generally throws difficulties in the way of intellectual cultivation. Under the circumstances here described, it certainly went far to exclude a moral and religious calling also; nor in fact could it do otherwise.

The testimony which I am about to quote, may be looked upon as a rare extreme: but at all events it gives a sort of standard. Lodge (in his Illustrations, &c., iii. 391) gives a letter from the Talbot papers, in which mention is made of an ecclesiastic in the following terms:-"The minister afore named differeth little from those of the worste sorte : he hath dipt his finger both in manslaughter and perjury, &c." and yet evidently* he did not quite belong to the "worste sorte"! In the same letter we read of "a bad Vicar of Hope, who is not to be punished for the multitudes of his women, untill the bastards whereof he is the reputed father be brought in." This same Vicar was openly and zealously supported by a very respectable man and Justice of the Peace, Sir N. Bentley, in order that he might be allowed to open a beer house. Indeed, the other magistrates decided against him; and, as we before said, this case must be looked on, not as a common, but only as a very bad one: still, we cannot avoid forming from such accounts some opinion as to the whole state of things at the time. The worldly-mindedness of the higher Clergy

*

[The Author seems to interpret the words to mean; the worst sort of clergy" which is probably a mistake.]

naturally did not show itself under such coarse forms: but even there also this much-praised era of the Anglican Church has bequeathed a heritage of most questionable traits.

§ 180. Cultivation of Law at the Universities.

We cannot expect that other branches of the Academic studies should flourish more than Theology and Arts, especially in such an age. Ecclesiastical Law, properly speaking, existed no longer for the Papal Law was most severely forbidden; and the Protestant Church-Law, promised by Edward and Elizabeth, was, for very intelligible grounds, never brought forward. Civil or Roman Law, which had been much neglected before the Reformation, now pined, just in proportion as Common and Statute Law throve. The spirit which had prevailed in the recent revolution, being Northern and Germanic; cast down all the more Romanic tendencies, and with them the Civil Law.* Common Law however (as we once before stated) was not scientifically cultivated at Cambridge or Oxford; and indeed had its head quarters

* I may be allowed perhaps, without entering into further investigations which would lead me too far, to remark, that I am not ignorant how constantly the despotic characteristic of the Tudor reigns have been ascribed to the Roman Law. But, setting

aside the fact that much confusion and error took place, (for instance, in the original practice, and in the theory perhaps afterwards attempted,) these Civilian points at all events were not of the kind to have influenced the academic studies.

at the supreme Courts of Justice in London. The Inns of Court were looked upon by contemporaries as a third University: and a Law University they were, thus far; that whatever Law was studied in England, was studied there. They left in the hands of the two Universities the power of conferring degrees in the Civilian Faculty only, for which a mechanical sort of exercise sufficed.

181. Medical Study at the Universities.

Medical studies also, such as they were, had (as we have seen) estranged themselves from the Universities much earlier. The few efforts made for a revival of them, only prove by their slight duration, how unfavorable was the academic soil and atmosphere. Wood mentions in 1508 a certain Antonius Alazardus from Montpellier, who gave lectures in medicine with much success. The fact is not wonderful, remembering the great energy with which science was just then cultivated: yet no permanent effects can be traced: and the fate of the Lynacre foundation is sufficient proof how little interest was taken in these studies. This may be seen also, by the very small number of medical degrees taken. In the year 1575, Wood again mentions a foreign physician, whose lectures were much sought after; but this was only temporary, and proves at the utmost, that a part of the fault rested with the Regius Professor.

It is true that medical Professorships had been founded by Henry VIII., but medical studies naturally took up their central position in the practice and hospitals of the Capital. Capital. They had moreover already obtained there a central organ, in the Corporation of London Physicians.

§ 182. Effect on the Universities of the London College of Physicians.

This institution had been established and endowed with very extensive privileges under Henry VIII.* but its influence upon the academic studies did not take place all at once. The schismatic and reformationary movements which broke out shortly after its establishment, drove all such matters out of their common and standard course. The new corporation had indeed nothing to fear from the hostility of the Universities, which were fully occupied with very different cares; but it had to

*The foundation-deed, by which the Physicians of the Capital and seven miles round, were incorporated into a "College of Physicians," is of the date of 1518; (v. Rymer.) Lynacre, and at his instigation, Wolsey, took a considerable interest in the matter. As to the Surgeons, they too, under Henry VIII., were incorporated with the Barbers; from whom they were not separated until 1800. Most also of the great hospitals which to this day form the native high schools of

English Medicine (St. Thomas's, St. Bartholemew's and Bethlehem) were incorporated under Henry VIII: but their existence cannot be looked upon as secured, or their influence as firmly established, before Elizabeth's reign. I trust I need not assure my readers that I do not confuse the state of things at that time with what was the case afterwards; and that I am not ignorant that no clinical course of lectures, &c. then existed.

defend itself from an inundation of quacks, which burst forth, for the greater part from the abolished Monasteries and their Schools. We reach Elizabeth's reign, before we find the course of things tranquil and steady enough to warrant us in a decided judgment as to their permanent importance.

It was not, it is true, the intention of the founders of this medical corporation to place them in opposition to the Universities: on the contrary, the proposed severity of this medical police promised rather to protect the rights of the academic degree, as a qualification for higher practice. The result however no way justified the expectation. The new medical corporation had not self-denial enough to reject the independence and dignity forced upon it. It saw that the Universities exceedingly undervalued medical studies and interests, in comparison with theological disputations; while with the latter, Physicians have at no time sympathised. Medical men have never been in the very best odor with Theologians; nor were they at all comfortable at the English Universities, where every one was every moment liable to be made a theological partizan. Distrust was the more increased against the Physicians, since the more distinguished of them completed their education in France and Italy: and were thereby exposed to the charge of Indifferentism or Catholicism. Moreover Catholic agents, particularly Jesuits, not unfrequently appeared under a medical mask.