183 1 .] The Silent Sinter. 



diffuse a languor over his character, and reduce to a " minimum" his 

 utility to the public. But the individual is not to blame ; it is the 

 system we visit with our censure. Shew us the man who covets the 

 dust and sweat of battle, when he has already secured the spoils and 

 honours of the victory. 



We are now arrived at the " Corinthian capital " of the academic co- 

 lumn the Seven Senior Fellows, or Heads of the College, as they are 

 sometimes humorously denominated. In the case of each of these dig- 

 nitaries, we find no fewer than from eighteen hundred to two thousand 

 dissuasives from intellectual labour, each of the value of one pound 

 sterling, good and lawful money of the realm, the regular proceeds of 

 the college property in land and money*. 



Riches, says Verulam, are " impedimenta virtutis ;" may it not be said 

 with equal truth, that they are " impedimenta mentis?" You endow an 

 individual with near two thousand pounds a-year, and you expect him to 

 advance knowledge in return ! It is the height of unreasonableness. 

 The age of chivalry is over in literature, as well as in love. Perhaps, 

 with diligence, you might discover a single Quixote ; but if yjou want 

 seven champions of the same mettle, your only chance is in Plato's common- 

 wealth, or Utopian land. Certes, the boldest scepticism as to the learning 

 and capacity of the board prevails in the quarter which enjoys the largest 

 opportunities for forming a correct opinion on the subject. Amongst the 

 students, the hardihood of free-thinking goes the length of asseverating, 

 that in number only do the Senior Fellows admit of being compared 

 with that first philosophical society on record the seven wise men of 

 ancient Greece. If luminaries they must be called, say these daring 

 doubters, it is certainly of that order, whose light, astronomers inform us, 

 has not yet completed its journey to the earth. Their brilliancy, they 

 continue, is matter of faith ; you may believe in it if you please ; for our 

 part, we walk by sight, and we shall support the opaque hypothesis until 

 our eyes convince us of its falsehood. Various anecdotes are related in 

 confirmation of these sentiments. In a conversation on the tithe-system, 

 one learned but not reverend Doctor, defending the establishment with 

 his usual eloquence and acumen, declared that far from receiving the 

 " tenth/' he had reason to believe the parsons seldom obtained so much 

 as the "fifth" But no anecdote is so frequently repeated as the follow- 

 ing. When Mr. Canning visited Dublin, five or six years ago, he was 



conducted through the college by the Rev. Dr. P ; and the story 



runs, that the former, having fixed his eye upon an oriental manuscript 

 in the Museum, asked his learned Cicerone for some information concern- 

 ing it. t( It belonged," said the Doctor, " to a person of the name of Hyder 

 Ali, but who Hyder All was I do not take upon me to say." It is fair to 

 add that the gentleman who made this celebrated reply is not the " Pro- 

 fessor of Modern History." 



It is very much to the credit of the University of Dublin, that in spite 

 of the shackles in which her defective constitution binds her members, 



* The revenues of this establishment are generally allowed to be very great. If 

 public utility was to be measured by opulence of endowment, the benefits conferred 

 on the nation by the University of Dublin would be pronounced to be of the highest 

 order. The exact amount of the collegiate property has, however, always eluded 

 investigation. The pockets of the board are as inscrutable as fate. A kind of 

 Rosicrucian mystery envelopes this golden subject. It is common to see livings 

 of fifteen and eighteen hundred a-year rejected by nine or ten Fellows in succes- 

 sion. 



