advantage which a female reign always affords to scandal in the guise of morality. But the main manager in the matter was Harley, the Lord-treasurer, a circuitous fine gentleman, to whom Bentley addressed a projet of a royal letter, in which every point was decided in his own favour, and the Master enjoined "to chastise all licence among the Fellows." But such downright dealing did not accord with the views of the wily politician. It is uncertain whether this bold stroke came to the ears of the enemy, but certain it is, that on the twenty-first of November, Bentley received a peremptory summons to answer the articles against him by the eighteenth of December. Bentley, being thus at bay, at first thought of appealing to Convocation; but, finding that he was likely to be anticipated in that quarter, and perhaps expecting little favour from his brethren of the clergy, he resolved on a petition to the Queen, setting forth, that her Majesty, as representative of the royal founder, was the rightful Visitor, and that the assumption of the visitatorial functions by a subject was an invasion of her prerogative; finally throwing himself and his cause on her Majesty's protection. This petition met with immediate attention. Mr. Secretary St. John directed the Attorney and Solicitor General to examine the allegations on both sides, and make a report thereon with all convenient speed. At the same time the Attorney General was to signify to the Bishop of Ely her Majesty's pleasure, that all proceedings be staid till the question should be decided in whom the right of visitation lay. Bishop Moore, in his reply, expressed a cheerful acquiescence and confidence that her Majesty would never deprive him of any right belonging to his see. The second of January, 1710-11, was appointed for hearing of the cause. Sir Peter King, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Miller, appeared as counsel for the Fellows. No less than five months elapsed before the law officers could make their report to Government. This document, which Dr. Monk has given at length in the appendix, contains a full and impartial statement of the facts of the case, and delivers a cautious opinion on the point at issue-to wit, that, whether the statutes of Edward the Sixth were or were not virtually abrogated by those of Elizabeth, the master is, by either code, subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely; leaving to her Majesty and to Dr. Bentley, the course of moving for a prohibition in a court of law, if either thought fit to contest this opinion. This decision was far from pleasing to Bentley, who wanted not the expensive privilege of litigation, and that, too, in face of the highest legal authority, but a direct interposition of the crown in his own favour. He therefore determined to address the Prime Minister, Harley, who was then just recovering from the wound inflicted on him by the French assassin, Guiscard, and had been created Earl of Oxford, and Lord High Treasurer. This application was severely censured, as a desertion of the Whigs, in whose lists the Doctor's name had hitherto, for fashion's sake, been borne, though he was never a very devoted or factious politician, and seldom alluded to public matters at all, except in order to throw suspicion upon his enemies. As the memorial is artful and characteristic, we shall give a few extracts from it : RIGHT HONOURABLE, Cotton House, July 12, 1711. After my hearty thanks to God for the wonderful preservation of your most valuable life from the stabs of an assassin, and my sincere congratulation for your new station of honour, so long and so well deserved; I humbly crave leave to acquaint your lordship, that at last I have received from Mr. Attorney General the report, sealed up and directed to Mr. Secretary St. John, a copy of which is here inclosed. Your lordship, when you read it, will please to observe, that all the facts alleged in my petition are here confirmed:-that the statute of Edward, which once constituted the Bishop of Ely visitor, was rejected and left out in the two later bodies of statutes, those of Philip and Mary, and those of Elizabeth, now only in force ;-that the crown has, for a century and a half, been in sole possession of the visitatorial power;-that no Bishop of Ely, all that while, ever heard of his being visitor, or ever once pretended to act as such, till this present Bishop; and as for the 40th statute of Elizabeth, which obiter and incidentally styles the Bishop of Ely visitator, my counsel largely proved-first, that it was ipso facto void; and secondly, that, supposing it to be now in force, it was in the power of the crown to vacate it at pleasure. It is clear, that if her Majesty will maintain her prerogative, it is but saying the words, and vacating the 40th statute: on the contrary, if she will abandon it to the Bishop, she may give him a new corroborating statute, if this be too weak. However, to give more satisfaction about both the points in question, I have permission to inclose the opinion of the learned Sir Nathaniel Lloyd, her Majesty's AdvocateGeneral and Vice Chancellor of Cambridge; which he is ready, if occasion were, to maintain in a public manner, by report or by pleading. He, indeed, humbly conceives, that even Mr. Attorney's present report is sufficient for her Majesty's prerogative, though the former point be waived; and it is so much the more so, by what I have heard last post, that those Fellows-the minor part of the whole society-that are complainers against me, have subscribed a petition to her Majesty, that she will please to take this matter into her own hands. My Lord, I very readily close with this, and desire nothing more, than that her Majesty would send down Commissioners with full power to set every thing right, and to punish where fault may be found. I only beg, and most humbly hope, that such persons may be nominated as are lovers of learning, and men of conscience and integrity, above the influence of party, and then I fear not but that I shall be both honourably acquitted, and merit the public approbation. I am easy under every thing but loss of time by detainment here in town, which hinders me from putting the last hand to my edition of Horace, and from doing myself the honour to inscribe it to your Lordship's great name; which permission is most humbly asked and intreated by Your Lordship's most obedient and obliged Servant, The result of this communication was an order from the Minister, that the report of the Attorney and Solicitor General be laid before the Lord Keeper, Sir Simon Harcourt, and all the crown lawyers; and a letter from Secretary St. John to Bishop Moore, signifying her Majesty's desire that all proceedings should be staid. Thus the leaning of Government was sufficiently obvious, and Bentley secured sufficient respite to set the last hand to his Horace.-We hear no more of the college quarrels during the remainder of 1711; nor did the prosecution advance much more rapidly in the course of 1812. The crown lawyers, after more than seven months' deliberation, decided, January 9, that the crown was Visitor General of the College, but that the Bishop of Ely possessed, under the 40th statute, the power of hearing and deciding upon the charges against the Master; adding, that it was in the power of the crown, with consent of the college, to alter the Visitatorial authority. This opinion, subscribed with many eminent legal names, was opposed by the plain common sense of Sir Joseph Jekyl, a worthy man, whose old-fashioned consistency gained a witty panegyric from Pope: "A horse laugh, if you please, at honesty: A sneer at Jekyl, or some queer old Whig To honest Jekyl, lawyer as he was, it appeared as it must do to every honest man who is not a lawyer, that, if the 40th statute of Elizabeth were valid at all, it clearly recognized the Bishop of Ely as Visitor once for all, to all intents and purposes; especially as the same statutes make no mention of any other visitatorial authority. Indeed, Bentley's own assertion, that the 40th statute was ipso facto void, as contradicting the general drift and spirit of the code, and probably proceeding from a mere inadvertence in the reviser, is, in reason, much more tenable than the distinction which his adversaries attempted to draw. The absence of any express appointment of a general Visitor, and the circumstance that this particular regulation De Magistri amotione* is conveyed in the very words of the earlier statutes, favours the idea, that the visitatorial * Cap 40: De Magistri, si res exigat, amotione. Quoniam capite gravi aliquo morbo laborante, cætera corporis membra vehementer quoque vexari solent, idcirco statuimus et ordinamus, ut si Magister Coll. in suo officio obeundo admodum negligens et dissolutus repertus fuerit aut de inhonesta vitæ ratione aut incontinentia suspectus fuerit, per Vice Magistrum et reliquos septem seniores, aut per majoren partem eorum quorum conscientiam in hac re quantum possumus oneramus, sicut Domino Jesu rationem reddituri sunt, cum omni modestia et lenitate admoneatur; quod si hoc modo admonitus non se emendaverit, secundo similiter admoneatur; sin autem neque tum quidem resipuerit, Vice Magister et reliqui seniores, vel major pars eorum rem omnem Visitatori Episcopo Eliensi, qui pro tempore fuerit aperiant, qui et eam diligenter cognoscat et cum equitate definiat. Cujus sententiæ Magistrum sine ullâ appellatione omnino parere volumus; sub pœnâ loci sui in perpetuum amittendi. Porro si dictus Magister corame dicto Visitatore aliquando examinatus, et vel hæreseos, vel Læsæ Majestatis crimine, vel de Simonia' Usura, Perjurio coram Judice commisso, furto notabile, homicidio voluntario, incestu, adulterio, fornicatione, dilapidatione bonorum Collegii vel de violatione Statutorum ejusdem vel denique de alio quovis consimili crimine notabili, coram prædicto Visitatore legitime convictus fuerit sine morâ per eundem Vice Magistrum Officio Magistri privetur: neque ullam ei Appellationem aut ullum aliud Juris remedium permittimus: sed quæcun que in hâc causâ tentaverit irrita esse volumus, et decernimus ipso facto. (TRANSLATION.) Chapter 40.-Of the removal of the Master, if need require. Whereas, if the head be disordered, the whole body and its members must be afflicted together; therefore we order and appoint, that if the Master be found very negligent or remiss in the discharge of his office, or be suspected of ill life, or incontinency, let him be rebuked with all moderation and gentleness, by the Vice Master and seven seniors, on whose conscience we charge this matter, as they shall answer the same before the Lord Jesus; and if, being thus admonished, he amend not, let him be rebuked a second time in the same manner: but if neither then he be brought to consideration, the Vice Chancellor and senior Fellows, or the majority thereof, shall lay the whole matter before the Visitor, the Bishop of Ely, for the time being; who shall diligently examine and equitably decide the same. By whose sentence it is our will that the Master do abide absolutely, and without any appeal, under penalty of perpetual forfeiture of his office. Furthermore, if the Master aforesaid, being at any time examined before the aforesaid Visitor, and by the aforesaid Visitor lawfully convicted of heresy, high treason, simony, usury, perjury in the presence of a judge, notorious theft, wilful murder, incest, fornication, adultery, dilapidation of the college estate, or violation of its statutes, or, in fine, of any other the like notorious crime-let him be, without delay, by the aforesaid Vice Master, deprived of his office: nor do we permit him any appeal, or other remedy at law; and whatsoever he may essay in this sort, we will to be null and void, and so we do, ipso facto, declare it to be. power was meant to beresumed by the crown; and that the words casually referring to the Bishop of Ely, were carelessly transcribed from King Edward's cartularies. But that Queen Elizabeth meant herself and her successors to visit the college at large, and to devolve upon his reverend Lordship of Ely the task of castigating the Master, is a supposition which neither good sense nor the plain laws of interpretation can admit. Still, there the statute was, and the easiest way would appear to have been, either to confirm or abrogate, by order in council, or (if needful) by act of parliament, according to Bentley's suggestion. As however, the Bishop was acknowledged by the legal authorities on all hands to have jurisdiction in the present question, it was generally believed that the prohibition would be taken off, and that the long suspended cause would proceed. Still the interdict continued, and it was long supposed that the Master owed this respite to the good offices of his wife with Lady Masham and St. John. But certain letters of Lord Oxford's collection, give a different colour to the affair. The Treasurer had, in fact, been holding communications with both parties, had given to each a hope of his countenance. Whether straight forward measures were so alien to his habits, that he was necessitated to play false, even when he had no personal stake in the game, or whether he was really well disposed towards Bentley, and wished to keep his alleged misdemeanors from public exposure, till an opportunity should occur of removing him to some less obnoxious station of dignity, certainly it was his advice, perhaps his sincere and judicious advice, that both parties should submit their differences to the arbitration of the crown. Probably he suffered the Fellows to conclude that they would speedily be delivered from the burden of an unpopular head. Reports were circulated that Bentley was actually appointed to the Deanery of Litchfield.* * The rumour of this appointment had reached the ears of Kuster, who mentions it in two letters to his true brother in the muses, with no small exultation. We subjoin the following extract, both to shew how a German scholar can write English, and to prove that Greek does not absolutely annihilate the grateful affections : 66 Aug. 5, 1712. P.S. After I had written this letter, which I kept from one post day to another, waiting for Mr. Hemsterhuis's letter to be inclosed in myne, there came to see me some English gentlemen, and amongst them one of your college, Nomine Town, a physician, (qui magni te facit,) who brought me the good news that you were made Dean of Litchfield. Ego plane erectus fui hoc nuncio; and afterwards I drank first your health, and afterwards, upon the confirmation of this news. I can assure you, sir, that I shall long heartily to have the confirmation of this from you, because nobody of your friends can take more part in your prosperity than I do, having found that I have no truer friend than you. Mr. Hemsterhuis's desseins to write this same day, Vale." Again, in a latin epistle, "gratulor tibi ex animo de |