In the meantime, Dr Sterne was succeeded by Dr John Pearson, who, after shedding his lustre on several colleges, became Master of Trinity and finally Bishop of Chester. It is fortunate for his various colleges that the honours of this great theologian have been so divided. About this time we come to the revered name of Tobias Rustat (* Lely) Gentleman of the Robes, who was a great benefactor to the college and founded the Rustat scholarships. Even to-day the Rustat scholars of Jesus wear a peculiar gown of their own, differing slightly from the gowns of the rest of the college. Rustat is buried in the chapel, like Dr Ashton at St John’s, and the college has reason to remember his name with the gratitude which Ashton’s liberality excited in Thomas Baker. He may, indeed, be regarded almost as a second founder of the college.
The masters of the eighteenth century were, for the most part, stately and important men who received a great deal of promotion. Dr Charles Ashton, of whom the college possesses two portraits, was master for fifty-one years, from 1701 to 1752. In his time there was at Jesus a whilom famous scholar, Dr John Jortin,* to whom we owe the very careful but extremely dull life of Erasmus. He was a popular divine, and combined the lucrative posts of Archdeacon of London, Rector of St Dunstan’s in the East, and Vicar of Kensington. Dr Ashton was succeeded by Dr Philip Yonge, who was master for six years, and was then made Bishop of Bristol, being eventually translated to Norwich in 1761. His portrait in the Master’s Lodge is said to be by Reynolds. His successor, Dr Lynford Caryl (* from a portrait by Wright of Derby), is remarkable for little save his picturesque name. He, in his turn, give place to Richard Beadon,* who was removed to Gloucester in 1789 and died as Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1824.
When Dr William Pearce (* Beechey) was Master—he was also Master of the Temple and Dean of Ely—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (* from Washington Allston) came into residence. Coleridge was two years younger than Wordsworth, and came up after the elder poet had gone abroad to watch the French Revolution. Less fortunate than Wordsworth, he left Cambridge in 1794 without his degree, in this anticipating Tennyson. Like most poets, he formed few friendships while at Cambridge, and took no considerable part in the academic life of his day. Milton, whose genius was eminently academic, is the exception to this rule. We find it difficult, on the other hand, to look upon Coleridge as an University man, and the same difficulty would occur with regard to Wordsworth, were it not for his minute account of his life at St John’s. Shelley, also, who was twenty years younger than Coleridge, took no degree at Oxford. Nevertheless, the colleges of these unsatisfactory students have, since their death, conspired to honour them, and doubtless to many Jesus men Coleridge is their genius loci very much as Shelley is to men at University College.
Dr Clarke, Professor of Mineralogy (* Opie) was a contemporary of Coleridge who preferred to close his University life in the orthodox way. He died in 1822, when Dr French* had succeeded Dr Pearce in the mastership. The days of ecclesiastical preferment ceased with Dr Pearce, and his successors were content to hold quiet country livings with their mastership. This was the case with the late master, Dr Corrie,* who divided his time between the college and his pleasant rectory of Newton-in-the-Isle. The last ten years of his rule were remarkable for the supremacy of Jesus as head of the river, when the college was full of oarsmen like Mr Shafto and the late Mr Edward Prest. It is matter of history how, when the boat “went down” for the first time in ten years, the Jesus men appeared on the river and the towing-path in mourning. In 1885 Dr Morgan (* Collier), the brother of a celebrated Oxford man, the late Sir George Osborne Morgan, became master, and under him the college, if less successful on the river, has preserved its old reputation. Among the modern sons of the college we should remember Dr Wilkinson,* the present Anglican Bishop in North and Central Europe, originally Missionary Bishop in Zululand, and the Rev. Osmond Fisher,* Honorary Fellow, to whose antiquarian zeal the college is indebted for the excavation of its monastic remains.
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CHRIST’S COLLEGE
Christ’s College