Magdalen College, Oxford

“ William of Waynfleet commanded that Magdalen College should be built over against the oak that fell after six hundred years of life a century ago. Sir Thomas White was “warned in a dream” to build a college at a place where there stood a triple elm tree. Hence arose St. John’s College. Two hundred years ago the tree was known to exist, and there is ground for the pious belief that a scion still flourishes there.
Nowhere is green so wonderful as at Magdalen or Trinity. But their sweetness is no more than the highest expression of the privacy of Oxford. ”

“ There were to be forty scholars, being clerks, bound to study without intermission, twenty-four of whom were to cultivate Arts and philosophy or theology, and sixteen the canon or civil law. Magdalen College was founded in 1457 by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, upon a plan borrowed from New College, but without the peculiar feature of organic connection with a public school, though its founder had been himself the head-master both of Eton and of Winchester. There are clear traces in the statutes of the coming Renaissance. ”

“ He laments the fourteen months which he spent at Magdalen College as the ‘most idle and unprofitable of his whole life.’ He declares that ‘in the University of Oxford, the greater part of the Public Professors have for these many years given up even the pretence of teaching.’ He testifies that, in his time, ‘the Fellows of Magdalen were decent easy men who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the Founder; their days were filled by a series of uniform employments: the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common-room; till they retired, weary and well-satisfied, to a long slumber. ”

“ Before long, however, the matriculations of non-foundationers began to increase very rapidly. A new block of buildings even was erected near the Cherwell for their accommodation by 1636. This is that picturesque group of gables which nestles under the great tower and forms so distinct a feature of the view from Magdalen Bridge. The number of “poore scholars” had also increased—servitors whose office forestalled that of the college “scout.” They bridged the days when the junior members of a foundation “did” for themselves and the modern days of an{195}
Gables and Tower Magdalen College. ”

“ Meanwhile the rooks flap heavily among the mighty beeches, whose tremendous trunks are all misshapen with the gnarls and knobs of age.
Of the fifteenth-century foundations, All Souls, "The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed," and especially of those who fell in the French wars, retains much of its original architecture; in the kitchen of Lincoln, if not in the chapel, Shakespeare would still find himself at home; and for him, as for all the generations since, the lofty tower of Magdalen rose as Oxford's crown of beauty. Magdalen College is ancient. ”

“ In the June of this year he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, as a gentleman-commoner, leaving in 1807, after a very brilliant career as a scholar, and one not less brilliant as an athlete, being a splendid all-round man — rider, swimmer, walker, runner, dancer, jumper, angler, boater, wrestler, boxer. ”

“ He matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, on 19 April 1599, aged 18, but left the university without a degree, and in 1600 was admitted a student of the Middle Temple. He was called to the bar, but, if he practised, he made no mark in his profession. ”

“ James II. appointed him to the bishopric of Oxford in 1686, and he in turn forwarded the king's policy, especially by defending the royal right to appoint Roman Catholics to office. In 1687 the ecclesiastical commission forcibly installed him as president of Magdalen College, Oxford, the fellows having refused to elect any of the king's nominees. He was commonly regarded as a Roman Catholic, but he would appear to have been no more than an extreme exponent of the High Church doctrine of passive obedience. ”

“ It is not known at what school he was educated, nor at what college, though the presumption is in favour of Magdalen, Oxford, whence he drew so many members of his subsequent foundation, Corpus Christi. He also appears to have studied at Cambridge, but nothing definite is known of the first thirty-five years of his career. ”

“ In 1687 he was entered into Queen's college in Oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of Queen's college; by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen college as a demy, a term by which that society denominates those which are elsewhere called scholars; young men, who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships [158] . ”

“ A delicate boy of fifteen or sixteen is hardly the best judge of what is good for himself or for other boys; and Gibbon, in the matter of Magdalen, at least, never grew into his seventeenth year. "To the University of Oxford," he wrote, when he was a good deal of a man in other respects, "To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation, and she will as readily renounce me for a Son as I am willing to disclaim her for a Mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College ”

“ Besides minor feast-days, every Society, both at Oxford and Cambridge, hold its yearly commemoration. There is always prayers and a sermon on this day, and the Lesson is taken from Eccl. [Pg 48] xliv. “Let us now praise famous men,” &c. Mr. Pointer says, that at Magdalen College, Oxford, it is “a custom on all commemoration days to have the bells rung in a confused manner, and without any order, it being the primitive way of ringing.” ”

“ The rest disappeared mysteriously, but so completely that, six years later, the university itself, having no books, sold the very shelves and benches, and the room was left desolate. And so young Thomas Bodley found it when he was entered at Magdalen College four years after the final ruin had been wrought. He must have been deeply touched by the traces of recent destruction; for the thought of them followed him through the years spent away from Oxford, and was destined finally to bear rich fruit. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I quitted Magdalen College within three months, sent my books to Lincoln, and established myself there in a mode of life very much according with my former collegiate habits. Before I left Oxford, I acquainted the president of my college with my wish to be appointed to preach the Bampton lecture; he acquiesced, and desired me to write him word when I should be prepared, that he might propose [Pg 43] me to the heads of houses, with whom rests the nomination of the lecturer. This institution is so well known, that no account of it here is necessary. ”

“ The Founder’s Tower Magdalen College
be taught Logic and Sophistry by the college lecturers, whilst three “Readers,” in Natural and Moral Philosophy and Theology, chosen out of the University, were to provide the higher teaching in Arts and Theology. And all this teaching, in Theology and Philosophy and also in Grammar, was to be given free to all comers at the expense of the college.
In 1481 Waynflete, full of pride in his new foundation, “the most noble and rich structure in the learned world,” persuaded Edward IV. to come over from Woodstock and see it. ”

“ Magdalen College.
occasional manifestoes, which a few professors sign and publish, of any great importance. But it is through the press and through Parliament that the voice of young Oxford is heard. It is through the minds and the examples of those statesmen and administrators, who have imbibed their principles of life and action within her precincts, and have been trained in her schools and on her river or playing-fields, that the influence of the University is reflected on the outer world. ”

“ At Oxford he was entered in 1828 as a 'gentleman-commoner' at Magdalen College, the College of his future father-in-law, John Wilson. A gentleman-commoner of Magdalen in the earlier half of the century is not suggestive of severe mental exercise, [2] and from the very little one can gather from tradition—for contemporaries and friends have naturally passed away—James Ferrier was no exception to the common rule. ”

“ A LECTURE-ROOM IN MAGDALEN COLLEGE. Drawn by E. Stamp. And yet, should the modern undergraduate take the trouble (which of course he never does) to acquaint himself with the statutes and ordinances which governed his University in the pre-examination period, he would find that even then the rose was not wholly devoid of thorns. Even then the powers that be had decreed that life should not be completely beer, nor altogether skittles. It is true that the student was probably less molested by his college ”

“ No one can walk much in the Oxford country without becoming a Pantheist. The influence of the city, the memories, the books he is fresh from, help the indolent [Pg 496] [Pg 495]
OXFORD FROM HEADINGTON HILL
The elm trees of the “Grove” of Magdalen College show to the extreme left of the picture. The buildings of the College do not appear.
To the right of the “Grove” are the two spires of the Cathedral and the University Church of St. Mary, with the Radcliffe dome and the “Schools” tower farther on.
The view is looking west, at sunset in corn harvest. ”

“ The Fellows are in most cases chosen from those men who have achieved the greatest success in an honor course. At Cambridge College individualism has progressed so far that the Fellows of, say, Magdalen must be Magdalen men, the students of Queens', St Catherine's, or any other being ineligible save for their own fellowships. Oxford obtains perhaps better men on the whole by throwing open the fellowships of each particular college to the graduates of all, thus producing a wider competition. ”

“ The statutes of New College had not made any provision for the admission of commensales, but William of Waynflete, in drawing up the statutes of Magdalen, was the first definitely to{194} recognise the system that had grown up by which men who were not on the foundation lived as members of the college. Waynflete limited the number of non-foundationers to twenty. They were to live at the charges of their own kindred ”

“ He took his degree of B.D. at the university of Douay, and was immediately afterwards placed at the head of a colony of priests sent in September and October 1688 from Douay to Oxford. When James II had determined to make Magdalen College a seat of catholic education, Hawarden was intended for the tutorship of divinity at Magdalen. The expected revolution forced him to leave Oxford on 16 Nov. and return to Douay, where he was installed as professor of divinity, and held the office for seventeen years. ”

“ Royalist colleges like New College and Christ Church took the lead, and Puritan establishments like Lincoln and Magdalen followed unprotestingly.
When (1642) a letter from the King at York, asking for contributions to his necessary defence, was laid before Convocation, it was unanimously resolved that whatever money the University was possessed of, should be lent to the King. The colleges and private persons were equally loyal. University College set an example which was freely followed. ”

“ In 1874 it was determined to revert to the original style; the foundation of Magdalen Hall was dissolved, and the Principal and Scholars thereof, together with certain other Fellows, were incorporated as the Principal, Fellows and Scholars of Hertford College, in the University of Oxford. Men associated with Hart Hall, for the sake of lucidity, will be noticed here. ”

“ The citizens encroached on academic property. Some schools were quite destroyed, and the sites converted into gardens. Few men took degrees. The college plate and the jewels left by pious benefactors were stolen, and went to the melting-pot. Thus flourished Oxford under Edward VI.
The reign of Mary was scarcely more favourable to letters. No one knew what to be at in religion. In Magdalen no one could be found to say Mass, the fellows were turned out, the undergraduates were whipped—boyish martyrs—and crossed at the buttery. ”

“ I warn you because you are a graduate of Magdalen College, and I had some knowledge of you in the past, and received some kindness at your hands long since, when I was a youthful clerk and you a regent master; and also because I have a great friendship for Dalaber here, and for Clarke, and for others known to you, and who would suffer grief, and fall perhaps into some peril were you to be taken. Also, I hold that it is ofttimes right to succour the weak against the strong, and I love not persecution in any form, though the contumacious and recalcitrant have to be sternly dealt with. ”

“ Opposite Magdalen College, by the banks of the Cherwell, is the beautiful botanic garden founded by Henry Danvers, earl of Danby, in 1622, with which are connected a library, herbarium and museum. The Indian Institute (1882) , in Broad Street, was founded as a centre for the study of Indian subjects, and for the use of native students in the university and prospective Indian civil servants. The Oxford Union Society, the principal university club, founded in 1825, has its rooms, with library and debating hall, near Cornmarket Street. ”