, botany, and geology were founded during the eighteenth century,
and show a certain sense of a need of broader views. The lectures upon
which Blackstone founded his commentaries were the product of the
foundation of the Vinerian professorship in 1751; and the most recent of
the Cambridge colleges, Downing College, shows by its constitution that
a professoriate was now considered to be desirable. Cambridge in the
last years of the century might have had a body of very eminent
professors. Watson, second wrangler of 1759, had delivered lectures upon
chemistry, of which it was said by Davy that hardly any conceivable
change in the science could make them obsolete.[24] Paley, senior
wrangler in 1763, was an almost unrivalled master of lucid exposition,
and one of his works is still a textbook at Cambridge. Isaac Milner,
senior wrangler in 1774, afterwards held the professorships of
mathematics and natural philosophy, and was famous as a sort of
ecclesiastical Dr. Johnson. Gilbert Wakefield, second wrangler in 1776,
published an edition of Lucretius, and was a man of great ability and
energy. Herbert Marsh, second wrangler in 1779, was divinity professor
from 1807, and was the first English writer to introduce some knowledge
of the early stages of German criticism. Porson, the greatest Greek
scholar of his time, became professor in 1790; Malthus, ninth wrangler
in 1788, who was to make a permanent mark upon political economy, became
fellow of Jesus College in 1793. Waring, senior wrangler in 1757, Vince,
senior wrangler in 1775, and Wollaston, senior wrangler in 1783, were
also professors and mathematicians of reputation. Towards the end of the
century ten professors were lecturing.[25] A large number were not
lecturing, though Milner was good enough to be 'accessible to
students.' Paley and Watson had been led off into the path of
ecclesiastical preferment. Marsh too became a bishop in 1816. There was
no place for such talents as those of Malthus, who ultimately became
professor at Haileybury. Wakefield had the misfortune of not being able
to cover his heterodoxy with the conventional formula. Porson suffered
from the same cause, and from less respectable weaknesses; but it seems
that the university had no demand for services of the great scholar, and
he did nothing for his L40 a year. Milner was occupied in managing the
university in the interests of Pitt and Protestantism, and in waging war
against Jacobins and intruders. T