Bathurst was well known in the best society of his day; and his reputation, together with the traditions of the families mentioned above, attracted to Trinity in his time a large number of gentlemen-commoners of high rank. John Evelyn, for instance, whose elder brother George was a commoner in 1633, took pains to place his eldest son under his care. The University was sinking into the intellectual torpor of the eighteenth century, and we find few men of learning educated at Trinity for 100 years; the best known were Arthur Charlett the antiquarian, and William Derham, an ingenious writer on natural religion. Among the commoners were Lord Chancellor Somers, Wm. Pierrepoint Earl of Kingston, the second Earl of Shaftesbury, Sir Chas. O’Hara Lord Tyrawley, Commander-in-chief in Ireland, Spencer Compton Earl of Wilmington (the Prime Minister _faute de mieux_), Allen Earl Bathurst, Cobbe Archbishop of Dublin, and the heads of the families of Abdy, Broughton, Wallop, Reade, Gresley, Trollope, Shelley, Knollys, Hall, Clopton, Topham, Lennard, Dormer, Napier (of Luton-Hoo), Curzon, Shirley (Ferrers), Herbert (Herbert of Cherbury), Cobb, Bridgeman, Jodrell, Boothby, Jenkinson, and Shaw of Eltham, and many others long connected with Trinity. In 1685, some undergraduates, under the command of Philip Bertie, volunteered against Monmouth; they drilled in the Grove, and the College paid for the keep of some horses (“Pro avenis in usū Coll. pro equo Mri. Praesidis ad militiā mutuato, 12_s._” Comp. 1685). In Bathurst’s time there appears to have been some connection with the West of England, Guernsey, Wales, and South Ireland, and in the next century a large number of entries from the West Indies are found; but on the whole Trinity continued to draw mainly on the southern Midlands, especially Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. To receive the increased numbers Bathurst almost rebuilt the college, partly from the revenues increased by the rise in the value of land, partly from contributions skilfully extracted from his old pupils and friends, and partly from his private means, on which he drew with great liberality. His chief works were the north wing of the garden quadrangle (nearly the first Palladian work in Oxford) in 1665; the west side in 1682, both from Wren’s designs; the Bathurst building, now replaced by the new president’s house; the new kitchens, &c.; and the present chapel, with the tower and gateway, from Aldrich’s plans corrected by Wren, in 1691-4. He spent £2000 on the shell, and the fittings with the carving by Gibbons were supplied by subscriptions. In his time a Fellows’ Common-room, one of the earliest, was instituted, in the room now the Bursary. Anthony à Wood used to visit it, till his passion for gossip made him objectionable to the fellows.