curious incentive to holding in plurality. A Fellow was entitled to his commons, and, in addition, to allowances of 13s. 4d. under each of the three heads of "corn," "livery," and "stipend," or, as we may say, food, clothes, and pocket-money. The College officers received but small salaries, the most highly paid being the President and Senior Bursar, who each received L2. An effort was made by the Statutes of the Realm to improve the condition of members of colleges. It seems to have been assumed that the rent of a college farm, like its statutes, could not be altered; but by an Act of Parliament passed in the eighteenth year of Elizabeth, known as Sir Thomas Smith's Act, it was enacted that from thenceforth one-third of the rents were to be paid in wheat and malt; the price of wheat for the purposes of the Act being assumed to be 6s. 8d. a quarter, and of malt 5s. a quarter. Thus if before the Act the rent of a farm was L6 a year, after it became law the tenant had to pay L4 in money, three-quarters of wheat, and four quarters of malt, these two latter items coming to L1 each. But the tenant now paid a rent varying according to the prices of the day--namely, the money rent plus the cash value of the wheat and malt according to the best prices of these commodities in Cambridge on the market-day preceding quarter-day. Thus as the prices of wheat and malt rose the College benefited. By the Act this variable one-third, or "corn-money," went to increase the allowance for commons. As time went on the amount of the corn-money was more than sufficient to pay for the commons, and a further modest allowance out of the surplus was made to all who participated in the College revenues, whether as Master, Fellow, scholar, or sizar, under the name of _praeter_.