benefactors were stolen, and went to the melting-pot. Thus
flourished Oxford under Edward VI.

The reign of Mary was scarcely more favourable to letters. No one
knew what to be at in religion. In Magdalen no one could be found to
say Mass, the fellows were turned out, the undergraduates were
whipped--boyish martyrs--and crossed at the buttery. What most
pleases, in this tragic reign, is the anecdote of Edward Anne of
Corpus. Anne, with the conceit of youth, had written a Latin satire
on the Mass. He was therefore sentenced to be publicly flogged in
the hall of his college, and to receive one lash for each line in his
satire. Never, surely, was a poet so sharply taught the merit of
brevity. How Edward Anne must have regretted that he had not knocked
off an epigram, a biting couplet, or a smart quatrain with the sting
of the wit in the tail!

Oxford still retains a memory of the hideous crime of this reign. In
Broad Street, under the windows of Balliol, there is a small stone
cross in the pavement. This marks the place where, some years ago, a
great heap of wooden ashes was found. These ashes were the remains
of the fire of October 16th, 1555--the day when Ridley and Latimer
were burned. "They were brought," says Wood, "to a place over
against Balliol College, where now stands a row of poor cottages, a
little before which, under the town wall, ran so clear a stream that
it gave the name of Canditch, candida fossa, to the way leading by
it." To recover the memory of that event, let the reader fancy
himself on the top of the tower of St. Michael's, that is,
immediately above the city wall. No houses interfere between him and
the open country, in which Balliol stands; not with its present
frontage, but much farther back. A clear stream runs through the