Balliol rhymes

What is to be done about Boris, old boy? Schools and colleges like to be proud of their old boys, but Boris presents difficulties. In Oxford he’s as mephitic as Mrs T, and undergraduates at his old college, Balliol, want him disavowed and banned from the premises.

Perhaps they should give vent to their feelings in verse. One reason for this suggestion is that Balliol is the college not only of the man who would take Britain out of Europe but also of Edward Heath, the man who took us in. Each side in Balliol’s battle of Brexit therefore has a hero to champion. Moreover, Balliol can provide an unusually sharp but nonviolent weapon for the duel, since it is the home of a particular type of quatrain long used to satirise people connected with the college. It cries out to be put to work on these two prime ministers.

The first Balliol rhymes, a collection of 40, were written by seven undergraduates and published in 1880. They didn’t go down well with the authorities and you can see why, just by reading the bestknown, which concerns Benjamin Jowett, master from 1870 to 1893: First come I. My name is Jowett. There’s no knowledge but I know it. I am Master of this College, What I don’t know isn’t knowledge.

No doubt this is unfair if taken as a complete portrait of the man. After all, brainy though he was, Jowett wasn’t as forbidding as you might think. He wasn’t, for example, unreservedly keen on the search for truth: ‘We have sought truth, and sometimes perhaps found it. But have we had any fun?’ The point of a Balliol rhyme, though, is simply to capture the essence of the man and lampoon him in four short lines.

This is just what it did to George Curzon – cruelly, he claimed. ‘Never has more harm been done to one single individual than that accursed doggerel has done to me,’ complained the future Foreign Secretary and Viceroy of India. It ran: My name is George Nathaniel Curzon, I am a most superior person. My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek, I dine at Blenheim twice a week.

Pity, too, if you will, the poor Arthur Smith, a medieval English don who was to become Master in 1916: I am little Smith, who glances On disorganised finances; Who’d have looked for so much vigour In so very small a figure?

Equally wounding was this portrait of an effeminate, though mustachioed, subject in the 1950s, when Balliol rhymes had a revival: I am Alison, by my frame You’d think it were my Christian name. That is why I do not clip The eyebrow from my upper lip.

So what might today’s undergraduates have to say about the two prime ministers? Though Heath’s the name, Ted’s easier said. Now into Europe you’ll be led. Our sovereignty will not be missed. I am a champion organist.

Or perhaps this: Though I am Heath, Ted’s fine by me. We’re going to join the EEC. Of course, there’ll be some anguished howls. With luck, they’ll drown my fruity vowels.

Or this: I’m Ted Heath. My shoulders shake When – it’s rare – a joke I make. I’m captain of dear Morning Cloud. I play the organ very loud.

And for Mr Johnson: I am Boris. What a chump! People say I’m Britain’s Trump. Lying, cheating – that’s my game – Boris Maximus is my name.

Or would a comparison to Jowett work better? First come I. My name is Boris. I’m a classic – just ask Horace. Sometimes I upset the missus, Perhaps because I love Narcissus.

Over to Balliol now.