Page:Oxford men and their colleges.djvu/165

 197

NEW COLLEGE.

[98

of the University, which was the case with the most active Visitors. Only two unconditional and one qualified submission was recorded. Forty-nine out of the fifty-three members of the foundation (choir in- cluded) then in residence were sentenced to expulsion on March 15, 1647-8. But it was not till June 6th that four of the worst offenders were ordered to move ; on July 7th the order was extended to seventeen more. On August 1st, 1648, Ur. Stringer, the Warden whom the Fellows had elected in defiance of the Visitors, was removed by Parliament, and in 1649 nineteen more foundationers were " outed."

Two of "the Seven Bishops " were New College men, the saintly Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Turner, Bishop of Ely. One of their Judges, Richard Holloway, the only one who charged boldly in their favour, had been Fellow of the College till ejected by the Parliamentary Visitors. ....

Among the eminent New College men of later times may be mentioned Robert Lowth, Bishop of London, and author of the celebrated Lectures on the poetry of the Hebrews, died 1787 ; Sydney .Smith, died 1845, anc ^ Augustus Hare, died 1834.

The era of reform may be said to begin with the voluntary renunciation by New College, in 1834, of its exemption from University examinations. The College still retains, indeed, the right to obtain for its Fellows degrees without "supplication" in con- gregation ; and when a Fellow of New College takes his M.A., the Proctor still says, " Postulat A.B., e Collegio Novo," instead of the ordinary " Supplicat, etc," or (more correctly) omits the name altogether. In spite of the vehement opposition of the College, a more extensive reform was carried out on truly Con- servative lines by an Ordinance of the University Commissioners in 1857. The Fellowships were re- duced to forty (in 1870 to thirty) ; but the mystic seventy of the original foundation is maintained by the addition in 1866 of ten open scholarships to the thirty which were still reserved for Winchester men. Further, commoners were made eligible for Fellow- ships as well as Scholars. Half the Fellowships are

still reserved for Wykehamists, that is, men educated either at Winchester or at New College. The chap- laincies are now reduced to three, and the number of lay choir-men increased.

Since that beneficent reform, ever since loyally accepted and vigorously carried forward by the Warden and Fellows, the history of the College has been one of continuous material expansion, numerical growth, and academic progress. In 1854 the society volun- tarily opened its doors to non-Wykehamist com- moners, whose increasing numbers soon called for the new buildings, the first block of which was opened in

1873-

We take our leave of the College with a glance at one or two of the quaint customs which have un- fortunately, if inevitably, disappeared in the course of the process of modernization.

Down to 1830, or a little later, the College was summoned to dinner by two choir-boys who, at a stated minute, started from the College gateway, shouting in' unison and in lengthened syllables — " Tem-pus est vo-candi- a-manger, O Seigneurs." It was their business to make this sentence last out till they reached with their final note the College kitchen.

On Ascension Day the College and choir used to go in procession to St. Bartholomew's Hospital (the remains of which may still be seen on the Cowley road, a little beyond the new church), where a short service was held, after which they proceeded to the adjoining well (Stowell), heard an Epistle and Gospel, and sang certain songs.

At the beginning of the present century the College was still waked by the porter striking the door at the bottom of each staircase with a " wakening mallet." Fellows are still summoned to the Quarterly College- meetings in this antique fashion. //. Rashdall, M.A.

This notice is abridged from a chapter by the same writer in " The Colleges of Oxford," edited by Rev. A. Clark, London, 1831, by kind permission of Methuen and Co.

WOODEN OKNAMENT, NEW COLLEGE CHAPEL. — Pugitl.