“While the colleges were still at the height of their power, a young lawyer offered himself for one of the fellowships at Salamanca, and was disdainfully rejected for want of sufficient proofs of _noblesse_. By an extraordinary combination of circumstances, the offended candidate rose to be prime minister of state, under Charles III., with the title of Marquis of Roda. The extraordinary success he had met with in public life, could not, however, heal the wound his pride had received in his youth. But, besides the inducement of his private feelings, he seems to have been an enemy to all influence which was not exerted by the king and his ministers. Two powerful bodies, the Jesuits and the colleges, engrossed so forcibly, and, I may say, painfully, his attention, that it was wittily observed, ‘that the spectacles he wore had painted glasses, one representing a Jesuit, the other a collegian’--and thus allowed him to see nothing else. The destruction to which he had doomed them was, at length, accomplished by his means. His main triumph was, indeed, over the Jesuits: yet his success against the colleges, though certainly less splendid, was the more gratifying to his personal feelings. The method he employed in the downfall of the last is not unworthy of notice, both for its perfect simplicity, and the light it throws upon the state and character of the country. Having the whole patronage of the Crown in his hands, he placed, within a short time, all the existing members of the Salamanca colleges, in the most desirable situations both of the church and law, filling their vacancies with young men of no family. Thus the bond of collegiate influence was suddenly snapped asunder: the old members disowned their successors; and such as a few days before looked upon a fellowship as an object of ambition, would have felt mortified at the sight of a relative wearing the gown of a _reformed_ college. The _Colegio Mayor_ of Seville was attacked by other means. Without enforcing the admission of the unprivileged classes, the minister, by an arbitrary order, deprived it of its right to confer degrees. The convocation of doctors and masters was empowered to elect their own rector, and name professors for the schools, which were subsequently opened to the public in one of the deserted houses that had belonged to the Jesuits. Such is the origin of the university where I received my education.