Mr. P-k is mathematical lecturer in Trinity College, one of the translators of Lacroix, and one of the compilers of the Supplement of Examples. He has a clear head and a prodigious industry, has read more mathematics probably than any three men of his age now living: but he does not possess a single particle of invention.

Mr. G―n, a lecturer in St. John's, the neatest and most clearheaded mathematician in Cambridge, the best private tutor, and the best mathematical lecturer in the University. He is an excellent moderator, and his examination papers are mo·lels of clearness and judgment. Of any other knowledge, whether of the most ordinary affairs of life, or of questions which occupy the public mind, or are likely to influence the public happiness, he is as innocent as an Esquimaux.

The course of reading for the first year contains a considerable mixture of classical learning. In mathematics, the Elements of Euclid, algebra, and plane trigonometry, including in this last the arithmetic of Sines. As far as concerns the greater, part of the Freshmen, this carries them very little beyond their school learning. Besides these there are, I think I may say in every college, two classical subjects,-a book of Tacitus and a Greek play, or a book of Thucydides and Horace's Art of Poetry. When the lecturer is a man of competent ability, these two subjects are made the books whereon to hang a huge mass of ancient history, philology, verbal criticism, &c. The foundation of all this is Bentley's Phalaris, the Miscellanea Critica of Dawes, some articles in the Cambridge Museum Criticum on the Greek Drama, Porson's Preface to his Hecuba, Mitford's Greece, &c. The examination on these subjects at the end of the year consists of oral questions on the books which are made the subject of lecture, original composition in Latin and Greek, prose or verse, or in papers of questions drawn principally from the sources to which I have alluded.

In St. John's, and the smaller Colleges, theology and moral philosophy enter largely into the subjects of the first year. Butler's Analysis, Paley's Evidences of Christianity, Paley's Moral Philosophy, Locke on the Understanding, are the text books. The speculations of Helvetius, Condillac, Reid, Smith, Stewart, Brown, Say, Ricardo, and Bentham, are scarcely ever known by name,of course they are not read and studied. In some Colleges, as Trinity, these subjects are all disposed of in one year (the second); in others, as Queen's, they are divided into the two first years; and in others, as St. John's, they are dribbled over the three years.

In every College, mathematics form the most prominent subject of lecture and reading in the second year. The subjects are the elementary portions of the differential and integral calculus, statics, and dynamics, and perhaps a little optics or plane astronomy.

Newton's Principia, and the higher branches of the differential and integral calculus, with its application to the various branches of natural philosophy, constitute the reading of the third year.

The Michaelmas Term which commences the fourth year, and which completes the regular period of academical study, is devoted to revision and preparation of all the subjects for the examination in the Senate House for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The examination takes place in the Senate House immediately after Christmas; it embraces the entire body of students who came up the October three years preceding.

To any man competent to form a due estimate of the present state of knowledge and science, and whose attention has ever been directed to the principles which should regulate the development and cultivation of mind, the preceding details must exhibit a very imperfect and unsatisfactory system. How much of this academical learning is likely to serve a man in his intercourse with the world? To how very small a number of minds are these studies congenial. In what way can this be said to be a suitable preparation for the church, the bar, or the senate? Knowledge is said to be power, and the acquirement of knowledge should therefore give a man power; but what influence over his fellow citizens will knowledge such as I have been describing bestow on the greatest proficient?

During the whole period of my academical career I had two points constantly before me-the management of my small resources, and the progress of my studies. The former commonly presented the more difficult and always the most distressing problem. The total amount of my ways and means, when I arrived at Cambridge, was perhaps a little short of £150. Had I remained at Queen's College during the whole of my course, with this sum and due economy I could have met all demands. The first money I paid was £15 caution money. This is always paid either at admission or during the first term, and was originally supposed to be a security to the tutor for the payment of one term's bill. My bill for the first term, including the furniture of my rooms, was £45, 6s. 8d.; that of my second term, £19, 15s. 6d.; and that of the third term was nearly £30. This last sum was not paid till I returned to College after the first summer vacation. A sad inroad was already made into my finances; but had I not taken it into my head to remove to Trinity, all would have gone on very smoothly; for in the first place I had got the appointment of Chapel Clerk, which was about £20 a year, and my tutor had given me the benefit of some half dozen small scholarships, equivalent to perhaps as much more; in the next place the amount of my bills would have been considerably less; and in the last place I had got a pupil, from whom I was to receive £14 a term, or 40 guineas for the three terms. Every thing, therefore, in respect to my finances, bore a pretty favourable aspect; but for reasons which I shall explain presently, I chose to remove to another college; by which, in the first place, I forfeited my clerkship and scholarships; in the next place I incurred again all the expenses of a Freshman's year; and to complete my calamities, was obliged, for the first year, to` VOL. VII. No. 39.-Museum.

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take lodgings in the town, which swallowed up what I obtained from my pupil. Here, therefore, at the commencement of my second year, my pecuniary embarrassments began. The first term I paid my tutor's bill; the second I fell into arrear; the third I fell still farther into arrear. During the second vacation I went down to Swith two pupils, who were to give me £25 a-piece. This barely covered my expenses, and I returned again in October, pennyless. From time to time I continued to take one or more pupils, to furnish myself with pocket money; but I paid nothing to my tutor, till after I graduated, at which period my arrears to him amounted to upwards of £200. I got a scholarship at Trinity, which is equal to £40 a-year; but by a regulation which does not permit a Sizar to sit till the third year, it came too late to be of any effectual service. Besides these, I incurred debts with my bookseller, and tailor, and other tradesmen, to a large amount. The fact is, that towards the latter part of my career I became extravagant; at all events lost all idea of economy, and this is, I believe, universally the case.

Even among those who go up to Cambridge under the strongest necessity, and with the strictest determination to be economical, very few I believe preserve their purpose entire. Breakfast, tea, supper, and wine parties, are a great source of expense. At first a man is fearful of asking his fellow-student even to take breakfast with him; but when he gets over this scruple, it is accompanied by two conditions-first, that the invitor does not allow more than an hour for breakfast, and next, that the invitee must order his gyp to bring his commons to the invitor's rooms. The first two or three terms usually dissipate the first of these illiberal conditions, and the party seldom breaks up before eleven or twelve o'clock. The second is of course a very Freshman's trick, of which he soon learns to be ashamed. By and by he gets invited to the rooms of a second-year's man, or wealthy pensioner; and he finds, in addition to the commons sent by the buttery, to wit, the fourth part of a half-quartern loaf, and two-penny worth of butter, a plate of eggs, and some half dozen rounds of toast, swimming in butter. Another step in the march of liberality informs him, that cold beef or ham is also an essential part of a regular breakfast; and lastly, that a Sunday morning party cannot be duly regaled without a further addition of a due quantity of cold fowl and beef-steaks. This is a short view of the progress of a poor man's extravagance in one item. A similar change may be observed in other matters. Thus our freshman is quite shocked at the University practice of scribbling every thing on paper, and he feels more reluctance at wasting an inch square of white paper than he would, at a subsequent period, of throwing half a dozen sheets into the fire, or what is precisely the same thing, converting it into a MS. depository of mathematics. If our student be at all of an enthusiastic and sanguine temperament, books are another expensive article. At first he is unwilling to expend 5s. in the purchase of a Treatise on Conics or Algebraic

Equations; at the end of his second year or so, though without a single penny to call his own, he will not scruple to bestow 10 or 15 guineas in the purchase of what is called a College Prize. Thus, suppose him at the end of his second year to be a first-class man, he is, according to the usage of most of the Colleges, entitled to a prize of books. One would expect that these books are furnished by the College: this is not the plan. The student orders any expensive book he pleases; perhaps a splendid edition of Shakspeare, which is richly bound, and engraven with the College Arms, according to order. This book is sent in to the Tutor or Dean, or some other official person, and on a given day annually, usually the Commemoration-day, is presented in due form to the Prizeman, as the reward of his talents and industry. Towards this magnificent set of books the College contributes, perhaps, from 15 to 30 shillings; they are put up in his library, and shown to his friends as a prize, the gift of his College. The hoax is of course perfectly understood in Cambridge, but it passes off with great eclat among country cousins.

In this way are generated habits of the most thoughtless extravagance, and to the gratification of these habits there is no check. The tradesmen of Cambridge will give credit to almost any amount, without any inquiry as to the means of the student. They are perfectly aware that his future situation will be such as to compel him, at whatever personal privations, to meet their exorbitant bills. It is thus that many a hapless victim of inexperience and cupidity is rendered miserable for life. His Cambridge debts hang on him like an incubus, break up his spirits, and baffle his best exertions. I speak from experience, for I have bitterly felt the effects of this system. It is useless to moralize about the matter; it is folly to condemn the extravagance of youth, when there is every thing to stimulate, and nothing to control. Youth, despite the sagest counsel and the strongest admonition, is youth still, thoughtless, and fond of show and pleasure. But let me pass on from this painful subject to sketch the progress of my studies.

At the annual examination of Freshmen, I was the first. I completely distanced my competitors, who were not men without talents, had had the very best means of instruction, and had come up apparently with as good and resolute a determination as I did. One of them in particular, the son of a Lancashire clergyman, showed wonderful play. It did not satisfy his craving desire of knowledge to read from eight or nine o'clock in the morning till twelve or two the next morning; but he regularly sat through the whole night, once or twice a week, keeping himself awake by strong doses of tea or coffee. I was content to let seven or eight hours a day serve my purpose. I now discovered that a vigorous mind may get through a good deal of work in two or three hours, and I found that these close sitters were men of little physical activity, and that their plan soon led them into habits of mental indolence. I read hard for two or three hours in the morning, and the like

again in the evening, and the rest of the day I ranged about the town, or rambled four or five miles into the country, alternately conning over some proposition mentally, or picking up an adventure, as accident or inclination served.

Early in my second year I removed to Trinity; this was a very unusual step, and was very freely censured. I had ruined myself, said my friends; I should get finely trounced by the men of Trinity, said my rivals and enemies. I was at that time looking for a fellowship, and there was no chance for me at Queen's, my county being full. They could, indeed, have elected me by dispensation, a privilege which of late years they had very frequently put in practice. But, though exceedingly unwilling to let me leave them, they would give me no promise, nor even the least hope that they would elect me by dispensation. They had, they said, come to a determination, never to elect again by dispensation, whatever might be the merit or the claims of the candidate. It is somewhat curious, therefore, that they should again exercise this privilege (as I perceive they have recently done) in favour of an individual whose learning or acquirements were certainly no way remarkable. So much for their consistency. But Queen's is an Evangelical College: and this young man may be some fair sprout of godliness. For the profession of certain theoretical opinions, attendance at a certain place of worship, a thorough conceit of their own goodness, and a due contempt and pity for the rest of mankind, who are running "the nether gate," is a surer recommendation than talents and learning, however adorned by beauty of moral demeanour.

Under sad difficulty, discouragement, and despondency, the second year wore away; the examination of junior sophs came, and I was in the first class. This sufficed to stop the clamour of evil wishers; but kind friends whispered to me that I was not the first, and this was enough to humiliate me deeply. The names are arranged alphabetically, and, in fact, it ought not to be divulged what is the real order of the names in the class. But some chickenhearted examiner always lets out the secret to his pupil or particular friend in great confidence, and, notwithstanding the said confidence, it instantly ceases to be a secret.

Time, in despite of our cares, anxieties, and wishes, keeps marching on with stealthy but steady pace; the expiration of the third year arrived, and found me well seasoned for the combat. The last examination had given me some experience, and its result had somewhat sharpened my exertions. I was in the first class again-first in that class-first beyond all comparison.

Notwithstanding the clear and decided success which had always followed the vigorous exertion of my powers, I was continually depressed with the fear of not reaching the place in the Senate House which I had fixed for myself. There was a very general and a very strong impression that we were not to have the senior wrangler at Trinity. The second place, I did not value at a rush. If I was not the senior, it mattered not to me whether I was se