The more eminent Brasenose men who belong to this period are: Alexander Nowell, Fellow and Principal, Dean of St. Paul’s (matr. 1521); John Foxe, the Martyrologist (_c._ 1533); Sampson Erdeswick, the historian of Staffordshire (1553); Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor Ellesmere (_c._ 1556); Sir Henry Savile, afterwards Warden of Merton (1561); John Guillim, the herald (_c._ 1585); Robert Burton, the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1593); Sir John Spelman, the antiquary (1642); Elias Ashmole, the herald, founder of the Ashmolean Museum (1644); and Sir William Petty (1649). V. BRASENOSE IN MODERN TIMES. The period from the Restoration to 1800 was in Oxford as elsewhere marked rather by the excellence of individuals than by a high standard of general culture. In the first part of the period Brasenose is not especially distinguished, except by an undue prominence in the records of the Vice-Chancellor’s Court; but as we approach the close of the eighteenth century there are signs of a period of great prosperity, which distinguished the headships of Cleaver, Hodson and Gilbert, the first and last of whom were Bishops of Chester (then of Bangor, and finally of St. Asaph) and Chichester respectively. The signs of this are unmistakable. The numbers show an unusual increase, and the College is in the front both in the class-lists and in outdoor sports. The high-water mark was perhaps reached when the story could be told of Dr. Hodson (in about 1808), which is related in Mark Pattison’s _Memoirs_. “Returning to College, after one Long Vacation, Hodson drove the last stage into Oxford, with post-horses. The reason he gave for this piece of ostentation was, ‘That it should not be said that the first tutor of the first College of the first University of the world entered it with a pair.’ … The story is symbolical of the high place B.N.C. held in the University at the time, in which however, intellectual eminence entered far less than the fact that it numbered among its members many gentlemen commoners of wealthy and noble families.”