UNIVERSITY DEGREES.
It does not appear that there were any degrees in either the Greek or Roman academies; the only distinction was that of masters and scholars. The first seminaries of learning among christians were the cathedral churches and monasteries, but in process of time the schools belonging to them were regulated, and men of learning opened others in places where they could find protection and encouragement. Hence the origin of universities, which at first were merely a collection of those schools, to which Princes and great men gave liberal endowments, and granted particular immunities and privileges. Degrees were not conferred till the universities were incorporated; a circumstance extremely probable, when we recollect that all civil honours must be derived from the supreme magistrate.
The most ancient degrees were those of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Before the existence of a certain statute, which obliged the theologists to be regents in arts previously to their ascending the chair of Doctor, they were only students, and bachelors, or masters of divinity, without reading the arts. At that time the degrees in arts were held in such estimation, as to be thought superior to that of doctor in any other faculty.
The degree of Doctor was not known in England till the time of Henry II. It afterwards became common, and was taken not only by Professors of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, but by those of Grammar, Music, Philosophy, Arts, &c. As the Doctors of those professions, however, seldom obtained great honour or riches, this degree declined and fell into neglect. That of Music is the only one which has survived.
GUY CARLETON,
LORD DORCHESTER.
When General Wolfe was appointed to the Command of the Land Forces destined to act against Canada, in 1759, Mr. Pitt, then Secretary of State, told him, that as he could not give him so many troops as he wanted for the Expedition, he would make it up to him in the best manner he could, by allowing him the appointment of all his Officers. Accordingly the General sent in a list, in which was the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Carleton, whom he had put down as Quarter-Master-General. This Officer, who had been Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Cumberland during the campaign in Germany, in 1757, had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to George the Second, by some unguarded expressions relating to the Hanoverian Troops, and which had by some officious person been reported to the King. Lord Ligonier, then Commander in Chief of the Forces, took General Wolfe’s list to his Majesty for his approbation, when the King having looked over it, made some objections in pointed terms, to Colonel Carleton’s name, and refused to sign his commission. Lord Ligonier reported the King’s objections and refusal to Mr. Pitt, who immediately sent his Lordship a second time to his Majesty with no better success. Mr. Pitt then suggested that his Lordship should go again, which he refused, on which Mr. Pitt told him, that unless he went to the King and got Colonel Carleton’s commission signed he should lose his place. Lord Ligonier then went a third time to the King, and represented to him the peculiar state of the expedition, and that in order to make the General completely responsible for every part of his conduct, it was necessary that the officers employed under him should be those who enjoyed his entire and perfect confidence, so that, if he did not succeed, he might not accuse the Government at home with putting under him officers who, either by incapacity, want of energy, or inactivity, should thwart his commands, and thus paralyse the most skilful arrangements. The King listened to his Lordship’s reasons with a favourable ear, and his resentment against Colonel Carleton, was so completely disarmed, that he immediately signed the commission under which that Officer accompanied General Wolfe as Quarter-Master-General of his army.
FIGS.
Figs have from the earliest times been reckoned among the delights of the palate.
Moses, in the Pentateuch, enumerates among the praises of the promised land, (Deut. viii. 8.) that it was a “Land of Fig Trees”.
The Athenians valued figs at least as highly as the Jews. Alexis (in the Deipnosophists) calls figs “Food for the Gods.” Pausanias says that the Athenian, Phytalus, was rewarded by Ceres for his hospitality, with the gift of the first fig-tree. Some foreign guest, no doubt, transmitted to him the plant, which he introduced into Attica. It succeeded so well there, that Athensæus brings forward Lynceus and Antiphanes vaunting the figs of Attica as the best on the earth. Horapollo, or rather his commentator Bolzair, says that when the master of a house is going a journey he hangs out a broom of fig-boughs for good luck.