A singular custom prevailed here about fourscore years ago, and perhaps may not yet be wholly discontinued. The corpse was put into the ground a few hours after death, and about a week afterwards they buried an empty coffin with funeral ceremonies. Possibly this strange peculiarity may have been introduced upon occasion of some pestilence, when it would have been dangerous to keep the body longer. The body is always kept some days in England, usually till signs of decay appear.
At length we came in sight of Cambridge:—How inferior to the first view of Oxford! yet its lofty buildings and old trees gave it a characteristic appearance, and were more beautiful because in the midst of such a dreary land. The streets are narrow, and the greater number of the colleges mean brick buildings; there is, however, one edifice, the Chapel of King's College, which exceeds any thing in Oxford, and probably in the world. This unrivalled edifice is dedicated to Mary the most pure and to St Nicholas. It was finished by the arch-apostate Henry VIII., when he had just effected his adulterous marriage with Anne Boleyn, and here their names appear twined together with true lovers' knots, the only place where his initials remain joined with hers.
In this university are sixteen colleges.[11] The principal one is dedicated to the most holy Trinity; it consists of two handsome squares, or quadrangles as they are called, the larger of which the Cantabrigians would fain believe to be finer than the great quadrangle of Christ Church at Oxford, of which they may perhaps persuade those who have never been at Oxford. The Library, the Chapel, and the Refectory were shown to us; the two latter are little curious, but in the anti-chapel is a statue of the great Newton by Roubiliac, a name of great eminence in this country. It is a good example of Vandyke in marble, and that will give you the best idea of its style and excellence. The sculptor has endeavoured to make it picturesque, by representing the texture and the light and shade of silk in the drapery; and as the vulgar can always comprehend dexterity of hand, and can seldom comprehend any thing above it, the statue has obtained much admiration for its faults.
The Library is a most magnificent room about an hundred paces in length, with a painted window at the end, of which it would not be easy to say whether the design or the execution be most faulty: in this, Minerva, Bacon, George III., and Newton are all brought together in their respective costumes. Besides a splendid collection of books, there is a cabinet of medals here, but they are seldom shown lest they should be stolen, as books frequently have been. It is singular that in the public libraries and collections of England there are more precautions taken against thieves than in any other country in Europe. It is not often I understand when an offender is discovered that the law is enforced against him; but now and then, the librarian said, they were obliged to make an example; and he turned to a MS. Catalogue, and showed us a record that a member of the University had been degraded for seven years for this offence. In the University library we were shown several books which had been stolen, and the title-pages nearly cut out, in order to avoid detection. Offences of this kind, though in their consequences so truly abominable, seem to be little thought of. Indeed, it should appear that the English scarcely think it any crime to plunder the public in any way.
I had an introduction to a resident member of —— ; it proved a very valuable one, and there are few of my English friends from whose conversation I have derived so much instruction. The objects of curiosity in Cambridge were soon seen, but we remained a few days there, for the pleasure of his society. The University was almost empty, it being now the vacation time. There is a greater variety of dresses here than at Oxford, the colleges not dressing all alike, and some wearing purple instead of black. The privileged class also wear a hat instead of the academical cap. A round church of the Templars, built after the Holy Sepulchre, is one of the most remarkable things in this university.—I was pleased too with the sight of a huge concave celestial globe, in the midst of which you stand, and it revolves round you. The Cam, a lazy stream, winds behind the town and through the college walks, collecting filth as it goes. "Yonder," said our friend, "are the Gogmagog Hills;"—in spite of their gigantic appellation they are so very like a plain, that I looked all around to see where they were.
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"What a happy life," said I to our Cambridge friend, "must you lead in your English universities! You have the advantages of a monastery without its restrictions, the enjoyments of the world without its cares,—the true otium cum dignitate." He shook his head and answered, "It is a joyous place for the young, and a convenient place for all of us,—but for none is it a happy one—and he soon convinced me that I was mistaken in the favourable judgment which I had formed. I will endeavour to retrace the substance of a long and interesting evening's conversation.
It is a joyous place for the young,—joy and happiness however are not synonymous. They come hither from school, no longer to be treated as children; their studies and their amusement are almost at their own discretion, and they have money at command. But as at college they first assume the character of man, it is there also that they are first made to feel their relative situation in society. Schools in England, especially those public ones from which the universities are chiefly supplied, are truly republican. The master perhaps will pay as much deference to rank as he possibly can, and more than he honestly ought:—it is, however, but little that he can pay the institutions have been too wisely framed to be counteracted, and titles and families are not regarded by the boys. The distinctions which they make are in the spirit of a barbarous, not of a commercial calculating people; bodily endowments hold the first, mental the second place. The best bruiser enjoys the highest reputation; next to him, but after a long interval, comes the best cricket-player, the third place, at a still more respectful distance, is allowed to the cleverest, who, in the opinion of his fellows, always takes place of the best scholar. In the world,—and the college is not out of it like the cloister,—all this is reversed into its right order; but the gifts of fortune are placed above all. Whatever habits and feelings of equality may have been generated at school, are to be got rid of at college,—and this is soon done. The first thing which the new student perceives on his arrival, is, that his school-fellows, who are there before him, pass him in the streets as if they knew him not, and perhaps stare him full in the face, that he may be sure it is not done through inadvertency. The ceremony of introduction must take place before two young men who for years have eaten at the same table, studied in the same class, and perhaps slept in the same chamber,—can possibly know each other when they meet at college.
There is to be found every where a great number of those persons whom we cannot prove to be human beings by any rational characteristic which they possess; but who must be admitted to be so, by a sort of reductio ad absurdum, because they cannot possibly be any thing else. They pass for men, in the world, because it has pleased God for wise purposes, however inscrutable to us, to set them upon two legs instead of four; to give them smooth skins and no tail, and to enable them to speak without having their tongues slit. They are like those weeds which will spring up and thrive in every soil and every climate, and which no favourable circumstances can ever improve into utility. It is of little consequence whether they shoot water-fowl, attend horse-races, frequent the brothel, and encourage the wine trade in one place or another; but as a few years of this kind of life usually satisfy a man for the rest of it, it is convenient that there should be a place appointed where one of this description can pass through this course of studies out of sight of his relations, and without injuring his character; and from whence he can come with the advantage of having been at the University, and a qualification which enables him to undertake the cure of souls. The heretical bishops never enquire into the moral conduct of those upon whom they lay their unhallowed hands,—and as for the quantity of learning which is required,—M. Maillardet, who exhibits his Androeides in London, could put enough into an automaton.
Such men as these enjoy more happiness, such as their happiness is, at the University than during any other part of their lives. It is a pleasant place also for the lilies of the world, they who have neither to toil nor to spin; but for those who have the world before them, there is perhaps no place in their whole journey where they feel less at ease. It is the port from whence they are to embark,—and who can stand upon the beach and look upon the sea whereon he is about to trust himself and his fortunes, without feeling his heart sink at the uncertainty of the adventure? True it is that these reflections do not continue long upon a young man's mind, yet they occur so often as insensibly to affect its whole feelings. The way of life is like the prospect from his window,—he beholds it not while he is employed, but in the intervals of employment, when he lifts up his eyes, the prospect is before him. The frequent change of his associates is another melancholy circumstance. A sort of periodical and premature mortality takes place among his friends: term after term they drop off to their respective allotments, which are perhaps so distant from his own, that years may elapse, or the whole lease of life be run out, before he ever again meets with the man whom habits of daily and intimate intercourse had endeared to him.