Fell, JOHN

Fell, JOHN, Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford, was born 23d June 1625, his father, Dr Samuel Fell (1584-1649), being also Dean of Christ Church, of which the boy became a student at the age of eleven. He volunteered for the king, and with Wallis and two others contrived to maintain Church of England services during the Commonwealth; at the Restoration he was rewarded by being made Canon and four months later Dean of Christ Church, royal chaplain, and D.D. He governed the college strictly, restored its buildings, reformed its discipline, and himself attended divine service four times a day. He was liberal of his money to public purposes and the necessities of poor scholars, and did much to promote learning and the advancement of knowledge. In 1676 he became Bishop of Oxford, without, however, giving up his deanery. He rebuilt the episcopal palace at Cuddesdon, and died in 1686. His works no longer concern the world, but his name lives in the well-known proverb: 'I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,' usually said to be a paraphrase made by Tom Brown, when a student at Christ Church, from Martial's 'Non amo te, Sabidi,' but more likely to be rather his paraphrase of the following version of Martial in Thomas Forde's Virtus Rediviva (1661): 'I love thee not, Nel! but why, I can't tell.'