Oxford when Sir William Hamilton wrote about it with its present condition. I need not say that there is probably nowhere in the British Empire three quarters of a million of yearly revenue so well spent as the joint revenues of the two Universities. For present purposes, I wish to draw attention to the fact, that the great change of 1854 has as yet only half exhausted its reforming energy. In six colleges in Oxford the Fellows elected under the new ordinances are still in a minority, three of them very rich, and very important, not only on this account, but as likely, in their new character, to be very different from what they were. Till New College, Magdalen, and St. John's have a majority of Fellows elected under the ordinance, and Christ Church is freer from the ecclesiastical influences which have been supposed to be so potent within its walls, the work of the Commission of 1854 can hardly be said to be in a condition in which it would be fair to pass judgment on it.
In estimating, also, what Oxford is as compared with what we should wish it to be, we must further consider that it is nearly four years since the Privy Council began refusing to sanction any alterations in college statutes; and four years ago more than one college, since emancipated, was still in the condition in which the six above referred to are now.
It takes some time, too, for practically a new governing body to feel its power, and to exercise it. Unless the seniority have been unusually repressive, the juniors, as they become a majority, probably wisely hesitate to upset hastily arrangements with whose history and bearing they are probably imperfectly acquainted, and this delays perhaps ne-
