mand had this genius over his temper, that, gathering up the remnants, he patted the offender on the head, saying, "O! Diamond, Diamond, you know not what mischief you have done?"

THE MODERN PONTIUS PILATE.

What Cantab has not heard of the Modern Pontius Pilate? Such was the designation of a late celebrated divine of King's College, who was wont to boast of his extraordinary powers in the wordy race; protesting that he would give any man as far as Pontius Pilate in the Apostolic Creed, and heat him hollow before he came to

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AMEN !"—Qu.* amens! as it appears from the reverend gentleman's own confession, that he was plural in his pronunciation; for, on being asked how he could accomplish it, he declared he could pronounce three words at

once.

TIT-BITS.

The celebrated author of The Diversions of Purley, Horne Tooke, being once invited especially to meet his no less celebrated brother Cantab, Dr. Parr, exclaimed, on receiving the message,-" What, go to meet a country schoolmaster; a mere man of Greek and Latin scraps! that will never do." Some time after, the former meeting the latter gentleman in the street, he went up to the doctor, and addressed him with-" Ah! my dear Parr, is it you? How gratified I am to see you."

* Scilicet, dementated, alias downright mad.

"What, me?" replied Parr, a mere country schoolmaster; a man of Greek and Latin scraps !”—“ Oh, my good friend," rejoined Horne Tooke, with his accustomed promptitude of wit, "those who told you that never understood me; when I spoke of the scraps, I meant the tit-bits!"

A FORCIBLE ARGUMENT.

That erudite Cantab, Bishop Burnett, preaching before Charles II., being much warmed with his subject, uttered some religious truth with great vehemencé, and, at the same time, striking his fist on the desk with great violence, cried out,-" Who dare deny this?"-" Faith," said the king, in a tone more piano than that of the orator, nobody that is within the reach of that fist of your's."

REFORM EXTRAORDINARY.

The men of Maudlin College, Cambridge, had been long celebrated for their wineless lives, and a bowl of BISHOP or milk-punch, or a coPUS of AUDIT ale, would have been, to their vous-less heads, both a bane and antidote like Dr. Johnson, they would sip their TEA, even to the sixteenth cup. At length, one of the society resolved to root out this spirit-less propensity, and redeem the credit of his college; and he endeavoured to effect this reform extraordinary in the following extraordinary manner; having invited to his rooms ten or twelve of the most inveterate tea-discussers, he took a bottle and a half of wine from a sideboard, and then, placing himself with his back against the door, he flourished the poker

over his head, declaring, in very emphatic terms,-"That not a soul of them should depart till every drop of the wine was drunk!" Whether this experiment had the immediate desired effect, we cannot say, but this we know, that they no longer labour under the tea-drinking imputation.

CHANTING À-LA-GREEK.

During the time that the erudite Dr. Bentley was preparing an edition of Homer, which he had undertaken at the desire of Earl Grenville, he was accustomed not unfrequently to spend his evenings with that distinguished nobleman. These congenials, when drinking deep at the classic fountain, would sometimes keep it up to a late hour. One morning, after one of their mental carousals, the mother of his lordship reproached him for keeping the country clergyman, as she termed the learned Cantab, till he was intoxicated. Lord Grenville denied the charge, on which the lady replied, he could not have sung in so ridiculous a manner, if he had not been in liquor; but the truth was, that the singing, which appeared so to have annoyed the noble lady, was no other than the doctor endeavouring to entertain and instruct Lord Grenville in the true catilena, or recitative, of the ancients.

DR. SAMUEL CLARKE versus THE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY.

When that profound scholar and divine, Dr. Samuel Clarke, deemed it necessary for him to proceed to the degree of D.D., he entered the schools, in Cambridge.

with the two following questions, as the basis of his public exercise; and the manner in which this erudite Cantab acquitted himself, is worthy of being handed down to the latest posterity:

:

I. Nullum fidei Christiana dogma, in S. Scripturis traditum, est recta rationi dissenteneum.

II. Sine actionum humanarum libertate nulla potest esse religio.

1. No article of the Christian faith, delivered in the Holy Scriptures, is disagreeable to right reason.

2. Without the liberty of human actions, there can be no religion.

These two questions were worthy of such a divine and philosopher, to propose for a public debate. Dr. James was the Regius Professor, a learned and very acute disputant, and he exerted himself beyond his accustomed practice, in order to oppose and try Dr. Clarke to the utmost. Possessed of a retentive memory, and fluent in words, with a natural turn for disputation, the professor began with an examination of the candidate's thesis (an elaborate discourse founded on the first question), sifting every part with the strictest nicety, and pressed him with all the force of syllogistic argument. He was an adversary worthy of the respondent, who made an extempore reply to the learned professor's queries, which occupied nearly half an hour, without hesitation; and with such perspicuity of thought and purity of language did he take off all that the professor had advanced against his opinions, that those who heard him were astonished thereat, and declared that, had they not seen him, they should have supposed his reply to have been previously written. He

guarded so well, replied so readily and clearly, and pressed so close upon the professor, in his replies, through the remainder of the disputation, that perhaps such a conflict, kept up with such spirit, and which ended with such perfect honour to the respondent, was never before heard in the schools. The professor, who was a man of humour as well as learning, after a long disputation, used often to say to a respondent,-" Finem jam faciem, nam te probè exercui;" (I will now make an end, for I have sufficiently worked you). He was about to address the same words to Dr. Clarke; but, after the word te, he stopped and corrected himself, by saying,-"Nam ME probè EXERCUISTI," (for you have worked ME thoroughly); a high compliment, in his humorous way of expressing himself: but so justly did Dr. Clarke merit it, that those who heard the disputation declared that, for handling his argument, the fluency and (notwithstanding his great attention to other matters) purity of his Latinity, he spoke as one who had discoursed in no other language, and was an ornament to the university.

ADVICE GRATIS.

At the sittings of Guildhall, an action of debt was tried, before Lord Mansfield, in which the defendant, a merchant of London, with great warmth, complained of the plaintiff's conduct, to his lordship, in having caused him to be arrested, not only in the face of the day, but in the Royal Exchange, and in the face of the whole assembled credit of the metropolis. The chief justice stopped him with great composnre, saying," Friend, you forget yourself; you were the defaulter, in refusing to pay a