He was elected "demy" (at Magdalen, scholars bear this name)
the first year (1689) after the Revolution, when the fellows of
Magdalen had been restored to their rights, so outrageously invaded
by King James. This "golden" election was famous in Magdalen annals,
at once for the number elected--seventeen--and for the fame of some
of those elected. Besides the greatest of English essayists, there
were among the new "demies," a future archbishop, a future bishop,
and the high Tory, Henry Sacheverell, whose fiery but unbalanced
eloquence overthrew the great Whig Ministry, which had been the
patron of his college contemporary.
Magdalen Meadow preserves still the well-beloved Oxford fritillaries,
which are in danger of being extirpated in the fields below Iffley by
the crowds who gather them to sell in the Oxford market.
Of the part of the College on the High Street, the most interesting
portion is the old stone pulpit (shown in Plate XIV). The connection
of this with the old Hospital of St. John is still marked by the
custom of having the University sermon here on St. John the Baptist's
Day; this was the invariable rule till the eighteenth century, and
the pulpit (Hearne says) was "all beset with boughs, by way of
allusion to St.
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