cated, from his accidental presence at the time. The Johnians pressed their victory over the Trinity men from the legitimate foot-ball arena to an attack on Trinity College in general; bursting open the gates, and putting to flight all the dons in terrible confusion. 6 But sweet meat hath sour sauce,' and Symonds, thinking with Solomon, qui tangit picem, inquinabitur,' determined in future to avoid the prejudicious effects' of evil company, as well as the liability to a pecuniary mulct.' The last chapter of this entertaining little book is devoted to a description of the great Commencement in 1620, and D'Ewes' touching farewell of Alma Mater. The Commencement was to his heart's content, from the opportunity it gave him of hearing sermons and declamations. He breakfasted early to obtain a good seat, and scarcely had time at noon to eat a hasty meal, before he rushed off for the same purpose a second time. Yet he was fain to rest contented with an incommodious seat' to hear the Divinity Act, in which Dr. Davenant, a learned theologian of the Calvinistic school, was the Moderator, a friend of Symonds the Respondent, the opponents being seven commencing doctors.' The profane members of the University were meanwhile much excited by the rumour that a famous bull' had arrived at the Gogmagog hills. The Vice-Chancellor, however, stopt these vain and needless proceedings,' and the bull had to march off.

6

D'Ewes was much troubled at the end of his residence in the University, to find that he was in debt to the college thirteen pounds. Holdsworth made known this to his father when he accompanied his pupil home to Stowlangtoft, and after some haggling an amicable settlement was at last concluded. His final valediction we must give in his own words; and would that our Universities now sent away all their sons with such tokens of affection!

'Now approaches that gloomy, or rather that fatal day, in which I am to leave my dearest Mother, of whose pure milk I have drank so many months, and fed upon her daintiest bits. Though not about to forsake the sciences themselves, I am to depart from the patroness and fautrice of them. Oh, shall I ever forget the hour, when my books and my other things being stripped away, and my chamber mourning, as it were, for the want of its accustomed ornaments, my friends are now visiting me to say farewell! Of all these, which I have loved so well, I am even now about to suffer the privation. It was the twenty-fifth day of May, in the year 1618, that embraced my admittance; and it is this present twenty-second day of September, 1620, which now shadows my departure. I have just begun to gain strength, by the continuance of strong food, and thus am I suddenly snatched away from it. I have tasted of the several sciences, though I have not yet ascended to metaphysics or any mathematics. These would follow, if I could have remained longer. But although many things on my now departing do thus distract me, yet it is not altogether without mine own consent; for when the vices of the University which I am leaving

come into my thoughts, a sort of content is prepared thereby. So then, farewell, dear Mother!—farewell, dear Schools !-farewell, happy lectures! farewell, faithful friends!-Ye lose a son in person, though not in affection; an auditor in sense, though not in desire; a frequenter in substance, though not in circumstance; and a true well-wisher in his absent thoughts, as hitherto in his present words.'-Pp. 121, 122.

May we not gather, from this insight into Cambridge life in the reign of James I., two reflections? First, the general guidance which the tone of feeling in our Universities exercises by anticipation over the politics of the nation; and, secondly, as a deduction from this, the importance of giving to our Universities a tone that will make their influences beneficial. These are evidences that our Universities equally affect public opinion now as then, and therefore we may hope that the revival of Church doctrines, Church practices, and of the love of the Church, which now is attributed, even by means of nicknames from individual members, to the Universities of the nineteenth century, may have as much influence in the cause of the Church as the Puritan tendency we have seen in Cambridge had in bringing on the Puritan climax thirty years after.

45

ART. III.-1. The Discipline of Life. London: Colburn.

2. Pride and Irresolution. By the Author of the Discipline of Life. London: Colburn.

3. Clare Abbey. By the same Author. London: Colburn.

YOUNG people have lately been recommended, on high authority, to renounce Fiction, and to read Botany and Conchology instead, receiving an assurance that, so far from losing on the score of entertainment, they will only begin to estimate the charms of reading when this preliminary step has been taken, this fancied sacrifice achieved. Our youth is not so utterly forgotten that we can sincerely re-echo this advice; and even to our mature judgment, men and women seem as deserving and as interesting subjects for arbitrary classification and arrangement, as plants and shells, the subtle, delicate workings of human passion, feeling, and affection, as worthy our study as the curious convolutions, and exquisite colouring, of the tenantless wrecks and spoils of ocean,- the glories of our mortal state,' with all their train of changes and reverses, as fit subjects for thought and inquiry as the flowers of the field, which typify them. And after all, invention is almost as much, though less agreeably, called into play in these proposed substitutes for fiction, as in fiction itself. For the flowers and shells are no more allowed to show themselves to us in the disorder of unassisted nature, than the personages of the novel, or the drama, are exhibited without the frame-work of a plot. The hand of the arranger and inventor is alike visible in all three sciences: in all there is little other necessary congruity than what the author chooses to establish; and without despising the study of plants and shells reduced to a science, and cordially sympathising with every pursuit which leads to the habitual, intelligent, reverent contemplation of the material works of God, we will yet express our conviction that if young people wholly give up fiction, for mere science, or knowledge of fact of any kind, they and society will be losers by it, and not only should the imagination cease to be cultivated in its higher efforts, and the greatest works of the greatest minds lose their popular hold, an end which few can propose as desirable,-but even in the less elevated workings of this faculty, so long as these are pure in aim, and founded on observation and knowledge of human nature. For the Domestic Novel, treating only

of scenes and characters within the knowledge and acquaintance of us all, has a field which, perhaps, no other class of composition can occupy so well. Experience seems to have recognised it as the best teacher of manners. The good advice, the satire, the penetration into motives, the nice perception of character, the wide range of observation which Addison and Johnson spread over their miscellaneous essays, are now, so far as their followers possess these gifts, displayed with more power over the fancy, with a greater weight of example, with better order, and more comprehensive arrangement, in the well-planned story; thus, as we have said, constituting it the best form for conveying instruction in manners: manners in the highest sense of the word, not as deportment, but behaviour. We consider that many persons suffer in their own conduct from want of acquaintance with, and interest in fictitious scenes,—from not having been led to consider occasions of interest and excitement, and temptation, nor what is the line which ought to be pursued in them, till they find themselves in the midst of such on their personal account.

It is the province of the writer in this department of fiction to keep a watch over, to guide and restrain, the unguarded lighter moments of humanity,-those times when the conscience sees no boldly marked lines between good and ill, when especially the young and inexperienced see no dangers, when no positive course of action is laid down, no direct laws are to be observed or infringed,-when the conduct, in fact, seems left rather to the guidance of the will, than of the conscience. Then the novelist who understands his office, and the responsibilities of his (and may we not here especially say her?) art, steps in and tells where duty lies, what course self-denial points to; and shows how the joys and cares of our daily common life, the intercourse of society, the social circle, may be the battle-field of our trial-that we cannot get away from right and wrong-that our conduct must be either good or bad towards all with whom we come into collision-that character is forming itself for evil or for good, in the game, the dance, the song, as well as in the more formal arenas for our actions. Intercourse with society teaches external good manners. It should be the novelist's part, in Miss Austin's words, to enforce 'that higher species of self-command, that just consideration for "others, that knowledge of our own heart, that principle of right,' which alone makes politeness valuable to its possessor; to illustrate in critical situations the use of the regulations and laws of society, which often seem least reasonable when they are most needed; to demonstrate that they are not to be disobeyed with impunity, and that in moments of excitement we are no judges of their importance. His work should be an epitome of the

world's experience, for the world is an authority, and has its court of jurisdiction, to which we must bow; interpreting it as the verdict of society on certain questions coming lawfully under its cognisance. It is to despising this authority when it suits our purpose, that many social errors may be traced; wherever, in fact, the world's judgment is despised, not because it is worldly, but because it is too strict. Society, when unbiassed by personal considerations, is a less lenient judge than our own heart; and it is no relaxation of restraints and checks to acknowledge that the consent of mankind, uninfluenced by self, guided by experience and a sound judgment, is intended to be the director of our daily conduct. Revelation is not given to instruct men in points on which they are competent to arrive at a correct judgment without; and, indeed, they seldom search into its pages for examples of social manners, rejecting the general opinion of their own day, except to justify themselves in a course of error and laxity.

In one point especially, which is the main, unfailing topic of fiction, bad and good, and which plays a very important part in some portion of most men's lives,-in all questions which relate to the growth of pure affection and its ultimate result, marriage, men are intended to guide themselves, not in their choice of an object, but in their conduct and deportment after having once made it, by the world's uninspired wisdom, experience, and sense of justice. We will venture to say that few people reject its judgment on these points, and appeal to the example of the characters of Scripture (we desire to discriminate absolutely between their precept and example, the one being given for all time, the other to be interpreted by the circumstances of a totally different state of society)-men seldom, we say, appeal to express Revelation as sole authority, without having some ill end to gain by it, without seeking for some relaxation of a stricter law, which chafes their ungoverned tempers and wishes; and this because the Bible does not supply us with examples to copy on every minute point of practice, but with general laws, and with a clear light whereby to interpret and refine the common sense of mankind. We have known men seriously defended for forming a second marriage immediately on the dissolution of their first, by Scripture; and our own experience has shown us that there are no more unscrupulous, remorseless flirts, than some who pronounce it worse than waste of time to read a novel, and wrong to move in general society. The consent of the most sensible and well-judging of our community, is obviously the only guide for society in its management and completion of these delicate transactions; and the digest of these decisions may be found in a compendious form in the pages of our really good novelists-of