The real rulers of the University were the Masters of the colleges. Most of them were highly placed ecclesiastics, and, consequently, had frequently to be absent from Cambridge; but as the “Heads” might marry, and fellows had to resign their position on taking a wife, they constituted a permanent element, and became all-powerful. I myself have often heard stories of the time when the Master of a college, and his family, belonged to an aristocracy to which no ordinary Master of Arts could hope to be admitted; and, you may be sure, the ladies who reigned in the lodges were very careful to keep the wives and daughters of such married graduates as happened to live in the town at their proper distance. Gunning will have plenty to say about them. The fellows of the colleges were for the most part non-resident; only the tutors and a few old men resided with any permanence in the colleges. With a few exceptions the fellows who stayed in Cambridge were either very young men or very strange old bachelors who seldom left the town. What instruction was given was given by the college tutors, and most of the fellows who lived in Cambridge served as curates to the different village churches. Some were almost entirely idle men, and one, who shall be nameless, found them no little mischief to do. The fellows dined at the high table, to which the nobility were also admitted. Noblemen, _i.e._ peers, the eldest sons of peers, and men who could prove royal descent, had till comparatively recently had the right of proceeding to the degree of M.A. after two years of residence without taking any examination or the degree of B.A. In Gunning’s early days peers wore on state occasions a magnificent academical dress varying in colour according to taste. Then came the fellow-commoners, men of wealth, who paid far higher fees than the ordinary students and dined with the fellows. These were also distinguished by the magnificence of their academic attire. It is difficult to imagine a much worse system of education. The nobility and fellow-commoners were kept apart from the ordinary men, often grossly flattered by the fellows and even by the Masters of the colleges. Work was not expected of them, and their example was often pernicious alike to the students and to the younger fellows. The majority of the young men were classed as scholars, who with the fellows formed what is called the “society” of the colleges, pensioners, and sizars or servitors. Almost all were intending to take Holy Orders: a few, however, became barristers or medical practitioners. The University was very small. In 1748 there were only 1500 on the books of the colleges; this includes non-residents, who were almost certainly in the majority. In 1801 the total of residents in the University, including, I suppose, the servants who slept in college, was 803.