SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not beefs reserved for review in other forms.]
A Register of the Members of St. Mary Magdalen College„ Oxford. Vol. V., 1713-1820. By W. D. Macray, M.A. (H. Frowde. 7s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Maeray's excerpts from the records of his College continue to be as interesting as ever. The present volume consists of two portions. In the first we have extracts
from the registers and accounts, in the second biographical notices of Fellows and Demies,-every one may not know that "Demy " is the Magdalen name for a scholar. Until the revolu- tion by which the tenure of the fellowship was changed, a Demy could if he pleased remain in this position till one of the fellow- ships for which he was qualified by birth became vacant. Some- times he had to wait for many years, especially when the fellow- ship was held by a layman ; clerics commonly went off to benefices. There is a quite indescribable medley of facts in the extracts. All of them will have an interest for members of the College, and many have a general significance. So we find that up to 1786 it was the custom to read the Gospel during dinner,-does this mean every day? if so, the payment of 6s. 8d. was scarcely adequate. A curious entry occurs from 1785-1810: "Pro custodia eastern de Dover, 43 10s. 2d." Mr. Macray has not been able to discover what it means. In 1785 the porter got 6s. for keeping the gate when George III. came to Oxford. Another mysterious entry is "Smith, pro vend. imag., £1 12s." The editor conjectures it was a commission on selling sculptures from the chapel. There are three other similar entries. One of them has "vend. in usum capellae." There are some sumptuary regula- tions. No gentleman commoner was to spend more than 2s. 6d. on his dinner. There are frequent grants to sufferers from fires, and to the poor of Oxford and other places. In 1792 the College gave £100 to the French refugee clergy. In 1794 £200 was granted "pro defensione Reg,ni interns," and £5 5s. for "pro vests militum in Seigle." The next entry is £827 10s. 7d. for new windows, sixty in number, an interesting illustration of the price of glass in the old days of duty,-nearly 414 per window. In 1802 Demies were allowed to spend thirteen shillings a week in the kitchen ; "when the price of meat is 6d. a pound they are to revert to their former allowance." We might extend these quotations inelefinitely. Of the worthies commemorated in the list of Fellows, the most prominent are Henry Phillpotts, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, and Martin Routh, President 1791- 1854. Henry Phillpotts was matriculated (at C.C.C.) in his fourteenth year, and elected to a fellowship when he was seven- teen, having already won the Chancellor's prize for an English essay. He was Praelector of Moral Philosophy at twenty-three,- in spite of Aristotle, who held, as Shakespeare says, that young men were "unfit to teach moral philosophy." He had a great career, but one which was not wholly without blemish, and he was well paid for it. To his Bishop's income of £3,000 he added a "golden" stall at Durham and the Treasurership and a prebend at Exeter. Of Martin Routh various interesting anecdotes are related. One of them is that his wife proposed to him three times. She was a belle-Mr. Ilacray adds that in old ago the growth of a beard "greatly affected her appearance "-and he was sixty-five.
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