The oration of 1657 further indicates the difficulties of the year 1653, and touches upon some which seemed far more threatening than any mentioned in the former speech. Five years-said Owen-had passed since his elevation to office, and for two years after that elevation the critical situation of the University had been a subject for astrologers and newspapers--to such a pitch did things arrive that to have advocated public schools would have been reckoned offensive to religion. Everything disgraceful was imputed to the advocates of learning. Affairs were in confusion, and on the edge of the pit, and the University was saved by a miracle. "When," he adds, "it appeared to what length audacity, rage, and ignorance would carry those from whom better things might have been expected, the Supreme Arbiter of Events so frustrated their efforts in a moment, that with all their strength they scarcely could take care of themselves. who three days before were in the act of devouring us. Nothing remained to these wretched creatures except great disgrace, everlasting infamy of the unprincipled attempt upon the seats of learning, which God in His displeasure averted."1

This passage points to a kind of danger different from that which is deplored in the earlier oration. Then the Vice-Chancellor spoke of internal confusions, of the undisciplined condition of the colleges, and of the riotous conduct of the gownsmen and townspeople: now his speech relates to external attacks, to opinions afloat in the country, and to unprincipled attempts made by enemies of learning for the overthrow of the Universities altogether. The three days" are most significant words, and we cannot help connecting the expression with that

Oratio v.-Owen's Works, xxi. 611.

critical period when the Little Parliament was arrested by Cromwell in its destructive career.

The tendencies of that Parliament have been indicated, and although Clarendon is a prejudiced witness in the case, yet making on that ground some abatement from his evidence, it appears there is truth in his remark, that the House proposed the sale of lands belonging to the Universities, and that the moneys arising from such sale should be employed for the public service. No proof exists, as far as we are aware, of any resolution or motion to that effect, yet it seems more than possible that such things might be talked of in the Little Parliament by some of the more fanatical of its members. There must have been some good reason for the remark which Cromwell made in a speech he delivered in the year 1657. "What the issue of that meeting (the Little Parliament) would have been 'seemed questionable,' and was feared; upon which the sober men of that meeting did withdraw; and came and returned my power as far as they could, they did actually the greater part of them, -into my hands, professing and believing that the issue of that meeting would have been the subversion of your laws, and of all the liberties of this nation, the destruction of the ministers of this nation, in a word the confusion of all things." Further evidence might be cited to the same effect,2 nor are there wanting proofs, as will be seen hereafter, that perilous changes were contemplated, and that even certain ministers of religion at that time so undervalued learning as to lead the attack which was made on the Universities. Dell and Webster, who made themselves conspicuous in this respect, will be noticed in connection with Cambridge.

1 Cromwell's Speeches, Carlyle, ii. 559. 2 See Baxter's Life and Times, i. 70.

During the period in which Owen held the Vice-Chancellorship at Oxford, he devoted himself to the accomplishment of academical reforms. He was anxious to abolish the use of unnecessary oaths, to multiply public exercises for the improvement of students, to prevent gownsmen from leading idle lives, to modify the public acts so as to render them occasions for useful discussion, and to abolish the custom of allowing the terræ filius (as he was called) to indulge in unseemly satire and vulgar abuse. But he did not succeed in all his plans, in consequence of the opposition which was made by parties in the University.

One curious custom abolished by the Parliamentary visitors before Owen became Vice-Chancellor may be mentioned here. Upon the decease of any one of the heads of houses, or of any other distinguished person, the University bellman put on the gown and formalities of the defunct, and with his bell proclaimed in every hall and college that it had pleased God to take out of this world the individual whom the official so strangely represented. He gave notice, at the same time, that on such a day the deceased would be solemnly interred. Besides abolishing this odd practice, the visitors prohibited the bellman's going before the corpse from the college to the church.1

Anthony Wood is sadly distressed at the Vice-Chancellor's irregular proceedings with regard to college habits,2 and, indeed, this is the principal complaint which he urges

1 Oxoniana, iv. 206.

2 With respect to regulations of this sort in 1650, before Owen's Vice-Chancellorship, it is said, Oxoniana iv. 210, "Gowns also had now lost their usual fashion, by others introduced by the Canta

brigians, especially that belonging to a bachelor of arts, the sleeves of which were wider than those of surplices, and so continued in fashion not only till the Restoration of Charles II., but the Vice-Chancellorship of Dr. John Fell."

"Instead of short hair, col

against his administration. lar-band, and cassock in the pulpit," the Oxford historian complains, "we might have beheld long powdered hair, large bands, and shirts half hanging out at their sleeve, and they themselves accounting nothing more ridiculous than starch formality. As for caps, square or round, none were worn publicly only in some colleges at refection. or scholastic exercises." Hoods, he says, were used at length by none but the Proctors, and the Vice-Chancellor sat with his hat on, and that cockt.' He went "in quirpo like a young scholar, with powdered hair, snake-bone bandstrings, (or bandstrings having large tassels), lawn band, a large set of ribands pointed, at his knees, and Spanish leather boots with large lawn tops. "The representation brings the Puritan before us in the costume of a Cavalier, and, if correct, is certainly irreconcilable with the pictures commonly drawn of the class of persons to whom Owen belonged. A Roundhead thus attired is a very anomalous being, and the description makes us suspect that, let the Dean have dressed as he might, he could not have pleased his angry critic. Indeed the Puritans have been represented by certain historians in such a way as to remind one of the pictures of Brueghel, who so accustomed himself to paint witches and imps, that when he tried to depict a man he was sure to make him look like a devil.2

It may be interesting here to pause for a moment, and to notice some of the remarkable individuals who were connected with the University at the time of the Commonwealth.

Amongst the Canons of Christchurch was Ralph

Athen. Oxon., ii. 738.

2 See Grainger's Biographical History, iii. 302.

Button, who, on his election to a Fellowship at Exeter College, won from Dr. Prideaux the witty compliment, that all who were elected besides him were "not worth a button;" and, amongst the gownsmen, who in those days paced the quadrangle, or loitered in the green meadows of that magnificent foundation, were other men of whom Oxford has since been proud. A pale, delicate young student might have been seen there, who was destined to carry his genius into the regions of metaphysics, and to expound with rare sagacity and power the principles of religious toleration. There, also, was a hearty-looking Bachelor of Arts, with a keen, but scarcely goodhumoured expression, whose eloquence and wit afterwards rendered him one of the cleverest, if not one of the best preachers of the Church of England. John Locke and Robert South were both Christchurch men, and another distinguished contemporary of a different character was Philip Henry.

On reaching the grey tower of Magdalen we might have seen presiding over that foundation, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, one of "the two atlasses and patriarchs of Independency," as Wood calls him-already mentioned in this work as a member of the Westminster Assemblyand we might have met with two of the Fellows-John Howe2 and Theophilus Gale-who, by their increasing familiarity with Greek literature, were then laying up ample stores for the construction of their great works, “The Living Temple," and "The Court of the Gentiles."

Owen was the other.

2 Howe became minister of Torrington about the year 1650. Goodwin was appointed President of Magdalen in the January of that year. We know that Howe was a Fellow after Goodwin's appointment, from

the circumstance of his joining the religious society which the President established in the College. At first Howe objected to unite, because he thought too much stress was laid upon indifferent things. Afterwards he joined upon "Catholic terms."