known in the past and some to be more or less intimately known in the future, were from all parts of the kingdom, and with their different manners and various subjects of conversation would serve not only to interest but to educate and enlarge his mind.

The daily routine of college life in term time has already been described, but so severe a system of discipline was difficult to maintain. In some colleges it was probably never enforced, and in others was gradually relaxed. 'The rule of not permitting students to go beyond the walls of their Colleges was, also, much modified. Students might be seen wandering in the streets, or walking along the Trumpington Road, with very little security that they would talk Latin on their way, or that, before returning to College, they might not visit the Dolphin, the Rose, or the Mitre. These three . . . were the favourite taverns of Cambridge; "the best tutors," as the fast students said, "in the University."

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Bathing in the Cam, which had been strictly prohibited, was a daily practice, and many amusements the collegians habitually indulged in were forbidden by old decrees, decrees which were forgotten or continually defied. Dramatic entertainments were by no means objected to, but were rather encouraged by the authorities, being 'held necessary for the emboldening of their junior scholars,' as says Thomas V Heywood, who at this period was a Fellow of Peterhouse. He states that 'dramatic entertainments were publicly acted, in which graduates of good place

D

and reputation have been specially parted' (i.e. given parts).

Bearing upon the subject of dramatic entertainments encouraged by the college authorities, as also upon other matters concerning contemporary University life, such as corporal punishment, the following paragraphs from a Cambridge magazine article, entitled 'An Interrupted Performance,' are of exceptional interest :

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'On the 23rd of February (1583) Dr. Bell, ViceChancellor, committed to the Tolbooth for three days, Mudd, B.A., of Pembroke Hall, because, in a comedy which he had composed, he had censured and too saucily reflected on the Mayor of Cambridge; and on the 26th of February, Mudd, at the command of the Vice-Chancellor, acknowledged his fault before the Mayor and asked his pardon, which was freely granted.

'The Vice-Chancellor also, on the first-mentioned day, committed Evance, a scholar of Pembroke Hall, to prison for three days, because he lay hid when sought for by the Bedel and had neglected to appear; and on the 25th of February he was beaten with rods before all the youth of the University in the Public School Street, because he had propounded scandalous, foolish, and opprobrious questions at the disputations of the questionists, and because he had made an assault with a club and had thrown stones when a play was exhibited in the College of Corpus Christi.'

In the paper from which the preceding paragraphs are extracted, the Rev. Dr. H. P. Stokes points out that the year when these interrupted performances were being held, 'was one of the years when Christopher Marlowe was in residence,' and it may be conjectured that 'he was the author of the dramas of which we unfortunately are not even told the titles.' In the same paper Dr. Stokes remarks how interesting it would be if some allusions to the student days of these great poets' (Marlowe and John Fletcher, both Corpus men) 'could have been unearthed from the college records; but when it is remembered that of old in such registers,

"The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones,"

we may say that "no news is good news."'

The

Then, as now, the University terms were fixed by the statutes of Elizabeth. The academic year began on the 10th of October, and the first, or Michaelmas term, from that day to the 16th of December. Christmas vacation of four weeks followed. The second, or Lent term, began on the 13th January and ended on the second Friday before Easter. Then came the Easter vacation of three weeks; followed by the third, or Easter term, extending from the second Wednesday after Easter Sunday to the Friday after Commencement Day.' Commencement Day was always the first Tuesday in July, and being held after the great terminating

Assembly of the University, at which the candidates for the higher degrees of the year were said to commence' in those degrees. The University long vacation of three months then began.

It may be stated that the order of the curriculum, a very important item of the University career, which students had to comply with at Cambridge, in the Faculty of Arts, lasted over seven years. The first part covered the undergraduate period, extending from the date of admission to the obtaining the B.A. degree; and the second, the period of Bachelorship to the attainment of an M.A. degree.

According to the statutes, as they were then, four years' course of study, that is, twelve full terms of residence in a college, was necessary for the attainment of the B.A. degree, and each year of the four had its appropriate studies. During the fourth year of this period, and generally in the last term, the students who had qualified were required to keep two 'Acts,' or 'Responsions,' and two 'Opponencies,' in the public schools. These proceedings were arranged

as follows:

At the beginning of the academic year, one of the Proctors obtained the names of the students in the different colleges who were desirous that year of competing for the degree of B.A. Soon after the commencement of the Lent term each of these aspirants received notification that in about a fortnight's time he would have to appear as 'Respondent' in the Public Schools. This notification