under Mountague, from any interference which exceeded. the limits of good breeding.

But it cannot

In the fore-front of the difficulties which met Bentley Dr. Monk puts the fact that he "had no previous connexion with the College which he was sent to govern; he was himself educated in another and a rival society." Now, without questioning that there were murmurs on this score, I think that we shall overrate the influence of such a consideration if we fail to observe what the precedents had been up to that date. Bentley was the twentieth Master since 1546. Of his nineteen predecessors, only five had been educated at Trinity College. To take the four immediately preceding cases, Barrow and Mountague had been of Trinity, but Pearson had been of King's, and North of Jesus. Since Bentley's time every Master has been of Trinity. be said that any established usage then existed of which Bentley's appointment was a breach. And young though he was for such a post-thirty-eight-he was not young beyond recent example. Pearson, when appointed, had been forty; Barrow, forty-three; North, thirty-three; and Mountague, only twenty-eight. Thus the choice was not decidedly exceptional in either of the two points which might make it appear so now. But the task which, at that moment, awaited Master of Trinity was one which demanded a rare union of qualities. How would Bentley succeed? A few readers of the Dissertation on Phalaris, that mock despot of Agrigentum, might tremble a little, perhaps, at the thought that the scholarly author appeared to have a robust sense of what a real tyrant should be, and a cordial contempt for all shams in the part. It was natural, however, to look with hope to his mental grasp and vigour, his energy, his penetration, his genuine love of learning.

CHAPTER VII.

BENTLEY AS MASTER OF TRINITY.

WHEN Bentley entered on his new office, he was in one of those positions where a great deal may depend on the impression made at starting. He did not begin very happily. One of his first acts was to demand part of a College dividend due by usage to his predecessor, Dr. Mountague, who closed the discussion by waiving his claim. Then the Master's Lodge required repairs, and the Seniority (the eight Senior Fellows) had voted a sun for that purpose, but the works were executed in a manner which ultimately cost about four times the amount. It is easy to imagine the comments and comparisons to which such things would give rise in a society not, perhaps, too favourably prepossessed towards their new chief. But Bentley's first year at Trinity is marked by at least one event altogether fortunate his marriage. At Bishop Stillingfleet's house he had met Miss Joanna Bernard, daughter of Sir John Bernard, of Brampton, Huntingdonshire. "Being now raised to a station of dignity and consequence, he succeeded in obtaining the object of his affections," says Dr. Monk-who refuses to believe a story that the engagement was nearly broken off owing to a doubt expressed by Bentley with regard to the authority of the Book of Daniel. Whiston has

told us what this alleged doubt was. Nebuchadnezzar's golden image is described as sixty cubits high and six cubits broad; now, said Bentley, this is out of all proportion; it ought to have been ten cubits broad at least; "which made the good lady weep." The lovers' difference was possibly arranged on the basis suggested by Whiston that the sixty cubits included the pedestal. Some letters which passed between Dr. Bentley and Miss Bernard, before their marriage, are still extant, and have been printed by Dr. Luard at the end of Rud's Diary. In the Library of Trinity College is preserved a small printed and interleaved "Ephemeris" for the year 1701. The blank page opposite the month of January has the following entries in Bentley's hand:

"Jan. 4. I maried Mrs. Johanna Bernard, daughter of Sr John Bernard, Baronet. Dr Richardson, Fellow of Eaton College and Master of Peterhouse, maried us at Windsor in ye College Chapel.

"6. I brought my wife to St James's [i. e., to his lodgings, as King's Librarian, in the Palace].

"27. I am 39 years old, complete.

"28. I returnd to ye College."

It was a thoroughly happy marriage, through forty years of union. What years they were, too, outside of the home in which Mrs. Bentley's gentle presence dwelt! In days when evil tongues were busy no word is said of her but in praise; and perhaps, if all were known, few women ever went through more in trying, like Mrs. Thrale, to be civil for two.

Bentley was Vice-chancellor of Cambridge at the time of his marriage. His year of office brought him into collision with the gaieties of that great East England carnival, Sturbridge Fair. Its entertainments were under the joint control of the University and the Town, but, without

licence from the Vice-chancellor, some actors had been announced to play in September, 1701. Bentley interposed his veto, and provided for discipline by investing sixty-two Masters of Arts with the powers of Proctors. One of his last acts as Vice-chancellor was to draw up an address which the University presented to King William, expressing "detestation of the indignity" which Louis XIV. had just offered to the English Crown by recog nising the claims of the Pretender.

The term of his University magistracy having expired, Bentley was able to bestow undivided attention on Trinity College. An important reform was amongst his earliest measures. Fellowships and Scholarships were at that time awarded by a merely oral examination. Written papers were now introduced; the competition for Scholarships became annual instead of biennial, and freshmen were admitted to it. The permanent value of this change is not affected by the estimate which may be formed of Bentley's personal conduct in College elections. There are instances in which it was represented as arbitrary and unfair. But we must remember that his behaviour was closely watched by numerous enemies, who eagerly pressed every point which could be plausibly urged against him. The few detailed accounts which we have of the elections give the impression that, in those cases at least, the merits of candidates were fairly considered. Thus John Byrom says (1709): "We were examined by the Master, Vicemaster, and Dr. Smith, one of the Seniors. On Wednesday we made theme for Dr. Bentley, and on Thursday the Master and Seniors met in the Chapel for the election [to Scholarships]. Dr. Smith had the gout and was not there. They stayed consulting about an hour and a half, and then the Master wrote the names of the elect and gave them to

the Chapel Clerk." Whether he was or was not always blameless on such occasions, Bentley deserves to be remembered as the Master who instituted a better machinery for testing merit, and provided better guarantees for its recognition.

To do him justice, no man could have been more earnest than Bentley was in desiring to maintain the prestige of Trinity College, or more fully sensible of the rank due. to it in science and letters. It was through Bentley's influence that the newly-founded Plumian Professorship of Astronomy was conferred on Roger Cotes-then only a Bachelor of Arts-who was provided with an observatory in the rooms over the Great Gate of Trinity College (1706). Ten years later, when this man of wonderful promise died at the age of thirty-four, Newton said, "Had Cotes lived, we should have known something." The appointment of Cotes may be regarded as marking the formal establishment of a Newtonian school in Cambridge; and it was of happy omen that it should have been first lodged within the walls which had sheltered the labours of the founder. Three English sovereigns visited the College in the course of Bentley's Mastership, but the most interesting fact connected with any of these occasions is the public recognition of Newton's scientific eminence in 1705, when he received knighthood from Queen Anne at Trinity Lodge. Then it was Bentley who fitted up a chemical laboratory in Trinity College for Vigani, a native of Verona, who, after lecturing in Cambridge for some years, was appointed Professor of Chemistry in 1702. It was Bentley who made Trinity College the home of the eminent Oriental scholar Sike, of Bremen, whom he helped to obtain the Regius Chair of Hebrew in 1703. Briefly, wherever real science needed protection or encouragement,