|THIS College," wrote Fuller the historian, in words which Exeter men
will approve, "consisteth chiefly of Cornish and Devonshire men, the
gentry of which latter, Queen Elizabeth used to say, were courtiers by
their birth. And as these western men do bear away the bell for might
and sleight in wrestling, so the scholars here have always acquitted
themselves with credit in _Palaestra literaria!'_
The western College was founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon, Bishop
of Exeter, who twelve years later met his death as a supporter of Edward
II., when that king was overthrown and murdered. A later and liberal
patron was Sir William Petre, father of Dorothy Wadham, a statesman of
the Tudor period. Of the ancient buildings of Exeter hardly anything
remains. The Hall dates from the seventeenth century, the fronts to the
Turl and Broad Streets from the nineteenth. The present Chapel is the
third in which Exeter men have worshipped. Designed by Sir Gilbert Scott
on the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, it is certainly the most
attractive of the College buildings. Its interior is richly decorated,
and contains a tapestry representing "The Visit of the Magi," the work
of Burne-Jones and William Morris, formerly undergraduates of Exeter.
[Illustration: 0120]
[Illustration: 0121]
Among interesting members of this Foundation may be cited Dr.
Prideaux, Rector from 1612 to 1642, who began residence at Exeter as
a kitchen-knave, and lived to be a Bishop; the first Lord Shaftesbury,
Dryden's "Achitophel"; the Marquis of Winchester, a loyal Cavalier,
whose epitaph by the same poet may be read in Englefield Church,
Berkshire; William Browne, author of _Britannia's Pastorals_; and Sir
Simon Baskerville (ob. 1641), an eminent physician, who would take no
fee from any clergyman under the rank of dean. The Fellows' Gardens, a
secluded and beautiful spot, contains two noted trees, a large chestnut
known as "Heber's Tree," from the fact that it overshadowed his rooms
in Brasenose, and "Dr. Kennicott's Fig Tree." Dr. Kennicott, the great
Hebrew scholar, regarded this tree as peculiarly his own. During his
proctorate, some irreverent undergraduates stole its fruit, upon
which Dr. Kennicott caused a board to be hung upon it, inscribed
"The Proctor's Fig." Next morning it was discovered that someone had
substituted the audacious legend, "A fig for the Proctor."
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