The case attracted a good deal of attention in the university at the time, and I think the general feeling among the heads of colleges was that Whately was wrong. At all events, without going into the question as between my father and him, it was emphatically a case of _Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi_. From beginning to end the whole matter passed over my head. I had neither fault nor option in the matter. And Whately knew perfectly well how very great was the injury he was inflicting on me. It was nearly impossible to get admission under the circumstances to any college. The great majority of them could not possibly, even if any one of them had wished to do so, receive a man at a minute’s notice, from absolute want of room, and the wrong that would have been done to others who were waiting for admission. But it would have been entirely contrary to the rules and practice of almost, if not quite, every one of them to receive a man compelled to leave another college, even with a formal _bene decessit_. And the interval of a term (or even of a day, I take it in strictness) would have necessarily involved the forfeiture of my exhibitions. All which Whately also knew; but all which, as he might have fairly answered, my father knew also! Eventually I was received at Magdalen Hall, which has since that day become Hertford College, of which Dr. Macbride was then Principal. Dr. Macbride was one of the kindliest and best men in the world, and he was one of those who most strongly felt that I was being very hardly used. It was with difficulty that it could be managed that I should be received into his society at a day’s notice; but looking to the urgency, as well as to the other circumstances of the case, it _was_ managed somehow, and I became a member of Magdalen Hall. But the mischief done to my university career was fatal! Magdalen Hall was at that time a general refuge for the destitute! Dr. Macbride, well known for his active benevolence and beneficence in various spheres of well-doing on the outside of his academical character, was hardly well adapted for the position he held in the university. Anything of the nature of punishment seemed impossible to the gentleness of his character; and I fancy he held theoretically that it was desirable that a place such as his hall should exist in the university to serve as a refuge for those who, without being black sheep, were for a variety of reasons pushed aside from the beaten tracks of the academical career.