BENEFACTORS: SHEPPARD; CLEOBUREY.

305

Turville (1799). Dr Smyth died Oct. 19, 1809. His portrait in the Hall, by H. Howard, R.A., is said to have been painted from Dighton's caricature. It was bought in 1811 'out of Tesdale and Wightwick funds.'

Mrs. SOPHIA SHEPPARD, widow of the Rev. Thos. Sheppard, D.D. (of Amport, Southants, sometime Fellow of Magdalen), a sister of Dr. Martin Routh, gave, May 7, 1846, £12,000 three per cent. Bank Annuities, for two Fellows, to study law or medicine, and not bound to residence. The foundress was to nominate the first two Fellows. Afterwards they were to be elected by the Master, the Vicegerent, and the four senior Fellows present. Marriage, or an estate of £500 a year in land, was to vacate the fellowship. In an address of thanks to Mrs. Sheppard the Master and Fellows say: 'Destined by its Royal Founder to promote the study of law and medicine as well as that of Theology and so to nurture men qualified to serve God in Church and State alike, Pembroke College has owing to the character of its foundations become almost exclusively a seminary for ecclesiastics. Your endowment, conceived in the spirit of wisdom and liberality, promises to restore to it the lustre which it derived in former days from the names of Sir Thomas Browne and Lord Chancellor Harcourt, Sir William Blackstone and Dr. Beddoes.' They ask the favour that her portrait may be placed in the Hall. The reply of the aged lady-she was above eighty years of age—is an admirable specimen of the old high-bred courtly and delicate style of composition. In it she says: The first idea of endowing Lay Fellowships and offering them to Pembroke College arose from hearing that a young man must take Holy Orders or lose his Fellowship after a very short period.' Mrs. Sheppard's only nominee was a nephew, Mr. Martin Routh.

The Rev. CHRISTOPHER CLEOBUREY, M.A. (son of the Rev. John Cleoburey, of St. Helen's, Abingdon), Rector of Liddiard Millicent, Wilts, and many years Fellow (1820-56), by will dated Dec. 3, 1855, after certain private bequests, gave in reversion after his wife's death £1,000 three per cent. Bank Annuities towards the purchase, when opportunity should offer, of the Wolsey Almshouse; £300 for making a niche over the entrance gateway of the College, and placing therein a statue of King James I'; and, as a further proof of gratitude to Pembroke College, he gave £4,300 Government Stock, £400 thereof to purchase books for prizes to members of the College who should be placed in the first class 'in Literis Humanioribus' or 'in Disciplinis Mathematicis et Physicis,' the residue for the founding of one Scholar

'It has actually been placed in the vacant niche in the Hall tower.

306 HENNEY FOUNDATION; DOROTHEA WIGHTWICK.

ship, open without restriction to persons of under nineteen years, the election to take place on April 22, the Founder's birthday. The 'Cleoburey Scholar' is to receive in money £100 per annum and the remaining dividends of £3,900 in books. Accumulations may be applied to augment these sums to £130 and £30, or to rewarding meritorious but unsuccessful candidates. By a codicil, dated Aug. 10, 1857, the testator gave to the College, in the same reversion, the entire residue of his personal estate, for the renovation or rebuilding of any parts of the College, or in making additions thereto by the acquisition of the Almshouse or otherwise, or else in purchasing and removing the houses on the north side of St. Aldate's Church, and laying the site of them into the churchyard. Mr. Cleoburey died Oct. 29, 1863, and on the death of his wife in 1882 the bequests fell to the College-in all £12,800. £6,000 of this was applied towards the purchase (for £10,000 and the fixtures £1,000) of the Almshouse. The testator 'trusted to the good faith of the Master and Fellows to carry out his intentions. He had built the glebe-house at Liddiard Millicent' chiefly through a desire to benefit his beloved College.'

Certain relatives and friends of the Rev. THOMAS FREDERICK HENNEY, M.A., Fellow and Tutor, who died in 1859, to testify to his services and do honour to his memory, subscribed a sum of money to found a Scholarship, to be called the Henney Scholarship, subject to such conditions and regulations as the College shall from time to time determine. Its annual value is, at present, £90. The first Henney Scholar (1863) was WILLIAM BALLYMAN HULL, long Chairman of the Norwich School Board. JOHN HARROWER, Professor of Greek at Aberdeen University, and ALBERT EARNSHAW, Fellow of Durham, were later Scholars on this foundation.

Mrs. DOROTHEA WIGHTWICK (third daughter of Richard Fryer, Esq., M.P., of the Wergs, Staffordshire), who married, in 1829, Stubbs Wightwick, Esq., J.P. and D.L., of Great Bloxwich, Staffs., and Capel Court, Cheltenham, gave, May 16, 1889, £5,000 to support at least two Scholars. Their stipend has been limited to £90. Preference is to be given to descendants of Mary Morson or of Susanna Thacker, sisters of the foundress, and in the second degree to candidates from Cheltenham Proprietary College. The College was empowered to

In the old Manor House the tragical suicide of a love-sick clergyman took place in 1764. There was till recently a 'priest's hole' behind the altar of the chapel. The Clintons, out of whom came the ducal house of Newcastle, occupied the place from 1105 to 1421.

JOHNSON ON COLLEGE BENEFACTIONS.

307

frame bye-laws regulating duration of tenure, condition of celibacy, and the like, and has excluded married persons, persons over twentyfive, and members of the University of more than two terms' standing. A Scholarship is tenable for two years, renewable for two years more, and, in a special case, for a fifth year. Scholars must attend Chapel, unless extra ecclesiam Anglicanam.

Two characteristic pastels of Mr. Stubbs Wightwick came to the College at the same time, one by Richard Dighton, of Cheltenham, the other (dated 1833) by Albert Burt, of Southampton.

Contributors to the erection of the various College buildings have been, or will be, mentioned in their place.

NOTE.

IN connexion with the subject of Pembroke Benefactors a conversation which took place in 1778 between Johnson and an old fellow collegian, Oliver Edwards', may be recalled here. Boswell describes their meeting in London after fifty years as 'one of the most curious incidents in Johnson's life.' Mr. Edwards, a decent-looking elderly man in grey clothes and a very curly wig, accosted Johnson one day in Butcher-Row with familiar confidence. Johnson remembered him with pleasure and astonishment. However, when Edwards said, 'Ah, sir! we are old men now,' he replied hastily, 'Don't let us discourage one another.' He asked Edwards if he remembered their drinking together at an ale-house 2 near Pembroke-gate, and exchanging Latin verses over their mugs. At this point Edwards made a remark which Burke and Reynolds pronounced an exquisite trait of character:-'You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.' Edwards wished he had continued at College, been ordained and retired, 'like Bloxham and several others,' to a comfortable cure. But Johnson held that the life of a parish priest is not easy. His parishioners are a larger family than he is able to maintain. 'I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.' They clubbed Pembroke memories, and Edwards mentioned a gentleman who had left his whole fortune to the College *. JOHNSON: 'Whether to leave one's whole fortune to a college be right must depend upon circumstances. I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a college to my relations or my friends for their

3

1 Entered June 25, 1729. Johnson had not seen him since 1729. This helps to prove that Johnson was not resident after that year.

2 There is an old inn just opposite the gateway called 'Leden Hall' and one at the end of Pembroke Street called 'The Horse and Chair.' Probably it was the former.

* Matthew Bloxam, matr. March, 26, 1729; from Warwickshire.

4

The Rev. James Phipps, whose bequest fell to the College in this year.

308

RES ANGUSTA ACADEMIAE.

lives. It is the same thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money now or twenty years hence.' On another occasion he said: 'Sir, the English Universities are not rich enough. Our fellowships are only sufficient to support a man during his studies to fit him for the world, and accordingly in general they are held no longer than till an opportunity offers of getting away. Now and then, perhaps, there is a fellow who gets old in his college; but this is against his will, unless he be a man very indolent indeed. A hundred a year is reckoned a good fellowship; and that is no more than is necessary to keep a man decently as a scholar.... Our Universities are impoverished of learning by the penury of their provisions.'

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE LATER STUART PERIOD.

On the death of Parker, the papalist bishop of Oxford, in 1688, 'one Hall, a Conformist in London, who was looked on as half a Presbyterian, yet because he read the Declaration, was made Bishop' (Burnet). This was TIMOTHY HALL, son of a wood-turner who owned some houses in the parish of St. Catherine by the Tower, where Timothy was born. He entered Pembroke Dec. 12, 1654, aged 17, and was 'trained up there under a Presbyterian discipline (which caused him ever after to be a Trimmer)'.' Cheseman was his tutor. B.A. Jan. 15, 1658.

Ejected in 1662 from the parsonages of Norwood and of Southam, Hall thought it better to conform, and became rector of Horsenden, 1668, perpetual curate of Prince's Risborough, 1669-77, vicar of Bledlow, 1674-7, and rector of Allhallows Stayning, 1677. He was curate of Hackney in 1685, and lecturer there in 1688. When James II ordered, in April, 1688, the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience to be read in every church, Hall was one of the handful of London clergy who complied, or at least gave half a Crown to another (the Parish Clerk I think) to do it. His nomination to the vacant see of Oxford, followed by a mandatory letter for his creation to be Doctor of Divinity, caused the deepest resentment. He was consecrated privately at Lambeth, Oct. 7, 1688. When however he arrived 'to take possession of his house at Cudesden, the Dean and Canons of Ch. Ch. refused to install him, the gentry to meet or congratulate him, the Vicech. and Heads to take notice of him, or any Master or Bachelaur to make application to, or take holy Orders from him.' At the next Trinity Embertide there were eighty-four to be ordained. Timothy Bishop of Oxon was then, as 'tis said, in Oxon, lodged at Dr. Lashers house in Pennyfarthing Street, and deputed [Baptist Levintz], bishop of Man, to perform the ceremony in Magdalen Chapel. On Jan. 17, sixteen days before the last day of grace, Bishop Hall took the oath of allegiance to William and Mary.' This Mr. Hall, called by some Doctor, by others Sir, Hall, died miserably poor at [Homerton in] Hackney near London,' April 10,

1 Athenae, ii. 685.

2

Joshua Lasher, M.D., St. John's. Buried in St. Aldate's.