to mean a retirement from the foundation or endowed portion of the college.

Such an extraordinary statute was probably at first intended to induce talented and highly educated men to enter the clerical profession in the Church of England, in order to obtain the advantage of a fellowship, or to retain that emolument when once acquired. Laymen, however, contrive to obtain admittance among the college fellows in Trinity College, by an ingenious interpretation of the laws, which is worthy of notice.

Those persons only are to be chosen as the fellows of Trinity College, according to the statutes, who propose to themselves, as their final object, the study of sacred scripture, and within seven years after their admission to the degree of Masters of Arts, they are to take priests' orders, or to be for ever excluded from the college, and they are to take the following oath, among others:

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I, N. N., swear and take God to witness, that I will make Theology the end of my studies; and that when the time prescribed in these statutes shall arrive, I will either take Holy Orders, or quit the College."

These two clauses are interpreted as if they only formed one clause, and as if the alternative of quitting the college included the study of Theology, as well as the taking of Holy Orders.

Owing to this interpretation, or to indifference about the oath, there are usually about an equal number of laymen and clergymen to be found among the junior fellows of the college, though the senior fellows, who are all of long standing in the university, are necessarily clergymen of the Church of England, and the principal college tutors are generally of the same clerical profession.

It may, however, be seriously questioned, whether Trinity College, Cambridge, be, at the present day, a college of divines, when the majority of the students appear to go into lay professions, and when laymen actually hold a considerable number of the college fellowships.

At the commencement of the seventeenth century, Trinity College, and many other colleges at Cambridge, were, probably, colleges of divines, but it is their interest, at the present day, to become secularized, and the addition of talented lawyers to the body of the clergy is by no means a slight advantage, nor one which is undervalued by the clergy themselves.

A general account of the state of the university in 1603 is contained in the preamble to the charter of King James the First to the university, for the election of two representatives in parliament, and all the colleges certainly appear, from this

document, to have been an especial object of the royal interest, and were obviously intended to be represented in parliament, with respect to their individual interests, as well as the more general interests of the university.

The charter commences in the following words:

"James, by the grace of God, king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, &c., to all whom the present letter may reach, greeting.

"Whereas our academy and University of Cambridge, in our county of Cambridge, is an ancient University, consisting of sixteen colleges, halls, and hostels of good learning, founded partly by our most illustrious and mighty ancestors, the kings and queens of this kingdom, and partly by archbishops, lords, grandees, nobles, bishops, and other distinguished, pious, and devout men; and moreover endowed and augmented with noble and ample rents, revenues, possessions, privileges, and other property, to the honor of God, and to the support and promotion of piety, virtue, erudition and learning. In which colleges, halls, and hostels, many local statutes, constitutions, ordinances, laws, and enactments have been made, published and ordained, both for the good administration and government of the said colleges, halls, and hostels, and of their members, and of the students in the same, and of other persons residing there; and for the lease, discharge, disposition, and preservation of the rents, revenues, possessions, and other property given, granted, assigned, or confirmed to the aforesaid colleges, halls, or hostels by their founders, or otherwise. For the observance and maintenance of which statutes, constitutions, ordinances, laws, enactments, and privileges, all those persons, or the majority of them, take corporal oaths upon the sacred. gospels of God.

"And whereas in times past, and especially lately, many statutes and acts of Parliament have been made and proclaimed, both for and concerning the lease, discharge, disposition, and preservation of the rents, revenues, and possessions of the said colleges, halls, and hostels, and of their members, who are students, and residents therein :-It seems, therefore, to be worth while and necessary, that the said University, (which abounds in a multitude of men endowed with piety, wisdom, learning, and integrity,) and in which all branches of science, both divine and human, and likewise all the liberal arts have been cultivated and professed, shall, for the common advantage of the whole state, as well as of the University aforesaid, and of each of the colleges, halls, and hostels aforesaid, have burgesses in Parliament, from among their own members, who shall make known to the high court of Parliament from time to time the true state of the said University, and of each college, hall, and hostel therein, so that no statute or general act may tend to the prejudice or injury of those institutions, or of any one of them in particular, through want of just and proper knowledge and information.'

From this preamble to the charter, it seems that all the corporations of the colleges and of the university are legally re

presented in parliament, under the title of the university, and that each separate college must be in some degree a public institution, entitled to its own share of power and influence in the return of the representatives of the associated body of all the colleges.

But it is not only with reference to the House of Commons that the Colleges possess political power: the two honorary offices of the Chancellor and the High Steward of the University, are now invariably bestowed on members of the House of Lords; and, in fact, the two noblemen selected for these offices are the representatives, in the House of Lords, of the interests of the majority of the senate of the university and the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Lyndhurst would, in all probability, be expected, by their constituents, to advocate the privileges and the exclusiveness of the university and the colleges, in the case of any further change being proposed in parliament with respect to any of those ancient bodies.

From this double advantage of being specially represented in both houses of parliament, the constitution of the university itself and of its colleges becomes interesting in a public point of view, and their governing principles may thus be closely examined as in the case of all other public institutions.

The present state of the predominant ecclesiastical feeling among the college authorities in the University of Cambridge, is well expressed in the following words from an address delivered to the Cambridge Camden Society, on the 28th March 1840, by its president, the Venerable Archdeacon Thorp, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College.

“There was a time, indeed, and it is not even yet quite gone by, when the Universities were considered worthy of no higher office or honour, than as an arena, where men were to contend in the generous conflicts of the intellect, to strive for scholarships and fellowships, to win medals and degrees."

"But we trust that a sounder notion of our duties and our privileges is beginning to prevail; and that it is not considered here to be bigotry, to maintain, that though their doors are open with a liberal interpretation to all, who have on their part no conscientious grounds for refusing to conform to usages in which the Church's doctrine and discipline are recognized without compromise, still they are properly nurseries of Churchmen and for the Church."

It must not be supposed, however, from these remarks, that the students are now compelled to attend at the sacrament in Cambridge. The ancient law of compulsion on this subject still remains a disgrace to the university statute book, but mo

dern practice permits the attendance of the students at the Eucharist to be voluntary, and this change of system is thus deservedly praised by the Rev. Professor Sedgwick, M.A., and Senior Fellow of Trinity College :

"There are no forced Eucharists at Cambridge. At Trinity College, (and I believe I may include in the remark every College in the University,) there has not, for many years, been the semblance of a punishment for absence from the sacrament. Within my recollection of Cambridge there was a nominal punishment for absence, but it was never intended to have the force of a compulsive law and among the earliest lessons the students of my own year received from the public tutor, was an exhortation to attend the Eucharist, accompanied at the same time with a solemn caution, that those who could not go with a clear conscience should keep away. Let me add, (and I speak from the experience of a thirty years' residence,) that on no occasion, either public or private, have I seen this holy rite of our Church performed with more solemnity and devotion than it is at the altar of a College Chapel. A hypocrite may sometimes have knelt down amongst us; but who can dare to look into the mazes of a man's heart?"*

Attendance at the reading of the morning or evening prayers of the Church of England is still insisted upon from all the students, with hardly any exception, at Cambridge, but their attention to the service is not required, and it is seldom given, unless on Sundays, or occasionally on week-days; but they are always careful to maintain decorum, and a mechanical uniformity during the service.

In this respect, too, ancient laws are now obsolete; for all the students of Trinity College were ordered to be severely reprimanded, according to the statutes of Elizabeth, if they took no part in the Common Prayer, or if they did not attend to the Lessons. At the present day, the repetition of responses is entirely voluntary, and must remain so, unless it should be wished to exclude dissenters from the chapel, which they are now compelled to attend.

It would indeed be most unreasonable to expect that the Unitarian members of any college in Cambridge should be obliged to repeat aloud the responses to the invocation to the Trinity, at the commencement of the Litany; and especially, as at present, dissenting students are only expected to remain quiet, and their thoughts may, consequently, be directed far away from the service, in which they cannot thoroughly and conscientiously join.

Many of the ancient laws, both of the University and of the

* Letters to the Editors of the Leeds Mercury, in reply to R. M. Beverley, Esq., pages 30 and 31; printed in 1836.

Colleges at Cambridge, were obviously intended to confer exclusive privileges on the clergy of the Established Church of this country; but as Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews, are now admitted to reside in the colleges, and as laymen obtain fellowships in the society which was once the principal college of divines, the ecclesiastical spirit of exclusiveness is manifestly in some degree modified, and there is ground to hope for further concessions to the spirit of the times, and to the pecuniary interests of the university and the college corporations.

It is quite possible, for instance, that without the abolition of any test, the senate of the University of Cambridge may perhaps be induced to suspend the ecclesiastical subscription required for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, until the creation of the Master of Arts, thereby preserving to the senate of the university its ancient ecclesiastical character, while the degree of Bachelor of Arts may thus be conferred on Dissenters and Roman Catholics, as well as on members of the Church of England.

If, with this boon, the suffrage should also be extended to Bachelors of Arts, so that votes may be given for the members of Parliament, without any ecclesiastical restriction on the franchise, Dissenters and Roman Catholics should be contented to sign a moderate declaration, that they will not exercise any power, authority, or influence, by virtue of their office of Bachelors of Arts, to injure or weaken the Protestant Church, as it is by law established in England, or to disturb the said church, or the bishops and clergy of the said church, in the possession of any rights or privileges to which such church, or the said bishops and clergy, are or may be by law entitled.

Such a declaration is already required from the officers of all English corporations, in the place of the sacramental tests, by the 9th George IV. chap. 17, and uniformity and expediency appear to demand it as a substitute for the present declaration of decided membership with the Church of England, for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in the University of Cambridge.

The predominant fears of change which influence some of the leading resident members of that university, are not connected with the security of the universities, but with the security of the Church of England, and on this account, the suspension of an ecclesiastical test would be preferred to its abolition, as the former laws of ecclesiastical exclusiveness might thus remain on the statute-book for the degree of Master of Arts, while the exercise of them would be suspended for the degree of Bachelor, and the senate of the university would still meet in its ancient form of an ecclesiastical corporation.

J. H.