Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century.
Compiled by Christopher Wordsworth. (Deighton and Co., Bell and Sons.)—This book has grown Out of the nucleus of an essay written for the Le Bas prize, and has reached a bulk most unlike that of an essay, not, however, without much gain to the reader, who has the benefit of getting a most entertaining volume. The collection of facts is most miscellaneous, but Mr. Wordsworth has furnished it with a lucid "table of contents" and a copious index. The reader has no difficulty in finding any information that he wants, or he may, if he so prefer, dip into the volume at his pleasure, and be pretty sure to light upon some- thing worth reading. We shall take some specimens that we have noted. What would Cambridge say to a busy Chancellor, like the Duke of Newcastle in 1737, who wished that an "annual account of the character and behaviour of every person in the University" should be transmitted to him ? The Heads would not let the grace be proposed on account of its absurdity. Or how would Trinity like the statutes of Elizabeth, which ordered that a chamber should be allotted to one Doctor of Divinity, two non-Doctor Fellows, four scholars or sizars, or eight pensioners ? In 1799 "Vice- Chancellor Mahnsel inveighed against the togatum ocreatumque genus. Shirts of any colour and white stockings were the only regular academical dress It was usual for the undergraduates to dress daily for the dinner in hall, in white waistcoats and white silk stockings. Two or three undergraduates wore powder, the rest wore their hair curled." Dress, indeed, in more modern times has formed a topic of Academical invectiie. We remember a proctor complaining of the under- graduates as going about " braccatos immo no braccatos guider's." In 1747 was acted the last play ever performed in a college, "A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair," by Kit Smart, Fellow of Peterhouse. A century and a half before we read that "the tragedy 'Rousse' was acted in the Hall of Trinity College,with such lifelike passion that a gentlewoman fell distracted, and never after recovered her senses." A number of interesting pages are devoted to the Tripes verses, a celebrated part of the ludas which the University always has delighted to mingle with her serious things. Another grotesque quotation shall suffice. "Dr. Potter, while tutor of Trinity College (Oxford), whipt his pupil with his sword by his side, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the Inns of Court. This was done to make him a smart fellow." To all readers who have a taste for the curiosities of the past, Mr. Wordsworth's book will be a great treat. It contains also some curious facts connected with the vestment and celebrant's position controversy.—Amore serious and systematic work, to which we have long owed and even now find our- selves unable to give an adequate notice, is The University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to the Royal injunctions of 1535. By James Bass Mullinger. (Cambridge University Press.)—Mr. Mullinger's work is one of great learning and research, which can hardly fail to become a standard book of reference on the subject. After an introductory sketch, in which "the rise of the scholastic philosophy" is the most im- portant subject treated, the author deals with the growth of the University system, and takes us to Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, as well as to his own University. Oxford, indeed, was so much more prominent in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than her rival, that the English University system of that time cannot be discussed without a detailed notice of it, and in Oxford Merton College was so prominent as to demand the particular account of it which Mr. Mullinger has introduced into his work. It is amazing to see the lists of great ecclesiastics and scholars that Merton sent forth. Of course, it had the advantage of being almost first in the field, but certainly no institution ever more signally fulfilled the intentions of its founder. Perhaps the most interesting portion of the volume is the account of the Reforming movement which stirred Cambridge in the early part of the sixteenth century. Fisher, Rotherham, the great foundations of Lady Margaret, Countess of Rich- mond, especially that of St. John's College, reared on the ruin of the religi- ons brotherhood of St. John, and notably the character and work of Erasmus, are some of the subjects of a most valuable chapter, this being followed by another dealing with what may be called the distinctly Protestant aspect of the Reforming movement. We can most strongly recommend this book to our readers.
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