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TilE OXFORD UNIVERSITY ELECTION.

10th January 1853.

Bra—The last time I did myself the honour to address you, the subject I took in hand was the sufficiently discreditable manoeuvre which advanced the chief of the retrograde faction to the highest post in our University. Public attention is now occupied by a kindred proceeding, destined, I trust, to be far lees successful, but which both in acuteness and in immorality sur- passes in the proportion by which the practised hands of the Carlton Club nsay be expected to outdo the innocent inexperience of the Hebdomadal Board.

I do not hesitate to add " acuteness " to " iramorality" ; because, ridicu- lous as well as contemptible as they must be conscious of being in the eyes of the public at large, the men who would substitute a Perceval for a Glad- stone have shown no small share of that species of acuteness which consists in the felicitous adaptation of means to ends. It was desired to lull Mr. Glad. stone's supporters to sleep, and to draw up as many of their own party as pos- sible. To effect the former was the object of Falsehood No. 1—that Mr. Gladstone was not to be opposed ; the latter was to be gained by Falsehood No. 2—that the Marquis of Chandos was to be his opponent. It was hoped that by blazing abroad a respectable and honourable name a greater num- ber might be committed to a contest ; and once so committed, prejudice and praty-spirit might be safely trusted to do their work, even to the extent of mounting pledges given for Lord Chandos as pledges given for Mr. Perceval!

• There is something not a little instructive in the proficiency in the art of sinking exhibited by those who select the obstructive candidates for the University. The gradual anti-climax runs through the successive stages of Tagil's, Round, Marsham, and Perceval. Let me not be understood as saying One word derogatory to the unsullied integrity and moral dignity which adorn the first name on my list. I should even be sorry to see a man of ouch an independent and conscientious spirit excluded from the benches of Parliament. But let him represent some petty borough or obscure county rather than a great University. To vote for Inglis and Gladstone, when Jniia and Gladstone scarcely ever vote together, is a simple absurdity ; as myself and 469 other electors practically asserted in July by our votes of "Gladstone only' "—a formula which I would have gladly exchanged for ," Gladstone and Cardwell," still more gladly for "Gladstone and Roundell .r'alraer."

_ From Sir Robert Inglis to Mr. Round was a great fall. One at least had great Parliamentary experience and no lack of ability of a certain kind : if we -were fated to sit down under any obstructive representative, we could not desire a less unsatisfactory specimen of the class. Of the other, all the re- corded history amounted, I believe, to the facts that he had once obtained a first-class, and that he had been the silent representative of an agricultural 'constituency; whether his housemaid was or was not in the habit of attend- ing a conventicle remained a moot point. The next stage was from Mr. Round to Dr. Marsham: the former had at least earned academical distinction the latter was in the curious position of having attained academical dignity without it ; the former had at least been a spectator of Parliamentary ways, the latter could only be expected to carry, the traditions of the Delegates' Boom up to the benches of St. Stephen's; the former had at least had the 4jseretion to hold his peace, the latter was chiefly famous for an infelicitous attempt at oratory ; the former was brought forward in a fair and open man- Ter with a reasonable' prospect of success, the nomination of the latter Was a lisere vexations violation of academic precedent.

In Dr. Marsham one might have thought that the lowest depth of candida- ture had been reached ; when, behold, a lower still is opened in the person of Mr. Dudley Perceval. Dr. Marsham was at any rate a real man that people

bad heard of and seen, a member of the University, a member of the Hebdoma- .dal Board ; but who was Mr. Perceval? I first heard of his name in the coffeeroom of an inn at Stroud, where, on my way to Oxford, to support, as I thought, Mr. Gladstone against Lord Chandos, I called for the Times, and found that Mr. George Anthony Denison recommended Mr. Perceval as a pro- per lemon for our suffrages. Others, who were more fortunate in their locality, perhaps, turned to the Oxford Calendar, and found no person answering the description of the gentleman who had so kindly "consented to stand." His friends have since taken up the facts that he, like Mr. Round, got a first- class in some distant and half-mythical period, and that more recently he has written a pamphlet ; the Morning Chronicle has since shown us what sort of a pamphlet. I can only say of it, that, with the solitary exception of Mr. GrantleyBerkeley's address to the electors of South Wilts, it exhibits i the worst sense n the worst English that I have seen for a long time. One is driven to the conclusion either that first-classes were bestowed on much slighter grounds in 'those pro-selenian days than they have generally been in historical times ; or else, what is rather to be hoped, that Mr. Dudley Per- eeval has, in the interval, greatly receded from the standard of his youth- el erudition, each is the series of men who have been successively opposed to the great- est statesmen of the age : a Peel is sacrificed to an Inglis ; a Gladstone is successively attacked by a Round, a Marsham, and a Perceval. It is suffi- cient, to take the avowal of the noisy Northamptonshire parson who edified Convooation with a new edition of his last Knightley and Vyse speech, that a man is not Mr. Gladstone but his opponent, to commend him to the suf- frages of the faction. It is enough that he is not the wisest, the most inde- pendent, the most liberal statesman of his time ; it is enough that he is not the chosen disciple of the man who broke the fetters of the Roman Catholic and gave the poor ismh his untaxed loaf; it is enough that he is not the un- edmprothising advocate of liberty in every form—that he has not stood up for the religious freedom alike of the Yew, the Roman Catholic, and the Colonial 'Churchman, against antiquated and revived Erastianism and intolerance; it enough that he is not-dike the declared friend of academical reform and the declared foe of academical revolution ; it is enough that he has not been honoured with a high place in a Government, chosen by the direct act of the Sovereign out of the ablest administrators of the age ; it is enough, in a word, that he is not wise, or eloquent, or experienced, of an enlightened mind or a capacious heart the more prejudiced, the more obscure, the more in- significant, the better is he calculated to serve the ends of a faction which has declared open war upon all learning, genius, and experience—which sees in a Gladstone, a Palmer, a Cardwell, a Mahon, a Herbert, and a Lewis, only BO many chances less of their chief being able to reign undisturbed in a Parliamentum indootum of Protectionist squires.

Such is the end to be accomplished by such appropriate means. But I

would hope that it is not on the University but on the Derbyit.e faction that the disgrace ought to falL The opposition was got up in a meeting, not of "members of Convocation," but of "friends of the late Administration." The University, unfortunately, numbers Major Beresford, Dr. Lempriere, and Archdeacon Denison, 88 members of its ruling body; but it is a comfort to learn that, if they attended at the precious conclave, it was at least not in their academical character ; they probably sat side by side with Mr. Disraeli and Colonel Sibthorp, and not unlikely were assisted in their deliberations by thew ardent "friends of the late Administration" Ilr.Fkwker of Derby and Mr. Frail of Shrewsbury.

One word as to Mr. Perceves proposer. Let no one raise again the silly

cry of " Puseyism," brought in one place against Mr. Gladstone, in another against Lord Aberdeen! in another against Sir James Graham !! in another against Mr. Grande), Berkeley !!!—I am driven to the typography, of the play-bill to express the several degrees of absurdity—when Mr. Gladstone's proposer is the certainly not Tractarian Dr. Hawkins, and hia principal oppo- nent is the notorious Tractarian fanatic Mr. George Anthony Denison. Here we may mark a parallel. Five years ago a good deal of indignation was ex- cited in the minds of Mr. Denison and many others—I am free to add in my own also—by a certain letter to a late very Reverend Dean, which bore the signature "J. Russell," and the date " Woburn Abbey, December 25th, 1847." To effect what we in Oxford call complete 5e-riorerroe6ov, Mr. Archdeacon Denison selects the same day in 1862 to announce to his "dear Gladstone" the overwhelming intelligence that his Venerable self is no longer to be reckoned among his followers. There was a time when protests and mani- festoes against secular encroachments issued in such torrents from the vicar- age of East Brent, that one began to think that its incumbent was ambitious of standing in the same relation to the adjoining moll which the last Abbot of Glastonbury did to the not far distant Tor; now at least he has reco,gnizedi the wisdom of learning from the enemy. But the Premier had greatly the

of the Archdeacon in pith, terseness, and logic ; there was less of it,

and what there was went more to the point ; and Lord John at least saw that a hostile and offensive document was better couched in the phraseology of " Sir " and "your obedient servant," than if it had been "affectionately"- addressed to his "dear Merewether." Lord John, again, either forgot or ignored the festival; Archdeacon Denison boldly dates " Christmas-day,"— probably thinking "the better the day the better the deed."

Now, why is it that, of all the elections now happening, perhaps of all that

have happened this year, that now proceeding for the University of Oiler& should be the one marked by the most discreditable proceedings I think/ one reason is to be found in the exaggerated etiquette with which University elections have hitherto been enveloped; in the foolish custom of reelecting the same men, whether fit or not; in the equally foolish custom which him. dens the candidates from directly addressing their constituents. The thing has been so fenced in with conventionalities held almost as sacred as morali- ties, that in a reaction against the conventionalities the moralities are car- ried away with them. An 'University election affords no safety-valve. / know I shall be told that gentlemen, clergymen, doctors of divinity-, and masters of arts, should carry on their proceedings with greater decorum than mere ten-pound householders or forty-shilling freeholders. So perhaps they should; but decorum need not be dulness; gentlemen, clergymen, doctors, and masters, are but men after all, and an election is -confessedly an exciting thing for poor human nature. Why should we not have some legitimate way of letting our excitement off? At other elections, gentlemen, and clergy.. men too, are commonly not less vehement on the hustings than even Major Beresford's "vilest rabble" below; and I cannot see why they should be reduced to this foroed state of quiescence in Oxford. Why should not we see and hear the gentlemen who request our suffrages, and judge of what they say, as we- do in other places? I do not say that we need go about with bands and flags,— though I did offer to a Marshamite friend last July to carry about a big loaf, if he would only meet me with a small potato; but, seriously, it would have been a great gain if Mr. Gladstone could have had an opportunity of giving a direct and public answer to the calumnies of his adversaries. How we should have "rushed with one accord into the *Theatre," to hear him "make his defence unto the people." And one advantage of a merely ne- gative warfare is to supply less high-sounding and spirit-stirring war-cries. One might have heard murmurs of "No Gladstone ! " issuing from between the clenched teeth of rosy squires or pluralist rectors, but even the lungs of our Lemprieres and Denisons could hardly have ventured on a two-hourm

shout of "Great is Perceval of the Derbyites !" I am, Sir, your obedient servant, E. A. F.

• The Theatre, I beg to remind Dr. Macbride, not the Hatt. When the learned doctor, in his ineffectual search after a nonexistent letter, asserted that "every per- son in the Hall" was of a certain way of thinking. I do not know whether he referred to the illustrious Society of which he lathe Ilead,—which is likely enough, he being then, I suppose, its only inhabitant ; or whether his imagination wandered to another field of his fame, and mistook the Theatre of the University for the Town-hall of the City.