A CHAPTER OF UNIVERSITY HISTORY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4494, 14 August 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CHAPTER OF UNIVERSITY HISTORY.

(From the Illustrated yews.)

The Rev. /Mark Pattison, 8.D., Hector of Lincoln College, Oxford, in a discourse, after commenting on the one-sided view of university life given by popular novelists, stated that, although Oxford had existed as a learned literary society above seven hundred years, yet it has not produced a single writer who has given a faithful account of its life, studies, and teaching. Antony Wood, compiler of the “ Athense Oxoniensis,” and the history, kept a diary, hut very fitful in its entries, and those mostly personal ; and yet during Ms lifetime (1032-95) the university played a most prominent part. During the civil war Oxford was the seat of government, and Wood saw Beohmanu’s lines of defence which converted the city into a strong fortress. All the students became soldiers, and the college property was absorbed by the war. When the king fled to the Scots, and the Eoundheads entered, they showed great moderation, and permitted no reprisals for the excesses of Prince Enpert's troopers. , The deserted colleges became nurseries for the Presbyterian teachers ; and the visitors appointed by Parliament in 101/, after giving sufficient time, deprived of thenplaces all who refused subscription to the Covenant. The election of Oliver Cromwell to the chancellorship in 1650 was a fortunate event, and the university enjoyed ten years’ peace. Wood describes the youthful nomination of Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, to the same office in 1661, and the visit of Charles II and his brilliant and dissolute Court, with its injurious consequences to learning. In 1686 he saw mass celebrated in University College and Christ Church with a Eomauist dean. After recounting the principal facts of the Blagdalen case in 163/, so eloquently described by Macaulay, when James 11. expelled the fellows for refusing to elect his nominee, and made a Romanist their president, the lecturer commented on the error of tire popular notion that the issue tried was either that of the dispensing power or that of the High Commission. The plea of the fellows was, as against Fanner, his objectionable character; as against Parker, the fact that they had already elected Hough ; as against the dispensation, that they had taken an oath in their statutes not to accept any dispensations. On every point they declined to make common cause with the constitutional party. They were members of a Church and University committed for three centuries to the high doctrines of prerogative and Divine right. /Nevertheless, the triumph of civil liberty over arbitrary power in ICSB was greatly indebted to their passive resistance. As an instance of subservience, the lecturer read, in conclusion, a letter froni Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church, expressing his readiness to find cause for expelling John Locke from his studentship, as the Court desired.