tch of shooting.' If the
sarcasm is not very keen its preservation in academical memory implies
an impression of distinction in its author. Perhaps as much may be said
for another anecdote of his University career, for which John Aubrey
solemnly vouches, that he borrowed a gown at Oxford of one T. Child, and
never restored it. Bacon's anecdote, in any case, being contemporary
testimony, answers the useful purpose of confirming the reality of
Ralegh's membership of the University, which otherwise would have to be
believed on the faith simply of vague tradition, and of Wood's hasty
assertions. No evidence indeed of Ralegh's connection with Oxford has
ever been discovered in the College or University papers and books,
beyond the entry, a little below the name of C. Champernoun, of 'W.
Rawley,' in the list of members of Oriel, dated 1572. It is printed in
Mr. Andrew Clark's valuable _Oxford Register_. This W. Rawley must have
been, like Champernoun, an undergraduate; for the name has not the
graduate's prefix of 'Mr' or 'Sr.' The presence of the name in the
list, with that of Champernoun, would be known to Wood. He may have
built upon it the whole of his account of the periods both of Ralegh's
admission into Oriel, and his departure after some three years. It would
seem to him reasonable enough that Ralegh should have entered about
1568 at sixteen, and be still in residence three or four years later.
Unfortunately an interlude, put apparently by Wood several years later,
separates 1568 and 1572 in Ralegh's career. His academical course cannot
fill up the gap; and it at once renders the chronology of the _Athenae_
impossible, and that of the Oriel list hard to understand. Ralegh is
known to have been out of England for part, if not the whole, of 1569,
and is believed with good cause to have remained abroad over 1572. There
are ways of explaining the consequent discrepancies. The W. Rawley on
the Oriel list may have been, and probably was, our Walter Ralegh,
retained among the number of undergraduates, though he had ceased to
reside. A century later the name of the Duke of Monmouth, who had
resided for a few months only, was kept on the Corpus books for many
years. Again, to take and revise Wood's reference, Ralegh may well have
entered long before he was sixteen. If, having been, in accordance with
the common belief, born in 1552, he had, like his son Walter, gone up at
fourteen, he would, in 1569, have passed three years at O