———Nam quis inique
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat ſe?
Being therefore denied the liberty to ridicule vice, as I us'd to do, in a publick manner, I have liv'd incog' for ſeveral years at Oxford, and have been a careful and nice obſerver of all proceeding publick and private, which have been carried on in that place ever ſince; I have remarked the lives and conduct of all perſons of note there, both male and female; and having taken exact minutes of each material curcumſtance, I am come up to town, being no longer able to contain my ſelf, and have taken lodgings at a printer's, in order to retail my obſervations out to the world in a weekly half-ſheet, that all perſons, and eſpecially the meaner ſort (who have conceiv'd ſuch a veration of the univerſaties) may judge whether their implicit zeal for thoſe learned bodies (as they are called) be juſtly plac'd or not; and whether, in their preſent unregulated ſtate, they are not the nurſeries of pedantry inſtead of ſound learning, of bigottry inſtead of loyalty; whether thier ſtatutes (both thoſe of the univerſity and of particular colleges) are not generally perverted, or partially executed; whether the publick diſipline is not wretchedly neglected, and the publick exerciſes confin'd to nonſenſical jargon, and the mere burleſque of true knowledge; whether even thoſe uſeleſs exerciſes are perform'd as they ought to be; whether the criterion of merit is not render'd very precarious; and whether the method of taking degrees is not very unjuſt and arbitrary; whether moſt benefactions, both publick and private, are not either embezzell'd or miſapply'd; and whether (ſuppoſing all this can be proved) the loud complaints, that have ſo long and ſo often been made to no effect, were reaſonable or not;
