Perhaps, too, this tenacity of the bygone will more naturally be found to be a characteristic of the universities, than of other corporations. The spots which they occupy are holy ground, fraught with historic memories of the great and wise of former days. The _genius loci_ is a mighty advocate in behalf of antiquity:-- "As the ghost of Homer clings Round Scamander's wasting springs; As divinest Shakspeare's might Fills Avon and the world with light;" --so we may not well pass unaffected by the congregation of priest, and poet, and sage, whose recollections consecrate the banks of our academic rivers. As we go beneath "Bacon's mansion," or about Milton's mulberry tree; as we kneel where Newton knelt, or dine in halls where the portraits of Erasmus, and Fisher, and Taylor, look down upon us,--these are not times and places for the dogmatism and arrogance of "the nineteenth century"--for bragging of our advance and illumination, or sneering at "the good old times." This is in accordance with the law of our nature; but these recollections, and the lessons which they teach, are not, if rightly laid hold of, such as to induce a mere blind attachment to the skeletons of dead notions and practices. And although it may, perhaps must, happen that, at any given time, there may be found relics adhering to the system, whose vitality and meaning have been withdrawn by time, and left them dry and sapless, yet we will venture to assert that, if a dogged adherence to antiquated forms could fairly be charged on the universities, they could never have maintained their ground amidst the mighty historical transmutations that have passed over their heads. Civil wars and popular tumults have raged around them; the throne has yielded to violence and to intrigue; the Church has admitted modifications, both of her doctrine and her discipline; and, more than all, the still more important, though silent and gradual changes--changes to which the striking and salient events of history are but the indexes and visible signs--changes of thought and rule of action--have risen and sunk, and ebbed and flowed, and still these stable monuments of the piety and munificence of men whose names are almost unknown, remain unshorn of their ancient vigour, and intimately entwined with our social system.