United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A perusal of the register shows that in Wadham both of the great parties in Church and State were represented. There were represented also all classes of society, from Dymokes, Herberts, Russells, Portmans, Strangways, to the humblest plebeiorum filii, a fact which proves the falsity of the assertion made forty years ago, that Oxford was once a place for "gentlemen only."
Sir CHARLES SEDLEY, Bart. This gentleman, who obtained a great name in the world of gallantry, was son of Sir John Sedley, of Aylesford in Kent. When our author was about the age of 17, he became a fellow of Wadham college 1656, but he took no degree. When he quitted the university, he retired into his own country, and neither went to travel nor to the inns of court.
His refusal to dine with the commissioners on the day of the Magdalen expulsion is described thus by Macaulay:—"I am not," he said, "of Colonel Kerke’s mind. I cannot eat my meals with appetite under a gallows." The brave old Warden of Wadham was not left to "eat his meals" much longer in his beautiful college hall.
They had the benefit of two and a half centuries' experience of national and academical life to guide them: Nicholas Wadham foresaw things and needs not foreseen or understood by his contemporaries or predecessors.
Enough has been said to prove that Wadham under Wilkins was a college of high reputation and efficiency. It was a nursery of bishops, contributing to the bench no less than six, including Wilkins himself; a nursery also of Fellows of the Royal Society, Wilkins, Ward, Rooke, Wren, Sprat, and Pope were original members of the "invisible college."
And yet it was only as private souls that Ellis and Mitchell and Monier-Owen counted. Each by himself did good things; each, if he had the courage to break loose and go by himself, might do a great thing some day. Even George Wadham might do something if he could get away from Ellis and the rest. Edward Rivers had had courage. Michael thought: "It's Rivers now.
To-night, round and about Morton Ellis, the young poet, were Austen Mitchell, the young painter, and Paul Monier-Owen, the young sculptor, and George Wadham, the last and youngest of Morton Ellis's disciples. Lawrence Stephen stood among them like an austere guest in some rendezvous of violent youth, or like the priest of some romantic religion that he has blasphemed yet not quite abjured.
His portrait hangs in Wadham College Hall, beneath that of Robert Blake. Less known is Thomas Sprat, admitted Scholar of Wadham in 1651. Of him Wood says that he was "an excellent poet and orator, and one who arrived at a great mastery of the English language." His reputation does not rest on his poetry: he was known by the strange and dubious title of "Pindarick Sprat."
"I care little for the glory," observed the Doctor, who was Warden of Wadham College; "I care very little for any earthly glory: but canst tell me where the wisdom is gone the wisdom, Jew, the wisdom! Where is that to be found?" "Usually at the College of Wadham," replied the crafty Robin, bowing respectfully, "though sometimes it wanders abroad to enlighten England."
Wadham, I never held 'em!" "He only meant, mother dear, that " "Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds."
Word Of The Day