for his own poetry, though during his lifetime he
enjoyed considerable fame.

A somewhat unusual career was that of William Smith, who entered the
College from Eton in 1747, but left without taking a degree. He is
reported to have snapped an unloaded pistol at one of the Proctors, and
rather than submit to the punishment which the College authorities
thought proper to inflict, left the University. He became an actor, and
was very popular in his day, being known as "Gentleman Smith." He was
associated with David Garrick, and Smith's admirers held that he fell
little short of his master in the art.

The reputation of the College as a medical school was maintained by Dr.
William Heberden, who entered in 1724. Heberden attended Samuel Johnson
in his last illness, and Johnson described him as "_ultimus Romanorum_,
the last of our learned physicians." A description which may be
amplified by saying that Heberden was in a way the first of the modern
physicians.

CHAPTER VII

THE CURRENT CENTURY

The time has probably not yet come when a satisfactory account of
College and University development during the nineteenth century can be
written. The changes have been fundamental, involving perhaps a change
of ideal as well as of method. In early days the College was filled with
men saturated with the spirit of the Renaissance; casting aside the
studies of the Middle Ages, they returned to the literature of Greece
and Rome. The ideals of the present day are not less high, but more
complex and less easy to state briefly; the aim is perhaps rather to add
to knowledge than to acquire it for its own sake alone.

[Illustration: The College Chapel]

For the first half of the century College life was still regulated by
the statutes of Elizabeth. These were characterised by over-cautious and
minute legislation. Now that they are superseded, the chief feeling is
one of surprise that a system of laws, intended to be unchangeable,
should have endured so long in presence of the changing character of the
wants and habits of mankind.

It must be remembered that each member of the corporate body, Master,
Fellow, or Scholar, on admission, each officer on his appointment, bound
himself by oaths of great solemnity to observe these statutes and to
seek no dispensation from their provisions. To a more logical race the
difficulties must have proved intolerable--the practical Englishman
found