Art took her seat near Science. What there was of painting was executed principally in monasteries. The Norman divines were generally architects, who studied to rival each other, and sometimes strove to outvie themselves, in their churches of massy, curious, elaborate workmanship. Nuns were limners: and the finest Gothic buildings were designed and superintended by monks and abbots.

But as Science extended her views, she increased her stores, and would not admit of partnership. Art has, therefore, provided for herself elsewhere. She seeks royal academies, and the great city, where numerous paintings of the best masters, and models of the antique, abound; where rivalry stimulates to excellence, and excellence may look for the public patronage.

But though Alma Mater has no professorships of the arts, she is not without exquisite models: she can shew but few fine paintings; but she exhibits one of the grandest display of public buildings in England: she has a few very exquisite busts and magnificent statues of her sons; and some of her best modern buildings were designed by her own members.

Cambridge possesses, in the town and university, a few specimens of Norman or Saxon architecture, the most perfect of the Gothic, (as King's College Chapel,) and some of all the Grecian and Roman orders: these may be called her silent lecturers. Let a person, inquisitive into these matters, furnish himself with a few books, that are within reach of almost every one, and study these buildings, and he will enjoy the advantage of a professorship without its formality. Thus it was Gray, who, for the twenty-five last years of his life, resided almost constantly at Cambridge, studied architecture; and few men were better

acquainted with the principles of our old English architecture than Mr. Gray.

And here, perhaps, some may ask: But has Cambridge done nothing for poetry? Has she no professorship for this divine art? No-but Oxford has. True-Which has acted most judiciously? Gray refused the offer of poet laureat's place; and I doubt whether he would have had humility enough for a professorship of poetry.

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The fact is, the province of poetry is more to please than instruct, or rather, prodesse delectando, to profit in pleasing, and her essential qualities are not so much the effect of a too regular discipline, as of force of imagination. You may give laws for framing measures, and advice to poetry in the form of poetical prælections, with great exactness, and much at ease; but, Can you kindle up the fires of genius? Can you call forth the sublime energies of poetry?

Whether Alma Mater's conduct is a silent reply to such objections; whether she has proceeded from accidental oversight, or systematic design, matters not. But let an Oxford critic bear testimony, that, in true poetry, Cambridge has not been defective; that without a professor to cultivate the soil, and amidst all her mathematical training, which is said to stint the growth of poetry, our Alma Mater of Cambridge, in times past, has produced a rich

a I do not mean to degrade such books as Trapp's Prælect. Poeticæ, (Oxford, 1722,) but allude to a too large expectation from them, and too minute, artificial an application of them; being entirely of Longinus's opinion on the subject: - Οτι αυτη (Natura) μεν πρωτον τι και αρχετυπον γενέσεως σοιχειον επι παντων υφεσηκεν· τας δε ποσοτητος και τον εφ ̓ εκασε καιρον, ετι δε την απλανεςατην ασκησιν τε και χρηυιν ικανη παρορίσαι, και συνενεγκειν η μεθοδος. And again,-Ως η μεν φυσις την της ευτυχιας ταξιν επέχειι η τέχνη δε τεν τες ευβουλιας. De Sublimitate, ed. Pearce, p. 10. 12. I also allude to what was, probably, Gray's opinion on the subject.

harvesta: and, Who will say, that many, in modern times, amongst her writers of prize poems, and tripos poems, and amongst those known to the world as poets, could not have fixed upon one fitted to fill a poetical chair, or to be complimented as a nominal professor?

Has not Alma Mater entered into the sentiments of one, who, though no professor, knew and felt the dignity, to which true poetry aspires?

Poesy," says he, " is a part of learning, in measure of words, in part restrained, but in all other parts extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, not being tied to the laws of matter, may, at pleasure join that which nature has severed, and sever that which nature has joined; and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things; pictoribus, atq. poetis, &c. It is taken in two senses, in respect of words or matter: in the first sense, it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent to the present: in the latter it is, as hath been said, one of the principal portions of learning, and is nothing less than that feigned history which may be styled as well in prose as poetry.

"The use of this feigned History hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man, in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts, or events of true history, have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected variation, so as it appeareth, that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and delectation a."

Having, then, in the preceding pages, hinted at a few omissions in our Alma Mater, let us acknowledge her superiorities. In what is greatest she is generally understood to be great. The Marquis de Condamini, treating of Academies, (A. 1755,) objects, "that though there were several academies at Rome for poetry, eloquence, sculpture, and painting, for designing and modelling, there was none, even there, for physic and mathematics, and that throughout all Italy, there was only one for antiquities, and one for the sciences." The academy at Naples was not established till after 1755.

a The PROFICIENCE and ADVANCEMENT of LEARNING.

b There are, however, besides, several universities in Italy. The author is speaking only of its academies.

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