THE history of a hall is to a far greater extent than that of a college the history of its Principal, and the advent of Degory Wheare marks a new era in the history of Gloucester Hall.

A Cornishman by birth-born at Berry Court, Jacobstow, in Cornwall, in 1573-he had matriculated at Broadgates Hall on July 6, 1593. In 1597 he took the degree of B.A., and he became M.A. in 1600. After spending some time as tutor of the Hall, he was elected to a Cornish Fellowship at Exeter in 1602, and to an ordinary Fellowship in 1603. While at Broadgates Hall he had been a tutor of John Pym, and in later years, when he became Principal of Gloucester Hall, John Pym sent his son Alexander to be educated under his old tutor, and himself contributed to the restoration of the Hall.

In 1608 Wheare resigned his Fellowship at Exeter in

order to become travelling companion to Grey Brydges, "the King of the Cotswolds," afterwards fifth Lord Chandos, during a prolonged tour in Europe. On his return to England he remained in the service of Lord Chandos, and the connection was only broken by the death of his patron, on August 10, 1621. Chandos had been a friend of Thomas Allen, and it was doubtless this fact that now brought Degory Wheare and his wife to take up their lodgings in Gloucester Hall on the death of his patron. At first he occupied no official position, but was simply a tenant of John Hawley, the Principal. Soon afterwards, however, he attained a post which gave him dignity in the University, and brought credit on the Hall to which he had attached himself.

In 1621 it became known that William Camden was about to establish and endow a lecture in history, now known as the Camden Professorship of Ancient History. On November 19, 1621, Thomas Allen wrote to Camden, recommending Wheare for the post as a man who, "besides his abilities of learning sufficient for such a place, is known to be of good experience, and having sometime travelled, and of very honest and discreet conversation." There was another candidate in the field in the person of Daniel Gardiner, a Fellow of New College, a man of remarkable attainments, if we are to believe his testimonial, which stated that he "remembered everything which had been done anywhere." However, the influence of Thomas Allen was sufficient to secure the place for Wheare.

Of Wheare's personal qualities we know little. Wood says that he was esteemed "by some a learned and

genteel man, by others a Calvinist." That he enjoyed a considerable reputation in the University is undoubted. He published his lectures in book form, and entitled them "De Ratione et Methodo Legendi Historias," a title which was altered in the third edition into "Relectiones Hyemales de Ratione et Methodo Legendi Historias." The book ran through many editions, and was a well-known text-book, even in the eighteenth century. Perhaps his letters to Camden afford the best information as to his character. They are fulsome in the extreme, even beyond the habit of the age. One of them, dated March 12, 1622, is a splendid example of the begging letter of the period. He tells how he has been reduced to poverty by the "profligacy and laziness of a certain cook," and suggests that, unless the laws assist him, he will be indebted to Camden for all that he and his "numerosa proles" eat or drink or wear.

On the

After Camden's death, he celebrated his memory from the chair founded by him in a discourse which, with a collection of laudatory verses by Brian Twyne, R. Burton, and other Oxford notabilities, appeared under the title of "Camdeni Insignia." whole, we seem to observe in him a considerable resemblance to his perhaps more illustrious successor, Benjamin Woodroffe. Each of them was energetic and learned, each of them did great service to the Hall, but each was afflicted by chronic domestic troubles, which detracted somewhat from their dignity, and were apt to give them the air of adventurers among the weightier members of Oxford society.

That Degory Wheare was at first a good Principal

there can be no doubt. From the date of his arrival in College the numbers of the matriculations increased rapidly. From 1600 to 1621 the average number of matriculations had been less than five per annum, and in the last five years of that period they had generally been only two or three; but after Wheare's arrival in 1621 there were eleven, in 1622 there were nine, in 1623 there were eight, and after he became Principal in 1629 there were eleven, in 1630 there were fourteen, in 1632 there were nineteen, and the high-water mark was reached in 1634, when there were twenty-three.

John Hawley was buried on April 2, 1626. On the fourth of the same month Degory Wheare was admitted to succeed him, a fact which shows that he had for some time been regarded as his natural successor. His first task in his new office was to restore the buildings, which must have been in a sad state of dilapidation. A manuscript written on vellum in the College library, one of the few memorials the College possesses of its Gloucester Hall days, records the progress of the scheme. The volume was commenced in 1630. Its Latin preface calls to mind some of the letters relating to that early chapel of Gloucester College, which had now fallen into ruins. It speaks of the chapel like the original chapel jamdudum inchoatum. It had been projected as long ago as 1608. The Principal and students, "trusting in Divine assistance," had finished it, and they were anxious to immortalize the memory of those who had contributed towards the completion of the work. The record of donations to the Hall was carefully kept up to 1640. But here there is a lacuna. No doubt Wheare's energies were failing him, and there are at

this date other signs that he was unequal to the government of the Hall.

The record is taken up again by Tobias Garbrand in 1653, with a reference to the Civil Wars, which had treated "the halls in so uncivil a manner.” He expressed his intention of carrying on the Hall in the same way as previously, as far as that was possible; but he was not able to continue the spirit of the founder of the book. His handwriting, rough and illegible, the handwriting which as a doctor he had doubtless used, according to immemorial tradition, in the penning of prescriptions, affords a striking contrast to the beautiful and careful penmanship of Degory Wheare. Very soon the book drops altogether, and there is no further entry till 1695.

Benjamin Woodroffe, energetic in this as in most things, takes up the pen in the severe classical handwriting which has survived almost to the present day to record two gifts of peculiar interest, no less than the gift of Vol. I. of the Philosophical Transactions, and "Heydon's Astrological Discourses," by John Aubrey, to the library. There were two more entries, and then a half-finished entry, and the record ends. Doubtless Dr. Woodroffe was too busy with his Greek students to pay any more attention to it.

The subscriptions collected in this way for the chapel in 1630 amounted to £96 10s. There were certain regular payments made by members of the College, and certain payments made by strangers. A Master of Arts on being admitted invariably paid £3 to the fund, and a Bachelor of Arts £1, on taking this degree. A member of the Hall who was admitted inter com