I was now hurried to the vice-chancellor's house
adjoining Pembroke college, where I had the honour of a presentation
to that dignitary; a mild-looking man of small stature, with the most
affable and graceful manners, dignified, and yet free from the
slightest tinge of _hauteur_. His reception of my tutor was friendly and
unembarrassing; his inquiries relative to myself directed solely to
my proficiency in the classics, of which I had again to give some
specimens; I was then directed to subscribe my name in a large folio
album, which proved to contain the thirty-nine articles, not one ~127~~
sentence of which I had ever read; but it was too late for hesitation,
and I remembered Tom Echo had informed me I should have to attest to a
great deal of nonsense, which no one ever took the pains to understand.
The remainder of this formal initiation was soon despatched: I
separately abjured the damnable doctrines of the pope, swore allegiance
to the king, and vowed to preserve the statutes and privileges of the
society I was then admitted into; paid my appointed fees, made my bow to
the vice-chancellor, and now concluded that the ceremony of the _togati_
was all over: in this, however, I was mistaken; my tutor requesting some
conference with me at his rooms, thither we proceeded, and arranged the
plan of my future studies; then followed a few general hints relative
to conduct, the most important of which was my obeisance to the
dignitaries, by capping{11} whenever I met them; the importance of a
strict attendance to the lectures of logic, mathematics, and divinity,
to the certain number of twenty in each term; a regular list of the
tradesmen whom I was requested to patronize; and, lastly, the entry of
my name upon the college books and payment of the necessary _caution
money_.
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