UNIVERSITY. 
Tliere are noblemen graduates, doctors 
in the different faculties, and bachelors ot 
divinity (who have been masters ot arts), 
whose names are on the boards, and are a 
members of the Senate ; they reside m the 
University occasionally, but have no fur- 
ther claim upon a college than the general 
respect due to their rank in the honours ot 
the former; their charges are inconsider- 
able for keeping their names on the boards, 
being about tour pounds per aimum. 
Graduates, neither members of the Se- 
nate, nor in statu pupillari are bachelors 
of divinity, and denominated four and 
twenty men, or ten-year men. These are 
generally clergymen that procure the dig- 
nities of the University in addition to their 
■wealth and preferment at an easy rate, 
without the formalities of an education 
within its jurisdiction. Oxford does not 
permit this method ot partaking of acade- 
mic titles, and indeed the possessors of 
them enjoy but little reputation derived 
from such at Cambridge. They are tole- 
rated by the statutes of Elizabeth, which 
allow'S persons who are admitted at any 
college, when twenty-foir- years of age, and 
upwards, after ten years (during the last two 
of which they must reside the greater part 
of three several terms) to become bache- 
lors of divinity, without taking any prior 
degree. 
Bachelors of law and physic sometimes 
put themselves to the unnecessary expense 
of keeping their names upon the boards 
till they obtain the distinction of doctors ; 
bachelors of arts, on the contrary, who are 
in statu pupillari, and pay for tutorage, 
whether resident or non-resident, generally 
keep their names on the boards to evince 
their desire of becoming candidates for fel- 
lowships, or members of the Senate; they 
may, however, erase their names, and save 
the expenses of tutorage and college detri- 
menta, and take the degree of A. M. after 
the usual time, by inscribing their names a 
few days before their incepting, and paying 
a quarter’s tutorage; some of these are 
called bachelors commoners, as they are 
allowed to dine with the fellows, and when 
under graduates they were fellow com- 
moners. 
The fellow commoners are almost univer- 
sally the younger sons of titled persons, or 
the sons of men of ancient families and pro- 
perty ; the denomination of those most pro- 
bably' originated from the privilege they 
enjoy of dining with the fellows. There 
gre some few exclusive rights attached to 
the rank of fellow commoners, but they 
chiefly apply to the usages of the hall and 
chapel, besides which their academic habits 
are ornamented with gold or silver. Pensi- 
oners and scholars pay for tlieir rooms, com- 
mons, &c. Those who enjoy scholarships 
read the graces, lessons in the ritual, &c. Of 
the sizars it has been observed, they are gene- 
rally men of inferior fortune, though fre- 
quently by their merit they succeed to the 
highest honours in the University. Theyusu- 
ally have tiieir commons free, and receive, va- 
rious emoluments, by which means they are 
enabled creditably to proceed through their 
comse of education. Most of our cliurch 
dignitaries have been of this order. 
Such is the general outline of an English 
University, a constitution the work of ages, 
with numerous perfections, and with very 
few errors ; our confined limits will not 
permit us to enlarge as we could wish upon 
the forms adopted in the arduous undertak- 
ing of teaching the sciences and a taste for 
polite literature united, but we may safely 
say they seem such as are best calculated 
for the final purpose and to excite emula- 
tion, and we are supported in this assertion 
by the fact that no other Universities have 
excelled those of England and Great Bri- 
tain, in the aggregate, in the production of 
excellent philosophers and respectable di- 
vines. Supei-ficial knowledge is held in no 
kind of estimation at either of our great 
seminaries, the very essence and causes, as 
well as effects, must be explored to satisfy 
the expectations of the various professors, 
formed by long experience and unexhausted 
assiduity; a young man must therefore 
study vigorously, and without relaxation, 
for two years and one quarter, ere he ven- 
tures to appear in a public exercise before 
the University. The first year is occupied by 
lectures from Euclid, with the first six books 
of which he must be thoroughly acquainted, 
and the principles of algebra, plane trigo- 
nometry, and conic sections. Different 
colleges have their peculiar systems, but 
mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, fluxions, 
and a part of Newton’s Priticipia, with the 
method of increments, differential method, 
and similar miscellanea, are the pursuits of 
the second year ; to the third beloiig.s astro- 
nomy, the Principia already mentioned, 
spherical trigonometry, the most difficult 
and important parts of fluxions, algebra, 
and geometry : his last term, or the first 
term of the fourth year, requires all the 
energies of his mind; he is now more 
deeply engaged in the arduous conflict (jf 
