need not doubt) with a reservation of the power of the University to resume its rights. Thus, in one word, was formed the present state of things, which is held to work at least moderately well in the opinion of those most concerned.

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTEENTH

CENTURY TO THE REFORMATION.

78. Torpor of the Universities while vegetating towards wealth.

AFTER the stormy period of University-life which we have described, the waves became hushed, stagnation followed, and a long ebb took place in the intellectual progress: nor did the tide of knowledge rise again, until the influx of re-opened classical literature. Yet in this interval of mental inactivity, a corporeal vegetation was going on, of immense significance to the after-condition of the academic body. The Universities were all this time quietly accumulating landed property, and the Colleges were assuming the prominence which they have ever since maintained. On this has depended the peculiar character of the English Universities; and this it is which so strikingly contrasts their new

state with the old. The change by which the new developement was wrought out, proceeded very slowly, as is to be expected of every natural organism; and the era of the Reformation was almost reached, before the revolution was complete. Of the thirty-six Colleges of the two Universities, six only date their origin later than the Reformation. Of the thirty older ones, four were already founded before the end of the thirteenth century, and eight in the first half of the fourteenth. In strictness then, these might be alleged as belonging to the earlier epoch. But this would be giving undue weight to a dry chronology; for the fact is, that their extension, their wealth and their influence, were not obtained till after the middle of the fourteenth. When their physical developement was greatly advanced, then new intellectual existence came forward in its own peculiar form. The revived study of the Classics, was the grand legacy of Roman Catholic to Protestant England; a noble gift, which, though an extorted one, it is high time for the latter to acknowledge.

During this period of transition, the life of the University was torpid. The speculative philosophy had lost its interest; the number of scholars was diminished, and the teachers had no stimulus, until classical studies reanimated them. The relation also between the Colleges and the University was as yet but ill-defined. On these subjects I must now

collect whatever is to be said.

§ 79. Ambitious efforts, in government and philosophy, by which the Middle Age exhausted itself.

The grand struggle of the Middle Ages (and under which they sank exhausted,) had been, to unite the Spiritual and the Temporal power. The attempt was first prompted by theory,-by a speculative or mystical longing of mind for the sublimest unity but such an end was too exalted to be reached by mortal efforts. Believing, as we may and do, that no mere vulgar ambition stimulated many in this dream of perfection, it is certain that nothing came of it but hatred and destruction. The two conflicting powers fell back torn and exhausted, and universal debility prevailed for no small time, while a new age was preparing.

Not dissimilar was the case with learning. In the Middle Ages with bold simplicity it had sought to take Heaven and Earth by storm; and had fallen blasted and decaying, before half of the fourteenth century was complete. At the beginning of the fifteenth, a few forms stood forth, as Gerson and his friends,-Nominalist-Mystics,-as relics of the old heroic ages: but the spirit of the former days was departed. Skill indeed and knowledge were manifested by some, in applying the old machinery to new purposes, and a vain effort to reform the Church by such a method, hastened the decline. Repetition of dead forms, mechanical

exercise of Logic and Speculation, now formed the highest intellectual occupation of the old stamp; and the new learning, when it came in, refused to blend with it. At first, classical knowledge, (the most important feature of which consisted in the study of Ancient History,) was confined to a very limited circle of persons: and it had no power to attract the mass of the nation toward the Universities, the less indeed, since so many other fields were opening for the exercise of men's energies.

§ 80. On the Wykliffite struggle, and the results of quelling it.

It is indeed remarkable, that toward the end of the fourteenth century Wykliffe and his followers had almost gained the upper hand at Oxford: and the only knowledge which his school valued, was of the positive kind. At a later period, even the study of Greek exposed a man to the suspicion of Wykliffite heresy. Nor is this wonderful: for the classical studies of Oxford in those ages were pursued in a totally different spirit from those of Italy. It was not for the admiration of beauty and indulgence of taste, but for a cultivation of solid knowledge and judgment, that the embryo-puritan of Oxford read the works of antiquity, unknowingly preparing materials for the great reformationary movements which were to follow.