whenever their ambition, or reſentment, or caprice ſhould prompt them to it; and that, in ſhort, they would grow too powerful and reſtiff to be managed.
Notwithſtanding all which, what with the intereſt they had, or made amongſt the courtiers, and what with the plauſibleneſs of the thing at ſirſt ſight, their propoſals were accepted, and a charter was granted them fuller than they deſired.
When they had carried this point, ſubſcription-books (by them call'd matriculation-books) were open'd, and moſt of the nobility and gentry ſubſcribed their ſons and their wards into them; preſently their ſtock roſe, and happy was he that had any thing in it! Every old hunks and miſer unhoarded his dea treaſure upon this occaſion, and thruſt it into this fund, in expectation of vaſt dividends of learning and philoſophy, which being novelties in thoſe days, conſequently bore a great price; ſcarce was there a country farmer, or a chimney-ſweeper, who had rak'd a little money together, but muſt come into the faſhion, and make one of his boys a parſon, or a philoſopher; nay, ſome ſent whole colonies of male-heirs thither as faſt as they could beget them, and were ſeiz'd with an inſatiable avarice of letters and religion; inſomuch that people began to think, that in a ſhort time they ſhould have nothing but Plato's, and Seneca's, and Ariſtotle's in the nation.
This ſcheme met with ſuch popular encouragement, that, in imitation of it, ſeveral Bubble-ſchools and academies ſprung up and aped it in all its proceedings; they too produced old obſolete charters, or bought new ones to teach youth in the ſame faculties, and took in ſubſcriptions in the ſame manner that the other did. Thoſe perſons, who could not raiſe money enough to come into the grand Oxford fund, jobb'd in theſe little bubbles, one
