er Moslem domination.

Magdalene College at Oxford, founded in the fifteenth century by William
of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chancellor, was one of
the most remarkable of our academical institutions. A graceful tower, on
the summit of which a Latin hymn was annually chanted by choristers at
the dawn of May day, caught far off the eye of the traveller who came
from London. As he approached he found that this tower rose from an
embattled pile, low and irregular, yet singularly venerable, which,
embowered in verdure, overhung the slugish waters of the Cherwell. He
passed through a gateway overhung by a noble orie [289], and found himself
in a spacious cloister adorned with emblems of virtues and vices, rudely
carved in grey stone by the masons of the fifteenth century. The table
of the society was plentifully spread in a stately refectory hung with
paintings, and rich with fantastic carving. The service of the Church
was performed morning and evening in a chapel which had suffered much
violence from the Reformers, and much from the Puritans, but which was,
under every disadvantage, a building of eminent beauty, and which has,
in our own time, been restored with rare taste and skill. The spacious
gardens along the river side were remarkable for the size of the trees,
among which towered conspicuous one of the vegetable wonders of the
island, a gigantic oak, older by a century, men said, than the oldest
college in the University.

The statutes of the society ordained that the Kings of England and
Princes of Wales should be lodged in Magdalene. Edward the Fourth had
inhabited the building while it was still unfinished. Richard the
Third had held his court there, had heard disputations in the hall,
had feasted there royally, and had mended the cheer of his hosts by a
present of fat bucks from his forests. Two heirs apparent of the crown
who had been prematurely snatched away, Arthur the elder brother of
Henry the Eighth, and Henry the elder brother of Charles the First, had
been members of the college. Another prince of the blood, the last
and best of the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury, the gentle
Reginald Pole, had studied there. In the time of the civil war Magdalene
had been true to the cause of the crown. There Rupert had fixed his
quarters; and, before some of his most daring enterprises, his trumpets
had been heard sounding to horse through those quiet cloisters. Most of
the Fellows were di