122
NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. v. FEE. 17
this behalf Given under Our Signet at Our Palac
of Westminster the Sixteenth day of October li
the Thirty Eighth Year of Our Reign.
Exam*
W m HENRY HIGGEX
Depy.
The document is stamped with two blue stamps, and on the back a royal monogram under a crown and letters 54. O. G. R. I bears a seal with a coat of arms and the following inscriptions : GEORGIUS in. D. G
MAG. BE. FR. ET HIB. REX FIDE ET (wore
undecipherable) ; and inside HONI SOIT QVI
MAL Y PENSE.
The document was purchased, more than thirty years ago, with others relating to certain Cheshire peerages, e c/., Lore Alvanley, by your frequent contributor my late father, Thomas Hughes, of Chester, F.S.A., and has ever since been in his or my possession.
T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A.
Lancaster.
MAGDALEN COLLEGE SCHOOL AND THE 'D.N.B.'
(See 10 th S. iv. 21, 101, 182, 244, 364.) THE adverse criticism of one under sixteen years of age, who had spent but fourteen months in College as an undergraduate, would generally deserve to be disregarded. But when the boy, whose brief sojourn at Magdalen was varied by frequent absences, developes into the master of a majestic prose style, his impressions cannot be so lightly put aside. Edward Gibbon's chief justifica- tion for dragging the "monks of Magdalen " before the bar of history would appear to lie in the weak * Vindication ' of the College made by James Hurdis, Professor of Poetry, in answer to the greater writer's attack. The stately somnolence of Waynflete's foundation at this period is practically admitted. To Gibbon's complaint that the fourteen months of his stay in Oxford were "the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life," Hurdis replies with elaborate abuse of the author of
- The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire/
and with the remark, "It was Magdalen College which returned him into the hands of his friends, as fitter for the society of the School than that of the College " (vide Gibbon's 'Memoirs,' ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, 1900, pp. 48, 50, 53-73 ; * Reminiscences of Oxford,' ed. Miss Quiller Couch, 1892, pp. 133-48). Thomas Jenner, who had been educated as a boy at the School, was at this time President of his College and Margaret Professor of Divinity. Gibbon's second tutor (whose name he suppressed), Thomas Winchester, had begun life as a chorister,
and was a tutor, and later a country clergy-
man, of some note, in spite of the historian's
disparaging remarks concerning him (Bloxam
i. 150-5). Another of the "monks" was
Dr. Thomas West (chorister, 1720; died
Fellow, 1781), sometime rector of Horsington
who "declared he had eaten the bread of
William Patten for three - quarters of a
century." He is commemorated by the
structure (called after his name) near the
Cherwell, the cost of which was chiefly
defrayed by a legacy left by him. An
ancient building which is believed to have
formed part of the fabric of St. John's
Hospital was destroyed in 1783 to make
room for " West's Building." It is recorded
of Dr. West that upon one occasion, on a
journey to London, he inadvertently took
his seat, at the half-way house, in the coach
from which he had recently descended.
This, according to custom, returned to
Oxford, and on repassing the bridge dre\v
Prom the learned traveller the remark,
" Well, if I did not know that I was going
to London, I could almost swear that that
was Magdalen Tower !' When the unhappy
Dr. Dodd was hanged for forgery, some one
observed to Dr. West, " * Ah ! Doctor, this is
sad disgrace on the Doctorate!' 'Egad/
was the reply, ' he was only a Doctor of
Laws, though!'" (Bloxam, i. 147; Wilson,
230).
From 1752, the year of Gibbon's matricula- ,ion, until 1776 Robert Bryne was Master of he School. A list in his handwriting re-
- ords the names of various persons educated
-hereat. He was succeeded by Thomas iobinson until 1795, and he, again, by William Rust Cobbold until 1799. G. V. Cox, chorister in 1793, gives a curious account of
- ontemporary methods of instruction, as
ollows :
" Having during one or two of his last years beer* , pupil of Mr. Cobbold, I am entitled to speak of he impressions left upon me by his teaching : they re these that from a bilious constitution, be- rayed by his yellow-tinted complexion, he was ill- ualified to bear kindly and patiently with little
- norant boys. ' Alphezibeus, sir,' he would say,
don't you know s from z? Listen, sir, Al-phe-si- e-us'; every syllable, especially the third, being mpressed with a sharp cut with a cane, or a harper twitch of an ear. Indeed, this latter unishment, his favourite one, extended several imes to the partial tearing the ear from the head f a dull boy ! His teaching, however, was a great nprovement upon that of his predecessor, Mr. Robinson, and effectually prepared the way for the qually careful, but more patient instruction of Dr. ]llerton, my last and highly valued Master." iloxam, iv. 126.
In 1817 John Keats stayed throughout eptember, into the beginning of October,
