Chapter 4

The bishop's careful provision, however, of good teaching at his school and in his college bore good fruit at first, whatever may have been the result later. If Corpus is especially the college of the revival of learning, New College had prepared the way, and the first Englishman to teach Greek in Oxford was the New College fellow, William Grocyn, whom Erasmus called the "most upright and best of all Britons." From the same college, about the same time, came the patron of Erasmus, Archbishop Warham, of whose saintly simplicity and love of learning he gives so attractive a picture. Warham was not forgetful of his old college, and presented the beautiful "linen fold" panelling which still adorns the hall.

At the time of the Reformation, New College was especially attached to the old form of the faith, and it has been maintained that the dangerous lowness of the wicket entrance in the Gate Tower was due to the deliberate purpose of the governing body, who resolved that everyone who entered the college, however Protestant his views, should bow his head under the statue of the Blessed Virgin above. At any rate, one New College man in the seventeenth century attributed his perversion to "the lively memorials of Popery in statues and pictures in the gates and in the chapel of New College."

Certain it is that under Elizabeth, after the purging of the college from its recusant fellows, who contributed a large share of the Roman controversialists to the colleges of Louvain and Douai, Wykeham's foundation sank, as has been said, into inglorious ease for two centuries. Yet, during this period, it had the honour of producing two of the Seven Bishops who resisted King James II's attack on the English Constitution--one of them the saintly hymn writer, Thomas Ken. And to the darkest days of the eighteenth century belongs the most famous picture of the ideal Oxford life: "I spent many years, in that illustrious society, in a well-regulated course of useful discipline and studies, and in the agreeable and improving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars; in a society where emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without animosity, incited industry and awakened genius; where a liberal pursuit of knowledge and a genuine freedom of thought was raised, encouraged, and pushed forward by example, by commendation, and by authority." These were the words of Bishop Lowth, whose great work on /The Poetry of the Hebrews/ was delivered as lectures for the Chair of Poetry at Oxford.

The spirit of Oxford has never been better described, and even that bitter critic, the great historian Gibbon, admits that Lowth practised what he preached, and that he was an ornament to the University in its darkest period. Of the days of Reform a forerunner was found in Sydney Smith, the witty Canon of St. Paul's.

The names of New College men famous for learning or for political success, during the last half-century, are too recent to mention, but it is fitting to put on record that to New College belongs the sad distinction of having the longest Roll of Honour in the late War. It has lost about 250 of its sons, including four of the most distinguished young tutors in Oxford; History and Philosophy, Scholarship and Natural Science are all of them the poorer for the premature loss of Cheesman and Heath, Hunter and Geoffrey Smith; their names are familiar to everyone in Oxford, and they would have been familiar some day to the world of scholars everywhere. /Dis aliter visum est/.

LINCOLN COLLEGE

"This is the chapel; here, my son, Thy father dreamed the dreams of youth, And heard the words, which, one by one, The touch of life has turned to truth." NEWBOLT.

[Plate XII. Lincoln College : The Chapel Interior]

The name of Lincoln College recalls a fact familiar to all students of ecclesiastical history, though surprising to the ordinary man-- viz., that Oxford, till the Reformation, was in the great diocese of Lincoln, which stretched right across the Midlands from the Humber to the Thames. This fact had an important bearing on the history of the University; its bishop was near enough to help and protect, but not near enough to interfere constantly. Hence arose the curious position of the Oxford Chancellor, the real head of the mediaeval University and still its nominal head; though an ecclesiastical dignitary, and representing the Bishop, the Oxford Chancellor was not a cathedral official, but the elect of the resident Masters of Arts. How important this arrangement was for the independence of the University will be obvious.

The ecclesiastical position of Oxford is responsible also for the foundation of four of its colleges; both Lincoln and Brasenose, colleges that touch each other, were founded by Bishops of Lincoln; Foxe and Wolsey, too, though holding other sees later, ruled over the great midland diocese.

Richard Fleming, the Bishop of Lincoln, who founded the college that bears the name of his see, was in some ways a remarkable man. When resident in Oxford, he had been prominent among the followers of John Wycliffe and had shared his reforming views; but he was alarmed at the development of his master's teaching in the hands of disciples, and set himself to oppose the movement which he had once favoured. He founded his "little college" with the express object of training "theologians" "to defend the mysteries of the sacred page against those ignorant laics, who profaned with swinish snouts its most holy pearls." It is curious that Lincoln's great title to fame--and it is a very great one--is that its most distinguished fellow was John Wesley, the Wycliffe of the eighteenth century.

The connection of Oxford and Lincoln College with Wesley and his movement is no accidental one, based merely on the fact that he resided there for a certain time. Humanly speaking, Wesley's connection with Lincoln was a determining factor in his spiritual and mental development, and it was while he was there that his followers received the name of "Methodists," a name given in scorn, but one which has become a thing of pride to millions. Wesley was a fellow of Lincoln for nine years, from 1726 to 1735. During the most impressionable years of a man's life--he was only twenty-three when he was elected fellow--he was developing his mental powers by an elaborate course of studies, and his spiritual life by the careful use of every form of religious discipline which the Church prescribed. A college, with its daily services and its life apart from the world, rendered the practice of such discipline possible. It was because Wesley and his followers, his brother Charles, George Whitefield and others, observed this discipline so carefully that they obtained their nickname. It is with good reason that Lincoln Chapel is visited by his disciples from all parts of the world; it has been little altered since his time, his pulpit is still here, and the glass and the carving which make it very interesting, if not beautiful, are those which he saw daily.

The chapel is the memorial of the devotion to Lincoln of another churchman, more successful than Wesley from a worldly point of view, but now forgotten by all except professed students of history. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln from 1621 to 1641, was the last ecclesiastic who "kept" the Great Seal of England. He had the misfortune to differ from Laud on the Church Question of the day, and was prosecuted before the Star Chamber for subornation of perjury, and heavily fined. There seems no doubt that he was guilty; but it was to advocacy of moderation and to his dislike of the king's arbitrary rule that he owed the severity of his punishment. Whatever his moral character, at all events he gave his college a beautiful little chapel, which is often compared to the slightly older one at Wadham; that of Lincoln is much the less spacious of the two, but in its wood carvings, at any rate, it is superior.

Lincoln had the ill-fortune, in the nineteenth century, to produce the writer of one of those academic "Memoirs," which reveal, with a scholar's literary style, and also with a scholar's bitterness, the intrigues and quarrels that from time to time arise within college walls. Mark Pattison is likely to be remembered by the world in general because he is said to have been the original of George Eliot's "Mr. Casaubon"; in Oxford he will be remembered not only for the "Memoirs," but also as one who upheld the highest ideal of "Scholarship" when it was likely to be forgotten, and who criticized the neglect of "research." The personal attacks were those of a disappointed man; the criticisms, one-sided as they were, were certainly not unjustified.

A university should certainly exist to promote learning, and Mark Pattison, with all his unfairness, certainly helped its cause in Oxford. But a university exists also for the promotion of friendships among young men, and for the development of their social life. Of this duty, Oxford has never been unmindful, and perhaps it is in small colleges like Lincoln that the flowers of friendship best flourish. It is needless to make comparisons, for they flourish everywhere; but it is appropriate to quote, when writing of one of the smaller Oxford colleges, the verses on this subject of a recent Lincoln poet (now dead); they will come home to every Oxford man:

"City of my loves and dreams, Lady throned by limpid streams; 'Neath the shadow of thy towers, Numbered I my happiest hours. Here the youth became a man; Thought and reason here began. Ah! my friends, I thought you then Perfect types of perfect men: Glamour fades, I know not how, Ye have all your failings now,"

But Oxford friendships outlast the discovery that friends have "failings"; as Lord Morley, who went to Lincoln in 1856, writes: "Companionship (at Oxford) was more than lectures"; a friend's failure later (he refers to his contemporary, Cotter Morison's /Service of Man/) "could not impair the captivating comradeship of his prime."

MAGDALEN COLLEGE (1) SITE AND BUILDINGS

"Where yearly in that vernal hour The sacred city is in shades reclining, With gilded turrets in the sunrise shining: From sainted Magdalene's aerial tower Sounds far aloof that ancient chant are singing, And round the heart again those solemn memories bringing." ISAAC WILLIAMS.

Macaulay was too good a Cambridge man to appreciate an Oxford college at its full worth; but he devotes one of his finest purple patches to the praise of Magdalen, ending, as is fitting, "with the spacious gardens along the river side," which, by the way, are not "gardens." Antony Wood praises Magdalen as "the most noble and rich structure in the learned world," with its water walks as "delectable as the banks of Eurotas, where Apollo himself was wont to walk." To go a century further back, the Elizabethan, Sir John Davies, wrote:

"O honeyed Magdalen, sweete, past compare Of all the blissful heavens on earth that are."

Such praises could be multiplied indefinitely, and they are all deserved.

The good genius of Magdalen has been faithful to it throughout. The old picturesque buildings on the High Street, taken over (1457) by the Founder, William of Waynflete, from the already existing hospital of St. John, were completed by his munificence in the most attractive style of English fifteenth century domestic architecture; Chapel and Hall, Cloisters and Founder's Tower, all alike are among the most beautiful in Oxford. When classical taste prevailed, the architectural purists of the eighteenth century were for sweeping almost all this away, and had a plan prepared for making a great classic quad; but wiser counsels, or lack of funds, thwarted this vandalistic design, and only the north side of the new quad was built, to give Magdalen a splendid specimen of eighteenth century work, without prejudice to the old. And in our own day, the genius of Bodley has raised in St. Swithun's Quad a building worthy of the best days of Oxford, while the hideous plaster roof, with which the mischievous Wyatt had marred the beauty of the hall, was removed, and a seemly oak roof put in its place. It is a great thing to be thankful for, that one set of college buildings in Oxford, though belonging to so many periods, has nothing that is not of the best.

But the great glory of Magdalen has not yet been mentioned. This is, without doubt, its bell tower, which, standing just above the River Cherwell, is worthily seen, whether from near or far. A most curious and interesting custom is preserved in connection with it. Every May morning, at five o'clock (in Antony Wood's time the ceremony was an hour earlier), the choir mounts the tower and sings a hymn, which is part of the college grace; in the eighteenth century, however, the music was of a secular nature and lasted two hours. The ceremony has been made the subject of a great picture by Holman Hunt, and has been celebrated in many poems; the sonnet of Sir Herbert Warren, the present President, may be quoted as worthily expressing something of what has been felt by many generations of Magdalen men:

"Morn of the year, of day and May the prime, How fitly do we scale the steep dark stair, Into the brightness of the matin air, To praise with chanted hymn and echoing chime, Dear Lord of Light, thy sublime, That stooped erewhile our life's frail weeds to wear! Sun, cloud and hill, all things thou fam'st so fair, With us are glad and gay, greeting the time. The College of the Lily leaves her sleep, The grey tower rocks and trembles into sound, Dawn-smitten Memnon of a happier hour; Through faint-hued fields the silver waters creep: Day grows, birds pipe, and robed anew and crowned, Green Spring trips forth to set the world aflower."

The tower was put to a far different use when, in the Civil War, it was the fortress against an attack from the east, and stones were piled on its top to overwhelm any invader who might force the bridge.

Tradition connects this tower with the name of Magdalen's greatest son, Thomas Wolsey, who took his B.A. about 1486, at the age of fifteen, as he himself in his old age proudly told his servant and biographer, Cavendish. Certainty he was first Junior and then Senior Bursar for a time, while the tower was building, 1492-1504. But the scandal that he had to resign his bursarship for misappropriation of funds in connection with the tower may certainly be rejected.

On the right of Magdalen Bridge, looking at the tower, as we see it in the picture, stretches Magdalen Meadow, round which run the famous water walks. The part of these on the north-west side is especially connected with Joseph Addison, who was a fellow at Magdalen from 1697 to 1711. He was elected "demy" (at Magdalen, scholars bear this name) the first year (1689) after the Revolution, when the fellows of Magdalen had been restored to their rights, so outrageously invaded by King James. This "golden" election was famous in Magdalen annals, at once for the number elected--seventeen--and for the fame of some of those elected. Besides the greatest of English essayists, there were among the new "demies," a future archbishop, a future bishop, and the high Tory, Henry Sacheverell, whose fiery but unbalanced eloquence overthrew the great Whig Ministry, which had been the patron of his college contemporary.

Magdalen Meadow preserves still the well-beloved Oxford fritillaries, which are in danger of being extirpated in the fields below Iffley by the crowds who gather them to sell in the Oxford market.

Of the part of the College on the High Street, the most interesting portion is the old stone pulpit (shown in Plate XIV). The connection of this with the old Hospital of St. John is still marked by the custom of having the University sermon here on St. John the Baptist's Day; this was the invariable rule till the eighteenth century, and the pulpit (Hearne says) was "all beset with boughs, by way of allusion to St. John Baptist's preaching in the wilderness." Even as early as Heame's time, however, a wet morning drove preacher and audience into the chapel, and open-air sermons were soon given up altogether, only to be revived (weather permitting) in our own day. The chapel lies to the left of the pulpit, and is known all the world over for its music; there are three famous choirs in Oxford-- those of the Cathedral, of New College, and of Magdalen, and to the last, as a rule, the palm is assigned. It is to Oxford what the choir of King's is to Cambridge; but the chapel of Magdalen has not

"The high embowed roof With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light"

of the "Royal Saint's" great chapel at Cambridge.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE (2) HISTORY

"Sing sweetly, blessed babes that suck the breast Of this sweet nectar-dropping Magdalen, Their praise in holy hymns, by whom ye feast, The God of gods and Waynflete, best of men, Sing in an union with the Angel's quires, Sith Heaven's your house." SIR J. DAVIES.

Magdalen College was founded by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, who had been a faithful minister of Henry VI. He had served as both Master and Provost of the King's own college at Eton (and also as Master of Winchester College before), and from Eton he brought the lilies which still figure in the Magdalen shield. As a member of the Lancastrian party, he fell into disgrace when the Yorkists triumphed, but he made his peace with Edward IV, whose statue stands over the west door of the chapel, with those of St. Mary Magdalene, St. John the Baptist, St. Swithun (Bishop of Winchester), and the Founder. And the Tudors were equally friendly to the new foundation; Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's unfortunate elder brother, was a resident in Magdalen on two occasions, and the College has still a splendid memorial of him in the great contemporary tapestry, representing his marriage with Catharine of Aragon.

To the very early days of Magdalen belongs its connection with the Oxford Reform Movement and the Revival of Learning. Both Fox and Wolsey, successively Bishops of Winchester, and the munificent founders of Corpus and of Cardinal (i.e. Christ Church) Colleges, were members of Waynflete's foundation, and so probably was John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, whose learning and piety so impressed Erasmus. "When I listen to my beloved Colet," he writes in 1499, "I seem to be listening to Plato himself"; and he asks--why go to Italy when Oxford can supply a climate "as charming as it is healthful" and "such culture and learning, deep, exact and worthy of the good old times ?" Erasmus' praise of Oxford climate is unusual from a foreigner; the more usual view is that of his friend Vives, who came to Oxford soon after as a lecturer at the new college of Corpus Christi; he writes from Oxford: "The weather here is windy, foggy and damp, and gave me a rough reception."

Colet's lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, perhaps delivered in Magdalen College, marked an epoch in the way of the interpretation of Holy Scripture, by their freedom from traditional methods and by their endeavour to employ the best of the New Learning in determining the real meaning of the Apostle. To the same school as Colet in the Church belonged Reginald Pole, Archbishop in the gloomy days of Queen Mary, the only Magdalen man who has held the See of Canterbury.

Elizabeth visited the College, and gently rebuked the Puritan tendencies of the then President, Dr. Humphrey, who carried his scruples so far as to object to the academical scarlet he had to wear as a Doctor of Divinity, because it savoured of the "Scarlet Woman." "Dr. Humphrey," said the queen, with the tact alike of a Tudor sovereign and of a true woman, "methinks this gown and habit become you very well, and I marvel that you are so strait-laced on this point--but I come not now to chide." This President complained that his headship was "more payneful than gayneful," a charge not usually brought against headships at Oxford.

In the seventeenth century, Magdalen was, for a short time, the very centre of England's interest. James II, in his desire to force Roman Catholicism on Oxford, tried to fill the vacant Presidency with one of his co-religionists. His first nominee was not only disqualified under the statutes, but was also a man of so notoriously bad a character that even the king had to drop him. Meanwhile, the fellows, having waited, in order to oblige James, till the last possible moment allowed by the statutes, filled up the vacancy by electing one of their own number, John Hough. When the king pronounced this election irregular and demanded the removal of the President and the acceptance of his second nominee, the fellows declared themselves unable thus to violate their statutes, even at royal command, and were accordingly driven out. The "demies," who were offered nominations to the fellowships thus rendered vacant, supported their seniors, and, in their turn, too, were driven out; they had showed their contempt for James' intruded fellows by "cocking their hats" at them, and by drinking confusion to the Pope. When the landing of William of Orange was threatening, James revoked all these arbitrary proceedings, but it was too late; he had brought home, by a striking example, to Oxford and to England, that no amount of past services, no worthiness of character, no statutes, however clear and binding, were to weigh for a moment with a royal bigot, who claimed the power to "dispense" with any statutes. The "Restoration" of the Fellows on October 25, 1688, is still celebrated by a College Gaudy, when the toast for the evening is /jus suum cuique/.

Hough remained President for thirteen years, during most of which time he was bishop--first of Oxford and then of Lichfield. He finally was translated to Worcester, where he died at the age of ninety- three, after declining the Archbishopric of Canterbury. His monument, in his cathedral, records his famous resistance to arbitrary authority.

Magdalen in the eighteenth century has an unenviable reputation, owing to the memoirs of its most famous historian, Edward Gibbon, who matriculated, in 1752, and who describes the fourteen months which elapsed before he was expelled for becoming a Roman Catholic, "as the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life." The "Monks of Magdalen," as he calls the fellows, "decent, easy men," "supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder." It should be added that Gibbon was not quite fifteen when he entered the College, and that his picture of it is no doubt coloured by personal bitterness. But its substantial justice is admitted. Certainly, nothing could be feebler than the /Vindication of Magdalen College/, published by a fellow James Hurdis, the Professor of Poetry; his intellectual calibre may perhaps be gauged from the exquisite silliness of his poem, "The Village Curate," of which the following lines, addressed to the Oxford heads of houses, are a fair specimen:

"Ye profound And serious heads, who guard the twin retreats Of British learning, give the studious boy His due indulgence. Let him range the field, Frequent the public walk, and freely pull The yielding oar. But mark the truant well, And if he turn aside to vice or folly, Show him the rod, and let him feel you prize The parent's happiness, the public good."