general standard of culture. Oliver Heywood, at that time an undergraduate at Trinity, tells us with much complacency how, under the influence of his Puritan instructors, he had already come to prefer writers like Perkins, Preston, Bolton, and Sibbes to Aristotle and Plato. The contempt of the soldiery for ‘carnal learning' became more and more marked; and in the month of July 1652 Cromwell found it necessary to forbid the quartering of soldiers in the colleges, and also the offering of injurie or violence to any of the students.' The Barebones Parliament even went so far as to discuss the question of suppressing the universities altogether. During the Protectorate, when the university was represented in Parliament by Richard Cromwell, a more tolerant spirit prevailed; and on 21st May 1659 it was resolved, in response to a petition from the army, that 'the universities and schools of learning shall be so countenanced and reformed as that. they may become the nurseries of piety and learning.' The Presbyterians in London and elsewhere also subscribed for the maintenance of forty scholars in each university. On the removal of Richard Cromwell, however, another reaction took place. It was proposed to remodel the universities after the Dutch fashion'; to reduce the colleges to three in each university, for the respective faculties of divinity, law, and physic, each with its own professor; and to require 'all students to go in cloaks.' The alarm created by these proposals was dissipated by the news of Monk's march for London; and on the 23rd January 1659-60 Parliament published a Declaration to the effect that they would uphold the public universities and schools of the land, and not only continue to them the privileges and advantages they then enjoyed, but would be ready to give them such further countenance as might encourage them in their studies, and promote godliness, learning, and good manners among them.' As regards the prevailing tone within the university itself, it would appear that Puritanical strictness was already on the wane; and Samuel Pepys, who entered as a sizar at Trinity in 1650, mentions in his Diary that, when revisiting Cambridge in February 1659-60, he was informed that the 'old preciseness' had almost ceased to exist. CHAPTER IX. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 1 THE Restoration was hailed by both the university and the town with signs of genuine enthusiasm and Changes at the delight, and was commemorated by the forRestoration. mer by the publication of a volume of congratulatory verses. In May and June 1660, two successive orders of the House of Lords restored the earl of Manchester to the chancellorship, and the ejected Heads to the rule of their several colleges. The fee-farm rents, which had been purchased in order to supply the deficiency caused by the stoppage of the pensions from the royal treasury, were presented to King Charles with fervent assurance of 'the tender care and loyal affection' of the university. The use of the surplice in College chapels was enjoined by a royal manifesto; but it was ordered that subscription to the Three Articles should not be made compulsory on admission to degrees. It is evident, indeed, that 1 Compositions of this kind had before this time become customary in the university on the occurrence of any especially noteworthy event; it was in a similar collection (on the death of Edward King) that the Lycidas of Milton first appeared. considerable freedom in such matters still prevailed; for at Emmanuel the surplice was not resumed, while the Liturgy and the Directory were used on alternate weeks in the chapel services. In the House of Commons, on the occasion of passing a bill for the establishment of a General Letter The Crown and Office, an amusing discussion took place as the university. to whether the name of Oxford should continue to have precedence over that of Cambridge. The difficulty of deciding the question was ultimately met by passing the proviso without naming either, but referring to them simply as the two universities.' In 1662 the Act of Uniformity was again put in force, by requiring that all Heads, fellows, chaplains, and tutors of colleges, and all professors and readers in the university, should subscribe a declaration to the effect that they held armed resistance to the Crown to be unlawful under any pretext whatever, and also promising conformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England as by law established. It soon became evident that it was by no means the royal intention to look upon these expressions of loyalty and submission as merely formal, and the use made by Charles of the universities as a means of gratifying his supporters and favourites was marked and frequent. Between the 25th June 1660 and the 2nd of the following March mandate degrees,—i.e., degrees. degrees conferred, at the royal request, on those who were academically unqualified through not having fulfilled the statutable conditions of admission, -were bestowed as follows:-D.D., 121; D.C.L., . 12; D.M., 12; B.D., 12; M.A., 2; B.C.L., I. In Question of mandate May 1662 a yet more arbitrary exercise of the prerogative took place. The fellows of Queens' College had elected Symon Pattrick, afterwards bishop of Ely, to the presidency of their college, but the election was nullified by a royal mandamus, which called upon them to accept Dr. Sparrow, a man of inferior ability and reputation. In the year 1665 the two universities, together with the royal library, acquired by Act of Parliament the right of receiving a copy of every book printed within the realm. Rise of the Platonists: Whichcote, John Smith, Henry More. Side by side with the disputatious theology and the political vicissitudes of the age, two movements were now going on which were destined materially to influence the studies of the university. Of these, the one which, at the Cudworth, and time, undoubtedly attracted the larger share of attention was the rise of that remarkable school of divines since known as the Cambridge Platonists. Among its most eminent representatives were Benjamin Whichcote (1610-1683), whose appointment to the provostship of King's has been already noted; John Smith, a fellow of Queens' (1618-1652), who, although dying at the early age of thirty-four, left behind him a volume of Discourses which are still read and admired for their eloquence and superiority to the narrow formalism of his time; Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), master of Christ's College, the author of the once well-known Intellectual System of the Universe; Henry More (1614-1687), a fellow of the same society, in whom the Platonising influences of the school reached their fullest develop |