Cambridge Characteristics in the Seventeenth Century. By James Bass Mullinger,
B.A. (Macmillan.)—This is an essay which gained the Le Bas Prize in the year 1867, and which, unlike the typical prize essay, compared by Macaulay to cattle fattened for a show and not for eating,
deserves to be read beyond the limits of the University, and after the year in which the prize was given. The chapters on philosophy at Cambridge are marked by much independent thought and study. Of the academical chaiacteristics of the place before and daring the seventeenth century we catch some interesting glimpses. It is amusing to find those Cambridge preachers of Shelley, whose journey to Oxford was described by Lord Houghton, preceded in 1532 by Oxford knights errant, who challenged Cambridge to discuss points of scholastic logic, such as whether a woman who was condemned to death ought to bb hanged three times if the rope broke twice. But Mr. Mullinger soon passes from such matters to subjects of graver import, and on these he
will be listened to with attention. His examination of the style of pulpit oratory and of prose in general daring the seventeenth century, and the way in which the peculiarities of this style are referred to the influence of Cambridge studies, may be particularly noticed.
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