zealous to promote worthy men and generous designs.' He was shrewdly suspected of being a royalist, and Cromwell had been wont to greet his visits thus:--'What, brother Wilkins, I suppose you are come to ask something or other in favour of the Malignants?' But his influence is said to have decided the Protector against confiscating the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge to pay his army*.

In the space of forty years between the Restoration and Bentley's arrival, Trinity College had suffered some decline; not through any default of eminent abilities or worthy characters, but partly from general influences of the time, partly from the occasional want of a sufficiently firm rule. Dr. John Pearson,-the author of the treatise on the Creed,-was Master of Trinity from 1662 to 1673. A contemporary-whose words plainly show the contrast with Bentley which was in his mind— said that Pearson was 'a man the least apt to encroach upon anything that belonged to the Fellows, but treated them all with abundance of civility and condescension.' 'The Fellows, he has heard, ask'd him whether he wanted anything in his lodge,-table-linen, or the like;' "No," saith the good man, "I think not; this I have will serve yet;" and though pressed by his wife to have new, especially as it was offered him, he would refuse it while the old was fit for use. He was very well contented with what the College allowed him.'

*

See a letter, preserved in the Muniment-room of Trinity College, Cambridge, and published by Mr W. Aldis Wright in Notes and Queries, Aug. 13, 1881. I may remark that Dr. Creyghton, whose recollections in old age the letter reports, errs in one detail. It must have been as Warden of Wadham, not as Master of Trinity, that Wilkins interceded against the confiscation. Oliver Cromwell died Sept. 3, 1658. It was early in 1659 that Richard Cromwell appointed Wilkins to Trinity College.

Pearson was succeeded in the mastership by Isaac Barrow, who held it for only four years-from 1673 to his death in 1677. Both as a mathematician and as a theologian he stood in the foremost rank. In 1660 he was elected 'without a competitor' to the professorship of Greek. Thus a singular triad of distinctions is united in his person; as Lucasian professor of Mathematics, he was the predecessor of Newton; at Trinity College, of Bentley; and, in his other chair, of Porson. In early boyhood he was chiefly remarkable for his pugnacity, and for his aversion to books. When he was at Charterhouse, 'his greatest recreation was in such sports as brought on fighting among the boys; in his after-time a very great courage remained...yet he had perfectly subdued all inclination to quarrelling; but a negligence of his cloaths did always continue with him.' As Master of Trinity, 'besides the particular assistance he gave to many in their studies, he concerned himself in everything that was for the interest of his College.'

The next two Masters were men of a different type. John North was the fifth son of Dudley, Lord North, and younger brother of Francis North, first Baron Guilford, Lord Keeper in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. He had been a Fellow of Jesus College, and in 1677 he was appointed Master of Trinity. John North was a man of cultivated tastes and considerable accomplishments, of a gentle, very sensitive disposition, and of a highly nervous temperament. Even after he was a Fellow of his College, he once mistook a moonlit towel for an enorm spectre;' and his brother remembers how, at a still later period, 'one Mr Wagstaff, a little gentleman, had an express audience, at a very good dinner, on the subject of spectres, and much was said pro and con.' On one occasion he travelled into Wales, 'to visit and be

possessed of his sinecure of Llandinon.' The parishioners came about him and hugged him, calling him their pastor, and telling him they were his sheep;' when 'he got him back to his College as fast as he could.' In the Mastership of Trinity North showed no weakness. Certain abuses had begun to infect the election to Fellowships, and he made a vigorous effort to remedy them. He was no less firm in his endeavours to revive discipline, which had been somewhat relaxed since the Restoration. One day he was in the act of admonishing two students, when he fell down in a fit. The two young men were 'very helpful' in carrying him to the Lodge. Paralysis of one side ensued. He lived for upwards of three years, but could thenceforth take little part in College affairs; and died, six years after he had become Master, in 1683.

Dr John Mountague, North's successor, was the fourth son of Edward, first Earl of Sandwich. The little that is known of Mountague exhibits him as an amiable person of courtly manners, who passed decently along the path of rapid preferment which then awaited a young divine with powerful connections. Having first been Master of Sherburn Hospital at Durham, he was appointed, in 1683, to the Mastership of Trinity. His easy temper and kindly disposition made him popular with the Fellows, all the more so, perhaps, if his conscience was less exacting than that of the highly-strung, anxious North. In 1699 he returned, as Dean of Durham, to the scene of his earlier duties, and lived to see the fortunes of the College under Bentley. He died in London, in 1728. There was a double disadvantage for Bentley in coming after such a man; the personal contrast was marked; and those tendencies which North strove to repress had not suffered, under Mountague,

from any interference which exceeded the limits of good breeding.

In the fore-front of the difficulties which met Bentley Dr Monk puts the fact that he had no previous connection with the College which he was sent to govern; he was himself educated in another and a rival society.' Now, without questioning that there were murmurs on this score, I think that we shall overrate the influence of such a consideration if we fail to observe what the precedents had been up to that date. Bentley was the twentieth Master since 1546. Of his nineteen predecessors, only five had been educated at Trinity College. To take the four immediately preceding cases, Barrow and Mountague had been of Trinity, but Pearson had been of King's, and North of Jesus. Since Bentley's time. every Master has been of Trinity. But it cannot be said that any established usage then existed of which Bentley's appointment was a breach. And young though he was for such a post,-thirty-eight, he was not young beyond recent example. Pearson, when appointed, had been forty; Barrow, forty-three; North, thirty-three; and Mountague, only twenty-eight. Thus the choice was not decidedly exceptional in either of the two points which might make it appear so now. But the task which, at that moment, awaited a Master of Trinity was one which demanded a rare union of qualities. How would Bentley succeed? A few readers of the Dissertation on Phalaris, that mock despot of Agrigentum, might tremble a little, perhaps, at the thought that the scholarly author appeared to have a robust sense of what a real tyrant should be, and a cordial contempt for all shams in the part. It was natural, however, to look with hope to his mental grasp and vigour, his energy, his penetration, his genuine love of learning.

CHAPTER VII.

BENTLEY AS MASTER OF TRINITY.

WHEN Bentley entered on his new office, he was in one of those positions where a great deal may depend on the impression made at starting. He did not begin very happily. One of his first acts was to demand part of a College dividend due by usage to his predecessor, Dr Mountague, who closed the discussion by waiving his claim. Then the Master's Lodge required repairs, and the Seniority (the eight Senior Fellows) had voted a sum for that purpose, but the works were executed in a manner which ultimately cost about four times the amount. It is easy to imagine the comments and comparisons to which such things would give rise in a society not, perhaps, too favourably prepossessed towards their new chief. But Bentley's first year at Trinity is marked by at least one event altogether fortunate,-his marriage. At Bishop Stillingfleet's house he had met Miss Joanna Bernard, daughter of Sir John Bernard, of Brampton, Huntingdonshire. Being now raised to a station of dignity and consequence, he succeeded in obtaining the object of his affections,' says Dr Monk-who refuses to believe a story that the engagement was nearly broken off owing to a doubt expressed by Bentley with regard

J. B.

H