there the vices at the fountain-head were more real and visible; the veil of sanctity, which elsewhere covered its grasping ambition for civil power, was more transparent; and the high transcendental character of the pope merged into and was lost under that of the temporary sovereign. In France and England the case was dif ferent, and our two Universities were not only founded on earlier schools which probably depended more or less upon the monasteries, but they were continually infringed upon by the invasions of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Universities now becaine full of students; they soon felt the necessity of a government of their own, and took the shape of little republics or free monarchies. In this form, they received privileges and charters, and appointed officers and governors for the management of their own internal affairs. It was early in the thirteenth century that the chancellor and other officers were established in Oxford and Cambridge, by royal and not by papal charters. We have no space to follow Dr. Huber through his deep researches into our University History, and his new and interesting views on many points connected with it, on the state of the Universities in the twelfth century, their gradual formation and establishment, the foundation of colleges, &c., and more especially on the internal dissensions among the different classes of students. The thirteenth century was a stirring period in politics, both abroad and at home, and the general movement strongly affected the Universities. In France, the ecclesiastical power, partly by its intrigues, and partly by its newly-invented militia, consisting of troops of Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, &c., was breaking through all the privileges and liberties of the University of Paris. In England, a little later, all these same orders of friars were planted at Cambridge and at Oxford, but the turbulent independence of the English people, occupied at this time in vigorous struggles against the introduction of foreign despotism, rendered the popish influence extremely weak. The students of the English Universities seem at this period to have been extraordinarily active. There can be little doubt that their numbers in both Universities, and in Oxford especially, amounted to many thousands. There was here as perfect a separation of the students into nations, as ever existed in the University of Paris; but the nations in Oxford and Cambridge were all more or less English, although, under the two great heads of Northernmen and Southernmen, they included various subdivisions, as Scottishmen, Welshmen, Marchmen (inhabitants of the Welsh borders), Irish, &c., of whom all, except the Scottishmen, were in the habit of ranging themselves under the banner of the Southerns. These nations were constantly For much curious information on the popular condition and quarrels of the University of Paris, we would recommend to the especial attention of our readers the valuable publication by M. Jubinal, "Oeuvres Complètes de Rutebeuf," 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1839. quarrelling, and often fighting together. So far were they also identified with the different political parties which agitated the state, that the wars within the Universities were not unfrequently the precursors of those greater internal wars which devastated the whole island. This was particularly the case at Oxford, and gave rise to the following rhymes, which were current in the thirteenth century : Chronica si penses, Cum pugnant Oxonienses, Volat ira per Angligenenses. Even in these greater wars, to judge from various incidents mentioned by the old historians, the students of the Universities acted a conspicuous part. The records of the beginning of the reign of King Henry the Third show that the clerks of Cambridge had been exceedingly turbulent during the wars of the reign of John; and it was perhaps the difficulty of keeping them in order, that partly called for the charters which Henry either first granted or established more firmly. The intellectual excitement of this age was subsiding rapidly during the latter part of the thirteenth century. In France, the University of Paris never recovered from the blow which it had received; but the English Universities sustained their independence of the church, and continued to be distinguished as the seats of most of the learning which was then cultivated, until they were regenerated at the time of the Reformation. The history of the Universities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is very dull, and is only enlivened from time to time by an insurrection of the townsmen, or a temporary war between them and the gownsmen, or by the building of a college. The foundation of collegiate establishments, which began at the latter end of the thirteenth century, was itself an incroachment on the earlier liberties of the students, because, in addition to the University jurisdiction, it subjected them to the still closer vigilance of the house which they inhabited; and although they were not, at first, compelled to enter themselves there, yet the advantages which these establishments afforded in many points of view easily induced them to subject themselves to the restrictions which were thus imposed upon them; and the number of students who lived according to the old system was gradually diminished, until they entirely disappeared, and along with them many of the old forms and offices. The natural result was, that within a short space of time the whole face of the University was altered. As the period of the Reformation approached, we find the Romish church becoming constantly more despotic, more bigoted, and more ignorant; and its intellectual influence was strongly felt in our Universities, although in them were also springing up some of the most powerful instruments which were to work the over throw of the system under which they were themselves educated. The spirit in which the Universities were at this time governed may be best illustrated by extracts from a few letters of the bigoted Gardner, chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who had forcibly put down the new improvements in the pronunciation of the Greek language as an anti-christian innovation. These improvements were introduced by men like Cheek and Sir Thomas Smith, both then young but able scholars. With the true spirit of the church to which he belonged, bishop Gardner opposed the slightest movement, even in small things like this, lest it should lead to the greater intellectual movement which must overwhelm the dark bigotry on which the Romish power rested. In a letter to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, directed more particularly against a play which had been performed in Christ's College, in which he had discovered some sentiments favourable to reformation, the bishop says, "I here many thinges to be very far out of order, both openly in the university, and severally in the colleges, whereof I am sory, and amongst other, in contempt of me, the determination of the pronunciation of certain Grece letters, agreed unto by th'auctorité of the hol université, to be violate and broken without any correction therefor. The matier is lowe, and the contempt soo moche the more. chosen chauncelor to be soo honoured (although above my desertes) of them, and I have geven noo cause to be despised." Again, in another letter,-"Last year by consens of the hole university made an ordre concerning the pronunciation of the Greeke tongue, appointing paynes to the transgressors, and finally to the vicechancellor if he sawe them not executed; wherein I praye you persuaded that I wyll not be deluded nor contempned. I did it seriously, and will maintaine it." So again, in another letter, alluding to this and other subjects, he says,-" As wylde wanton libertie sumtyme bresteth oute in youth to their reproch, soo let sobreness and gravitie appere in us, requisite for th' execution of our charge. Our obedience shulde be example to all other in publique directions without occasion of all slaunder. If lernynge shulde nowe be an instrument to sterre up dissension, and trouble the common quietnesse, their opinion shulde be confermed, which not many yeres past have laboured to prove in bokes prynted in Englyshe, that the universities be the corruption of the realme. Oxford lyveth quietly with fewer priveleges thenne we have; ther be that wolde we had as fewe as they." I was be Our space will not allow us to enter into the details of Dr. Huber's book. We now, therefore, take our leave of it, but we do so with the repetition of our earnest recommendation of it to the attention of our countrymen, and with the sincere hope that very shortly we shall again meet its author in his second volume, when we shall have something to say to Cambridge as it is. THE DAGUERROTYPE, Ueber Daguerre's Entdeckung. (On Daguerre's Discovery.) Morgenblatt, 1839. Nos. 35, 37, 42, 57, 71, 83, and 84. It may appear rather singular that we should place the title of a series of articles in a German periodical at the head of our report of a discovery made in France, and which has been more or less noticed in most of the journals, not only of the continent, but of our own country. Our reason for this choice is, that in none of those which have fallen under our observation have we found the subject so satisfactorily treated as in the paper above quoted, which-by the way be it remarked-with its supplementary Kunst-Blatt and Litteratur-Blatt, combines a very fair proportion of useful information with rational entertainment. The discovery of a method of making Nature become her own limner, and of obtaining immediately from the action of the solar rays what had hitherto been produced only by long mechanical and manual processes, has caused no less a sensation on the continent, where it is said to have been first made, and where it seems to have been carried to the highest point of perfectibility which it has yet attained, than it has done in England. Journals of all kinds, on both sides of the British Channel, have swarmed with papers on the subject, and it has become almost a matter of national dispute. Happy would nations be, if all their objects of contestation were always as peaceable and as useful as that of a claim to priority of invention, in a proceeding altogether a matter of science and art! We are not inclined to go into any controversy of the kind; we leave it to the champions of Photogenics to dispute about light till they can see no longer; we know that there is scarcely one of the great discoveries which have benefited mankind, the real birth and parentage of which can be made out so as to remove all doubt upon the subject. Partizans will never be wanting to claim for their own nation honours of all kinds, and especially scientific ones, for, next to being brave and powerful, a nation-one that is worthy of the name of a nation-is always jealous of its reputation for intellectual vigour. A man has always an uncommonly strong objection to be called either a coward or a fool; and so it is with congregated bodies of men; all wish to be first in the great and honourable struggle for mental as well as physical superiority. Our own countrymen, ninety-nine hundredths of them, that is to say, firmly believe that the steam-engine is a genuine English invention: we have no wish to say that it is not only we know that the French lay fully as strong a claim to the discovery of it for their fellow-countryman Papin; the Americans declare that they first brought it to perfection; and even the Spaniards put in a kind of pseudo-claim from their having imprisoned some un - lucky madman in their galleys, who, ages ago, had raved about a machine that was moved by vapour of some kind. The Chinese -sly dogs have said nothing about the matter; but we should not be surprised if, after another six or seven thousand years of national glory, when European nations are admitted into the Celestial Empire, it should be found that some Whang Fong or Ding Dong, or other equally well-known philosopher, had meditated on the action of steam while boiling his tea-kettle (the Chinese certainly did invent tea-drinking), at the same period that we, poor ignorant barbarians, suppose that " Adam delved and Eve span. We do not see why the Chinese should not have invented steam-engines if they invented printing and gunpowder, as it is affirmed, or, according to some, proved, they did, long before Guttenberg or Friar Bacon, and other imbeciles of the same sort of pretensions, existed. We decline, therefore, all controversy on the matter: we have the greatest possible respect for our own compatriot, Mr. Talbot; we venerate the memory of M. Niepce; we are fully aware of the wonders of all kinds that Sir Humphrey Davy has done; we have seen every diorama that M. Daguerre did not paint, and we acknowledge his great ingenuity; as King Jamie said, "Ye're baith right!" when he could not settle the suit; only this we will protest against - that the Hesiodic cosmogony shall not be reversed and impugned in this matter; for, according to the worthy old Greek, light came after chaos, whereas, if the Photogenic controversy goes on much longer, we shall have chaos coming out of light. All that we wish to do, c'est constater le fait, as they say in Paris; all that we shall attempt, is to give a brief sketch of how Photogenic processes have hitherto progressed, as a matter of art, on the continent. The first communication that appeared on the subject was M. Arago's account of M. Daguerre's invention, read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, on the 7th of January in the present year. The learned professor observed that no one who had witnessed the beautiful effects of the camera obscura but must have felt regret that such transient images could not be fixed on the table athwart which they flitted for an instant, or remained stationary only as long as light lasted; this, he continued, was what M. Daguerre had partially succeeded in doing, not in colours such as Nature gives, but in black and white. The perfection of the representations depended much on the achromatic powers of the lens of the camera obscura, and when a lens of sufficient power and accuracy could be obtained, M. Daguerre had produced a kind of print, or drawing, or image, that would not only stand the minutest test of the naked eye as to its accuracy, but would also improve when examined with a powerful eye-glass. The time requisite for such an operation was, with the sun of a Parisian or northern climate, from eight to ten minutes in ordinary weather, whereas there was reason to expect that, with such a climate and |