conveys an oblique censure on the bishop. We are told that he got the priory settled on his college, though the founder had carefully forbidden such alienation: but we are not told, what is equally true, that the institution of Peter de Rupibus, after languishing for a long period, had finally expired; and that the revenues of his priory, if they had not been appropriated to a college, must have been diverted to some other, probably to a more unworthy purpose. Add too, that his principal end in the endowment, which was to have the benefit of masses and prayers for his soul, and which had been frustrated at Seleburn, was better answered and secured by the transfer to Magdalen college, where they continued to be celebrated until the Reformation, and where Peter de Rupibus is still commemorated.

We may further remark here, it has been asked "," who has ever blamed Chicheley, Waynflete, and other excellent men and

66

• "Firmiter inhibentes, ne quis eorum possessiones invadere vi " vel fraude vel ingenio malo occupare audeat, vel etiam retinere." Mon. Angl. t. ii. p. 343.

P A. Wood, p. 247. 37 Hen. VI. For North Ingleby, Saltfletby, Somercotts, &c. Waynflete paid £300. to Gervas Clyfton, knt. Index, p. 34.

66

"munificent founders, for erecting and endowing their colleges on the ruins, and "with the spoils, of the alien monasteries "which had been confiscated?" Waynflete, it is apprehended, is introduced without reason, not having been, as far as I have discovered, of that number.

CHAP

SECT. I.

CHAPTER X.

Of Magdalen College, Oxford.

THE

HE scandalous lives of the monastic clergy, were a topic largely insisted on by Wickliffe and his followers. The visitations of his diocese by Waynflete as ordinary, had furnished him with evidence of their bad conduct, and its influence on his mind is explained by his own pen. He relates, that he had carefully inspected the traditions of the ancient fathers, and the various approved rules of the saints; and that he had been grieved, on a survey of their numerous professors, to find the institutions were no longer observed, as formerly, according to the intention of the founders; that, disturbed on this account, he had seen clearly, it were better for him to dispense his temporal goods with his own hands to the poor, than to appropriate and

a Lib. Statut. in fine.

confirm

confirm them in perpetuity to the uses of the imprudent, bringing danger on the souls of many by their violating his ordinances : but after long wavering, and most devoutly invoking the divine assistance, he had fixed his eyes inflexibly on the affording of aid and relief to poor scholars, clerks, living in the schools; with a firm hope that men of letters and science, fearing God, would, before others, observe his statutes; and had finally determined to lighten the burthen of their necessities, by lending to it the assistance of compassion to the best of his ability. With these sentiments, confiding in the great Maker of all things, who knows, directs, and disposes the wishes of those who trust in him, he resolved, out of the goods which the favour of his plenitude had bestowed on him in abundance, to establish, by royal and apostolic authority, one perpetual college, to be called St. Mary Magdalen college, in the university of Oxford, for poor and needy scholars, clerks; who should be required to study, and make proficiency in divers sciences and faculties; to the praise and glory and honour of Christ, his virginmother, the blessed St. Mary Magdalen, St. John Baptist, the apostles Peter and Paul,

Paul, St. Swithin the Confessor, and the other saints patrons of the cathedral of Winchester, and of all saints; for the maintenance and exaltation of the Christian faith, for the profit of the church, and for the augmentation of divine worship, and of the liberal arts, sciences and faculties ".

Waynflete expended a considerable sum on the embattled wall d now inclosing the grove, the alterations of the hospital, and the fabric of his college; which has undergone some changes in a long series of years, not to mention the additional buildings; but still exists a curious monument of the age in which it was erected.

The portal or grand entrance of the quadrangle is decorated with the statues of the two founders of the hospital and college, and of their patron-saints; Waynflete kneeling in prayer; king Henry the Third; Mary Magdalen; and St. John Baptist. These all again occur, in small but elegant figures, over the great or western door of the chapel; Waynflete kneeling as before, and as he is

b Lib. Statut. in initio.

See account preserved in a chest in the lower room of the Tower.

d A. Wood. Gutch, p.310.

represented