useless. Mr Tattam's grammar, recently published, is a most creditable performance, and cannot fail to be highly serviceable; but it is not calculated to supply the defect which is at present most severely felt. What we want most is a lexicon,-a mere collection of words. Grammar is a very secondary affair in a language where the nouns are the same in all the cases, the verbs without inflexions or conjugations, and a few particles, easily learned, constitute its only resource for effecting verbal modifications. A good lexicon is the prime requisite; and we know of only one man living who is, in all respects, capable of executing it as it ought to be executed; we mean M. Klaproth, the learned and justly celebrated author of Asia Polyglotta. Will he permit us to recommend to him a task for which his Letters on Acrological Hieroglyphs prove him to be so eminently qualified, and which, unless he undertake it, will probably fall into the hands of some dabbler, who has neither the learning nor the opportunities necessary for its performance ?* * The Atlas which accompanies this work, has greatly disappointed us. With the exception of a table of the principal Greek and demotic papyri, arranged in the order of places, subjects, and dates, which any ordinary compiler might have prepared, and some few additions, of doubtful authority, to the enchorial alphabet, it contains absolutely nothing of the least interest or value, and seems to have been got up merely for show. The Greek transcriptions of demotic and hieratic words, have been provokingly withheld; and instead of facsimiles of the bilingual texts, which would have been universally acceptable, we are furnished with views, direct and in profile, of a wretched nycticorax, carved in marble, and a print of the figure on the lid of a soros, differing, in no respect of any importance, from those with which all the world is familiar. The paper indeed is excellent, and the lithography highly respectable; but the matter, unfortunately, bears no sort of proportion to the amplitude of the space which it occupies, and the imposing garb in which it is offered to the public. In short, as we have before observed, Professor Reuvens has neglected that branch of the subject which Egyptian scholars consider as by far the most interesting, and which, from his situation and opportunities, he might have materially advanced; devoting his time and labours to matters purely secondary, where it is easy to exhibit a parade of erudition, but difficult, if not impossible, to make the slightest addition to actual knowledge. Might it not have occurred to M. Reuvens, that the celebrated Hellenist, to whom these Lettres are addressed, would have preferred a Greco-Egyptian text to a Dutch commentary without the original; and experienced more satisfaction in comparing correct fac-similes of the principal papyri of the Anastasy collection, than in wading through prolix descriptions, or perusing a musterroll of authorities with which he must long have been familiar? ART. VI.-1. Addenda ad Corpus Statutorum Universitatis Oxoniensis. 4to. Oxonii: 1825. 2. The Oxford University Calendar, for 1829. 8vo. Oxford: 1829. THIS HIS is the age of reform: Next in importance to our religious and political establishments, are the foundations for public education; and having now seriously engaged in a reform of the 'constitution, the envy of surrounding nations,' the time cannot be distant for a reform in the schools and universities which have hardly avoided their contempt. Public intelligence is not, as hitherto, tolerant of prescriptive abuses, and the country now demands that endowments for the common weal should no longer be administered for private advantage. At this auspicious crisis, and under a ministry, no longer warring against general opinion, we should be sorry not to contribute our endeavour to attract attention to the defects which more or less pervade all our national seminaries of education, and to the means best calculated for their removal. We propose, therefore, from time to time, to continue to review the state of these establishments, considered both absolutely in themselves, and in relation to the other circumstances which have contributed to modify the intellectual condition of the different divisions of the empire. In proceeding to the Universities, we commence with Oxford. This University is entitled to precedence, from its venerable antiquity, its ancient fame, the wealth of its endowments, and the importance of its privileges; but there is another reason for our preference. Without attempting any idle and invidious comparison-without asserting the superior or inferior excellence of Oxford in contrast with any other British University, we have no hesitation in affirming, that comparing what it actually is with what it possibly could be, Oxford is, of all academical institutions, at once the most imperfect and the most perfectible. Properly directed, as they might be, the means which it possesses would render it the most efficient University in existence; improperly directed, as they are, each part of the apparatus only counteracts another; and there is not a similar institution which, in proportion to what it ought to accomplish, accomplishes so little. But it is not in demonstrating the imperfection of the present system, that we principally ground a hope of its improvement; it is in demonstrating its illegality. In the reform of an ancient establishment like Oxford, the great difficulty is to initiate a move ment. In comparing Oxford as it is, with an ideal standard, there may be differences of opinion in regard to the kind of change expedient, if not in regard to the expediency of a change at all; but, in comparing it with the standard of its own code of statutes, there can be none. It will not surely be contended that matters should continue as they are, if it can be shown that, as now administered, this University pretends only to accomplish a petty fraction of the ends proposed to it by law, and attempts even this only by illegal means. But a progress being determined towards a state of right, it is easy to accelerate the momentum towards a state of excellence :-ἀρχὴ ἥμισυ παντὸς. Did the limits of a single paper allow us to exhaust the subject, we should, in the first place, consider the state of the University, both as established in law, but non-existent in fact, and as established in fact, but non-existent in law; in the second, the causes which determined the transition from the statutory to the illegal constitution; in the third, the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems; and, in the fourth, the means by which the University may be best restored to its efficiency. In the present article, we can, however, only compass-and that inadequately-the first and second heads. The third and fourth we must reserve for a separate discussion, in which we shall endeavour to demonstrate, that the intrusive system, compared with the legitimate, is as absurd as it is unauthorized-that the preliminary step in a reform must be a return to the Statutory Constitution-and that this constitution, though far from faultless, may, by a few natural and easy changes, be improved into an instrument of academical education, the most perfect perhaps in the world. The subject of our consideration at present requires a fuller exposition, not only from its intrinsic importance, but because, strange as it may appear, the origin, and consequently the cure, of the corruption of the English Universities, is totally misunderstood. The vices of the present system have been observed, and frequently discussed; but as it has never been shown in what manner these vices were generated, so it has never been perceived how easily their removal might be enforced. It is generally believed that, however imperfect in itself, the actual mechanism of education organized in these seminaries, is a timehonoured and essential part of their being, established upon statute, endowed by the national legislature with exclusive privileges, and inviolable as a vested right. We shall prove, on the contrary, that it is new as it is inexpedient-not only accidental to the University, but radically subversive of its constitution,without legal sanction, nay, in violation of positive law,-arrogating the privileges exclusively conceded to another system, which it has superseded, and so far from being defensible by those it profits, as a right, that it is a flagrant usurpation obtained through perjury, and only tolerated from neglect. I. Oxford and Cambridge, as establishments for education, consist of two parts-of the University proper, and of the Colleges. The former, original and essential, is founded, controlled, and privileged by public authority, for the advantage of the state. The latter, accessory and contingent, are created, regulated, and endowed by private munificence, for the interest of certain favoured individuals. Time was when the Colleges did not exist, and the University was there; and were the Colleges again abolished, the University would remain entire. The former, founded solely for education, exists only as it accomplishes the end of its institution: the latter, founded principally for aliment and habitation, would still exist, were all education abandoned within their walls. The University, as a national establishment, is necessarily open to the lieges in general; the Colleges, as private institutions, might universally do as some have actually done-close their gates upon all, except their foundation members. The University and Colleges are thus neither identical, nor vicarious of each other. If the University ceases to perform its functions, it ceases to exist; and the privileges accorded by the nation to the system of public education legally organized in the University, cannot, without the consent of the nation-far less without the consent of the academical legislature-be lawfully transferred to the system of private education precariously organized in the Colleges, and over which neither the State nor the University have any control. They have, however, been unlawfully usurped. Through the suspension of the University, and the usurpation of its functions and privileges by the Collegial bodies, there has arisen the second of two systems, diametrically opposite to each other. The one, in which the University was paramount, is ancient and statutory; the other, in which the Colleges have the ascendant, is recent and illegal. In the former, all was subservient to public utility, and the interests of science; in the latter, all is sacrificed to private monopoly, and to the convenience of the teacher. The former amplified the means of education in accommodation to the mighty end which a University proposes; the latter limits the end which the University attempts to the capacity of the petty instruments which the intrusive system employs. The one afforded education in all the Faculties; the other professes to furnish only elementary tuition in the lowest. In the authorized system, the cycle of instruction was distri buted among a body of teachers, all professedly chosen from merit, and each concentrating his ability on a single object; in the unauthorized, every branch, necessary to be learned, is monopolized by an individual privileged to teach all, though probably ill qualified to teach any. The old system daily collected into large classes, under the same professor, the whole youth of the University of equal standing, and thus rendered possible a keen and steady competition; the new, which elevates the colleges and halls into so many little universities, and in these houses distributes the students, without regard to ability or standing, among some fifty tutors, frustrates all emulation among the members of its small and ill-assorted classes. In the superseded system, the Degrees in all the Faculties were solemn testimonials that the graduate had accomplished a regular course of study in the public schools of the University, and approved his competence by exercise and examination; and on these degrees, only as such testimonials, and solely for the public good, were there bestowed by the civil legislature, great and exclusive privileges in the church, in the courts of law, and in the practice of medicine. In the superseding system, Degrees in all the Faculties, except the lowest department of the lowest, certify neither a course of academical study, nor any ascertained ficiency in the graduate; and these now nominal distinctions retain their privileges to the public detriment, and for the benefit only of those by whom they have been deprived of their significance. Such is the general contrast of the two systems, which we must now exhibit in detail. pro System de jure. The Corpus Statutorum by which the University of Oxford is-we should say, ought to be-governed, was digested by a committee appointed for that purpose, through the influence of Laud, and solemnly ratified by King, Chancellor, and Convocation, in the year 1636. The far greater number of those statutes had been previously in force; and, except in certain articles subsequently added, modified, or restricted, (contained in the Appendix and Addenda,) they exclusively determine the law and constitution of the University to the present hour. Every member is bound by oath and subscription to their faithful observance.-In explanation of the statutory system of instruction, it may be proper to say a few words in regard to the history of academical teaching, previous to the publication of the Laudian Code. In the original constitution of Oxford, as in that of all the older universities of the Parisian model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of privileged pro |