banks, – these would be powerful sensations to a youth like Milton. Within the cloisters of his own College, he had matter enough for curiosity and speculation. Setting aside the Master and Fellows, respecting whom, and especially respecting his own tutor Chappell, his curiosity would naturally be strongest, the faces and figures of his fellow-students, collected from all the counties of England, and answering to names many of which he had never heard, could not but interest and amuse him. Which of these faces, some fair, some dark, some ruddy, were to be most familiar and the most dear to him in the end ? In which of these bodies-tall, of mid-stature, or diminutive — beat the manliest hearts ? As all this was interesting to Milton then prospectively, so it is interesting to us now in the retrospect. Nor, with due search, would it be impossible, even at this distance of time, to present in one list the names, surnames, and scholastic antecedents of all the two hundred youths or thereby, whom, as they were congregated in the hall or chapel of Christ's in the spring of 1624-5, Milton may have surveyed with the feelings described.? Of such of them as there is any peculiar reason for remembering we shall hear as we proceed.

A matter of some importance to the young freshman at College, after his choice of a tutor, is his choice of chambers. Tradition still points out at Christ's College the rooms which Milton occupied. 2 They are in the older part of the building, on the left side of the court, as you enter through the street-gate — the first floor rooms on the first stair on that side. The rooms consist at present of a small study with two windows looking into the court, and a very small bed-room adjoining. They do not seem to have been altered at all since Milton's time. When we hear of “ Milton's rooms” at College, however, the imagination is apt to go wrong in one point. It was very rare in those days for any member of a College, even a Fellow, to have a chamber wholly to himself. Two or three generally occupied the same chamber; and, in full Colleges, there were all kinds of devices of truckle-beds and the like to multiply accommodation. In the original statutes of Christ's College, there is a chapter specially providing for the manner in which the chambers of the College should be allocated; "in which chambers," says the founder, “our wish is that the Fellows sleep two and two, but the scholars four and four, and that no one have alone a single chamber for his proper use, unless perchance it be some Doctor, to whom, on account of the dignity of his degree, we grant the possession of a separate chamber.”? In the course of a century, doubtless, custom had become somewhat more dainty. Still, in all the Colleges, the practice was for the students to occupy rooms at least two together; and in all College biographies of the time, we hear of the chum or chamber-fellow of the hero as either assisting or retarding his studies. Milton's chamber-fellow, or one of his chamber-fellows, would naturally be Pory. But, in the course of seven years, there must have been changes.

The Terms of the University, then as now, were those fixed by the statutes of Elizabeth. The academic year began on the 10th of October, and the first, or Michaelmas or October Term, extended from that day to the 16th of December. Then followed the Christmas vacation. The second, or Lent or January Term, began on the 13th of January and extended to the second Friday before Easter. There then intervened the Easter vacation of three weeks. Finally, the third, or Easter or Midsummer Term, began on the 11th day (second Wednesday) after Easter-Day, and extended to the Friday after “Commencement Day”- that is, after the great terminating Assembly of the University, at which candidates for the higher degrees of the year were said to “commence” in those degrees; which “ Commencement Day" was always the first Tuesday in July. The University then broke up for the “long vacation” of three months.

In those days of difficult travelling, and of the greater strictness of the statutes of the different Colleges in enforcing residence even out of term, it was more usual than it is now for students to remain in Cambridge during the short Christmas and Easter vacations; but few stayed in College through the whole of the long vacation. During part of this vacation at least, Milton would always be in London. But if he should wish at any other time to visit London, there were unusual facilities for the journey. The name of Thomas Hobson, the Cambridge carrier and job-master of that day, belongs to the history of England. Cambridge was proud of him; he was one of the noted characters of the place. Born in 1544, and now therefore exactly eighty years of age, he still every week took the road with his wain and horses, as he had done sixty years before, when his father was alive; making the journey from Cambridge to the Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate-street, London, and thence back again; carrying letters and parcels, and sometimes stray passengers, and delivering them both ways. All through Shakspeare's life, Hobson's cart-bells had tinkled, Hobson himself riding in the cart or trudging by the side of it, along the London and Cambridge road. He had driven the team as a grown lad for his father before Shakspeare was born; and now, eight years after Shakspeare's bones had been laid under the pavement in Stratford Church, he was still hale in his old vocation. Nor, though only a carrier, driving his own wain, was he a person of slight consequence. There was many a squire round about Cambridge whom old Hobson could have bought and sold. Beginning life on his own account with a goodly property left him by his father, including the wain he used to drive, eight team-horses and a nag, he had by his prudence and honesty gradually increased this property, till, besides paying the expenses of a large family, he was one of the wealthiest citizens of Cambridge. He owned several houses in the town, and much land round. This increase of fortune he owed in part to his judgment in combining other kinds of business, such as farming, malting, and inn-keeping, with his trade as a carrier. But his great stroke in life had been the idea of letting out horses on hire. “Being a man," says Steele, in the Spectator, " that saw where there might good profit arise though the duller men overlooked it,” and “observing that the scholars of Cambridge rid hard," he had early begun to keep “a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow.” He was, in fact, according to all tradition, the very first man in this island who let out hackney horses. But, having no competition in the trade, he carried it on in his own way. He had a stable of forty good cattle always ready and fit for travelling; but, when any scholar or other customer, whosoever he might be, came for a horse, he was obliged to take the one that chanced to stand next the stable-door. Hence the well-known proverb, “ Hobson's choice; this or nothing;" the honest carrier's principle being that every customer should be justly served, and every horse justly ridden in his turn. Some of Hobson's horses were let out to go as far as London; and on these occasions it was Hobson's habit, out of regard for his cattle, always to impress upon the scholars, when he saw them go off at a great pace, “that they would come time enough to London if they did not ride too fast.” Milton, as we shall see, took a great fancy to IIobson.

The daily routine of College-life in term-time two hundred and thirty years ago, was as follows:- In the morning, at five o'clock, the students were assembled, by the ringing of the bell, in the College-chapel, to hear the morning-service of the Church, followed on some days by short homilies by the Fellows. These services occupied about an hour; after which the students had breakfast. Then followed the regular work of the day. It consisted of two parts the College-studies, or the attendance of the students on the lectures and examinations of the College-tutors or lecturers in Latin, Greek, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, etc.; and the University-exercises, or the attendance of the students, together with the students of other Colleges, in the “public schools” of the University, either to hear the lectures of the University-professors of Greek, Logic, etc. (which, however, was not incumbent on all students), or to hear, and take part in the public disputations of those students of all the Colleges who were preparing for their degrees. After four hours or more so spent, the students dined together at twelve o'clock in the halls of their respective Colleges. After dinner, there was generally again an hour or two of attendance on the declamations and disputations of contending graduates either in College or in the “public schools.” During the remainder of the day, with the exception of attendance at the evening-service in Chapel, and at supper in the hall at seven o'clock, the students were free to dispose of their own time. It was provided by the statutes of Christ's that no one should be out of College after nine o'clock from Michaelmas to Easter, or after ten o'clock from Easter to Michaelmas.

Originally, the rules governing the daily conduct of the students at Cambridge had been excessively strict. Residence extended over nearly the whole year; and absence was permitted only for very definite reasons. While in residence, the students were confined closely within the walls of their respective Colleges, leaving them only to attend in the public schools. At other times they could only go into the town by special permission; on which occasions no student below the standing of a B. A. in his second year was suffered to go unaccompanied by his tutor or by a Master of Arts. In their conversation with each other, except during the hours of relaxation in their chambers, the students were required to use either Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew. When permitted to walk into the town, they were forbidden to go into taverns, or into the sessions; or to be present at boxing-matches, skittle-playings, dancings, bear-fights, cock-fights, and the like; or to frequent Sturbridge fair; or even to loiter in the market or about the streets. In their rooms they were not to read irreligious books; nor to keep dogs or “ fierce birds;" nor to play at cards or dice, except for about twelve days at Christmas, and then openly and in moderation. To these and other rules obedience was enforced by penalties. There were penalties both by the College and by the University, according as the offence concerned the one or the other. The penalties consisted of fines according to the degree of the offence; of imprisonment for grave and repeated offences; of rustication, with the loss of one or more terms, for still more flagrant misbehavior; and of expulsion from College and University for heinous criminality. The Tutor could punish for negligence in the studies of his class, or inattention to the lectures; College offences of a more general character came under the cognizance of the Master or his substitute; and for non-attendance in the public schools, and other such violations of the University statutes, the penalties were exacted by the ViceChancellor. All the three the Tutor and the Master as College authorities, and the Vice-Chancellor as resident head of the University — might in the case of younger students, resort to corporal punishment. “ Si tamen adultus fuerit,” say the statutes of Christ's, referring to the punishment of fine, etc., which the Tutor might inflict on a pupil ; " alioquin virgâ corrigatur.” The Master might punish in the same way and more publicly. In Trinity College there was a regular service of corporal punishment in the hall every Thursday evening at seven o'clock, in the presence of all the under graduates, on such junior delinquents as had been reserved for the ceremony during the week. The University statutes also recognize the corporal punishment of non-adult students offending in the public schools. At what age a student was to be considered adult is not positively defined; but the understanding seems to have been that after the age of eighteen corporal punishment should cease, and that even younger students, if above the rank of undergraduates, should be exempt from it."

Naturally, a system of discipline so strict could not be kept up. During the sixty-five years which had elapsed since the passing of the Elizabethan statutes, the decrees of the University authorities