SOCIAL LIFE k620 AT THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 'Celebrare domestica facta.'-HOR. COMPILED BY CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, M.A., FELLOW OF PETER-HOUSE, AND SOMETIME A SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS. 1874. PREFACE. THE following pages are the result of several months' miscellaneous reading of the ephemeral literature and of the biographies which bear upon Social Life in the English Universities during the eighteenth century. That so portly a volume is now sent out into the world, is due partly to the inexperience of the compiler, in part to the interest which he could not fail to feel even in the minute and comparatively trivial particulars of the life of those who, in earlier generations and very different times, had passed through the same stages through which he was passing; in a measure also to the circumstances under which the first instalment of the work was written, as a prize competition to be completed by a fixed date; and in no slight degree to the abundance of material which the libraries poured forth. It was hoped that the end proposed by the authorities of our University in their choice of a subject for the e Bas Essay in 1871, viz. University L. B. b Life and Studies in England during the Eighteenth Century, would be more easily attained through the existence of such a collection as the present, and of the materials gathered for the two remaining subdivisions of the subject which are mentioned on page 4-for where the supply of information is so great, and at the same time lies so much in the dust of pamphlets and books of little general interest, it would seem to require the familiar study of many years to justify even an expert historian in undertaking to give an intelligent and trustworthy view of the times: a view, that is, in which ideas and theories should be presented to the reader with that assumption of a right of judgment which only long experience can claim. In the present instance the old materials have been, as it were, carted to a clear spot, and the reader may re-construct for the home of his academic ancestors prison or nursery, hut or palace, as each loose stone tells its own history to him: or else he must look for some skilled architect, or be content to wait till the carter has learnt mason's work. In order that the pile of materials may not utterly appal or deter from the work of construction, a TABLE OF CONTENTS has been furnished for the purpose of indicating the nature of the materials which make up the heap, and shewing the method. in which they are arranged; where it may be seen |