Further evidence from Latimer. CHAP. II. bestowal'.' In relation to the universities, this vice appears to have operated in a twofold manner. First, the wealthy sold their patronage, and vacant masterships, fellowships, and scholarships were too often filled up by those who could afford to bribe most largely or who could command those other irregular influences to which Ascham above refers. In the next place, the selfishness inseparable from avarice exhibited itself in-indifference towards the poor. In order to avoid an expense which they could well afford, rich parents would make interest to gain admission for their sons on foundations designed exclusively for poor scholars, thus 'putting,' to quote the expression of Lever, 'pore men from bare liuings.' 'In times past,' said Latimer in his sermon Of the Plough, 'when any rich man died in London they were wont to help the scholars at the universities with exhibitions................ When I was a scholar at Cambridge myself, I knew many that had relief of the rich men in London; but now I can hear no such good report, and yet I enquire of it and hearken for it. Charity is waxen cold; none helpeth the scholar nor yet the poor; now that the knowledge of God's Word is brought to light, and many earnestly study and labour to set it forth, now almost no man helpeth to maintain them. How deeply this double evil had infected the whole college system, may be gathered from the testimony of William Harrison, written in the latter years of the century, who thus sums up his account of the original design of these foundations and its culpable perversion :-'They were erected,' he writes, 'by their founders at the first, onelie for poore mens sons, whose parents were not able to bring them up unto learning: but now they have the least benefit of them, by reason the rich doo so incroch upon them. And so furre hath this incon Corroboration from Harrison, circ. 1586. 1 'Nec me fugit quam esse solent omnes aulici ad pollicendum largi et prolixi, ad praestandum tamen tenaces et restricti.' Letter to Redman, Epist. p. 205. 2 Latimer-Corrie, 1 60-61. 3 Compare the very similar complaint of Melanchthon a few years before: 'Quid quod in multis locis, etiam ubi emendatae sunt ecclesiae, nunc negliguntur studia litterarum, nemo opitulatur pauperibus scholasticis, fame necantur pii et docti sacerdotes, et eorum coniuges et parvi liberi. Quare aliquanto post et his defuturi sunt idonei pastores,' etc. 'Decl. de Officio Principum,' Corpus Reform. x1 437. The 2. Dis appearance that of the un attached' uenience spread it selfe, that it is in my time an hard matter CHAP. II. for a poore man's childe to come by a fellowship (though he be neuer so good a scholar, and woorthie of that roome). Such packing also is used at elections, that not he which best deserueth, but he that hath most friends, though he be the woorst scholar, is alwaies surest to speed; which will turne in the end to the ouerthrow of learning. That some gentlemen also, whose friends haue been in times past benefactors to certeine of those houses, doo intrude into the disposition of their estates, without all respect of order or estatutes deuised by the founders, onelie thereby to place whome they thinke good (and not without some hope of gain), the case is too euident and their attempt woulde soone take place, if their superiors did not prouide to bridle their indeuors'.' danger which was already menacing the universities, instead of representing first of all the centres of the highest class of intellectual culture of the nation they would become rather from the the fashionable resort of the youth of the wealthier classes, was largely increased by the fact that the unattached students were fast disappearing from their midst. German theology and German learning were predominant in the lecture-rooms, but the organisation of both Oxford and Cambridge was more and more diverging from that of other Teutonic seats of learning, as the university system of education became superseded by that of the colleges. The attractions held out by such foundations as Christchurch, St John's, and Trinity, could not indeed be denied. Peter Martyr at Oxford and Martin Bucer at Cambridge alike express their Comfort and admiration at the comfort and the discipline that charac- college life. terized these institutions and the liberal provision made for 1 Description of England (ed. 1586), ed. Furnivall for New Shakspere Society, 1877, pp. 76-78. The passage does not occur in the earlier edition of 1577. 2 An attempt made at Marburg in 1529 to introduce the college and tutorial system of instruction appears about this time to have resulted in corresponding failure. [See Koch (Dr C.) Gesch. d. akadem. Pädago giums zu Marburg, p. 11.] Perhaps 3 Harrison (Description of England, or students university. security of become almost deserted. CHAP. II. the students; no college on the Continent, the latter declared, could compare to them'. It was perhaps an almost inevitable result that this domestic comfort should tend to render the collegian less assiduous than the student of former days in his attendance at the schools and at the lectures of the professors. Walter Haddon, when addressing the university at the Commencement of 1547, contrasts the overThe schools flowing numbers of the whole body with the deserted aspect of the schools, and cannot forbear from making the latter feature the subject of serious remonstrance. He states that the attendance at the university lectures had become so small that professors were sometimes to be seen addressing themselves to a single auditor. As regards the disputations in the schools, he urges that the mental powers of the ancient philosophers were all disciplined by similar public contests, that public ought always to outweigh private duty, and that consequently the schools have a prior claim to the college hall or chapel. Nothing, he feels assured, had been further from the late king's design in founding Trinity College, than that the collegians should use it as 'a hiding place in which to remain wrapt in private meditations". Four years later, we find him returning with increased emphasis to the subject, and affirming that unless there were soon some reform the term 'Common Schools' would become altogether a misnomer Haddon's testimony and remonstrance. 1 Tam enim ditia et bonis legibus instituta collegia, cujusmodi in utraque regni academia tam multa extant, nullae habent in reliqua Europa vel academiae vel ecclesiae.' Bucer, Script. Anglic., p. 61. The language of Justus Lipsius towards the close of the century is equally emphatic; he speaks of the college as 'pulchrum inventum et quod in Anglia magnifice usurpatur: neque credam in orbe terrarum simile esse, addam et fuisse. Magnae illic opes et vectigalia: verbo vobis dicam? unum Oxoniense collegium (rem inquisivi) superet vel decem nostra.' Lovanium, p. 100. 2 Admonet me vestra celebritas, admonet hoc tempus, admonet ante omnia hic locus in quo insisto, vobiscum ut agam ne deseri has scholas sinatis et quasi privatas relinqui, quas nomine publicas, beneficiis publicis, institutione publica, doctorum et artium, majores nostri ad publicam utilitatem totius reipublicae fundaverunt. Quae tot modis pervulgatae sunt, quarum tam multiplex ratio communitatis est, eas nolite pati in hac solitudine jacere qua jam diu obsoluerunt. Nunquam affluentior academia fuit, nunquam numerosior mea memoria quam nunc est, nunquam desertiores hae scholae fuerunt, nunquam magis solitariae. Nam ad tantas angustias et ad tam insignem paucitatem redacti sunt, ut vix singulis magistris relicti sint singuli auditores.' Lucubrationes, pp. 11-12. 3 Ibid. p. 15. and those ancient structures would have to be called the CHAP. II. 'professors' haunts'. Within another five years we find Dr Caius indulging in a like complaint, and if we bear in mind that, at a time when the system of examinations was in its infancy and triposes were unknown, these dialectical contests afforded the only means whereby the merit of collegians on different foundations could be openly tested and compared, Haddon's remonstrances must be admitted to have been far from unreasonable. numbers but students. sity becomes patronized The foregoing evidence, it will be noticed, serves also in Overflowing a large measure to explain the apparent contradiction be- fewer real tween his assertion as to the large aggregate number of the students and the small numbers of those proceeding each year to their bachelor's degree. It is a somewhat significant fact, that in the same oration as that in which he deplores the deserted state of the schools he dwells with complacency on the many youthful representatives of noble houses, such The univer as those of Rutland, Maltravers, Howard, Cecil, Northampton, largely Suffolk, Russell, North, Warwick, Sidney, who about this by the young time were gracing the university with their presence, and who, he implies, were in many instances actuated by a genuine love for learning. It is however certain that they rarely proceeded to their degrees, and by his own admission, the prevailing symptom in the university was that of indolence in study, and this spirit, he adds, was beginning to infect even the colleges. His testimony is supported some six years later by that of an equally high authority, a Regius professor and staunch Catholic in the reign of queen Mary, dore non unus aut alter se nobiscum 4 It is evident that it was this 7 aristocracy. Important testimony of Dr Caius in 1558. CHAP. II-the eminent Nicholas Carr',-and again, at a very short interval, in a memorable passage of his History, by that of Dr Caius. It was in the year 1558, that, after a long absence from Cambridge, this distinguished benefactor of the university stole a short respite from the labours of his London practice, to revisit the scenes of his youth and there found the college which bears his name?. After making due allowance for his Catholic sympathies and his somewhat censorious temper, we cannot but conclude that the Cambridge of 1558 must have presented in many respects a striking contrast to the Cambridge of Ascham and Cheke. The poor, modest, diligent student of former times, with narrow means but lofty aims, rising before dawn to commence his studies, living on scanty fare, reverently doffing his cap in the streets and courts to the grey seniors, among whom he often found his best friend and counsellor, had disappeared. Dr Caius, as he passed along unrecognised and unaccosted, saw only other manners and other men3. He missed, he tells us, the dignified elders of former times, proceeding with sedate countenance and stately mien to the disputations in the schools, attended by the chief members of their respective colleges each in his distinctive academic dress, and preceded both going and coming by heralds. The undergraduates no longer respectfully saluted 1 Pauci qui magistrorum opera discipuli, vix reperiuntur qui discipulorum assiduitate delectantur magistri.' de Scriptt. Britt. paucitate, etc. f. 2. 2 'Cum medicinae studiis ac operibus et olim Patavii et jam multis annis Londini detentus, subinde Cantabrigiae studiorum meorum parentis recordationem retentam animo sed remissam temporibus revocaveram, incesseratque cupido invisendi dulcia musarum veteris academiae limina et recognoscendi grata per juventutem scholarum exercitamenta, anno salutis humanae 1558, a medico munere intermissionem faciens, velut postliminio quodam Cantabrigiam concesseram; quo cum perveneram mirum quantam dum aberam metamorphosin, quantam rerum omnium muta tionem factam animadverteram.' Historia, p. 3. This statement from his own pen seems to me altogether to contradict the assertion in Cooper (Athenae, 1 312) that Dr Caius practised at Cambridge during the interval between his return from Padua and the founding of Caius College, for which indeed I have not been able to discover any authority. 3 Etenim nova personarum, novarerum omnium facies erat, novi mores, novus habitus, novus vultus et pronunciatio, nova denique docendi, discendi, et disputandi forma. Et ne omnes commemorem (sunt enim prope infinitae novitates) nec ipse cuiquam, nec mihi quisquam fere notus fuit.' Historia, p. 3. 4...magno comitatu omnium, omnis ordinis hominum sui collegii ho |