"Sing sweetly, blessed babes that suck the breast
Of this sweet nectar-dropping Magdalen,
Their praise in holy hymns, by whom ye feast,
The God of gods and Waynflete, best of men,
Sing in an union with the Angel's quires,
Sith Heaven's your house."
SIR J. DAVIES.

Magdalen College was founded by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, who had been a faithful minister of Henry VI. He had served as both Master and Provost of the King's own college at Eton (and also as Master of Winchester College before), and from Eton he brought the lilies which still figure in the Magdalen shield. As a member of the Lancastrian party, he fell into disgrace when the Yorkists triumphed, but he made his peace with Edward IV, whose statue stands over the west door of the chapel, with those of St. Mary Magdalene, St. John the Baptist, St. Swithun (Bishop of Winchester), and the Founder. And the Tudors were equally friendly to the new foundation; Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's unfortunate elder brother, was a resident in Magdalen on two occasions, and the College has still a splendid memorial of him in the great contemporary tapestry, representing his marriage with Catharine of Aragon.

To the very early days of Magdalen belongs its connection with the Oxford Reform Movement and the Revival of Learning. Both Fox and Wolsey, successively Bishops of Winchester, and the munificent founders of Corpus and of Cardinal (i.e. Christ Church) Colleges, were members of Waynflete's foundation) and so probably was John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, whose learning and piety so impressed Erasmus. "When I listen to my beloved Colet," he writes in 1499, "I seem to be listening to Plato himself"; and he asks—why go to Italy when Oxford can supply a climate "as charming as it is healthful" and "such culture and learning, deep, exact and worthy of the good old times ?" Erasmus' praise of Oxford climate is unusual from a foreigner; the more usual view is that of his friend Vives, who came to Oxford soon after as a lecturer at the new college of Corpus Christi; he writes from Oxford: "The weather here is windy, foggy and damp, and gave me a rough reception."

Colet's lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, perhaps delivered in Magdalen College, marked an epoch in the way of the interpretation of Holy Scripture, by their freedom from traditional methods and by their endeavour to employ the best of the New Learning in determining the real meaning of the Apostle. To the same school as Colet in the Church belonged Reginald Pole, Archbishop in the gloomy days of Queen Mary, the only Magdalen man who has held the See of Canterbury.

Elizabeth visited the College, and gently rebuked the Puritan tendencies of the then President, Dr. Humphrey, who carried his scruples so far as to object to the academical scarlet he had to wear as a Doctor of Divinity, because it savoured of the "Scarlet Woman." "Dr. Humphrey," said the queen, with the tact alike of a Tudor sovereign and of a true woman, "methinks this gown and habit become you very well, and I marvel that you are so strait-laced on this point—but I come not now to chide." This President complained that his headship was "more payneful than gayneful," a charge not usually brought against headships at Oxford.

In the seventeenth century, Magdalen was, for a short time, the very centre of England's interest. James II, in his desire to force Roman Catholicism on Oxford, tried to fill the vacant Presidency with one of his co-religionists. His first nominee was not only disqualified under the statutes, but was also a man of so notoriously bad a character that even the king had to drop him. Meanwhile, the fellows, having waited, in order to oblige James, till the last possible moment allowed by the statutes, filled up the vacancy by electing one of their own number, John Hough. When the king pronounced this election irregular and demanded the removal of the President and the acceptance of his second nominee, the fellows declared themselves unable thus to violate their statutes, even at royal command, and were accordingly driven out. The "demies," who were offered nominations to the fellowships thus rendered vacant, supported their seniors, and, in their turn, too, were driven out; they had showed their contempt for James' intruded fellows by "cocking their hats" at them, and by drinking confusion to the Pope. When the landing of William of Orange was threatening, James revoked all these arbitrary proceedings, but it was too late; he had brought home, by a striking example, to Oxford and to England, that no amount of past services, no worthiness of character, no statutes, however clear and binding, were to weigh for a moment with a royal bigot, who claimed the power to "dispense" with any statutes. The "Restoration" of the Fellows on October 25, 1688, is still celebrated by a College Gaudy, when the toast for the evening is jus suum cuique .

Hough remained President for thirteen years, during most of which time he was bishop—first of Oxford and then of Lichfield. He finally was translated to Worcester, where he died at the age of ninety-three, after declining the Archbishopric of Canterbury. His monument, in his cathedral, records his famous resistance to arbitrary authority.

Magdalen in the eighteenth century has an unenviable reputation, owing to the memoirs of its most famous historian, Edward Gibbon, who matriculated, in 1752, and who describes the fourteen months which elapsed before he was expelled for becoming a Roman Catholic, "as the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life." The "Monks of Magdalen," as he calls the fellows, "decent, easy men," "supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder." It should be added that Gibbon was not quite fifteen when he entered the College, and that his picture of it is no doubt coloured by personal bitterness. But its substantial justice is admitted. Certainly, nothing could be feebler than the Vindication of Magdalen College , published by a fellow James Hurdis, the Professor of Poetry; his intellectual calibre may perhaps be gauged from the exquisite silliness of his poem, "The Village Curate," of which the following lines, addressed to the Oxford heads of houses, are a fair specimen:

"Ye profound
And serious heads, who guard the twin retreats
Of British learning, give the studious boy
His due indulgence. Let him range the field,
Frequent the public walk, and freely pull
The yielding oar. But mark the truant well,
And if he turn aside to vice or folly,
Show him the rod, and let him feel you prize
The parent's happiness, the public good."

Magdalen might fairly claim that a place so beautiful as it is, justifies itself by simply existing, and the perfection of its buildings and the beauty of its music must appeal, even to our own utilitarian age. But it has many other justifications besides its beauty; its great wealth is being continually applied to assist the University by the endowment of new professorships, especially for the Natural Sciences, and to aid real students, whether those who have made, or those who are likely to make, a reputation as researchers. It is needless to mention names: every Oxford man and every lover of British learning knows them.