At Cambridge, and eke at Oxford, have taken an opposite course, and
from their being to be had at all times, have at the former place,
obtained the _soubriquet_ "Hack Preachers." In the _Gradus ad
Cantabrigiam_, they are described as "the common _exhibitioners_ at
St. Mary's, employed in the service of defaulters and absentees. It
must be confessed, however," adds this writer, "that these HACKS are
good fast _trotters_, as they commonly go over the course in twenty
minutes, and sometimes less." Gilbert Wakefield, whom nobody will
suspect of forbearance, calls them, in his Memoirs, "a piteous,
unedifying tribe." This, however, can scarcely be applied to the
ordinary preachers of the present day, and especial care is taken by
the heads of the university that the _select_ preachers (one of whom
is named for each month during term-time) do not name substitutes
themselves. The following poetic _jeu d'esprit_, entitled "_Lines on
three of the appointed Preachers of St. Mary's, Cambridge, attacking
Calvin_" were no others than the three eminent living divines, Dr.
Butler, Dr. Maltby, Bishop of Chichester, and Dr. Herbert Marsh,
Bishop of Peterborough:--
"Three Preachers, in three distant counties born,
The Church of England's doctrines do adorn:
Harsh Calvin's mystic tenets were their mark,
Founded in texts perverted, gloomy, dark.
_Butler_ in clearness and in force surpassed,
_Maltby_ with sweetness spoke of ages past;
Whilst _Marsh_ himself, who scarce could further go,
With _Criticism's_ fetters bound the foe."
This _punning_ morsel, of some _standing_ in the university, is scarce
surpassed by Hood himself:--