We can find room for only one clause more, but that is an important one :-" Of the proposals which affect the university, the most important are those which we (the commissioners) have made for remodelling the constitution and for abolishing the existing monopoly of the colleges and halls, by allowing students to reside at Oxford without the expenses of connection with those bodies. In regard to the colleges, we would especially urge the immediate necessity of opening the fellowships and scholarships, of attaching professorships to certain colleges, of increasing the number and value of scholarships, of granting to the colleges the power of altering the statutes, and, above all, of pro they are admitted? But before these questions could be asked, up gets the home secretary, and tells us that the thing has not been sufficiently considered-that some of his colleagues do not approve of it-that the thing is withdrawn-he will not press it. I must say, if it had happened to me to propose such a Reform Bill on one night, and on the next sitting of the house to withdraw it, because it had not been sufficiently considered, I think that to the end of my life I should never have talked of the exceeding evil of reopening of the question of reform;-to the end of my life I should never have read any man a lecture on the extreme prudence and caution with which he should approach ques-hibiting as unlawful the oaths to observe the tions of organic change." 46 Murmurs were already beginning to be heard, near and far, that Mr. Gladstone was not the most "fit and proper man" to represent Oxford. But it is of more consequence to note that the blue-book report of the Oxford University Commission, a slight work of 900 folio pages, made it very plain that the new broom so long needed at that ancient centre of learning was ready for sweeping purposes, and would not be kept out much longer. "If," said the commission, we look only to their statutes, the colleges of Oxford are now what they were in the times of the Plantagenets and Tudors, and if the Laudian code be binding, the University of Oxford is now what it was in the time of King Charles I.; but in fact, almost every distinct purpose and every particular object of the founders, almost every detail of government and administration has been neglected or superseded." This was, of course, an inevitable result of the lapse of time. How agreeable this association with the memory of the stupid and bloodthirsty bigot who treated the author of Zion's Plea against Prelatry (the father of Archbishop Leighton) with a life-long cruelty, the details of which will now hardly bear reading. It was part of the plan of the commissioners that past alterations of the Laudian code should be indemnified, and full power given for all future alterations or abrogations of statutes, some few fundamental reservations excepted. statutes." The Parliamentary Oaths question was kept alive during nearly the whole of the year 1852 by the case of Mr. Alderman Solomons, member for Greenwich, who had taken his seat, and the oath, omitting only that portion which pledged the member to "the true faith of a Christian." The honourable gentleman's case came before the legal tribunals, and it was decided that he could not legally be permitted to omit the clause in question, which, as Mr. Solomons observed, was amusing, since the words were originally intended to exclude "Popish recreant convicts." In an action for penalties to the extent of £1500, the lord chiefbaron of the Court of Exchequer, Pollock, laid it down distinctly that only one penalty, £500, was recoverable, however frequently a member might vote in error or in defiance of the law. This action broke down upon a technical point. No penalty was inflicted, and in the meanwhile Lord Lyndhurst had introduced a bill to amend the law. It is a curious thing that to that great lawyer, who seemed in some respects to have taken up the mantle of Eldon, we should be indebted, in his old age, for so many just and useful initiatives in law reform. There is something ludicrous in the spectacle of the Tory Lord Lyndhurst, about whom so much scandal "in the matter of women was at one time afloat, introducing a bill to better the position of married women as against their husbands, which the once-Radi MR. GLADSTONE AND OXFORD THE FROME-BENNETT CASE. cal Brougham jumps up and denounces as the first step towards the destruction of a great social edifice which will not bear the touch of a finger. Lord Brougham had been quiet for some time in relation to English politics, and had devoted considerable attention to French affairs during his repeated sojourns at Cannes, where he had a small estate and a winter residence, but probably some readers may be surprised to hear that during the troublous times of 1848 he had contemplated gaining a seat in the French legislature and offering himself for election as president. He had applied to Lamartine for letters of naturalization, which had not been granted, or rather Brougham was informed that the granting them would deprive him of his English privileges, and so he abandoned the application. Little is known of the real intention of the restless ex-chancellor, who would still, as it was said of him in a much earlier period, have undertaken any position, even that of commanding the British fleet. It is on the authority of Lord Palmerston that the fact is stated, for in a letter to Lord Normanby in 1848 the humorous and acute foreign minister wrote:-"Lamartine is really a wonderful fellow, and is endowed with great qualities. It is much to be desired that he should swim through the breakers and carry his country safe into port. I conclude that he has escaped one danger by the refusal to naturalize Brougham; for it is evident that our ex-chancellor meant, if he had got himself elected, to have put up for president of the republic. It is woful to see a man who is so near being a great man make himself so small." But Brougham too did good work in 1852 in company with other law lords. It was remarked by a very acute young lady that Mr. Gladstone would never make a perfectly willing politician, except in connection with church matters. It was a little strange that the man should be criticised as unfit for the post of representative of Oxford University, who displayed so much eloquence and acumen-ecclesiastico-forensic acumenas Mr. Gladstone showed in the celebrated 13 Frome-Bennett case. It may just be men- was within the law. Mr. Horsman carried his motion, however; but when the committee had been nominated, Mr. Gladstone, Sir W. Page Wood, and some others refused to serve, Mr. Gladstone declaring that nothing less than a peremptory order of the house should compel him to sit! This was a collapse indeed. The discouragement of bishops was not a subject which troubled the house much, but the revival of convocation this year was a sign of the times (pointing to ecclesiastical controversy) which is entitled to this brief mention. The attitude of the Czar Nicholas of Russia towards England in regard to "the sick man," as he had long nicknamed Turkey, had been made clear enough during his visit to this country in 1844, and we have already had a glimpse of what manner of man he was and of his efforts to draw English statesmen into a confidential understanding which would enable him to claim them as allies without the formality of a treaty. It may be doubted whether those confidential suggestions were treated by Lord Aberdeen with sufficient decision. That amiable nobleman, who sought peace, was naturally reluctant to speak with marked emphasis to a potentate who was a guest of the queen, and the czar appears to have come to the conclusion-or he pretended to have come to the conclusion-that his proposals were at least to be considered and were not unacceptable. Had it happened that Palmerston had been the recipient of the emperor's confidence (an unlikely supposition of course) there would probably have been no war in the Crimea, though Palmerston would have been ready (some people said willing) for war. As it was, the statesman who hated war and did not dislike the czar, found himself-perhaps in consequence of his pacific and conciliating reticence-at the head of an administration from which immediate hostilities were demanded. It is very difficult to understand the position assumed by Nicholas except on the ground that he was a semi-barbarian with an almost 1 See vol. ii. p. 130. insane sense of his vast authority, who, seeking to assert his personal influence, chose to flatter English statesmen by a proposal for a tacit mutual understanding with which the rest of the world had no concern. His will was despotic at home, and he may have calculated that his concessions would be irresistible when he chose to come here as a visitor and to be familiar with the English aristocracy. He was intensely interesting to those who met him; but, as we have seen, the kind of interest he excited was often that which people take in the temporary docility of a magnificent tiger. He had the grand physique of a semisavage despot;-the almost childish desire to attract regard and admiration, the sudden generosity, the capability for noble impulses, the anxiety to be accepted as the equal if not the superior of men of high intellectual culture and refined habits, and on the other hand he possessed the cunning of the savage not much tempered by the diplomatic wiles of which he was usually suspected. When he discovered that his appeals had been received only with polite attention, and that they were not regarded as sacred confidences which would bind the English government from interposing to prevent the dismemberment of Turkey, he was (or assumed to be) as indignant as though the obligations of a definite treaty had been abandoned and disclaimed. It is likely that he had really come to think the conversations in which he had made known his views would be accepted as the basis of tacit agreements. In his own country they would have been no less than absolute commands. He had laid aside his imperative character during his visit here and had professed to desire no other agreement than such as might be implied by an understanding "between English gentlemen." This may have been part of a secret design to obtain an assurance which could never have been made part of a regular treaty, but probably he imagined that the mere fact of his having imparted his views in friendly confidence would so touch English notions of honour that he might be able to count upon the neutrality if not the co-operation of our government. The conversations in which he endeavoured to press his policy on |