[SN:  University of Upsal.]

They affirm this University to be very ancient; but there are no colleges or public houses for the maintenance of the scholars, or public revenue belonging to them; so that they do not live together in bodies or companies by themselves, but every one severally as he can agree or find for his convenience.  But here are divers public rooms or schools where the professors and scholars use to meet and perform their exercises openly; and the rooms of their library are three, about twenty foot square apiece.

There are all sorts of professors for the arts and sciences, who are promised good salaries, but they complain that they are not well paid; and though some of them be very learned, yet they take not much pains; it may be according to the proverb, “mal paye mal servi”—­he that is ill paid doth but ill service.  Some counted the number of scholars to be about three hundred, which is not more than may be found in one college in England.  They make great preparation by printing their theses and publishing them, and inviting the grandees to their disputations, where the Queen in person is sometimes present, though the exercise is only the art of well disputing, except in some of their professors and eminent persons.

Their University is a kind of corporation, like others, their want of supplies not affording them so much perfection, and their defect of government giving them liberty and temptation to disorder, to which they are much addicted; but in their sermons, whilst the English were among them, they would propose them as a pattern of civility and pious conversation.  Their government is by a Chancellor, who at present is the Ricks-Chancellor; and it hath constantly been in the hands of some eminent and great person.

[SN:  Cathedral of Upsal.]

Whitelocke and the Resident visited the Cathedral Church, which is fair and large, built with brick, and covered with copper.  They affirm it to be one of the most ancient churches of Europe, and that the Gospel was here early planted, but earlier in the church of old Upsal, which is of a quadrangular form, and formerly dedicated to their heathen gods.  Their cathedral, they say, was the seat of an arch-flamen; and in the places of arch-flamens and flamens, upon their conversion to Christianity (as in England, so here), bishops and archbishops were instituted; and now their cathedral, as other churches, is full of images, crucifixes, and such other furniture as the Lutheran churches tolerate, and is little different therein from the Popish churches.

The Resident and Whitelocke took also a view of the castle and city of Upsal.  The castle is near the town, seated upon the point of a hill; it is built of brick, plastered over, strong and beautiful.  If it had been finished, the design was to have had it four-square; but two sides of it only are built.  It had been very large and noble if it had been perfected.  As it is, it contains many rooms, and sufficient for the Court; some of them are great and stately, but up two stories, after the fashion of that country.  If it had been finished, it would have equalled any other, if not the castle of Stockholm itself.