Terrae-Filius: Or, The Secret History of the University of Oxford

by Nicholas Amhurst, William E. Rivers (Editor)

Amhurst (1697-1742), an Oxford student between 1716 and 1719, lampooned life at the school with a sharpness that led the authorities to ban his work and many 19th-century historians to dismiss him as a slanderer of his university. Nevertheless, Amhurst's satirical critique stands as the most important and reliable contemporarily published account of that time and place, touching on academic and intellectual issues as well as the political, religious, moral, and social goings-on that often worked to undercut the university's academic goals. Editor Rivers (English, U. of South Carolina) introduces and provides contextual notes for all 53 of Amhurst's Terrae- Filius essays, including three omitted from the 1726 collected editions. Distributed by Associated University Presses. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

504 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Nicholas Amhurst was an English poet and political writer.

Reviews

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid modern edition of the 1721 periodical satirizing the then heavily Tory Oxford University, Terrae-Filius. The journal was written by one of the later principal writers of the political journal, The Craftsman. Rivers has done a fine job of ferreting out as much information as there is available about Amhurst and he has spent time in the Cholmondoley manuscripts at Cambridge as well. The running order of the essays here matches the republished journal that Franklin did as a collected edition, rather than the original numbers (some of which have been lost). Rivers' apparatus makes clear where the numbering and dating has been altered. If there is one complaint, it has to do with the repetitiveness of some of the notes (all footnotes, by the way, which is quite helpful). Every time the Bangorian controversy comes up, for instance, there is a footnote reminding the reader who Benjamin Hoadley was and so forth. Surely one omnibus footnote to which the reader is sent back to would have made more sense, especially since this practice of repeating notes comes up with loads of contextual information. Useful for students who wish to have the inside dope about a host of social and academic practices at the university in the early eighteenth century, as well as those who wish to see the kind of thing Amhurst got up to before he turned his hand to the Craftsman.