A third institution distinctive of Merton was the system of “Variations,” or College disputations, of the same nature as the exercises required for University degrees. This custom is thus described by John Poynter, in a little work on the curiosities of Oxford, published in 1749. “The Master-Fellows,” he says, “are obliged by their Statutes to take their turns every year about the Act time, or at least before the first day of August, to vary, as they call it, that is, to perform some public exercise in the Common Hall, the Variator opposing Aristotle in three Latin speeches, upon three questions in Philosophy, or rather Morality; the three Deans in their turns answering the Variator in three speeches in opposition to his, and in defence of his Aristotle, and after every speech disputing with him syllogistically upon the same. Which Declamations or Disputations were amicably concluded with a magnificent and expensive supper, the charges of which formerly came to £100, but of late years much retrenched.” He adds that the audience was composed of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, with several Heads of Houses, besides the Warden and all the members of the College. As Variations were still in force when Poynter wrote, we may accept his description of them as tolerably accurate; but he is evidently wrong in supposing them to have taken place at one season of the year only, for the College Register clearly proves the actual date of them to have been moveable, so long as they were performed within the two years of “Regency” following Inception. By the old rule of the University, all Regent-Masters were obliged to give “ordinary” lectures during that period. This obligation was enforced at Merton by the oath required of Bachelor-Fellows before their Inception; and by the same oath they bound themselves during the same period, not only to engage in the logical and philosophical disputations of the College, but also to “vary twice.” The system was regularly established, and is mentioned as of immemorial antiquity, before the end of the fifteenth century. From that time forward Variations are frequently and fully recorded in the Register; and, whenever dispensations were allowed, the fact is duly noted. In 1673 a Fellow was fined £12--a large sum in those days--for neglecting his second Variations; and the significant comment is appended:--“we acquitted him, so far as we could, of his perjury.” Even the subjects chosen by the Variators are carefully specified, and astonish us by their wide range of interest. At first, metaphysical and logical questions predominate; but there is a large admixture of ethical questions, and a few bearing on natural philosophy. At the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, politics enter largely into the field of disputation; while in the eighteenth century a more discursive and literary tone of thought makes itself clearly felt. Upon the