*

Oh, wondrous change! oh, magic power!
What glory on the earth hath broke?
The King's-Bench blooms into a bower,
And Beauty rises out of Coke.

In vain I turn each learned page;
And ponder Sugden o'er and o'er;
this wicked age,

Or muse upon

Or sport my double oaken door*.
In vain I flee from them, and shut
Myself up in some bowery vale;
You might as well attempt to cut
O'Connell from his Tail!

Oh, lay them with some magic line!
Some spell by Bishop or Clementi.
Alas! a witch at seventy-nine,

Is nothing to a witch at twenty!

Every Cambridge man knows the luxury of a sported (i.e. closed) door. There is, indeed, a particular knock, not to be mistaken by a practised ear, against which it is peculiarly efficacious.

A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK

ON THE

STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY.

Why, sir, a gentleman from the University stays below to speak with you."-Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619.

ALL who are acquainted with Professor Sedgwick were prepared to expect from his pen an eloquent account of the studies of this University, and of the spirit in which they ought to be pursued: and all who have read his Discourse, know how fully these anticipations have been realized. It is hoped that the following remarks, suggested by its perusal, will be received in a spirit similar to that which has dictated them. The writer has no private interest to promote; he would gain nothing from any change, except, indeed, a sensation of pleasure at beholding the removal of what appear to him imperfections and impediments.

In the Discourse, the studies of the University are divided into three branches.

1st. The study of the laws of nature, comprehending all parts of inductive philosophy. 2ndly. The study of ancient literature.

3rdly. The study of ourselves, considered as individuals, and as social beings. Under this head are included ethics and metaphysics, moral and political philosophy, and some other kindred subjects of great complexity, hardly touched on in our academic system, and to be followed out in the more mature labours of after-life.

The object of a liberal education, says Mr. Whewell, is to develop the whole mental system of man, and thus to bring it into consistency with itself; to make his speculative inferences coincide with his practical convictions; to enable him to render a reason for the belief that is in him; and not to leave him in the condition of Solomon's Sluggard, who is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. This complete mental culture must, no doubt, consist of many elements; but it is certain than an indispensable portion is such a discipline of the reasoning power, as will enable persons to proceed with certainty and facility from fundamental principles to their consequences*. No person has a higher claim to define a liberal education than he whose vigour and capacity of understanding have so easily attained it. But that muscular energy and flexibility of mind which encircle, so to speak, every study, crushing its difficulties,

豪 Thoughts on the Study of the Mathematics as a Part of a Liberal Education.

and reducing the whole into a state suited to the mental digestion, fall to the lot of few.

A liberal education is composed of many elements, and can only be properly styled liberal, according as these elements are fully combined. Perhaps the most exalted idea of such an education is contained in Milton's celebrated Tractate. It would furnish a very excellent corrective to many a scholar of the present day, whose only memorial is in the column of a Calendar, were he to read the list of acquirements set down by this great man merely as embellishments of severer studies; and all to be learnt between the ages of twelve and twenty-one. Milton seems to agree with Coleridge in requiring "a certain measure of logic, of which so much as is useful is to be employed with all her well-concluded heads and topics, until it is time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric," taught out of Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, and, let us add, Quintilian. Milton's whole argument is directed to the general cultivation of the mind, and, in a minor sense, of the body also. A similar spirit pervades Cowley's plan of a Philosophical College; the object of both being so to rear and train the mind at the same time, as to lead it up to manhood in that state of healthful fulness and symmetry which constitute moral, as well as physical, beauty.

There you see Imagination hand in hand with Reason, mutually assisting and illustrating each other, Imagination lighting the feet of Reason, and Reason restraining the riot of Imagination; an under-current of poetical feeling runs through the remarks of Milton and Cowley. Davenant called poetry the only liberal science, and in such men, nourished as it was by every stream of knowledge, it certainly deserved the name. But abandoning the wider field of inquiry, opened to us in the speculations of Milton and Cowley, let us conduct our argument into a narrower path, and examine how far the system adopted in this University fulfils our idea of a liberal education.

The number of those who pursue mathematics with a view to distinction in after-life, we apprehend to be very inconsiderable. As taught at Cambridge, the study resolves itself into a corrector and strengthener of the reasoning faculties; and the question to be discussed is, whether it be beneficial to the developement of the intellectual powers, that so large a segment of time should be devoted to the attainment of this mental discipline; whether the end corresponds with the toil; whether the fruit repays the tillage. Reading Men at the University, to employ a proverbial phrase, may be divided into two classes,-those who read for mathematical

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