162 TRACTAIIIANS 



tions respecting a town in which I resided for many years, 

 that it has exhibited a degree of partizanship in its public 

 bodies scarcely exceeded in any otlier place since the 

 passing of the Reform Bill. 



I, among many, have lived to lament the unhappy 

 division caused in our Church by the propagation of 

 tracts, and the revival of obsolete observances, emanating 

 from the sister University ; but I can entertain no appre- 

 hensions for the stability of that mode of worship which 

 has obtained for so many years, while it is supported and 

 defended by such clear, practical, common-sense views as 

 have been advocated by a Wliewell, a Sedgwick, or a 

 Philjoott — I can see no danger to its established form — 

 that is, free from the Laud-like innovations that would 

 lead us back to the verge of popery on the one hand, and 

 from the popular extravagances of the conventicle on 

 the other. 



I cannot help recording a most remarkable instance of 

 a breach of discipline by an undergraduate — remarkable 

 in the annals of the University for a gross outrage 

 committed on one of its officers. Of this I was a witness, 

 and also beheld the strange yet painful emotions it caused 

 the parent of the delinquent, whom I had known from 

 my earliest youth — he having lived within a few miles of 

 my father's residence. 



It was at Hoddesdon one morning, when changing 

 horses, that a gentleman put his head out from the inside 

 of the coach, his w^hite locks streaming in the wind, and 

 asked me if the box-seat were vacant. As one of my best 

 clients who frequently occupied that seat thus far — whose 

 name, wath that of his family, will always be held in the 



