licentiaté were bestowed as the reward of manly and fuccessful study: if the name and rank of doctor or mafter were strictly referved for the profeffors of science, who have approved their title to the public esteem.

In the universities of Europe, excepting our own, the languages and sciences are distributed among a numerous list of effective profeffors: the ftudents, according to their tafte, their calling, and their diligence, apply themselves to the proper mafters; and in the annual repetition of public and private lectures, these mafters are affiduously employed. Our curiofity may inquire what number of profeffors has been inftituted at Oxford? (for I fhall now confine myself to my own univerfity ;) by whom are they appointed, and what may be the probable chances of merit or incapacity? how many are stationed to the three faculties, and how many are left for the liberal arts? what is the form, and what the fubftance, of their leffons? But all these questions are filenced by one short and fingular anfwer, "That "in the univerfity of Oxford, the greater part of "the public profeffors have for these many years

given up altogether even the pretence of teaching." Incredible as the fact may appear, I must rest my belief on the pofitive and impartial evidence of a master of moral and political wisdom, who had himself refided at Oxford. Dr. Adam Smith affigns as the cause of their indolence, that, inftead of being paid by voluntary contributions, which would urge them to increase the number, and to deferve the gratitude of their pupils, the Oxford profeffors are

fecure in the enjoyment of a fixed ftipend, without the neceffity of labor, or the apprehenfion of control. It has indeed been obferved, nor is the obfervation abfurd, that excepting in experimental fciences, which demand a coftly apparatus and a dexterous hand, the many valuable treatifes, that have been published on every fubject of learning, may now fuperfede the ancient mode of oral inftruction. Were this principle true in its utmost latitude, I fhould only infer that the offices and falaries, which are become ufelefs, ought without delay to be abolished. But there ftill remains a material difference between a book and a profeffor; the hour of the lecture inforces attendance; attention is fixed by the presence, the voice, and the occafional queftions of the teacher; the moft idle will carry fomething away; and the more diligent will compare the inftructions which they have heard in the school, with the volumes, which they perufe in their chamber. The advice of a skilful profeffor will adapt a course of reading to every mind and every fituation; his authority will discover, admonish, and at laft chaftife the negligence of his difciples; and his vigilant inquiries will afcertain the steps of their literary progrefs. Whatever fcience he profeffes he may illuftrate in a series of discourses, compofed in the leisure of his clofet, pronounced on public occafions, and finally delivered to the prefs. I obferve with pleafure, that in the university of Oxford Dr. Lowth, with equal eloquence and erudition, has executed this talk in his incomparable Prælections on the Poetry of the Hebrews.

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The college of St. Mary Magdalen was founded in the fifteenth century by Wainfleet bishop of Wint chefter; and now confifts of a prefident, forty fellows, and a number of inferior ftudents. It is efteemed one of the largest and most wealthy of our academical corporations, which may be compared to the Benedictine abbeys of catholic countries; and I have loofely heard that the estates belonging to Magdalen College, which are leafed by thofe indul. gent landlords at fmall quit-rents and occafional fines, might be raised, in the hands of private avarice, to an annual revenue of nearly thirty thousand pounds. Our colleges are fuppofed to be fchools of fcience, as well as of education; nor is it unreasonable to expect that a body of literary men, devoted to a life of celibacy, exempt from the care of their own subsistence, and amply provided with books, fhould devote their leifure to the profecution of ftudy, and that fome effects of their studies should be manifested to the world. The fhelves of their library groan under the weight of the Benedictine folios, of the editions of the fathers, and the collections of the middle ages, which have iffued from the fingle abbey of St. Germain de Prez at Paris. A compofition of genius must be the offspring of one mind; but fuch works of induftry, as may be divided among many hands, and must be continued during many years, are the peculiar province of a laborious community. If I inquire into the manufactures of the monks of Magdalen, if I extend the inquiry to the other colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, a filent blush, or a fcornful frown, will be the only reply.

The fellows or monks of my time were decent eafy men, who fupinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder: their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well fatisfied, to a long flumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had abfolved their confcience; and the firft fhoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public. As a gentleman commoner, I was admitted to the fociety of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and inftructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college bufinefs, Tory politics, perfonal anecdotes, and private scandal: their dull and deep potations excufed the brifk intemperance of youth; and their conftitutional toasts were not expreffive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover. A General election was now approaching: the great Oxfordshire contest already blazed with all the malevolence of party-zeal. Magdalen College was devoutly attached to the old intereft! and the names of Wenman and Dafhwood were more fre quently pronounced, than those of Cicero and Chryfoftom. The example of the fenior fellows could not inspire the under graduates with a liberal spirit or ftudious emulation; and I cannot defcribe, as I never knew, the discipline of college. Some duties may poffibly have been imposed on the poor scholars, whofe ambition afpired to the peaceful honors of a fellowship (afcribi quietis ordinibus ---- Deorum);

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but no independent members were admitted below the rank of a gentleman commoner, and our velvet cap was the cap of liberty. A tradition prevailed that fome of our predeceffors had fpoken Latin declamations in the hall; but of this ancient cuftom no veftige remained: the obvious methods of public exercifes and examinations were totally unknown; and I have never heard that either the prefident or the fociety interfered in the private economy of the tutors and their pupils.

The filence of the Oxford profeffors, which deprives the youth of public inftruction, is imperfectly fupplied by the tutors, as they are ftyled, of the feveral colleges. Inftead of confining themselves to a single science, which had satisfied the ambition of. Burman or Bernoully, they teach, or promise to teach, either hiftory or mathematics, or ancient literature, or moral philofophy; and as it is poffible that they may be defective in all, it is highly probable that of fome they will be ignorant. They are paid, indeed, by private contributions; but their appointment depends on the head of the houfe: their dili gence is voluntary, and will confequently be languid, while the pupils themfelves, or their parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change. The first tutor into whofe hands I was refigned appears to have been one of the beft of the tribe: Dr. Waldgrave was a learned and pious man, of a mild difpofition, ftrict morals, and abstemious life, who feldom mingled in the politics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the university; his learning was of the laft, rather than VOL. I.

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