In 1782 a committee of the Overseers hit the nail squarely on the head by recommending “that the Commons be of better quality, [and] have more variety.” In 1766 they found specifically that there had been “great neglect in the Steward, in the quality of the butter provided by him for many weeks past.” At other times they proposed constructive reforms, such as the suggestion in 1758 that each “mess” of eight students should arrange with the steward for “such food as was most agreeable to them,” so long as the rates were not increased; but the Corporation put a negative upon the scheme.
For even as Baalam’s ass, beholding a private vision of her own, refused to obey the guidance of her master, so the Corporation, stubbornly satisfied with its own notions, paid no heed to the advice and warning of its duly constituted mentors. Indeed it completed the parallel by lifting up its voice to rebuke its critics by distinctly belligerent votes of confidence in its own ability to handle the situation—as in 1750, “that the quantity of Commons be as hath been usual.” And if it now seems slightly ludicrous that a group of theologians, mathematicians, and Hebraists should hold that their training also qualified them for the art of catering, and insistently arrogate to themselves the complex duties of the restaurateur, we must remember that a far-flung ver-
