After Barrow’s death, the mastership was filled successively by the Hon. John North* and the Hon. John Montague,* whose rule was calculated to foster a comfortable laziness rather than industry. On the death of the second of these, Dr Richard Bentley, fellow of St John’s, was elected master. There was, in those days, a strong feeling of rivalry between the two foundations—not only academical, but also in political and social matters. Bentley was a rare genius, whose scholarship was just then acknowledged as the finest in England, but he was utterly devoid of good feeling and tact, and had a peculiar faculty for exciting hatred. His fame, for the most of us, is due to his high place in the _Dunciad_. He arrived in Trinity with the intention of managing the college on his own lines. There was a party in the Society which thoroughly enjoyed the comfort of a position it did not adorn, and in this body Bentley found his most devoted enemies. Instead of conciliating them, he treated them with undisguised contempt and arrogance; and his conduct was so injudicious that he alienated all the better members of the college from himself. Matters came to a head when Bentley made radical alterations in the Master’s Lodge, and presented the fellows with a bill considerably larger than the original estimate. Open war broke out; the fellows refused to pay; and Bentley in consequence applied methods of coercion, withholding privileges which were in his gift. The fellows found themselves obliged to give in after some time, and Bentley followed up this victory by altering the interior of the chapel to suit the new organ. At this point, however, the Society revolted for good. Bentley required a large subscription of each fellow. The fellowship dividends had been much reduced during the previous years, and, with this additional burden, poverty stared many of the dons in the face. In this crisis, the fellows, who undoubtedly had justice on their side, called in Serjeant Milne, a London lawyer and one of their number, and, under his guidance, addressed a _gravamen_ against the Master to the Bishop of Ely. Things would have gone hardly for Bentley, had not the Bishop died opportunely. This Bishop, by the way, was John Moore, whose books George I. gave to the University Library. However, Bentley’s tyranny was not suffered to continue, for, in 1718, the Senate passed a grace degrading him from his high positions in the University. After this, the quarrel was less prominent. Bentley occupied the Lodge till 1742, but the bad feeling which he had excited continued till the end of his life. His judgment and taste may be estimated from the reply which he is said to have given to some congratulatory address after his election. Referring to his original college of St John’s, he said, “By the help of my God, I have leaped over a wall.” His arrogance might have been excusable in a young man whose promotion was early, but Bentley, in 1700, was past middle life.