Bachelors present. (2.) As the number of the Inceptors in Arts every year exceeded two hundred, it could not have been difficult, one would think, for the Proctors to find among them some able and willing to act as "Respondent" and "Opponents" in the philosophical discussion. It had been provided, however, by a decree in 1582, that "whenever fit men should not be found" among the Inceptors, then the Vice-Chancellors should be entitled to choose the Disputants from among the Masters of Arts of not more than four years' standing. In some similar way, but seemingly by a kind of popular election, was chosen another functionary connected immediately with the philosophical disputation, but deemed an important figure in the Commencement as a whole. This was the Prævaricator," or "Varier" — the licensed humorist or jester of the occasion, whose business it was to enliven the proceedings with witticisms in Latin, and hits at the Dons. He seems to have existed rather by right of custom than by statutory recognition; but his pranks were so much relished, especially by the younger men, that the Commencement would have been thought a tame affair without him.1

The preparations for the Comitia having all been made, the Bedels began, about seven o'clock in the morning, to muster the various orders in the University for the ceremonial of the day. The procession, when completed, moved on to St. Mary's Church, where the Vice-Chancellor, the Doctors of his faculty, and the Father in Divinity and his sons, took their places at the west end; the other Fathers with their sons distributing themselves in other assigned parts of the church. The remaining space was filled with spectators - the more distinguished visitors in the best places. By the time that all were seated it was about eight o'clock. The assembly was then opened by a prayer and a short speech by the Moderator in Divinity; after which came the business of the day:-(1.) The Divinity Act and Graduations. The Father in Divinity introduces this part of the business by a short speech, and, on being desired by the Proctor, calls up the Respondent in Divinity. The Respondent, after a prayer, reads the positions or theses which he has undertaken to maintain; and, while he is doing so, "the Bedels deliver verses and groats to all Doctors present, as well strangers as gremials," the distribution of such Latin verses on the subjects in debate, and also of small coins, being, it seems,

1 The various regulations respecting the I. 307); Grace of 1582 (Dyer I. 286); Grace great Comitia are contained in Chap. xxxii. of the Statutes, and in the following modifying Graces and Decrees: Decree of 1575 (Dyer

of 1608 (Dyer I. 228-231); Grace of 1624 (Dyer I. 236); and Decree of 1626 (Dyer I. 293-4).

an old academic custom.

The Respondent having stated and expounded his theses, was then tackled by a series of Opponents -each, after a short preliminary speech, propounding a series of arguments in rigid syllogistic form, which the Respondent was to answer on the spot one by one in the same form, but with a little more liberty of rhetoric. It was the business of the Moderator all the while, to keep the debators to the point; and no speaker was to exceed half an hour continuously. When the last of the Opponents had been "taken off," the Moderator made a suitable compliment to the Respondent; and the Act was ended. (It seems to have been not uncommon, as we have said, to have two distinct Divinity Acts, with different Respondents.) By this it was between eleven and twelve o'clock, and time to proceed to the ceremony of graduation. Accordingly, beginning with the senior Inceptor, and passing on to the rest, the senior Proctor went through the necessary formalities. Each Inceptor, placing his right hand in the right hand of the Father, pledged his faith respecting his past and his future observation of the statutes, privileges, and approved customs of the University; then, placing his hand on the Book, he swore that he would continue his Regency for two years, and also that he would not commence in any faculty, or resume his lectures, in any other University except Oxford, or acknowledge as a Doctor in his faculty any one graduating in it anywhere in England, except in Cambridge or Oxford; and, finally, he read from a printed copy a solemn profession of his faith in the holy canonical Scriptures, and in the holy Apostolic Church as their lawful interpreter. These ceremonies, applied to each Inceptor, with certain forms with a cap, a ring, etc., and certain words spoken by the Vice-Chancellor, completed the creation of the Doctors in Divinity. (2.) The philosophical Act and Graduations in Arts. Of this part of the proceedings, which usually began between twelve and one o'clock, the following is a succinct official account:- "The Proctor, presently after he hath sworn the Inceptors in Divinity, begins his speech; which ended, the Father in Philosophy, having his eldest Son on his left hand, beginneth his speech, and, at the end thereof, creates his Son by putting on his cap, etc. Then the Varier or Prævaricator maketh his oration. Then the Son maketh a short speech and disputeth upon him. Then the Answerer (Respondent) in Philosophy is called forth, and, whilst he is reading his position, the Bedels distribute his verses, etc. When the position is ended, the eldest Son and two Masters of Arts reply upon him. The senior Master of Arts usually makes a speech

before he replieth; but the second Opponent doth not." By the time the act was ended, and the Moderator had dismissed the Respondent with a compliment, it was usually between two and three o'clock. The ceremonies of graduation immediately followed; being, with some alterations in the words of the Oaths and the other forms, the same as in the graduation of the Doctors. The Inceptors of King's College were graduated first, to the number of about ten or twelve; after which, in order to save time, the Proctor stood up and said " Reliqui expectabunt creationem in scholis philosophicis." ("The others will wait their creation in the philosophical schools.") Accordingly, the remaining two hundred or so adjourned immediately from the church to the public schools, accompanied by the Father, the Proctor, and one of the Bedels; and there they were "knocked off" more rapidly. (3.) The Law Act, and the creation of the Law Doctors followed next, and then the Physic Act (if there was one) and the creation of the Doctors of Physic. About an hour each was deemed sufficient for these Acts; after which, and a speech from the Proctor, apologizing for any omissions and defects, came the closing Music Act, in the shape of a hymn. By this time it was near five o'clock, and all were well tired.1

Such, sketched generally, was the order of the proceedings at those annually recurring " Commencements," recollections of which lived afterwards pleasantly in the memories of Cambridge men, when much else was forgotten. In order to fill up the sketch, the reader must imagine the variations of the proceedings according to time and circumstance; the bustle and flutter of the gowned assembly; the goings out and comings in during the nine hours of the ceremonies; the gesticulations of the speakers; the applause when a syllogism was well delivered; the bursts of laughter when the Prævaricator made a hit; and, above all, the havoc of meat and wine with which the fatigue of the day was broken while it lasted, and finally made good when it was over.

The Commencement of 1628 seems to have been nowise extraordinary, except in the single fact, then hardly noted, that Milton of Christ's had something to do with it. Eleven new Doctors of Divinity were created, two new Doctors of Law, and three of Medicine; and the number of those who graduated M. A. was 216. There were two Divinity Disputations in one of which the

1 The above account has been derived partly from the Statutes and Graces already referred to, and partly from a contemporary official code of the ceremonies of the Univers

ity, left in MS. by John Buck, one of the Esquire Bedels, and printed as Appendix B. to Dean Peacock's "Observations on the Statutes." Buck was Bedel as late as 1665.

Respondent was Dr. Belton of Queen's; in the other ir. Chase, B. D., of Sidney Sussex College. Belton's theses were these: “ 1 Auctoritas Sacræ Scripturæ non pendet ab ecclesia. 2. Defectus gratiæ non tollit dominium temporale” (“1. The authority of the Sacred Scriptures does not depend on the Church. 2. Want of grace does not take away the right of temporal dominion"); Chase's theses were these: "1. Secessio Ecclesiae Anglicanæ a Romanâ non est schismatica; 2. Fides justificans præsupponit veri nominis pœnitentiam" ("1. The secession of the English from the Roman Church is not schismatic; 2. Justifying faith presupposes true repentance"). It was not, however, for either Belton or Chase, but for the Respondent in the Philosophical Act in the same Comitia, that Milton performed the poetic service to which he alludes in his letter to Gill. Unfortunately, the authority from which we learn the names of the Theological Respondents and the subjects on which they debated, gives us no similar information. respecting the Philosophical Act. Milton's own letter, however, distinctly states that the Respondent on the occasion was one of the Fellows of Christ's College. I conjecture that the Respondent was Alsop, Sandelands, or Fenwicke.

Whoever the Respondent was, we know the subject of the debate. In the preceding year (1627) there had been published by the University press of Oxford a book which still holds its place in libraries as of some speculative merit- the Rev. Dr. George Hakewill's "Apologie of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World; or an Examination and Censure of the Common Errour touching Nature's perpetuall and Universal Decay." Hakewill was Archdeacon of Surrey. He had published several theological treatises prior to his "Apologie." The tenor of that work is indicated by the title, and by the text of Scripture placed on the title-page (Eccl. vii. 10):-"Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." Proceeding on this text, the author combats, in four successive books, the notion, so common with poets and rhetoricians, and even with a certain class of philosophers and divines, that Nature was subject to a law of. gradual degeneracy, and that there was evidence of the operation of this law in the state of present as compared with past times.

1 Harl. MS. (one of Baker's) No. 7038. This MS. gives brief annals of the University year by year, usually mentioning, inter alia, the names of the Theological Respondents at the

great Comitia, etc.; but it seldom notices the accompanying Philosophical Acts. On inquiry I found that no records of these are kept among the University archives.

The work produced a more than ordinary sensation. It was talked of at Cambridge as well as at Oxford. The question which it discussed was well adapted for debate, being, in fact, that question between belief in progress and belief in no such thing, which has lasted almost to our own days. The theologians of the old school found heresy in Hakewill; but the less ponderous spirits liked him, and the doctrine of his book was selected as a thesis for the Philosophical Disputation at the Commencement of 1628. This appears from the title and strain of the verses which Milton wrote for the Respondent, to be distributed during the debate. The verses are Latin Hexameters, headed " Naturam non pati senium” (“That nature is not subject to old age"). We subjoin a version of as much of the piece as will indicate its character:

"Shall, then, the face of nature, disfigured by furrowing wrinkles, grow thin and lean, and the public mother of all things become barren with age, and contract her allproducing womb? Shall she, confessing to old age, walk with uncertain footsteps, tremulous even to her starry head? Shall foul antiquity and the eternal hunger and rust and thirst of years tell on the stars themselves; and shall sateless time eat up the heavens and gorge the father that begat it? Shall it be that sometime the scaffoldings of the great arch shall give way and thunder down in tremendous ruin, and the two poles crack with the jar of the collision, and the Olympian himself fall from his throne on high? Thou, also, Phœbus, shalt imitate the fall of thy son, and shalt be borne downwards with swift ruin in thy headlong chariot, so that Nereus shall smoke with the extinction of thy torch, and the sea in astonishment shall hiss thy obsequies! . . . But, no! The Almighty Father, founding the Universe more securely, took care," etc.

From the close of the letter to Gill it appears that Milton did not mean to return home during the long vacation, but to spend at least a good part of it in hard and recluse study at College. Accordingly, his next letter, dated the 21st of July, is also from Cambridge. It is addressed to Thomas Young at Stowmarket:

"TO THOMAS YOUNG.

"On looking at your letter, most excellent preceptor, this alone struck me as superfluous, that you excused your slowness in writing; for, though nothing could come to me more desirable than your letters, how could I or ought I to hope that you should have so much leisure from serious and more-sacred affairs as to have time always to answer me especially as that is a matter entirely of kindness, and not at all of duty? That, however, I should suspect that you had forgotten me, your so many recent kindnesses to me would by no means allow. I do not see how you could dismiss out of

1 A second edition of it was published in 1630; a third in 1635. Dugald Stewart, if I mistake not, praises the work.