their native and beautiful colours. For this
reason I made my late excursion to Oxford, where those qualities appear
in their highest lustre, and are the only pretences to honour and
distinction: superiority is there given in proportion to men's
advancement in wisdom and learning; and that just rule of life is so
universally received among those happy people, that you shall see an
earl walk bareheaded to the son of the meanest artificer, in respect to
seven years more worth and knowledge than the nobleman is possessed of.
In other places they bow to men's fortunes, but here to their
understandings. It is not to be expressed, how pleasing the order, the
discipline, the regularity of their lives, is to a philosopher, who has,
by many years' experience in the world, learned to contemn everything
but what is revered in this mansion of select and well-taught spirits.
The magnificence of their palaces, the greatness of their revenues, the
sweetness of their groves and retirements, seem equally adapted for the
residence of princes and philosophers; and a familiarity with objects of
splendour, as well as places of recess, prepares the inhabitants with an
equanimity for their future fortunes, whether humble or illustrious. How
was I pleased when I looked round at St. Mary's, and could, in the faces
of the ingenious youth, see ministers of state, chancellors, bishops,
and judges. Here only is human life! Here only the life of man is a
rational being! Here men understand and are employed in works worthy
their noble nature. This transitory being passes away in an employment
not unworthy a future state, the contemplation of the great decrees of
Providence. Each man lives as if he were to answer the questions made to
Job, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?... Who
shut up the sea with doors, ... and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and
no further?"[383] Such speculations make life agreeable, make death
welcome, But alas! I was torn from this noble society by the business of
this dirty mean world, and the cares of fortune: for I was obliged to be
in town against the 7th day of the term, and accordingly governed myself
by my Oxford Almanack, and came last night; but find, to my great
astonishment, that this ignorant town began the term on the 24th of the
last month, in opposition to all the learning and astronomy of the
famous university of which I have been speaking; according to which, the
term certainly was to co