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the clerk of the plaintiff, was not sufficient in law, and that the bond stated in the pleas was good and valid in law.

Then Mr. Baron Eyre delivered his opinion upon the said questions as follows: To the 1st question, That it was an agreement for a benefit. To the 2d, That it did avoid the presentation. To the 3d, That the bond was a benefit. To the 4th, That it did avoid the presentation. To the 5th, he gave no answer. To the 6th, Assuming that the Bishop might refuse, it was a benefit in respect of the contingency which the incumbent could not controul. To the 7th, Assuming that the Bishop might refuse, it did avoid the presentation. To the 8th, That the unfitness was not alledged with sufficient certainty. To the 9th, That the plea was not sufficient in law to bar the defendant in error from maintaining his action. To the 10th, That the unfitness, as set forth in the second plea, was not traversable. To the 11th, That the excuse in the first plea was sufficient, and the excuse in the second plea not sufficient. To the 12th, That upon these pleadings it was not competent for the plaintiff in error to object to the validity of the bonds stated in the pleadings, and therefore they were to be taken to be good and valid, and not corrupt and void in law.

After the Judges had thus delivered their opinions, a debate and division of the house ensued, when there appearing to be for reversing the judgment 19, and against it 18, it was ordered and adjudged, that the judgment given in the Court of King's Bench, affirming a judgment given in the Court of Common Pleas, should be reversed.

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[220]COLLEGES.

Bishop of Ely,—Plaintiff; Richard Bently,—Defendant (in Error)
[15th February 1732].

[Mew's Dig. xiv. 1066. See Philips v. Bury, Shower P.C. 35.]

[Visitors of colleges are not tied up to any particular forms, nor to be prohibited for irregularity in their proceedings, or informality in their acts, but only for want of jurisdiction. And therefore, where a visitor cited the Master of a college to appear before him as special visitor, and afterwards in a plea to an action of prohibition, he insisted on being general visitor of the college, this variance was held not to be erroneous; but he having jurisdiction either in the one character or the other, had a right to proceed upon the citation.]

Fitz. Gibb. 107. 305. Strange, 912. Viner, vol. 17. p. 155. ca. 13. Grounds and Rudiments of Law and Equity, 32. ca. 4. Burn's Eccl. Law, vol. 1. 4to edit. p. 324.

This writ of error was brought upon a judgment given by the Court of King's Bench, in an action upon a prohibition, in which Dr. Bentley, who sued as well upon the King's account as his own, was plaintiff; and the Lord Bishop of Ely was defendant.

The declaration set forth, that Trinity College, in Cambridge, was founded by King Henry VIII. by letters patent dated the 19th of December, in the 38th year of his reign, and was thereby incorporated by the name of the Master, Fellows, and Scholars of the holy and undivided Trinity, within the town and university of Cambridge, of the foundation of King Henry VIII. and was impowered to purchase lands and hereditaments; with a saving to the King, his heirs and successors, amongst other things, of the right to name the Master, from time to time as vacancies should happen.—That Queen Elizabeth, in the 2d year of her reign, gave certain statutes to the said college; and particularly the 40th statute, intitled,

De Magistri si res exigat amotione.

"Quoniam capite gravi aliquo morbo laborante cœtera corporis membra vehementer quoque vexari solent, idcirco statuimus & ordinamus, ut si magister collegii

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