every individual, whether he attended or not. And further, an incredible and a lamentable change has come over the university within the last few years, if there are not numbers of most valuable men availing themselves of her training, to whom the additional 47. 10s. yearly would prove a serious infliction. It is true that the expense of a private tutor's services for one term is as great as the proposed fee for four years; but it is not reasonable to argue thus from an acknowledged grievance and nuisance, which ought to be, if possible, abated—at any rate not converted into a precedent. Second, by a subscription. This seems neither creditable nor fair: because, if this were the resource, of course far the heaviest portion of the burden would fall on those who are experimentally most convinced of the necessity of the case; and these are precisely the working residents, who, as a body, can least afford to be taxed in purse; and who, as it is, are actually taxed to the full amount of their energies in carrying out and improving the system. Third, by annexing the free canonries of Christ Church to the more important unendowed professorships. And certainly this would be a much better reform than that light-fingered appropriation of ecclesiastical revenues which threatens to shake the security of all the property in the country, by setting the example of an agrarian law in the most modern and most mischievous sense of the term. There is one, at least, of the starveling professorships-that of moral philosophy-to which such an endowment would be strictly applicable; and, possibly, the same might be fairly done for the professorship of Greek, which, as stated above, has at present only the original 40l. yearly. Nor do we see why such an endowment should not still take place (if the principle were approved), in addition to the two new divinity. professorships now proposed to be created and annexed to two of the stalls. The chairs of ecclesiastical history and biblical criticism will be a great boon to the University, if they, as well as the existing ones, be well regulated so as to systematise the study of theology. Otherwise they will only be a source of perplexity, and perhaps of danger. To this end it will be desirable to assign definite departments to the two existing professorships, as well as to the proposed ones. This is done in Germany, perhaps overdone, but still with good effect: though it is too often nullified by the right which each professor has to lecture in any other depart *Only one regius professor of Greek in Oxford (Henry Cuffe, 1590-1597) has died a layman. See Wood's Annals. And Professor Pusey, we believe, has observed that, with the exceptions of Stanley and Porson, all the great scholars of England have been of the clerical body. ment ment of his faculty as well as his own. For instance, suppose the professor of Dogmatik wishes to increase his income, or annoy his colleagues, he gives, over and above his doctrinal lectures, one course on Liturgik, another on Apologetik, another on Hermeneutik, another on Exegetik, and so on, notwithstanding the existence of professors in these various departments. This, of course, must be guarded against; but it will not be difficult to do so. But there are still two out of the eight stalls which might, it would seem, be annexed to the above-named professorships. And most certainly nothing could seem more likely to further the interests of the University than that a body of her most distinguished members should always have the adventitious influence of such a position, in addition to their personal and official authority. Fourth, by aid from the crown. We believe that England stands alone in civilised Europe as a country where the government does not acknowledge and attempt to fulfil the duty of providing for the efficient university education of its subjects by aiding the professors. But in England, though kings, as individuals, have done much, and though certain pensions charged upon the private estates of the crown have by exchange come to be paid out of the supplies, nothing has been ever done by the government, as such, except to tax the university. The stamp-duty on degrees and incorporations (37. for the B.A. degree, 67. for all higher), for the year ending Oct. 1838, amounted to 20581.; the duty on matriculations is about 400/.: thus the government receives as much as 24007. from the university. The direct payments from the government for professors' salaries or pensions amount to about 8721. clear, after some small sums have been deducted from some of the salaries, on account of fees paid in the government offices. Besides this, there is an annual payment of 500l. as compensation for an ancient privilege of the university to print almanacs. The whole receipt of the university from the government is therefore 13721.; leaving a balance of more than 1000l. which the government receives from the university! . If newspapers have been relieved from a heavy duty for the purpose of reducing taxes on knowledge, there is reason to hope that if ever the legislature should come to think the knowledge given by a university education worth as much as that conveyed by newspapers, they would be led by parity of reasoning to remit or reduce the taxes on the universities.'-Hussey, p. 40. We agree with the author in thinking that at present there does not seem much ground for expecting more (?) assistance in that quarter.' It is not from those who interpret zeal for thorough education as bigotry, and construe care for the inculcation of good principles into a direct personal insult to the Queen's ministers, ministers, that any favour can be expected. But, however little may be expected from such persons, we are bound to place before the eyes of public men this fact-that the state interests itself in no way with the university education of the country, except by wringing 10l. from every poor scholar who struggles to avail himself of it. A fifth proposal, which we have heard of lately, though we have not found it in print, is, to invest for this object some part annually of the funds of the Oxford university press, so long as it continues to prosper. The advantage of this is, that it would maintain the independence of the university. And we are told that at present it would be practicable: which is something, in contrast with most schemes suggested. But we speak only from report: and of course cannot, from the absence of data, attempt to judge how great or how small the obstacles to such a measure may be. Perhaps some scheme which would combine an endowment with fees, so that the professor should have not less than a certain sum, but might raise his income by strenuous exertion, would be the most advantageous, as avoiding the two opposite dangers of such appointments. In this case, of course the fees would be so low as not to prove a burden to any one. But these are matters which can only be judged of on the spot. Our attention has necessarily been confined to the general question and its importance can hardly be overrated-as bearing not only on the most vital question which at this day divides politicians, but, moreover, on the training and welfare of future generations. It may be, some considerable time will elapse before difficulties are overcome, and plans digested; but we trust to see the university pursuing her serene course, Like a star, unhasting, Like a star, unresting,' as she has hitherto done. And if she does so, it would be wrong to doubt that difficulties will pass away, and resources come to light for a new order of things: which is yet not new, but the perfecting of that which is old. ART. VII.-The Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Edited by William Stanhope Taylor, Esq., and Captain John Henry Pringle, executors of his son, John, Earl of Chatham. 4 vols. 8vo. London. 1839-40. THE temper, habits, and position of Cicero were naturally congenial to a good epistolary style, and his letters are to our taste among the very best of his works: they were, no doubt, carefully carefully revived and polished for publication, and probably lost in that process something of their lighter merits, but they are still easy and graceful, and full of miscellaneous yet interesting matter which we should in vain look for elsewhere. The letters of Demosthenes also were extant in the time of Cicero, but the half-dozen which have come down to us under his name-if indeed they be not altogether spurious-excite no great regret for the loss of the rest. A mind so laboriously trained to the severest style of eloquence would probably have little taste for, and still less command of, those light but not facile graces which constitute the chief merit of a familiar correspondence; and if we had it in our power to evoke a volume of real Athenian Letters' from the tomb, we should (at least for amusement) have no great hesitation in wishing for those of Demades rather than of Demosthenes himself. So it is with Lord Chatham. His style of mind, manners, and expression was of too high a scale to be gracefully lowered to the familiar or colloquial. It seems as if he thought it necessary to conduct the most ordinary correspondence, as Virgil was said to manure his fields, with an air of dignity: even in his most affectionate letters to his wife and children he appears to descend with reluctance from his pedestal and most readers, we think, will be of opinion that he makes a much more interesting and striking figure in Horace Walpole's Letters than in his own. Indeed, this publication fully corroborates Wilkes's designation of him as the best orator and worst letter-writer of his age.'* Not knowing what materials the editors have had at their disposal, we can give no opinion as to the judgment with which their selection has been made; but we certainly looked for much that we do not find, and we find a great deal which might have been as well omitted. The original materials seem to have been much less valuable than might reasonably have been expected; but the editors in the course of the publication fortunately obtained from Mr. Calcraft a series of letters from Mr. Pitt, and a few from Mr. Gerard Hamilton to his grandfather, and from Lord Lansdowne a correspondence between Lord Chatham and his lordship's father, while Earl of Shelburne, which are very valuable. Indeed these two classes of letters give us more insight into Lord Chatham's feelings and proceedings during the * Wilkes's Works, ii. 217. The editors are, we believe, the nearest male descendants of Lord Chatham. Mr. Taylor is the grandson of Lady Hester, his eldest daughter, first wife of the late Earl Stanhope, and Captain Pringle the grandson of Lady Harriet, the second, who married Mr. Elliot. An advertisement expresses the thanks of the ostensible editors to Mr. Wright (editor of the Parliamentary History'). 6 latter latter years of his life than we possess of any former period, and exhibit more of his personal objects and motives and of his style of playing his political game, than all the rest of the volumes put together. One great desideratum strikes us on opening the very first pages, which, however, the editors could probably not supply. With the exception of two insulated letters to Lord Chesterfield (of the date of 1741) the correspondence commences with the summer of 1746, when Mr. Pitt was already a Privy Counsellor and Paymaster of the Forces; thus leaving an hiatus of the whole of his earlier life, and for those eleven years of his parliamentary career which had elevated him to a station and importance in public opinion superior to those who enjoyed the nominal distinction of Cabinet Ministers. It is to be, on every account, regretted that the editors have not been able to find something illustrative of that interesting period, of which we know absolutely nothing but from the very meagre reports, in the periodical papers of the time, of a few of his parliamentary speeches. We believe that even under the most favourable circumstances Mr. Pitt's peculiar style of eloquence could not have been adequately preserved; but just about the time of his first, and probably most vivid displays, these reports, which had always been meagre and imperfect, became little better than miserable travesties. When Eschines exclaimed, to those who applauded his recitation of the great speech of Demosthenes, What, then, would you have said, if you had heard it from himself?' he put in the strongest view the impossibility that a mere report, even though literally accurate, could give any adequate idea of a first-rate speech. How inferior, then, we ask, must be even a modern report? And how much more imperfect the meagre shadows of Mr. Pitt's earlier speeches under the classical masquerade of Julius Florus, or the barbarous anagram of the Hurgo Ptit, in the London and Gentleman's Magazines! Before we can satisfactorily bring before our readers the contents of the volumes before us, we must offer a slight sketch of the life of Mr. Pitt (for so we at present must call him), prior to the date at which this correspondence begins. Our materials are very scanty and very trite; but such as they are, it is necessary to reproduce them, in order to give anything like a complete view of the political life of this extraordinary man. Mr. Pitt came into the House of Commons in the year 1735at the age of twenty-seven-for Old Sarum,* a family borough; and If every tree be known by its fruits, it would seem that the Reform Bill has 'hewn down and cast into the fire the stocks that have produced the most illustrious members |