10 S. VII. MARCH 9, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
191
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
- Gentleman's Religion ' into Latin, and 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
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.
