During the eighteenth century the state of the University was more or less torpid. It was the age of combination rooms and good port, of hard-and-fast social distinctions and formal gatherings. The Universities, during this period, lost their touch with English life, and were not even the forcing-houses of wit. This is especially true of Cambridge. The first half of the century is absorbed in the great quarrel between Bentley and his society. Bentley is unquestionably the most commanding figure of his time at Cambridge; for Newton by this time belonged chiefly to London. But Bentley was hated by the great company of wits, who had, for the most part, little to do with either University. Pope, Swift, Fielding and Richardson, the four writers who had the greatest influence on their century, were connected with neither Oxford nor Cambridge. And, from 1750 to 1790, there is very little to relieve the general dulness which settled over Cambridge. Mr John Willis Clark, in a delightful and only too short chapter, has revived for us the social etiquette and pleasures of the period. But the pleasures themselves are remarkable, for the most part, for their unconscious humour. And even the epigrams, in spite of their uniform cleverness, are a trifle heavy. The French Revolution woke Cambridge from this long sleep. It was an active stimulant to the imagination. The fall of the Bastille had its effect upon Wordsworth at St John’s and Coleridge at Jesus; its immediate result, the general cry for independence, moved Byron at Trinity. The romantic enthusiasm set in, and with it that love for a liberal education apart from mechanical scholarship which is so prominent a factor in both Oxford and Cambridge to-day. In short, the modern life of the University began; Cambridge began once more to play its part in English intellectual life. Wordsworth and Tennyson, of all poets, have done most to stimulate the minds of their countrymen, and both owe no small portion of their personal influence to Cambridge. And, side by side with this intellectual revival, one cannot fail to notice the spiritual revival inaugurated by the Wesleys at Oxford, and naturalised by Charles Simeon at Cambridge. This simply means the awakening of the University to the other side of her responsibilities. In the Oxford movement, which was the logical result of this revival, Cambridge had very little share. Her traditions were somewhat different from those of Oxford, and her theological tendencies took what is usually known as a “broader” direction. Her position is indicated by the names of F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley. At the same time, her school of theology, under Ellicott, Lightfoot, Hort and Westcott, has preserved its scientific basis and cannot be surpassed in any University. And time would fail to tell of what triumphs she has won in other fields. Darwin in biology, Thomson in electricity, Adams in astronomy, are names which tell their own tale. With these main