life
Like those who boldly woo'd Ulysses' wife;
Born to consume the fruits of earth: in truth,
As vain and idle as Pheacia's youth;"

only let them have passed the stipulated period in the University,
and professed themselves collegians: either for the sake of profit,
or through the influence of their friends, they obtain a
presentation; nay, sometimes even accompanied by brilliant eulogies
upon their morals and acquirements; and when they are about to take
leave, they are honoured with the most flattering literary
testimonials in their favour, by those who undoubtedly sustain a loss
of reputation in granting them. For doctors and professors (as an
author says) are anxious about one thing only, viz., that out of
their various callings they may promote their own advantage, and
convert the public loss into their private gains. For our annual
officers wish this only, that those who commence, whether they are
taught or untaught is of no moment, shall be sleek, fat, pigeons,
worth the plucking. The Philosophastic are admitted to a degree in
Arts, because they have no acquaintance with them. And they are
desired to be wise men, because they are endowed with no wisdom, and
bring no qualification for a degree, except the wish to have it. The
Theologastic (only let them pay) thrice learned, are promoted to
every academic honour. Hence it is that so many vile buffoons, so
many idiots everywhere, placed in the twilight of letters, the mere
ghosts of scholars, wanderers in the market place, vagrants, barbels,
mushrooms, dolts, asses, a growling herd, with unwashed feet, break
into the sacred precincts of theology, bringing nothing along with
them but an impudent front, some vulgar trifles and foolish
scholastic technicalities, unworthy of respect even at the crossing
of the highways. This is the unworthy, vagrant, voluptuous race,
fitter for the hog sty (haram) than the altar (aram), that basely
prostitute divine literature; these are they who fill the pulpits,
creep into the palaces of our nobility after all other prospects of
existence fail them, owing to their imbecility of body and mind, and
their being incapable of sustaining any other parts in the
commonwealth; to this sacred refuge they fly, undertaking the office