influence, that I must digress into a short sketch of their history.
“The original division of Spanish colleges into minor and major, arose from the branches of learning for which they were intended. Grammar and rhetoric alone were taught in the first; divinity, law, and medicine, in the last. Most of the Colegios Mayores were, by papal bulls and royal decrees, erected into universities, where, besides the fellows, students might repair daily to hear the public lectures, and finally take their degrees. Thus the university of this town (Seville) was, till lately, attached to this college, the rector or head of which elected annually by the fellows, was, by virtue of his office, rector of the university. This, and the great colleges of Castille, enjoying similar privileges, but far exceeding ours in wealth and influence, formed the literary aristocracy of Spain. Though the statutes gave no exclusion to plebeians, the circumstances required in the candidates for fellowships, together with the esprit de corps which actuated the electors, confined such places to the noblesse. Anxious to increase their influence, none of the six great colleges of Spain could ever be induced to elect any one who was not connected with some of the best families. This, however, was but a prudential step, to avoid the public disgrace to which the pruebas, or interrogatories relative to blood, might otherwise expose the candidates. One of the fellows was, and is still at Seville, according to the statutes, to repair to the birth-place of the parents of the elected member, as well as to those of his two grandfathers and grandmothers—except when any of them is a foreigner, a circumstance which prevents the journey, though not the inquiry—in order to examine upon oath, from fifteen to thirty witnesses at each place. These, either from their own knowledge, or the current report of the town, must swear that the ancestor in question never was a menial servant, a shopkeeper or petty tradesman; a mechanic; had neither himself, nor any of his relations, been punished by the Inquisition, nor was descended from Jews, Moors, Africans, Indians, or Guanchos, i.e. the aborigines of the Canary Islands. It is evident that none but the hereditary gentry could expose themselves to this ordeal: and as the pride of the reporter, together with the character of his college, were highly interested in the purity of blood of every member, no room was left for the evasions commonly resorted to for the admission of knights in the military orders.
“Thus, in the course of years, the six great colleges[14] could command the influence of the first Spanish families all over the kingdom. It was, besides, a point of honour among such as had obtained a fellowship, never to desert the interest of their college: and, as every cathedral in Spain has three canonries, which must be obtained by a literary competition, of which the canons themselves are the judges, wherever a Colegial Mayor had obtained a stall, he was able to secure a strong party to any one of his college who should offer himself as a champion at those literary jousts. The chapters, on the other hand, were generally inclined to strengthen their own importance by the accession of people of rank, leaving poor and unknown scholars to grovel in their native obscurity. No place of honour in the church and law was left unoccupied by the collegians: and even the distribution which those powerful bodies made of their members—as if not only all the best offices and situations, but even a choice of them, were in their hands—was no secret to the country at large. Fellows in orders, who possessed abilities, were kept in reserve for the literary competitions. Such as could not appear to advantage at those public trials were, by means of court favour, provided for with stalls in the wealthiest cathedrals. The absolutely dull and ignorant were made inquisitors, who, passing judgment in their secret halls, could not disgrace the college by their blunders. Medicine not being in honour, there were no fellows of that profession. The lay members of the major colleges belonged exclusively to the law, but they would never quit their fellowships except for a place among the judges. Even in the present low ebb of collegiate influence, the College of Seville would disown any of the fellows who should act as a mere advocate.
“While the colleges were still at the height of their power, a young lawyer offered himself for one of the fellowships at Salamanca, and was disdainfully rejected for want of sufficient proofs of noblesse. By an extraordinary combination of circumstances, the offended candidate rose to be prime minister of state, under Charles III., with the title of Marquis of Roda. The extraordinary success he had met with in public life, could not, however, heal the wound his pride had received in his youth. But, besides the inducement of his private feelings, he seems to have been an enemy to all influence which was not exerted by the king and his ministers. Two powerful bodies, the Jesuits and the colleges, engrossed so forcibly, and, I may say, painfully, his attention, that it was wittily observed, ‘that the spectacles he wore had painted glasses, one representing a Jesuit, the other a collegian’—and thus allowed him to see nothing else. The destruction to which he had doomed them was, at length, accomplished by his means. His main triumph was, indeed, over the Jesuits: yet his success against the colleges, though certainly less splendid, was the more gratifying to his personal feelings. The method he employed in the downfall of the last is not unworthy of notice, both for its perfect simplicity, and the light it throws upon the state and character of the country. Having the whole patronage of the Crown in his hands, he placed, within a short time, all the existing members of the Salamanca colleges, in the most desirable situations both of the church and law, filling their vacancies with young men of no family. Thus the bond of collegiate influence was suddenly snapped asunder: the old members disowned their successors; and such as a few days before looked upon a fellowship as an object of ambition, would have felt mortified at the sight of a relative wearing the gown of a reformed college. The Colegio Mayor of Seville was attacked by other means. Without enforcing the admission of the unprivileged classes, the minister, by an arbitrary order, deprived it of its right to confer degrees. The convocation of doctors and masters was empowered to elect their own rector, and name professors for the schools, which were subsequently opened to the public in one of the deserted houses that had belonged to the Jesuits. Such is the origin of the university where I received my education.
“Slight, however, are the advantages which a young mind can derive from academical studies in Spain. To expect a rational system of education where the Inquisition is constantly on the watch to keep the human mind within the boundaries which the Church of Rome, with her host of divines, has set to its progress; would shew a perfect ignorance of the character of our religion. Thanks to the league between our church and state, the Catholic divines have nearly succeeded in keeping down knowledge to their own level. Even such branches of science as seem least connected with religion, cannot escape the theological rod; and the spirit which made Galileo recant upon his knees his discoveries in astronomy, still compels our professors to teach the Copernican system as an hypothesis. The truth is that, with Catholic divines, no one pursuit of the human mind is independent of religion. Since the first appearance of Christianity, its doctrines have ever been blended with the philosophical views of their teachers. The scriptures themselves, invaluable as they are in forming the moral character, frequently touch, by incident, upon subjects unconnected with their main object, and treat of nature and civil society according to the notions of a rude people in a very primitive period. Hence the encroachments of divines upon every branch of human knowledge, which are still supported by the hand of power in a great part of Europe, but in none so outrageously as in Spain. Astronomy must ask the inquisitors’ leave to see with her own eyes. Geography was long compelled to shrink before them. Divines were made the judges of Columbus’s plans of discovery, as well as to allot a species to the Americans. A spectre monk haunts the Geologist in the lowest cavities of the earth; and one of flesh and blood watches the steps of the philosopher on its surface. Anatomy is suspected, and watched closely, whenever she takes up the scalpel; and Medicine had many a pang to endure while endeavouring to expunge the use of bark and inoculation from the catalogue of mortal sins. You must not only believe what the Inquisition believes, but yield implicit faith to the theories and explanations of her divines. To acknowlege on the authority of Revelation, that mankind will rise from their graves, is not sufficient to protect the unfortunate Metaphysician, who should deny that man is a compound of two substances, one of which is naturally immortal. It was long a great obstacle to the rejection of the Aristotelic philosophy, that the substantial forms of the schools were found an exceedingly convenient veil for the invisible work of transubstantiation; for our good divines shrewdly suspected, that if colour, taste, smell, and all the other
