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74 The Connections of Humphrey Prideaux with Oxford centre chiefly about Christ Church, to which he went in 1668, as a student. Later he was Hebrew Lecturer there, and even after he left Oxford his name was kept on the books of Christ Church for some years as an unsalaried Librarian. Dean Aldrich called him "an incorrect and muddy-headed man, who did little but the heaping up of notes." His apologists, however, ascribe any want of correctness to type-setters and to proof-readers, and they doubt the muddiness of his brain. The heaping up of notes, when they are correct notes, is a very useful performance, sometimes; and is not to be disparaged, altogether!

Thomas Otway was a student at Christ Church from 1669 until 1672. He studied little but theatrical literature ; and he left college suddenly and without a degree, to try his fortunes upon the stage, where his career was very short, and where he also failed in getting his degree. He appeared but once, and in a small part, when, according to Downes, "the full house put him to such a sweat and tremendous agony that being ' dash't ' it spoilt him for an actor."

He must have missed that theatrical training which Wood lamented at Christ Church, half a century earlier; for no amateur who has arrived at what Wood calls "a strange degree of