of interpreting the statutes of the University, when he should do no more than watch that these statutes be carried out, and it seemed to him stranger still that so much subornation should have been allowed in filling up the vacant chairs. "This grave insinuation," says the Dr. José Maria de Abreu, "probably sprang from the ill-will which the resistance offered by the University to the provisions effected a short time previously by the King had engendered in the breasts of the candidates, or their patrons, who saw their ambitious desires thwarted. The circumstance, at least, which gave rise to the complaint of the King against the general studies was not proved; and it would not be just to cast it upon the scholastic body, when other and very grave motives would move us to suspect the ill-will which that circumstance, and the long contention about the holding of the churches, had raised against the University at that epoch." In this same letter of July 12, 1476, mention is made of a subject upon which the University had desired the King to resolve this was in relation to the number of rectors to be annually elected by the students. Up to that date they had always elected two, but the University now pretended that for its better government it was expedient to elect only one. The King would not take upon himself to decide this affair, and he commissioned his nephew, the Bishop of Lamego, to confer with the University. No document exists to show us what was resolved upon, for all royal commissions even during the reign of his successor, mention rectors; however, it appears that from this date there was a tacit understanding between the Bishop and the Academic Council, and they continued to elect but one rector. The Bishop of Lamego was at the time protector of the University, but he fulfilled this charge only a short time, as he appears to have resigned in order to give room for the election of the Cardinal de Alpedrinha whom the King had intimated to the University. It is also ignored whether he accepted the charge or no, as no vestiges remain of his tenure of office; but what is certain is that, after his election, the next protector which the University elected was the King D. Manuel, and after him successively all the kings who succeeded him on the throne. The University continued its regular work during the reign of D. Joao II. as it had done during that of his father D. Affonso V., but, from the few documents which have come down to our days, we can discover no indications of any sensible progress; rather, on the contrary, it would appear that the University did not fulfil all the requirements of instruction, because a great number of students in those days proceeded to foreign Universities to obtain a more solid and complete education than that which our University offered. Indeed, there appears to have been even a scarcity of individuals in Lisbon who were competent to fill the different vacant chairs of the University, the King refusing to sanction the election of any of those who presented themselves, and it was therefore resolved to have professors sent from Salamanca. On the death of D. Joao II., in 1495, D. Manuel, of happy memory, ascended the throne, and the University at once elected him protector. His first act after his election was to fill the chairs which were still vacant, as no one had been found in Salamanca to do so. With this object in view, he ordered that from the Doctors and Bachelors, among which were some Italians who wished to oppose them, candidates should be entered for competition, the most worthy among them to be chosen. This deficiency of competent persons, as well as other indications, manifests to us that the studies at the University were not advancing with due regularity, nor were they on a par with the progressive development of science which was taking place on every side; nor indeed did they correspond with the growing prosperity of the country, and the brilliant position which Portugal had commenced to hold among cultured nations, due to the prodigious efforts of our navigators. It was absolutely necessary to give a new impulse to the studies, and the King D. Manuel took the initiative on this point without taking into account the privilege which the University possessed of regulating its internal life. Of his own will he decreed new statutes, and, in order to render his work of reform a more lasting one, he commenced by ordering: that neither the Rector of the University of the General Studies of Lisbon, councillors, professors, or all other officials together, should be able to make statutes for the government of the said University: and whensoever any event should occur which appeared to need some new statute, they were to apply to the protector, and only on his authority should the said statute be made. From this will be seen the superior authority of the King assuming the right of directing the internal government of the University, and therefore depriving it of the liberty and independence which, up to that time, it had enjoyed, thus reducing it to the level of an institution entirely subordinate to the central and absolute power. There exists no record which would lead us to believe that the University openly rebelled against this usurpation of its rights, and the statutes of D. Manuel became law, and were exercised down to the latest reforms which were decreed with equal authority, and effected after the transference of the University to Coimbra: reforms which we shall have occasion to speak of when we come to the second period of its history. In many points of organisation of the studies, and in matters of discipline, the statutes of D. Manuel modified those made by the University during the reign of D. Joao I. The manuscript copy existing of the statutes made by D. Manuel, found in the first volume of the Livro das Provisoes da Universidade, bears no date, but it is presumed on good authority that they were promulgated between the years 1499 and 1504. These statutes enjoin that all individuals elected for the charge of Rector must be noblemen, or persons constituted in dignity, and in the year 1500 we find that the Bishop of Fez was elected Rector, probably in virtue of the dispositions of the new statutes. On the other hand, we find a letter of nomination dated January, 1504, approving the election of Fr. Joao Claro, of the Cistercian order, as Professor of Theology, this chair having been founded by the new statutes. Not only did these statutes increase the number of chairs, founding a second one of Theology, and one of Moral Philosophy; but they also increased the salaries of the professors. The chairs of Canon Law and of Astronomy were not created until 1518. These statutes also regulated the time for holding the lectures in each hall according to the order of pre-eminence, and the position held by each faculty, the professors at the conclusion of each lecture to expound and elucidate any doubts which may be proposed to them by the students. In the same manner these statutes fixed the length of each course, and the different forms of examination. The degree of Bachelor was to be conferred upon students who had gone through a course of five years in Theology, Canon Law, or Medicine, and three years in Arts, but before receiving this degree, the candidates had to read publicly three lessons on the subject of the courses. The degree of Bachelor in Arts could also be obtained by such as, not having completed the whole course, were nevertheless judged sufficiently qualified by the professors on oath. Degrees were not conferred upon students in Theology and Medicine, unless they were Bachelors in Arts. In this latter faculty the course comprised one year of logic and moral philosophy, and two in natural philosophy. In order to receive the degree of Licentiate or that of Bachelor after the termination of the course prescribed in the statutes, students had to defend some conclusions which were disputed by the masters and doctors, this, however, constituted only a simple act of ostentation; after this they went through a private examination for two days previous to that in which the investiture was to take place. The ceremonials to be followed in these acts are minutely described in the statutes, and took place in the Cathedral Church, where also the degree of Doctor was conferred. On the day appointed for this academic ceremony, the Rector and the whole of the University staff would accompany in procession the candidate for honours from his house to the cathedral. The Mass of the Holy Ghost was then celebrated, after which he made a short speech, and on his knees received the insignia of his degree, taking the customary oaths. The ceremonials of these academic acts, are, with very slight modifications, followed in our days; indeed at that date they were not new, as these scholastic usages had been introduced from the first epoch of the establishment of the general studies, and in imitation naturally of the usages in force in the Universities of Italy, as also the distinctive colours worn emblematic of the different faculties. The caps of the faculty of Theology were, as they are at the present day, white; those of Canons, green; of Laws, red; of Medicine, yellow; and those of Arts, blue. The statutes also exacted that in electing professors for the vacant chairs, there should be an open competition for twenty days, in which the candidates should pronounce three lessons to be argumented upon by the opposers. Votes were to be taken from among the candidates, the Rector, all the Professors, the Bachelors who had finished their course, and even the students of their respective faculties who had completed two courses of study. The successful candidate was then accepted by the Rector, and the election confirmed by the King. It is impossible in this brief history to give in detail all the provisions decreed by the statutes of D. Manuel, therefore I limit myself to those only which can give you an outline of the state of the scholastic organisation of our University at that epoch. In my next letter I will say a few words more upon the great interest which the King D. Manuel took throughout his reign in all that concerned the studies, and which will conclude the first of the three periods into which I purposed dividing the history of our University. CURRENT LITERATURE. A Handbook to the Bible; being a Guide to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, derived from Ancient Monuments and Modern Exploration. By F. R. CONDER, Author of "The Elements of Catholic Philosophy and other works; and Lieutenant C. R. CONDER, R. E., late Commanding the Survey of Palestine. Pp. 458, with 13 maps and Plates of Coins. Longmans and Co. 1879. This bids fair to take its place as the standard work upon the widely discussed subjects of which it treats. The names of the authors are in themselves a guarantee that the plan of the book is that of the modern historic school of criticism. The culture of the lay reader has so far progressed of late, that it is impossible to induce him to accept any longer the superficial" improvement " of Biblical subjects to which his grandfathers were accustomed. The days are gone by for a rechauffé of old folio commentaries, gathered together under a thin fabric of whimsical glosses of supposed devout tendency, to satisfy the craving for information of the reading public. The days, too, are happily passing when, in response to the dissatisfaction with the colourless dignity of orthodoxy, or the rudeness of sectarian heat, a set of critics arose who were like their adversaries in absence of knowledge and narrowness of view, and only unlike them in the diametrical opposition of their opinions. On the one side were the special pleadings and blundering evidences of the faithful; on the other, the diatribes of the faithless, who, getting up a few catch objections, and making the most of their adversaries' weakness, managed to arrive at this monstrous conclusion: that the corpus of sacred literature most familiar to us was a chaotic jumble, hanging together by a tissue of chicanery, and only kept from crumbling into utter ruin and nonentity by the sedulous arts of priests. The slowness of the average public here saved its sanity; instead of a universal Pyrrhonism setting in, and ancient symbols of beauty and truth being flung hastily away, as unrecognised pearls, or discarded toys, into a limbo of antiquarian refuse, the many-headed dunce turned a little in his chair, and said to the excited partisans: "These contradictions of yours I do not find in classical history; send me a sacred historian who will get up his facts before he begins to argue." Thus came the day when Hebraic subjects began to be treated with the dignity and carefulness previously accorded only to anything not Hebrew. The keynote of the work before us is so well given in its title that further explanation is unnecessary. It is orthodox in the best sense of the term, not because it advocates established deductions, but because it is "derived from ancient monuments and modern exploration," based upon undeniable old established facts, brought into significance by the clear light of modern research and comparison. Multitudes of supports to the general historical veracity of the Hebrew records are brought from alien chronicles, but without the eternal self-congratulations of the cowards in faith, with which we have been made too familiar-how marvellously such or such a discovery supports Holy Writ, for all the world as if Holy Writ were in a normal state of living under suspicion, and only to be rescued therefrom by making that rescue the cause and cry of assiduous orthodoxy. On the other hand, in matters where an old notion of the miraculous is resolved into the poetry of some rare but possible occurrence, the fact is presented so unassumingly, that all the deduction from it has to be made by the reader himself. For instance, nothing whatever is said about the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, but in a list of Plants of the Bible we find, "BURNING BUSH (Heb. Seneh), Ex. 3, 2-4. Arab. Sunt, the Acacia Nilotica." It will be fair, however, to give some idea of the work from the introduction, where we learn that its object is to lay before students in an accessible form the main results of the various important researches which have been carried on during the present century. The Chronological arrangement is based on a collation of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible; on the study of those latent references of Josephus which no copyist had any motive for altering; and on a comparison of those Biblical pedigrees which give five collateral lines from Jacob to the contemporaries of Moses, and four from that generation to the time of David. Under this head we are led to find a comparison of the Sacred reckoning wifh the astronomically determined chronology of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Persia, and Rome, which brings to light a series of synchronisms of great value, and leaves the sequence of the Sacred Text doubtful only in a few cases where a double statement in the Biblical narrative may still give some cause for hesitation. The account of the Metrology of Palestine is based on the comparison of definite statements of the great Aramæan and Arabic writers with the weights of existing coins, and with the levels and dimensions of the Temple area at Jerusalem, and of the Galilean Synagogues, as well as with itinerary distances. Tables of Hebrew Measures are added; and every Coin mentioned by name in the Bible, as well as a Series of Hebrew Coins, from one bearing the name of Eliashib "the Priest," down to the Procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, have been carefully drawn from examples now in the British Museum and elsewhere. The Ritual of the Temple is illustrated from the full details preserved in the Mishna and arranged by Maimonides. A general view of the laws, customs, taxes, and imposts, and of the social habits of the inhabitants of Palestine during the reign of the Idumæan dynasty, is also given, enabling the student to understand many references, both in the Old and the New Testament, which are often very little comprehended. The numerous references to the authorities consulted are intended to guide the persevering inquirer, especially if acquainted with the Hebrew language, to the standard sources of detailed and exhaustive knowledge. We have already expressed our own opinion as to the historical method of the writers, whose avowed object has been "as far as possible to avoid every expression of opinion, whether their own or that of any school of thinkers; and to supply, first, facts, and |