LORD STANLEYsaid, a few words of explanation were necessary before putting a question of which he had given notice. The Regius Professorship of Civil Law at Oxford had been treated as almost a sinecure, but there had sprung up a general desire on the part of the University to render it more efficient. With that view, a new statute was proposed, according to which the office was endowed with 300l. a year, subject to conditions, three of which were that the professor should reside six months in the year at the University, that he should give at least one course of lectures in the year, and that he should receive classes. That statute had not passed, but was under consideration, and there was a very general opinion in favour of it. Under those circumstances, he was given to understand that the office, which became vacant by the death of Dr. Phillimore, and the appointment to which was in the hands of the First Lord of the Treasury, had been, or was on the point of being, filled up by the appointment of Dr. Twiss, who 372 had a large practice at the Admiralty and at Doctors' Commons. He wished, therefore, to ask whether any security had been taken for the fulfilment of the conditions to which he had referred, in accordance with the general wishes of the University?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, when it became his duty to take steps for filling up the Regius Professorship of Civil Law at Oxford he was deeply impressed with the necessity, adverted to by the noble Lord, that the office should become really efficient, and not continue, as it had been, very inefficient. The name of Dr. Twiss was suggested to him as that of a gentleman eminent in his profession by his talents and acquirements, and highly qualified to fill that appointment. He communicated with Dr. Twiss, and put to him to consider whether it would suit him, in accepting the office, to engage to perform all those local duties which might be required, either by any new regulations or any existing statute. It being desirable that the appointment should be filled up without any further delay, Dr. Twiss accepted it, with the distinct pledge on his part that if any new regulations should be established which should render the performance of his duties at Oxford incompatible with his avocations in London, he would resign the appointment as readily as he then provisionally accepted it. Therefore, it so stood that the appointment of Dr. Twiss in no degree tied the hands of the University with regard to any regulations they might make for residence, lectures, or any other duties connected with the Professorship of Civil Law.