503
JESUS COLLEGE.
504
During his enforced absence two Principals ruled
the College— Michael Roberts and Francis Howell,
but there is no extension of buildings or endowments
to be recorded, and the former of these two Principals
is accused of impoverishing the College by embezzling
its scanty funds. Much money and all the silver plate
was sacrificed in a vain attempt to save the Royal cause.
Dr. Mansell was restored to the Headship in 1660,
but owing to " the decayes of Age, especially dimness
of Sight," he resolved to resign once more. The
choice of the College fell upon Leoline Jenkins, who
may be regarded as the second founder of the College.
He was born in 1625 in the county of Glamorgan,
and was educated at Cowbridge School, which he
afterwards endowed. He entered Jesus College in
1641, and when the Restoration took place, returned
to residence and (as stated above) was elected Prin-
cipal. He held the post for thirteen years and busied
himself in adding to the buildings of the College,
completing the Library, and most of the western side
of the inner quadrangle. He also took much part in
the business of the University, being of singular use to
it from his skill in French and other modern languages.
He found the University too narrow a field for his
great talents and resigned his Principalship in 1673.
He then devoted himself to the public service, and
rose to be Judge of the High Court of Admiralty and
Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Ambassador and
Plenipotentiary for the General Peace at Cologne and
Nimeguen, and Secretary of State to King Charles II.
He was made a Knight and became Burgess for his
own University.
But amid the successes and distinctions of his later life he did not forget the College of which he had been Head, and at his death in 16S5 he bequeathed to it almost the whole of his property. His body was conveyed to Oxford, and after a public funeral, was interred in the College Chapel. A marble slab covers his grave and bears a long Latin inscription supposed to have been written by his old friend Dr. Fell, Lord Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church. His portrait, painted at Nimeguen, hangs in the College Hall.
During the period ending with the close of the seventeenth century many distinguished names appear on the books. Bishop Andrews has already been mentioned, and we find that in 1644 James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, was resident in and a member of the College. Among laymen we find James Howell (1013), writer of the Familiar Letters, a book which Thackeray is said always to have had by him. Henry Vaughan, "The Silurist" (1638), a religious poet of rare merit ; his brother, Thomas Vaughan ; Eugenius Philalethes, an eminent writer, philosopher and chemist; Sir William Williams (1688), a very eminent lawyer, Speaker of the House of Commons, Solicitor and Attorney General. Among Welsh literati we find Rees Prichard (1602), the author of one of the best known books in Wales — Camvyll y Cymru ; Dr. John Davies, a Welsh scholar and grammarian ; Edward Llwyd (1682), a celebrated antiquary and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum ; David Powell, a learned divine ; John Wynne, Prin- cipal of the College, who afterwards became Bishop successively of St. Asaph and of Bath and Wells. It would be tedious to go through the list of distinguished men who adorned the College during the first hundred and thirty years of its existence.
The eighteenth century in Jesus College, as in
others, presents a great contrast in interest. At its
commencement (1713) the buildings were completed
by the addition of the staircase at the north-west
corner of the inner quadrangle. Some valuable bene-
factions were received, the most important of which
was the Meyricke Fund, left in trust to the College
by the Rev. Edmund Meyricke, who, like the original
founder of the College, was treasurer of the cathedral
church of St. David's. This Fund has supplied Ex-
hibitions and, since 1882, Scholarships confined to
natives of Wales. Among the distinguished men of
this period may be mentioned Thomas Charles B.A.
(1779), founder of the sect of Calvinistic Methodists ;
David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr), an eminent Welsh
poet ; Goronwy Owen, one of the great names in
Welsh literature ; James Bandinel, the first Bampton
Lecturer. Very different from these was Richard
Nash, best known as Beau Nash, for fifty years
Master of the Ceremonies and leader of fashion in Bath.
In the nineteenth century no addition has been made to the buildings of the College, but the east front has been altered in character by the building of a gate-way tower and refacing of the exterior wall. This was done in 1856 from the designs of Messrs. Buckler, of Oxford. The effect is good, though many antiquarians regret the disappearance of the old Jacobean gateway, which was itself an improvement on the original plain entrance to the College. The interior of the Chapel was restored in 1864, and though the new work is generally in good taste, it is not in harmony with the fine old screen, and some features of the original character of the building have been lost or obscured. The Library contains a number of volumes of more interest to the antiquarian than to the modern student, but it is well supplied with the best works on Celtic languages and antiquities. A valuable collection of manuscripts has been removed to the Bodleian Library. The best known of these is the Llyfr Coch, the famous Red Book of Hergest, containing a collection of Welsh legends and poetry which is gradually being edited by Professor Rhys and Mr. Evans. Among the pictures of the College may be mentioned one of Queen Elizabeth, by Zucchero, of great artistic merit, a picture of Hugo Price, said to be by Holbein, a Vandyke of Charles I., a Lely of Charles II., and the portrait of Sir Leoline Jenkins.
In the latter part of this century two Commissions (1857 and 1882) have reviewed and remodelled the constitution of the College. Half the Fellowships have been thrown open by the one, half the Scholar- ships by the other ; and some old privileges and restrictions have been swept away. Still much remains, and a real connection (which is unknown elsewhere in Oxford), exists between the College and the district which the Founder meant to benefit. It is to be hoped that the futility of reducing all educa- tional institutions to the same level and pattern of uniformity is at last apparent, and that the College will, for the future, be left free to continue the duties which, in the past, have been successfully performed.
Llewelyn Thomas, Vice-Principal of Jesus College.
For a fuller account of the College by the same author, see The Colleges of Oxford, edited by A. Clark, M. A. Methuen & Co., 1892.
