NOTES AND QUERIES, [io- s. v. FLE. 17, im
'from the tower, and as the last stroke ceased to
vibrate, Pergolesi's 'Gloria' rose like an exhala-
tion, and sent us home in tune for the worship as
well as for the festivity of the Christmas Day. I
.am told that the gracious custom still abides, to
'keep fresh and green the memory of dear old
Bloxam." Rev. W. Tuckwell's ' Reminiscences,'
170.
William George Henderson, Dean of Carlisle, Master 1844-6, was succeededby James Elwin Millard, sometime chorister, who was in his turn followed in 1865 by Richard Humphry Hill, also formerly a chorister. Under the mastership of the last named the School conspicuously flourished, the limit set to the numbers of the School being 130 boys a number long kept up, and capable of being greatly increased had the College so desired. "No school," saj T s Dr. Bloxam (iv. 356),
- ' during Dr. Hill's incumbency gained so
large a proportion of University honours, or did this so continuously, or sent so large a proportion of pupils into academic life, as did this ancient School of Magdalen." On the May Day breakfast of the year 1876, which was Dr. Hill's last in the office of Master, sixty- two resident members of the University received invitations as old boys : -there were at the same time a few such resident also at Cambridge. The School, possesses a portrait of Dr. Millard by the Rev. W. J. Burdett (?) ; a replica by W. R. Symonds of Dr. Hill ; and a portrait of the Matter's successor, Harman Chaloner Ogle, by J. Tonneau. In 1868 class-rooms were added from Buckler's designs.
Of late years both the School in general
.and the choir in particular under Sir John Stainer, Blyth's successor, Sir Walter Parratt, and the present Informator Choristarum have more than maintained their ancient
^renown. In 1894 a new school house, over the Bridge, was completed from plans by Sir Arthur J. Blomfield, and a new chapel built in the School playground adjoining the College. The name of the Magdalen Cricket
Ground goes back to a time before the College had any cricket club at all, when
Cowley Marsh was open land, and when the cricketers who formed the nucleus of the O.U.C.C. found a convenient ground for
.practice in the part of the unenclosed marsh which had for some time been used as their
cricket ground by the boys of the College School, and had thus acquired its name. The present beautiful Playing Fields of eleven
-acres, leased from Christ Church, represent the island, anciently known as Milham,
formed by two branches of the Cherwell, and
-connected with the main land by a bridge, as of old. The School has a good rowing
record, and has not neglected its natural
advantages of position with regard to the
river.
The School paper is, I believe, the oldest magazine still current in connexion with a college of either University. It began its existence in 1857 as The Magdalen College School Monthly Maya-due ; this title was changed in 1870 to The Magdalen College School Journal ; and finally, in 1880, it assumed its present style of The Lily. The foundation of the School has sometimes been placed as early as 1456, and it is possible that Waynflete may have maintained a school in temporary lodgings nearly a quarter of a century before the erection of his College : but I am not aware of any evidence in support of this theory. It is curious that for over four centuries a founda- tion dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen has appropriated the three silver lily -flowers upon a sable field of our Lady of Eton a I coat apparently borne, in yet earlier days, by v Winchester College. A somewhat similar ' case of borrowing is to be seen in the arms I of King's College, Cambridge ; wherein, i however, the three roses "conveyed" from the present coat of Winchester College have paled from Lancastrian to Yorkist in the process.
The following extracts from the College accounts may be added in illustration of the above note. (See Mr. E. K. Chambers's 'Mediaeval Stage,' 1903, vol. ii. p. 248, and ' Register of St. M. Magd. Coll.,' First Series, ii. 235, Bloxam ; New Series, i. 3 ; ii. 3, W. D. Macray.)
1481. " Pro cerothecia pro chorustis. iiii 1 " 1 ."
1482. " V die Decembris pro cerothecis episcopi in festo S. Nicholai, iiii' 1 ."
1483. "Pro cerothecis datis ad honorem Sancti Nicolai duobns choristis, viii a ."
1484. "Pro cerothecis Episcopi in festo Sancti Nicholai et ejus crucem ferentis, viii d ."
1506. "To John Burgess, B.A., x' 1 was paid for writing out a miracle-play (scriptura lusi) of S e Mary Magd: ; and v s for some music ; and viii' 1 to a man who brought some songs from Edw. Martyn, M.A.
"For his diligence with regard to above miracle- play, Kendall, a clerk, was rewarded with i s . pro exopjisis mimi iiii s at Xmas."
). "Sol. pane, cibo et aliis datis pueris luden-
tibus in die Paschas, mandate Vicepr: xvii' 1 ob."
1518. " To Perrot, Master of the choristers, 'pro tinctura et factura tunicas eius qui ageret partem Christi et pro crinibus mulieribus/ ii" vi d ."
1520. "Pro pane datis clericis in vigiliis S. N.
pro cerothecis puerorum in festo, 8. N."
1537. " Pro carbonibug consumptis in sacrario, per custodes sepulchri, et per pueros in festis hiemalibus, ii s ."
1561. "Sol. Joyner, pictori, depingenti portenta religiosorum in Spectaculo Baulino iii* iiii
