Note 360 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

We find in Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i. p. 53, a plan, ascribed to Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, for taking away the election of heads of colleges from the fellows, and vesting the nomination in the great officers of state, in order to cure the disaffection and want of discipline which was justly complained of. This remedy would have been perhaps the substitution of a permanent for a temporary evil. It appears also that Archbishop Wake wanted to have had a bill, in 1716, for asserting the royal supremacy, and better regulating the clergy of the two universities (Coxe's Walpole, ii. 122); but I do not know that the precise nature of this is anywhere mentioned. I can scarcely quote Amherst's Terræ Filius as authority; it is a very clever, though rather libellous, invective against the university of Oxford at that time; but from internal evidence, as well as the confirmation which better authorities afford it, I have no doubt that it contains much truth.

Those who have looked much at the ephemeral literature of these two reigns must be aware of many publications fixing the charge of prevalent disaffection on this university, down to the death of George II.; and Dr. King, the famous jacobite master of St. Mary Hall, admits that some were left to reproach him for apostasy in going to court on the accession of the late king in 1760. The general reader will remember the Isis by Mason, and the Triumph of Isis by Warton; the one a severe invective, the other an indignant vindication; but in this instance, notwithstanding the advantages which satire is supposed to have over panegyric, we must award the laurel to the worse cause, and, what is more extraordinary, to the worse poet.