—with what results does not appear—to his own 'shepherd swains.' M. Legouis has formed a low—I am afraid not too low—estimate of the intellectual position of Cambridge in those days. It may, however, be noticed that there was a certain stir in the minds of its inhabitants even then; Cambridge held itself to be the Whig university, studying Locke and despising the Aristotelian logic of Oxford. One symptom was the development of certain free-thinking tendencies, and the proceedings against Frend for avowing Unitarianism were rousing an excitement which soon afterwards led Coleridge into some trouble. Young men, therefore, who aimed at enlightenment, as clever young men ought to do, were not without temptations to break bounds. Especially the uncouth young Cumberland student,
Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,
despising the stupid old dons with their mechanical disciplines, conscious of great abilities, though not yet conscious of their proper aim, was disposed to cast the dust off his shoes and strike out a path of his own.
What it was to be, did not appear for some time.
