Satire on the Heads of Houses; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring

1 O Cambridge, attend
2 To the satire I've penned
3 On the heads of thy Houses,
4 Thou seat of the Muses!
5 Know the Master of Jesus
6 Does hugely displease us;
7 The Master of Maudlin
8 In the same dirt is dawdling;
9 The Master of Sidney
10 Is of the same kidney;
11 The Master of Trinity
12 To him bears affinity;
13 As the Master of Keys
14 Is as like as two peas,
15 So the Master of Queen's
16 Is as like as two beans;
17 The Master of King's
18 Copies them in all things;
19 The Master of Catherine
20 Takes them all for his pattern;
21 The Master of Clare
22 Hits them all to a hair;
23 The Master of Christ
24 By the rest is enticed;
25 But the Master of Emmanuel
26 Follows them like a spaniel;
27 The Master of Benet
28 Is of the like tenet;
29 The Master of Pembroke
30 Has from them his system took;
31 The Master of Peter's
32 Has all the same features;
33 The Master of St John's
34 Like the rest of the dons.
35 P.S. As to Trinity Hall
36 We say nothing at all.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): Satire on the Heads of Houses; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring
Author: Thomas Gray
Themes: humour
Genres: satire

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Source edition

Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771. Thomas Gray: English poems. Web. Oxford: Thomas Gray Archive, 2002. http://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems.shtml

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Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

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