COL THE SECOND YEAR.-A CHANGE OF DYNASTY. THE A Inclytus Albertus, doctissimus atque disertus, FTER the trial heat of the first May examination, the field of candidates for Honors begins to assume something like a calculable form. The ruck falls off rapidly, and the good men settle down to their pace. Many of them are now for the first time under crack private tutors for it frequently, indeed usually happens, that a coach" of reputation declines taking men into his team before they have made time in public. When the Freshman has not a public-school reputation, and sometimes even when he has, the result of the May decides whether he will go out in Honors or not-that is, whether he will be a reading or a non-reading man (for with all but the very badly prepared, going out in Põll is equivalent to doing nothing-so far as University studies are concerned-for at least half the course). If his success be such as to encourage him, he begins his work again, as has been observed, early in the Long vacation, towards the close of which, however, he takes a real vacation of a month or so (generally provided for in all engagements with private tutors or for reading-parties), so as to come to his work fresh at the beginning of the college term. Though not so decisive in its results as the third year, this second year is the turning point for not a few. Some who have done very well in low mathematics, break down after passing the Differential Calculus.* Some grow indolent and fall off from depending too much on their first year's success. Some Trinity men are disgusted by not getting a Scholarship at the first trial, and strike work in consequence. A Foundation Scholarship being the requisite stepping-stone to a Fellowship,† is naturally one of the first objects of our reading-man's aim. At several of the colleges these Scholarships are given to the students who acquit themselves best in the first May. At Trinity there is a special examination, held about the beginning of the Easter term, in which all Second and Third-year men are eligible candidates. The whole number of men making up the two years is about one hundred and seventy, and some seventy of these usually present themselves for the vacant Scholarships, which are from twelve to twenty in number, but generally less than fifteen. The successful candidates of the second year are usually to those of the third in the proportion of five to eight. This examination does not differ from the May merely in being optional; another very important distinction consists in the absence of subjects fixed beforehand; the candidates go in trusting to their general knowledge. At the same time there is not an unlimited selection from the Classics, as in the Tripos and the University Scholarships; the candidate need not expect to find any *The Differential is considered the first step in a really mathematical education; the next is to attack Geometry of Three Dimensions. One of our mathematical coaches used to divide mankind into two classes, those who had read Geometry of Three Dimensions and those who had not. Except in some rare cases, as when a member of another college is chosen Fellow. nous. Pindar, Aristophanes, or Aristotle, any Persius, or Lucretius, on the papers; and seldom will there be any Plato, Eschylus or Theocritus, Plautus or Juvenal. In Greek, Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes; in Latin, Virgil, and Horace, Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus, are the authors usually selected from; and this still leaves a pretty wide range, some of these authors being sufficiently volumiThe Mathematical papers do not go higher than may be supposed to fall within the ordinary reading of a Third-year aspirant to Mathematical Honors. They are only half as many in number as the Classical papers, and probably do not count more than half as much; at any rate the examination is more favorable to Classical than to Mathematical men; a good Classic may get a Scholarship with the least possible quantity of Mathematics say twenty marks out of four hundred a Mathematician equally deficient in classics must be firstrate indeed in his branch to succeed. In the present year (1842) it looked as if these proportions were to be somewhat more equalized, owing to a change in the head of affairs. Our master, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (brother of the poet), had resigned, and was succeeded by Dr. Whewell. Dr. Whewell's accession to the Mastership of Trinity might well have been an era in the history of that "royal and religious foundation." The new Head was a gentleman of most commanding personal appearance, and the very sound of his powerful voice betokened no ordinary man. He was a remarkably good rider even in a country of horsemen, and the anecdote was often told, and not altogether repudiated by him, how in his younger days, about the time of his ordination, a pugilist, in whose company he accidentally found himself while * traveling, audibly lamented that such thews and sinews should be thrown away on a parson. With these physical advantages was combined a knowledge almost literally universal. Some people are said to know a little of everything; he might be truly said to know a great deal of everything. Second Wrangler of his year, Professor of Mineralogy, and afterwards of Moral Philosophy, author of a Bridgewater Treatise, and writer on a diversity of subjects, scientific and ethical, he kept up his Classics to an extent unusual for a scientific man, and did not neglect the lighter walks of literature. His name is on the list of the Cambridge Prize Poets, and is also known in connexion with several translations from the German. In conversation it was scarcely possible to start a subject without finding him at home in it. A story is current about him, not absolutely authenticated, but certainly of the si non vero ben trovato sort, that some of the Dons who were tired of hearing him explain everything, and enlighten everybody in Combination room, laid a trap to catch him in this wise: They determined to get themselves up thoroughly in some very out-of-the-way topic, and introduce it as if by accident on the first convenient occasion. Accordingly, they pitched upon something connected with China, eitherfor there are two versions of the story-Chinese musical instruments or the Chinese game of Chess. Various odd books, and particularly a certain volume of a certain Cyclopædia, were dragged out of their dusty repose and carefully perused. Next Sunday, when the College dignitaries and some stranger guests were marshalled over their port and biscuit, the conspirators, thoroughly * Technically called Casuistry in the University, and sometimes Moral Theology. primed, and with their parts artistically distributed, watched their time and adroitly introduced the prepared topic. One after the other they let drop most naturally a quantity of strange erudition, marvellously astounding, no doubt, to the Small-College Dons present, and apparently puzzling to the object of attack, for he actually remained silent for a full quarter of an hour, till just as the parties were congratulating themselves on their complete success, he turned to the principal speaker, and remarked, "Oh, I see you've been reading the article I wrote for such a Cyclopædia in such a year." They gave it up after that. A man that knows so many things cannot know them all perfectly, and is scarce likely to know any one of them with the accuracy attainable by a man who has made that particular branch his spécialité; and in Eng land, where the division of mental, like that of mechanical labor, is carried out to a degree which must be witnessed and experienced to be conceived, it easily happened that Dr. Whewell was looked down upon in each of his pursuits by the man who had no other pursuit but that one. In this respect he has been compared to Lord Brougham, the extent of whose knowledge has destroyed all chance of his accuracy and polish in any one branch of it; but there is this important difference in Brougham's favor, that in one thing-oratory-he stands among the first of his age, while it could not be said of Whewell that he had attained a similar preeminence in any one branch. The mass of his general knowledge, taken together, constituted his strength. There were few men of like pretensions to weigh or appreciate the strength of this; he was judged piecemeal, and part of him taken for the whole, by men whose whole development and training was partial. Sydney Smith's saying of him, |