which the pulpit was sometimes authorities in the year 1602, directed against the prevailing CHAP. V. licence, animadverts upon the 'uncumly hemminge and hawkinge at holie exercises and at the preaching of God's word'.' Such conduct may however be partly attributed to Uses to the fact that St Mary's pulpit was too often used as a means university for violent personal invective. We find William Barlow, , turned. afterwards bishop of Lincoln, complaining in terms of no little warmth, of the manner in which, in the year 1601, he had been thus assailed by Andrew Byng, afterwards professor of Hebrew. 'It is no doubt,' he writes, in bitter irony,' a great encouragement for men to answere the publiq calumniations. of our open adversaries in cases of the highest controversie, and their pains to be barkt at by everie whelpe that can scarse quest without booke a sounde position of divinitie2. But in the estimation of the general body, no distinction, Estimation within the academic precincts, was more highly prized than function of that of being appointed university preacher and thus, in a preacher was manner, being called upon to instruct the future religious. instructors of the nation. A preacher in the university,' says a writer of the time, 'doth generare patres, beget begetters, and transmit unto posterity what God is pleased to reveal to him3.' university pastimes. If we now pass on to the diversions of the students,— Sports and always a significant feature in the characteristics of an academic body, we find that the prevalent sports were still for the most part of that rude and even dangerous kind which Dr Caius had so quaintly deprecated. The only games recognised as strictly permissible by the authorities were archery (in the fields), quoits, and foot-ball (reciprocatio pilae). In the second year of king James's reign, a royal letter was issued forbidding 'unprofitable or idle games and plays' to be carried on 'within five miles compass of and from the Prohibited university and town,' 'especially bull-baiting, bear-baiting, common plays, publick shews, interludes, comedies and tragedies in the English tongue, games at loggets, nineholes, 1 Baker MSS. XXVII 34. 3 Ball, Life of Preston (in Clarke's Lives), p. 92. games. CHAP. V. and all other sports and games whereby throngs, concourse, or multitudes are drawn together'.' Plays in the English tongue. of Club Law at Clare College. The design in prohibiting the performance of English plays will be more apparent, if we here note the singular licence for which such compositions sometimes afforded scope. The college play was, in fact, far from being an entirely innocent recreation, and was sometimes made the vehicle for satire and gross personalities which were productive of no little ill feeling. Against the townsmen, impervious to such satire when it was clothed in a Latin dress, the English play easily afforded the means not only of ridiculing but also of making that ridicule felt; and Fuller in his History of the University has described with more than his usual humour a notable instance of the kind :— 'The young scholars conceiving themselves somewhat wronged by the townsmen (the particulars whereof I know not), betook them for revenge to their wits, as the weapon wherein lay their best advantage. These having gotten a discovery of some town privacies, from Miles Goldsborough (one of their own corporation) composed a merry (but abusive) Performance comedy (which they called Club-Law), in English, as calculated for the capacities of such whom they intended spectators thereof. Clare-Hall was the place wherein it was acted, and the mayor, with his brethren and their wives were invited to behold it, or rather themselves abused therein. A convenient place was assigned to the townsfolk (riveted in with scholars on all sides) where they might see and be seen. Here they did behold themselves in their own best clothes (which the scholars had borrowed), so lively personated their habits, gestures, language, lieger-jests, and expressions, that it was hard to decide which was the true townsman, whether 1 Cooper, Annals, 111. 6-7: 'The university discipline,' says Hacket in his Life of Archbishop Williams (p. 8), 'began to be more remiss in those days (1598-1608) then in by-gone ages.' In the year 1620, Sir Simonds D'Ewes tells us, a famous bull arrived in Cambridge, and it was intended that he should be baited at Gogmagog Hills, where bowling, running, jumping, shooting, and wrestling were to be practised for a month or six weeks, under the designation of the Olympic Games.' The vicechancellor however put his veto upon the project. College Life, pp. 10910. he that sat by, or he who acted on the stage. Sit still they CHAP. V. could not for chafing, go out they could not for crowding, but impatiently patient were fain to attend till dismissed at the end of the comedy. The mayor and his brethren soon after complain of this libellous play to the lords of the Privy Council, and truly aggravate the scholars' offence,—as if the mayor's mace could not be played with, but that the sceptre itself is touched therein!'.' ances at inns Sometimes, when the performance was of a character Perform that trenched yet more nearly on decorum, the students resorted to one of the inns in the town,-the Black Bear, the Eagle, or the Falcon,-where galleries were constructed, overlooking the courtyard, from whence the spectators surveyed the Saturnine licence. In the year 1600, a bachelor of arts of Corpus College ventured to take part in an interlude at the Black Bear, 'having,' to quote the language of the narrator, 'deformed long locks of unseemly sight, and great breaches, undecent for a graduate or scholar of orderly carriage; therefore, the said Pepper was commanded to appear presently, and procure his hair to be cut or powled, and which being done, the said Pepper returning to the consistory, was then suspended ab omni gradu suscepto et suscipiendo.' of Latin The Latin drama, on the other hand, represented a recog- Performance nised and frequent diversion. It had been sanctioned by plays. the high authority of John Sturm', who, in his scheme of education, enjoined a weekly performance of some one or other of the plays of Plautus and Terence. When an original composition was produced, the satirical spirit, as we have already seen in the case of the Pammachius, frequently also here found scope. Sometimes it was the school pedagogue of the period who was held up to ridicule, with as little. mercy, if scarcely with the same humour, as the Dr Pangloss 1 Fuller-Prickett and Wright, pp. 294-5. 2 In the Black Bear and the Eagle,' wrote Cooper in 1843, 'are remains of galleries which were probably used for the accommodation of the spectators during the perform ance of plays, which in former times 3 Ibid. von Raumer, Gesch. d. Pädagogik, 1 270: Browning (0.) Educational Theories, p. 49. CHAP. V. of later times'; while the common lawyer,—the bête noire of the cultured civilian,-came in, as we shall hereafter see, for yet more elaborate satire. of the state universities with that That the recreations of both universities and the manners and habits of a large proportion of the students reflected to a great extent the coarse dissipation characteristic of the age, cannot be denied; and the similar fate of some of those whose genius was prematurely quenched in a melancholy end,—of Robert Greene' and Thomas Nash of St John's, and of Christopher Marlowe of Corpus,—is not unsuggestive of a sinister influence attaching to their common academic education. Yet, notwithstanding, there appears every reason for concluding that with respect not merely to material well-being but also Comparison to intellectual culture and discipline, both Oxford and Camof the English bridge, at this period, might safely have challenged a comparison with the foremost universities on the Continent. Bruno's harsh censure of Oxford was, like its author, something altogether exceptional; and for the most part, foreign scholars appear to have regarded both universities with admiration, not merely on account of their external Advantages magnificence and the internal comfort of the colleges, but also for their order and morale. When De Dominis sought refuge in England, in 1616, and was still in the first flush of his flattering reception and imaginary success, his expressions of approval at what he witnessed at the two universities De Dominis, were enthusiastic in the extreme; and the effect produced upon him by the Cambridge Commencement, with its practised disputants, its brilliancy, and its decorum, was such that he of those abroad. of the collegiate system. archbp. of 1 He' (scil. the schoolmaster) 'made us good sport in that excellent comedy of Pedantius, acted in our Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge: and if I bee not deceiued, in Priscianus vapulans and many of our English plays.' Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman, p. 27. 2 For being at the universitie of Cambridge, I light amongst wags as lewd as myself, with whome I consumed the flower of my youth,' etc. See Cooper, Athenae, 11 127. 3 Nash was at St John's, according to his own statement, 'seven yeare together, lacking a quarter;' while according to his bitter enemy, Gabriel Harvey, he was so distinguished by his riotous conduct that 'a verie Nashe' was a common designation among them for 'euerie untoward scholler.' See Dr Grosart's Memorial-Introduction to the Huth Library edition of Nashe's Works, pp. xv-xvi. 4 Cooper, Athenae, 11 158. tion of and Oxford. could not control his emotion'. The complacency with CHAP. V. which most Englishmen regarded the two centres of the His admiranational learning was not less marked. 'I am glad,' wrote Cambridge Carleton to De Dominis, 'that you were pleased with your visit; for our universities, together with the court, are the compendium of all England".' The college system, again, however much it might tend to lessen the efficiency and popularity of the schools, was undoubtedly favorable to the enforcement of a stricter discipline; and severe as are the censures of contemporary critics on the follies, faults, and vices of the undergraduate body, and even of the bachelors of arts, at Cambridge, the indictment they involve stands in almost bright relief when compared with the strictures pronounced by the academic authorities themselves on the youth of the schools of Protestantism abroad. Even at Jena, then just entering upon its state of the long career of extended popularity and learned fame, where Jena. the picturesque beauty of the Thuringian landscape, the ruined castles on the heights, the tranquil river, the silvan repose, seemed to invite the dweller to a meditative, studious, virtuous life,—even at Jena, nothing, if we may credit the almost universal testimony', could exceed the lawlessness, the recklessness, of the students. It was in the year 1607, 1 Richard Harrison, writing to Carleton, says that at Oxford the archbishop seemed to be infinitely pleased with the exercises of that place' and 'att the comencement at Cambridge, wept (as it is saide) for joye,' 24 July, 1617. State Papers (Dom.) James I, xcii no. 106. The disputations on the occasion of the archbishop's visit were however unusually brilliant. See Hacket, Life of Williams, pp. 31-32. 2 State Papers (Dom.) Jas. I, xCII no. 99. 3 Dr Samuel Ward of Sidney thus notes down the 'Sinnes of the University' i. Excesse in apparell. ii. Excesse in drinking. iii. Disobedience and contempt of authority in the yonger sort.' (No. iv. he leaves blank, though the numerals are inserted.) Manuscript Diary in library M. II. of Sidney College, 4 'Die Jenaischen Studenten standen ehedem wegen ihrer Wildheit und Renommisterei in übelm Rufe.' Justi and Mursinna, Annalen, p. 339. In 1624, 'Klagt Major gegen Schmid über die Petulanz und den Pennalismus unter den Studenten, und Hülsemann schreibt 1649 an I. Schmid, dass dessen Sohn "ob dissolutos commilitonum mores et insultationes" es in Jena nicht mehr habe aushalten können.' Tholuck, Das akademische Leben, 11 69. Nevertheless, the university managed to maintain not merely its existence but a certain prosperity throughout the Thirty Years' War: "Floret academia nostra," wrote Gerhard in the midst of the struggle, "sicut rosa inter spinas." Ibid. 11 61. 28 University of |