we are uncertain, for on all sides a most precipitous ascent seemed to divide the two countries. A path, however, there is, for the only outlet from Cauterets is by the ravine. Below us the French frontier was guarded by a most picturesque chain of small lakes, no less than five of which were within view-some surrounded with snow to the very edge-others at a great height in recesses of a stony granite mountain to our left, while one which occupied a little amphitheatre in the upper range of hills, furnished a source to the Gave of Cauterets by a beautiful cascade which flowed in an even sheet over the rocky edge of the basin.

How long we remained here we know not-what note needed we to take of time?-we were independent and felt free as air and like lords of that wild prospect beneath us. We lay down again and dreamedwas it all a dream?-no!-we started up, there was the same majestic presence of peaks around us-we sang and spoke-but we were above echo, and felt sorry to have broken the silence of the spot. The world was at our feet-cities held their uneasy crowds in active bustle in that far plain which we imagined, but could not see; cares hung like a cloud over them, but we were on the free peaks which outtopped the oppressive fog-we felt no contact with the world-was it indeed so?

THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES.

HUBER AND NEWMAN.*

SECOND NOTICE.

We closed our first notice of this work with some remarks of our authors and of ourselves, on the moral condition of the students in the English Universities: and we open our present notice by turning the attention of our readers to the plates which (by the liberality of Mr. J. Heywood) adorns this Number of our Magazine. This plate is not to be found in the book we are reviewing; but it illustrates one of the topics on which comments are made in the Professors' pages, and gives the reader a good idea of the interior of a College Chapel on a day when something deemed more important than chapel attendance is going on within the College walls.

At Brazennose, and at all other Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, the time of examination is like the day of battle aboard a man of war. No one thinks of praying then :-all are for action:-and the Students attend the chapels in very thin numbers. On other days they are forced to attend, much against the inclination of all but a very feeble minority: and the chapels then present a truly academic appearance. Can any

*From the German of V. A. HUBER, Professor of Western Literature at Marburg.-An Abridged Translation, edited by FRANCIS W. NEWMAN, Professor of the Greek and Latin Classics at Manchester New College, and formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 3 vols. 8vo. London: William Pickering. Manchester: Simms and Dinham. 1843.

one expect it to be otherwise?—can any one suppose that when daily attendance at church is out of fashion at home, the sons of wealthy families will willingly go twice or even once a day to chapel at Oxford or Cambridge? Is it so easy a task to turn the thoughts of youth, with the tide of the passions running like a mill-stream through their veins, to the future rather than to the present?—are young men out of the Universities a jot more scrupulous about attending public worship than those within their walls? It is of no use mincing the matter,chapel is considered, next to lectures, as the greatest bore of a College life.

A question much debated at the present day concerning the admission of Dissenters to the Universities, is treated at great length in this work and Professor Huber has some valuable matter on that subject. The fact is that the question of admitting Dissenters to graduate at the Universities is beset with ignorance and prejudice both on the part of its upholders and of its opponents. If, under cover of their claim to a removal of disabilities, the Dissenters merely wish for the privilege of graduation in lay faculties, they have every thing to promote their claim,-reason, justice, and expediency. If, however, they thereby wish to get possession of endowments specially made for persons of a different creed, they seek that to which they have no legal right. The Universities are national institutions; the Colleges are private ones. If all the colleges were burnt to the ground to-morrow, and their estates confiscated, the Universities would still remain, and might flourish as vigorously as ever. The only class of dissenters-if, indeed, they can be called dissenters,-who are fairly entitled to the largest portion of college foundations, are the Roman Catholics-for the colleges are mostly Roman Catholic foundations, and the ousting them from their own establishments in the time of Henry VIII, was an impudent robbery, seldom paralleled in history. On the other hand, if the opponents of the dissenters' claims think that the Universities would be overrun with dissenters, were their disabilities removed, they must be very bad statisticians. Do they imagine that dissenters could exist in an University atmosphere in a greater proportion than they do in the air of Great Britain and Ireland? would not the creeds of the youths of the upper classes be balanced in much the same proportion as we find them in the world at large? And who are the dissenters ?-or rather who will be called such twenty years hence?-at that time will the Anglo-Catholics or the Calvanistic

Episcopalians be dissenters or not?-which will then have kicked the other out of the Church, the Puseyites or the Evangelicals? How trifling to legislate upon such exclusive principles, when even the Church itself cannot define its own orthodoxy! But we hope for better days and better things; we would that all men could dwell together in unity-of good common sense and honesty at least, if not of speculative belief and religious practice; and we should hail with delight the time when all the privileges of education-not of specially reserved property,―could be laid open to all. The dissenters being recognised by the law of the land, and the Universities being supported by the same law, these institutions should be harmonized with the constitution, and a dissenter should be just as capable of obtaining an academical degree as he is of sitting in parliament, and voting, if he please, that the Universities "do cease to exist." That this is an utopian wish, in the present position of political affairs, we are much afraid, though the admissions made by several conservative speakers on Mr. Christie's late motion, would seem to indicate that a little more common sense is beginning to prevail on this point. A great deal of curious matter related to this question has been collected by Mr. Heywood, and is published in the third volume of the book we have been noticing. We understand that this gentleman is still pursuing his researches, and we should hope that he will, in due time, give the result of his labours to the world. Bishop Thirlwall's able pamphlet on the Admission of Dissenters (the pamphlet which lost him his lectureship at Trinity College, and procured him his see at St. David's), is published among the appendices, and will repay the perusal of all who are unacquainted with it. We subjoin two extracts from Professor Newman's preface upon this point:

The political importance of our Universities appears to ine in a widely different light from that which Professor Huber describes and seems to defend. In the progress of society, the rule of the sword and of blind veneration gives way to that of intelligence; for which reason the Monarchal and the Ecclesiastical powers become less and less able to unite, by virtue of mere external pretensions, the parts of a great nation. As yet, happily, the Crown stands quite above the conflicts of party: and it is difficult to limit the reconciling influence which might be exerted by a Sovereign of mature and unblemished wisdom. But such personal qualifications cannot be secured by any institutions and I need not here prove, that no permanent union for England can be expected from this quarter. As for the organs of the National Church, they have unhappily long and long since thrown themselves into the scale of party, with a unanimity surpassing that of the Universities. The mass of the nation is learning, by a succession of experiments, to hope much from the fears, and little from the justice or wisdom of those in power: and there is no umpire left between rich and poor, "to lay his hand upon us both." If it is too