[558] Cp. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 2:
"He's at Oxford still, is he not?
A' must then to the Inns a' Court shortly."
[559] Higford (Institution of a Gentleman, 1660, p. 58) blames those of his countrymen who neglect the Inns of Court.
[560] J. Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae ... Translated into English ... with notes by Selden, new ed., 1771, p. 172.
[561] Higford, The Institution of a Gentleman, 1660, p. 88.
[562] Perlin says of the English in the middle of the sixteenth century, referring no doubt to the nobility: "Ceux du pays ne courent gaire ou bien peu aux deux universités, et ne se donnent point beaucoup aux lettres, sinon qu'à toute marchandise et à toute vanité" (Description des royaulmes d'Angleterre et d'Escosse, p. 11).
[563] Letters (1638), Camden Soc., 1854, p. 8. Nearly half a century later, Chancellor Clarendon wrote: "I doubt our Universities are defective in providing for those exercises and recreations, which are necessary even to nourish and cherish their studies, at least towards that accomplished education which persons of quality are designed to; and it may be want of those Ornaments that may prevail with many to send their sons abroad, who since they cannot attain the lighter with the more serious Breeding, chuse the former which makes a present shew, leaving the latter to be wrought out at leisure" (Miscellaneous Works, 1751, p. 326).