day's work. This Mr. Hastings Rashdall believes to be the origin of the "Breakfast Parties" which Tom Brown and Verdant Green enjoyed so much, and which are still the pleasant fashion in Oxford.
Anthony Wood was in his tenth year only when, in 1641, he went from a Preparatory Latin School to the New College School, "situated between the west part of the Chapel and the east part of the Cloister" (to modernize the spelling). And there he was frequently birched; for in 1641 there was a notion at Oxford that sparing the rod was apt to spoil the college-child, and even the college-man.
Edward Young was to have entered New College as a student upon leaving Winchester, but no vacancy occurred until after he had passed the age limit—eighteen. However, he was accepted as an independent member, in October, 1703, and he resided in the Warden's lodgings until he should be qualified for a Fellowship at All Souls, which he received in 1708, removing for a short interval in the meantime to Corpus Christi.
"Young, during his college life," says one of his biographers, "had much of a sublime genius, though without common sense. So that his genius having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into bombast. This made him pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets."
