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on July 31 to the vice-chancellor, notifying his resignation.

This letter being read in a convocation on Aug. 4, the duke of Ormond was unanimously chosen chancellor of the university. The ceremony of his inauguration was performed at London on the 26th of that month in this manner: Dr. John Fell, vice-chancellor of the university, the bishops of Winchester, Oxford, and Rochester, a great number of doctors of all faculties, Nathaniel Alsop and James Davenant the two proctors, some bachelors of divinity, and a large body of masters, met about three o'clock in the afternoon at Exeter-House in the Strand. From thence they walked, the bishops in their episcopal habits, the rest in those peculiar to their degrees, in solemn procession, two in a row, three esquire bedles, two inferior bedles, and the verger of the university, with their ornaments and maces erect, going before them, to Worcester-House, where they went up to a large stately room, and took their respective seats. The vice-chancellor was placed in a chair at the upper end of the room, and on both sides of the chair the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and the other bishops were seated. The two proctors, according to the academical custom, were placed before the vice-chancellor, and the masters regent and non-regent on seats ranged on both sides of the room. Then the vice-chancellor signified to them the cause of that convocation, which was to admit James duke of Ormond into the office of chancellor of the university, to which he had been lately elected. 382 Hereupon the duke came out of an adjoining room, accompanied with the earls of Bedford, Aylesbury, Dunfermling, and Carlingford, the bedles walking before him, and entering the convocation, seated himself in a chair placed near a table in the upper part of the room. Then the instrument of election being read by Mr. Benjamin Cooper, registrar of the university, the vice-chancellor

addressed himself in an elegant speech to the chancellor elect, and congratulated the university on the honour they enjoyed in having so eminent a patron. The speech being finished, the vice-chancellor laid the instrument of election, the seal of the chancellor's office, the book of statutes, and the keys upon the table before the chancellor, the bedles at the same time laying down their maces. Then Alsop, the senior proctor, having first administered the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the duke, the vice-chancellor tendered to him the oaths for preserving, defending, and maintaining the statutes, privileges, and customs of the university, and for faithfully discharging the office of chancellor, which his grace having likewise taken, he was by the vice-chancellor admitted to the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, and to all the rights and powers belonging to that office. This being done, the senior proctor in a florid harangue returned thanks to the chancellor for vouchsafing to accept that office, and recommended to him the defence of the rights and privileges of the university against all their adversaries, particularly the townsmen. Then the chancellor himself, having made a remarkable speech in English, thanking the university for their good-will, and assuring them of using his best endeavours to defend their rights, to preserve their statutes, to encourage learning, and to give his protection on all occasions to that learned body in general, and to every deserving member of it in particular. After this, the vice-chancellor having delivered to him the instrument of election under the university seal in a silver box, with the ensigns of the chancellor's office and the bedles' maces, the chancellor delivered back those ensigns to the vice-chancellor, and the maces to the bedles; who, after the vice-chancellor had dissolved the convocation, going before the chancellor, the whole assembly attended him into a large dining room,

where they were entertained at a sumptuous banquet; with which ended the ceremony of installation. 28 This signal testimony of the affection and esteem of the university of Oxford could not but be very agreeable to the duke of Ormond. No body of men had ever given more illustrious proofs of their learning, virtue, and integrity, than that university had done in the late times of confusion; and its reputation was still high in those respects. It was an eminent declaration made in his favour by a body of men distinguished by their knowledge, parts, virtue, loyalty, and religion, who, if they were not the representative of that nation, (from every quarter of which, and from families of condition in each, were drawn those plants which were nurtured and flourished in their society,) were yet most likely to speak its general sense. They spoke at least the sense of a seminary of learning, famous in foreign countries, and of considerable influence in their own, in which the most eminent members of both houses had laid the foundation of their reasoning, imbibed that learning and improved those parts, which enabled them to distinguish themselves in the debates of parliament. This was undeniably the case at this time, and though possibly in another age, men fancying themselves to have more wisdom, only because they have less virtue and religion than their ancestors, may contract prejudices against an university education, I may yet venture to say, that notwithstanding any defects that may be found therein, it will still be preferable to any other; and if those who look upon it with sentiments of contempt will be pleased at any time to make observations on the persons who speak with the 383 most weight, and are the best heard in parliament, they I will still find them to be those who have had the benefit of such an education. The duke of Ormond, in the honour paid him by this learned body of men, had the

more reason to be pleased, because it was doing that justice to his character in the present age, which he only expected from posterity. He had been a little before (as he was taking a walk early in the morning with sir Robert Southwell in the Pall Mall) discoursing of the vicissitudes of fortune, how it had still befallen him to be employed in times of the greatest difficulty, and when affairs were in the worst situation; how his employments had been thrown upon him without any desire or application of his own; how when he thought his actions were most justifiable, they commonly found the hardest interpretation; and concluded at last-"Well," said, he “nothing of this shall yet break my heart; for however it may fare with me in court, I am resolved to lie well in the chronicle."

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There are certain junctures and seasons, in which acts of respect are justly enhanced above their natural value, and are doubly welcome. Such was that in which the university of Oxford expressed theirs to the duke of Ormond. He was at that time attacked in the scandalous and detestable way of libels, and great industry was used to run him down with calumnies and misrepresentations, as his friend the lord chancellor Clarendon had lately been. Among these libels there was one entitled, A Narrative of the Sale and Settlement of Ireland, wrote in a loose declamatory way, to shew the sufferings of the Irish in that settlement. There are several mistakes in the book, and no proper state of the case on any side; but the adventurers and soldiers are loaded with reproaches throughout it; even the merits of the officers that served in the king's army before 1649 are depreciated, and their security magnified contrary to the truth of the fact; whilst the Irish are represented as the only persons that had any title to the king's favour, and as if all of them were thus entitled, and there had been none of that country who had opposed the peace of 1648, or

had withstood the king's authority. The partiality of the author is so very notorious, that it destroys the credit and weight of his work; and he gives a very sorry proof of his judgment, in making the marquis of Antrim the hero of his piece, and in insisting on one of his vilest actions and most impudent falsehoods (for which he had been put in the Tower, and when his estate was in question, laboured to vindicate himself from the charge by absolutely denying it) as a matter of fact to excuse the rebellion. It is needless to take notice of any particulars in this pamphlet, after having given so exact an account of the settlement, as is related in the course of this history; but I must observe, that the point it drives at is a repeal of the acts of settlement, and the strength of the argument lies in the vile aspersion thrown upon the earl of Clarendon, as if he had been the maker of those acts, and had settled them in the manner they passed, without any regard to justice, but purely through the influence of bribery and corruption. This was certainly making court to the faction, which procured his banishment, and were now in power; but no view in politics will excuse the baseness of calumniating a man absent, uncapable of defence, and sunk already low enough by his misfortunes. There never was a falser charge, and (as the whole course of the chancellor's letters to the duke of Ormond fully prove) there did not sit in the council of England so true a friend to Ireland as he was, ever opposing all methods of oppressing that country, and labouring heartily in council and elsewhere to do service to all those Irish, who had adhered to the peace, and given proofs of their affections to the king's cause. As for the pretended gains he made by the settlement, all the foundation for that accusation was this: A proposal being made by the adventurers to give the king a year's rent of all their lands, 384 this was improved so as to take in other interests, and a sum of three hundred thousand pounds was to be raised