Page:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu/48

 rigorouly executed than thoe which are no o; and that errors, of ome kind or other, either in the laws themelves, or in the abue of them, appear almot in every particular.

To give a jut account of the tate of the univerity of, I mut begin where every frehman begins, with admiion and matriculation; for it o happens, that the firt thing a young man has to do there, is to protitute his concience, and enter himelf into perjury, at the ame time that he enters himelf into the univerity.

If he comes elected from any publick chool, as from Wetminter, Wincheter, or Merchant-Taylors, to be admitted upon the foundation of any colleges he wears to a great volume of tatutes, which he never read, and to oberve a thouand cutoms, rights and privileges, which he knows nothing of, and with which, if he did, he could not perhaps honetly comply.

He takes one oath, for example, that he has not an etate in a land of inheritance, nor a perpetual penion of five pounds per annum, though perhaps he has an etate of ten times that value; being taught that it is mere matter of form, and may be very concientiouly complied with, not withtanding the eeming perjury it includes.

To evade the force of this oath, everal perons have made their etates over in trut to a friend, and ometimes to a bed-maker; as a gentleman in Oxford did, who locked her up in his cloet, till he had taken the oath, and then dipoes'd the poor old woman of her imaginary etate, and cancell'd the writings.

That mot excellent cauit, the preent bihop of Ely, in a book entitled, Chronicon Precioum,