JAMES THE SECOND.

107

vert. This abject hypocrisy had been rewarded by a place inthe Ecclesiastical Commission.*

Before that formidable tribunal now appeared the Vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Doctor JohnPechell. He was a man of no great ability or vigour; but hewas accompanied by eight distinguished academicians, electedby the Senate. One of these was Isaac Newton, Fellow ofTrinity College, and Professor of mathematics. His geniuswas then in the fullest vigour. The great work, which entitleshim to the highest place among the geometricians and naturalphilosophers of all ages and of all nations, had been sometime printing under the sanction of the Royal Society', andwas almost ready for publication. He was the steady friendof civil liberty and of the Protestant religion: but his habitsby no means fitted him for the conflicts of active life. Hetherefore stood modestly silent among the delegates, and leftto men more versed in practical business the task of pleadingthe cause of his beloved University.

Never was there a clearer case. The law was express.The practice had been almost invariably' in conformity withthe law. It might perhaps have happened that, on a dayof great solemnity, when many honorary degrees were con-ferred, a person who had not taken the oaths might havepassed in the crowd. But such an irregularity, the effect ofmere haste and inadvertence, could not be cited as a pre-cedent. Foreign ambassadors of various religions, and inparticular one Mussulman, had been admitted without theoaths. But it might well be doubted whether such cases fellwithin the reason and spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It wasnot even pretended that any person to whom the oaths hadbeen tendered and who had refused them had ever taken adegree; and this was the situation in which Franeis stood.The delegates offered to prove that, in the late reign, several

* Mackay’s character of Sheffield, with Swift’s note; the Satire on theDeponents, 1088; Life of John, Duke ofBuckinghamsbire, 1129; Barillon,Aug. 30. 1681. I have a manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1090.It is not destitute of spirit. The most remarkable lines are these: -“ Peters (Petre) to-day and Burnet to-morrow,

Knaves of all sides and religions he’ll woo."

CHAP.

VIII.

1687 .