k. f . ODam&u&ge Htu'on INAUGURAL PROCEEDINGS. CAMBRIDGE PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. INAUGURAL PROCEEDINGS. Ornanda est dignitas domo, non ex domo tota quae- renda. De Officiis. Quamobrem pergite, ut facitis, adolescentes, atque in id studium, in quo estis, incumbite, ut et vobis honori et amicis utilitati et reipublicae emolumento esse possitis. De Oratore. ClCERO. Hontron anti (STambn'iige : MACMILLAN AND CO. 1866. PREFACE. MANY slight inaccuracies having unavoidably crept into the newspaper reports of the speeches delivered at the opening of the New Buildings of the Cambridge Union Society, and a wish having been very generally expressed that the proceedings should be published in a more per- manent form, the present small volume has been arranged and produced to correct those inaccu- racies and to satisfy that wish. The speeches have, with one exception, that of Professor Selwyn, been corrected by the speakers themselves. The Professor's accident happened just before arrangements were made for the publica- tion of this account ; but the Rev. W. G. Clark having kindly consented to revise the speech, the whole report is as correct and complete as it was 2017739 vi Preface. possible to make it. A statement of the objects of the Society, and a short description of the New Buildings, have been placed in the Appendix : the one to make the book intelligible to strangers, the other for the information of old members of the Society, who were unable to be present at the opening ceremony. A complete list of the past officers of the Society and some of the more important articles and letters which have appeared in the various newspapers have been added with a view to in- crease the interest of the book. The origin of the "Cambridge Union Society" is to a certain extent wrapt in obscurity. It seems to have been formed in the year 1815 by the " Union" of three small Debating Clubs. The number of original members was 187, and, as far as it can be ascertained, they first met in a "low, ill-ventilated, ill-lit apartment at the back of the Red Lion Inn," in Petty Cury. New members were admitted by ballot, and every one was compelled to propose in his turn a subject for debate. The first meeting was on Monday, Feb. 2oth, 1815, the subject being "Was the conduct of the Opposition in refusing places in Preface. vii 1812 justifiable ?" It was declared unjustifiable by a majority of 2, there being 33 in the affirma- tive and 35 in the negative. Heavy fines were levied for irregularities and disobedience to rules, the money being used for the purchase of books for the Library. We find that on Monday, March 24, 1817, Mr Whewell of Trinity opened his first debate, on the following subject " Is the increased attention which has been paid to our army likely to have a good effect upon Society?" The records simply state that this was negatived, and do not give the division. It was in the same month of the same year, March 1817, that the Union Society received its first check, in the suppression of its debates by Dr Wood, the Vice-Chancellor of the year. A long re- monstrance was drawn up by the Society's officers and presented on the ist of April. It forcibly urged the claims of the Society, and to refute the special charge that it took men away from their more im- portant duties shewed how large a number of those who had taken high degrees, and had distinguish- ed themselves generally in University Examina- tions, were members of the Society. One of the most important clauses in this interesting docu- viii Preface. ment is as follows : " The members are willing to exclude political subjects from their debates, and to submit to any regulation which may not be utterly incompatible with their wish to prac- tise themselves in speaking, a study which they humbly conceive not to be utterly useless." Dr Wood's reply to their protest was short and decisive. " I do not think it necessary, nor perhaps proper, to return any answer to this state- ment. I had considered the subject fully in my own mind." The Society went on as a Reading Club for four years. In March 1821, Dr Wordsworth being Vice-Chancellor, a successful effort was made to obtain permission to resume the discussions. The liberty however was only granted on condition of the Society's excluding from the subjects of de- bate all political questions of a date subsequent to the year 1800: and not discussing any pro- posal for the admission or rejection of periodi- cals. Hence the members "got fervent upon the character of Lord North and fierce upon the policy of Cardinal Richelieu." On Tuesday, Feb. 5, 1822, Mr Thomas Babing- ton Macaulay of Trinity made his first speech, the question before the House being "Whether Preface. ix the political conduct of John Hampden was de- serving of approbation?" He spoke on the nega- tive side of the question and voted in the majority. Many of the subjects of debate about this time were the same as those of the present day. Thus we have the execution of Charles I. voted to have been an unjustifiable measure by a ma- jority of 75 ; and the political conduct of Oliver Cromwell determined to have been beneficial to the country by a majority of 31. The former of these subjects was proposed by Mr S. H. Walpole of Trinity, and it was at this debate that Mr T. Sunderland, characterized by Lord Houghton as the greatest speaker of his day, achieved his first triumph. At this period the most exciting theme for discussion was supplied by the political characters of Pitt and Fox of course up to the year 1800. When this question was before the House, the debate was generally adjourned, and the division list usually shewed a slight majority in favour of Pitt. In all the early debates the practice of Parlia- ment was imitated, and by an order passed in 1823, the President was requested to regulate his x Preface. conduct as nearly as possible by the precedents of the House of Commons. With reference to the deputation, mentioned in Lord Houghton's speech, which was sent from Cambridge to Oxford, the records of the Oxford Union Society state that on Thursday, November 26th, 1829, Mr Wilberforce (Oriel) being Presi- dent, Mr Doyle (Christ Church) moved "That Shelley was a greater Poet than Lord Byron." He was supported by Mr T. Sunderland, Mr Arthur Hallam, and Mr Monckton Milnes, of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Mr Oldham (Oriel): and opposed by Mr Manning, of Balliol. The Division was, Ayes, 33; Noes, 90. Majority in favour of Lord Byron, 57. It was about the end of the year 1831, or the beginning of 1832, that the Cambridge Union Society left the Red Lion, and occupied, at the Hoop Hotel, the premises erected for its especial use, which are now held by the Amateur Dramatic Club. These were left in October, 1850, for the "dingy old room in Green Street," formerly a Dissenting Chapel, which was held and used by the Society until its occupation of the present new Buildings in October last. Preface. xi In 1857, when Mr W. Saumarez Smith, of Trinity, was President, a Committee was appointed to enquire into the state of the lease under which the premises in Green Street were held: and after much deliberation, and acting upon the advice of Mr Francis, the solicitor, an honorary member, they recommended the Society to establish a Building Fund, which would enable it at the termination of its lease to erect buildings of its own on a scale commensurate with its importance. This recommendation the Society at once adopted. Half the entrance-fee of each new Member was to be devoted to the Building Fund, and the surplus of each year was to be added to it also. In this way nearly 1000 was collected by 1864. The want of sufficient accommodation was be- coming greater every term, and Mr R. D. Bennett, of Trinity Hall, determined to make an effort to start a scheme for immediately building new Rooms. In this he was most ably seconded by Mr C. W. Dilke, of Trinity Hall, and Mr H. Peto, of Trinity. A large Building Committee was formed to help and advise the Officers in thd work they had to do, Mr Clark and Mr Burn, of Trinity, and Dr Abdy and Mr Latham, of xii Preface. Trinity Hall, more especially giving their counsel and assistance in the kindest manner pos- sible. Various sites were examined with a view to purchase; and negociations with the Master and Fellows of St John's College having been finally successful, a plot of ground behind the Round Church was bought for ^925, a sum including the purchase of an unexpired lease. The names of fifteen Architects having been sent in to the Building Committee, three out of these were se- lected to be submitted to the members of the Society in general; these were Mr Gilbert Scott, Mr Alfred Waterhouse, and Mr Digby Wyatt. The Manchester Assize Courts had at this time just been completed, and Mr Waterhouse had received from the most competent critics much praise for their design. The result of the polling was to place Mr Waterhouse first by a considerable majority; and the Society has been singularly for- tunate in this selection. There are few who would have given it the time and attention which Mr Waterhouse has done : and there is but one opinion that the new Buildings, which he has planned and in which the Society is now finally settled, are Preface. xiii' admirable both for beauty of exterior and excel- lence of internal arrangements. The plans of Mr Waterhouse were accepted and the Buildings were begun. A great effort was then made to increase the Building Fund, and nearly 4000 circulars were sent out to old members of the Society. By continual grants from the general fund, and by the most liberal contributions of both old and present members, the sum now amounts to about 4000. During the Long Vacation of the present year, as the buildings approached completion, it was evident that the Society could occupy its new premises in the October Term. A sub-committee was formed to superintend the furnishing of the various rooms, consisting of the Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The Society's thanks are due to Mr Kirkby, of Trinity, who has now for three years served as its Treasurer, and who devoted much of his time to assisting the other Officers in their arduous duties. It having been suggested that the new build- ings should be formally opened with some sort of ceremony, and a scheme having been submitted to, and approved by, the standing Committee, the xiv Preface. carrying out of these plans was entrusted to the Secretary. There were many unavoidable delays, caused by the absence of several of the members of the Committee from Cambridge, and it was not until the i6th of October that the arrangements were in any degree complete. This was only a fortnight before the last day on which it was practicable to have the inauguration: and the shortness of the interval for the issue and accept- ance of invitations, was, doubtless, the cause of so many distinguished members of the Society being unable to attend. Letters congratulating the Society on its pros- pects, and regretting unavoidable absence, were received from the following: The Duke of Devon- shire (Chancellor of the University), Lord Lytton, Lord Stanley, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Belper, Lord John Manners, M.P., Lord Robert Montague, M.P., Viscount Amberley, M.P., the Bishop of Ely, the Bishop of St David's, Sir A. J. E. Cockburn, Sir F. Pollock, Hon. G. Denman, M.P., Right Hon. S. H. Walpole, M.P., C. J. Selwyn, M.P., F. S. Powell, M.P., J. E. Gorst, M.P., A. J. Beresford Hope, M.P., C. Buxton, M.P., B. T. Woodd, M.P., R. Baggallay, M.P., W. H. Stone, M.P., J. A. Preface. xv Hardcastle, M.P., Dr. Kennedy, Sir G. Young, Bart., and Professor Kingsley. The day of the opening was unfortunately wet ; notwithstanding this, however, the Debating Room was filled some little time before the hour appoint- ed for the commencement of the proceedings. The gallery was appropriated to the ladies, and there were altogether about 700 persons present. The speeches delivered on this occasion may safely be left to the reader's approval ; they were received with much enthusiasm, and nothing hap- pened in any way to mar the complete success of the ceremony. On the evening of the same day the opening debate took place. The Debating Room was crowded, and both the Earl of Powis and Lord Houghton were present. It was moved by F. T. Payne (Trinity Hall), " That this house views with regret the late substitution of a Conservative for a Liberal Government." He was supported by G. C. Whiteley (St John's), H. M. Thompson (Trinity), N. Moore (St Catherine's), and J. L. Strachan Davidson (Balliol, Oxford) : and was opposed by W. Vincent (Queens'), W. A. Lindsay (Trinity), C. Greene (Trinity), S. Hobson (Sidney xvi Preface. Sussex), E. A. Owen (Trinity), A. Lowe (Jesus), J. W. Tipping (Trinity), and Rev. L. S. Orde (Queens'). The House having substituted the word satis- faction for regret, the motion, as amended, was carried by a majority of 120; the numbers being For the motion, 216 Against, 96. Here then our Chronicle ends. It has been written in order to make this record of the most important era in the Union Society's history as complete as possible. May future generations of Undergraduates, as they enjoy the advantages, and use the privileges, which their predecessors have obtained for them, strive the more to maintain the honour and uphold the dignity of such a useful and important insti- tution as the " Cambridge Union Society." G. CRISPE WHITELEY. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 26M, 1866. OPENING CEREMONY. THE EARL of Powis on entering the room and ascending the dais was loudly cheered. He was accompanied by Lord HoUGHTON, Professor FAWCETT, M.P., Professor SELWYN, the Rev. W. G. CLARK (Public Orator), the Rev. E. E. W. KIRKBY (Treasurer), the Rev. W. AWDRY (Queen's College, Oxford), Mr J. L. STRACHAN DAVIDSON (Balliol College, Oxford), Mr C. T. REDINGTON (Ch. Ch. Oxford), Lord E. FlTZMAURICE (President), Mr S. COLVIN (Vice-President), and Mr G. C. WHITELEY (Secretary). LORD Powis in opening the proceedings said : No duty in connection with the office which I have the honour to hold in this University could have been imposed upon me more congenial to my feelings than that of attending to celebrate the open- ing of these new buildings buildings worthy of the purposes which this society seeks to promote, which will give to it a habitation of its own, and will be worthy of the large array of students that each successive year adds to its numbers (cheers). The I 2 Cambridge Union Society. permanence which the society has now acquired will add much to its prestige. If you observe the anxiety which has recently been displayed by the University of London and the Queen's University in Ireland, to obtain a building of their own at Burlington House and in Dublin, you will at once observe how strongly those bodies feel how much the being regarded as the casual occupants of a set of chambers detracts from their dignity and useful- ness ; a sentiment to which our love of a fixed home, and the feeling of the independence and security of a freehold implanted by our territorial constitution in the breast of every prosperous and aspiring Englishman, gives intensity (hear, hear). It is not, therefore, the vain desire for display which has prompted you and your predecessors, by a careful husbanding of your resources, and with some assistance from your honorary members, to conduct this undertaking to a successful conclu- sion. I have alluded to the purposes which this society serves. I rate its uses highly. It forms a centre and a common point of interest and attraction to the members of the various colleges; it serves to keep alive in their hearts the great catholic idea of a University amidst the independence and isola- tion of the several colleges; it prevents your state rights making you unmindful of your federal obli- gations (cheers). I rate its uses and especially its Inaugural Proceedings. 3 debates far higher than our young cousin from the New World, Mr E. Everett, with whose amusing lec- tures on places of English education many of you, no doubt, are familiar, and who, I am happy to know, carried back to his native land some of the honours of Trinity College (cheers). He had an hereditary claim to academic distinction. His father, long the American minister in England, was a culti- vated scholar and man of letters, and no one of the distinguished men who at various times have represented the government of Washington at the Court of St James ever threw himself more heartily into our public assemblies and institutions, or was more desirous of securing harmonious relations be- tween his country and our own (cheers). For my own part I feel that I owe much to the Cambridge Union (hear, hear). I look back with pleasure to the memory of brilliant debates and stirring scenes in which took part that veteran reformer of the University, Mr Christie, my late lamented friend Lord Strangford, better known as George Smythe, Lord John Manners, Lord Napier, Mr Beresford Hope, Mr Baillie Cochrane, Mr Stirling, of Keir, Bishop Ellicott (hear, hear), Dr Vaughan (cheers), names that will be to you a sufficient warrant that our debates were neither deficient in eloquence nor wanting in varied information. Let me ask you to consider for a moment how important the practice I 2 4 Cambridge Union Society. of debate is in a country like this, pervaded by constitutional forms a country in which not only all the national, but all the local business is con- ducted by representative assemblies of every sort and size. Even in political matters Parliament controls, and I may almost say directs the execu- tive. The Treasury, or Home Office, the Poor- Law Board and the Privy Council have but a power of veto a consultative power as it were while the initiative is given to the rate-payers, the parish vestries, the town councils, the improvement commissioners, the magistrates assembled in quarter sessions, and in our great commercial enterprises to the directors and the shareholders themselves. Now these are bodies whom, to influence, you must persuade by discussion. You cannot argue with them on paper or by letter writing, still less can you coerce or override them. Mr Disraeli (loud cheers again and again renewed) paid homage to the great power which a consummate knowledge of the forms and practice of the House of Commons gave to Sir Robert Peel when he darted at him the brilliant sarcasm that he moved the order of the day to take in a nation (cheers and laughter) ; and even in matters ecclesiastical, perhaps, the parochial Jupiter might adjust the quantity and quality of his hebdomadal thunder more nearly to the taste and temper of his congregation if he Inaugural Proceedings. 5 were to picture to himself some members of our Cambridge "Union" ready, to cry "adjourn, ad- journ," or if he were to know that some functionary, like the " avvocato del diavolo" were present and had a right to reply (much laughter). The advan- tages that you here enjoy will not recur. You live in an intellectual atmosphere, you have leisure and books; you address, as hereafter you seldom will, a wholly cultivated and educated assembly an assembly every member of which is intellectually and by cultivation on a level with the speaker, before which he cannot presume, and which he dare not attempt to cajole, misinform, or despise. You benefit by free and outspoken criticism, which is always honest and sincere, which does not as in later days, perhaps, endeavour to silence argument, or to crush a rival or opponent. You are encou- raged by a sympathetic audience never sparing of its cheers (hear, hear). But if you are to make use of these advantages, if you are to educate yourselves here for your future public life, you must recollect that nil sine magno vita labore dcdit mortalibus (hear, hear). You must study the questions on which you speak. You must not content yourselves with repeating the well-worn platitudes of the Revolution of 1688, or of the Repeal of the Union; or when you treat of the subjects of the day, as for instance, in discussing the compara- tive merits of a Liberal or of a Conservative 6 Cambridge Union Society. Government (cheers and laughter), you must not content yourselves with merely reproducing the articles in the daily newspapers (hear, hear). I do not, however, counsel you to eschew politics alto- gether, but to treat political questions as topics of philosophical and historical inquiry. If the won- ders of a seven days' war should allure you to trace the causes which have made the rise of Prussia so constant, and the persevering ambition of the successors of Frederick so successful in spite of their selfish policy on several critical occasions, or if you should be led to investigate the causes which have made Austria a mass of indigested provinces and the house of Hapsburg so constantly unfortunate and like Athelstane the Unready often unprepared and always too late, you will command the attention of your fellows, and you will bene- ficially exercise the powers of your own minds (cheers). A little practice in debate will enable you to study with effect, and to contrast the ornate, diffuse, didactic rhetoric of Lord Brougham, full of epithet and amplification, with the severe simplicity of Lord Lyndhurst, of whom it might truly be said that his statement was worth another man's argument, and from whose speeches you can no more eliminate a sentence than you can con- dense Tacitus (hear, hear). It will enable you to appreciate the homely, vigorous, Saxon, interroga- tive style of Mr Cobden (cheers), and the marvel- Inaugural Proceedings. 7 lous quickness in debate, the brilliant sallies of the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, the Earl of Derby (loud and long-continued cheers). Study Cicero's picture of the ideal orator, that so your speech may not be poured forth turbid, indistinct, and frothy, like the great flow of the Assyrian river, but that it may rather, by study and reflec- tion, be filtered, condensed, and refined, IliSa/co? e| iepr)<; 0X1777 \i{3a<;, atcpov awrov. These are topics on which, speaking on this occasion and from this place, I could not forbear to touch : and I must ask your indulgence if I have dwelt on them too long (cheers). It now only rests with you as you look around this spacious apartment Uno ore omnes omnia Bona dicere et laudare fortunas nostras. (loud cheers). It only remains for me as your representative to declare this building to be for- mally opened (loud and prolonged cheering). Lord HOUGHTON on rising to deliver the Inau- gural Address was loudly cheered. He said : My Lord Powis and Gentlemen, When I accepted your kind invitation to appear here to-day, and say a few words in inauguration of your new hall of debate, it would have been well if I had recollected an anecdote which I have read somewhere about Goethe, the great German poet. When he was in his maturity a young man came to him, and asked him to explain the meaning of a 8 Cambridge Union Society, passage in Faust. Goethe replied, " Why do you come to me ? You, with your youth, are ten times more likely to understand what I then meant than I am now." And thus, gentlemen, if you do not in- spire me with something of your youthful ardour it may be with something of your youthful audacity (a laugh) I do not know how I can justify your choice or express my gratitude. For now, after this distance of time and in this dissimilitude of circumstances, it is difficult for me to appeal to the power of association. The genius loci entirely fails me. This is not my Cambridge Union. My Cam- bridge Union was a low, ill-ventilated, ill-lit, gallery at the back of the Red Lion Inn cavernous, taver- nous something between a commercial-room and a district-branch-meeting-house (cheers and laughter). How can I compare it with this superb building, these commodious and decorated apartments, these, perhaps, over-luxurious applications of domestic architecture, which you will have to enjoy ? Yet those old and humble walls had, at the time I first entered them, just ceased to echo voices which England will not willingly let die. The strange irony of destiny, which so often strikes exactly those whose long life we should imagine most needed for the welfare of mankind, has already taken away from us' Macaulay, the great historical orator and oratorical historian (loud cheers) ; Praed that perfect master of light and social verse;, Inaugural Proceedings. 9 Charles Buller, whose young statesmanship you will see recorded in Westminster Abbey, but whose charm of character and talent belong to the do- main of personal regard ; and John Sterling, whose tumultuous spirit and lofty temper still live, and will long live, in the biographies of Hare and Carlyle. Two still walk amongst us, whom I should unwillingly pass by Charles Austin, who has refused to extend to a political or judicial sphere those wondrous faculties of speech and that per- spicuity of mind which won for him all that profes- sional fame can give, and Bulwer Lytton, whose varieties of success place him foremost in the literature of our day, and with whose name Lord Derby has now illustrated the House of Lords (cheers). My lot was cast with a somewhat later generation, and I must beg you to pardon the affection and prejudice with which I am inclined to believe that the members of that generation were, for the wealth of their promise, a promise in most cases perfectly fulfilled, a rare body of men such as this University has seldom contained. I speak not here of eminence in the especial studies of the place, in classics or mathematics, though, "as in private duty bound," I cannot omit our respected Chancellor, the Duke of Devonshire (applause,) but you will permit me to recall some names dear to myself, and, it may be, familiar to you all. There was Tennyson (loud cheers) the laureate, io Cambridge Union Society. whose goodly bay-tree decorates our language and our land ; and Arthur, the younger, Hallam, the sub- ject of " In Memoriam," poet and friend now pass- ing linked hand in hand together down the slopes of fame. There was Trench, the present Archbishop of Dublin, and Alford, Dean of Canterbury, both pro- found scriptural philologists, who have not disdained the secular muse (cheers). There was Spedding, who has, by a philosophical affinity, devoted the whole of his valuable life to the rehabilitation of the character of Lord Bacon ; and there was Meri- vale, who, I hope by some attraction of repulsion, has devoted so much learning and ingenuity to the vindication of the Csesars (renewed cheers). There were Kemble and Kinglake, the historians of our earliest civilization and of our latest war Kemble, as interesting an individual as ever was portrayed by the dramatic genius of his own race; Kinglake, as bold a man-at-arms in literature as has ever confronted public opinion (laughter). There was Venables, whose admirable writings, unfortunately anonymous, we are reading every day without knowing to whom to attribute them; and there was Blakesley, scholarly Canon of Canterbury, and "Hertfordshire Incumbent" of the Times. There were sons of families which seemed to have an hereditary right to, a sort of habit of, academic distinction, like the Heaths and the Lushingtons. But I must check this throng of advancing memo- Inaugural Proceedings. II ries, and I will pass from this point with the men- tion of two names which you would not let me omit one of them that of your Professor of Greek whom it is the honour of her Majesty's late Government to have made Master of Trinity (loud applause), and the other that of your latest Profes- sor, Mr Frederick Maurice (renewed applause), in whom you will all soon recognise the true enthu- siasm of humanity, and upon whom this University has conferred a far greater favour than honours or emoluments can bestow, an expanded sphere of use- fulness, and the extension of moral sympathies (continued applause). Of these men, all, I believe, were members of the Cambridge Union Society, and most of them active participants in its debates ; and I would ask you to draw from this circumstance the moral that it is well that the purposes of this society should not be confined merely to its own im- mediate objects, but that it should be regarded as an addition and succedaneum to the ordinary studies of the University. The majority of these men won your highest Honours, and at the same time were the best speakers in the Union. There was one exception. There was one man, the greatest speaker I think I ever heard, a man with the strongest oratorical gift, a man of the name of Sun- derland, who only lives in the memory of his own generation, and for this reason, that he was only 12 Cambridge Union Society. known at the Union at Cambridge. Perhaps the sole public record of him is the prize-declamation which he delivered in Trinity Chapel, in the year that I performed the same function. I remember now, with a certain shame, a kind of hope that I entertained that the first prize, which was so un- doubtedly due to his rare oratorical faculty, would be lost to him on account of the extreme violence of the politics and the curious heretical nature of his essay; but, somehow or other, the College forgot all the moral demerits in the intellectual excellence of that production, and I came off only second-best. It was in company with Mr Sunder- land and Arthur Hallam that I formed part of a deputation sent from the Union of Cambridge to the Union of Oxford, and what do you think we went about? Why we went to assert the right of Mr Shelley to be considered a greater poet than Lord Byron (a laugh). At that time we in Cam- bridge were all very full of Mr Shelley. We had printed his "Adonais" for the first time in England, from a copy that Arthur Hallam had brought back from Pisa, and a friend of ours suggested that, as Shelley had been expelled from Oxford and treated with much blind injustice, it would be a very grand thing for us to go to Oxford and raise a debate upon his character and powers. So,'with the full permission of the authorities, we went to Oxford in those Inaugural Proceedings. 13 days a long dreary postchaise journey of ten hours and we were hospitably entertained by Milnes Gaskell, now a well-known and respected member of Parliament, by Sir Francis Doyle, himself the writer of no ordinary verse, and whom, I hope, we shall see some day soon occupying that chair of Poetry, which Oxford possesses, but which Cam- bridge regards either as superfluous or detrimental, - and by a young student of the name of Gladstone (loud cheers), who, by the bye, has himself since been expelled (much laughter). We had a very interesting debate, one of the principal speakers in which he himself reminded me of the circum- stance the other day is now an Archbishop of the Roman Catholic church, but we were very much shocked, and our vanity was not a little wounded, to find that, besides these elect few, nobody at Oxford knew anything about Mr Shelley. In fact, a considerable number of our auditors believed that it was Shenstone we were talking about, and said that they only knew one poem of his, beginning, "My banks they are furnished with bees" (laughter). We hoped, however, that our apostolate was of some good effect, and I have no doubt that the excellent president of the Union at Oxford will now tell you that the poetry of Shelley is just as much and widely appreciated at Oxford as at Cambridge. The refer- ence to the interest which we took in this literary 14 Cambridge Union Society, question reminds me that on looking over the late records of this society I do not find the mention of a single literary debate. You seem so absorbed in poli- tics that you have no time for literature. Will you permit me humbly to suggest that you may com- bine the two (hear, hear), and that it will be well for you, and will afford an agreeable variety, if some of your future debates are of a literary character. In my time we were certainly much more forced upon these subjects than you are; be- cause by a limitation, I do not know whether of our own imposing or required by the authorities, we were not allowed to discuss any political subject later than the beginning of the present century, so we got fervent upon the character of Lord North, and fierce upon the policy of Cardinal Richelieu (laughter). Although you no doubt think this very barbarous, it had its advantages. It forced us to read about these things, and kept us more in con- nection with history than with newspapers. It combined the circumstances of the society with our general education, and was, I am bound to say, attended with many advantageous results. Of course you could not go back to that state of things, but I believe that the character of those debates very much diminished the weight of the objections which are frequently brought against spcieties of this kind. To one or two of them you Inaugural Proceedings. 15 will perhaps allow me to allude. One is, that debating societies of this nature tend to encourage volubility of speech where there is abundance neither of knowledge nor of idea. No doubt in some cases that may be so, but both our national character and our national language conspire to render those cases rare. Our national character is certainly not loquacious ; our defects are all on the other side. Garrulity is not the sin of the English youth. We find every day, both here and in the world, young men who have seen a great deal and know a great deal, but who for want of ready and accurate speech, hide a great deal of their light under a bushel; and I think that these societies have a very great advantage by developing the powers of utterance and remedying these de- fects. Nor is our language one that lends itself to frequent and easy delivery. I have attended public debates in France, Spain, and other foreign coun- tries, and I never witnessed abroad anything like the hesitation, the haggling, and the difficulty of finding words which prevail in our House of Com- mons. Englishmen always seem to say what they must say, while Frenchmen seem to be able to say anything they choose. The truth is that the composite nature of the English language pro- duces in the mind of a speaker hesitation as to the best construction and the best word to em- 1 6 Cambridge Union Society. ploy, and thus some of our best public speakers hang, as it were, on a precipice for the choice of a word, and bring down the acclamations of their audi- ence when they happen to hit upon a right one. Therefore, from the constitution of our national character and our national language, I do not fear that the practice of public speaking will ne- cessarily tend to make you too talkative, but I think that it will give you that faculty of prompt and precise diction which is indispensable for political success, and advantageous in every pro- fession. If it further enables you to express yourselves in forcible and coloured phraseology in ordinary conversation, you will greatly enhance the pleasures and profits of society both for your- selves and others. Another more serious objection which is brought against institutions of this kind is, that they lead young men too early into the discussion of politics. For my own part, I do not see how any man, however young, or even any boy, can be brought to the serious study of history without at the same time awakening in his mind political associations, and to a certain degree con- veying political ideas. If history is to be nothing but a dry series of dates, a mere chronicle of events, a boy with a good memory will remember it, and a boy with a bad memory will forget it, and neither one nor the other will derive from it any con- Inaugural Proceedings. 17 siderable intellectual or moral gain. But when a youth connects the history of the past with the political life of his own time, he is able to realise that past, and apply it to the present. Then history becomes a reality, and its study is the anatomy of living man. I cannot help feeling that in thus advising you, I am recommending a process which may lead to conclusions somewhat different to my own opinions, because there can be no doubt what- ever that political study, both at this University and at Oxford, has, I will not say from what cause, resulted in a remarkable prevalence of Conser- vative opinions (loud cheers). While the Etudiant of Paris and the Bursch of Heidelberg are at best con- sidered as an uncomfortable element in society, and at the worst as the firebrands of revolution, the stu- dent of an English University is, generally speak- ing, a model of devotion to the altar and the throne. I am inhibited by the circumstances of this assem- bly from giving any reasons for this phenomenon. I simply recognise it as a fact, and you will give me credit for something generous in the feeling which makes me say, notwithstanding this result, cultivate your politics. Experience perchance may bring with it modifications of opinion, and I do not know that you will eventually be worse critics or less sedulous reformers because you have, at one time of your lives, as I may think, too blindly reverenced 2 1 8 Cambridge Union Society. or too affectionately loved what you may after- wards perceive requires alteration and improvement (applause). The moral utility of such institutions as this has been dwelt upon with great ability by my noble friend Lord Powis. It is in such socie- ties as this that you will learn the value of political forms, forms in themselves perhaps apparently frivolous and pedantic, but which you will find to be absolutely necessary for the government of these societies, and, in fact, of all societies of men. You will learn that, while there is here an open field for all your interests, for the exhibition of all your powers, the great gain that you acquire is not in the expression of your own opinion, nor even in hearing the opinions of others; it is in the fair conflict of intellects; it is in the meeting of man and man, of mind and mind. Go on, then, as you have done. Make this noble room a worthy arena of your young ambitions, teaching you to respect your brother and to respect yourselves; teaching you to tolerate even the intolerant ; place this edifice under the tutelary protection of good manners and good sense, and no one will ever find fault with the Cambridge Union Society. The noble lord resumed his seat amid loud and pro- tracted cheering. PROFESSOR FAWCETT, M.P., who was also received with great cheering, said : Inaugural Proceedings. 19 I have been asked to do what is extremely easy, and that is to express in the name of the meeting our cordial thanks to Lord Houghton for the admi- rable, eloquent, and interesting address with which he has just favoured us. I shall not vainly strive to offer him suitable compliments, but he will per- haps permit me, in your name, to say that we believe this building to be worthy of the Cam- bridge Union (cheers), worthy of the architect who designed it (renewed cheering), and that it is a building which could not have been inaugur- ated under happier circumstances (loud cheers). I hope I shall not be interfering after the splendid oratory we have been listening to, if I for one or two moments recall some of the recollections associated with the days I spent in the Union. Every year that I have lived, I can say with all sincerity that I feel more deeply grateful to the University of Cambridge for the advantages she has conferred on me, and amidst all these remi- niscences of the past, I can say that there are no hours to which I can look back with livelier satisfaction than those which I spent in the dingy old rooms in Green-street (laughter). For I think that in this Union Debating Society young men have an opportunity of learning that which they have not the same chance of learning anywhere else. In after life, we may talk platitudes in an 2 2 20 Cambridge Union Society. after-dinner speech and use patronising phrases at some agricultural meetings, but where can we learn the art of debate, which is the most useful gift that a speaker can acquire, but at institutions of this kind ? In this society the audience whom we address is as candid as it is kind, and your friends have no hesitation in saying with perfect frankness and generosity, " How awfully long your speech was last night" (laughter). Then on the other hand, if you have some small success, you are living among those who in all the freshness of youth welcome your success, and encourage your efforts. I therefore think that you in this room may learn what you have no opportunity, as I have before stated, in after life of learning anywhere else. A man might be born an orator, but as a rule no man can be a great debater without practice (hear, hear). I believe that prac- tice alone overcomes the difficulties of debating, and that to be able to think while you are speak- ing and to frame your ideas in suitable language has never yet been acquired without practice (applause). Some people imagine that there may be too many speakers. I argue, with Lord Houghton, that we need not be afraid of that We might as well suppose there will be too many poets or philosophers as too many orators (hear, hear). May I be allowed to say one word . Inaugural Proceedings. 21 to my undergraduate friends. Many of you have the power to speak, if you will only use the opportunity which the Cambridge Union Society places at your disposal, and you may thus give to Cambridge distinction in those things in which she has perhaps lost prestige. If we look to our right and left, we can probably call to mind many of those who were formerly members of this Union and who have helped to make this University second to no seat of learning in the world in scholarship, in science, and in philosophy (loud cheers). But during the last twenty or thirty years she has not, in political distinction, attained the same prominence as Oxford. In the late Ministry there were nine first-class Oxford men, and not one who had taken high honours at Cambridge. If the students of the present day will only give fair scope to their faculties, and avail themselves of the training which this Society will afford them, Cambridge may soon become as distinguished in politics as she is illustrious in learning and in science. And this I can say for your encouragement, that every day I believe the Universities are getting a firmer grasp upon the respect and affections of the nation, and the con- stituencies will be more willing and more ready to recognise the intellectual force and moral worth o which are necessary to the attainment of Uni- 22 Cambridge Union Society. vcrsity distinctions and honours (applause). I will carefully avoid trenching upon the domain of party politics, but -I feel sure that we all wish that in the great representative assembly of the nation, every section of opinion shall be represented by the ablest, the most educated, and the most intel- lectual men (cheers). I do not care whether the Liberals or Conservatives are in power, if this end is attained. Truth will then be victorious, and the House of Commons exert more influence, even than it has exercised in times past, in maintaining the greatness and securing the liberties of this country, and in giving refuge and succour to the injured and oppressed (loud cheers). The Rev. W. AWDRY of Queen's College, Ox- ford, President of the Oxford Union Society, then came forward, and was received with loud and con- tinued cheering. He said: My Lord Powis, Ladies and Gentlemen, I rise to second the vote of thanks to Lord Houghton which has just been proposed. It gives me great pleasure to be present to-day at the opening of so fine a building as this, which the Cambridge Union has raised for the purpose of holding its debates. I listened with much pleasure to the very interesting address of Lord Houghton, who has so clearly set before us the object and Inaugural Proceedings. 23 iise of debating societies. I was afraid that when the subject of Politics was touched upon, we should have been told that they were dangerous, because if young men gave expression habitually to their ideas on political subjects, it might be feared that they might feel themselves in some measure com- mitted to them. We have not however heard that, though if we had I could not have said that it was untrue. The experience of those who have ad- dressed us to-day, has however shewn that the value of these Debating Societies so far exceeds their mischiefs, though such mischiefs there are, that I feel the more pleased to represent the De- bating Society of the sister University to-day (cheers). I will now turn to matters more suited to the capacity in which I am present among you. We have heard this afternoon that when the deputation from the Cambridge University Debating Society visited Oxford some years back, it found that Ox- ford knew but little about Shelley. I can answer for it that Shelley's works probably more than one copy are now in the Society's Library; and if any of you wish to inquire further, I have much pleasure in referring you to our Librarian, now present, who will probably tell you that the con- dition of the book testifies to its frequent use, un- less it has been lately renewed (applause). 24 Cambridge Union Society. In conclusion I beg to thank the Cambridge Union on behalf of Oxford for our cordial recep- tion, and for the very liberal invitation given us to be here to-day. I only wish that there were more Members of the Oxford Union in the room. I beg to congratulate the President of the Cambridge Union, and his Society, on the handsome building in which we are now assembled; and when the Oxford Union has as suitable a room, I trust that the Members of the Cambridge Union will attend its inaugural meeting, in larger numbers .than the Members of the Oxford Society have done to-day, and will meet with as kind a reception, and as ad- mirable an address as that for which I am called upon to return the thanks of this Meeting to Lord Houghton (cheers). The Vote of Thanks to Lord Houghton was then put to the Meeting and carried nem. con. Lord HOUGHTON, in reply, said: You have done what hitherto I should have believed impossi- ble, you have given me an additional interest in the University of Cambridge (cheers). Professor SELWYN said he had been asked to take part in to-day's proceedings, and though the honour was unexpected, he would not use the common phrase that he was reluctant to do so. As one of the oldest patriarchs of the Union Society Chough not the oldest, for he yielded to Inaugural Proceedings. 2$ one who was here to-day and who ought to have been occupying his place in addressing them, he meant Professor Sedgwick (loud cheers) he con- gratulated them on the completion of their new buildings. He 'said that if he were not restrained by the presence of the Vice-Chancellor from re- ferring to certain chalky downs fourteen miles off, he should say that this gathering would go down to posterity as the great " Houghton Meeting " (loud laughter). Lord Houghton had spoken of his recollections of the Union in time past ; his (Prof. S.'s) were still more ancient. He looked back to a dingy room in Petty-cury, the Comitia Curiata they called it. But he must not forget the object of his addressing them. Their president had asked him to propose a vote of thanks "To the Lord Powis, et cetera" To Lord Powis he was sure they would all return the most hearty thanks ; it was no small advantage to have among them to-day one so high in office as Lord Powis, who had come down from the marches of Wales to give them his assistance. It was one more instance of the zeal and interest which the Lord High-Steward had always felt in his University even before his election (loud cheers). He had come down to per- form a royal office ; all of them had seen in the Illustrated News the picture of our most gracious Sovereign opening the water-works at Aberdeen, 26 Cambridge Union Society. putting her hand upon the small instrument that was to open the floodgates ; Lord Powis had come down to open the nobler floodgates of eloquence and to proclaim this hall open for the expression of free thought. Not only did they rejoice in this, but also that the channels of eloquence had been made more free and unimpeded than they were in former times. His own memory went back to the time when the limitation was stricter than that mentioned by Lord Houghton he did not know whether the subject of their discussion was to be anterior to the Revolution or to the Reformation, but it was one of the two ; and he regretted to say that the two words were often confounded in the answers given in examinations (laughter). He remembered a debate upon the question which had done most for the welfare and comfort of the animal creation, Martin's Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or Coleridge's "Ancient Mari- ner," and if his memory did not deceive him it was carried by a large majority in favour of the "An- cient Mariner" (laughter). If the members at all transgressed the limits that had been assigned to them, there was a danger that the proctors would appear at the door with a solemn request from the Vice-Chancellor "that this assembly do dissolve." On one occasion this happened when the lamented .Master of Trinity (Dr Whewell) was President, Inaugural Proceedings. 27 and with that due attention to forms, the import- ance of which had been so well enforced by the Lord High Steward and Lord Houghton, he re- plied : " Strangers will please to withdraw, and the house will take the message into consideration" (cheers and laughter). In these days, however, they were free and unfettered, and had the world before them to choose from ; and we found the house discussing such important modern questions as " Shall Prince Alfred be allowed to accept the Throne of Greece?" and this evening we have the manly straightforward proposition, " That this house views with regret the substitution of a Con- servative for a Liberal Ministry" (laughter), to which he saw that an amendment they would admit equally manly and straightforward was to be proposed, "that for the word regret the word satisfaction be introduced;" no one would say that either proposition or amendment was not straight- forward and manly; and now that the channels were opened, might they go and pour forth streams of eloquence like Nestor, but not so long; rather like Menelaus, for he was never long, nor ever missed the mark. The Professor then went on to say, But of all the Homeric orators the best model for your imitation is Professor Sedgwick (loud laughter) I beg pardon, I mean Ulysses, whose words fell 'like flakes of wintry snow.' 28 Cambridge Union Society. But I would not have you to copy his ungainly action, for we are told that he Nor back nor forward did his sceptre move, But held it straight before him like a clown. [Here the speaker caused great merriment by imitating the action of Ulysses, with an umbrella.] Professor Selwyn expressed his regret that we had not extant one single spoken line of that greatest of orators, Lord Bolingbroke. Our great orator Wm. Pitt, of whom we might study action in the Senate House (laughter), when asked what he would have restored to us from the literature of the past, said, "Give us one speech of Bolingbroke." Like their chairman to-day, Bolingbroke had had a complete classical training at Eton; there's a nut for the school commissioners! In speaking of the method of practising oratory, the Professor alluded to "single-speech Hamilton," a man who had exhausted his powers of eloquence in one great effort, and who never afterwards succeeded in making a good speech. The growth of their elo- quence ought to be gradual, as that of a plant; and he would recommend them to read a letter of Lord Brougham's to the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay: "I do earnestly entreat your son to set daily and nightly before him the Greek models Vos exemplaria Grceca nocturna versate *, versate diurna, not only for the language, Inaugural Proceedings. 29 but study the subject of the speech : both in courts of law and Parliament, and even to mobs, I never made so much play as when almost translating from the Greek." To return to his duty, he was asked to propose a vote of thanks "to Lord Powis, et cetera? They all knew the usual abhorrence of an tf et cetera" but on this occasion it was a most important and happy word ; and whatever handles and titles might be prefixed to their chairman's name, whatever lustre he might derive from his great ancestor, who against the myriads of Plassy Underneath an Eastern sun Clash'd with his fiery few and won whatever nobleness and honour from his father, by whose exertions, under God's blessing, one of our bishoprics had been preserved from absorption whatever satisfaction he might feel in having attended the discussions of this society, or again from having so generously added to the value of the prizes for Sir William Browne's epigrams (though the Professor thought the little gold medals perhaps more appropriate) whatever titles of dignity and honour preceded his name, he thought Earl Powis might justly feel proud of what followed it of the "et cetera." What did the "et cetera" mean ? First it meant this whole meeting, except those who were members of the Society, and Lord Houghton, who had already received his special tribute of 30 Cambridge Union Society. thanks ; it meant the Vice-Chancellor (cheers), whose presence gave them the full assurance that so long as their debates were confined within the bounds of moderation and good sense, no restric- tion would be placed upon their discussions ; next it meant their Oxford friends, who had visited them that day (cheers) the President and Librarian of the Oxford Union Society; next he must thank one whom he was glad to welcome that day as a visitor, and whom he hoped soon to see as one of their resident members, Professor Maurice (cheers), who had been appointed Professor of a subject second in importance only to Divinity, and he (Prof. S.) felt assured that he would justify the choice of those who had elected him to his high office. There was one other here to-day who must be included in their vote of thanks, he alluded to the author of Hortensius and of Cicero's life, Mr Forsyth ; they had hoped to see him their repre- sentative, but might now say Talis cum sis, uti- nam noster esses. Nor must we omit our thanks to the Mayor, who himself presides over a debating society. Others there were who must be passed over, though not forgotten ; and he must come to another element in his "et cetera" for when he looked up from the floor to that gallery, then did he feel that Lord Powis' "et cetera" assumed its fairest proportions and its largest circumference Inaugural Proceedings. 31 (loud cheers and laughter). The subject of woman was one to which he could not trust himself to do justice, and he would use the words of Professor Smyth in his lecture "On Ladies:" "The quaint spirits, the delicate Ariels, without whom nothing would be even packed, or pickled, or preserved; without whom everything would be a chaos and confusion ; the nurses of our infancy, the wives of our bosoms; muses in the drawing-room, the graces in the dance," &c., &c. The speaker then, quoting from a poem of Lord Houghton's, said : We are cold, very cold And our blood is drying old. Oh ! if Love, the sister dear Of youth that we have lost, Come not in swift pity here The Professor, pretending to be at a loss, turned to Lord Houghton and said: "How does it go on?" Lord Houghton: "I've forgotten all about it." Prof. Selwyn: "Oh! I remember" Come not with a host Of affections, strong and kind, To hold up our sinking mind, The faintness that is on our breath Can have no other end but death. All thanks to the ladies for their presence here to-day. In conclusion, he repeated to them the words he used to the Candidates for Holy Orders who attended his lectures on the pastoral office, 32 Cambridge Union Society. words of Martin Luther: "When you speak, stand up firmly, open your mouth boldly, and leave off timely;" stehe fest auf, thue den Mund auf ; Jiorc bald auf. He then proposed the resolution, and sat down amid loud cheers. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice then said My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, In rising to second this motion, I must begin by asking for the indulgence of those present here to-day, for I naturally feel, that after the very able speeches that have been delivered, any remarks of mine will appear what may be called "a very second-rate "article." Indeed, when I see assembled here so many who could do this subject much greater justice than I can, I would not come forward to speak on it at all, were it not that occupying as I do the position of President of this Society, I may perhaps claim to speak directly in the name of those who like myself are among its younger members, whose highest wish it is to follow, how- ever imperfectly, in the steps of those their seniors and their betters, who have gone before them (cheers). It is almost unnecessary for me to say that were it not for the presence here to-day of those whom I may call our Special Visitors, any at- tempt which the resident members of this Society Inaugural Proceedings. 33 could have made to inaugurate the opening of this building would have resulted in something very different from what we have just now seen and heard (cheers), and therefore our very best thanks are due to them for having taken the trouble to come, and by their presence give effect to the ceremony of to-day, and encouragement for the work of to-morrow. Especially are our thanks due to Lord Powis for having so kindly con- sented to preside on this occasion (cheers), and to the Vice-Chancellor, for having put, by being here to-day, the stamp of the approval of the University on these proceedings (cheers). But, when I am speaking of those to whom the thanks of this Society are due, I feel that I must not omit to mention those who not only to-day, but on many previous occasions also, have given it their assistance, and the benefit of their experience, in whose absence I feel that this building instead of being a success would either not have been begun at all, or if finished would have been a failure. And where there have been so many who have assisted us in the kindest manner to the ut- most of their power, if it be not invidious to mention one name more than another, I feel that I must mention the names of Mr Clark and Mr Burn of Trinity, Mr Abdy. and Mr Latham of Trinity Hall (loud cheers). I hope, I may 3 34 Cambridge Union Society. say I feel sure, that every one who is in the least acquainted with the working of this Society, will at once recall when I name those gentlemen, how very much we owe to them. Nor, gentlemen, must I forget to mention Mr Waterhouse, our architect. I can hardly speak too highly of his unremitting care and attention to the minutest details. The best proof of this lies in a glance at this room and the rest of the building around us (cheers). Again, I cannot help expressing my very great pleasure in seeing here the President and the other officers of the Oxford Union. Their presence here is an earnest of that friendly feeling which must always exist between the two Universities and the Union Societies at each (cheers). In conclusion, gentlemen, I beg once more to assure our visitors how very much we feel the honour they have conferred upon us by being here to-day (cheers). The resolution having been carried without a dissentient voice The CHAIRMAN rose to reply. He said, In the first place allow me to thank you on behalf of the ladies for the excellent accommodation you have provided for them. You have shewn the advantage of having two houses in a legislature, over the Australian pattern of a Single Chamber, Inaugural Proceedings. 35 by adopting the practice of the House of Lords instead of that of the House of Commons, and by not condemning the ladies to the conventual seclu- sion of a grated gallery (cheers and laughter). In the next place I wish to thank you on behalf of those gentlemen not actually members of the Union who are present to-day. I cannot omit either to take the opportunity of following your noble President in expressing my great gratifica- tion at the honour the Vice-Chancellor has done this Society by attending here to-day (loud ap- plause), and also that the President of the Oxford Union and other members of the same Society have paid us a visit. It has given me the greatest pleasure to respond to the call made upon me, and to renew the old associations which have culminated in so successful a result. The success- ful proceedings this day augur well for the future of the Union (cheers). It has been a most agree- able duty to me to preside over this meeting, and I again thank you kindly for the welcome you have accorded me. I now declare this House adjourned until seven o'clock this evening (ap- plause). The proceedings then terminated. 32 APPENDIX. APPENDIX. I. THE "CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY" has for its objects the promotion of debates, the main- tenance of a library, and the supply of news- papers and other periodicals. The Society is com- posed strictly of members of the University, and numbers between four and five thousand sub- scribers, about four-fifths of whom are "honorary," or " life members," entitled (whether resident or non-resident) to all the privileges of the club. The library, which is a very valuable one, consists of about 8000 volumes, to which considerable addi- tions are made terminally. The rooms of the Society are liberally supplied with the principal newspapers morning, evening, and weekly with nearly all the monthly magazines and quarterly reviews; and meetings for debate, on any subject not strictly theological, are held every Tuesday during full Term. Accommodation is also pro- vided for writing and posting letters; and there is established a Free Town Delivery. The subscrip- 4O Appendix. tion is an entrance-fee of i, and a contribution of i per Term for nine Terms, when the sub- scriber becomes " a life member." By a payment of 7. IDS. ort entrance, a member may compound for all subscriptions. The Society's affairs are managed by a president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, library committee, and standing com- mittee, all offices being honorary. There is also a permanent staff of clerks, housekeeper, messen- ger, &c. II. The New Buildings are situated near the junc- tion of St John's Street and Bridge Street, behind St Sepulchre's or the " Round Church." They are built chiefly of red brick, but both Casterton and Ketton stone have been used with good effect for purposes of ornamentation. The style is thir- teenth-century Gothic ; but this has not been strictly adhered to throughout the building. The contractors are Messrs Jackson and Shaw, of West- minster; the decorations are by Messrs Green and King of Baker Street, London ; the gas fittings and, iron work are by Skidmore and Co. of Coventry; and the furniture is by Mr Bulstrode of Cambridge. The cost of the building will be about 11,000, of this sum about 4000 has been raised by voluntary contributions, and the remain- der will be obtained by means of debentures. Appendix. 41 On entering you pass into the hall. This is a wide passage running through the building to the debating room, having on its right hand the committee and clerks' rooms, and on the left, the library and out-offices. The hall floor is inlaid with encaustic tiles in Casterton stone, sup- plied by Messrs Godwin of Hereford, and the ceil- ing is of varnished wood. The principal feature of the building is of course the debating room, which is a very hand- some apartment. It is sixty feet long by forty- five feet wide, and it will accommodate about 600 persons. Around three sides it has an elegant wooden gallery for ladies. This is supported by double timber brackets, and is approached from the first floor. Opposite the entrance is the Pre- sident's dais. On each side of the dais are arranged sofas, and leather seats with backs, and the room is in every way adapted for its purpose. The ceiling is divided into panels by bold timber- work. The lower windows have in them stained glass, on which are painted the arms of the Uni- versity, the monogram of the " Union," and the date. In the evening the room is lighted by two fine pendants, containing 42 burners in each, over which are two large ventilators. The library is situated on the left hand as you enter, and is a splendid room, of the shape of the letter L. It is covered with linoleum, and has large bay windows. On one side of the room is 42 Appendix. aft arcade through the arches, forming a series of recesses, lined with books on either side, and tables and seats for readers. The room is lighted prin- cipally from the south ; and at the further end is built a large stone corbel chimney-piece, inlaid with encaustic tiles. The clerk's office is fitted up with every suit- able convenience, and a door therefrom leads into the Committee-room, which is most comfortably furnished, and is well adapted to the purpose for which it is designed. Ascending the principal staircase, which is of stone, with iron balustrading, we find three very large stained glass windows, by Lavers and Bar- raud, of London; and at the top of this landing are the doors leading into the ladies' gallery. As- cending a few steps higher on the right hand, we enter the magazine room, which is built in con- formity with the library below. It has a poly- gonal ceiling, showing certain portions of the roof, in which are a series of rose windows, filled with rich stained glass. Stuffed seats covered with green morocco run round the room and accom- modate about 60 persons. This room is covered with a fine Brussels carpet and with dark maroon repp curtains and looks very comfortable. The writing room is on the opposite side to the magazine room, and is arranged so as to allow as many as 36 members to write at the same time. Appendix. 43 Ascending still higher, up a wooden staircase, with grained wooden balustrade, we come to the smoking and newspaper-file rooms. In the smok- ing room there is a liberal supply of papers, and coffee is served between the hours of four and nine. There are sofa seats all round the room, and iron tables with marble tops in front of these. The file- room is used for purposes of reference, and the files of all the newspapers taken in by the society are kept there. These are all the rooms in the main part of the building. Behind is a six-roomed house for the head clerk. III. Cambridge men may safely be congratulated on the opening of the new rooms of the Union Society. From an architectural point of view, the only cause for complaint is that the building has crept into so retired a corner. Still, the Society has comparatively come into the light of day from the singular retreats in which it had previously lurked. The old "cavernous tavernous" room, of which Lord Houghton spoke so feelingly, was succeeded sixteen years ago by a still gloomier abode. All the eloquent speeches delivered within its walls by attached members of the Church, and all the alterations by which it had been adapted for its purpose, failed to purify it thoroughly from 44 Appendix. its old meeting-house flavour. To the last it re- sembled a Dissenting chapel whose pews had been sold under a distress, more than a mimic House of Commons. The comparison with the splendours of Oxford was specially humiliating to Cambridge ; and we hope that this change in its outward circumstances may correspond to a fresh develop- ment of internal vigour. For, whatever its weak- nesses, the Union certainly discharges some im- portant functions, and its memory is pleasant to old members of the University. Lord Houghton, in his agreeable opening speech, spoke of some of the distinguished men, such as Mr Tennyson, Mr Maurice, Mr Kinglake, and others, of whom it could boast in his time. We need not inquire too curiously how much of their future eminence was due to the training received within its walls ; but most of them will look back upon that training with particular pleasure. Thus, it is possible enough that Mr Tennyson might have written the greater part of In Memoriam if he had not be- longed to the Union. In one, however, of the most graceful of the poems he speaks of the asso- ciations revived by a visit to the University; he hears again the " tumult of the halls," the chapel- organ, and " the pulse of racing oars" all of them pleasant as recalling past times, although they have their drawbacks at the moment of enjoyment for those to whom uncomfortable dinners, compul- sory church-services, and severe training are apt to Appendix. 45 be annoyances. But that upon which he dwells with real pleasure is the memory of the . old debates, chiefly running, as it would appear, upon political economy. They are said to have con- cerned mind and art, And labour and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land. The particular discussions to which Mr Tennyson refers were not indeed at the Union, but amongst a select set of friends, whose conversations would doubtless have been far superior to any at all common amongst undergraduates. Yet, if even they could have been recorded, they must at best have been boyish criticisms upon most of the topics concerned. It is not of course the value of the results, but the first energetic employment of youthful faculties, which makes such discussions pleasant to recollect and sometimes even to listen to. Great as is the nonsense sometimes contained in Union orations, they are not the less interesting as trials of the powers of the orator. The audacity with which he solves all problems in heaven or earth, or draws the widest possible generalisations from the narrowest collection of facts, are excel- lent symptoms of mental activity. It is pleasant to think that there was a time when you believed that all men were equal, and that, by applying this dogma to politics, you could decide every con- ceivable question off hand. A great majority of 46 Appendix. Union orators are almost invariably desperate Radicals. The majority of undergraduates on the other hand, are, as Lord Houghton remarked, Con- servatives of the most orthodox type; the voting is as steady as Mr Walpole himself could desire, in favour of Church and Queen and our glorious Con- stitution; and against this solid Tory phalanx all the rhetoric of fiery Radicals and premature Republicans spends itself in perfect harmlessness. Now, whether this is on the whole creditable or not to the University, we need not inquire; but Mr Mill's celebrated theorem as to the connection between Conservatism and stupidity is certainly true amongst young men in general. The more brilliant and vivacious a young man may be, the more certain he is to believe both that everything is wrong, and that he knows how to put it right instantaneously. Later in life, he becomes recon- ciled to many things, and finds that the obstacles in the path of the Reformer are greater than he took them to be. But if a clever young man is not a thorough-going Radical, it can only be because he thinks it more paradoxical, and there- fore more attractive, to be a bigoted Conservative of some fanciful type. Hence the genuine Union orator is pretty certain to be prepared to support such a motion as we once knew to be carried, "that all the laws of this society be repealed;" and under "this society" he is willing to under- stand England, or the civilized world in general. Appendix. 47 To such a young man the Union affords a very safe and delightful vent for superfluous enthusiasm ; and it is not impossible that it may help him to learn the important lesson that a good deal of what he says is nonsense. It is odd how very different a speech sounds when it is made in public and when it is made to your private chairs and tables. To provide a vent for this natural ebullition is not, however, the most valuable office of the Union. Lord Houghton and the other speakers gave a great deal of good advice to their hearers, which, it may be presumed, will have as much effect as good advice generally produces. They were told, for example, that they would do well to intermingle occasional debates upon literature with their ordi- nary political discussions ; to propose, according to the accustomed formula, that in the opinion of this House, Shakespeare is an over-rated poet, or that Sir Walter Scott is decidedly superior to Miss Braddon. Or, again, they might argue upon his- torical questions, and discuss the propriety of the execution of Charles I. and the character of Lord Somers. Mr Fawcett, on the other hand, called at- tention to the melancholy fact that in the last Minis- try there were no less than nine first-class men from Oxford, and only one, we believe, from Cam- bridge. He apparently inferred that a careful attendance upon the Union, as a school for states- men, might result in equalizing this proportion. 48 Appendix. That it is a good thing for undergraduates to keep up an interest in literature or history or politics is undeniable. It is certainly a fault in our Univer- sity system that it tends to encourage a rather narrow view of the purposes of education. Cam- bridge men in particular are apt to entertain an unfounded contempt for all knowledge which is not adapted for the Senate-House. That a man should devote his whole time to gain the honours of the triposes is admitted to be laudable; and it is also considered becoming to study, with at least equal devotion, the arts of rowing or cricket. But erratic excursions into other fields are looked upon at most with toleration, if not with positive disfavour. The undergraduate hears of them with the same sort of feeling as a country gentleman hears of a clergyman hunting or playing whist. There is nothing positively wrong about it, but it is to a certain extent anomalous and improper. So far as the Union impresses upon students that a man may spend a little time upon English literature, or upon the questions of the day, without convicting himself of imbecility, it certainly does good service. It keeps alive the rather faint belief that the human intellect may be fairly applied to other purposes besides those of winning a wranglership or a place in the classical tripos. Only we doubt whether the Union is a very powerful machine for such pur- poses. Lord Houghton's mission to Oxford to .convince the members of that University of the Appendix. 1 49 merits of Shelley shows indeed that in his day there was a respectable amount of literary enthu- siasm. But, as a rule, the debates upon such topics are apt to be languid. Even if the orator takes the trouble to read a chapter of Hallam before condemning Charles I., or to read a play of Shakespeare before expounding his defects, his audience certainly do not trouble themselves to prepare for him. Now, to make the practice of speaking at all useful, it is necessary to be stimu- lated by a strong feeling amongst your hearers. Amateur lecturing is very poor practice indeed, whatever may be said for amateur debating. It produces conceit, and does not tend to produce readiness in reply or argument Such discussions are really of use only when the avowed subject is made a pretext for something else when the ora- tor says, for example, that to appreciate the charac- ter of Charles I. it is necessary to form a distinct opinion as to the merits of Mr Bright's present agitation. The fact is that the essential merit of a debating society is that it should provoke plenty of party feeling. The great lesson which the young orator learns is the lesson of impudence. Teachers and professors of the more serious studies are apt to insist upon the necessity of modesty; and, within due limits and upon proper occasions, there can be no doubt that it has its merits. But a superfluous modesty, if not a vice, is a very great hindrance to virtue. Every one has pitied the 4 5O Appendix. forlorn position of an ordinary Englishman ad- dressing his fellow-creatures. The groundwork of many speeches is a rumble of inarticulate sounds, from which a few half-finished sentences detach themselves at intervals. A very little practice will remove this weakness in most cases, and will even enable the orator to attain that last pitch of per- fection at which he knows what to do with his hands. To acquire the art of putting together tolerably connected sentences in public is worth something on its own account; but indirectly it leads to a good deal more. For a man who can talk with point and vigour upon political or other questions has made no inconsiderable step towards knowing something about them. It is true that he may stop short at this point ; and he is likely to do so if he falls into the besetting sin of orators of the Union class, that of simple buffoonery. Too many young men discover the real value of what they are saying, and are therefore content merely to make themselves laughed at. The advantage then gained is simply that of fluency, which is indeed by no means contemptible. But if a man can only manage to take himself seriously, and, if possible, to be convinced that the eyes of England are upon him, he is really on the way to some solid know- ledge. At the very lowest, he acquires a familiarity with the names of current ideas, which is useful in the same way as a child's scribbling with a pencil may be useful, though his drawings are worthless. Appendix. 5 r He becomes accustomed to the tools of his art And, even if really profound knowledge is still beyond his reach, he has at any rate learnt a good many of the ordinary fallacies, which is the neces- sary first stage towards seeing through them. To do this effectively requires the stimulus of a lively debate, because without some excitement a man never becomes really handy with his weapons. Before trying actual fighting, practice with the gloves is very useful; but it is not much good without a vigorous antagonist. However superficial the discussion of political questions must necessarily be in such an assembly as the Union, there is therefore much to be learnt from them, both as an introduction to more pro- found studies and as practice in the art of logical fencing. This last, indeed, is often brought to a very fair pitch of perfection at the Union. Many haranguers of public meetings not to say many members of Parliament would certainly meet with their match in some of their juvenile rivals. For to put in a neat retort, or to make an irritating misrepresentation of an opponent's arguments, does not require profound study so much as a readiness and humour which is often developed amongst undergraduates, and sometimes indeed disappears in maturer years. And for such purposes as these neither literature nor history nor politics affords the best field for the young enthusiast. The real thing in the Union, as in the House of Commons 42 5 2 Appendix. and in every other assembly, is a good spice of personality. To impeach the treasurer for spending too much money upon a new set of chairs, or to denounce the unconstitutional interference of the president with liberty of debate, gives the most brilliant opportunity for the rising orator. The art known to penny-a-liners as that of pouring "scath- ing sarcasms" or "biting witticisms" upon a devoted opponent may be practised in all its branches at a good Union debate. If the politicians of the future are not likely to lay very deep foundations of knowledge within the walls of the new building, nor in this sense to add a new and important branch of study to the University course, they may certainly learn how to put uncharitable construc- tions upon the speeches of an antagonist, how to find out the unprotected joints of his armour, and generally how to get the laugh upon their own side of a personal debate which is frequently a useful art, and sometimes a virtuous one. Saturday Review. IV. The opening of the building in which the Cantabs intend for the future to locate their University Debating Society, has afforded Earl Powis and Lord Houghton an occasion for dilating with much grace and humour on the advantage of debating Appendix. 53 societies as a part of the training of young men. Lord Houghton very truly observed that young Englishmen could not on the whole be accused of garrulity, could with much more justice be accused of habitually groping about amidst the inaccuracies and fiascos of maladroit and misdi- rected speech. Lord Houghton remarked justly on what every one who knows Parliament must have noticed, the slight " shock of mild surprise" with which the House of Commons receives a successful word from the mouth of a speaker who has been hovering on the brink of it for some time, trembling between the hope of expressing his meaning and the high probability of failing to express it. We think indeed he rather substituted cause for effect, when he said that " our language, from its composite character, produced a hesitation in the mind of the speaker as to the best construc- tion and the best word to use." Mr Arnold, we think, put the matter more truly in his admirable essays on Celtic literature, when he said that the composite elements of character produced by the fusion of different races in the English, of which the composite character of our language is merely the reflected image, has produced a shyness and reserve in the English genius, an embarrassment of nature, a real disposition to remain poised between different tendencies without reaping the full benefit of any of them, of which this heaviness and hesitation in our mode of expression is but the 54 Appendix. external symptom. But however this may be, there can be no doubt that debating societies for young men are not, properly speaking, schools of loquacity at all. There is an age, the Univer- sity age, when adequate speech on the various motives and ends of life becomes something altogether beyond mere speech, the natural work, the appropriate action, the characteristic energy of the mind, and when there is every reason for aiding this expressive crystallization of thought and feeling, by preparing motives, and ceremonial occasions for the effective delivery of young men's nature from the thraldom of blind and dumb stir- rings of inarticulate, and therefore only half- realized, intellectual wants. Lord Houghton's admirably apt stbry of Goethe's reproaching some youngster for asking him the meaning of a passage in Faust, by saying, " You, with your youth, are ten times more likely to know what I meant than I myself with my maturity," really applies to the whole rationale of debating societies. Young men know what they really mean by them ; older men only remember that they meant something once. There is an age at which theoretical discussions ought to be, if they are not, the very means of life and growth, when it is as silly to call such dis- cussions mere talk, as it is in later life to call a Cabinet council on the eve of a great constitutional change, or a council of war before a decisive battle, mere talk. Without the "mere talk" of young Appendix, 5 5 men's theoretical discussions, the collision of taste with taste, of intellect with intellect, of conscience with conscience, of spirit with spirit, the characters of the best men in the nation would scarcely come to the birth at all. It is through sympathy and opposition that young men become aware of the true bent of their own powers and aims ; it is then that a single word dropped by another, will often show them how much they have mistaken them- selves, and how they were narrowing their thoughts into a groove quite too contracted to give full play to their nature or to secure for them the fullest grasp of truth of which they are capable. Nor is it by any means the most practical questions, the questions apparently best admitting of close and pertinent discussion, which give rise to the most useful comparisons and collisions between young men's minds. We believe, with Lord Houghton, that even literary discussions as to the comparative value of different poets, the very vagueness and insolubility of which encourage that closer definition of inchoate thoughts and moral admirations which so often opens up a new vein of character in half-formed minds, are often far better calculated for their purpose, because better suited to the stage of general intellectual fermenta- tion in which most young men at college find themselves, than those which really admit of an array of cogent argument, and of a judgment formed strictly on the facts of the case. That 56 Appendix. discussion, for instance, on the comparative poetic dignity of Shelley and Byron among English poets, which took Mr Monckton Milnes, Mr Arthur Hallam, and Mr Sunderland in the old post-chaise on their great diplomatic mission to Oxford to bring to the notice of the Oxford Union Debating Society the merits of the young poet whom Oxford had only noticed to expel, must have done a great deal more to interpret the intellectual tastes and wants of the young Cantabs for themselves than the debates on practical questions capable of a more narrow and distinct issue, but which for that very reason had less deep root in the nature of those who discussed them, and the clearest decision of which was really of far less practical importance to them than the mere discussion of the other. The proof lies in the missionary eagerness which despatched a special embassy to convince the sister University of her benighted condition in not recognizing the genius of the man who had written Prince Athanase, or Adonais, perhaps the lines, The One remains, the many change and pass, Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly, Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity. It is pleasant to summon up the state of mind of these young men of genius taking a long post- chaise journey to awaken Oxford from its sleep of oblivion with regard to the merits of such a poet Appendix. 5 7 as this, and to imagine the delightful perplexity of Mr Gladstone attracted by the metaphysical subtlety of Shelley, shocked by his pantheistic cravings, compelled to confess his ghostly supe- riority to Byron's passion, but fascinated, on the other hand, by Byron's vast superiority in rhetori- cal force and art. And no such disinterested passion of mind would be conceivable in young men on a practical or purely political subject at all. The true explanation of such fervour is that those from whom it proceeded were just learning the delight of consciously articulating and defining their own intellectual tendencies and wants. They were learning to know themselves, to appreciate the proportion of the Byronic to the mystic- naturalistic elements in their own character; they were measuring the Sturm-und- Drang influences, as the Germans called them, the moody, fer- menting forces of youth, against the subtle and shadowy essences of Shelley's idealized nature, which, working through the imagination, partly purify and partly intoxicate the intellect of youth with an ether too rare and stimulating for moral sobriety or self-government. We say that the genuine intellectual necessity for ripening intellects to appreciate truly the relative power of such imaginative fascinations as those over their minds, was far truer and more real than any con- ceivable impulse at the same age to measure the merits of rival political parties or rival statesmen. 53 Appendix. The one was due to an impulse at self-develop- ment from within, the other was a mere game at a sort of intellectual foot-ball or prison-bars, a wrestling in words instead of in sinew. Or take the very amusing and characteristic discussion alluded to by Professor Selwyn, whether Martin's Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or Coleridge's A ncient Mariner^ with its moral, He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, had done most for the welfare and comfort of the lower animals, a discussion concluded by a vote showing an immense majority for Coleridge's poem. That quaint incident represented, we take it, the awakening of the students' minds to the knowledge of the infinitely higher persuasive power of imaginative literature over cultivated men than that of any compulsory or penal enactments, the first effect of which to lads of that age is indeed only to provoke defiance. There is no great secret or mystery in that. For the University age is one at which the mind is striving to find its intellectual longitude and latitude, " sich orientirend," as the Germans say, with respect to all the great powers of the world, the positive law of States, the moral law of God, the law of the spirit of life in literature and in religion, and at that moment there is a sense of discovery and growth even in explicitly laying down and affirming for oneself that such and such an influence has more power and more Appendix, 59 right over one than such another. The discussions of debating societies are only the more formal occasions on which the conscious life of the intel- lect disentangles for itself its own perplexities, tentatively asserts its own tendencies, emerges into provisional independence, and marks out its own scheme of future alliances. This is not talk, it is preparation for action, it is the stringing up and organization of intellectual energy, it is intellectual volition. No doubt, to those who have entered on those sorts of responsibilities, which, like the responsibilities of statesmen, involve in a very high degree the happiness of others, there seems some- thing childish about discussions whether Strafford deserved death, or Pope was a true poet. But that is only because they have got to a different stage of life, and nothing material in their future destiny could possibly be determined by their giving their minds gravely to either discussion. With young men at college it is quite different. It is not too much to say that those acts of delibe- rate intellectual and moral choice which give rise to, and are encouraged by, debating societies, are in fact the crystallizing points of character, the facts on which the future current of character, its narrowness and intensity, or width and catholicity, its sincerity or spirit of compromise, its sobriety or fanaticism, its intellectual cynicism or moral earn- estness, chiefly depend. A debate whether Pope or Wordsworth was the greater poet, whether 60 Appendix. Greece or Rome had exercised the most beneficial influence on the world, whether Carlyle or Mill were the truer teacher, has often, we feel no doubt, done more to determine the future lives of great men, and through them the future of England, than hundreds of so-called "practical" debates in the House of Commons, debates, say, on limited liability, or the taxes on malt and insurance. Whether such debates are not conducted with just as much zest and ability in the " cavernous, tavern- ous" room so graphically depicted by Lord Houghton, as in the most luxurious of halls, is another question. But of course, when young men feel that an institution is one of great significance for them, they will rightly do their best to honour it by bestowing upon it all the graces of external decoration. Spectator. To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Sir, As a veteran though silent member of the "Oxford Union" of days gone by, I have been charmed with Lord Houghton's good-humoured and genial account, at the recent solemnity of the kindred Cambridge institution, of the extraordi- nary raid made into our territories, almost forty years ago, by himself and a couple of Cambridge Appendix. 61 orators, when they defied us to the combat on behalf of their then idol, the poet Shelley. Never- theless, I must take upon myself to represent this important passage of history a little from the Oxford point of view. We really were not so ignorant of Shelley as Lord Houghton makes us out. Either the tale of the Oxonian who confounded Shelley with Shen- stone is ben trovato, or the Oxonian was facetious. We that is, the reading men among us did know him ; but we did not like him. Many of us were content with adhering to the simple proposi- tion, that an atheist cannot be a poet; others, of less exclusive turn, were nevertheless satisfied that the rage for the newer bard was a mere fit of eccen- tricity and nonsensical Cambridge affectation, and that our old favourite Byron was worth a dozen of him. And when it was announced that three crack men of the rival union were coming to contend for the proposition that " Shelley was a greater poet than Byron" (for that was the form which the romantic issue of battle assumed), we awaited the result, not without awe, but, I fancy, with more of curiosity. But let me admit it at once the effect pro- duced upon us by the astounding vigour of that Cambridge onslaught has not been in the least exaggerated by Lord Houghton. What with the really extraordinary oratorical powers of Sunder- land, and the curiously intense literary enthusiasm 62 Appendix. of poor Arthur Hallam, and the many-sided ac- complishments of their distinguished survivor, we had not a chance of resistance. Not the unhappy Austrians, when the three Prussian corps d'armfe debouched upon them all at once from the Rie- sengebirge, were so utterly confounded as we rash Oxonians when the triumvirate discharged upon us in front and flank the needle-guns of their eloquence. It was an universal sauve qui pent a " skedaddle." As for Gladstone, to whom Lord Houghton alludes, I do not recollect even seeing him in the melee. Manning, who, in truth, had brought this shame upon us for I think it was he who invited the Cambridge deputation fought gallantly to cover our rearguard, but what could he do alone? It was indeed, for the time, the six- teenth decisive battle of the world; though whe- ther the fame of Shelley is now any the better for it, or that of Byron any the worse, I cannot pre- tend to say. And yet there were men among us in those days and a little earlier of whom no " deliberative body" need have been ashamed. I will not name any of our union orators of that period now living who have made their mark, more or less deep, on the time; but of the dead, Wrangham, afterwards Q.C., Edward Villiers, not the least gifted of the Claren- don brotherhood, and more than one besides, were fully qualified to hold their own, young as they were, in any assembly. It would have done you Appendix. 63 good sometimes to hear our discussions on ques- tions touching Charles I. and James II.; but we were still greater, I must needs admit, on questions of a private and personal nature. It was quite a privilege to assist at one debate, well remembered by me, on the proposal " that this table be covered with green baize," which had some how or other acquired a tinge of personality : still more, when on the occasion of an attack by the malcontents of the club on the committee of management, a distin- guished leader of that body, with most Chatham- like voice and action, announced his intention to resign his onerous office, " For God knows what the labours of that committee are." But, if the truth must be told, we could not equal Cambridge, in those days, either in youthful passion for literature and political philosophy, or indeed in fine scholarship. The characteristic tem- perament of the two universities was essentially different. What earnestness we had (and we did not lack it) took altogether an opposite direction. Cambridge produced the discursive intellects of wide range, the critics and the literary wits. She brought forth (I ant not speaking with accuracy as to dates, but a few years would cover them all) Macaulay, Tennyson, Thirlwall, Hare, and other brilliant phenomena. Oxford, with a travail of far other intensity, was giving birth to the Newmans, Froude, the Wilberforces, and the rest those whose destiny it was to achieve a doubtful fame 64 Appendix. for themselves individually, but to " set the world upside down." I am, Sir, yours, &c., BOCARDO. VI. To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Sir, I have read "Bocardo's" letter about the debate on Shelley's merits at Oxford, and can confirm your correspondent's recollection in most points by my own. Nevertheless, I do not believe that I was guilty of the rashness of throwing the javelin over the Cam. It was, I think, a passage of arms got up by the Eton men of the two Unions. My share, if any, was only as a member of the august committee of the green baize table. I can, however, well remember the irruption of the three Cambridge orators. We Oxford men were precise, orderly, and morbidly afraid of excess in word or manner. The Cambridge oratory came in like a flood into a mill-pond. Both Monckton Milnes and Arthur Hallam took us aback by the boldness and freedom of their'manner. But I re- member the effect of Sunderland's declamation and action to this day. It had never been seen or heard before among us: we cowered like birds and ran like sheep. I was reminding the other day the Secretary of the India Board of the damage he did me. He was my private tutor, and was terri- Appendix. 65 fically sitting right opposite to me. I had just rounded a period when I saw him make, as I believed in my agony, a sign of contempt which all but brought me down. I acknowledge that we were utterly routed. Lord Houghton's beautiful reviving of those old days has in it something fra- grant and sweet, and brings back old faces and old friendships very dear as life is drawing to its close. Yours, &c. + HENRY E. MANNING. VII. To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Sir, Your correspondent " Bocardo" in his pleasant letter of Friday last, demurs very justly to Lord Houghton's statement in his equally plea- sant speech that we Oxford young fellows knew nothing about Shelley till enlightened by the mis- sionary triad from Cambridge. And a corre- spondent of the Times, " Once a President of the Cambridge Union," writes to say that the Cam- bridge men of the same day were not so different from their present successors in the way of politi- cal predilections as Lord Houghton supposes. Pray allow me, as " once a president of the Oxford Union," to say the same on behalf of, or, if you like, in reproach of, the Oxford politicians of thirty 5 66 Appendix. or five-and-thirty years ago. Then, as now, Tory- ism was in the ascendant with the ingenuous youth who discussed Milton, Byron, and Shelley with moderate warmth, Reform and politics in general with much greater warmth, and "private business" with not a little wrath and indignation. Under- graduates, then, as now, brought their family politics with them to the university, and of all the budding orators who aired their views in the debates I can scarcely recall any who changed their notions during their undergraduate course. Certainly I did change my own, for coming up to Oxford a Tory I left it a Liberal; but such things were rare. I remember the politics of the old Union speakers who have since become great poli- tical lights in a world of realities as well as if our mimic world was of yesterday. Mr Gladstone was a Tory, so was Sir Roundell Palmer; Mr Lowe was a Liberal, and he was the best speaker I ever heard at Oxford, for Gladstone had just gone when I came up to reside; Mr Cardwell was a Liberal; the Bishop of London was a Liberal. Two names, afterwards well known as belonging to men of much influence in religious affairs, were those of Tories Faber, the late head of the Brompton Oratory ; and Ward, who threw the university into agonies of polemics, and who is now a powerful and influential writer of extreme Ultramontane views. But in those days we quarrelled in right earnest Appendix. 67 over our Union management and regulations, even more fiercely than in "Bocardo's" days. I had only just become a member when we were agitated with a violent schism arising from the election of a president unpalatable to the committee which had been for some time in office. The beaten party set up an opposition private club, carrying with them nearly all the best speakers, and hoping to conquer through the dulness that would settle down upon the debates when they deserted. The new presi- dent's party, stimulated by Lowe, threatened ex- pulsion to the malcontents, which the malcontents promised to resist as illegal, and the storm grew serious. How furious was our principal debate is celebrated in Homeric verse in the still remembered " Uniomachia," wherein the chief speeches are duly chronicled, and Tait, now the bishop, figures prominently as sentenced to a fine of a sovereign for not holding his tongue when the president in vain attempted to enforce order. Then, after weeks of separation, we made up the dispute, and celebrated it, after the fashion of our elders, by a great dinner, whereat the literary enthusiasm of youth asserted itself in company with the specific politics of the hour, and we drank, among other toasts, " To the memory of Sir Walter Scott," a thing which I too painfully remember, inasmuch as the oratory appropriate to the toast was exacted from myself. Our next fight was less serious, but it caused a 52 68 Appendix. great deal of irritation. In our old-fashioned way we were Sabbatarians, and the reading-room was not open on Sundays. But a strenuous effort was made to rescind the rule. I forget who were the principal advocates of the change ; but I am sorry to add that I was not one of them, and did my best to resist it. We succeeded, and on the night of the voting there was something very like a row, with window-breaking and other manifestations of avenging zeal not usual with decorous gownsmen. In company with Faber, who narrowly escaped serious damage, I was summoned the next day by the master of Balliol, and questioned as to the potency of the liquors with which we and others had celebrated our victory, and dismissed with flying colours. By-and-by a far more unpleasant affair arose. We who were the committee of management, like "cabinets" in general, did not choose to admit people into our sacred body who were disagreeable to us ; and as long as the com- mittee included a good proportion of the best speakers and showed tolerable tact, they could contrive to control the periodical elections of office holders. However, for some reason or other which I have forgotten, we got into hot water, and a charge was brought against our librarian as honourable and excellent a fellow as could be that he had " forged and fabricated" the accounts that he presented to the society. The accusation was ludicrous, the fact being that, not being well Appendix, 69 up in the ways of book-keeping, he had made some little blunder, and instead of showing what it was had erased the wrong figures and put in the right amount. But imagine the hubbub that fol- lowed. The chief accuser was a clever speaker, who knew how to enlist the sympathies of a party, and matters grew so serious that we called in the Dons, and were on the point of taking legal pro- ceedings, and expelling the author of the charge at all risks, when it was withdrawn and an apology made. After this unlucky business an attempt was made to prevent such scandals by altering the system of management, which only roused more ir- ritated feelings than ever. All the ordinary literary and political debating fell into the shade, and we did nothing but hold extra meetings more and more stormy and personal, until the long vacation happily calmed our troubled spirits; some of the chief actors took their degrees and disappeared, and the old state of things by degrees came back again. Whether similar conflicts have more re- cently disturbed either the Oxford or Cambridge Unions I do not know, but I should doubt whether they could have survived and flourished and built their new and luxurious homes, if their course had been often troubled by such acrimonious disputes as those of which we had such unpleasant expe- rience in my own days. If such has been the case, we must lament that they have not furnished sub- jects for clever squibs like the " Uniomachia, 70 Appendix. Canino-Anglico-Graece et Latine; ad codicum fidem accuratissime recensuit annotationibus Heavysternii ornavit, et suas insuper notulas adjecit, Habbaku- kius Dunder-Headius, Coll. Lug. Bat. olim soc. etc. etc." Your obedient servant, J. M. CAPES. VIII. Possibly the occasion furnished by Lord Hough- ton's inaugural address at the Cambridge Union Rooms, and the correspondence which has followed thereon in our columns though most of the latter contains nothing more than the expression of the memories, half humorous and half sad, which men grown old in engrossing pursuits retain of the trivial incidents of youth may be improved by a few reflections on the real value and prospects of those great institutions, the " Unions " of the two rival universities, and the copies of them elsewhere. We have, for our own parts, no hesitation in believing that value to be very considerable, and we imagine that public opinion has almost unani- mously taken by this time the same view, though it was otherwise formerly. They were viewed at the outset by the college authorities for the most part with dislike or contempt, and there were not wanting reasons, on the surface, to justify them. The distraction which they occasioned to indus- Appendix. 7 1 trious men from the serious studies of the place was of course an obvious one. Another was the encouragement to self-conceit; and no one not well conversant with the subject has ever fathomed the depths of the self-conceit of a clever under- graduate. A Bishop of Oxford of some popularity as well as authority in times not long past, Dr Lloyd, once committed himself by the assertion in some public way that "he did not think the opinion of a man under one-and-twenty, on a question of politics or religion, was worth much." We are told that the revulsion of feeling which this unlucky slip generated among his youthful admirers was almost as great as that which ensued on Mr Lowe's equally imprudent assertion respect- ing the capacity of the inferior classes for the suffrage. Whether the Union of that day pro- ceeded to a vote of censure on him we are not informed, but their feelings were deeply wounded. But all such objections, as well as other more profound ones arising from the dangers of en- couraging experiments in Church or State, have vanished long ago, in most sensible people's opi- nion, before the recognition of one great truth. The general, seducing, and ultimately destructive temptation to youth is the animal temptation the temptation to enjoy early life in the pursuit of the coarsest and simplest gratifications, whether innocent or the reverse. For one man who injures himself by misusing his intellectual powers, twenty 72 Appendix. ruin themselves, or, to put it more gently, render themselves unfit for the great purposes of life, through over-indulgence of the lower propensities, or of the mere tendency to indolence. Of course it might be better if men, determined to break through such a temptation, were to turn to hard study, in Greek verses, or philosophy, or mathe- matics. But all will not: hardly any will at all times. And of those who study most, many, in the overflow of a strong intellectual nature, require at times some vigorous diversion from their ordi- nary labours. The true answer to all doubts on the subject is this. Every student who turns from the wine-party, or the card-table, or the hunt, aye, or the cricket-field or the river, to study a speech for the Union or to make himself master of the arguments of others there, is exchanging a worse for a better thing, as the general rule. Exceptions there may be in abundance, but such is the law. On this principle, as on a rock, these debating societies rest, and must continue to rest until either some better substitute is invented or the lower part of our nature establishes a recognized supremacy over the higher. But he would greatly understate their case who should simply rest it here. These societies form (as is pretty generally recognized) a very useful introductory discipline for men who are to engage in public life in its various shapes. But they do more than this, they afford an indication to the world at large of the turn which the general Appendix. 73 mind is likely to take in certain classes and on certain matters. The Union sits laugh at the comparison as you may as a sort of grand jury on questions about to be submitted to the sharper discernment of the trained world. According to the monkish couplet, quoted in "Reginald Dai- ton," Chronica si penses, cum pugnant Oxonienses, Post aliquot menses, volat ira per Angligenenses. As to the weight of the political opinions pre- valent among them, some may, no doubt, share Bishop Lloyd's scepticism. But the simple fact that, with occasional exceptions, their majorities (we speak of the societies of the two older univer- sities) have been, as they now are, Consrvative in their colours, is no disparagement of their value in this premonitory respect, but the contrary. So are their fathers. And their " Conservatism," after all, has nothing of the mean and selfish element about it. The impulses which lead them in that direction are rather those which, according to the poet Cole- ridge, determined Burke's apostasy. Stormy pity, and the cherished lure Of pomp, and proud precipitance of soul. And, whatever the results of their mere votings may be, these impulses are allied in most instances with others prompting to an expansive liberalism by no means inconsistent with them. Pall Mall Gazette. 74 Appendix. IX. " Phaeton," says Dr Newman, " has got into the Chariot of the Sun; we, alas! can only look on, and watch him down the steep of Heaven." This alarming metaphor was merely intended to repre- sent that the old Universities of the land had been reformed and liberalized, and there has, no doubt, been a little revolution in those ancient seats of education and study. Perhaps some readers, after perusing the report of certain pro- ceedings at Cambridge which we yesterday pub- lished, may imagine that our academic youth are really taking to strange ways, and that " Unions," especially "political Unions," are curious insti- tutions to be established in the midst of mediaeval Colleges. But they are not novelties, though they are worked now-a-days in modern fashion, nor do they conduct their members to any precipices of revolution or ruin. In fact, the whole story, as related by Lord Houghton from long experience, is not a little singular. The " Unions," let us premise, of Oxford and Cambridge are societies formed of all members of the Universities. Originally and in the main they are associations of undergraduates, but, as graduates generally continue their membership, all ranks and ages are found on the rolls. In the-first Appendix. 75 instance, and, indeed, still, these societies repre- sent debating societies, established and maintained for public and formal discussion of the questions of the day. It is only by a natural extension that they have become literary clubs, with reading and writing rooms, large libraries, and other appliances of such institutions. The leading idea is that of debate, and the debating room, modelled on the arrangements of a Parliamentary Chamber, is the principal feature of the establishment. Lord Powis, who, as Lord High Steward of the University, repaired to Cambridge on Tuesday to open the new rooms, enlarged with great truth on some of the purposes which these institutions incidentally served. They furnished the University with a sphere or field of public life, a field on which all University men, of whatever College, rank, or standing, might meet together. The Union might almost be said to represent the old " University" the great scholastic commonalty which preceded the Colleges, but which appears now, as it were, crystallized in those independent foundations. Meeting in this way, the residents of the place form their own little world, and learn to speak, to debate, to argue, to convince and be convinced, as in real political or public life. It may be news, perhaps, to some people to hear that keen political discussion is carried on upon such principles and such a scale in places which they have been accustomed rather to associate with ideas of isola- 76 Appendix. tion and repose; but the facts are so, and Lord Houghton, who can recall the traditions of a past generation, gave an interesting history of the Cambridge Union from a time gone by. It must be understood, then, as bearing upon one of the most remarkable points of the subject that the present practice of political debate is of very recent origin. In Lord Houghton's time it had no existence. The Union of his days, either by a law of its own, or, what is more probable, by some stipulation on the part of the authorities, was banished to a past age for its subjects of debate. It was not allowable to discuss any question originated since the close of the last century, and so the Unionists of those days expended their youthful fervour partly on the subjects handled by Junius, but principally on the less practical topics of poetry or letters. An anecdote of real under- graduate life five-and-thirty years since, as related by Lord Houghton, does certainly deserve record-' ing. The Union Society of Cambridge at that period was possessed with a fixed and absorbing idea that Shelley, whose poetry was just then becoming known, was not appreciated as he should be by the Union Society of Oxford. So sensibly were the young gentlemen touched by this convic- tion, that a deputation was appointed to proceed to Oxford, obtain an interview with the representa- tives of the Oxford Union, and personally assert the claims of Shelley to be placed at least on a Appendix. 77 level with Byron. On this errand three Cambridge undergraduates, of whom Lord Houghton himself was one and Arthur Hallam another, did actually start and take a long dreary post-chaise journey of ten hours across country from Cambridge to Oxford. Arriving there, they were formally re- ceived by Gladstone, of Christ Church, lately Leader of the House of Commons, and Manning, of Balliol, now the Head of the Roman Catholic Church in England. The gravity of the mission was duly acknowledged, but the Conference was rather embarrassed by the fact that nobody at Oxford knew anything about Shelley at all; and it was only with a vague idea of having done something to rouse Oxford Unionists from their insensibility that the deputation returned to Cam- bridge. It will probably occur to the reader that such a mission on such a subject is not likely to be undertaken in the present day by any Oxford or Cambridge men of his acquaintance; and, indeed, Lord Houghton, who still retains his poetic tastes, was fain to remark that, upon looking over the journals of the Cambridge Parliament, he " did not find a notice of a single literary debate." The men have dropped such subjects. Just now the claims of Mr Swinburne to poetical excellence are matter of sharpish controversy; but Cambridge is thinking no more of Mr Swinburne than Oxford was of Mr Shelley. The Union of the present 78 Appendix. day is occupied with Mr Gladstone and Mr Disraeli, with living realities of politics and eco- nomy. Nevertheless and this is the point which seemed to puzzle Lord Houghton these young men, full of freedom, spirit, and ambition, plunging into politics without ballast or beacon, are almost exclusively Conservatives. The fact is the more remarkable, because the students of other Univer- sities in other countries are noted for principles bordering almost upon revolution, and what, then, can account for a difference so striking? Lord Houghton did not venture upon explanations, but up to a certain point they would not be difficult to find. The students of Oxford and Cambridge, unlike those of Jena or Gottingen, belong almost exclusively to the classes of society who are naturally Conservative. They come of Conservative fathers, and they retain the principles in which they have been bred. That is probably the true account of the matter, and yet it cannot be complete, because there is evidence to show that in former times and even as recently as Lord Houghton's own days, when the aristocratic element in the Universities was more predominant than now, the Conservatism of the Unions was by no means so marked. Mr Pendennis introduces his uncle to a fine set of young Republicans, and the old Major rather approves that school of politics for a College, observing that Jacobin principles "sate very prettily upon patricians at Appendix. 79 an early age," without being at all inconvenient a few years later. Moreover, as we have already said, this growing Conservatism of the Universities has coincided with the introduction of such po- litical debating as might be expected to lead to other conclusions. When the young men were debarred from living politics they were red-hot Radicals; now that they are conversant with these questions they are very like Tories. We suspect that some clue to the conclusion is contained in the facts themselves. It was all very well for young gentlemen 40 years ago to take up with Republicanism in a purely speculative way when they had no concern with real politics and little acquaintance with actual life; when the in- fluence of the Press was comparatively limited, and when knowledge, in all its departments, was limited also. Now, however, the Universities, like all other institutions, are in contact with the living and moving world, and it cannot be surprising, consider- ing what classes they represent, that they should share the leanings of the educated classes towards political caution. Jacobinism, we fancy, went out of date with Shelley and such like topics; and Conservatism, more or less modified, has come in with practical study and observation naturally biased, in the case of University men, by the influ- ence of birth and connexions. There, however, is the fact, and those who feel any consolation in it may assure themselves that the Political Unions of 8o Appendix. our two Universities are not charged with any strong elements of political Liberalism. The Times. X. To the Editor of The Times. Sir, As a contemporary of Lord Houghton's at Cambridge I read with the greatest pleasure his kindly reminiscences of our undergraduates days, and of the debates in the " Old Union," at the Red Lion. In one point, however, I think my friend's memory has played him a slight trick. Unless mine is treacherous, the Conservative element in the society predominated numerically in our day as well as now. Let me recall to his mind the promi- nent part taken in our debates by the Lillingstons, the Farrs, the Yorkes, and the Crutchleys. The pre- sent Home Secretary, no less courteous and can- did to an adversary then than he is now, was at the time quite as pronounced in his opposition to John Sterling and Charles Buller. Nor was there any mistake about the Conservatism of Augustus Stafford, or Lord John Manners, or George Smythe (to whom Lord Powis alluded in his opening address), or of Lord Powis himself. Sunderland, too, made his d/but as a Jacobite, although the Jacobite afterwards turned into something like a Appendix. 8 r Jacobin. Nay, the political sentiments of my noble friend himself and those of "the young man named Gladstone," of Mr Bernal Osborne, of Mr Horsman, and other notabilities, could hardly be regarded as fully indicative of their subsequent views by any one not possessing the gift of pro- phecy. And this was only natural. The time of which Lord Houghton is speaking was one before the Reform Bill, before the triumph of the prin- ciples of Free-trade, before the removal of the most crying religious disabilities. The objects which Liberals then set before themselves have all been attained; and although young men of ardent minds belonging to that school may pos- sibly sigh for new worlds to conquer, it cannot be considered inconsistency in their seniors should they not share this feeling in any great degree. I rather demur, therefore, both to the mild complaint of Lord Houghton and your comment upon it in your leading article of to-day. We Liberals of a generation back are not willing to believe our sons obstructives ; and we are quite as unwilling to have them regard us, who have now become a little wiser, as rash and hot-headed young men in the days "when George IV. was king." We should have shrunk quite as much then as they now do from identifying ourselves with itinerant demagogues; we hated tyranny and op- pression in ermine, and we should not have flat- tered them in fustian; our desire was to protect 6 82 Appendix. the interests of every class in the State, and to spread content and mutual good-feeling over the whole of the nation by removing the obvious causes which rendered the interests of some in- compatible with the interests of the rest, not to subject all classes to one and make an enemy of that. On these 'principles we acted, both as members of the Union Society and in after life, and, as we venture to think, with some success ; and we cannot help hoping that if true Liberals are really in a minority just now in the Union Society they will follow the example of their fathers, and, while they altogether refuse to iden- tify themselves with the wretched caricature which usurps the name of liberality, will steadily and candidly maintain the true cause of civil and reli- gious liberty whenever it is at stake. Their mi- nority will, as ours did, turn at last into a majority; and I will answer for it that the experience of mature life will not be found to contradict the generous aspirations of youth. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, ONCE A PRESIDENT OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNION. XL To the Editor of TJie Times. Sir, I have read with great interest your re- port of the recent proceedings relative to the Appendix. 83 Cambridge Union. Permit me to state to you a fact bearing on the seeming difference of opinion respecting the former political bias of the society. The Union was originally formed by the amal- gamation of three distinct associations, and was placed provisionally under the direction of two noted Whigs, both godsons of the statesman whose name they bore Charles Fox Townsend and the Hon. Charles Fox Maitland. On its being finally constituted, in the spring of 1814, other officers were substituted. The first trial of strength be- tween the Whig and Tory members, as I find by reference to a letter written by me at the time, was on the question of the war of 1793, involving Mr Pitt's entire policy, when, on the division, there having been about 100 present, there were 49 pros and 26 cons. The society included in its ranks the elite of the undergraduates and some distinguished graduates of the University. The result is, perhaps, the more remarkable as the politics of the University were at this time considered decidedly Whig, so as to incur the Prince Regent's displeasure, of which, being present on the occasion, I well remember his giving us proof on the presentation of an address. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, THE FIRST SECRETARY AND THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNION. 62 84 Appendix, XII. To the Editor of The Times. Sir, The recent opening of the new buildings of the Cambridge Union Society, the admirable speeches made on the occasion, and your article on the subject have awakened pleasant recollections and old interests with many persons. I hear that there are not a few who would gladly have contri- buted if they had heard that such a building was being raised by subscription. May I be allowed to state that their assistance will still be thankfully accepted? The cost of the land, buildings, and furniture is about 11,000, while the amount of subscriptions does not exceed 4,000. The amount of debt and the charge for interest will therefore be unduly heavy unless further assistance is ob- tained. Subscriptions can be paid to the account of the Cambridge University Union Society with Messrs Mortlock and Co., Cambridge, whose Lon- don agents are Messrs Smith, Payne and Smith, Lombard-street. I have the honour to be Your obedient servant, M. A. LIST OF OFFICERS. LIST OF OFFICERS, WITH THE DATES OF THEIR ELECTION. Lent, 1815. Mr E. Gambler Pres. Trin. Lord Normanby . . . Treas. Trin. ^on. C. J. Shore. .Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1815. Lord Normanby ...Pres. Trin. Hon. C. J. Shore ...Treas. Trin. Mr G. Stainforth ...Sec. ...Trin. October, 1815. Hon. C. J. Shore ...Pres. Trin. Mr G. Stainforth ...Treas. Trin. E. Leycester ...Sec. ...Joh. Lent, 1816. Mr G. Stainforth ...Pres. Trin. E. Leycester . . . Treas. Joh. R. Whitcombe..^. ...Trin. Easter, 1816. Mr E. Leycester ...Pres. Joh. R. Whitcombe.. Treas. Trin. W. Whewell ...Sec. ...Trin. October, 1816. Mr R. Whitcombe.. Pres. Trin. W. Whewell . . . Treas. Trin. W. G. Graham. Sec. ...Trin. Lent, 1817. Mr W. Whewell ...Pres. Trin. H. J. Rose Treas. Trin. 2 C. Thirlwall ...Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1817. No Officers were elected. October, 1817. Mr H. J. Rose Pres. Trin. H. Waddington Treas. Trin. T. Thorp Sec. ...Trin. Lent, 1818. Mr B. H. Malkin.../ ) rT. Trin. T. Thorp Treas. Trin. T. Baines Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1818. Mr T. Thorp Pres. Trin. T. Baines Treas. Trin. S. Hawkes Sec. ...Trin. October, 1818. Mr T. Baines Pres. Trin. T. Platt Treas. Trin. J. Fisher fe-. ...Trin. Lent, 1819. MrT. Platt Pres. Trin. S. Hawkes Treas. Trin. W. M. Praed ...Ar. ...Joh. Easter, 1819. Mr S. Hawkes /VKT. Trin. J. Cooper, Treas. &* Sec. Trin. October, 1819. Mr J. Cooper Pra 1 . Trin. E. D. Rhodes... Treas. Sidney. J. D. Glennie...&f. ...Trin. 1 Now Lord Teignmouth. 2 Bishop of St David's. Appendix. Lent, 1820. Mr E. D. Rhodes... Pres. Sidney. J. D. Glennie ...Treas. Trin. E. Whiteley Sec. ...Jesus. Easter, 1820. Mr E. Whiteley Pres. Jesus. T. Sheepshanks Treas. Trin. T. B. Macaulay &<:. ...Trin. October, 1820. Mr T. Sheepshanks Pres. Trin. E. Strutt Treas. Trin. *J. Punnett Sec. ...Clare. Lent, 1821. 2 MrE. Strutt Pres. Trin. J. Punnett Treas. Clare. J. Furnival Sec. ...Queens' Easter, 1821. Mr J. Punnett Pres. Clare. J. Furnival Treas. Queens' C.Austin Sec. ...Jesus. October, 1821. Mr J. Furnival Pres. Queens', C. Austin Treas. Jesus. A. Stapleton Sec. ...Joh. Lent, 1822. Mr C. Austin Pres. Jesus. A. Stapleton ....Treas. Joh. T. H. Villiers....Sk-. ...Joh. Easter, 1822. 3 Mr C. Villiers Pres. Joh. W. H. Ord Treas. Trin. J. H. Pattison...&c. ...Joh. October, 1822. Mr W. H. Ord Pres. Trin. 4 Lord Howick Treas. Trin. Mr W. Blunt Sec. ...King's. Lent, 1823. Mr W. Blunt Pres. King's. T. B. Macaulay Treas. Trin. G. O. Townsend Sec. ...King's. Easter, 1823. Mr G. O. Townsend Pres. King's. R. C. Hildyard Treas. Cath. W. M. Praed....6Vr. ...Trin. October, 1823. Mr J. J. Rawlinson Pres. Trin. W. M. Praed...7mw. Trin. R. Steel Sec. ...Joh. Lent, 1824. Mr R. C. Hildyard Pres. Cath. 6 A. J. Cockburn Treas. Trin. H. J. Haughton ....Sec. ...Pemb. Easier, 1824. Mr A. J. Cockburn Pres. Trin. H. J. Haughton Treas. Pemb. 6 E. G. L. Bulwer Sec. ...Trin.H. October, 1824. Mr J. Haughton Pres. Pemb. E. G. L. Bulwer Treas. Trin. H. E. Beales Sec. ...Trin. Lent, 1825. Mr W. E. Tooke ...Pres. Trin. 7B. H. Kennedy Treas. Joh. R. D. Boylan...>&r. ...Trin. 1 Mr Furnival, of Queens' College, was appointed Vice-Secretary for this Term, during the absence of Mr Punnett. 2 Now Lord Helper. 3 L a t e President, Poor Law Board. 4 Now Earl Grey. 1 Lord Chief Justice, Queen's Bench. * Now Lord Lytton. 1 Late Head Master, Shrewsbury School. Appendix. 89 Easter, 1825. Mr B. H. Kennedy Pres. Joh. R. D. Boylan . . . Treas. Trin. V. Vyvyan Sec. ...Trin. October, 1825. Mr J. Stock Pres. Pet. J. Wilson Treas. Trin. E. Romilly Sec. ...Christ's. Lent, 1826. Mr J. Wilson Pres. Trin. E. Romilly Treas. Christ's. J. H. Smith Sec. ...Corpus. Easter, 1826. Mr J. H. Smith Pres. Corpus. R. Hutt Treas. Trin. C. Lillingston . . . Sec. . . . Emman. October, 1826. Mr C. Lillingston... Pres. Emman. C. Buller Treas. Trin. J. Jordan Sec. ...Clare. Lent, 1817. Mr C. Buller Pres. Trin. J. Sterling Treas. Trin. H. J. Kemble Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1827. Mr J. Sterling Pres. Trin.H. T. Sunderland .. Treas. Trin. J. Leigh Sec. ...Trin. October, 1827. i Mr S. H. Walpole Pres. Trin. J- Leigh l Tnas Trin. a R.C. Trench... \ Jrau - Trin. J. H. Cameron j c (Trin. C. Templeton J * 1 (Trin. Lent, 1828. Mr J. Kemble Pres. Trin. J. W. Blakesley Treas. Corpus. H. H. Luscombe Sec. ...Clare. Easter, 1828. Mr R. C. Trench ...Pres. Trin. H.H. Luscombe Treas. Clare. J. Simpson Sec. ...Corpus. October, 1828. Mr H. H. Luscombe Pres. Clare. J. Simpson Treas. Corpus. W. G. Ponsonby Sec. . . .Trin. Lent, 1829. Mr J. W. Blakesley Pres. Corpus. C. Chapman Treas. Corpus. P. H. Crutchley &<:. ...Magd. Easter, 1829. Mr C. Chapman ....Pres. Corpus. P. H. Crutchley Treas. Magd. H.P. Hope Sec. ...Trin.H. October, 1829. Mr P. H. Crutchley Pres. Magd. H. P. Hope Treas. Trin. H. C.Lloyd Sec. ...Magd. Lent, 1830. MrL. S. Orde Pres. Queens'. C. Lloyd Treas. Magd. J. Carne Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1830. Mr H. Matthew ....Pres. Sidney. J. Carne Treas. Trin. 4 H. Alford Sec. ...Trin. 1 Secretary of State for Home Department M.P. for Cambridge University. 3 Archbishop of Dublin. 3 Where two names appear for one office in the same term, it is when the former has vacated and the latter been elected to fill it. 4 Dean of Canterbury. Appendix. October, 1830. Mr L. S. Orde ...... Pres. 1 Queens', H. Alford ....... Treas. Trin. W.H.Brookfield-Sar. ...Trin. Lent, 1831. Mr W. S. O'Brien ..Pres. Trin. W.H.Brookfield Treas. Trin. W. Bailey ........ Sec. ...Trin. Easttr, 1831. Mr J. W. D . Dundas Pres. . . .Magd. J. R. Gardiner .. Treas. Trin. R. G. L. Blen-f ~ T - i i^ec. Inn. kinsopp ...... ) October, 1831. Mr W.H.Brookneld/V,?j. Trin. R G. L.BIen-j 7 . fW>TrilL kinsopp ...... ) R. Sale ........... Sec. ...Joh. 1832. Mr C. R. Kennedy /Vw. Trin. R. Sale ........... Treas. Joh. R. A. Johnstone Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1832. Mr H. Alford ....... Pres. Trin. R. A. Johnstone Treas. Trin. K. Macaulay .....Sw. ...Jesus. October, 1832. Mr R. A. Johnstone Pres. Trin. F. S. Williams . Treas. Trin. W. F. Dobson....fe. ...Joh. Lent, 1833. Hon.W.C.Henniker/V*r. Joh. Mr W. F. Dobson...2Vmr. Joh. F. J. White ...... Sec. ...Magd. Easter, 1833. Mr E. Warburton.../'m. Trin. C. White Treas. Magd. B. Stocks Sec. ...Trin. October, 1833. Mr J. E. Heathcote Pres. Trin. G.Ferguson Treas. Trin. C. G. Burke ....Sec. ...Christ's. Pres. I Trin. Lent, 1834. Mr W. H. Brook-) field 1 .... Hon. W. C. Hen- 1 niker 1 > Ijoh. Mr C. White 1 Treas. Magd. C. G. Burke l ....Sec. ...Christ's. Easter, 1834. Mr C. White Pres. Magd. C. G. Burke Treas. Christ's. G.F.Townshend-SVrc. ...Trin. October, 1834. Mr C. G. Burke Pres. Christ's. G.F.Townshend Treas. Trin. W.A.Mackinnon&if. ...Joh. Lent, 1835. Mr G. F.Townshend/>ra-. Trin. W.A.Mackinnon Treas. Joh. H. B. Jones Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1835. Mr K. Macaulay ...Pres.... Jesus. J. H. Timing ...Treas. Trin. H. Roberts Sec. ...Magd. October, 1835. MrW.A.Mackinnon/'ra'. Joh. H. Bullock Treas. Christ's. S. Spranger Sec. ...Trin. 1 Second time. Appendix. Lent, 1836. Mr W. F. Pollock... Pres. Trin. J. Kirkpatrick...7V#w. Trin. W. G. Romaine Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1836. Mr T. Spankie Pres Trin. H. R. Goldfinch Treas. Trin. W. Mackenzie ...So-. ...Trin.H. October, 1836. Mr H. R. Goldfinch Pres. Trin. W. Mackenzie ..Treas. Trin.H. 1 J. A. Hardcastle Sec. . . . Trin. Lent, 1837. 2 Mr A. B. Cochrane Pres. Trin. C. Tower Treas. Joh. R. N. Philips... Sec. ...Christ's. Easter, 1837. Mr A. J. Ellis Pres. Trin. R. N. Philips... Treas. Christ's. S. T. Bartlett ...Sec. ...Clare. October, 1837. Mr R. N. Philips ...Pres. Christ's. S. T. Bartlett... Treas. Clare. J. G. Maitland..6Vr. ...Trin. Lent, 1838. Mr J. C. Tindal Pres. Trin. 3 R. Baggallay...7Vazj. Caius. E. Banbury Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1838. Sir J. Lighten Pres.. ..Joh. Mr H. White Treas. Trin. W. J. Butler . ...Sec. ...Trin. October, 1838. Mr S. T. Bartlett ...Pra-. Clare. F. Thackeray ... Treas. Caius. T. Frere Sec. ...Trin. 1 M.P. for Bury St Edmund's. 3 M.P. for Hereford. Lent, 1839. Mr A. J. B. Hope / (Trin. J.W. Donaldson \ rres ' (Trin. C. J. Ellicott 4 ...2Vr. ...Jesus. October, 1842. Mr T. S. Western... /V*r. Trin. H. Cox Treas. Jesus. J. C. H. Ogier..6ar. ...Trin. Lent, 1843. Mr F. W. Gibbs ...Pres. Trin. J. C. H. Ogier..7Vw. Trin. G. W. King Sec. ...Trin. Easter, 1843. Hon.F. S. Grimston Pres. Magd. Mr G. W. King Treas. Trin. J.Kay Sec. ...Trin. October, 1843. Mr G. W. King Pres. Trin. Hon. A. Spring- Rice Treas. Trin. MrT. H. Tooke....&r. ...Trin. Lent, 1844. Mr J. C. H. Ogier../Vr. Trin. October, 1860. Sir G. Young, Bart. .Pw. Trin. Mr C. Dalrymple V.-Pres.Trin. A. Hay Hill ...Treas. Trin. H. R. F. Woodward^ . Trin. Lent, 1861. Mr. H. Sidgwick .. Pres. Trin. W. M. Lane... V.-Pres. Trin. A. Hay Hill ...Treas. Trin.H. R. H. Wilson... .So:. Trin. Easter, 1861. Mr F. LI. Bagshawe Pres. Trin. G. A. Skinner V.-Pres. Trin. A. Hay Hill ...Treas. Trin.H. W. Everett Sec. Trin. October, 1861. MrG. O. Trevelyan Pres. Trin. W. Everett . . . V. -Pres. Trin. M. Powell Treas. Trin. E. L. O'Malley Sec. Trin. 1 M.P. for Tynemouth. - Mr Salwey was elected on the retirement in consequence of ill health of Mr Kitchener. 9 6 Appendix. Lent, 1862. Mr W. M. Lane ....Pres. Trin. E. L. O'Malley V.-Pres. Trin. M. Powell Treas. Trin. E. H. McNeile Sec. Trin. Easter, 1862. Mr W. J. Lawrance.Pm. Trin. A. Sidgwick...F'.-/ > ra.Trin. M. Powell Treas. Trin. H. Lee- Warner Sec. Joh. October, 1862. Mr. W. Everett ....Pres. Trin. H. Lee-Warner V.-Pres. Joh. A. Clowes Treas. Trin. R. D. Bennett.. .Sec. Trin.H. Lent, 1863. Mr E. L. O'Malley Pres. Trin. R. D. Bennett V.-Pres. Trin.H. A. Clowes Treas. Trin. J. B. Payne Sec. Down. Easter, 1863. Mr E. L. O'Malley 1 Pres. Trin. W. Whitworthr. -/>. Pemb. A. Clowes Treas. Trin. T. Beard Sec. Jesus. October, 1863. Mr A. Sidgwick ...Pres. Trin. C. W. Dilke... ^-/"m. Trin.H. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. A. G. Shiell ...Sec. Pet. Lent, 1864. Mr R. D. Bennett... Pres. Trin.H. C. W. Dilke 1 V.-Pres. Trin.H. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. H. Peto .. ....Sec. Trin. Easter, 1864. Mr H. Jackson Pres. Trin. B. K. Woodd V.-Pres. Trin. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. H. D. Jones ...Sec. Joh. October, 1864. Mr C. W. Dilke .../"ra-. Trin.H. H. Peto V. -Pres. Trin. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. J. R. Hollond...5^. Trin. Lent, 1865. Mr H. Peto Pres. Trin. C. Greene V. -Pres. Trin. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. E. S. Shuckburgh .So". Emm. Easter, 1865. Mr J. R. Hollond. . .Pres. Trin. E S.Shuck-) r _ jpmEmm> burgh E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. Lord E. Fitzmaurice Sec. Trin. October, 1865. Mr E. S. Shuckburgh/VKf. Emm. Lord E. Fitzmaurice V. -Pres. Trin. MrE. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. S. Colvin Sec. Trin. Lent, 1866. Mr C. W. Dilke l . . . Pres. Trin. H. H. L. Anderton V.-Pres. Cams. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. W. R. Kennedy Sec. King's. Easter, 1866. Lord E. Fitzmaurice Pres. Trin. Mr S. Colvin V.-Pres. Trin. E. E. W. Kirkby Treas. Trin. G. C. Whiteley Sec. Joh. 1 Second time. CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.