Regius Pro pressure of work to resign his editorship after the last issue. The task is an un likely to be able to pay such tribute to Words fessor in his recently published classic on enviable one ; the Senior Editor has to maintain the continuity of the magazine, worth again ! The Victorian Church comments judiciously do a lot of unglamorous negotiation, and then fade into the background while the May I at the outset offer a fewbrief reflections that "like the link of Renaissance with Junior Editors dictate the content of each issue. All this Hugh did with good on Wordsworth's place in history and on his Reformation, this link is easier to feel than to own sense of history ? In 1950 G. M. define."2 Then there are problems posed by grace. But he also goaded and encouraged, so that under his aegis the magazine Trevelyan commented-and it was fitting that Wordsworth's changing views. As he passed took its present, much improved form, and several generations of undergraduate it was a Master of Trinity who should do so from turbulent youth to tranquil age, the editors will affirm The Eagle's debt to him. Meanwhile, Mr Linehan nobly under on how in virtually a generation .ToM's had young man who had rejoiced in the blissful takes to carry on the burden ... produced three such men as Wilberforce, revolutionary dawn in Paris became the 48 49 opponent of reform at home and so joined the result that you have to go to Mount I approached with some SCeptlC1Sm but at The Fellows were in part an irritation, and company of Hazlitt's political wanderers Vernon to see it! But especially would I like least consideration of it left me with the in part a source of entertainment. Their who, having missed the road to Utopia, to recall how Wordsworth, returning fr om conviction that the great English poet we ways and manners, he wrote, were noted with alighted upon it at Old Sarum. Is this to be the quiet of "the gliding Loire" to Paris "the have gathered to honour today had insights "playful zeal of fancy"- explained in personal terms-in the context fierce Metropolis", heard on 29 October which poets rarely possess and of a kind to ' of a poet who long survived his own genius 1792-that is to say in the uneasy interlude Men unscour d, grotesque forge a link between him and our own time.