He finally
was translated to Worcester, where he died at the age of ninety-
three, after declining the Archbishopric of Canterbury. His monument,
in his cathedral, records his famous resistance to arbitrary
authority.
Magdalen in the eighteenth century has an unenviable reputation,
owing to the memoirs of its most famous historian, Edward Gibbon, who
matriculated, in 1752, and who describes the fourteen months which
elapsed before he was expelled for becoming a Roman Catholic, "as the
most idle and unprofitable of my whole life." The "Monks of
Magdalen," as he calls the fellows, "decent, easy men," "supinely
enjoyed the gifts of the founder." It should be added that Gibbon was
not quite fifteen when he entered the College, and that his picture
of it is no doubt coloured by personal bitterness. But its
substantial justice is admitted. Certainly, nothing could be feebler
than the /Vindication of Magdalen College/, published by a fellow
James Hurdis, the Professor of Poetry; his intellectual calibre may
perhaps be gauged from the exquisite silliness of his poem, "The
Village Curate," of which the following lines, addressed to the
Oxford heads of houses, are a fair specimen:
"Ye profound
And serious heads, who guard the twin retreats
Of British learning, give the studious boy
His due indulgence.
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