impunity, and
brand the author of No. 90 with the public stigma--no longer this time
of a Hebdomadal censure, but of a University condemnation? The
temptation was irresistible to a number of disappointed
partisans--kindly, generous, good-natured men in private life, but
implacable in their fierce fanaticism. In their impetuous vehemence
they would not even stop to think what would be said of the conditions
and circumstances under which they pressed their point. On the 23d of
January the Vice-Chancellor had withdrawn the test. On the 25th of
January--those curious in coincidences may observe that it was the date
of No. 90 in 1841--a circular was issued inviting signatures for a
requisition to the Board, asking them to propose, in the approaching
Convocation of the 13th of February, a formal censure of the principles
of No. 90. The invitation to sign was issued in the names of Dr.
Faussett and Dr. Ellerton of Magdalen. It received between four and five
hundred signatures, as far as was known; but it was withheld by the
Vice-Chancellor from the inspection of those who officially had a right
to have it before them. On the 4th of February its prayer came before
the Hebdomadal Board. The objection of haste--that not ten days
intervened between this new and momentous proposal and the day of
voting--was brushed aside. The members of the Board were mad enough not
to see, not merely the odiousness of the course, but the aggravated
odiousness of hurry. The proposal was voted by the majority, _sans
phrase._ And they ventured, amid all the excitement and irritation of
the moment, to offer for the sanction of the University a decree framed
in the words of their own censure.

The interval before the Convocation was short, but it was long enough
for decisive opinions on the proposal of the Board to be formed and
expressed. Leading men in London, Mr. Gladstone among them, were clear
that it was an occasion for the exercise of the joint veto with which
the Proctors were invested. The veto was intended, if for anything, to
save the University from inconsiderate and hasty measures; and seldom,
except in revolutionary times, had so momentous and so unexpected a
measure been urged on with such unseemly haste. The feeling of the
younger Liberals, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Donkin, Mr. Jowett, Dr. Greenhill,
was in the same direction. On the 10th of February the Proctors
announced to the Board their intention to veto the third proposal. But
of course