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The natural history contained in this tract seems to be as apocryphal, for the most part, as the rest of the matter, which is, upon the whole, about the least valuable and interesting of any hitherto redeemed from obscurity by the Hakluyt Society. But, to make up for this falling short, the third and last piece in the volume is one of the most lively interest. This account of "God's power and providence, showed in the miraculous preservation of eight Englishmen left by mischance in Greenland, anno 1630, nine moneths and twelve dayes," is a reprint of an extremely scarce tract. It has been before reprinted in Churchill's collection, but an analysis of it will be new to most of our readers.

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The writer of this tract, Edward Pelham, himself one of the eight who passed the most marvellous polar wintering on record, prefaces his narrative by challenging all former tales of endurance and peril in the same kind to compare with his. He makes particular reference to the wintering of Barentz and his men, of which we have already given our readers a sketch, and justly maintains, that the hardships of the Dutchmen's winter were not comparable to those of the eight English. These eight, being employed in the service of the right worshipfull company of Muscovie merchants" on a whaling expedition, were despatched from their ship to hunt and kill "venison" for the ship's provision. All that they took with them was "a brace of dogs, a snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box," with victuals for a few days while hunting. The second day their ship "was forced so farre to stand off into the sea to be cleare of the yce" that they lost sight of her, and they thought it best to hunt along shore, in the direction of Green-harbour, the rendezvous of the whaling fleet. On arriving there, after seventeen days, the ships were gone, nor were they to be found on any part of the neighbouring coasts. Here, then, these men had to winter, with a brace of dogs, a tinder-box, and a firelock for all their provision; the coast and climate being such that, a short time previously, some malefactors who had been offered life on condition of making the experiment of passing one winter at this whaling station, on being taken to the spot, "conceived such a horror and inward feare in their hearts, as that they resolved rather to returne to England to make satisfaction with their lives than there to remaine." Nine men, who had been left by a similar accident and by the same captain (!), were found dead on the following year, "cruelly disfigured by the savage beares and hungry foxes." After a short fit of prostration, they "began to conceive hope even out of the depth of despaire. Shaking off therefore all childish and effeminate feares, it pleased God to give us hearts like men."

In order to make the best use of the

very few days of open weather remaining, they travelled back in their shallop to the hunting-grounds near Green-harbour, and succeeded, before the frost put a stop to hunting operations, in killing venison enough to go a good way towards a winter provision. Returning with their store to the whaling station at Bell Sound, with the intention of returning for more, if the weather permitted, they "were overtaken with night. The next day was Sunday: wherefore" (although their very existence seemed to depend on a day's work more or less,) "wee thought it fit to sanctifie the rest of it; taking the best course wee could for the serving of God Almighty, although wee had not so much as a booke." The next day they made small way on account of bad weather. They had to pass a second night on the shore; and, on waking in the morning, saw that both their boats had been overturned, and were "swimming up and downe the shoare" empty of their lading of venison and whale-offal (found at Greenharbour), upon which their only hope of existence depended. Fortunately they managed to recover from the "high-wrought sea" not only their shallops, but much of their provision, a good deal of it much the worse for the brine. With this they at last reached Bell Sound, and proceeded to settle themselves for the winter, which was already upon them. Within a large "tent" or building used by the coopers during the whaling season, these hearty fellows built themselves a smaller apartment, with a Robinson-Crusoe-like thoroughness of comprehension of what they required, and excellent economy of their miserable means, which chiefly consisted of another ruined shed from which they obtained some boards, the bricks of the chimneys of some "boiling furnaces," an old bed, and the skins of the slain venison. With these they constructed quite a cosy and wind-proof apartment within the coopers' house. Their "next care was for firing to dresse their meate withall, and for keeping away the cold." Some "casks and crazie shallops," abandoned by former expeditions of the whaling company, afforded a considerable store; and their provisions were further increased by three "sea-horses" which were opportunely slain. When all had been done, and the winter was upon them, "finding our proportion too small by halfe for our time and companie, we agreed among ourselves to come to an allowance, and to keepe Wednesdayes and Fridayes fasting-dayes, excepting from the frittars or graves of the whale, a very loathsome meate." Some oil, found in the coopers' "tent," fed a lamp which they constructed out of a piece of sheet-lead and rope-yarn, during the long polar night; and thus, humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and casting ourselves down before him in prayer two or three times a-day, which course we constantly held all the time of our

misery," they passed the time from August of one year to May the 25th of another, when "there came two ships of Hull, and thus, by the blessing of God, came we all eight of us well home safe and sound."

And thus concludes for the present this series of admirablyedited publications. The "Report for 1855" contains a long list of "works in progress," which promise at least to equal in interest those which we have now noticed,-necessarily in a most imperfect manner; for ten times our space might have been well filled by the review of these sixteen issues of the Hakluyt Society.

ART. III.-UNIVERSITY REFORM:-CAMBRIDGE.

Report of the Commissioners for the Reform of the University of Cambridge. 1852.

Correspondence of the Cambridge Commissioners with the Government. 1855.

Bill for the Reform of the University of Cambridge. 1855.
Hansard's Debates. 1855.

Statutes of the University of Cambridge, from the 13th to the 16th century. By J. Heywood. 2 vols. Bohn, 1855.

Cambridge Calendar. Deighton, Cambridge, 1856.

Oxford Essays. J. W. Parker and Son, London, 1855.
Cambridge Essays. J. W. Parker and Son, London, 1855.

THE bill for the reform of the University of Cambridge, which will in all probability be again submitted to Parliament this year, as it originally stood embodied to a certain extent the proposals contained in the report of 1852. It was further modified by the Government, in partial compliance with the remonstrances contained in a letter written by five of the commissioners to the Government in the spring of last year, and, as finally amended, contained provisions of the following kind for the reform of the constitution of the University. It proposed, in the first place, to abolish the caput. This body is a committee consisting of six members, holding office for one year. To them all graces, or resolutions, to be laid before the senate, are submitted; any member has a veto upon the measures proposed, and has it thus in his power to postpone them during his tenure of office. The committee is framed in accordance with the ancient constitution of the University. It contains one representative of each of

the three faculties of theology, law, and medicine; one member of the non-regent house, which consists of those M.A.'s who have upwards of five years' standing, and one member of the regent house, which is composed of those who have less; and finally, the vice-chancellor, who is always the junior head of a college. The graces submitted to this body are prepared by the heads of houses, who have thus not only the right of preparing all business for the senate, but have also, through the vice-chancellor's vote in the caput, the power of peremptorily putting a stop to any proceedings of which they may disapprove. The objections to this system are so obvious, that no one defends it; but there is some difference of opinion as to the nature of the body which is to replace it. The government proposed last year a body, to be called the Council of the Senate, which was to consist of four heads of houses chosen by the heads, four professors chosen by the professors, and eight resident members of the senate chosen by the resident members of the senate, half of each of the three constituent parts going out of office every two years. The commissioners wished the whole of the body to be elected by the resident members of the senate, as the corresponding body at Oxford is elected by the congregation. As to its powers, no question was raised. It was to prepare and to approve of all graces to be laid before the senate by a simple majority, and not, as was the case with the caput, by a unanimous vote. The bill also empowered the University to grant licenses to members of the senate to open their residences for the reception of students, who were to be matriculated and admitted to all the privileges of the University without being of necessity members of any college, and to make regulations for the government of such establishments when so opened; and in order to insure the exercise of these powers, it enacted, that if the University did not frame such regulations to the satisfaction of the commissioners appointed by the bill within a year, it should be incumbent on the commissioners to proceed themselves to frame the statutes necessary to supply the defect. The bill also conferred upon the colleges, subject to the approval and control in case of default by the commissioners, many powers in relation to the college statutes and revenues; but it contained no provision for the reform of the University statutes, -a most important omission,-and made no reference to the commissioners' proposal for the institution of a general board of studies. The bill further enacted, that no oaths or subscriptions shall be necessary for any lay degree; but that no person shall become a member of the senate unless he has signed a declaration of membership of the Church of England,-an unnecessary restriction, which concedes the principle, and takes away the

grace of the concession. Coupling this, however, with the power which Dissenters will have under the statute of opening halls of their own, the question may be considered as practically, though most ungracefully, settled, at least for the present.

The solution of the questions at issue between the commissioners and the Government is so inextricably mixed up with the more general question of the functions of the University, that we do not propose to discuss them in detail. Contenting ourselves with the general statement that we are on the whole decidedly in favour of the adoption of the recommendations of the commissioners, we will go on to state the principles which have led us to that conclusion.

The general object of the bill, when amended as proposed, is the transfer of the government of the University from the heads of houses to the resident members of the senate.

This has been represented as being nothing more than a contest between what Lord Lyndhurst calls the "grave" and the "youthful" elements in that body. We can well understand the policy of representing the question as being merely one between Conservative and Liberal; but this is not the way to arrive at the merits of any question, least of all such a question as this. Indeed, to any one whose recollections of Cambridge are somewhat more recent than those of the strange old man who, having passed that extreme limit of human life at which strength is but labour and trouble, retains almost all the strength and eloquence which were so conspicuous in the last generation but one,-to younger men, the notion of a wild democracy of resident masters of arts is a great deal more strange than that of a frantic mob of quakers, or a bloodthirsty crew of orators from Exeter Hall. The sheep whom his lordship's imagination invests with wolves' clothing are by taste and habit amongst the most conservative of mankind, and are about as likely to injure the constitution of the body to which they belong by rash reforms, as the ingenuous youth who come up to college from year to year to justify their mothers' alarms by over-application to their studies. We do not like to substitute generalities for facts; but it would be much more like the truth to say that the real question at issue is a question between the colleges represented by the heads of houses, and the University represented by the members of the senate. We believe the question to be one which goes to the very root of all University reform, and that upon its solution the whole character of Cambridge education will depend.

Whoever reads the Elizabethan statutes-still, be it remembered, nominally in force-will be struck by the circumstance that their object is to effect something which no one now attempts. They prescribe a regular curriculum, enforced by

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