6 Wealth and Fame Attained. 'My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre, II. Henry VI.' ii. 5. 85 In the summer of this grievous year he had busied himself in securing for his father the gratification of the long-entertained wish-that he should bear a shield or cote of armes,' and be written among the gentlemen of England. This on 20th October he obtained, selecting as the motto of that blazon which his father should display and he should inherit, the words Non sanz droict'-Not without right. Objection was probably raised by some who still envied the successful player and playwright, and in 1599 the grant, first tricked by Cooke, was ratified by Dethick and Camden. About Eastertide, 1597, William Shakespeare became the purchaser of New Place, the best house at the time in Stratford. The property is described as consisting of one messuage, two barns, and 'two gardens, with the appurtenances.' It had been the residence of the Cloptons, of William Bott, to whom his father succeeded as councillor, and of William Underhill, of Idlecote. This he repaired and modelled to suit himself; and now he had attained the position in which he was able to write himself William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman;' and claim enrolment doubly among the notable in that Warwick (as Drayton sings), 'Above her neighbouring shires which always bore her head, Which so brave spirits hast bred.' He had now attained literary renown and personal success. His dramas influenced the minds not only of England's thinkers but of England's people; by his poems he had gained rank in The golden brood of great Apollo's wit.' He was the sovereign spirit of letters-noble in intellect and notable alike by work and for worth. By prudence, industry, and business capacity, well used, he had acquired the house which to his boyish ambition, as he passed to school perhaps, appeared the palace of pleasure.' His name's heir and his heart's hope had indeed been reft from him; but to him there were left a father's pride in him, a mother's joy for him, a wife's love to him, his children's clinging affection, his friends' consideration, his sovereign's favour, the people's admiration, and, at thirty-five, what a hope of future fame! A fame, Like a mountain, whose lower portions have been swathed in mists and mantled in clouds, on which forests grow, and in whose recesses there are caverns of wonder, he has been to us. We have endeavoured to attain some knowledge of those parts which lie nearest to the base, but we have not been able to ascend among those crags and peaks which, clad here with verdure, there with snow, lift up their stupendous masses into the sunshine of the sky, and become glorious with all triumphant splendour on their brows. If we have succeeded in tracing the early part of Shakespeare's life in the midst of the shadows and darkness of the literature of his biography, so as to clear up some of the uncertainties of it, we may leave our readers to explore it when the goodly glittering East settles in the glory of eternal summer on his head. ART. III.-The Future of the English Universities. (1.) Report of the Commissioners appointed to Inquire into the Property and Income of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Three volumes. 1874. (2.) Correspondence with the Universities' Commission, together with a Reprint of a Letter addressed to the Right Hon. S. H. Walpole, M.P., and A. T. B. Beresford Hope, M.P. By Rev. ROBERT PHELPS, D.D., Master of Sidney Sussex College. Cambridge: Macmillan. 1873. (3.) Cambridge University and College Reform. BY WILLIAM RANN KENNEDY, B.A., Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Macmillan. 1870. (4.) The Tenure of Fellowships, considered especially with refer ence to College Tutors and Lecturers. By the Rev. H. A. MORGAN, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College. Cambridge: Rivingtons. 1871. THE Commission appointed by the late Government to inquire into and report upon the revenues of the Universities and the Their means for Educating the Nation. 87 colleges of Oxford and Cambridge has revealed the astounding fact that the gross annual income received by these corporations now exceeds three quarters of a million. Drawn as it is for the most part from extensive landed estates in almost every county in England,* this vast rent-roll is still capable of almost indefinite increase, and, in fact, of late years, it has increased enormously. Where is it to stop, and what may it not amount to half a century hence? We have said that the present aggregate income is an astounding fact,' without any desire to write 'sensationally;' and, in sober truth, the real wonder is that such an announcement seems to excite so little public interest. The public, it is evident, do not care very much about the Universities, except, perhaps, in so far as they furnish daily accounts of the athletic feats performed there, and provide them with the spectacle of an annual boat-race on the Thames. But this very indifference, while it has long been tacitly relied upon by the University authorities as the best security against unwelcome reform, is in itself significant of its real necessity. It shows how little influence is exercised by these schools of learning over the mind or the thought of the age, compared with both the duty imposed upon and the means possessed by them of doing so. No one, of course, denies that the Universities have performed, and do perform, much good service, socially it may be, even more than intellectually. But, to take no lower view of their usefulness than that they educate upright and honourable men in an age but too sympathetic with fraud and dishonesty —that a gentlemanly courtesy to all, ready conversational powers, self-respect, consideration towards others, and a general humanizing effect on the morals of the age, are undoubtedly produced by their influence, they still seem to fall far short of the part they ought to take, and were intended to take, in forming the mind of the nation. The fact must be admitted that, in all great and long-contested political reforms, the Universities have invariably been on the losing. side, and have never shown themselves in advance of the age. The estimated acreage of the estates of both Universities and the colleges is very little under 320,000 (Report,' vol. i. p. 26). But there is also a very large property in tithes, houses, rent-charges, and stocks. The total income of both Universities and all the colleges in 1871, including trust moneys held for specific purposes, is given as £754,405 (vol. i. p. 29). Exclusive Church corporations as they have long been, and as they evidently still desire to remain, they have, perhaps for that very reason, ceased to be the leaders of public opinion in any political movement, and thus they have, in a sense, almost dropped out of notice. Who ever talks about the Universities, except perhaps in connection with a boatrace? or who ever hears the subject of university education mooted in general society? Or why, out of a nation of more than twenty million inhabitants, is such a mere handful of students as something over four thousand at any time resident to compete for the honours and the emoluments which these two ancient universities have to bestow? Something must be wrong; some more general appreciation of a university education seems wanted; more work should be got out of such revenues, and not only out of, but for them. Sinecurists must go, and paid workers must step in. We hold that this great principle is nationally of such vast importance, that we propose in the present paper to discuss it somewhat in detail. The question is a public one, and we may claim the right of speaking freely, while we disown the unworthy motive of mere declamation against dignified and important corporations, which, if they have their faults, have also their acknowledged merits and excellences. However the subject may be treated, and whatever arguments may be adduced either for or against university reform, the issue is one of almost inconceivable importance. Are the vast resources which they possess to be economised for the purposes of national education, or are they still to be wasted, by hundreds of thousands a year, on sinecure endowments of the Church party, whose chief claim to them seems to be that they are, and have long been, in legal possession? Or may we not rather conclude from the signs of the times that the age of sinecures is passing away, and that not even the pretence (it is too often but a pretence) of literary merit will much longer justify what all men of sense agree in regarding as a misapplication of public revenue? In spite of the dead weight of public indifference, which has enabled the Universities themselves so long to stave off financial and educational reform, the results of the Commission are too important to be passed over by any Government Necessity of some Reform. 89 without some action. We are fully justified in saying this by the significant reply of the present Prime Minister to the question put to him by a member of the Lower House, why the subject of University reform had been omitted from the Queen's Speech. His answer was (February 8th), 'It is our 'opinion that no Government will exist long which will for a moment maintain that the consideration of the report and consequent legislation will not be the duty of the Government.' Mr. Disraeli is well aware that public indifference does not either include or conceal the deep, anxious conviction of all thoughtful men, all real lovers of learning, all friends of national education in the highest sense, that something better than their present use is expected, and will be demanded, from the revenues, the very vastness of which entails on the holders and administrators of them the most serious responsibilities. The nation will not for ever tolerate the existence of between seven and eight hundred sinecure fellowships, worth, one with another, quite £300 a year, and tenable, at the will of the holder, for life. It will insist on an answer to that most practical of all political questions, Cui bono? Of what conceivable use to me-the State-are so many literary pensioners, not indeed paid to be idle, but paid with the perfect and unquestioned right of being absolutely idle, if any of them prefer (and how many do prefer?) the life of otium cum dignitate to the wear and tear of continued mental exertion? 'But,' it will proceed, if such a state of things is evidently 'unsatisfactory, what can be done with this annual three'quarters of a million to make it fulfil the true purpose of the 'donors, or at all events to satisfy the requirements of the 'age?' We hope to show that this great question can fairly and reasonably be answered; and that the supposed difficulties of University reform are no valid reasons for not attempting it at all. * It is hardly creditable to the college authoritics of Oxford and Cambridge that the real amount of their revenues has so long been studiously kept a profound secret. So little was In some colleges the tenure is limited to ten or twelve years, with leave to marry, or on the condition of non-residence. But, as far as we know, everyone may keep his fellowship for his life if he complies with the terms which entitle him to do so. |