Had I proportionably availed myself of my advantages, and even my disadvantages (though in industry I will not yield to many), could I with them have commanded more time, had I not been taken off by numerous interruptions, could I have enjoyed some comfortable snug benefice, I might have produced a much greater, and a better work; greater, at least, in bulk, and better, perhaps, in matter: but I am not complaining; nor am I unthankful to that kind Providence, by which I have not been overlooked or forsaken, and I am persuaded never shall be.

But enough :-what is attempted in the following volumes has been laid before the readers. It is for the public to determine of its execution, and how far it is entitled to their encouragement.

PART I.

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.

CHAP. I.

OF ITS HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES.

IT should seem, that in describing a place of literature it is difficult for genuine sons to suppress partial regards. Gratitude is apt to grow overfond, curiosity to become superstitious; and hence men give to antiquity what is due only to truth.

Thus we are told by some, that Cambridge was founded in the year of the world, 43212; by others in 3588, i. e. 375 years before Christ. Then it was, they say, that

• The History, &c. of Cambridge, as printed in Mr. Hearne and Mr. Parker.

► Hist. Cantab. Acad. Liber primus, Authore Johanne Caio Anglo, p. 4. So Caius states it, after Gildas, yet puts to his account, some things never said by Gildas. Nay, the foundation of Cambridge has been placed still higher, at a time in which, says the Assertor Antiq. Oxon, p. 5. nullos adhuc incolas, (nisi forte a gigantibus occupatam contendant) habuisse illam, magno scriptorum consensu constat, viz. anno mundi, 1829.

Cambridge was formed into a seat of literature by one Cantaber, a Spaniard, and from him called Cantabrigia. Very early they introduce into it Grecian philosophers, to give it literature: they people it early with Christian doctors: it is soon destroyed, and soon revives; and in purifying it from heresies, and in promoting astronomy, with the other sciences, they lead us on with a tolerable grace to the year of Christ, 529a.

Then we are surrounded with a train of sacred testimonies and illustrious patrons; by charters from kings Arthur and Cadwallader, and confirmations by Edward, son of Alfred; by bulls and confirmations from popes, Honorius, Sergius, and John: and thus we are brought down to the year of Christ, 915, the date of Edward's charter.

Yet, after all, we are following an ignis fatuus, a light reflected from a history unsubstantiated by authority, and written by a very fabulous writer. For such is the book appealed to, called LIBER NIGER, or the Black Book, in the archives of the University of Cambridge, and such, in the opinion of all writers, was he, to whom this history is ascribed, Nicholas Cantalupe.

Nicholas Cantalupe, to borrow bishop Nicholson's b words, " is reported, also, to have penned a general Chronicle of England;" but of such little account was he, that by Bellarmine, whose business was to chronicle these chroniclers, he is never once mentioned. But it appears he was \ prior of a monastery of Carmelite friars, A. D. 1441. I just notice, in passing, that Dr. Fullerd mentions an older

book on the Ancient Privileges, by Thomas Markant*, Fellow of Peter House, and junior Proctor, A. D. 1417. This book disappeared many years ago; and the book of Mr. Buck, of Caius College, Squire Beadle, in the middle of the seventeenth century, (which latter book was probably founded on the former,) has, I understand, in like manner, disappeared within these few years. And " who can stay what will away?" as merry Fuller has it; for Markant's book strayed three times; which Fuller considered as an earnest that it would never return.

As to the Black Book, the little credit due to that depends, not merely on the assertions, or solitary proofs of Oxford antiquaries. They, indeed, have been as violent in opposing its claims, as some Cantabrigians have been rash in its support. Nor can we wonder, that when one Cambridge orator supported the superior antiquity of his University, by a desperate appeal to this book of fables, that an Oxford orator, the assertor of the superior antiquity of his University, should entrench himself, as it were, within this argument. It was a sort of stratagem of war, and a justifiable one. But bishop Nicholson speaks largely, I had almost said ignorantly, when he affirms, " that the Black Book of Cambridge makes as considerable a figure there, as our old Statute Books at Oxford."

This book is, indeed, the ground work of Caius's idle assertion, for its great antiquity, (though even Caius and Codex differ in their dates,) and of the violent controversy between Key and Twine of Oxford, and Caius of Cambridge. It is introduced, also, at large, into Parker's History of the Antiquities of the University of Cambridge, though he decides neither for nor against its authenticity.

But the opinion of Hare was decided. " This is said,"
(he is speaking of the Historiola alluded to above,) "to be
taken ex nigro codice universitatis, the Black Book of the
University: but it seems to be no better than idle fiction,
though the preceding charters, 1, 3, 5, (viz. the charters of
kings Arthur, Cadwallader, and Edward) are copied from
ita." Hare, being a Papist, was probably willing to re-
serve the Pope's bulls, for the honour and glory of Alma
Mater. But Baker, our honest and learned Cambridge
antiquary, considered these bulls, also, as gross forgeries,
for the purpose of fresh impositions. Dr. Ashton, too, a
learned man, and well acquainted, as already hinted, with
Cambridge antiquities, has prefixed to the Index of the
first volume of Parris's Index, his testimony against
both bulls and charters: and I take Dr. Parris, from
what he says of " the most useless part of this book," to
have been of the same judgment.

What Carter's opinion of this Black Book was, is clear
enough. He says, without the smallest authority, indeed,
" that the first original of this famous university is said to
be about A. D. 536, when one Cantaber, a Spaniard, was
a governor under Arthur, king of the South Britons:"
so unaccountably out of order is he, in his chronology,
and so at variance, both with Caius and Codex d.

To crown all, Mr. Robert Smyth, when remarking, that
Mr. William Bokenham was the author of the Historiola,
adds, " being part, as it is called, of the Black Book of