Next come the philologists. They are in possession of the field. All the revenues supporting the Chairs of Language and Literature are their monopoly. They have steadily resisted all attempts on the part of what may be denominated the Liberal party to encroach on their dominions. In their eyes the Universities are simply nurseries for esoteric specialists, and to talk of bringing them into touch with national life is, in their estimation, mere cant. Their attitude towards Literature, generally, is precisely that of the classical party towards our own Literature; they regard it simply as the concern of men of letters, journalists, dilettants, and Extension lecturers. They defeated sixteen years ago an attempt to establish a Chair of English Literature by transforming it into a Chair of Language and securing it for themselves. They attempted, subsequently, to supplement what they had done by the establishment of a School of Language on the model of the Mediæval and Modern Languages Tripos at Cambridge. They were defeated by a coalition of the classical party, the Liberals, of whom we have just spoken, and a third party which insisted on a compromise between Philology and Literature. Reviving the scheme, they have, by accepting the modifications of the compromisers, just succeeded in getting it accepted. The new School of English Language and Literature is the result of that compromise. Now it will not be disputed that if the Universities ought, in the interests of liberal culture, to provide adequately for instruction in Literature, they ought also, in the interests of science, to provide adequately for instruction in Philology. It is a branch of learning of immense importance. It is, and ought to be, the peculiar care of Universities, and nothing could be more derogatory to a University than deficiency in such a study. But it is a study in itself. As a science it has no connection with Literature. Indeed the instincts and faculties which separate the temperament of the mathematician from the temperament of the poet are not more radical and essential than the instincts and faculties which separate the sympathetic student of Philology from the sympathetic student of Literature. But no science resolves itself more easily into a pseudo-science, and it is in this degenerate form that it has become linked with Literature and been, in all ages, the butt of wits and men of letters. Nothing but anarchy can result till this mutually degrading alliance be dissolved. It has been forced on the philologists by the compromise to which reference has been made. Let them be free to rescind it. Let the “pia vota” of Professor Max Müller be fulfilled and Oxford have her School of Philology. That such a School should be established is desirable for three reasons. In the first place, it would define what is at present vague and indeterminate, the scope and functions of Philology. Secondly, it would place that study on