society, Mr. Dyer places second George Joye, a divine who was also a Fellow, and who had written tracts in favour of the Reformation. Of him Mr. Dyer says, he was, I doubt not, a conscientious man; but being summoned to appear (1527) before the Cardinal's court at Westminster, and the Bishop of Lincoln, (for Joye, like Erasmus, did not like burning, he seemed to think where a man has not a right to demand the truth, and would ruin you on discovering it, that you are free to reply by falsehood, or to mislead by a manœuvre. So, at least, he acted; and under shelter of a fib, he escaped beyond the sea.' The gentle manner in which this conduct is treated by the historian will be considered as bespeaking an enlarged mind: but no one knows better than he does that the Christian doctrine does not permit even the humblest of its disciples to practise this sort of dissimulation; nor will philosophy herself allow it to one who sets up as a reformer.

High in this list stands John Penry, whose morals were less flexible, and whose story is more tragical. He suffered death under Elizabeth in consequence of having been convicted,

wrongfully, as his friends have maintained, of being the author or one of the authors of Martin Mar-Prelate. In the same list we find the name of Dr. George Baro, whose doctrine of free-will drew on him the displeasure of the University, which was at this period rigidly calvinistic. In this college also were educated Archbishop Whitgift, and Bishop Walton, the conforming nonjuror Sherlock, and his great antagonist South. The controversy between the two latter ecclesiastics merited more notice than it finds in this work; since no event of the same nature has produced more important effects, and nothing has tended so much as this literary contest to emancipate the human mind from a slavish submission to dogmas. We may say this more especially if we connect with it those which followed on the same subject, and which may be considered as having arisen out of it; we mean the controversy between Clarke and Waterland, and that which was carried on in our own times between a celebrated philosopher and a learned and able prelate which have convinced mankind very generally that points which once set the world in flames, deluged nations in blood, and lighted up the fires of persecution, are (to speak most favourably of them) matters of pure speculation, and of Fittle or no practical importance.-To Peter-House belong also the distinguished names of Garth, Markland, and Gray. Of the great critic we have this short account:

He was born October 29. 1693, and educated in Christ's Hospital: this observation is made, because those who go to college from this school are designed for the church; but Mr. Markland, notwith

standing,

standing, and though he took the degree of M.A. and was a tutor, and senior Fellow of Peter House, could never be prevailed on to take orders. He was not rich; indeed, always poor: but too proud to be querulous; too frugal to be necessitous; or if necessitous, only through being too benevolent. Preferment was offered him in the church, if he would take orders; and he twice refused the Greek professorship, when offered him.'

Into this society Mr. Dyer has admitted the late Duke of Grafton, who was chancellor of the University; and although, in that high office, he was chargeable with intolerable neglect of the learned body, yet his patronage of Gray will not permit us to object to his being thus distinguished: but Mr. Dyer states the following to be his reasons for having thus honoured him:

The Duke is here introduced as being an author himself. He became zealous, in the latter part of his life, for a reformed liturgy, on the plan of Dr. Samuel Clarke's, which lies in manuscript at the British Museum, and, in reference to that, he published" Hints submitted to the serious Attention of the Clergy and Nobility, newly associated by a Layman." These went through four or five editions. They were animadverted on by two writers, supposed to be bishops; and defended, in a publication, by the Bishop of Llandaff. In a still more advanced period, the Duke printed an account of the progress of his religious opinions, but only for the use of his friends. This account shews that he was a Unitarian, or Socinian. He also engaged in printing an edition of Griesbach's famous Greek New Testament, containing the various readings in MS., which was accordingly published, at his Grace's sole expence, in 1796; and distributed gratuitously, according to his direction. He died in 1811.

I should add, that the Duke of Grafton, though a student of this house, and chancellor of the University, was not a graduate. The honorary degree of LL.D. usually conferred on the chancellor, at his creation, he declined, from a dislike to subscribing the articles.'

Circumspect as Mr. Dyer is in all that he says of Alma Mater, yet severe observations sometimes escape him; of which an instance occurs in the subsequent passage:

• When we know there were few more serious students at Oxford, than Mr. Gray's friend, West, and at Cambridge, than Gray himself, it is diverting to hear the former talk of "a country inhabited by things called doctors and masters of arts, a country flowing with syllogism and ale," and the latter echoing back the same tune, with only a little change for mathematics *. But, really, the dull round of lecturing, the trifling vanities of public disputations, the little bustle of public offices, and gaudy days, in short, all that Gray, in his fas

* See the Correspondence of West and Gray, while students at Oxford and Cambridge, in Vol. i. of Mason's Memoirs of the Life and Writings. Edit. 1807.'

tidious

tidious way, called "college impertinences," might naturally enough have no particular charm for men of such high minds and such extraordinary delicacy.'

Four persons are mentioned who were rejected from this college by the Parliament for loyalty, among whom one is styled in the inscription on his tomb, heraticorum malleus. With Dr. John Jebb and several other eminent Nonconformists, we also find Colonel Hutchinson; whose memoirs, written by his lady, were lately given to the public, and excited so much attention.

The antiquaries of Oxford and Cambridge warmly dispute which is the more antient of those Universities, and the question is sometimes made to hinge on the fact whether Merton in the other University or Peter-House in this be the older. Mr. Dyer decides in favour of Merton: but, as he elsewhere says that, among the suppressed coileges, some, as Michael-House, were more antient than this, it follows that his admission in this instance does not conclude the dispute.

Next in antiquity to Peter-House stands Clare-Hall, which was founded by Elizabeth de Burgo, Dame of Clare, widow, who in 1309 procured letters to impower her to erect it. Among the names which belonged to this society, those best known to fame are Cudworth, Tillotson, Whiston, and the ill-fated Dodd; and that sound and cautious critic Mr. Tyrwhitt insists that Geoffrey Chaucer also belonged to Clare-Hall. Of the work intitled Ignoramus, usually attributed to Mr. Ruggle of this college, Mr. Dyer introduces Mr. Cole as saying "that it is but a translation of an Italian comedy of Baptista Porta, entitled Trapulario, as may be seen by the comedy itself in ClareHall library, with Mr. Ruggle's notes and alterations thereof.' To this society also belonged Francis Holcroft; who was ejected, at the Restoration, for nonconformity, who is here stated to have been the founder of many dissenting congregations in and about Cambridge, and who is elsewhere called the father of the Dissenters in Cambridgeshire.

Jesus-College could boast of Archbishop Cranmer; and it would have been highly gratifying if these pages had furnished anecdotes of that famed prelate while at the University: but we meet with scarcely any. We must not, however, regard as immaterial a circumstance relating to him, which we do not recollect to have seen in the earlier historians, and which is here stated on the authority of a modern writer of credit. It is beyond dispute that Cranmer was a persecutor; while on a great occasion, when every consideration urged to constancy, he grievously failed; and, at the time when he was promoting the reformation, he was not unmindful of his private interest.

It should seem,' says Mr. Dyer, that Cranmer acquired great estates under Edward. For, by a history of Nottinghamshire, that principally concerns matters of property, it appears, that for the sum of 429l. 13s. 2d. he obtained numerous grants: the site of the priory of Arslecton, with the lands: the site of Kemsted, with the demesne lands, both in Yorkshire; and the rectory of Whatton and Arslecton, with the advowson of the churches in Nottinghamshire, also the manor of Woodhall, in Radcliffe, in Nottinghamshire; and the advowson, also, of Kingsworth, in Kent.'

Still it cannot be denied that this prelate was not merely indefatigable in making himself master of the principles of that religion, in the reformation of which in South Britain he had a considerable share, but that his situation was so unfavourable for this purpose, that a reforming archbishop even sounds strangely, and seems to be almost a contradiction in terms; yet he was a bona fide and zealous champion of the Reformation, and disposed to carry it farther than many who were greatly his infe

riors in station.

This society was also distinguished by many other celebrated persons; among whom we may mention Flamstead and Jortin, It moreover claims an individual who was as profound a thinker as ever this great seminary produced; we mean David Hartley, the author of the well known theory of the human mind: which has wanted celebrity chiefly, we believe, because it was injudiciously clogged with an abstruse hypothesis of which it stands. wholly independent, and because it is set forth in a style which is not the most inviting. His observations on man, in which this theory is developed, are here pronounced to be unintelligible: but to no metaphysical work with which we are acquainted is this epithet less applicable; excepting the part to which we have been referring, namely, the doctrine of vibrations. His theory, detached from the latter, is as intelligible as it is ingenious: but whether it be equally solid, we do not presume to pronounce. It often happens that proficients in belles lettres find metaphysics wholly incomprehensible: but the injustice of Mr. Dyer's sentence may be more satisfactorily explained by the fact of his not having read the work which he condemns, or that of every trace of it having been obliterated from his mind, since he seems to consider it as a disquisition on the nature of the soul, which it neither is nor professes to be.

To the late Gilbert Wakefield, who was of Jesus-College, Mr. Dyer pays a not less warm than just tribute. Mr. Frend was also of this society; a circumstance which brings to our recollection an observation which we have heard made, that this college has never been free from heretical taint, from the days of Cranmer to those of the reformers last named. The present head

head of it, however, seems completely to have escaped the infection; and, from a letter written by him, inserted in Wakefield's Memoirs, it appears that he has no predilection for heresy or heretics, either in religion or in politics.

Pembroke-Hall is here said to have had the honour of being patronized by several popes and kings; and it boasts of an ample list of distinguished members, among whom are mentioned Bishop Ridley and two other martyrs, Lindwood, Edmund Spenser, Bishop Andrews, Joseph Stanley, and the late Mr. Pitt: to which list the name of a noble diplomatist (Lord St. Helen's) now living may be added, who, if we are not misinformed, owes his present high fortune and consideration to the circumstance of having failed in his attempt to be elected a Fellow of this college. Lindwood is here mentioned as having been a fellow-commoner of Gonville-Hall previously to his being entered of Pembroke. How antient is this class, as distinct from others in the University? We must not omit to observe that, in his account of this college, Mr. Dyer falls into an error by confounding Dr. Benjamin Calamy, (author of the Abridgement of Mr. Baxter's life,) who was a dissenting minister settled in Westminster, with Edmund Calamy, B.D., who had been of Pembroke-Hall, but at the Restoration was ejected for nonconformity; and who, we have understood, was the father of Dr. B. Calamy.

Of Bene't-College, the principal feature, says Mr. Dyer, is its library, which was given to it by Archbishop Parker, who had been master, and which Dr. Fuller styles "the Sun of English Antiquity, before it was eclipsed by that of Sir Robert Cotton." Of this valuable collection an interesting report is subjoined by Mr. D. This college produced a Protestant martyr, Henry Barrowe, who suffered death under Elizabeth, for principles too highly protestant. It is not a little singular, says the historian, that this is the only college in Cambridge of which a printed account exists.

Queen's College boasts of having for its foundress the accomplished Margaret of Anjou, the high-spirited but unfortunate Queen of Henry VI. To this seminary belonged Bishop Fisher; who, by introducing Erasmus to the college, has intitled himself to the gratitude of posterity, as he claims its veneration by nobly laying down his life for his principles. Of the religious character of this society, Mr. Dyer makes the following report:

It has appeared to me, on contemplating the state of religious opinion in this society, that none in the University has been so remarkable and prominent for variety, as Queen's. Fisher, and Erasmus, and Bullock, were zealous for free-will, against Luther: Dr.

Davenant's