OXFORD BIGOTRY AND OXFORD STUDIES. 



THE year, at whose close we have just arrived, has been distinguished 

 in the academic annals of Oxford by a religious persecution of the 

 greatest malignity, a persecution dictated by the same hideous ran- 

 cour that dragged Latimer, Ridley, and the other church-worthies to 

 the stake, and which is only less cruel, because the improved feelings 

 of modern society have thrown insurmountable difficulties in the way 

 of such malignants. The persecution of Dr. Hampden, we repeat, 

 is one of the greatest malignity ; and we question whether in the 

 annals of Anthony & Wood, dreary as they are, there will be found 

 a case, in which flagrant injustice and oppression are so disgracefully 

 remarkable. Had Dr. Hampden been a man unknown to the public, 

 who had offended the ears of orthodoxy by the setting forth of here- 

 tical views in the university pulpit, or had he, as an examining master 

 in the schools, aroused suspicions of his theological unsoundness, a fair 

 plea of justification for administering public reproof or still further 

 for ejection might easily have been made, and would have been re- 

 ceived as the painful but necessary act of an ecclesiastical university. 

 This, however, is not the case. Dr. Hampden is no novus homo, no 

 virgin candidate for the honours of the university and the church. 

 After having taken the highest honours which Alma-mater can 

 bestow on the candidates for the degree, he was elected Fellow of 

 Oriel College, an honour which all Oxford men agree in esteeming 

 very highly. The " Metropolitana" and " Britannica" claim him as 

 the writer of several of their most talented articles; and his own 

 published works attest his high and enviable acquirements. But to* 

 proceed with his" academic distinctions, in 1830 he was appointed 

 classical examiner, and those who were undergraduates at that time or 

 subsequently can testify to his high accomplishments as a scholar, 

 and no less so to the admirable tact with which he was able to elicit 

 the latent knowledge of the candidates. In 1832 Mr. Hampden was 

 the Bampton lecturer; and he chose as his subject "The influence 

 of the ancient philosophy upon the doctrines of the Christian church," 

 one quite congenial to the mind of a man, who united to a familiar 

 acquaintance with the Fathers a profound knowledge of the Aristo- 

 telian school of philosophy. The lectures were of too abstruse a cha- 

 racter to draw very large audiences; but he regularly commanded 

 the attendance of the intellectual majority in the University. Now 

 was the time for remonstrance, if any ; but no : the heads of houses 

 followed the Bedells quietly in and quietly out of St. Mary's : the ser- 

 mons were printed in due time, and four long years elapsed, before 

 the venerable sticklers for orthodoxy could pluck up courage to make 

 a charge against the Bampton lecturer. The reward of Mr. Hamp- 

 den's heterodoxy was two-fold. In 1833 the aged chancellor, no doubt 

 influenced by the recommendations of the Hebdomadal meeting, 

 appointed him Principal of St. Mary's Hall, and shortly afterwards 

 he received the doctorate. In the following year he was appointed 

 to the chair of] moral philosophy (in the room of Mr. Mills) by fauv 



