was appointed in case of the Master of Trinity being himself a candidate for the office, it may be supposed that the founder meant the situations to be incompatible. But a rule which might exclude the fittest person from the chair was wisely dispensed with, and in fact there were two precedents of the Divinity Professorship having been held by Masters of Trinity. But a more substantial objection to the union of the functions is, that the Master, conjointly with the other electors, is to take cognizance of the Professor's conduct, and, on just occasion shewn, after due admonition, to remove him from the chair. But obstacles of this kind were no obstacles to our hero; for if an invincible will, that decrees its own effect, and makes every faculty subservient to its purpose-a faith in inward power that vanquishes all circumstances, be heroism, Bentley was a hero,*-a term often strangely misapplied to love-sick Narcissus's and pensive students.

Though he knew that six out of the seven electors would oppose him, -that the only vote he could command in the conclave was his own,though he had seen the routine of succession broken through in order to exclude Dr. Bradford, an eminent man, and afterwards Bishop of Bristol, from the Vice-Chancellorship, simply because suspected of being a Bentleian, and Dr. Grigg appointed, as it were, purposely to keep him out; though his own name had been proposed for the mere pleasure of rejecting him, "he bated not one jot of heart or hope." His first scheme was to defer the election beyond the statutable period, in order that the appointment might lapse to the crown, in which case he thought himself secure. His Majesty's return from Hanover, and the prevention of the Swedish invasion, carried the Vice-Chancellor to London, with an address, just in time to enable Bentley to assert that the lapse had taken place. This, however, was over-ruled. But his arts were not exhausted. Dr. Grigg was a most obsequious chaplain to the proud Duke, who was then Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Bentley contrived that the Duke should send his chaplain a seasonable summons, and that he should be himself appointed locum tenens. He insinuated to the government, that the surest way to make the ministerial cause triumphant in the seats of learning-in other words, to get the church into the power of the cabinet-was to countenance himself and Waterland; and laboured, not wholly in vain, to affix the stigma of disaffection upon all who opposed him; and as it was certain that all Jacobites abhorred Dr. Bentley, politician's logic would readily infer, that all who did not vote for Dr. Bentley were Jacobites. But still it is probable that the Doctor's ambition would have been balked, but for one lucky article in the foundation statutes, It is a moot point with the critics whether a hero ought to be an honest man.

that, if any of the electors were Vice-Chancellor at the time of election, the number should be filled up by the head of Queen's College. Now the head of Queen's was Bentley's idolater, Davies: Bentley himself represented the Vice-Chancellor, and was also Master of Trinity: of the two senior Fellows, Mr. Cock (of whom Bentley had prophesied that he would die in his shoes) was bed-ridden, and poor Stubbe had never shewn his face in Cambridge since his extrusion from the ViceMastership; their places were therefore supplied by Modd and Bathurst, and well supplied as far as the Master's interest was concerned, for thus he could reckon four good votes, his own inclusive. The day was set, the electors were summoned, Bentley and his friends were ready: the heads of King's, St. John's, and Christ's did not choose to be present at what they esteemed a mockery of election, and perhaps thought to invalidate the proceedings by their absence. After waiting an hour, Dr. Bentley offered himself as a candidate: no other appearing, the formalities were gone through, and by the first of May, 1717, he was Regius Professor of Divinity. Do the annals of electioneering contain any thing paralel? *

For his prælection on this occasion, he chose the disputed text in St. John's epistle,—“ For there are three which bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are One." The discourse has never been printed, nor is it known whether it be in existence. His enemies ridiculed it as savouring more of verbal criticism, than of sound theology, but perhaps with little justice. The authenticity or spuriousness of any passage, appearing in any author, can only be decided in two ways, either critically or historically, by internal or external evidence. Bentley, in his prælection, probably considered the verse critically; examined whether it harmonized with the general style of its author, and the manner of speaking in his age: in his projected restoration of the Sacred Text, he engaged to consider it historically, and to admit or exclude it, as the number and weight of manuscript authorities and testimonies of the Fathers should preponderate

*Not the least remarkable feature in this strange transaction, is the supineness and infatuation of Bentley's adversaries. Had they possessed the true electioneering spirit, old Cock would have been brought in his bed to the hustings, as we see in Hogarth's admirable print of the Tollbooth. Hearne, whose unfriendly disposition towards the Professor we have more than once had occasion to remark, thus notices the business:- "Dr. Bentley is elected Regius Professor. He was opposed by Dr. Ashton, Master of Jesus, who had got it if Bentley had not used knavery. Ashton was best qualified.---MS. Diary." Why is this Diary of Hearne's a MS.? Non cuivis contingit adire Corinthum.

Not all mankind, or even all the godly,

Can get at book in library of Bodley.

T

for or against. It would certainly argue strongly against the verse, should it appear that it was not cited at the Council of Nice, wherein Arianism was condemned, nor referred to by any Father of the first four centuries. Yet it may be doubted whether Arius, who denied not the Divinity or Filiation, but the Coeternity and Consubstantiality of the Son, would have thought it conclusive against him. "You endeavour to prove," says Bentley, in reply to a letter of a layman, whose name has not transpired, "You endeavour to prove (and that's all you aspire to), that it may have been writ by the Apostle, being consonant to his other doctrine. This I concede; and if the fourth century knew that verse, let it come in in God's name; but if that age did not know it, then Arianism in its height was beat down, without the aid of that verse; and let the fact prove as it will, the doctrine is unshaken.” If Arianism had not been beaten down without it, it would not have been beaten down with it. It is just as evasible as twenty others, and twenty others as conclusive as it. The preponderance of outward testimony seems to be against it, but the logic, the connection of thought, the very architecture of the passage, speaks strongly for it. If the seventh verse be rejected, the eighth should be rejected also. But this is no place to discuss the question. Bentley is said to have decidedly condemned the verse in his prælection.*

The duties of the Divinity Professor are important, though from the almost total neglect of the old scholastic Theology and Logic, many of them, if not altogether discontinued, have become mere matter of routine. He should moderate in the disputations in the schools, lecture twice a week, create Doctors of Divinity, and preach in Latin before the University on certain stated days. The stipend, as fixed by Henry VIII. was only forty pounds, but a change of times having rendered this salary utterly inadequate, King James I. endowed the Professorship with the three livings of Colne, Pidley, and Somersham, in Huntingdonshire, altogether above £300 annually, which Bentley, by taking the great tithes into his own hands, and letting the small tithes to rent to his Bailiff, expected to raise to £600.

But it cannot be supposed that the chiefs of the University were easy under the trick which had given them a Professor of his own

*In some of the earlier Protestant Translations the verse in question was distinguished with a different type, the discontinuance of which distinction was severely censured by Emlyn, an Arian, who was prosecuted for a work entitled “A humble enquiry into the Scripture account of Jesus Christ." Our knowledge of this fact is due to Dr. Monk; but we think it probable that the early translators rather meant to dignify the verse, than to bastardize it. Surely the Red Letter Days are not meant to be rejected out of the year.

choosing, who scarcely deigned to tender the formal respect due to their station. They only waited for an opportunity of marking their indignation, confident that the violence of Bentley would not let them wait long.

Cutting short the monotonous relation of college despotism, of which our readers must be heartily tired; not detailing how the Divine Professor turned the old dove-cote into a granary for his Somersham tithe corn, and compelled the college to pay for doing the same; how he obliged the college brewer to take his tithe malt at full price, though damaged by the insect called weevil, to the great disparagement of the fair fame of Trinity audit ale; how either he or his bailiff, Kent, effected a collusive sale of wheat, in order to raise the college rents, and make the college pay an unreasonable price for its own bread; how he made his humble servant, Richard Walker, Junior Bursar, and how Richard Walker* paid away the public money at his sovereign's discretion; how the Master of Trinity built, and planted, and erected barns, and summer-houses, and villas, and how the poor Fellows bore the burden of all—we will pass to the month of October, 1717, when his Majesty, George 1st, being at Newmarket, was invited by a gowned

There is something almost affecting in the blind devotion, the canine fidelity, of this man to Bentley. He seems to have asked for nothing but the means of serving his master. He was possessed with the passion of loyalty; and, we doubt not, would have been proud to encounter want, blows, scorn, prison, pillory, or death itself, for his liege lord. While Hacket, Ashenhurst, and others of Bentley's instruments might be suspected of being "super-serviceable knaves," Walker should be discharged of all such suspicion. What is extraordinary is, that he was not a man of scholastic pursuits, and perhaps knew more about books from handing them to the Master, than from his own studies. There was not between Bentley and Walker, as between my Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, the bond of a common hobby-horse. But there are at least, there were---some minds, to whom servitude is congenial; in whom submission is not servility, but instinct; who are pleased to annihilate their own will and individuality, and exist as mere instrumental members of another. Their glory is in their humiliation, and therefore it is no mystery that they seem the more inveterately attached the worse they are used. We cannot accord to this temper the approbation of reason. There is but one Being to whom such unconditional obedience, such self-abasement, is due. All submissions of man to man are but the steps of God's altar, or they are essentially idolatrous. Still, if there be such a thing as an amiable weakness, it is this excess of loyal affection. This slight tribute we thought due to Frog Walker, as in that age and place of nicknames he was called, from having held a curacy among the fens. The place of Junior Bursar was like that of Edile at Rome, the first step in the ladder of office; and like that, too, was charged with the care of the public buildings, &c., and the disbursements pertaining thereto. The appointment of Walker to this office enabled Bentley to give full swing to his architectural mania. This was hardly honest; but Richard's ideal of right was constituted by the Master's dictum.

deputation to honour the University with his presence, and was graciously pleased to appoint Sunday, the 6th, for that purpose; which, considering the toil, bustle, vanity, and expense, the unnecessary cooking and dressing, and all the pomp and worldliness attendant on a royal visitation, was little better than the Head of the Church commanding Sabbath-breach. No wonder that no good came of it. To Bentley fell the two-fold task of creating the Royal Doctors of Divinity (who, as we have already stated, were created at the royal fiat, without either undergoing the statutable examinations, or keeping the statutable terms,) and of entertaining the King and his suite at Trinity Lodge. The visit of another great personage, the Duke of Somerset, gave Vice Chancellor Grigg, the Duke's chaplain, who had been so notably outmanœuvred in the Professorship business, an opportunity of annoying Bentley in a small way, by bringing his patron to Trinity Lodge at a most unseasonable and unexpected time of the morning, without any previous announcement, so as to surprize the Master in his dressinggown, in the agony of preparation for the royal guest. It would require the imagination and the pencil of a Hogarth to pourtray how the proud Duke must have looked, and how the Master of Trinity looked, and how Dr. Grigg must have enjoyed his sullen apologies and angry confusion. Not content with this, the duty of conducting his Majesty from St. Mary's to Trinity College devolving upon Grigg, as ViceChancellor, he, under some pretence or other, led the King to a back gate, which had been closed to keep out the mob, and kept his anointed sovereign standing in a most filthy and unsavoury lane till intelligence of the matter could be conveyed to the great gate, where the Master was waiting in due form to receive his illustrious visitor. If all this was intended to make Bentley appear awkward in the royal presence, it was unsuccessful; for the King, declining to partake of the magnificent banquet laid out in Hall, dined privately with a few Noblemen at the Lodge, as if he had rather be Bentley's guest than the University's. The Doctor was afterwards complained of for monopolizing the honour of the royal visit, but considering the sentiments of some of the leading characters in Cambridge, it is no wonder that King George should keep aloof from indiscriminate society there.

This concerted chapter of accidents was but the omen of more serious misunderstandings. Next day, October 7th, a congregation was held in the Senate-house to finish the creation of the Royal Doctors, of whom only three, Grigg, Davies, and Waterland, as Heads of Houses, had been made in the royal presence, just to let the King see how it was done. Bentley refused to perform his office, except at the unusual rate of a four guinea fee. Many candidates demurred. Our Professor would not