n Sundays and
feasts of the Church. Yet one of them, Richard of Chichester, who lived
to become a saint, _saepe retulit quod nunquam in vita sua tam jucundam,
tam delectabilem duxerat vitam_--that never had he lived so jollily, so
delectably.

That is youth, youth blessed by friendship. Now for my second story,
which is also of youth and friendship.--

Two poor scholars, who had with pains become Masters of Arts and saved
their pence to purchase the coveted garb, on the afternoon of their
admission took a country walk in it, together flaunting their new finery.
But, the day being gusty, on their return across the bridge, a puff of
wind caught the _biretta_ of one and blew it into the river. The loss was
irrecoverable, since neither could swim. The poor fellow looked at his
friend. His friend looked at him. 'Between us two,' he said, 'it is all
or naught,' and cast his own cap to float and sink with the other down
stream.

You will never begin to understand literature until you understand
something of life. These young men, your forerunners, understood
something of life while as yet completely careless of literature. After
the impulse of Abelard and others had died down, the mass of students
betook themselves to the Universities, no doubt, for quite ordinary,
mercenary reasons. The University led to the Church, and the Church, in
England at any rate, was the door to professional life.

Nearly all the civil servants of the Crown--I am here quoting freely--the
diplomatists, the secretaries or advisers of great nobles, the
physicians, the architects, at one time the secular law-givers, all
through the Middle Ages the then large tribe of ecclesiastical lawyers,
were ecclesiastics.... Clerkship did not necessarily involve even minor
orders. But as it was cheaper to a King or a Bishop or a temporal magnate
to reward his physician, his legal adviser, his secretary, or his agent
by a Canonry or a Rectory than by large salaries, the average student of
Paris or Oxford or Cambridge looked toward the Church as the 'main
chance' as we say, and small blame to him! He never at any rate looked
towards Literature: nor did the Universities, wise in their generation,
encourage him to do anything of the sort.

You may realise, Gentlemen, how tardily, even in later and more
enlightened times, the study of Literature has crept its way into
official Cambridge, if you will take down your "University Calendar" and
study the list of Profess