X PREFACE. Dukes of Beaufort has at all times been impartially exercised for the benefit of the three privileged counties : and most of the well known families of that district have in their turn been represented at Oriel. But at no time has any higher standard of proficiency been required than that applied in the admission of other independent members. The time came at last when Oriel was to abandon its peculiar characteristic, and to conform to the prevailing pattern. Scholarships, open to competition from outside the College as well as within it, and filled up according to merit shown in examination, were first established in 1838. There are some still living whose recollection of Oriel goes back to the time before this innovation. Not twenty years ago, at a College Gaudy, a distinguished Oriel man was called upon to propose the toast of the Scholars of Oriel. He knew nothing of any class called by that name, but he fell back on the Oriel of his recollection, and discoursed on its eminence in the field of Classical Scholarship. Before the end of the eighteenth century, the Poor Scholars, Batellers and Servitors had ceased to exist as a distinct order. Three Bible Clerks ] alone survived, the representatives of what in an earlier time had been a well marked element in the composition of the undergraduate body. Here, as elsewhere, the tendency of modern sentiment has been to remove dis- tinctions which might appear to put a stigma on poverty ; and though much has been done to assist students of scanty means to enter the University, the mode employed has generally been that of direct subsidy, and not a lower scale of charges, marking a difference of rank. Some light duties are still attached to the Bible Clerk's office ; and some small items in the calculation of his emoluments still remain, from which the curious might reconstruct his now forgotten collegiate status. But in all important respects, he stands on the same footing as the Scholar, to whom in recent years he has certainly not shown himself inferior in academical distinctions. In this connexion, mention may be made of the Exhibitions lately established in honour of two eminent Oriel 1 Since reduced to two.