Among the great Magdalen men of the past are the names of Cardinal
Wolsey, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Addison, Gibbon, Collins, Wilson, John
Hampden, and John Foxe, author of the _Book of Martyrs_. The
ecclesiastical students included two cardinals, four archbishops, and
about forty bishops; and my brother would have added to the Roll of
Honour the name of our rector, the Rev. Thomas Greenall, as that of a
man who conscientiously tried to do his duty and whom he held in lasting
remembrance.
[Illustration: AN OXFORDSHIRE FARM.]
There was a kind of haze hanging over Oxford, which gave me the
impression that the atmosphere of the neighbourhood was rather damp,
though my brother tried to persuade me it was the mist of antiquity; but
when I found the rivers Thames (or Isis) and the Cherwell encircled the
city on three sides, and that its name was derived from a passage over
which oxen could cross the water, and when I saw the stiff clay of the
brickfields, I was confirmed in my opinion.
[Illustration: HINKSEY STREAM.]
As early as the year 726 a prince named Didan settled at Oxford, and his
wife Saxfrida built a nunnery there for her daughter Frideswyde, so that
she could "take the veil" in her own church.
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