UC-NRLF GIFT OF Mrs. M. L. Burton X / OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES By J -WELLS MA Wadham College Illustrated by EDMVND H NEW " And strange enchantments of the past And memories of the days of old." LONDON METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 Essex St. Strand Ninth Edition First Published , . . June jrfyp Second Edition . March 1808 Third Edition fourth Edition . Fifth Edition y ^ J^y 1899 . March 1901 December 1902 Sixth Edition . . Seventh Edition . . . October 1904 October 1906 Eighth Edition . March jgoS Ninth Edition IQIO / Wv PREFACE l*t/0 "QXFORD and Oxford Life," which I ^ edited in 1892 (Methuen & Co.), was an attempt to describe the University as it is ; the present little book attempts to describe it as it has been, but with constant reference to the surviving memorials of the past. Though it is mainly a history, I trust that through the appendices and the index (in which I have mentioned all places of interest referred to), it may be useful as a guide book, especially as I have been careful to mark with an asterisk (*) all the Oxford worthies mentioned who are repre- sented by portraits in the College Halls. I hope, too, that many Oxford men will care to hear the story of the foundations which they love. My obligations to the " Colleges of Oxford," edited by Rev. A. Clark (Methuen & Co., 1891), will be obvious to all, and I hasten to express them. I have to thank many friends for kind assistance in various chapters. But I feel that the success of a book like this depends mainly on its illustrations, and I have every confidence that Mr New's drawings will meet the great success which they deserve. WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD, April 25, 1897. M264550 PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION CVER since "Oxford and Its Colleges" appeared, I have done my best to correct inaccuracies and, where space allowed, to supply deficiencies. I have to thank my reviewers for some suggestions, and for many more friends both in Great Britain and in America. The least that I could do, in return for the kindness with which this little book has been received, is to endeavour to keep it up to date. In the sixth edition were added plans of certain colleges, which are either especially important or especially intricate in their buildings; a new appendix on " Excursions " to places within twenty miles of Oxford, was also added. In this edition I have inserted a new appendix on the arms of the University and the Colleges. My only excuse for writing on a special subject of which I cannot profess a first-hand know- ledge, is that it is impossible to find information as to the heraldry of Oxford in any book which is easily accessible ; yet the arms themselves are most familiar, to all Oxford men and Oxford visitors, and they illustrate in many ways the history of the foundations to which they belong. I have also tried to correct the statements as to the Oxford pictures in the light of the new information on the subject which has been the result of the three recent exhibitions of historical portraits (1904-5-6). WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD, August igo6. CONTENTS :HAPTER PAGE i. OXFORD 3 n. THE CATHEDRAL ... 20 in. ST MARY'S CHURCH . . 31 iv. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE . . 46 v. BALLIOL COLLEGE . . . 56 vi. MERTON COLLEGE . . 70 vii. EXETER COLLEGE . . , 84 viii. ORIEL COLLEGE . . . 91 ix. QUEEN'S COLLEGE . . . 102 x. NEW COLLEGE . . . 113 xi. LINCOLN COLLEGE . . . 130 xii. ALL SOULS COLLEGE . . 141 xiii. MAGDALEN COLLEGE . 155 * xiv. BRASENOSE COLLEGE . , 177 xv, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE , 184 CONTENTS CHAPTER xvi. CHRIST CHURCH xvii. TRINITY COLLEGE . XVHI. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE . . xix. JESUS COLLEGE xx. WADHAM COLLEGE . xxi. PEMBROKE COLLEGE . xxii. WORCESTER COLLEGE KXIII. KEBLE COLLEGE xxiv. HERTFORD COLLEGE xxv. THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY . xxvi. UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS AND COL- LECTIONS xii LIST OF PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE VIEW OF THE CITY OF OXFORD FROM MAGDALEN TOWER . . Frontispiece HIGH STREET AND QUEEN'S COLLEGE . 5 PORCH OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN . 33 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE .... 47 BALLIOL COLLEGE S7 (From a Photograph by Messrs H, IV. Taunt & Co., Oxford) PLAN OF BALLIOL COLLEGE . . 60 MERTON COLLEGE FROM THE MEADOWS 71 A PLAN OF MERTON COLLEGE . . 75 ORIEL COLLEGE 93 THE LIBRARY, QUEEN'S COLLEGE . 103 A PLAN OF NEW COLLEGE . . 113 NEW COLLEGE . . . 115 BELL TOWER, NEW COLLEGE . . 123 THE SCREEN, LINCOLN COLLEGE CHAPEL 131 (From a Photograph by Messrs H. W. Taunt & Co., Oxford} A PLAN OF ALL SOULS' COLLEGE . 141 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE RADCLIFFE LIBRARY FROM ALL SOULS' COLLEGE . . .143 A PLAN OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE . 155 MAGDALEN COLLEGE TOWER . . 157 THE FOUNDER'S TOWER, MAGDALEN COLLEGE . . . . .163 OPEN AIR PULPIT, MAGDALEN COLLEGE 171 SUNDIAL, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE . 185 A PLAN OF CHRIST CHURCH . . 201 TOM TOWER ..... 203 THE TOWERS OF CHRIST CHURCH . 209 CHRIST CHURCH HALL . . . 215 STAIRCASE, CHRIST CHURCH . . 221 NEW BUILDINGS, TRINITY COLLEGE . 227 ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, GARDEN FRONT . 239 BACK QUADRANGLE, ST JOHN'S COLLEGE 245 THE GARDEN FRONT, WADHAM COLLEGE 259 OLD BUILDINGS, WORCESTER COLLEGE . 277 THE DIVINITY SCHOOL . . . 297 BROAD STREET 315 NOTE The Artist wishes to acknowledge his indebted- ness to Messrs Davis, Hills & Saunders, Soame, Valentine and Wilson, from whose photographs the drawings have, with the two exceptions noted, been made, OXFORD A BOUT the year of our Lord, 727, fir lived in the city of Oxford a prince named Didan " : so Antony Wood begins his charming story of St Frideswyde, the daughter of Didan. Her father built her a church, as the lady, with doubtful saintship, "utterly disliked the notion that she should, being a princess, be subject to her inferiors" (by taking the veil elsewhere). After this Frideswyde took the veil in her own nunnery, but she was not allowed to rest in peace, for, "being accounted the flower of all these parts," she was sought in marriage of Algar, King of Leicester. This " young and spritely prince " would not take a refusal, and even when his ambassadors were smitten with blindness for treacherously endeavouring to carry off the lady, he himself " breathing out fire and sword, intended for Oxen." Frideswyde took refuge in a shelter for swine among the woods at Bampton, but Algar still pursued her, till he, too, was smitten with blindness. She, how- ever, did not return to Oxford for three years. When she returned at last, the citizens " lived, 3 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES if I might say, in a golden age, for no king or e'nemy durst 'approach Oxford." She died in 739, and was buried in her own church, of which a fragment may perhaps still be seen (cf. p. 20). Of this story, mixed as it is with legend, much appears to be true, and round the shrine of St Frideswyde, grew up Oxford. It was a town of importance long before it was the home of a university, owing its prosperity to its position ; for it lies, as its name implies, where " cattle drovers could cross the river and mount the low slope of a gravel spit " between the Thames and the Cherwell. The site was well protected by these rivers and the marshes round the city, and, at the same time, was important as com- manding the break in the hills between the plain of Banbury and the plain of Didcot. Apart from the story of St Frideswyde, the earliest mention of Oxford is in 912, when the great King Edward took, as the English Chronicle says, " Lundenbyrg and Oxnaford, and all the lands that were obedient thereto " : this conjunction of Oxford with London shows its importance. From this period dates the great mound which lies on the right of the tram line as the traveller comes from the station : it is one of the early fortresses which the sister of King Edward, the " Lady of the Mercians,' ' constructed to guard her territories, and may be compared to the similar mound at Warwick. At the Conquest the town suffered severely, as is shown by the significant fact that, in Domes- day, two-thirds of the houses are " waste " and OXFORD pay no taxes; and Robert d'Oilgi, whom William put in charge of the town, mightily oppressed the people of Oxford; a tower of the castle which the tyrant built is still standing. But Robert repented of his injustice, and became a church builder instead of a castle builder : the tower of St Michael's Church in the Corn- marketoften called "Saxon" from its primi- tive character the chancel arch at Holywell, and the crypt and the chancel of St Peter m the East belong to this period, and may well be his work. Through all these changes the citizens of Oxford kept their common pasture, the Port Meadow, which still lies open as a (somewhat swampy) recreation ground to the north of the city. Robert also encouraged the development of Oxford by building the Hithe Bridge, the "landing place" for traffic, the name of which survives in the more northerly of the two roads from the station. . . What brought students to this thriving mediaeval town it is impossible to say, but that there were "schools" in Oxford as early as the first part of the twelfth century is certain. Perhaps they were attracted there in part by the palace of the scholar king, Henry I. (Beau- clerc), which lay to the north-east of Worcester College, pretty much where Beaumont Street has revived the name of the old royal residence. At any rate, Theobald of Etampes, before 1120, had under him "60 or 100 clerks, more or less," and maintained a vigorous quarrel with the monks ; he calls a monastery 7 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES "a prison of the damned, who have condemned themselves to escape eternal damnation." Thus early were Oxford scholars on the side of the secular against the monastic clergy. No doubt the students became more numerous when peace was restored at the end of the stormy reign of Stephen ; Oxford had been besieged by that king, and Maud, the Empress Queen, had only escaped capture by fleeing at night from her starving garrison in the castle, over the frozen river. References to students at Oxford become in- creasingly frequent in the reign of Henry II., and there is good reason to believe that, during that monarch's quarrel with Becket, there was a definite immigration from Paris to Oxford. At any rate, the King ordered all clerks, "as they love their revenues," to return to England, and many seem to have done so, for the motive was surely a sufficient one. If this immigration took place, it will explain the visit which Giraldus Cambrensis paid to Oxford about 1185. That historian had written his "Topography of Ire- land"; "being desirous not to hide his light under a bushel, but to place it on a candlestick, so that it might give light," he resolved to read it at Oxford, "where the clergy of England chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkship." " The readings lasted three successive days ; on the first day he entertained all the poor of the whole town, on the second all the doctors of the different faculties, on the third the rest of the scholars." No wonder he got an audience by this munificent advertising ; but the passage is 8 OXFORD chiefly interesting as showing that, before the end of the reign of Henry II., Oxford was a great centre of students, and that these were arranged in Faculties with degrees. We may assume that it was during the reign of the great Henry who organised the English Constitution that the University began to be organised ; certainly the first mention of it as possessing powers of independent government toincides almost exactly with the great Charter, which is the beginning of national independence ; King John signed the Charter in 1215; in 2 1 4 the Chancellor, the representative and champion of the University, is first mentioned. Nor is the coincidence of time accidental. Eng- lish liberties were wrung from a King whose oppressions had become intolerable ; Oxford liberties were confirmed by a decision of the Papal Legate, because the citizens of Oxford had murdered two students, and relying on John's hatred of the clergy, had refused to make reparation. It was ordered that the townsmen in future were to surrender to the Chancellor or to some other representative of the Bishop, any clerks whom they arrested. The Chancellor derived his authority from Lincoln, for Oxford was in that diocese, and the Bishop was the natural protector of all students as " clerks," but, being more than one hundred miles away, could only protect them by deputy. Hence he delegated his authority to an official in Oxford, who soon, if not from the first, was elected by the students themselves. This period of University develop- OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES ment is illustrated by an interesting church in North Oxford, St Giles, which was consecrated by the great St Hugh (one of whose crosses can still be seen on the west pillar of the north arch of the Tower), and which is certainly one of the earliest instances of lancet work in England. 1 The same cause which had begun the liberties of Oxford, led to their rapid development. The students and the citizens were always quarrelling, as was inevitable in the narrow space within which they both lived. The students complained then, as always, of extortionate prices for food and lodging, and of the dirty and unsanitary state of the town ; the townsmen complained probably with good reason of the lawlessness of the students, and that they abused their privileges as clerks to screen themselves in acts of dishonesty and violence. No doubt both sides were to blame, but the University thanks to its power- ful allies, the King and the Church always got the better in the end, and gained almost complete exemption from the ordinary courts and the right of being tried in their own, the control of the Oxford markets, and strict regulations as to the rent and tenure of the houses which they occu- pied. The city, which had oppressed the Uni- versity in the reign of John was, before the end of the reign of Henry III., itself suffering oppres- sion. The final struggle will be mentioned later. 1 It dates from the end of the twelfth century, though the remains of the old clerestory on the north side of the aisle and the lower part of the Tower, may pro- bably be older. 1O OXFORD The University, then, which had gained all these privileges, cannot be said to have been founded by any single man, whether Alfred (see p. 49) or his successors. It was rather, as its name, unwersltas (guild or corporation) implied, the trade's union of the Oxford masters or teachers, which had succeeded in securing for itself, in a very special way, that privilege of ecclesiastical independence, which all " clerks " claimed, and to gain which, Becket had fought and died. The rules of admission to this trade's union were the earliest rules as to graduation ; just as the journeyman workman was not his own master till he had shown his compe- tence by producing his masterpiece, so the student was not a master of arts till he had satisfied those who were masters already that he was competent to teach. Hence in the modern degree ceremony, as it is performed from term to term, no degree can be given, unless there are at least nine masters present to " make a house." The character of this mediaeval union of teachers was, on the whole, democratic. Any- one could be admitted, even the son of a serf, and there was no examination ; charity, monastic or otherwise, was always ready to help a poor clerk, and when his course of study was finished, a brilliant piece of disputation in the schools might easily win him attention and patronage, and so place his foot on the ladder of fortune. Students like Robert Grosseteste, the great Bishop of Lin- coln, rose in this way from humble rank to the highest positions in England. II OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES As might be expected, a society so democratic was on the side of liberty against the King ; Henry III. found the students of Oxford so troublesome when he was besieging Northamp- ton, that he swore he would hang them all, and he was with difficulty prevented from carrying out his threat. And the Church, too, found that the students whom it had protected could by no means be trusted to obey authority. The reform movement of WyclifFe at the end of the fourteenth century, is only one instance of the freedom of theological speculation which Oxford claimed for itself. But on the whole, the move- ments of Oxford thought were within the pale of the Church. The University was the chief centre in England of the activity of the Friars, especially of the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The followers of St Dominic settled in Oxford in 1 22 1, at first in the Jewry, where the Town Buildings now stand, but afterwards further south ; the name of " Blackfriars Road " is the only trace of them left. Still more famous were the Franciscans, who settled in " the same quarter under the City Wall, in the suburb S. of St Ebbe's Church." In the end they were al- lowed to cross into the island in the river, *.*., the so-called Trill Stream, and to extend the wall so as to include this. The Franciscan priory became a centre from which teachers of theology and philosophy went out into all parts of England, and even abroad. The most famous names are those of Roger Bacon, the greatest name in Oxford science, who dared to say that 12 OXFORD among " the hindrances to grasping truth " was "the example of weak and unworthy authority" ; of Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," the champion of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary; and of the "In- vincible Doctor," William of Ockham, who sup- ported the Civil Power against the Papacy itself. The mediaeval city in which all this intellec- tual activity went on was far smaller, not only than the present over-grown Oxford, but also than the Oxford of the Civil War. Large pieces of the old wall can still be seen, especially in New College Garden and at the back of Long Wall Street; Oxford extended from the Castle in the West to a little short of Magdalen on the East, and from St Michael's Church and the line of Ship Street on the North, to a line drawn South of Merton and through Christ Church on the South ; the wall of Merton garden, in fact, is part of the old wall. It is obvious that within this narrow space, which, moreover, was not all occupied, there is no room for the 30,000 students whom mediaeval writers (cf. p. 61) claim; probably Oxford was never more crowded than at the end of the reign of Edward I., and the number of students at that time certainly did not exceed 4,000. It need hardly be said that in the first century of Oxford history there were no colleges ; the students had no property, and lived in lodgings or in hired halls ; it was only in 1274 that Walter de Merton (p. 75-6) set the example which was so rapidly and generously followed. The '3 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES result naturally was that the students who be- longed to colleges looked down upon the poverty and lack of discipline of those who were outside college walls; in 1420 the University began to check the free admission of all, and in 1432 this restriction was completed by the rule that no student should live in Oxford except under a principal who was at least a master of arts. No doubt order and discipline were improved by these restrictions, but on the other hand Oxford lost in numbers and in sympathy with the mass of the English people. And at the same time intellectual freedom was checked ; Archbishop Arundel, aided by the orthodox King Henry IV., succeeded in establishing his authority over the University (cf. p. 96), and after 1412, all masters were compelled to abjure WyclifFe's heresies. The days of the mediaeval Univer- sity were past ; it needed the new life of the New Learning to revive it. Yet Oxford was in some respects never more prosperous ; at this time the Univer- sity obtained its highest privileges, and finally crushed the city. On St Scholastica's day, February 10, 1354, the citizens had made an attack on the students far more fierce than any preceding one ; there had been a pitched battle in the streets, to which the bell of Carfax (the tower still stands) had called one side, while the bell of St Mary's had summoned the " clerks " ; these at last, overborne by superior numbers, for the citizens were reinforced by the sturdy rustics from the country round, had fled, '4 OXFORD and many of them had been murdered. The result of all this had been that the city was put under interdict, and after a year's delay Edward III. had finally decided in favour of the students, and given them a charter of privi- leges which left the citizens helpless, and made the University officials supreme. And wealth, too, was beginning to pour in on Oxford. It was in 1322 that Bishop Cobham had built the chapel at the N.E. of St Mary's (which still stands, cf. p. 31 ), to be at once a library and a council chamber ; hitherto all University business had been transacted in the other parts of St Mary's, which (though used by the students) belonged to the parish. Just before the Wars of the Roses, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester gave his magnificent library of 600 books. The building which now forms the oldest part of the Bodleian was opened in 1488, the Divinity School beneath it in 1489. The arms of Duke Humphrey can still be seen on the bosses of its roof. The new learning was at first warmly received in Oxford. All the earliest Greek students in England were Oxford men (cf. p. 62), and War- ham, the Chancellor of the University, and Wol- sey were warm patrons of educational reform. Students like Colet (p. 167) and Sir Thomas More (p. 10 1 ) dreamed of reforming the Church without separation, and trusted that reason and scholarship would remove all abuses. It soon proved, however, that the more conservative members of the University, who had resisted the 15 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES study of Greek as leading to heresy, were right from their own narrow point of view ; Wolsey's great new college was found to be a special home of heresy (p. 208). The work of reformation passed out of the hands of Oxford students into those of a Cambridge archbishop, Cranmer, and of others who were far more violent and less learned than he. For a time it seemed as if Oxford itself would perish with the monasteries, for the appetite of Henry VIII. 's courtiers, once whetted for church property, was not easily sated ; but that monarch was a scholar as well as a spendthrift. He told the would-be robbers: "Sirs, I judge no land in England better be- stowed than that which is given to our Univer- sities." The number of students, however, fell off terribly ; the old schools of the University were many of them let for drying clothes, and the shelves of the Library were sold (the books were destroyed by the visitors of Edward VI.) for what they would fetch (p. 302). England has rarely been in a worse plight than it was when Elizabeth ascended the throne, and the state of Oxford reflected that of the nation. The wise and strong rule of the great Queen re- stored both, and the number of students at Oxford steadily rose as the prosperity of England in- creased. But a change was coming over the character of the students. It is in the six- teenth century that Oxford begins to be a rich man's university, though the wise arrangements of founders for the aid of poor students were still partly maintained (e.g., Richard Hooker, 16 OXFORD p. 194). The Queen did her best to encourage work by picking for her service the " eminent and hopeful students," and the consideration that their Sovereign's eye was upon them " did switch and spur on their industries." Such a man was Sir Thomas Bodley (cf. p. 80). This growth of prosperity continued for more than a generation after the death of Elizabeth. The first forty years of the seventeenth century are well called the " Laudian Age " in Oxford, for his was the ruling spirit (p. 247 ) in the changes that were going on. He recast the statutes of the University, and they continued as he had left them for more than 200 years ; hence it is fitting that the Convocation House, Oxford's Parlia- ment house, should remain to this day as Laud built it (p. 299). His changes brought order, dis- cipline, learning, and greater wealth ; the marks of this are seen in the new foundations which date from this period, e.g., The Schools, Wad- ham College and the Botanic Garden (1632, first of its kind in England), and in the rebuilding of old foundations, e.g., University and Oriel Col- leges. At the same time it must be admitted that Laud did not extend to divergencies of ritual the liberty which he was ready to grant to religious thought ; his methods for suppressing his opponents were those of his age. With political liberty he had little sympathy. Hence it was natural that Oxford should be the Royalist capital of England. During the Civil War it almost ceased to be a home of study ; only fifty students graduated B I 7 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES annually ; it became instead a court and an im- pregnable fortress. Only when the Royal cause was hopeless, did Oxford surrender to Fairfax. Though many individuals suffered expulsion, the University generally prospered under men like Conant (p. 88) and Wilkins (p. 262). This prosperity continued for a time after the Restora- tion, though discipline sadly suffered, but with the eighteenth century a dark period begins, when almost all intellectual interest died out in Oxford, except in theological controversy, and when Ox- ford's most distinguished sons, e.g., Gibbon (p. 175), as a rule speak most hardly of her. Yet even at this time there were many brilliant ex- ceptions; Johnson (p. 271), Wesley (p. 133), Lowth (p. 127), are names which would be conspicuous at any time, and they all warmly praise Oxford as they knew her. In one respect it is fortunate that eighteenth century Oxford was so inactive ; but for this most of the relics of mediaeval Oxford would have been swept away ; the plans for destruction, however, as at Magdalen (p. 174), Worcester (p. 276), and elsewhere were often not carried out in com- pleteness ; Queen's is an unhappy exception. Our own day has seen a complete change in Oxford. The new examination statute (p. 224), which came in with the I9th century, stimulated industry and systematized work (the latter perhaps too much). The Oxford move- ment (p. 99) has revived the religious life of Oxford; the wave of democratic feeling has extended the sympathies of the University, 18 OXFORD and has, through two Commissions, carried out changes in the statutes, which often have paid little respect to the wishes of founders. Clerical restrictions have been almost entirely abolished, the marriage of fellows has been permitted, new subjects of study have been introduced and en- dowed, religious tests have been removed, 1 even women have been admitted to the teaching 2 (though not as yet to the degrees) of Oxford. It is fitting that so many and such rapid changes should be reflected in the new Oxford which our own generation has created ; the University, and almost every College, has added largely to its buildings. Though there have been some cruel acts of vandalism, yet more often the additions are really gains to the beauty of Oxford. So we may hope that in spite of all changes, the best of the spirit of Oxford has been maintained, and that her sons, while reaching forward to the changes of the future, may yet prove not un- worthy heirs of the treasures of the past. 1 Both of the Nonconformist halls are in Mansfield Road, which leads N. from Holywell Street. That for orthodox Nonconformists, Mansfield, was designed by Champneys ; it contains an interesting collection of portraits of Dissenting divines. Manchester (archi- tect, Worthington), which lies further S., contains in its chapel some fine Burne-Jones glass ; by adapting some of the old houses in Holywell, a picturesque quad has been formed here, with rooms for students. There are no undergraduate students " resident " at Mansfield. 2 Of thewomen's halls, Somerville lies close to St Giles' Church, Lady Margaret (R. Blomfield) to the N.E. of the Parks. The Libraries at Somerville (Champneys, 1904) and at Lady Margaret (1910) are both fine. 19 II THE CATHEDRAL D UILDINGS The oldest part is the piece ot wall at the East end of the Choir Aisle and Lady Chapel, which may perhaps be part of the original church of St F rides wyde, built in the first half of the eighth century. This church having been burned in 1002, was restored on a larger scale by Ethelred. As to Ethelred's Church there are two opinions : ( i ) Some hold that it perished, and that the present choir, choir aisles, transepts and nave, date from the latter half of the twelfth century. (2) Others hold that in the choir much of Ethelred's work survived, and that the work of the twelfth century was a restoration and an extension, not a rebuilding. At any rate the Chapter House doorway seems to belong to a period not long after the Norman Conquest ; it is therefore either earlier or later than 20 THE CATHEDRAL the rest of the Cathedral. It seems still to bear the marks of a fire, perhaps that of 1 1 90, which much injured the buildings of St Frideswyde. A peculiar feature of the Norman work in the Cathedral is that the piers are carried up through the triforium on the inside. Hence externally there is no triforium, and internally the same arch surrounds both the triforium and the main opening. Early in the thirteenth century the upper por- tion of the Tower was built and the short spire added, being one of the very earliest in England. The Chapter house was also built, and a new aisle was added as a Lady chapel, on the left, f.*., on the North, of the choir aisle. 1 All these belong to the Lancet or Early English style of architecture. Probably this aisle was intended to receive the new shrine of St Frideswyde, of which fragments can still be seen arranged on a stone framework ; to this her remains were translated in 1289. This shrine is interest- ing as the earliest known instance in England of natural foliage in architectural decoration ; this kind of ornament marks the transition to the 1 This was its position at Canterbury Cathedra] : at St Mary's (cf. p. 31) it is on the N. of the nave, ai OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Decorated style of architecture. Probably the oak leaves had reference to the story of St Frideswyde' s taking refuge in the forest (p. 3). In the next century the fourteenth the most northerly of the three choir aisles was completed by adding two more bays. The chapel thus formed was called the Latin chapel ; it was used till recently for the lectures of the Regius Pro- fessor of Divinity. In this chapel there are several points of interest ; the woodwork is partly that of the old Priory church, partly of the time of Wolsey, and partly the seventeenth century work of Dean Duppa, in the time of Charles I. The glass, too, is very interesting ; the first three windows of the chapel are all fourteenth century work ; the big east window was made from a design of Burne Jones to commemorate the story of St Frideswyde. It is, however, too broken in design and too hot in colour to be successful. Finally, of the monuments, the one at the west end is that of Sir George Nowers (died 1425) though the armour would seem to be earlier in date ; the most easterly one is that of Lady Elizabeth Montacute, who gave Christ Church meadow to the Priory of St Frideswyde. 22 I THE CATHEDRAL In the fifteenth century the wooden " watching chamber " was put up, from which a " watch " was kept on the riches of the shrine. The clerestory and the roof of the choir were altered later; there is good reason for attributing the roof with its fine fan-tracery to Wolsey. In all these changes the Perpendicular style was used, and to this also the windows were altered. The present cloister belongs to the last years of the i 5th century. In the sixteenth century, before Wolsey dis- solved the Priory in 1524, the great window at the end of the north transept was inserted, and the roof of the transepts and tower added. Wolsey also swept away the three west bays of the nave, which had once extended to the line of the present quadrangle. In the seventeenth century, the cathedral, which had became very ruinous from the destruction of the Reformation and from neglect, was thoroughly restored by Dean Duppa. One window, that at the west end of the north aisle of the nave, has been left, to show what was the seventeenth cen- tury idea of " restoring an old church : it contains some truly marvellous glass of the younger Van 23 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Linge, representing Jonah and his gourd, with Nineveh in the background. In our own century the Cathedral has been again thoroughly restored by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is more than doubtful, however, whether the term " restoration " can be applied to the sweep- ing away of the great fourteenth century window at the end of the choir, and the substitution of a Norman east end, which is purely Scott's own work. It may be admitted, however, that the effect is very good. The choir, too, has been entirely refitted. At the same time a western bay was added to the nave, repairing in part the destruction done by Wolsey. Among other points of interest in the Cathedral is the tomb of Burton, author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy,'* with a curious inscription ; it is on a column in the north transept; in the nave is the monument of Bishop Berkeley, and in the south choir aisle the tomb of Bishop King, first bishop of Oxford and last abbot of Osney : above it is a very curious seventeenth century window, with a portrait of the Bishop, and a view of Osney Abbey in the background. Still more interesting is the glass 24 THE CATHEDRAL in the east window of the south transept, which is of the fourteenth century; the scene of the murder of St Thomas of Canterbury should be especially noticed. Becket's head has been removed as usual, owing to Henry VIII.'s dislike of the saint. The modern glass in the east window of the south aisle, and in the two chapels to the north of the choir is beautiful ; it is the work of William Morris, from designs of Burne Jones. The big window in the N. transept is by Clayton and Bell. The whole Cathedral, though one of the smallest in England, is full of charm, from its admirable proportion, from the variety of styles, and from the beautiful character of the examples of each. "THE "Cathedral Church of Christ," at Oxford, occupies a double position ; it is the chapel of a college and the cathedral church of a diocese. Before the sixteenth century it was neither of these ; it was the conventual church of a religious body. Probably the earliest foundation here was one of nuns, and dated from the eighth century ; it was then transferred to secular canons, and finally to the Augustinian canons ; but it is not necessary to go into the OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES various changes. A more interesting question is whether the beginnings of the University are to be sought in the cloister school of St Frides- wyde. It was once the general opinion that they were, and there is no doubt that special reverence was paid by the mediaeval University to this saint, and that the University chest was kept at the Priory of St Frideswyde. But there is no trace of any authority over the students being ever claimed by the Priory ; and it is impossible to believe that such an authority had once existed, and yet had disappeared without leaving a trace. The most, therefore, that can be said of the connection between the Priory and the University, is that the teaching in the cloister of the religious house was a cause which brought students to Oxford, and that probably the earliest teaching given in Oxford was given in connection with St Frideswyde. Certainly one of the earliest mentions of students in Oxford is the story of Prior Robert, who about 1170 was cured at the shrine of St Frideswyde. He had been wont from his infirmity to preach sitting to the clerks "from various parts of England," probably the earliest mention of university sermons. Antony Wood records a curious privilege which the canons had received from the Pope. Owing to the cold, damp nature of their site, they were permitted in the winter to wear their caps, even during their devotions. Modern Oxford men will agree with them rather than with Scaliger, who says that he stood the cold 26 THE CATHEDRAL at Oxford "modica indutus toga" ("with only a light coat on"). But the privileges and the wealth of the monastery are merely antiquarian in interest. Wolsey in 1524 swept them into the current of Oxford life, suppressing St Frideswyde's by a Papal bull. He treated the old church itself with as little ceremony as he did its possessors, and intended to substitute for it a magnificent chapel after the style of that of King's College at Cambridge. But this never reached beyond its foundation, being in this respect typical of Wolsey's work as a whole. Meantime the old church, shorn of its three western bays, served as a chapel for Wolsey's students, and in 1528 was the scene of one of the early stories of the English Reformation. The small Lutheran community had been dis- mayed by the arrest of one of their number, Garret, but he escaped from the care of the Commissary, the Rector of Lincoln, and a young student named Dalaber was sent to tell the news to the brethren at Cardinal College. He says : " Even - song was begun. They were almost at the Magnificat before I came thither. I stood at the choir door and heard Master Taverner play but now my singing and music were turned into sighing and musing." While he waited, "in cometh the Commissary bare- headed, as pale as ashes, and to the Dean he goeth in the Choir." In the end the poor Rector was blamed so much " for keeping of his prisoner so negligently that he wept for sorrow/' The OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES whole of the pathetic story can be read in the pages of Mr Froude ; it is only one of the many strange things that happened in St Frideswyde's during the time of the Reformation. In 1546 Henry VIII. made it a cathedral, removing the new bishop's see from Osney, and under Edward VI. the Saint's shrine was actually used for the interment of the wife of Peter Martyr, one of the foreign theologians whom the young King loved, and whose doc- trines he was trying to force on the English Church. The poor lady was not suffered to rest in peace, for Queen Mary's commis- sioners took up her bones and buried them in a dunghill. Finally, in Elizabeth's time, the matron and the saint were once more laid to- gether, " so coupled and mixed " that they could not be distinguished, and the epitaph was added " Hie jacet religio cum superstitione." But it was not only with the dead that Queen Mary warred ; the living, too, suffered for the same cause. It was to the chancel of the cathedral that Cranmer was brought to hear the sentence which the Pope had pronounced on him in mock trial at Rome. He was then led into the cloister to be degraded ; Bonner, who pre- sided, publicly insulted him, but Cranmer rose to the occasion, and proudly demanded what right they, his suffragans, had to try him, their arch- bishop. It was in vain for him to appeal to a General Council ; he was stripped of all his vestments, his hair was shorn, and the sacred 28 THE CATHEDRAL unction scraped from his finger-tips. He was then handed over to the secular arm. It was this kind of treatment, shown to one of the most learned and pious of Englishmen, which made a return to the old state of things impossible ; and the reaction from Mary's cruelties carried the Church of England far in the other direction. Among the extreme Puritans was the new Dean of Christ Church, Sampson, and we can well believe that the fabric of the cathedral suffered under his Puritanism, and during the long vacan- cies of the see. These extended over forty- three of the first sixty years of its existence. Moreover, one of the bishops, John Underbill, a native of Oxford, was actually appointed by Walsingham from a " devotion to the leases that would yield good fines," i.e., to consent to the misappropriation of the property of the see. Hence we cannot wonder that the restoration was taken in hand in 1630 by Dean Duppa, one of the learned and pious men of the school of Laud ; but it was carried out with woeful thoroughness, and old tombs and brasses were swept away. It was to a church thus classicized that King Charles came in 1636, and was re- ceived with the usual courtly adulation ; he heard a sermon on " Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord." It is not strange that he believed that he could act as he pleased, being the Lord's Anointed. Charles was to attend many more services in the Cathedral, for at the end of 1642 he took up his abode in Christ Church, and henceforth OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES the Cathedral was the royal church, where thanksgivings for victories were paid and where the religious enthusiasm of the Cavaliers found its centre. It was natural, therefore, that, when the Puritan army entered Oxford, the windows of the Cathedral were " much abused." With the Restoration the history of the old church loses its varied interest ; henceforth the only battles as to it are the rivalries between the Christ Church men and the rest of the Univer- sity ; for the former contended that they might take their preaching turns there instead of going to St Mary's, and the prescriptive rights of the University Church had to give way. Unfortunately in their struggle for college privilege the authorities of the Cathedral forgot some of their duties as a religious body ; it was only in the time of the late Dean, Dr Liddell (1856), that the Cathedral service began to be conducted in proper style. And in the iQth century Christ Church once more became a great religious centre. It was a battle-ground in the early days of Dr Pusey's life, when among his fellow canons were the latitudinarian Dr Hamp- den and the fighting evangelical Dr Faussett. During his later days he had colleagues more likeminded with himself in Dr Liddon and Dr King (late Bishop of Lincoln), and it was in his own cathedral that he was laid to rest in 1882, where a slab with a long inscrip- tion marks his grave in the nave. Note. A beautiful font-cover has just been put up in St Lucy's Chapel (August 1902), designed by Mr Bodley. ' Ill ST MARY'S CHURCH DUILDINGS. The oldest part of the Church is in "Adam de Brome's Chapel," 1 the north wall of which on the inside may belong to Norman times. Next in date come the tower and the lower part of the spire, which are of the reign of Edward I. The old Congre- gation House and the room above it at the N.E. corner of the church were begun in 1320 by Adam de Bromc, the founder of Oriel College, at the expense of Bishop Cobham of Worcester. The upper room was used as a library, and the possession of it was disputed between the Uni- versity and Oriel College for nearly a century (p. 96). Unfortunately, in the fifteenth century reconstruction, windows were put in which hid the fact that the building consists of two stories. After the books had been transferred to Duke 1 Properly the Lady Chapel. 3' OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Humphrey's library (p. 302), the upper room was used as a School of Law. This building is the only part of St Mary's which belongs to the University ; the rest is a parish church, but has been lent since time immemorial for University meetings, whether religious or secular. As the old church had become ruinous, it was rebuilt in the tatter half of the fifteenth century ; the chancel was first begun in 1462, the nave was not opened till 1498. These are fine examples of late Per- pendicular work. In the seventeenth century the organ was put up by Father Smith in 1624, and the south-west porch, with the beautiful twisted columns, was added by Laud's Chaplain, Dr Owen, with the Archbishop's sanction in 1637. In 1733 the old Lady Chapel on the north side (commonly called Adam de Brome's chapel, because of his tomb being in it) was walled off from the rest of the church, in order to save the heads of houses from cold draughts. In our own century the galleries were enlarged, and the whole of the present woodwork of the nave, including the pulpit, was introduced (1828); the Vice-Chancellor had previously sat at the west end. The pulpit, however, to judge from ST MARY'S CHURCH the attitude of the angel above it, is still in the original position. Some remains of two old pulpits may still be seen near the entrance door on the N. The great west window, one of Kempe's most beautiful works in Oxford, was inserted (1891) in memory of the late Dean Burgon, who was vicar. Finally, in our own day (1895-6), the elaborate and beautiful pinnacles which surround the base of the spire had to be once more renewed. Those put up by Mr Buckler, not fifty years before, had become dangerous, and were removed ; the present ones are from a design by Mr Jackson. At the same time all the old statues were renewed, except that of the saint at the S.E. corner. During the course of the work, a severe storm, in March 1895, damaged the top of the spire, and this, too, was rebuilt. CT MARY'S has always been so closely con- nected with the University of Oxford, that it has, of course, been attributed to King Alfred as a founder. For this story, however, there is no evidence ; and though we know that there is a church of St Mary's mentioned in Domesday, the first rector on record is John of Oxford, 35 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES one of the many churchmen who sided with Henry II. against Archbishop Thomas ; he was afterwards made a bishop. But the interest of St Mary's at this period, and long after, is that it was the centre of the life of the Uni- versity, secular as well as religious ; situated as it was at the end of the old " Schools Street," it naturally became the building which was used by the University for all functions. The early students had no local habitations of their own, but lived and taught in hired halls, and deliber- ated and held ceremonies in borrowed churches. What St Mary's was to the University is sym- bolized by the fact that its bell summoned the students alike to warfare against the citizens, and to peaceful disputations among themselves. The whole church was assigned to different stages of University life. According to a very probable theory, it was in the " Porch " (par- visus) of St Mary's that a man disputed for a year as a " general sophister," this being one of the qualifications for his degree ; a trace of this ceremony survived till 1893 m l ^ e "Testamurs" given to successful candidates in " Smalls," who were said to have answered "w farviso" the questions of the Masters of the Schools. The various chapels of St Mary's were assigned to the different Faculties for their deliberations, and the Congregation of all the Faculties, Regents (/.laced to hear the sermon against him on a low platform just opposite the pulpit 1 (the ledge cut for it may still be seen in the pillar to the left of the Vice-Chancellor's chair). When the sermon was over, he astonished friends and enemies alike by his recantation of his recantation, end- ing with the well-known words "And for as much as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished therefore ; for, may I come to the fire, it shall be first burned." Within a very short time St Mary's was the witness of another tragedy. To it on September 22, 1560, was brought the body of Leicester's unfortunate wife, Amy Robsart, who had died at Cumnor. A public funeral was given her by the University, and she was laid in the choir. The Vice-Chancellor preached on " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," and was bold or careless enough to speak of the poor lady as having been " so pitifully murdered." It is not surprising that he lost the favour of Leicester, whose chaplain he had been. Only one other funeral in St Mary's can be compared to that of Amy Robsart that of the great University bene- 1 On precisely the same spot Mr Newman was wont to kneel before entering the pulpit (on his way from the vestry). 39 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES factor, Dr John RadclifFe, in November, 1714. His body had lain in state for nearly four weeks in London, and was received at Oxford, where it lay in state in the Divinity School for two days more, with all the pomp the University could show. His only memorial in St Mary's is a small stone close to the glass door leading into the chancel ; but it has been well said that Wren's epitaph might be adapted for him " Si quseris monumentum, n?spice." The RadclifFe Library is the noblest monument of this most generous of physicians. Quite early in her reign (1566) Queen Eliza- beth was entertained in St Mary's ; for three days in succession did the learned lady listen to dis- putations for four mortal hours on a September afternoon ; then the Queen " of her benignity concluded the Act with a speech of her own in Latin." She had asked Lord Leicester and her Secretary, Cecil, to do it, but they, like true courtiers, " waved it " and left it to Her Majesty. If Antony Wood may be trusted, the University, about this time, heard a layman preach in St Mary's. Mr Tavern er, the high sheriff of the county, " of pure charity " came and " gave the Academians, destitute of evangelical advice, a sermon beginning " Arriving at the Mount of St Mary's ... I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the Church, the sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet swallows of Salvation." During the century which followed the Re- formation, St Mary's became the battle-ground 40 ST MARY'S CHURCH of the parties within the Church of England. At first Calvinist views were most popular, and when Laud ventured to advocate the Catholic doctrines of sacramental grace and of episco- pacy, he was looked upon as a heretic. He had to sit among the heads of houses, and hear himself abused as a " mongrel compound of Papist and Protestant " by Abbot, the brother of the archbishop : but all things come to him who waits, and before the end of his career, his party was meting out to others in St Mary's the treatment which had been meted out to him. So in 1622 a Mr Hurd was " soundly rattled " for a sermon on Resistance to Kings, and had to recant on his knees in Convocation. Laud left his mark for good on St Mary's, as he did on every institution with which he was connected. His chaplain, Dr Owen, built the beautiful porch with twisted columns at the S.W. of the church ; over it stands the fine statue by Stone of the crowned Virgin and Child. This seemed to his enemies "very scandalous," and Alderman Nixon, a well- known Oxford puritan, deposed that he had seen people worship it. This unlucky statue actually figured in the articles of impeachment against the Archbishop, which at last cost him his head ; but (though defaced at the time) it remains as a memorial of his good taste and of the narrowness of his opponents. The Puritan party saw very clearly the importance of secur- ing the University pulpit ; when Oxford sur- rendered in 1646, they did not trust to the 41 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES efforts of mere ordinary preachers, although the notorious Hugh Peters is said to have forced himself on St Mary's in this capacity more than once. Seven of the best men of the now victorious party were told off to preach before the University, among them Reynolds, the Dean of Christ Church ; even Wood admits him to have been a " good scholar and an excellent preacher," though he maintains that the Puritan divines produced no effect; they made themselves ridiculous by their " wry mouths and puling tones." It is not neces- sary to take this too literally, nor to believe that the intended preachers were in the habit of calling D.D.'s " dumb dogs and idle drones." Whatever the cause, there is no doubt that Oxford students remained fanatically loyal after the Restoration, and largely Jacobite after the Revolution. As an instance, may be men- tioned the sermon of the hot-headed Dr Sache- verell, who on March 9, 1704, preached at St Mary's the Assize sermon on " Schismatical Universities" "which concerning faith have made shipwreck." It went through three edi- tions before the year was out, for men read sermons in those days as well as published them. But it had nothing like the popularity of his London sermons, five years later, on " Perils of False Brethren," which set all England in a flame. Sleepy times, however, were at hand, during which men would not be moved by either religion or politics. It was in such a time that the Wesleys came up to the University ; 4* ST MARY'S CHURCH what the state of Oxford was may be gathered from the fact that Whitfield became a marked man because, with the other " Methodists," he received the sacrament at St Mary's on a week- day. Wesley himself preached for the last time before the University on August 24, 1744. His text was Acts iv. 31: "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The spirit of his sermon may be gathered from the entry in his diary : " I am now clear from the blood of these men I have fully delivered my soul." The Vice-Chancellor sent for his notes, but nothing came of it. It is not surprising that, when the Church was asleep, men thought they must provide elaborate defences for her. It was with this purpose that Dr John Bampton (died 1751) founded his famous lectureship, which has produced so many famous courses, and which has also produced, of recent years, some lectures which would have astonished the worthy founder by their strange conceptions of Christian apologetics ; the first lecture was in 1779. At the time when the Bampton Lectures were founded there were far more University sermons than there are now, and far fewer to give them. It is only since 1819 that sermons ceased to be given during the Long vacation, while they lasted in the Christmas vacation till 1859; and the appointment of "select preachers" to take the places of the ordinary M.A.'s who declined to preach in their turns before the University, is also a change of the last century. The vacant places previously 43 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES were supplied by what were known as " hack preachers " ; their standard may be estimated from the joke of one of them that he was the best paid preacher in the Church of England, because he often got a guinea a head; the fee was ; 4 , 4 s. But the reviving tide of interest in religious matters soon altered this state of things ; in the palmy days of the Oxford Movement the sermons at St Mary's were almost as much discussed as in the seventeenth century. And the pulpit there is inseparably connected with the leading men among the Tractarians ; by universal consent the Oxford revival begins with Mr Keble's assize sermon on " National Apostasy " ; this was delivered on July 14, 1833. The task of reproducing University sermons was imposed by tutors on their pupils within the memory of men yet living; in days when the keenest intellects in Oxford were devoted to theological study, such a requirement was still workable. The greatest name of all at St Mary's is that of Newman ; he became vicar in 1828, and held the post for fifteen years. It was from the pulpit there that he especially exercised his influence in the University ; all that was best in Oxford, in intellect and in character, gathered to hear his parish sermons ; it was said that in some of the evangelical colleges, a "chapel" was placed before dinner, instead of after, as had been the custom, in order to prevent men attending Newman's afternoon service at 4 P.M. Many tributes have been paid to his preaching ; one 44 ST MARY'S CHURCH may be quoted here from a member of Newman's own college, Trinity, who was in every way a contrast to him, the scholar and adventurer, Richard Burton : " There was a stamp and a seal upon him, a solemn music and sweetness in his manner, which made him singularly attractive." He was "monotonous," and "lacked action"; "yet the delivery suited the matter of the speech, and the combination sug- gested complete candour and honesty. He said only what he believed, and he induced others to believe with him." Three years before Newman became vicar of St Mary's, a curious relic of mediaeval Oxford was removed none too soon. Up to that date the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford had had to attend the Litany at St Mary's, and make an offering in commemoration of the brutal massacre of St Scholastica's Day, 1354. Though the old indignities of ropes round the neck, etc., had long been done away with, the city had felt bitterly the disgrace of the commemorative service. St Mary's is still in some ways the centre of University life. Still the first function of " Full Term" is the Latin Eucharist and the Latin Litany on the first Saturday,and still every Sunday morning 1 the Vice-Chancellor goes in state to the University sermon. Oxford is no longer officially a Church University, but she is still a home of " true religion " as well as of " sound learning." 1 The afternoon sermon was abolished in 1901 (it had almost ceased to be attended), and at the same time the right of preaching before the University was lost by ordinary M.A.'s. 45 IV UNIVERSITY COLLEGE *"THE earlier buildings of University have entirely disappeared. The oldest part of the present college is the W. side of the first quadrangle, which was begun in 1634; the N. side on the High Street was begun next year, and the Hall and the Chapel shortly after (in 1639). The E. side of the quad- rangle was not completed till 1674. The N. and E. sides of the smaller quadrangle were built about 1719, though the style of the old building has been preserved. The block to the extreme W. of the college, looking on the High Street, was built in 1843 (Sir Charles Barry, architect), the Gothic lib- rary, from the design of Sir Gilbert Scott, in 1 86 1, and the Master's Lodge, probably the most beautiful modern house in Oxford, was added in 1879 fr m ^ e design of Mr Bodley. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE The interest of the buildings at University lies in the fact that they are one of the best instances of the survival of Gothic in seventeenth century Oxford. The Hall has been greatly improved recently by being lengthened (1903), and by the uncovering of the fine timber roof (1904) ; the new windows (Powell) are good. The Chapel and the Hall were refronted in Gothic style in 1800. In 1802 the Chapel received its vaulted roof, though the general decoration is still Grecian ; the arcade round the sanctuary was added by Sir G. Scott in 1862 ; the windows, made by the younger Van Linge, are among the best specimens of iyth century glass in Oxford. The fine Elizabethan carving of University Hall (rebuilt 1902 by Moore) is now in the Common Room. A gallery joins (1905) the two parts of the College, which made good against the city its rights over Logic Lane, by a lawsuit, in which the charters quoted went back to the time of King John. I INIVERSITY COLLEGE claims Alfred *"* the Great as founder ; the story is a striking instance of the uncritical character of mediaeval history. The College had been known for a century as the Hall of William of Durham ; yet in 1381 in a lawsuit against a citizen of D 49 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES London, it appealed to Richard II. on the ground that it had been founded by King Alfred. A deed was produced, sealed with the University seal, which invented an imaginary Master of University College, and an imaginary Chancellor; thanks to this and other equally trustworthy documents, the college received recognition as a Royal foundation, though it had to pay a large sum to the heirs of Franceys. The fiction be- came even more circumstantial as time went on. Fuller, in his " Church History," records how the scholars of University were robbed by William the Conqueror of their pensions from the Royal exchequer, because they " sought to preserve and propagate the English tongue,'' which he designed to suppress. Finally in 1726 the legend was confirmed by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench, when the fellows actually pleaded that " religion would receive a great scandal," if it were decided in a court of justice, that a "succession of clergy- men " had " returned thanks for so many years for an idol, a mere nothing." Hence King Alfred holds his place in the thanksgiving for benefactors, and in 1872 the college celebrated its millenary by a dinner, at which the then Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe (after- wards Lord Sherbrooke) gravely argued that the fact that Oxford was in 872 in the hands of the Danes confirmed the tradition that Alfred was the college founder ; for he was a man before his time, and had anticipated the great modern political doctrine, that the surest way to popu- 5 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE larity was to give away the property of your opponents. The fiction is visibly embodied in the marble bust of King Alfred which adorns the fellows' common-room. The real history of University begins with the bequest of William of Durham in 1249 ; he left a sum of 3 1 o marks "for the purchase of annual rents unto the use of 10 or more M.A.'s to study theo- logy." The University itself was trustee and as early as 1253 bought property on the site of Brasenose for William of Durham's foundation ; on this priority of endowment rests the claim of University College to its position as the " Senior filia Universitatis " (as Pope Eugenius called it in the fifteenth century), but the scholars of William of Durham had no powers of self-government till they received their first statutes in 1280. Univer- sity College owes its name to this dependence ; it was the first hall acquired by the University, and hence became known as " University Hall." William of Durham was a North Country man, and his college was one of the centres of the Northern nation in the faction fights of mediaeval Oxford ; its fellowships were largely restricted to Durham and Yorkshire men until the Commission in 1854 swept away local restrictions. University College has been famous in the history of Oxford rather for the careers of its sons than for any movements of which it has been the centre ; it is not till late in the seventeenth century that it becomes the scene of any important events. But to the pre- Reformation Church it had given $ OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, architect of the central tower of York Minster, and Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, founder of Lincoln College ; in Reformation times it trained Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and was presided over at the end of the century by Abbot, * v/ho preceded Laud at Canterbury, being the first Oxford archbishop since Mary's time, in the seventeenth century its sons were famous for learning, among them be- ing Bingham, the great ecclesiastical antiquarian, Carte, the Jacobite historian, and Potter,* after- wards Archbishop of Canterbury, whose " Greek Antiquities " survived among scholars, till it was displaced by the more modern work of Dr William Smith. But at the close of the seventeenth century, University for a brief season is one of the most prominent colleges in Oxford ; its master, the Rev. Obadiah Walker, became a pervert to Romanism, and not only obtained from King James II. a dispensation to retain his place as Master, but also opened a Roman chapel in the ground floor rooms at the S.E. corner of the front quad, which was to be a centre of prose- lytizing in Oxford. His rule is commemo- rated by the statue of James II. over the gate- way in the inner quadrangle. He was a friend of the famous Dr John RadclifTe,* a former member of University, whose charity began at home in his old college as well as flowed over the whole of Oxford ; it was mainly at his cost that the small quadrangle was completed, which his statue still adorns. The name of Walker 5* UNIVERSITY COLLEGE was long preserved in the doggerel rhyme which told how " Old Obadiah sings Ave Maria." Of course he lost his post as Master after the Revolution, and the statues which are seen over the gates of the college to the High Street, are those of Mary and of Anne. Of his immediate successors, Dr Charlett, one of the persecutors of Hearne (called the "Oxford Intelligencer" from his love of gossip) played a prominent part in the literary circles of the time. His correspondents are said to have numbered about 2000, so that he spent nearly all his income, as Master, on his postage, and died insolvent. In the eighteenth century University College does not seem to have sunk so low as most other foundations. About 1750 it sent forth in Bishop G. Home,* long famous for his Commentary on the Psalms, and in Jones of Nayland, two men who showed that even in that age of indifferentism it was possible to combine religious earnestness and sound learning with full loyalty to the Church of England. And in William Scott (*Hoppner), afterwards Lord S to well, who was tutor from 1765 to 1775, University anticipated the revival of study which marked the closing years of the eighteenth century in Oxford. He could never be persuaded to publish his lectures, on Ancient History, which were thought the best of his time, though even in his own day men laughed at a lecturer, who, wishing to say the Greeks " had no chimneys," wrote, " they had no convenience 53 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES by which the volatile parts of fire could be con- veyed into the open air." We do not need to be told that he was a friend of the great Dr Johnson. Among his pupils the most famous were his brother, John Scott,* afterwards Lord Eldon, and Sir William Jones,* the great orien- talist (fine bas relief in the ante-chapel by Flaxman) and one of the founders of modern philology. William Windham, the friend of Burke (portrait by Sir T. Lawrence), and Lord Hastings (* Hoppner), Governor- General of India, belong to the same period. The level of work in the University generally at this time is shown by the well-known story of Lord Eldon's examination for his degree; he was examined in Hebrew and in history, but the only questions put to him were, "What is the Hebrew for a scull ? " to which he answered " Golgotha," and " Who founded University College ? " to which he replied, King Alfred." The colossal statues of the brothers Scott adorn, or rather dwarf, the new library. Another famous University man of the eighteenth century is Sir Roger Newdigate,* the founder of the prize poem which bears his name. It was at the close of this period that Univer- sity matriculated its most famous son. Shelley came into residence in 1810, and for eleven months pursued an odd existence in Oxford, studying every kind of subject except the Aris- totle which was prescribed for him, talking with his friend Hogg on all subjects under the sun, and roaming the country round in long walks. Their 54 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE opinion of the University of Oxford is quaintly phrased by Hogg : " Oxford is a seat in which learning sits very comfortably, well thrown back, as in an easy chair, and sleeps so soundly that neither you nor I nor anyone else can wake her." But in an evil hour Shelley was moved to publish a pamphlet of anti-Christian tendency, called " The Necessity of Atheism." The Master and fellows, instead of treating it as a boyish escapade and trying remonstrance and influence, sent him down and his friend Hogg with him. And so the greatest name on the roll of Oxford poets is, like the name of her greatest historian, Gibbon, that of one whom she rejected as unworthy. In our own day the sepulchre of the prophet has been built by the successors of those who cast him out ; in 1893 the Master and fellows of University accepted from Lady Shelley the beautiful monu- ment of the poet by Onslow Ford, which had been intended originally for his tomb in Rome. It is a pity that so lovely a piece of sculpture should be enshrined in a building hideous with- out and over-ornate within. In the middle of the last century University was fortunate in its fellows. Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster (interesting early portrait by Eddis), Goldwin Smith, leader of the Liberal movement in Oxford, and Conington, editor and translator of Virgil, were there together in the 'forties. There is a fine portrait (Sir G. Reid) of the late Master, Dr Bright (the historian). In our own day University has been connected with Afri- can missions through C. Janson, Bishop Maples,* and Archdeacon Johnson, who still survives. 55 BALLIOL COLLEGE gUILDINGS. The oldest part of the buildings of Balliol is probably the reading room of the Library (formerly the Dining-Hall), lying on the left side of the front quadrangle, which may date from the first quarter of the fifteenth century ; it was, however, recast by the notorious Wyatt at the end of the last century, who trans- ferred the entrance to the garden quadrangle from the S. to the N. side of the Hall, and removed the beautiful old arch with ogee canopy to its present place on the N. side of the quadrangle, leading to the Chapel. He also completely re- cast the Library, of which the ground floor had been built at the same time as the Hall, while the floor above (the present upper Library) had been added in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The buildings in the Italian style, at the corner of the Broad and opposite St Mary $6 BALLIOL COLLEGE Magdalen Church, were erected in 1769, in part by a Mr Fisher, and bear his name. Further N., the new Gothic buildings, look- ing on the Martyr's Memorial, belong to the first half of the present century, and stand on the site of the old "Caesar's lodgings." The Chapel was rebuilt by Mr Butterfield in 1856-7, taking the place of a beautiful sixteenth century Chapel, the destruction of which was one of the worst acts of vandalism in modern Oxford ; only the sixteenth century glass of the old windows survives, much damaged, in the present side windows, and in the Lower Library. Then (1867-1869) the present front of the college on the Broad St., and the E. side of the first quadrangle, were rebuilt by Mr Waterhouse, and the N. side of the garden quadrangle was enclosed with buildings, which were completed in 1877 by the present Hall (also by Mr Waterhouse). The W. front of the college is now ( 1 907 ) con- tinued northwards along St Giles with a new build- ing (designed by Warren), ItisfittingthatBalliol, "the most progressive of our colleges," should have so large a proportion of its buildings modern. NOTE. A memorial of Jowett(by Onslow Ford)has been added at the N.E. end of the chapel. 59 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES DALLIOL COLLEGE owes its origin to an act of outrage, and the penance which was imposed to atone for it. John de Balliol, one of the great barons of the north, and father of the rival of Robert Bruce, had, in 1260, "unjustly vexed and enormously damnified " the churches of Tynemouth and of Durham ; for this he was compelled to make amends by a public scourg- ing, and by endowing four students at Oxford. Hence the foundation of Balliol dates from about 1 260 ; but the main part of the scheme was carried out by his widow, Dervorguilla, who thus, like Dorothy Wadham in the seventeenth century, shares the honour of being a "founder" with her husband, the linked shields of the Balliol arms commemorate this. The first students were placed (certainly be- fore 1266) in a hired house, close to St Mary Magdalen Church ; hence Balliol has a claim to being considered the oldest college in Oxford, because its students have longest occupied the same site. But in all other respects, the founda- tion of Balliol is far less important than that of Merton ; in fact it was at first " a simple alms- house " for the residence of students, resembling rather the early foundations of Paris than the type of college which was to prevail in Oxford. The first statutes were issued in 1282, and these were repeatedly modified in the two following centuries, till in 1507 they assumed their final form at the hands of Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, the founder of Corpus Christi College. The comparative unimportance of the college is 60 BflLLIQL COLLEGE BALLIOL COLLEGE shown by the fact that the scholars did not obtain a chapel of their own till 1327, and, even after this, were compelled to attend mass at St Mary Magdalen's till 1364. It is just at this date that Balliol receives her most famous son, John WyclifFe,* who became Master about 1360. Whether he had previously been a fellow of Balliol, as the statutes required, or whether he was elected from Merton, must remain uncertain ; at all events, he only kept the Mastership for a year, and then took the rectory of Fillingham in Lincolnshire. When he re- turned to Oxford in 1363, he is said to have resided at Queen's (though this is now held to be doubtful), where he hired rooms for i a year ; hence we cannot picture Balliol as being the centre of the great reforming movement of the fourteenth century. But it is at least interest- ing to note that Richard Fitz Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, to whom WyclifFe " owed the dis- tinguishing elements of his (scholastic) teaching" had been a fellow of Balliol in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. He is best remembered as the author of the much-quoted statement that Oxford, in his early days, had 30,000 students. This he solemnly affirmed in a speech at Avignon in 1357 ; whether he was carried away by the zeal of an advocate, or spoke with the extravagance of an Irishman, certain it is that no historian now accepts his statement. Balliol during the first century of its existence was a home of the Northerners, and its great men were champions of the scholastic philo- 61 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES sophy : but in the fifteenth century it became the nursing mother of the early English humanists. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who, what- ever his faults as a politician, was a loyal son of Oxford and a noble patron of learning, was probably at Balliol ; and of the five Englishmen who are mentioned as studying Greek at Ferrara about the middle of the fifteenth century, four are Balliol men William Grey, afterwards Bishop of Ely (died 1478) ; JohnTiptoft, Earl of Wor- cester (died 1470) ; John Free, Bishop of Bath and Wells (died 1465) ; and John Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells (died 1498). All these were distinguished as scholars in the widest sense of the term, and, like all early scholars, were also book-collectors ; Grey especially is to be re- membered in this respect, and of the two hun- dred books with which he endowed his college, Balliol still possesses one hundred and fifty-two. He was also a contributor to the building of the new library, on the windows of which his name, and that of the Master, Abdy, are still to be read : " His Deus adjecit ; Deus his det gaudia celi ; Abdy perfecit opus hoc Gray presul et Ely.' 1 His coat-of-arms, too, is still to be seen on the panels under the splendid oriel window at the E. end of the Master's lodgings ; in it also are preserved the arms of another munificent son of Balliol at this time, George Nevill, Archbishop of York, and brother of the " King-maker," who was made Chancellor of 62 BALLIOL COLLEGE Oxford in 1452. To a slightly later period belong Archbishop Morton, the minister of Henry VII. ; and the good Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, who endeavoured to preserve the Humanist traditions of his college amid the storms of the Reformation. But after this period of brilliance Balliol sinks into compara- tive obscurity till almost the beginning of the present century. The amount of plate which it gave to King Charles was the least of any college ; and, unlike most other places, half the members of the foundation seem to have sub- mitted to the authority of the Parliamentary visitors. John Evelyn, who was admitted as a fellow- commoner to Balliol in 1637, seems to have studied little there but dancing and music ; his tutor was occupied in quarrelling with the Master of the time, and Evelyn left Oxford after three years without taking a degree. But the state of the college became much lower in the succeed- ing generation. Humphrey Prideaux, writing to his friend Ellis in 1674, tells a story, which he " does not well believe," but which at any rate illustrates what the Balliol fellows of the time were thought to be like. " There is over against Balliol a dingy, horrid, scandalous ale- house, fit for none but draymen and tinkers. Here the Balliol men continually lie, and by perpetual bubbing add art to their natural stupidity, to make themselves perfect sots." The Master, Dr Good, a "good^ honest old toast," remonstrated, and pointed out the " mis- OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES chiefs of that hellish liquor called ale." When, however, he was told that the " Vice-Chan- cellor's men drank ale at the Split Crow," he was " non-plussed," and on going to consult the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Bathurst of Trinity, he was told there " was no hurt in ale." Accordingly he called the Balliol men together again, and told them that as the Vice-Chancellor gave his men leave to drink ale, he would give them leave too. " So now," as Prideaux grimly concludes, " they may be sots by authority." When discipline was in this state, we are not surprised that Balliol had few men and rooms to spare ; when the Parliament met in Oxford in 1 68 1, at the beginning of the reaction after the Popish Plot, the Whig leaders Shaftesbury and others hired rooms in Balliol, not being able to get quarters for all their party in Shaftesbury^ own college of Exeter. Alto- gether, some fifteen peers seem to have been accommodated. The deserted state of Balliol may be gathered from the story told of Dr Bathurst, President of Trinity (1664 to 1704), the Vice-Chancellor of Prideaux's story quoted above. Then, as in later times, Trinity and Balliol entertained for each other the usual feelings of neighbours ; and the old President, who was in his dotage, was seen throwing stones from his garden at the windows of Balliol, " as if happy to contribute his share in completing the appearance of its ruin." But Balliol was still receiving a steady stream 64 BALLIOL COLLEGE of benefactions. In 1601 Peter Blundell of Tiverton established the connection which still exists between the college and the school which Mr Blackmore has immortalised in " Lorna Doone." The present Archbishop of Canter- bury, Dr Temple, is only one of the able West- country men who have been sent to Oxford by this foundation. But much more important was the bequest (in 1679) ^ Mr J^ n Snell, who left his estate in Warwickshire to endow exhibitions from Glasgow University to Balliol. This endowment was intended for members of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, but, of course, this part of the will was not carried out. Adam Smith, who was at Balliol in the first half of the eighteenth century ; Sir William Hamil- ton, who was in residence at Oxford from 1 807 to 1810; J. G. Lockhart, the biographer of Scott; and Archbishop Tait, are examples of the clear-headed and industrious Scotch students whom the bounty of Mr Snell has sent to Balliol. But though Georgian Balliol boasts the great name of Bradley * the astronomer, it was but an obscure college. Southey, one of Oxford's scanty band of poets, who came up in 1792, complained that Oxford dons showed "waste of wigs and want of wisdom." It was only with the appointment of Dr Parsons* as Master in 1798 that the revival began ; but then it proceeded rapidly. Dr Parsons may claim to share with Cyril Jackson of Christ Church, and Provost Eve- leigh of Oriel, the honour of being the founders OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES of modern Oxford. They established the examination system in the first year of the century, and made the tutorial system once more a reality. Parsons was a man of sense, who knew how to leave a student of genius alone. He said of Sir William Hamilton : " He will turn out a great scholar, and we shall get the credit of making him so, though in point of fact we shall have done nothing for him whatever." The wisdom of this course is shown in Hamilton's remark that from Balliol, " I gratefully acknowledge I carried into life a taste for these studies which have contributed the most interesting of my subsequent pursuits." This unconscious influence of Oxford is true of many students besides the Scotch philosopher Dr Parsons, too, contributed in a very real way to bridge over the gulf which had for centuries separated the University and the city of Oxford ; he was himself of an Oxford family, and was Vice-Chancellor in the same year in which his brother was Mayor. Balliol now reaped the advantage of the accident that its scholarships were not limited by statute to any particular localities. By the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, they had already become the " blue ribbon of the public schools," a position which they have not yet lost. The work of Parsons, who died in 1819, was carried on by his successors Jenkyns (1819-1854), Scott* (1854-1870), and Jowett (1870-1893), [*by Lady Abercromby and by Watts], The first was a well-known Oxford 66 BALLIOL COLLEGE character, who, without being himself very clever, was an extraordinary judge of men ; he sur- rounded himself with a band of tutors who were foremost in the making of modern Oxford. So masterful was his rule over his " young men" that his enemies used to ask when the board with " Dr Jenkyns' Academy " painted on it, was to be put up over the Balliol gateway. Scott's name is known everywhere among Greek scholars, thanks to his share in the great dictionary of " Liddell and Scott " ; while Benjamin Jowett, as a leader in the movement for liberalising Oxford, and as the translator of Plato, had a reputation which extended far beyond the University. Even more famous as a philosopher was his successor, Dr Caird (^Collier). Balliol, guided by five Masters of great ability, and recruited continually by the best material from the English public schools, has been, without doubt, the foremost college in Oxford during the last three-quarters of our century. No other college, probably, has sent so many brilliant sons into the world outside ; no other college, certainly, has contributed any- thing like so large a share to the governing bodies of other colleges. It may fairly be argued that the leaders of English thought Newman, Gladstone, Ruskin have come from elsewhere ; but Balliol has had its share, and more than its share, in all the movements which the leaders have started. Of the Oxford poets who have given voice in various ways to the unrest of the nineteenth OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES century, it has claimed Clough and Matthew Arnold (both scholars sent from Rugby under Dr Arnold), Calverley 1 and Algernon Charles Swinburne. It has, too, associated to itself as honorary fellow the great thinker-poet of our own day, Robert Browning 1 (*by his son), many of whose MSS. were left by him to the Library, along with the " Small quarto size, part print, part manuscript, A book in shape, but really pure crude fact " on which he based the " Ring and the Book." The lighter side of English verse is represented by another old Balliol man, Andrew Lang. To the government of the country Balliol has sent the late Lord Chief Justice Coleridge (*a drawing) and numerous other judges (among them Lord Bowen, of whom there is a bust in Hall), the late Speaker, Lord Peel(*Herkomer), Sir Robert Morier,* Mr Asquith, and Viscounts Curzon and Milner. To the English Church it has given two arch- bishops, Tait* and Temple ( *copy of Herkomer) already mentioned ; the latter is described in the poem of Principal Shairp on " Balliol Scholars" (along with M. Arnold, Lord Coleridge, and others) " With strength for labour as the strength of ten, To ceaseless toil he girt him night and day, A native king and ruler among men Small or great duty never known to shirk, He bounded joyously to sternest work." 1 His name was Blayds while he was at Balliol, but he was sent down and went to Cambridge, 68 BALLIOL COLLEGE To the Oxford movement proper, Balliol contributed Mr William George Ward, the author of the " Ideal of the Christian Church," and Cardinal Manning (* Anderson); the struggles of the former with the master, Dr Jenkyns, form one of the most amusing chapters of recent Oxford history. But perhaps the most important influence which Balliol has exercised on the life of our own day is that which had its source and centre in the teaching of T. H. Green, who became a fellow of Balliol in 1860, and afterwards Pro- fessor of Moral Philosophy. He led the re- action against Mill and the English Rationalistic School of Philosophy, and his teaching has developed in the most various lines. On the one hand it has inspired the so-called " Lux Mundi " school of modern High Churchmen, the leaders of which, Bishop Gore and Canon Scott Holland, were both Balliol men ; on the other hand Green's teaching led Arnold Toynbee, himself a lecturer of Balliol, to devote himself to the social problems of our day. Toynbee Hall, which commemorates Toynbee's memory, has been largely supported by Balliol men, and it is fitting that the two first student-residences in East London should bear the names of " Wadham " (the college of Mr Barnett, the pioneer and organizer of the "Settlement" movement) and " Balliol." Another prominent Oxford worker in East London especially in education was William Rogers,* of Bishopgate ("Hang Theology Rogers"). 6 9 VI MERTON COLLEGE gUILDlNGS The buildings of Merton are undoubtedly the most interesting, though perhaps not the most beautiful, of the college buildings in Oxford. They begin a century earlier than any others which have sur- vived, and in spite of restorations, still preserve in many parts their original form. Perhaps the oldest part is the Muniment room, with high pitched roof of solid masonry, between the Front and the Mob Quads ; this may have been one of the tenements purchased by the founder. The Chapel proper seems from contemporary records to have been building between 1294 and 1 297 ; it was still being fitted in 1 306. In style it belongs to the Geometrical period of Decorated architecture. The side windows contain, nearly intact, the thirteenth century glass given by 70 MERTON COLLEGE Henry de Mamesfeld ; his name can still be read. The brasses in the sanctuary are those of Wardens Bloxham (died 1387 the double one), and Sever (died 1471, the builder of the tower of Holy well Church in its present form). The ante-chapel is later ; the transepts were not dedicated till 1424, but were probably com- menced at least a century earlier ; the tower was completed in 1 450 (at a cost of i 42 ); it belongs to the best period of Perpendicular work. No doubt, originally, it was intended to build a nave ; the western arch in the ante-chapel can still be seen. The chapel is the parish church of St John the Baptist, but parochial services are now suspended. The sacristy was commenced in 1311; after long degradation as a brew-house, it was restored in 1886. The Hall was built in the founder's time, but only the original walls have been preserved ; the portals of the old gateway, however, still remain, and to one of them is attached a huge oak door, with curious ornamental iron-work. The Hall itself was ruined by Wyatt in the last century, but has been carefully restored in our own day. The Library, which occupies the upper storey 73 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES en the S. and W. of the Mob Quad, is un- doubtedly the most interesting mediaeval library in England. It was built by William Rede, Bishop of Chichester, in 1377-8 ; the entire shell of the building, some of the glass and the cases in the W. room, and the rough benches, probably belong to this time. Some of the old fittings with their chained books are still preserved. The present ceiling dates from 1502-3, the dormer windows from the first half of the 1 7th century ; but the old glass bears traces, in the repetition of the " Agnus Dei," of the dedication to St John the Baptist. Of the other college buildings the oldest part is the Mob Quad, on the S.W. The N. and E. sides are probably a little later than the Chapel, the S. and W. belong to the next generation. The embattled tower in front of the college was built in 1418 ; the statues are those of Henry III. and Walter de Merton. The front of the college was rebuilt by Sir Henry Savile in 1589. The fellows' quadrangle that on the S.E., was building from 1608 to 1610; it is one of the most beautiful examples of late Gothic in Oxford, especially as seen from the fields to the S. Its resemblance to the quad- 74 MERTON COLLEGE rangle of Wadham College makes possible the view that both were designed by Holt of York, who was certainly employed as carpenter on both (p. 261). In 1864 Merton spoiled the most beautiful view in Oxford and their own claim to be the most beautiful college, by cutting down their " Grove " and erecting " new buildings " to the S.W. of Mob Quad, from a design of Butter- field. The vandalism of pulling down Mob Quad itself and rebuilding it was only prevented by the energy of the late Warden, Dr Brodrick. The site of the Warden's Lodgings and that E. of old St Alban's Hall have been covered by a new Quad (Champneys, opened 1905 and 1906) ; Savile's front, built in 1600, is left. The Warden now lives in the strange erection (Champneys, 1908) on the N. side of Merton Street. K/IERTON COLLEGE has the honour of being the oldest in Oxford; though University and Balliol may be slightly earlier in their endowments, yet it is in Merton that the real idea of a college, as it has since prevailed, is first found, and its statutes were the model of subsequent foundations, in both Oxford and Cambridge. These statutes date in the earliest 75 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES form from 1264, in their final form from 1274 ; by them Merton was established with all the essentials of a college, the right of self-govern- ment and of recruiting its own numbers, the right of holding property, and, as the symbol of these rights, the use of a common seal. It was intended to be a nursing mother of the " secu- lar " clergy of the English Church, i.e., to provide men for all the professions, for it need hardly be pointed out that the clergy in the thirteenth century, besides their spiritual duties, were the civil servants, the physicians, the artists, the historians of the time. To ensure to stu- dents a fit training for these duties, the founder endowed his college with considerable estates ; in wealth and dignity its members were to be equal to the great monastic foundations ; but " religion," in the strict sense of the Middle Ages, was not to be their employment. In fact, any fellow who entered a religious order vacated his place. Though they were all in minor orders, as being students, yet they were not required to observe all the " hours " of the Church ; and they were provided with chap- lains. In the discharge of their spiritual func- tions it was especially contemplated by the founder that they were not to remain all their lives in his college ; he charges those who rise to " more abundant fortune " to remember the institution to which they owed their first ad- vancement. This foundation, and those which were imi- tated from it, changed the whole system of MERTON COLLEGE English University education ; the poor clerks, living on charity, subject to little control, and constantly migrating, who had formed the majority of the early students, now tended more and more to become members of orderly and well endowed corporations. The Universities lost in freedom, but they gained in order and opportunity to study. It is to Walter de Merton* that this revolution is due ; he is well called on his monument in Rochester Cathedral, the founder by example " omnium quotquot extant collegiorum." He was one of those great secular churchmen to whose organizing genius the English constitution owes so much, and he had played a prominent part in the struggle between Henry III. and the barons before he set himself to endow his college. The students of Merton were to study the liberal arts and then to proceed to theology ; the verbal and logical character of the mediaeval edu- cation is illustrated by the story of the fellows of Merton and King Henry III. They wished to obtain leave to make a postern gate into Merton fields, and sent three of their members to the King. The first of them asked for " the making of a gate," but was at once interrupted by the second that what they wanted was not " the making of a gate," but " the gate made." " No," said the third, " we do not wish the gate made, for if it were made, it already exists in the nature of things ; and then we shall have a gate that is not our own ; and so we shall wrong our neighbour " ; and so the dispute went on, 77 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES till the King told them to withdraw ; he might grant their request when they agreed how to ask for it. This they seem to have done, as they certainly got their door. But though to us the mediaeval education may seem often mere word- splitting, the great number of English statesmen and bishops who were reared in pre- Reforma- tion Merton, shows that the founder had not worked in vain. Between 1294 and 1 366 six out of seven Archbishops of Canterbury were Merton men, of whom the most famous was Bradwardine, whose name is coupled by Chaucer with that of St Augustine, as being able to " boult to the bran " the doctrines of Grace and Free Will. Tradition ascribes to Merton the names of the great schoolmen, Duns Scotus * and William of Ockham; but as they were both Franciscans this seems impossible, in view of the founder's statutes; but John WyclifFe, the last great English scho- lastic, is claimed as belonging to Merton in an almost contemporary list of fellows. A long succession of mathematicians and physicians also was produced, and for this cause Merton was selected to receive the bequest of Linacre, who founded the present professorship of Compara- tive Anatomy. Merton during this period (in 1380) received the bequest of Wylliott, found- ing an order of scholars inferior in rank to those of the old foundation ; they were subject to the master-fellows, and were called "post- masters," a corruption of " portionista." One other point must be mentioned as to the fellows of mediaeval Merton. They were MERTON COLLEGE patrons of St Peter's in the East and lords of the manor of Holywell, then outside the walls of Oxford, and so acquired their great property there. This was managed by a bailiff, and on the marvellous series of accounts preserved in the Merton Treasury, Professor Thorold Rogers very largely based his great " History of Prices." At the Reformation the majority of the fellows of Merton were on the side of the old religion, although Bishop Jewel and (probably) Hooper, the martyred Bishop of Gloucester, were both educated in the college. The re- actionary party were led by a certain Mr Hall, who, when one of the former fellows proposed to sing round the fire on Holyday evenings the psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins, in place of the old customary hymns to the Virgin and Saints, snatched the book from him, and told him that "neither he (Hall) nor the rest would dance after his pipe." The feeling against the Reformation showed itself in 1562 on the election of a new Warden ; Archbishop Parker as Visitor, on the ground of an informality, set aside the choice of the fellows and put in a chaplain of his own, John Mann. But when the new Warden presented himself he found the gates shut against him. Being admitted by a fellow of " a base and false spirit," as Antony Wood calls him, the Warden was hustled out again, and " 'tis reported Mr Hall gave the new Warden a box on the ear." Elizabeth and Parker were not the people to submit to such a defiance ; the college was severely visited, and the offenders 79 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES expelled. Warden Mann was afterwards sent on a mission to Spain, and Elizabeth was pleased to say that whereas Philip "had sent her a gooseman (Guzman) she had sent him a Mann goose." Under Mann and his successors, especially Sir Henry Savile (*and fine tomb in ante-chapel), the college was very prosperous. Sir Thomas Bodley (*and in ante-chapel) was elected fellow in 1563, and lectured on Greek in Merton before he went abroad to serve England as ambassador and acquire that wealth to which Oxford owes her library. Under Savile the college buildings were repaired and extended ; and he himself was a Greek scholar of great eminence, and was one of the translators of the Authorised Version. He was, too, a noble patron of learning, and the University owes to him the Savilian professor- ships of geometry and astronomy. But the prosperity of Merton received a severe blow in the Civil War. Its Warden, Brent, was one of the few Puritans in Oxford, and fled before the King. In his place was intruded the great Cambridge scientist, Harvey,* the dis- coverer of the circulation of the blood ; but he was only Warden for a year, and during this period the college was a court rather than a home of learning. Queen Henrietta Maria was in- stalled in the Warden's lodgings, and the chapel was appropriated to her use, and for marriages, christenings, and such like unacademic proceed- ings. When finally the king left Oxford in 1646, the Hall is described as being "situ et So MERTON COLLEGE minis squalida " i.e., " all dirty and knocked to pieces." Brent returned, however, and pro- ceeded at once as head of the Parliamentary Visitors to correct the " abuses and disorders of the University." The support of Merton was most important to the Puritan cause at Oxford ; at once in distinction, in wealth, and in the ability of its students, it was in the first rank of Oxford colleges. It was during this period that Oxford's great- est antiquarian, Antony Wood (*in ante-chapel) matriculated. For his loving care for the history of the University Oxford men can never be too grateful, although his college in his own day dealt very hardly with him, as landlord of his house (still known as " Postmasters' Hall ") opposite the great gateway. Colleges have always had the reputation of being harsh landlords, Wood, among the other old customs which were put down by the Puritans as " being diabolical, Popish, and anti-Christian," records the bully- ing of the freshmen on Shrove Tuesday ; they were compelled to make a speech standing on a form in Hall, and, if dull, to drink salted drink, "with tucks" (/.., scratches under the chin) "to boot." It must have been very like the " sing song " which once prevailed for new boys at public schools. Wood died in 1695 ; his life in Oxford is described by him as " a perfect Elysium," thanks to " music and the rare books that he found in the public library." In 1 66 1 the first "common room" for fellows was opened in Oxford, a mark of the F 81 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES growing luxury, and by an innovation specially resented by Antony Wood, the new Warden, Clayton, brought a wife into college, to the great detriment of the college finances ; the lady natu- rally wanted new furniture in the lodgings, in- cluding a looking-glass, " for her to see her ugly face and body to the middle," as the ungallant antiquary observes. Merton now once more became a Royal resi- dence, for the Court moved to Oxford in 1665 to escape the plague, and the Queen took up the quarters formerly occupied by her mother-in- law ; the notorious Duchess of Cleveland was also accommodated in college, and there bore a son to the King. It is not surprising that Wood, writing in 1677, says solid learning was decaying in Oxford ; the reasons he gives ?re the number of ale houses 373, the "new coffee houses," and the " common rooms." It was Clayton who, as Warden, treated one of his fellows with such cruelty as to drive him to suicide in his own rooms. After the Restoration Merton was one of the few Whig colleges ; as such it was especi- ally proud of Richard Steele who left Merton, where he was a postmaster, in 1694, with- out taking a degree, but " with the love of the whole society." The college register, in recording his gift of the Tatler (1712), speaks of him as one " quem universa Britannia jamdudum habuit in deliciis." But there is little to notice in the history of the college during the eighteenth century. It is, how- 82 MERTON COLLEGE ever, worth mentioning that Merton's beautiful garden took its present shape about the beginning of that period. The long terrace on the city wall was laid out in 1706, and in 1766 the walk below, " Dead Man's Walk," l was also laid out. But the gardens at Merton seem by peculiar good fortune never to have suffered the trimming of the Dutch gardener, which was so universal in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As they were at this time open to the public by night as well as by day, they had rather a bad reputation. The period of inactivity lasted longer at Merton than elsewhere, but it passed away with the first quarter of this century. Merton in Denison* and Hamilton gave two bishops in succession to the see of Salisbury, and its fellow, Patteson (*in the ante-chapel), the martyr bishop, has left one of the noblest names in the English Church. Nor should the historian, Dr Creighton (^enamel by Herkomer), Bishop of London, be passed over. Names of a different kind, but even more known, are those of Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Chancellor Halsbury. I should like to add also that of the late Warden, Dr Brodrick (* W. Carter) to whose history of Merton I owe most of the points in this chapter. 1 Probably so called from the tradition that Winde- bank was shot there for surrendering Blechington House to the Parliamentarians (1645). He himself gave the signal for the volley by waving his hat, and died crying " God Save the King." He was really shot at the Castle. 83 VII EXETER COLLEGE D UILDINGS. Exeter, Balliol, and Queen's are the three " most rebuilt " colleges in the University. Of the pre- Reformation build- ings nothing is left but part of the old gate Tower (1432) which is now included in the Rector's lodgings. The Hall was built in 1618, and may be compared with that of Wadham College, though it is less fine. About the same time was rebuilt the southern part of the garden front of Exeter, looking on one of the least known and most beautiful nooks in Oxford. Towards the end of the century the W. front was rebuilt, the northern part first (1671- 1682), and then the Tower and the southern part (1701-3). But it is in the present century that the hand of the rebuilder has specially pre- vailed in Exeter; in 1834 the present W. front to the Turl street was brought into its present form (being the fourth reconstruction in EXETER COLLEGE the college history). About the same time the E. part of the front to the Broad Street was put up. The interesting timber -gabled house between the N.W. corner of the college and Mr Parker's house at the corner of Turl Street, is the sole relic of Prideaux' buildings. (These lay to the N. of the present chapel close to the City Wall. They were added to by the Rector Prideaux about 1620, and were especially for the accommodation of foreigners). This house, looking on the Turl, was built in part out of the remains of the old building when it was pulled down. In 1854 the new front to the Broad Street was com- pleted from one of Gilbert Scott's least suc- cessful designs (to say nothing harsher), in 1855 the Gothic library was built, and in 1856 the very interesting seventeenth century chapel was pulled down, and replaced by Scott's beautiful copy of the Sainte Chapelle. Lovely as the modern chapel is, it has no right to exist ; the old chapel which was condemned as insecure, had to be knocked to pieces with gunpowder; it really was sacrificed to Gothic purism, like the old chapel of Balliol. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES IT is somewhat curious that one of the most troubled reigns of English history, that of Edward II., saw two colleges added to Oxford within the short space of twenty years. Of these the first was Exeter College, which was founded in 1 3 1 4 by Walter de Stapledon, bishop of that see. He belonged to the party of the King, and met a fate as tragical as that of his master, for he was murdered in 1326 by the London mob. His college was West country in more than name, for its fellowships were to be confined to Devon and Cornwall men ; this connection has always been closely maintained. It is interesting to note that Stapledon, who was educated at Bologna, made his college, after the Italian model, very democratic in government ; the Rector was only appointed for a year, and all fellows, not the seniors only, took part in elections. A number of Exeter men were supporters of the Lollard movement, prominent among them Robert Rygge, who as Chancellor, 1381-4, vigorously championed the independence of the University, and shielded the Lollards from Arch- bishop Courtenay's attack. But the college was unimportant before the Reformation, and poor ; to this circumstance it owes the honour of being the scene of the first Greek lectures given by an Englishman. Grocyn, though a fellow of New College, hired a room here on his return from Italy ( 1491-93), and taught the "new learning." But the palmy days of Exeter begin with its second foundation by Sir William Petre in 1 566. 86 EXETER COLLEGE He was one of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth's counsellors, and gave large endowments and new statutes to the college. A curious memorial of him is the Latin Psalter in the Library, in which, as a " Family Bible," the births of the Tudor family are recorded. Exeter was a great home of Puritanism during the seventeenth century. Its Rector, Prideaux (1612-1642), was a man of lowly origin; he used to say, " If I could have been parish clerk of Ubber, I should never have been Bishop of Worcester " ; but he was a man of learning and character. Under him the college was largely rebuilt, and was popular with the country gentry from among whom so many of the Parliamentary leaders were drawn. Sir John Eliot, the martyr of the Commonwealth, William Strode, one of the " Five Members," and the Puritan lawyer Maynard,* all were trained at Exeter during this period. So, too, was Anthony Ashley Cooper,* the first Earl of Shaftesbury, the " Achitophel " of Dry den' s famous satire ; he showed in college his Whig principles of resistance to oppression, stopping the bullying of the freshmen by the seniors, and preventing the fellows from " altering the size of the college beer." It is interesting to see this leader in a dinner row a character so familiar in Oxford developing into the popular leader on a wider field. The Rector, Dr Prideaux, supported the freshmen against the seniors, being " always favourable to youth offending out of courage," and abolished the "foolish custom" of "tuck- OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES ing " ; by this the skin was scratched off from the lip to the chin, and the poor freshman was compelled to drink salt and water. Shaftesbury, too, was the ringleader in the " coursing " in the schools, a very disorderly proceeding. At Exeter with him was his future colleague in " the Cabal >J and subsequent enemy, Clifford. But while dwelling on Exeter's statesman, we must not forget the name of John Ford, one of the greatest of the Jacobean dramatists, who matriculated in 1601, but seems to have left without a degree. Even more famous than Prideaux was the second great Puritan Rector, under the Com- monwealth, John Conant ; his discipline was famous, though carried out in ways very differ- ent from those of our own day. He would visit his students in their rooms, and if he found them " turning over any modern author," he "would send them to Tully " ; if any one cut chapel, or had his battels too high, he " must atone for his fault by some exercise, for the Rector was no friend to pecuniary mulcts, which too often punish the father instead of the son." As the result of this strictness, Exeter overflowed with students. Conant is an admirable instance of the way in which the intruded Puritans con- tinued the traditions of Oxford : he tried hard to dissuade Cromwell from making a University at Durham, "setting forth the dangers which threaten religion and learning by multiplying small and petty Academies." Conant, however, lost his place as Rector in 1662 for refusing to 88 EXETER COLLEGE submit to the Act of Conformity ; his successor, Maynard, was so great a contrast, being " much given to bibbing," that he was too much even for that not very scrupulous age, and he had to be compelled to resign. His successor also was removed by the Visitor. Exeter in the eighteenth century was one of the four Whig colleges, and gave great scandal at the hot election of 1755, by allowing the Whig voters to pass through its quadrangle to the hustings in Broad Street, and so elude a howling Jacobite mob, which was trying to prevent them voting. The Vice-Chancellor, a strong Jacobite, censured "the infamous be- haviour of one college/' and a war of pam- phlets was the result. To this century belong Exeter's one Archbishop of Canterbury, Seeker* (died 1 7 68), and the famous Hebraist, Kennicott.* In the first half of this century Exeter possessed in William Sewell one of the three leading tutors in the University. He was a man of ideas, and dreamed and wrote of " University Extension " nearly twenty years before Cambridge began to carry that idea into practice. Some may think that in founding Radley School he made a more solid contribution to education. His lectures were famous in Oxford for their discursiveness : "Why does he call it lectures on Plato, on Butler, and so on, when it is all lectures on Sewell ? " said one critic. It is recorded that men attended his lectures on Plato's Republic for half a term before they found out that they were not, as they thought, on St Paul's Epistle OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES to the Romans. At one of these lectures a book was, for the last time (1849), publicly burned in Oxford. Sewell was inveighing against "The Nemesis of Faith/' and when one of his pupils confessed that he had it in his possession, Sewell snatched the book from his hand and burned it at once. By a curious chance, the author, J. A. Froude, had been elected fellow at Exeter from Oriel only seven years before. Somewhat senior to Sewell was the well-known judge, John Taylor Coleridge (*Pickersgill), the friend of Keble, who was elected fellow in 1812; thirty years after, his more famous son, John Duke Coleridge, better known as Lord Coleridge, a great orator, if not a great judge, was also elected fellow. Almost contemporary with the elder Coleridge was Sir C. Lyell,* the founder of modern geology, who owed his interest in the subject to Buckland's lec- tures at Oxford. 1 Another famous name in science is the zoologist, Ray Lankester (^Collier). In our own day Exeter has been famous for its artist sons : Burne-Jones and William Morris were in residence there together in the 'fifties, and have left a splendid memorial of their connection with it in the tapestry, re- presenting " The Visit of the Magi," which adorns part of the S. wall of the Chapel. The glass in the Chapel is all by Clayton and Bell. 1 F. S. Maurice, the prophet of the Broad Church School, was at Exeter from 1830 to 1832, but he more properly belongs to Cambridge, where he had pre- viously been an undergraduate, and where he was later on Professor of Philosophy. 9 VIII ORIEL COLLEGE DUILDINGS Of pre- Reformation Oriel there is no trace, except perhaps part of the E. wall of the College towards Grove Street. The present front quadrangle was built in the first half of the seventeenth century, be- tween 1619 and 1642 ; it should be compared with the front quadrangles of Wadham and University, which are contemporary. The statues over the steps are those of Edward II. and Charles I. Of the garden quadrangle (lying to the N.), the E. side was built in 1719, and completed at the S. end in 1817 ; the W. side in 1730. The Library, on the N. side of this quadrangle, was built from Wyatt's design in 1788. TTHE story of the foundation of Oriel reflects the troubled period at the end of the reign of Edward II. Its founder, Adam de Brome, 9 1 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES was that King's almoner, but about a year after he had obtained (1324) his charter, he transferred the college to the King (por- trait by Hudson, 1753), w ^ was graciously pleased to refound it (1326). Within six months, however, Adam de Brome saw that the King's fortune was waning, and the college was once more transferred, this time to the Bishop of Lincoln, De Burghersh, who was a prominent supporter of Queen Isabella. The statutes were recast by him, and the authority of the Bishop of Lincoln as Visitor was henceforth recognised, till in 1726, as the result of a prolonged dispute in college, it was decided by the Court of Common Pleas that the original statutes of Edward II. were valid, and that the college was a royal foundation. To Edward II. is traditionally ascribed the gift of the magnificent silver cup still in the possession of Oriel. Adam de Brome was Rector of St Mary's, Oxford (the chapel on the N. side of which bears his name, as he is buried there), and obtained permission to transfer the church and its revenues to his college. Edward III., in 1328, added the Hospital of St Bartholomew at Cowley ; the maintenance of the almsmen was charged on the fee farm rent of the city, and as to its payment there were frequent dis- putes between the college and the citizens ; Oriel, too, was accused of stealing for the benefit of St Mary's the famous relic of the skin of St Bartholomew. In our own day there have been constant disputes on a more 92 ORIEL COLLEGE mundane subject the disposal of the much- increased revenues of the hospital. The royal grant was intended not only to benefit the finances of Oriel, but also to provide its members with a refuge in times of plague. For this purpose the hospital was continually used. The fourteenth century chapel is still standing, and is very picturesque. Almost at the same time the college received a grant of the tenement known as " La Oriole," which stood on part of the present site, and probably occupied it in 1329. The meaning of the name is a subject of much dispute ; most likely it refers to some architectural feature, though c< oratoriolumS' i.e., oratory, has also been suggested. At any rate, almost from the beginning, the name " Oriel " supplanted the proper title of the college, " St Mary's," at first in popular usage and then in formal docu- ments. Oriel was very poor during the first century of its existence, but there are two episodes in its history which are of great interest. The first is the dispute as to the library which was bequeathed to the University by Bishop Cob- ham in 1327. He had built the chapel which still stands at the N.E. corner of St Mary's, to serve at once as a Congregation house and a Library ; but he died in debt, and Adam de Brome, as Rector of St Mary's, was allowed by the Bishop's executors to redeem the books from pawn, and transfer them with the building to Oriel. After his death, however, the Uni- 95 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES versity claimed the books, and in 1337 a body of students broke into the chapel and carried them off. Some thirty years later the Univer- sity proceeded to claim the building also, and the decision was given in their favour. Oriel, however, maintained its claim till 1410, when the matter was compromised ; the college waived its rights, on receiving a gift of fifty marks from Archbishop Arundel, who himself was an Oriel man. This prelate is connected, too, with the second episode. The Wycliffite party was strong in Oxford, which, as Archbishop Courtenay said, had become " a University of heresies " ; but there were other causes for this beside devotion to evangelical doctrine. The old feud of North and South had be- come mixed up in the struggle, and men also felt that academic independence was at stake. Hence, when Arundel proposed to visit the University, the Chancellor and proctors re- fused to allow him to enter ; and when the Archbishop laid the University under an inter- dict, the proctor, Byrche, an Oriel man, broke open the doors of St Mary's and said mass as usual. Arundel wrote to the King complaining of the "insolency of a company of boys" ; but though the University had to give way, the Chancellor and the proctors were allowed to retain their offices. Byrche's party among the fellows of Oriel were charged with the most serious misconduct; they roamed the streets armed at all hours of the night, and had killed ORIEL COLLEGE several persons in a riot, while one of them, Wilton, had knocked up the Provost at 10 P.M., called him a liar, and challenged him to fight. However, nothing seems to have been done to tfie offenders, and the Dean of Oriel, Rote, also got off free, though he was accused of saying " The devil go with the Archbishop and break his neck." Lollardism in the end was pretty well stamped out in Oxford, but we find the fellows of Oriel, even as late as 1454, buying some of Wycliffe's works. There is no ground for supposing that Lang- land, the author of " Piers Plowman," was an Oriel man, but another of the great English allegories, " The Ship of Fools," was the work of Barclay, who was at the college about 1500. The greatest name, however, by far at Oriel in the sixteenth century is that of Sir Walter Raleigh.* Perhaps it was through his connection with the college that he made the acquaintance of Harriot, who shortly after was a member of St Mary's Hall, which was largely dependent on Oriel. Harriot took part in one of Raleigh's attempted colonies in Virginia, and wrote a curious account of the natives. In the seventeenth century the strife which was dividing England was amusingly reflected in the literary battle between two Oriel men Prynne, the author of " Histriomastix," and his contemporary, Giles Widdowes, Vicar of Carfax. The latter had written a book called the " Lawless, Kneeless, Schismatical Puritan," and Prynne answered with " Lame Giles his o 97 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Haultings." Prynne, however, seems to have supported his old college at the time of the Puritan Visitation, and only five fellows lost their places, of whom two were afterwards allowed to return. The Puritan Provost, too, contrived to hold his office after the Restora- tion. Besides these who have been mentioned, Oriel trained in the seventeenth century two Lord Chief Justices, the notorious Scroggs and the respected Holt. Early in the eighteenth century, Oriel had the honour of educating Bishop Butler,* though it must be added that he was so tired of the " frivolous lectures and unintelligible disputations" which formed his college training, that he thought of migrating to Cambridge. He owed his rise from lowly birth to the golden see of Durham, not only to his merit as England's greatest Christian apolo- gist, but also to his having known at college Edward Talbot, son of the Bishop of Durham, and brother of Lord Chancellor Talbot, who had himself been at Oriel fifteen years before. Almost equally well known is the name of Gilbert White of Selborne, who held his fellowship for fifty years ; he held also a small college living, but, according to the fashion of the time, was non-resident. He served the University as proctor in 1752, and in 1757 stood for the provostship of his college, but without success. But it is with the close of the century that Oriel suddenly rose under Provost Eveleigh to be the most intellectual college in Oxford. No conditions of residence had been attached to the ORIEL COLLEGE Founder's fellowships, and hence, as soon as elections were fairly conducted, Oriel had the best men in the University as candidates, and for fifty years an Oriel fellowship was the " blue ribbon " of the Oxford graduate world. It was an Oriel fellow, Arnold,* who re- formed the public school system, and to Oriel belonged that marvellous group of men, who in various ways were to renew the life of the Church of England. Pusey went from Oriel to his professorship at Christ Church ; Keble* was elected fellow in 1811, though he did not reside long ; Newman (* Ouless) became fellow in 1822, and it was at Oriel that he met Whately * (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin^, who exercised, by repulsion, so strong an influence on his mind. It was the Provost, Dr Hawkins, who first planted in his mind the idea of "tradition" in Church matters, and who after- wards, by depriving him of his tutorship, struck so serious a blow at the prosperity of his college, and altered Newman's whole career. It was from the pulpit of the college living of St Mary's that Newman exercised the most important part of his wonderful influence. 1 Bishop Wilberforce 1 Keble's rooms were " up one pair of stairs, on the left," in Staircase No. 2. Newman's were the corres- ponding rooms in No. 3, first floor to the right. He succeeded Whately, and found the last of his herrings still hanging from a string; the frugal future Arch- bishop had always cooked his own breakfast. Under Newman's rooms were those of Dean Church. Dr Pusey's rooms were in No. i Staircase, first floor to the right, and were subsequently occupied by Eraser,* the great Bishop of Manchester. 99 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES and his brothers, Hurrell Froude, and R. W. Church (afterwards Dean of St Paul's), all belong to the same period. Of a different school were the Balliol scholar poets, Clough and M. Arnold (*Lowes Dickinson, in Common Room) who became fellows of Oriel. It is tempting to speculate what might have been, had Keble been elected Provost in 1828, as he almost was ; his successful opponent Hawkins presided over his college for fifty-four years ; he found it unquestionably the most dis- tinguished body in Oxford, he left it like any other college. But even under his rule Oriel produced distinguished men, such as " Tom " Hughes, the creator of " Tom Brown," and Lord Goschen,our present Chancellor; while the late Mr Cecil Rhodes (*Tennyson Cole) seems likely to take high rank among the builders of the Empire, and in Oxford his memory will be cherished as a munificent benefactor. Closely connected with Oriel College in history, and now finally united to it, is St Mary's Hall, which lies on Oriel Lane, nearer the High Street. The buildings are very picturesque, especially the curious block with hall below and chapel above at the S.E. corner ; this is not the least interesting of the many buildings put up in the first half of the seventeenth century. In the chapel there is an interesting tomb of an eighteenth century prin- cipal, the great Jacobite, Dr King, in which he records " that though he had faults, he had also merits," and ends that " though he had not 100 ORIEL COLLEGE despised death, he had not feared It/' lie deserves to be remembered not only as one of the last adherents of the Stuarts in Oxford, but also as having built the east side of his Hall. The modern parts of St Mary's Hall were (1910) pulled down to make room for the new front of Oriel (Champneys) on the High. St Mary's Hall is most famous for its students in Reformation times, Sir Thomas More, the flower of English wit and scholarship, and Cardinal Allen, its principal, the most famous among those who refused to accept the Eliza- bethan Settlement. John Hunter, greatest of English surgeons, resided in the Hall for seven weeks in 1755 as a commoner, but he declined to be "made an old woman of" or to "stuff Latin and Greek," and he "cracked the scheme like so much vermin." In our own day the Hall has been consecrated by the memory of the martyr bishop, Hannington. 2 It is sad that modern " reform " has swept away all the old halls of Oxford except St Edmund and has thereby removed the relics of the earliest stage of the University, when colleges still were not. NOTE. The " halls " were originally mere voluntary associations for convenience of residence; their " princi- pal " was elected by all the members. Their distinguish- ing mark in recent times has been the absence of any governing body of fellows ; the principal is nominated by some outside authority, i.e. usually some college. 2 Commemorated by Hannington Hall, founded (1897) as a centre of Missionary work on the site of New Inn Hall ; the old buildings were in part retained, 101 IX QUEEN'S COLLEGE DUILDINGS. Medieval Queen's has com- pletely disappeared, nor has even the original arrangement of the parts been preserved; only the entrance in Queen's Lane remains where it has always been. The oldest part of the present buildings is the East side of the back quadrangle, which dates from the time of Charles II. ; this quadrangle was finally com- pleted by the Library which was begun in 1693 and completed in 1696. The upper part of this building is probably the most ornate classi- cal room in Oxford, and has a fine plaster ceiling and elaborate carving (by G. Gibbons). The collection of books disputes with those of Christ Church and All Souls the honour of being the best college library in Oxford. The Hall of the College was begun in 1713, and the foundation stone of the chapel laid in 102 QUEEN'S COLLEGE 1714; the front quadrangle was not completed till after 1730; the earliest part of it was the West side with its cloister, which was finished in 1710. This quadrangle was built by Hawksmoor, Wren's pupil ; the master him- self designed the Chapel, and thought it one of his best works. The front quadrangle of Queen's disputes with Peckwater Quadrangle at Christ Church, the honour of being the finest piece of college building in Oxford in the Italian style. The chapel windows are interesting ; the two western ones on each side contain glass of the early sixteenth century, and the rest seventeenth century glass by the younger Van Linge, but they were largely " restored " by Price when transferred to the new chapel (1717). By a curious fatality the west wing of the front quadrangle at Queen's has been twice the scene of a fire, once in 1778, and again in 1886. It was on the former occasion that the Provost of the day, Dr Fothergill, nearly lost his life for the sake of decorum. He was sought for in vain, and had been given up, when he suddenly emerged from the burning pile, full dressed as usual, in wig, gown and bands. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES QUEEN'S COLLEGE was (from the first) stamped with a marked character by its founder; it was more distinctly religious than the older colleges, and its fellows were expressly required to take holy orders. This character was symbolically carried out in the arrangements prescribed by its statutes. The Provost and twelve fellows were to correspond in number to our Lord and his apostles, the "seventy dis- ciples" were represented by the "poor boys" whose education was provided for, and who were to De "opposed," i.e. 9 questioned in their studies, by one of the fellows every night before they were allowed to dine. The arrangement of the Provost and fellows at dinner was the tradi- tional arrangement of the Last Supper, and their robes were to recall the colour of the blood of the Lord. It may be more than accident that this quaint symbolism is markedly preserved in Queen's. Still, on January ist, the Bursar presents to each guest at the Gaudy, a needle and a silk thread, of the colour of his faculty, with the words : " Take this and be thrifty"; the needle and thread (aiguille et Jll) are said to be a pun on " Egles- neld," the founder's name. Still, on Christmas Day, the college celebrates the " Boar's Head " dinner, with the old carol The boar's head in hand bear I, Bedecked with bays and rosemary." This is said to commemorate the presence of mind of an early Queen's man who, being 106 QUEEN'S COLLEGE charged by a wild boar on Shotover, choked it by stuffing his " Aristotle " into its mouth, while he shouted " Gracum est ! " Still every night, as from the founder's time, the fellows are summoned to dinner by the sound of the trumpet, and the old name for the boys, i.e. "Taberdar," is preserved for the eight senior scholars, and in the title of the Junior Common Room. The founder's arrangements were very minute and full, and ranged from the direction of the students' studies to the washing of their heads ; for this latter purpose a barber was provided, as one of the long list of college servants. There were also minute arrangements as to discipline ; no bows and arrows were to be allowed to the fellows, nor might they have dogs in college ; all musical instruments, too, were forbidden, except at special times of common recreation. For these, however, due provision was made ; and the college still uses the magnificent loving-cup, given it by the founder, consisting of an aurochs' horn mounted in silver gilt probably this has been in constant use longer than any other plate in England. Another curious arrangement of the founder was the appointment of a night watch- man, whose duty it was to " whistle at the usual times in the night, that the students might know when it was better to sleep and when to work." In one respect Queen's marks an important departure in University history; it was the first college in which arrangements were made for the systematic instruction of non- graduate students. The " poor boys " are a more direct 107 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES anticipation of the modern " scholar " than had previously been made ; and it is at Queen's that the word "Fellow" (Socius) is first distinctly used for a/t/// member of the society. The founder, to whom all these elaborate arrangements were due, was a North - country priest, Robert Eglesfield, chaplain of Queen Philippa. The benefit of his foundation was practically restricted to his own part of the world, and Queen's has retained, even in spite of recent changes, a more strongly marked local connection than any other college. Eglesfield was conscious that his own means were inade- quate to carry out his scheme fully, and he commended his college to his royal mistress. The connection thus established with the queens consort of England has always been maintained ; Queen Henrietta Maria,* Queen Caroline (wife of George II.), Queen Charlotte, and of Queens regnant, Elizabeth, who gave the name " Queen's " and the present seals, are prominent in the long roll of college benefactors. Queen's is famous in University history rather for her distinguished sons, than as the scene of any events of special importance. The rooms were, at first, more than adequate for members of the foundation, and hence distinguished lodgers were taken in ; it was in this capacity that Wycliffe, perhaps, resided there on his return to Oxford, after he had resigned the Master- ship of Balliol. Nicholas of Hereford, who aided him in translating the Bible, was a fellow, and the Provost and three fellows were expelled 108 QUEEN'S COLLEGE as Wycliffites in 1376. They took away with them the common seal and various jewels and keys, and the college had some trouble in re- covering the missing property. Other dis- tinguished lodgers, according to tradition, were Edward, the Black Prince, and King Henry V. ; of the latter, there are two interesting memorials, an early portrait on glass in the Library, which de- scribes him as "hostium victor et sui," and a most interesting contemporary picture in the Common Room. In the seventeenth century, it was a fellow of Queen's who planned the fortifications of Charles round Oxford ; and the college com- plained that, while it had loyally done its share of these, the men of Magdalen had neglected theirs, and prayed to be freed from such in- effective coadjutors. It gave the King 193 Ibs. of plate, more than any other college except Magdalen and All Souls. In the Revolution two Queen's men played prominent parts on opposite sides. Compton, the Bishop of London, who presented his college with an organ, was one of those who invited William III. over, and afterwards crowned him ; while Cartwright,* the time-serving Bishop of Chester, was a prominent member of the High Commission Court, and one of those who, by his subservience, lured James II. on to his ruin. Immediately after the Revolution the college had the misfortune to be robbed by Magdalen of its most distinguished son, Joseph Addison,* who migrated on being offered a demyship OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES by the President of Magdalen. By a curious fate the most famous poet of Queen's, William Collins, migrated to Magdalen forty years later in a precisely similar way. But though Addison left Queen's, his friend Tickell (*by Kneller) remained. Queen's, too, had the doubtful honour of training the dramatist Wycherley. In the eighteenth century Jeremy Bentham, who was at the college, speaks in the most bitter terms of it ; he learned nothing, he said, except " mendacity and insincerity." As, however, he took his degree (1763) at the age of sixteen, he is perhaps not a witness to be treated very seriously. A large amount of interesting infor- mation as to the college is to be found in the letters of a much more obscure student, John James, who resided at Queen's from 1778 to 1782. They have been published by the Oxford Historical Society, and show how, even in the idle days of the eighteenth century, men worked hard and read widely. Two other distinguished students of this period were William Mitford, the first scholarly his- torian of Greece, and a vigorous Tory, and Francis Jeffrey, the first editor of the great Whig review. It was in the eighteenth century that Queen's received the splendid benefaction of Lady Eliza- beth Hastings,* the object of Steele's oft-quoted panegyric, " To love her is a liberal education." She set about forwarding this in a more practical way by leaving her estates in South Yorks to Queen's College, to found five exhibitions of ^28 no QUEEN'S COLLEGE a year each for the scholars of certain North- country schools. Her expressed expectation that the estate would increase in value from its mineral wealth has been fully realised ; some fifteen exhi- bitions of ^90 a year each are now given. The arrangements of the will of " Lady Betty," as she is lovingly called in the college, are still largely main- tained, but not in one point. She provided that the names of the eight best candidates should be put in an " urn or vase," and that those which were drawn out first should be duly elected ; this arrangement "left something to Providence," and was arranged by her on the advice of the learned and pious Bishop Wilson. It was last used in 1859, when the hat of the Provost's ser- vant did duty as a "vase." In our own day the late Archbishop of York, Dr Thomson,* was successively Tutor and Provost of Queen's. According to a college tradition he owed his success in life to a musical man in the rooms above, who was so trying that, according to Oxford custom, the future Archbishop pro- ceeded to " rag " him. For this he was sent down by the college for a term, and so had time to turn over a new leaf and begin to work. His rooms in the back quadrangle are commemorated, according to the laudable custom of Queen's, by an inscription over the door. Closely connected with Queen's is the depen- dent foundation of St Edmund Hall, the only surviving example of a system of University life older than the college foundations. The halls were originally independent self-governing bodies, but ill OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES gradually the authority of the Chancellor was ex- tended over them, and he claimed to appoint their principals. Queen's alone succeeded in keeping the right of nominating the head of one of them, i.e. 9 St Edmund Hall. It is uncertain whether this foundation com- memorates the teaching of the learned and saintly Edmund Rich, 1 afterwards Archbishop of Can- terbury, the first-known D.D. of Oxford. Cer- tainly no part of its picturesque group of build- ings is older than 1450, and most of them date from the middle of the seventeenth century. St Edmund Hall was the subject of one of the most famous controversies of eighteenth cen- tury Oxford. Six students were expelled as "Methodists" in 1761, and a war of pam- phlets ensued, with picturesque titles such as " Goliath slain." Hearne, the Jacobite sub- librarian of the Bodleian, dear to all antiquarians for his learned publications, and to all students of literature for his voluminous and racy diary, was a member of St Edmund Hall, as was also, at a slightly earlier period, Sir Richard Black- more, the dreariest writer who has found his way into the collection of " English poets." 1 Hearne at any rate did not accept the tradition. NOTE. In the recent alterations at Queen's, conse- quent on the introduction of the electric light, a vault under the old chapel was opened ; the brasses of several early provosts were found and have been placed in the apse of the chapel, while their tombstones are fixed in the ante-chapel. 112 NEW COLLEGE DUIL DINGS. William ot Wykeham housed his society in a way so magnificent that comparatively little change has been made in his buildings. The Chapel, Hall, front quadrangle, cloisters and bell - tower are all original, though the cloisters and the bells were not consecrated till 1400, fourteen years after the rest. The Chapel has been restored of recent years to something of its original magni- ficence by the replacing of the open timber roof (about 1880) and of the statues in the reredos (completed 1894). Of the glass, that in the ante-chapel 1 is the original fourteenth century work, except the great West window, which was inserted ( 1782) from a design by Reynolds (he has painted himself as one of the shepherds on the left). Fine as it is, it was unpardonable to tamper with the original tracery, as was done. 1 The brasses in it are the finest in Oxford. H 113 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES In the chapel proper, the windows on the S. side were finished by Price (1737-40), but are traditionally assigned to pupils of Rubens ; the much inferior ones opposite were made by Peckitt of York (1765-1774). In the Hall the fine linen-pattern panelling was the gift of Archbishop Warham, and resembles that of Magdalen. The proportions of this room, other- wise the most beautiful in Oxford, are spoiled by the too great space above the windows ; the roof is modern an early work of G. Scott. In the front quadrangle the harmony of the founder's design was ruined in the seventeenth century, by the addition of a third storey, and by the modernization of the windows. Since the Founder's time, the back quadrangle has been added, expanding picturesquely in imita- tion of the palace at Versailles ; it was finished in 1684. The new buildings in Holy well St., the most terrible of all the outrages on modern Oxford, were the work of Sir Gilbert Scott (1872-6), and even more recent is the house at the East end of these (1886), which was designed by Mr Champneys. The front to Holywell St. was made (1898, see p. 129) 114 NEW COLLEGE continuous. The Gardens are remarkable for Mount " Parnassus " (said to have been erected for Charles' artillery, but certainly older), and for the beautiful angle of the City Wall. \\71LLIAU of Wykeham, the "sole and munificent founder of the two Saint Mary Winton colleges," is the greatest name on the roll of Oxford founders ; his work at Oxford was not so important as that of Walter de Merton, but he is much better known for his career as a statesman than is the founder of the college system ; he plays a less important part in English history than does Cardinal Wolsey, but his work in Oxford remained, while Wolsey 's was marred by his autocratic master. He was a great statesman -ecclesiastic, who rose to distinction as surveyor of Edward III. 'a building operations ; the Castle at Windsor espe- cially was half rebuilt by him. In fact, had he not been a statesman and a founder, he would have been remembered as an architect ; the Perpendicular style may have been devised at Gloucester, but it was Wykeham' s work in Winchester Cathedral and in New College, which first showed the magnificent possibilities of this most characteristically English of Gothic styles. For this devotion to building he was attacked by Wycliffe, who says that patrons will present a man " wise of building of castles or worldly doing, though he cannot read well his psalter." Wykeham, in fact, was one of 117 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES the greatest pluralists of the time, and generous as he was, he can hardly be considered to have been a great spiritual force in any sense of the word ; but he was merciful and tolerant in days when the clergy were beginning to persecute, he was a champion of English liberty against the reckless encroachments of John of Gaunt, and above all, he profoundly influenced English education by his colleges. He saw that the ravages of the Black Death had terribly thinned the ranks of the clergy ; he saw that men every- where were beginning to question the order of things established in Church and in State ; he saw that the religious orders were false to their profes- sions, and therefore he designed to apply some of his great wealth to training men for the Church. There is an interesting and almost contemporary portrait of him in the Warden's lodgings (not generally shown to the public), while on the left hand of the sanctuary in the chapel can be seen his magnificent silver-gilt crozier ; his altar tomb in his cathedral is well known. With his college at Winchester we have nothing to do here, except so far as it was to be, and has been, the training school for his Oxford students ; but it was in itself the more important of his two foundations, and has served as a model for the English public-school system. His college in Oxford bears the significant title of " New " ; hitherto Merton had been the col- lege, of which all others were comparatively feeble copies ; now it in turn was quite eclipsed. It is a striking testimony to the age of Oxford 118 NEW COLLEGE that its " New College " has celebrated its five hundredth anniversary. William of Wykeham obtained his college charter in 1379, but it was not till April 14, 1386, that his society, which had been in exist- ence for ten years or more, at the neighbouring Hart Hall and elsewhere, took solemn possession of their new home, entering " with cross erect, and singing a solemn litany." Wykeham's foundation only marked the final triumph of the system which Walter de Merton had begun, but in several points it was a new departure. It was more religious than any of the previous foundations except Queen's ; not only were its fellows required to take orders as soon as possible, but the members of New Col- lege had to go to mass daily the first instance of daily " compulsory chapel." Again the new foundation was on a scale of magnificence far exceeding even Merton. Ample provision was made for the Warden, who was to have the state of a great abbot ; his house over New College Lane is still the most beautiful in Oxford, and he was allowed six horses. Special grants too are made for guests at the High Table. It seems curious that ladies were frequently entertained at this in the fifteenth century ; but in some respects the fifteenth century was more lax (or shall we say " more reasonable " ?) than the nineteenth. Educationally, Wykeham's great innovation, apart from the connection which he established between his colleges at Winchester and at Ox- 119 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES ford, was the provision which he made for definite instruction within the walls of his college. Hitherto, with the unimportant ex- ception of the " boys " at Merton and at Queen's, all students had obtained their teach- ing in the public " schools " of the University; by Wykeham's arrangement, the younger of his scholars were to go to an elder (as " infor- mator"), and special fees were paid to those who discharged this duty. In this way was founded the system of tutorial instruction which has gradually superseded the general teaching of the University. No doubt, in the end Oxford suffered from the development of this system, which, till quite recent years, made the college everything, and the University nothing ; but in the fourteenth century the teaching of "the schools " was becoming mechanical, and hard to maintain, and the early Wykehamists gained greatly by the special instruction which was pro- vided for them. The college statutes are most minute in their orders as to the conduct of the students, being more than three times as long as those of Mer- ton. All amusements seem barred not only the "shooting with arrows, stones, or other mis- siles," and " illicit games, especially those played for money," but even games at chess or with ball. The founder thinks it necessary to pro- hibit " dancing, wrestling, or other incautious or inordinate games " in chapel. The only recrea- tion which he allows his scholars is that on festivals, round the fire in Hall, they may, 120 NEW COLLEGE after their meal, indulge in " singing or reading chronicles of the realm and wonders of the world." Wykeham's motto, " Manners makyth Man," which is still retained by New College, is typical of the college system, which he did so much to establish. The first Warden of Winchester, Cranley (his brass is in the college chapel), who was afterwards Warden of New College, became Archbishop of Dublin, and his success was but one of many among the early Wyke- hamists. Chichele,* founder of All Souls, and Warham (* after Holbein), patron of Erasmus, became Archbishops of Canterbury. Almost equally famous is William of Waynflete,* the founder of Magdalen. But more important, from an educational point of view, is the con- nection between New College and the early Renaissance. Warden Chandler, himself no mean scholar, brought into the college as " Praelector " of Greek the Italian, Vitelli, one of whose pupils, Grocyn, was the first Englishman who lectured on Greek at Oxford ; he had the great Erasmus for a hearer, and was the honoured friend of Colet, the Dean of St Paul's. Erasmus says of him that he pub- lished nothing but one epistle, " for he had so nice a taste that he would rather write nothing than write ill," an excuse which has often been alleged since for the non-productiveness of Ox- ford's most learned and honoured sons. Another Wykehamist, Stanbridge, was Master of Mag- dalen College School, and so a leader in the in OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES movement for bringing the " new learning " down from the University to the school-room. Above all, in Warham* the Archbishop, Humanism found a " truly royal patron " ; for, again to quote Erasmus, " he let no (scholar) leave him disappointed." " All who have gathered good from my writings must thank him for it." In spite of this devotion to the new learning, New College was strongly opposed to the changes of the Reformation. Its Warden, Dr London, was rash enough to write warmly in praise of the Catholic orthodoxy of Wolsey's new founda- tion, Cardinal College ; but he was one of the foremost in hunting down heresy when it declared itself there, "puffing, blustering, and blowing like a hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey" (as he is described in the pathetic narrative of Dalaber ; see p. 27) ; he even used astrology to track out the fugitives. In his own college he confined one of his fellows, Quinley, in the Tower, till he died of cold and hunger. When he was dying, his friends were admitted to him, and asked him if he could eat anything. "A Warden pie," was his grim reply : when they took him to mean a "pie of baked pears," he explained that he wanted the "Wardens of Winchester and New College baked," and then "after his prayers, slept sweetly in the Lord." London afterwards degraded himself by serving as Henry's tool in collecting evidence against the monasteries ; but he came to a bad end, for, being convicted of 122 NEW COLLEGE disgraceful conduct, he was put to stand in the pillory, and died of shame in the Fleet prison. London, in his zeal against the old state of things, actually went so far as to attack the character of his own founder, Wykeham ; but, to give even the blackest their due, it must be added that he seems to have tried hard, though without much success, to turn the confiscated monastic property in Oxford to the benefit of the city and the encouragement of its trade. Other prominent partisans of the Pope were the mendacious historian Harpsfield, and Saun- ders, the Papal legate, who organized rebellion against Elizabeth. In the period between the Reformation and the great Rebellion, New College trained Lake, the Bishop of Chichester, one of the few Wardens who have been authors [there is an excellent portrait of him in Hall by (perhaps) C. Jansen] ; Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of Dr Donne, whose feelings on his last visit to his old school at Winchester (sympathetically described by Walton) will come home to many a public school man in our own day ; and Richard Hay- dock, who used to preach in his sleep ; his fame was so great that King James I. heard of him, and "sat up most of the night attending the event," till the preacher began. His discourse was most suspicious, for he inveighed against the Pope and the last canons of the Church of England, and the British Solomon had not much difficulty in proving him to be an impostor. 125 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES In the Civil War, New College suffered severely; Antony Wood, who was a boy at its choir school, relates how the " scholars did some- times train in New College quadrangle" ; as might be expected, there was "no holding of the school- boys in their school in the cloister " ; " some of them were so besotted with the training that they could never be brought to their books again." The school was soon turned out of its place, when the King put his magazine in the Cloister and Tower, and moved to " a dark nasty room " at the E. end of the Hall, " which made the scholars often complain, but in vain." When Oxford surrendered, almost a clean sweep was made of the members of the foundation, but as Wykehamists were nominated in their places the Puritan party gained little; when the new Warden, who was not a Wykehamist, " sconced" (*.., fined) the fellows for cutting the long Puritan prayers, the college remitted the sconces, and in 1654 Evelyn found the college chapel " in its ancient garb, notwithstanding the scrupu- losity of the times." In the final struggle for English liberty two of the " seven bishops " were New College men, Ken,* Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Turner,* Bishop of Ely, and Holloway, the only Judge who boldly defied James II. by declaring the law of England to be on the side of the Bishops, was a fellow Wykehamist. New College now fell on evil times, and it is in the eighteenth century that the proverb with regard to it was especially true, that "it had 126 NEW COLLEGE golden scholars, silver bachelors, and leaden masters." This was the natural result of a system, which guaranteed to a well-trained boy a provision in life as soon as he had passed from Winchester and obtained his scholarship at Ox- ford. But in Bishop Lowth,* New College furnishes one notable exception ; his lectures, on the Poetry of the Hebrews, delivered as Pro- fessor of Poetry at Oxford, were the foundation of the scientific criticism of the Old Testament. He records his obligations to his University in a fine passage, which expresses the feeling of many Oxford men : " I enjoyed all the advantages, both public and private, which that seat of learn- ing affords. I spent many years in that illustrious society in a well-regulated course of useful dis- cipline and studies, and in the agreeable and im- proving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars ; in a society where emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without animosity incited industry, and awakened genius, where a liberal pursuit of knowledge and a genuine freedom of thought was raised, en- couraged, and pushed forward by example, by commendation, and by authority." A New College man of the same spirit as Lowth, though of less genius, was the learned editor of the Septuagint, Dr Holmes ; yet how different he was from the majority of his con- temporaries among the fellows may be seen from the story of the competition between New College and All Souls as to the merits of their negus. The question between the brews was so 127 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES even that the common room men of Queen's and B. N. C. had to be called in as judges, and gave the preference to New College. Towards the end of the eighteenth century New College sent forth a student whose views differed widely from the then prevailing tone in Oxford; Sydney Smith* was a bold reformer of abuses in the days when the Church of England generally was identified with the blankest Tory- ism ; but, unfortunately, there are few Oxford traditions as to this, the wittiest of her sons. 1 The nineteenth century has seen the removal of the two abuses which in the previous period had done so much to spoil the efficiency of William of Wykeham's College. The rights of " founder's kin" were at last swept away, although the first attack on them, that of the Wykehamist, Augustus Hare, joint author of the " Guesses at Truth," had been in vain. Equally important was the voluntary renunciation by the college in 1834 of the curious privilege which its fellows had enjoyed of taking degrees without examination. The origin of this is somewhat technical, but is a notable instance of how the best statutes, if literally observed, may come in process of time to defeat their own object. The founder had forbidden his scholars to avail themselves of any of the "graces," or dispensations from University lectures and duties, which were so frequent as short cuts to the mediaeval degree. Gradually 1 He was one of the first presidents of the Junior Common Room. 128 NEW COLLEGE these lectures and duties had become a pure form ; but when Laud in the seventeenth cen- tury, and the famous statute of 1800, sub- stituted real examinations for the old forms, the degenerate Wykehamists still claimed ex- emption ; hence, what the founder had meant as a security for industry, became a shield for idleness. In 1857 a further reform was carried out by the University Commission. Only half the fellowships are now reserved for Winchester men, while there are a few open scholarships ; but Wykehamists may boast, with good reason, that the strength of New College lies in its connection with its sister foundation. Its motto is still the " Manners makyth Man," given to the scholars of St Mary Winton by their founder. In our own day the whole character of the college has been changed ; from being a small foundation, consisting almost entirely of scholars, it has become one of the largest in Oxford, and the Winchester element is comparatively small ; typical of the new order is Lord Milner, elected as fellow from Balliol in 1877, whose portrait (*M. Balfour) in Hall was presented by Wyke- hamists who served under him in S. Africa. NOTE. The newest buildings, facing Holy well Street; have been ingeniously joined to the older ones by a fine tower (1898), called the " Robinson " tower : it is a memorial of the late bursar, whose premature death in 1895 was one of the greatest losses of modern Oxford. His portrait (Herkomer) hangs in the Hall, and his statue adorns the inner side of his tower. I 129 XI LINCOLN COLLEGE DUILDINGS. The tower and the rooms over it date from the Founder's time. Immediately after were added the N. side of the front quadrangle and the Hall. In 1464 the Rector's house, at the South end of the Hall, was begun by the executors of Bishop Beckington; his rebus, a "beacon in a ton," can still be seen on the S. side of the quadrangle, though this building itself is later, having been put up by Bishop Rotherham about 1475. The Chapel was consecrated in 1631, and the whole of the second quadrangle dates from about the same time, i.e. 9 1610-1631. In spite of the injudicious addition of the battle- ments, which are modern, the front quadrangle at Lincoln is one of the most pleasing examples of pre- Reformation domestic architecture which Oxford possesses. The Chapel is distinguished 130 THE SCREEN, LINCOLN COLLEGE CHAPEL LINCOLN COLLEGE by its fine wood- carving, and by its contemporary glass, which is traditionally said to be foreign. '"FHE crushing of the Wycliffite movement at the beginning of the fifteenth century marks the close of intellectual activity in mediaeval Oxford ; but colleges still continue to be founded, and two of these, Lincoln and All Souls, are more distinctly reactionary in character than any of the earlier foundations. The founder of Lincoln College, Richard Fleming,* Bishop of Lincoln, had been in his early days a sympathiser with the Lollards ; he was a leading man in Oxford, and as Proctor had drawn up the copy of the old statutes, which the University still possesses. But advancing years, and possibly advancing fortunes, brought with them greater caution, and almost in the last year of his life, 1429, Fleming founded his " little college of theologians," " to defend the mysteries of the sacred page against these ignorant laics, who profaned with swinish snouts its most holy pearls." It is a curious irony of fate that by far the most famous scholar of Fleming's " little college " is John Wesley, the Wycliffe of the eighteenth century. Lin- coln College at first had for the chief part of its endowment the revenues of the three churches, St Michael's, All Saints, and St Mildred's, which were impropriated by the founder for its benefit ; the college still has the patronage of the two first of these, while St '33 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Mildred's has disappeared to make way for tne present buildings. Scanty as the revenues were, they were coveted by the greedy courtiers of Edward IV., and as the college had obtained its charter from Henry VI., it might have gone hard with it under his Yorkist rival, had not George Neville, Archbishop of York and brother of the king-maker, Warwick, interceded. Even then the college was not secure, but it found another and even more efficient protection in Rotheram,* Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of York ; this prelate is accused by some of a share in the intrigues of Richard III., but as a pious founder he takes a high rank in both the Universities. His sympathy with Lincoln was moved by the sermon which the Rector preached before him; taking as his text Psalm Ixxx. 14- 1 5, " Behold and visit this vine, and the vine- yard which thy right hand hath planted," he drew so touching a picture of the state of the college, that the Bishop at once promised to undertake its protection. He was as good as his word ; he gave it a new charter and new statutes, he increased its revenues, and com- pleted its buildings. Henceforth it is no longer a struggling foundation, but takes its definite position as a college in the University. As in most of the Oxford colleges, the majority at Lincoln was against the changes of the Reformation ; there is a pathetic interest in the record of the Register as to the death of Queen Mary, the only record which relates to events outside the college, and unconnected '34 LINCOLN COLLEGE with it: "In the year of our Lord, 1558, and in November, died the lady of most holy memory, Mary Queen of England, and Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury. At this date the following were Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College." The last entry seems to imply that the members of the founda- tion felt that the deluge was upon them ; and they were right, for the Rector and his two successors were all in succession deprived, and two of them, Babington and Bridgwater, had to flee to their Roman Catholic friends beyond sea. So low was the college brought that in 1606 only the Rector and three fellows re- mained. But eight more were then elected at once, of whom the most famous was the last on the roll, Robert Sanderson, one of the greatest names in Oxford theology and logic ; in the very next year he was made lecturer in logic. As a student he was remarkable, for he read regularly eleven hours a day ; his compendium of logic was still studied in Oxford at the end of the eighteenth century ; while his character and piety fitted him for the part of mediator between the opposing parties in the Church, though unfortunately his efforts were without success. He has left an enduring mark in the service of the Church of England in the stately eloquence of the Introduction to the Prayer Book ("It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England"), which was written by him. Lincoln, like so many other colleges in '35 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Oxford, increased in numbers and buildings during the days of the Laudian reform. The benefactor of the college, however, was Laud's rival, the Lord Keeper Williams,* the last ecclesiastic who had that high office. In spite of its increasing wealth the state of discipline at Lincoln seems to have been far from satis- factory; the college record tells of "most cruel and barbarous assaults," not only of B.A.'s on undergraduates, but of the fellows on each other; in 1636 it records that "Mr Kilbye's face was sore bruised and beaten," but the fellow who had done the mischief, Mr Webberley, seems to have got off easily, only paying "the charge of the surgeon for healing of Mr Kilbye's face." It would seem as if the whip of the Sub- Rector must have been allowed to lie idle ; this scourge of four tails is still preserved in college (a genuine mediaeval relic), though it serves only as a symbol of authority, and no longer as an instrument of government. But a better period was beginning for Lincoln, during which it was under the government of a succession of strong and good Rectors. The first of these, Nathanael Crewe,* was only Rector for four years (1664-1668), but he ranks high among the benefactors of his college and the University. It is said that his liberality was to have been extended to rebuilding the whole college, but fortunately the fellows offended him, and mediaeval Lincoln was spared. Mr Andrew Clark, the learned editor of Antony Wood, draws attention to the curious fatality which 136 LINCOLN COLLEGE has made his college quarrel with benefactor after benefactor : Bishop Smith, the founder of E. N. C., had intended to have benefitted Lin- coln, and the famous Dr RadclifTe, who was a fellow of Lincoln, transferred part of his bene- factions to his old college of University, which he had intended to give to his new college." During this century of good government, Lincoln was the home of many famous scholars; Hickes,* the non-juring Dean of Worcester, whose monumental Thesaurus is still (after two centuries) a standard work, and Potter (afterwards of University College, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury) were both fellows. But it is not by its men of learning that a college is remembered, and the most glorious name on the roll of Lincoln at this period is that of John Wesley, who was elected fellow in 1726. For nine years he lived in college, occupying, according to tradition, the rooms over the passage from the first into the chapel quadrangle : in the Hall is preserved the portrait of htm, which has been recently ac- quired by the college; though much damaged, it is especially interesting, as being the only likeness of him in his youth, while still a tutor at Oxford. It was during this period of quiet work that Wesley and his friends and followers gained the name of "Methodists," from the care with which they observed all the services and duties prescribed by the Church; the first duty per- formed by Wesley as fellow was to preach 137 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES the college sermon on Michaelmas Day, 1726, at St Michael's Church. Nor did he neglect the cultivation of his mind : he was repeatedly appointed lecturer on Philosophy and on Greek, and his own scheme of reading is extant, which assigns the first two days of the week to Classics, Wednesday to Natural Philosophy, Thursday to Hebrew and Arabic, Friday to Logic and Metaphysics, and Saturday to Rhetoric. Besides this fairly extensive programme, he studied Divinity on Sunday, and Mathematics all the week. It is, perhaps, not fanciful to think that to this period of quiet thought and study, Wesley owes the special feature which distinguishes him among reformers ; that feature is the combina- tion of the fiery zeal and eloquence which could move thousands, with the organising power which could knit those who had been moved into a great system. Wesley's period at Lincoln was to him all that St Paul's sojourn in Arabia was to the great apostle of the Gentiles. Wesley himself, though naturally he differed in his religious views from his contemporaries, speaks well of the Rectors of his day, and of the college work. The period of decline which befell most colleges in the eighteenth century was postponed at Lincoln, but came at the close of the period, during the long Rectorship (over forty years) of Tatham. Of his eccentricities, many stories were told, e.g., how he preached at St Mary's for two and a half hours, thereby causing the death of a head of a house, who insisted in LINCOLN COLLEGE sitting it out. Towards the close of his life, he lived away at Twyford, and never came into Oxford without bringing some of his pigs for sale. Just before his death, Lincoln, which before had possessed no poet but Charles II.'s laureate, Sir William Davenant, had the honour of matriculating Robert Montgomery. This gentleman is, perhaps, the most striking example of the bad taste of the public, which the annals of English literature can show ; he believed him- self, and was believed by thousands, to be a second Milton, till Macaulay smashed his preten- sions in his well-known review. An amusing practical joke on Montgomery's colossal vanity was played while he was at college ; when in for " Smalls," he was actually persuaded to go and ask the Vice-Chancellor that his viva voce might be deferred to late in vacation, to avoid the inconvenient crowd which was sure to throng to hear the "distinguished poet" ex- amined. The Vice-Chancellor's answer is not recorded. As a result of the remissness of the college management under Tatham, Lincoln lost its claim to a large sum of money which had been invested in government securities, when the old garden, lying to theW. of the college, was sold soon after 1771. Lincoln, however, revived under the tutorship of Mark Pattison*( Rector 1861-1884). His memoirs give a brilliant, though bitter, picture of Oxford in his own day, when he was a leader in the Liberal movement that has transformed the 139 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES University. It is a pity that he spoiled his example of what a great scholar should be by systematic neglect of his duties as Rector. To this last period in the history of the college belong the names of John Morley, the bio- grapher of Voltaire and Rousseau ; and of J. C. Morison, the biographer of St Bernard. It is sad that the ill-health and premature death of the latter, and that the claims of politics on the former, have robbed English literature of historical work of permanent value ; perhaps his biography of Mr Gladstone may be the beginning for Mr Morley of a return to his real career. The present Sub- Rector, Mr Warde Fowler, has a literary reputation which is rare in modern Oxford ; his works on ancient history may appeal only to the few, but his "Tales of the Birds" mark him out as the most sympathetic student of bird life of our day. The present Rector, Dr Merry (* C. Johnson) as Public Orator preserved the Old Oxford tradition that Latin should be a spoken as well as a written language, and by his speeches enlivened the official dulness of many Com- memorations. NOTE. The new library to the S. of the college has been built (1906) from the designs of Messrs Read & Macdonald. I 4 XII ALL SOULS COLLEGE DUILDINGS. The front quadrangle re- mains as the Founder left it, except that the old windows were cut square in the seven- teenth century. The front towards the High Street and St Catherine's Street was refaced in the early part of this century, but the original carving over the gateway remains, representing the souls in Purgatory. The Chapel, however, has been very much restored. Its interior was wrecked by the Visitors of Edward VI. in 1549, and seems to have remained almost a ruin for a century. After submitting to a seventeenth century "restoration," it has been "gothicised" again in our own time, but the general effect outside is cold and hard. Much of the glass in the ante-chapel is contem- porary with the Founder, and one window that on the north contains excellent portraits OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES of him, of Henry V., and Henry VI. ; these windows, however, were originally elsewhere. In the Chapel the stalls and desks with the misereres are original, but somewhat restored. The great reredos can only claim to be a conjecture of what the Founder's work may have been. After remaining a ruin for more than a century, it was plastered up in the reign of Charles II., and covered with a sprawling fresco. The very existence of any reredos was forgotten, till in 1870 some workmen repairing the roof, found some of the remains behind the plaster, especially the crucifix at the foot and the great beam with the old inscription, " Sur- gite mortui, venite ad judicium" at the top. From the fragments the present reredos was reconstructed in memory of the heroes of Agin- court and their contemporaries ; the great figures on each side of the crucifix are those of Henry VI. and Archbishop Chichele. The restoration has a special interest, as the faces of the statues are portraits of present members of the college; the late Dr Max Miiller appears as a bishop and the Warden as an earl. The tradition goes that a belated fellow applied 142 ALL SOULS COLLEGE at the last moment for a place, and was told the only one left for him was among the "lost souls." The "Noli me Tangere" of Raphael Mengs, which now hangs in the ante-chapel, was once the altar-piece. The first additions to the college were made by Warner, the Warden at the time of the Reformation. He added the buildings in the side quadrangle, which look on the High Street ; the first-floor rooms, which used to be occupied by the Wardens, are perhaps the finest set in Oxford. They were completed by Warden Hoveden, who also redecorated the beautiful lecture-room, formerly the Library, on the E. side of the quadrangle. The present Hall was begun in 1729 (its handsome windows (Powell), representing college worthies, are the gifts of living All Souls men), and the E. side of the North quadrangle a little earlier. The great Library dates from 1716, but was not finished for forty years ; it is undoubtedly the finest room, in the Italian style, belonging to any college in Oxford ; it is 200 feet long, and holds with ease the 80,000 books which All Souls now possesses. The collec- * I4S OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES tion is especially rich in works on law and history, and was in 1867 generously opened to strangers, who, after proper introduction, can obtain leave to read in it. The quadrangle was completed by the addition of the cloister along St Catherine Street about 1734. The twin towers are the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor, Wren's pupil, and in spite of their oddity and their quaint disregard of all the traditions of the Gothic style, to which they profess to belong, are really effective. They are said to be a copy of his own work at St Anne's Limehouse. Hawksmoor observes to be remembered, were it only for his letter to the fellows of All Souls, in which he rebukes them for their proposal to rebuild the old part of their college, " erecting new, fantastical!, perishable trash." It is rare for an architect to show such self-denial. The Warden's lodgings to the east of the college were added in the same period. A LL SOULS COLLEGE is, in more senses ** than one, a daughter of New College. Its founder, Archbishop Chichele, was an early Wykehamist, and his work was manifestly in- spired by that of his own benefactor. His college, ALL SOULS COLLEGE however, emphasizes especially a side of medie- val thought, which though always present, had not been made so prominent in any previous founda- tion ; it was a chantry as well as a college, and was especially designed to benefit the soul, not only of the founders, but also of the most " illustrious Prince Henry, late King of England, . . . and of the Dukes, Earls, Barons, Knights, and others, who fell in the wars for the Crown of France." Hence its full name is the " Collegium Omnium Animarum Fidelium Defunctorum." It was not without reason that Chichele thus commemorated his dead friends and countrymen, for he himself had been prominent in urging on the war which began so gloriously at Agincourt, and was ending so disastrously, when he obtained his charter in 1438 ; the buildings were occupied in 1442. A considerable part of the endow- ments was derived from the "alien priories," which had been suppressed in the reign of Henry V. Thus Oxford, for the first, but by no means for the last time, gained at the expense of the religious orders. Chichele associated the King, Henry VI., with himself as co-founder, much as Adam de Brome had done at Oriel (p. 92) ; but All Souls found that there was dangers as well as advantages in royal founders, for King Edward talked of con- fiscating the endowments given by his Lancastrian predecessor, and was only appeased by a share in the college prayers and a considerable sum of money down. All Souls, at this time, was in con- siderable resort as a place of pilgrimage, for we find OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES in the accounts an entry for over 9000 wafers at one single obit. Chichele's college played a prominent part in the beginning of the Revival of Learning : two of its fellows, Linacre* (portrait after Holbein) and Latimer, were among the foremost Greek scholars of the day. The scientific eminence of Linacre reminds us of a fact, too often forgotten, that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Greek was important as the key not only to the most perfect literature in the world, but also to stores of scientific and medical knowledge which were not accessible elsewhere. Thus the works of Galen, which Linacre translated, were far more practically useful than mediaeval treatises on medicine. Linacre founded, and was him- self the first president of, the College of Physicians, and gave his own University the endowment which now supports the Chair of Comparative Anatomy. AJ1 Souls, at this time, and for long after, was especially connected with science and medicine, and shares with Wadham in the seventeenth century, the honour of Sy den- ham, the greatest of English physicians. This connection has left its mark on the college library in the unusual number of early medical works which are on the shelves. In the stormy times of the Reformation All Souls suffered terribly; the Edwardian Visitors of 1549 smashed the glorious reredos and the organ, one of the earliest in England ; and on the accession of Elizabeth, the college, after a hard struggle, was forced by Archbishop Parker ALL SOULS COLLEGE to give up almost all of its splendid chapel plate and vestments as being Popish. In other re- spects, however, the Protestant rulers were not unfavourable to the efficiency of the college : the iconoclastic Visitors endeavoured to enforce the Founder's intentions as to the poverty of candi- dates for fellowships, and Cranmer is the first of the long series of Archbishops of Canterbury, who as Visitors endeavoured to crush the system of " corrupt resignations " of fellowships. This evil is found in other colleges in Oxford, but was perhaps most rampant at All Souls ; by it a fellowship was treated as a possession of its holder, to be transferred for money, just as com- missions were sold in the English army down even to our own day. When a fellow resigned, the rest of the body elected his nominee as a matter of course, since they all hoped, when their time came, to make a similar bargain for themselves. The evil was not finally suppressed at All Souls till the time of Archbishop Sancroft. Cranmer sought to amend his college in small things as well as great; the fellows had been keeping dogs and wearing quilted silk gowns ; all these frivolities the Visitor strove to put down. The career of Warden Warner, who presided over All Souls from 1536 to 1565, is very characteristic of the attitude of the mass of the English people, and of Oxford as a typical com- munity, during that period of religious change. He held office alike under the auto-Catholic Henry VIII., the Protestant Edward VI., the Roman Catholic Mary, and the Anglo-Catholic 149 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Elizabeth, only retiring for the last two years of Mary, and even then he continued to live in Oxford. Nor must it be thought that he and others like him were indifferent to all but their places ; they seem rather to have thought that the government of England and of the University must be carried on somehow, and that it was better to acquiesce in minor differences of creed than shipwreck everything. Of a similar com- mon-sense or compliant character was another famous All Souls man of this period, Sir William Petre, the "second founder" of Exeter College. Strong hands were needed for college govern- ment in Tudor times, for the sovereigns were not very scrupulous in dealing with subjects' pro- perty ; but All Souls was successful in wresting the parsonage and tithes of Stanton Harcourt even from the great Elizabeth herself, while the college absolutely refused to grant to one of hei favourites a lease of all their woods for a beg- garly 20 a year, though they were bullied by no less a person than Sir Walter Raleigh, who ex- pressed himself much surprised that " subjects of your quality" should presume to refuse the Queen anything. At this period All Souls actually had a number of undergraduates, 1 and Archbishop Parker proposed to endow exhibitions from the King's School, Canterbury ; but his death cut short the proposal, and the undergraduates died out after the Civil War. The college remains, as Mr Rashdall 1 They were, however, all servitors of the fellows, except the four bible-clerks, who still exist. i so ALL SOULS COLLEGE says, " to remind us that colleges in their origin were designed to be primarily bodies of students and not bodies of teachers." The greatest of All Souls wardens is un- doubtedly Sheldon, who held the post during the troubled times of the Civil War. He was one of the leaders of Oxford during the golden age of Laud, whom he ventured to resist when that vigorous reformer for once proposed to commit a job, and to introduce a Cambridge graduate to All Souls by a " corrupt resigna- tion." The Archbishop of course triumphed, and All Souls owes to this job the honour of numbering among its members the English Chrysostom, Jeremy Taylor.* Sheldon was a distinguished member of the brilliant and learned circle which used to meet at Lord Falkland's house at Great Tew, as Clarendon describes in his history; but the Civil War swept all this away: Sheldon was expelled, with the majority of his fellows ; some even of the college servants were deprived of their places rather than submit. The sculpture over the gate of the college was preserved at this time in a curious way ; Alderman Nixon, a well-known Puritan in the city, and the college grocer, interceded for it, and prevented its removal. Of the fellows elected under the Common- wealth, by far the most famous was Sir Chris- topher Wren,* who came from Wadham in 1653. He erected the great sun-dial which still adorns the back quadrangle, with its motto OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES "Pereunt et imputantur " ("They pass away and are counted against us"); so correctly is this constructed that before the days of tele- graphic communication, the Oxford watch- makers used to set their clocks by it. He bequeathed to the library, too, a splendid col- lection of his architectural sketches, which illustrate, even more than his completed works, the marvellous fertility of this greatest of Eng- lish architects. After the Restoration, if the letter-writers, Prideaux and Hearne, may be trusted, there was a scandalous falling off in discipline and learning at All Souls. Prideaux tells a story how the fellows of that college actually em- ployed the new Clarendon Press to reprint for them a set of indecent Italian engravings (by Marc Antonio), though their attempt was frustrated by the vigilance of the Vice-Chan- cellor. But it is certain that the college still continued to elect men of distinction, and it was by the liberality of its own sons, admitted during this period, that the buildings of All Souls were so largely increased early in the eigh- teenth century. Foremost among these was Christopher Codrington, 1 the munificent founder of the library, a man who was with some reason considered by his contemporaries a kind of " Admirable Crichton " ; he served with dis- tinction in William III.'s campaigns, was an elegant scholar, and besides his benefaction to All Souls, left the great Codrington College in 1 His statue is in the Library. 152 ALL SOULS COLLEGE Barbadoes to assist the work of the Church in the West India Islands, of which he was Governor. But the Stuart period had one more indignity ID store for the college. James II. insisted on nominating as Warden the disreputable Finch, whose only claim to distinction was that he had enlisted a company of volunteers to aid in sup- pressing Monmouth's rebellion. The service of this gallant company had been to occupy Islip, and when the victory of Sedgmoor had been gained, to dine with Lord Abingdon, and return to Oxford " well fuzzed with his ale." The drum which was stove in on this drunken march remains to this day in the All Souls Bursary. Finch, as Warden, behaved as might have been expected jobbed, drank, and died with the bailiffs in his house. In the eighteenth century the college became a kind of snug family party ; it was at this period that the gibe became current that the fellows of All Souls had to be "bene nati, bene vestiti et modice docti," *".*., " well born, well drest, With moderate learning for the rest." But even at this period the college boasts famous names, two Lord Chancellors, Lords Talbot and Northington, Young * the poet, whose sonorous lines were once so popular, but whose practice unfortunately was not as good as his preaching, and the great Blackstone,* whose Commentaries in their original form were pro- fessorial lectures at All Souls. Black stone '53 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES seems to have been the first to introduce the system still prevailing in Oxford by which the fellows lay down wine for the use of themselves and their successors ; previously according to his admiring biographer, they "had to go to the tavern across the street and drink bad wine." Finally in the opening years of this century, Reginald Heber,* the author of " From Green- land's Icy Mountains," and himself one of the greatest of missionary bishops, was among the fel- lows of the college. In our own day the various Royal Commissions have dealt kindly with All Souls. It still remains an anomalous society, which like many other anomalies, does excellent work. Probably no college in Oxford has been able to elect a more brilliant series of fellows than All Souls has done of recent years ; the late Chancellor, Lord Salisbury (whose fine portrait by Richmond has the place of honour in the Hall) is the type of man whom All Souls has delighted to honour. 1 And to those refor- mers who demand more distinctly educational work, the college can make answer by pointing to the fact that in its halls and lecture rooms more men daily receive instruction than in any other college in Oxford, and that its library was the first in the development of which specializa- tion was introduced ; to quote the words of our great Law Professor, Sir Henry Maine, " with- out the arrangements which All Souls has made, legal studies in the University would have been difficult, if not impossible." 1 The late Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, and Dr Lang, Archbishop of York, were also fellows here. JOO JOO J o joo MAGDALENtCOLLEGE BCB XIII MAGDALEN COLLEGE DUILDINGS. Of the old hospital which was on the site before William of Wayn- flete founded his college there are remains in the Chaplains' Quadrangle, the entrance to which lies on the right immediately on entering the college. The whole has been renovated and rendered uniform, but part of the wall dates from the thirteenth century. The Pilgrim's gate in the High Street has long been closed with masonry. Most of the buildings stand on the same sites, and very much in the same shape, as they were left by the Founder. The chapel was finished before 1483, and the fine sculpture over the W. doorway represents Edward IV. on the right of St Mary Mag- dalen ; the other figures are St John and St Swithun, and the Founder kneeling on her ex- '55 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES treme left. The interior of the chapel has suffered terribly from the religious troubles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and may be said to have been entirely renewed in the restoration of the first half of this century. The seventeenth century stalls were then re- moved to the S. end of the ante-chapel. The glass of the windows in this part, representing a very curious series of saints, dates from about 1635, but the big west window, of the Last Judgment, which is of the same date, was much injured by the great storm of 1703, and was largely repainted when restored in 1794. The picture over the altar may very probably be a genuine work of the Spanish master, Valdez Leal. The little chapel on the N. side of the altar is sometimes called the Founder's Oratory, though with no special reason : in it is the fifteenth century tomb of Richard Patten, the father of William of Waynflete, which was transferred to Oxford in 1720 on the destruction of the old church of Wainfleet in Lincolnshire. The chapel Tower, i.e., the famous Magdalen Tower, is rather later than the rest of the chapel ; MAGDALEN COLLEGE it was begun in 1492 and finished in 1507, and seems to have been intended originally to stand alone. Traditionally it is said to have been designed by Wolsey,* who was twice bursar during the progress of the work. It is very tempting to connect Oxford's most magnificent ornament with her most magni- ficent son ; but nothing can be said for certain except that Archbishop Parker's scandal as to Wolsey' s embezzlement of college funds is de- Tionstrably untrue. The Hall was spoiled for many years, from an architectural point of view, by the insertion of a plaster ceiling, one of Wyatt's many outrages on Oxford. For this has now been substituted, with great success, an open oak roof, designed by Bodley on the lines of the original roof. The panelling of the Hall, of "linen-fold" pattern, is said to have come from Reading Abbey ; the screen at the entrance is the finest specimen of Jacobean wood-work in Oxford. The Founder's Tower, the Cloisters, and the rooms above them were certainly part of the Founder's work, though the strange " hiero- glyphs" which have puzzled so many antiquaries 'S9 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES are a little later i.e., about 1509 and the buildings were very largely renewed in 1822 and the following years, e.g., the north side towards the New buildings was rebuilt. One more piece of Waynflete's buildings remains f.*., the quaint little block with the small bell tower which lies on the left, immediately opposite the entrance from the High Street. This still bears the name of " Grammar Hall," in com- memoration of the fact that it originally formed part of the Magdalen School. The imposing new, buildings, looking on the college deer-park, were built in 1735, anc ^ St Swithun's Buildings, looking on the High Street through the trees, are the work of Mr Bodley in our own day ; rather later are the President's Lodgings, abutting on the Founder's Tower. The good genius of Magdalen College has been triumphant to the last; it was fitting that the most beautiful modern buildings in Oxford should be added to the loveliest group of old Oxford. The gateway on the High Street dates from the same period. Before leaving the buildings, the Hall of Magdalen College School must be mentioned, which lies 160 MAGDALEN COLLEGE between the College and Long Wall Street ; for it is one of the most pleasing pieces of modern Gothic in Oxford, and was erected by Mr Buckler in 1851 ; the house (Sir A. Blomfield, 1894) lies on the E. of the bridge. \J( AGDALEN is "the most noble and rich structure in the learned world," says Oxford's most devoted lover, Antony Wood; its water walks are "delectable as the banks of Eurotas, where Apollo himself was wont to walk." In Magdalen, if anywhere, might the Platonic dream be realised as to the influence of beauty in education, for here there is beauty on every side ; even the most devoted son of the college can hardly say that the dream has always been realised. The Founder, to whose wealth and archi- tectural genius the college owes its existence and its beauty, was one of the last of the clerical Chancellors of England ; as Mr Rash- dall observes, since " Chancellors ceased to be Churchmen, and became married men," their fortunes have not been spent on public objects. William of Waynflete may have been a Wykehamist ; at all events in his statutes he both imitated William of Wykeham and gave special privileges to the men of New College; but this may have been due to his having been headmaster of Winchester, from which post he was transferred by Henry VI. to the headship of the new college of Eton. The result of L 161 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES this position is that the Eton lilies passed into Waynflete's arms, and so into those of his college, Magdalen. He began his schemes in 1448, but his foundation was then placed on the S. side of the High Street, about the site of the present Schools. It was only in 1457 that he obtained his present site by impropriating the old Hospital of St John the Baptist, which stood out- side the E. gate; the ground, once the Jews' garden, had been given by Henry III. to the Hospital (1237). In the buildings of this hospital the new society was temporarily lodged, and re- ceived their charter of foundation in 1458. But it was some years before the magnificent scheme of Waynflete could be carried out ; the Yorkist family succeeded to power, and the bishop was "in great dedignation with Edward IV,," and had to go into hiding. However, after some years, he received his pardon ; his chapel was begun in 1474, and he himself seems to have superintended the buildings, which were almost complete before his death in 1486. Their occupation dates from 1480. In the statutes, which were given by the Founder in 1483, one or two new points appear. The system of teaching within college walls, which had been begun by Wykeham (at New), is now carried much further. Waynflete not only provided a grammar master and an usher for his demies i.e., the members of his founda- tion who were admitted at twelve, and who received only half the allowances of a fellow 162 MAGDALEN COLLEGE but also three lectureships in Theology, Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy ; one of these courses seems to have been delivered at the terrible hour of 6 A.M. This is the more surprising as the lectures were open to the whole University, and the B.A. members of Corpus were compelled to attend them. The second point of innovation is the direct admission of " gentleman commoners " to share in the educational advantages of the college. In previous colleges those not on the foundation, if admitted at all, were, with a few exceptions, merely lodgers ; Waynflete expressly authorises the admission of " twenty high-born youths, who were not merely to board, but to be educated in college." The high position of the Founder brought his college into the full sunshine of royal patronage : as early as 1481 Edward IV. came over from Woodstock and slept at Magdalen, where he took part in the chapel service next day. Two years later Richard III. paid a similar visit, and was entertained by disputations, in which the famous scholar Grocyn took part. The King was so pleased that he presented the disputants and the college with " five bucks and five marks for wine." Naturally, as Wood says, "the muses crowned his brows with fragrant wreaths for his entertainment." Nor did the Tudors frown on Magdalen ; Prince Arthur, Henry VIII.'s unlucky elder brother, was three times entertained there ; when he first came he was OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES only ten years old, and we find the college investing in "two animals called mermosetts," perhaps for his amusement. Of Arthur's con- nection with Magdalen there is a splendid memorial in the tapestry preserved in the Presi- dent's lodgings, which represents the marriage of the Prince with Catharine of Aragon. Tradition, too, connects Henry VII. with the hymn still sung every May morning on the Tower ; but for this view there seems to be no real authority. The present hymn is part of the college grace, and seems to have only been intro- duced into the May morning music during the last century. Probably the singing was at first not a religious ceremony at all. The Stuarts, too, sent an heir-apparent to Magdalen in Prince Henry,* son of James I., who, like Prince Arthur, was never destined to ascend the throne; when King James brought his son up he pronounced the college to be the "most absolute building in Oxford." It would have looked odd to modern eyes, for the authori- ties, to do the King honour, had painted the " hieroglyphics " of the cloister, giving Moses in particular a " blue robe " : in our own day it is only the junior part of the colleges which paints the statues. Another royal member of Magdalen was Prince Rupert (*M. Wright), Charles I.'s nephew and cavalry leader. But the college had much more to distinguish it than royal favour. It was, with New College, the special home of the early Revival of Learning in Oxford ; the first three " schoolmasters " of the foundation were 166 MAGDALEN COLLEGE the leaders in the educational reform which drove out the mediaeval grammar of Donatus, and substituted a more rational system. We can only mention John Anwykyll, the first of the three, and the famous Lily, whom Colet chose to be head of St Paul's School, and parts of whose Latin grammar held their place in the English public schools down to our own day. And to turn to the studies of the older generation, a college which in its first ten years numbered among its members Grocyn and John Colet* afterwards Dean of St Paul's was brilliantly fulfilling its purpose. Magdalen, in fact, was the chief home of that specially " Ox- ford Reform " movement, which aimed at purify- ing the English Church by reason and by sound scholarship ; of this movement John Colet was the spiritual leader, and his lectures on the Romans were the beginning of a movement, which unfortunately was not to succeed. We are therefore not surprised to find that the cultured and gentle Reginald Pole,* the last Roman Archbishop of Canterbury, who himself had been a reformer, was at Magdalen ; it was in Magdalen, too, that Foxe* and Wolsey* found the heads for their new foundations, Corpus and Cardinal Colleges, which were to be especially the homes of the new learning. Both these great founders, patrons of scholars if not scholars themselves, were Magdalen men, and Wolsey was for a time the Master of the school ; but his rise was so rapid that he soon had to forsake his OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES books for affairs, and it was rather in promise than in performance that he can be called " A scholar, and a ripe and good one." Even at this period, however, there were grievous quarrels in the College. The Visitor was compelled to investigate strange charges, e.g., that one of the fellows had baptised a cat with a view to discovering hid treasure ; but Stokesley, the incriminated person, cleared him- self, and afterwards became a Bishop of London, and a vigorous opponent of Cranmer. The storm of the Reformation fell furiously on Magdalen ; not only was the chapel wrecked, but it was even proposed to suppress the endow- ment for the choir, which from the first has been one of the peculiar glories of the College ; for- tunately this was prevented, as was also the attempt to plunder the School. The citizens of Oxford especially pleaded that the " more part of them were not able to bring up their children in good learning " without college endowments. Their children had had "meat, drink, cloth, and lodging of the said college, and were very well brought up in learning, and so went forward and attained to logic and other faculties at the charges of the said college . . . and little or nothing at the charges of their parents." They plead, therefore, for " the only school of all the shire, " and their prayer was heard, and the school was spared. It was in this half-century that it had its most famous pupil, William Tyn- 168 MAGDALEN COLLEGE dale, whose translation is the foundation of the larger part of the Authorised Version. Magdalen passed rapidly from adherence to the old form of faith to extreme Puritanism. Laurence Humphrey, the President in Eliza- beth's time, carried his scruples so far that he objected to wearing his proper academical dress ; on this Queen Elizabeth gently rallied him, when, on her visit to Oxford, he was for once persuaded to don his Doctor's scarlet : " Dr Humphrey, methinks this gown and habit become you very well ; and I marvel that you are so strait-laced on this point but I come not now to chide." There was a striking contrast between the President and some of his pupils. Lyly, the author of Euphues, went to Magdalen in 1569 ; as might have been expected of so " noted a wit," he "neglected his studies," and, it is sad to say, still owed his college 233. lod. for battels ten years after he had gone down. Equally unruly in another way were the scholars who poached on Shotover in 1586; when one of them was arrested and imprisoned by Lord Noreys, his fellows attacked that peer when he came to Oxford. A free fight ensued, in which the scholars were driven back down the High Street, though not till several of them had been hurt, and " Binks, the Lord's Keeper, sorely wounded." Even after this the Magdalen men could not " pocket the affront," and from the vantage ground of the top of their tower, pelted with stones the offending lord and his retinue as they rode out of Oxford, and in spite 169 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES of their putting " boards and tables " on theii heads, wounded some and " endangered others of their lives." It was during this Puritan period in the college that John Hampden*was there; for, Royalist as Oxford was, all the great parliamen- tary leaders, except Cromwell, were her sons. But the influence of the Laudian party prevailed at last when Accepted F re wen became President ; he was actually consecrated Bishop in his own college chapel, and lived to become Archbishop of York after the Restoration. But his decora- tions to his chapel, except the windows of the ante- chapel, which still survive, were smashed by the Puritan soldiers, and the college organ went to delight Cromwell at Hampton Court. It afterwards returned to Oxford, but has now been superseded by a larger instrument, and is in use in the Abbey Church of Tewkesbury. Of Puritan Magdalen, Addison gives an amusing picture in his Spectator. The candidate for examination is confronted by the Head (Dr Goodwin, one of the Westminster Assembly of Divines) with "half-a-dozen nightcaps," instead of a college cap, on his head, and a " religious frown on his countenance." The candidate's Latin and Greek stood him in little stead ; he was to give an account of the state of his soul, and of his conversion. . . . The whole examination was summed up with one short question " Was he prepared for death ? " Needless to say, the candidate was plucked. As Magdalen had suffered so much for the 170 MAGDALEN COLLEGE royal cause, it might have expected to prosper after the Restoration ; but gratitude was never one of the Stuart virtues, and with James II. everything was subordinate to his blind zeal for his faith. When the President of Magdalen died in 1687, the King sent word to the fellows that they were to elect Antony Farmer, a man of notoriously bad character, who had been expelled from Trinity, Cambridge, and from Magdalen Hall, before he was admitted to Magdalen College. He had become a Romanist only to serve his own interests, but James was not particular in his instruments, and when the fellows elected Dr Hough * they were summoned before the High Commission Court and browbeaten by Jefferies. Finally the King himself came down to Oxford ; he gave up Farmer because his character was too bad, but he now ordered the fellows to elect Dr Parker, the Bishop of Oxford. This new candidate was a man of better character ; but he, too, like Farmer, was not qualified, as he had never been a fellow of either Magdalen or New Col- lege. The fellows pleaded this, and that they had already statutably made their election ; but the King persisted, and the fellows were ex- pelled ; only three submitted. Most of the demies, too, though offered fellowships at once, refused to accept them, and were turned out. Few things did James more harm than this insane conduct ; men saw that no loyalty, no previous service, no limitations by statute could prevail against royal caprice, and they '73 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES began to look abroad for a deliverer. Only when too late did the King recall his act ; and on October 25, 1688, he restored the expelled President and fellows ; that day henceforward has been observed by the college as " Restoration Day," when the toast for the evening is appro- priately " Jus suum cuique." Magdalen may be said to have had its im- mediate reward for this noble instance of loyalty to duty and self-denial in the so-called " Golden Election'* of demies, which happened next year. Among those then chosen were a future archbishop, a future bishop, the notorious Henry Sacheverell,* who overthrew the greatest ministry which has ever ruled England, by his fiery eloquence, and Joseph Addison.* This famous writer commemorated more than one part of his college, e.g., the bowling green, in elegant Latin verses ; but his memory there survives in that part of the water walks which then existed, and which is still known by his name, /.*., the part which lies to the left on entering ; the circuit was completed later. The glorious period of the history of Magdalen as a college ends here. Since then, though it has had famous individual members, its history, till our own day, is almost a blank. Fortunately the lack of funds prevented the carrying out of the terrible scheme which was to have swept away the most beautiful buildings in Oxford for a magnificent Italian quadrangle, of which only the north side was constructed ; the design can still be seen in Skelton. The fellows who thought of this terrible act of MAGDALEN COLLEGE vandalism were the immediate predecessors of those who are for ever pilloried in Gibbon's Autobiography, as the "monks of Magdalen/' "decent, easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder " ; " from the toil of read- ing or thinking or writing, they had absolved their conscience." Of course Gibbon was not quite fifteen when he entered the college, and had only been there fourteen months when his name was removed for joining the Church of Rome; of course, too, he was bitterly pre- judiced against all religious institutions, such as Oxford then was ; but the main points of his indictment stand unshaken ; the " vindication of Magdalen College/' which was published by a certain Mr Hurdis, is beneath contempt; he actually compares the Hebrew scholar, Kenni- cott, "an editor of mountainous desert," with "the smaller labours of Gibbon." Magdalen has many distinctions to boast of, but the less said of its connection with the greatest of English historians, the better. The state of Magdalen was well symbolised by the life of its centenarian president, Dr Routh,* who presided over it from 1791 to 1854. He was a scholar, and what he pub- lished was good, but he published very little; he was a religious man, but he accumulated a large fortune out of his official incomes, and, according to modern ideas, he did little towards the performance of his duties. Yet even in his time his college could boast the names of a famous statesman in Robert Lowe fLord Sher- 75 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES brooke), a great Lord Chancellor in Lord Selborne,* 1 a great bishop in the late Bishop of Chichester,* a great novelist in Charles Reade, a great theologian in the late Professor Mozley. What Magdalen has become since Routh's time, it is not the place here to describe ; suffice it to say that it has quadrupled its numbers, and now plays a prominent part in every side of University life ; its scholars and its theologians, its athletes and its poets are not their names known to all Oxford men of this generation? The fame of Mr A. D. Godley, the author of " Lyra Frivola " and "Verses to Order," has spread beyond this comparatively narrow circle; his reputation as the " Oxford Calverley " is now English and not merely academic. The wealth of Magdalen College has enabled it to come to the assistance of the University by the endowment of professorships, especially of the chairs of Physiology, Botany, and Mineralogy. This new development is represented in the Hall by a fine portrait of Sir John Burdon Sanderson (* C. W. Furse), the late Professor of Physiology. 1 Lord Selborne gave the present windows of the chapel; to this purpose he devoted all the income of his fellowship. 176 XIV BRASENOSE COLLEGE DUILDINGS. The foundation stone of the college was laid, according to the inscription which still stands over No. i Staircase, on June i, 1509. This led to the old Chapel. At this time the front quadrangle with the Hall was completed. An extra storey was added about the time of James I. Of the Founder's time, too, is the kitchen, on the W. side of the second quadrangle. The present Chapel 1 was begun in 1656. Traditionally it is said to be from the design of Sir Christopher Wren, and if so, it is most interesting as the earliest work of that great architect ; it illustrates, too, the struggle in his mind between the old Oxford Gothic and the new Italian style. The ceiling is of beautiful fan tracery, and the windows try to be Gothic ; but the rest of the decoration is classical, and so is the general effect. It seems not unlikely that 1 Its E. and W. windows, though modern, have particularly interesting glass. M 177 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES the ceiling is really older, and was brought to Brasenose and adapted from the Chapel of St Mary's College (now Frewen Hall). The Lib- rary was added at the same time. The buildings further south and the front in the High Street (1887 and 1910) were added in our own day from a design by Mr Jackson ; it is a pity that so good a design is so overloaded with ornament. DRASENOSE COLLEGE is a new de- parture in Oxford history. The previous colleges had occupied the sites of old Halls, but they had superseded them, and were new founda- tions. Brasenose, on the other hand, is the direct continuation of the old Hall of the same name, and the first Principal of the college was the last Principal of the Hall. This institution had had a history of more than two centuries, and of it the college possesses a most interesting relic in the famous brazen knocker a lion's head from which both institutions derived their name. This knocker was carried in 1334 by the men of the Hall to Stamford, when there was a migration from Oxford to that place. The thunders of royal displeasure crushed this attempt at schism, and the students were driven back to Oxford. Of their stay at Stamford the only memorials were the oath in the University statutes which bound all M.A.s not to lecture at Stamford (this survived till 1827), and the 178 BRASENOSE COLLEGE famous " nose " which remained at Brasenose Hall, Stamford* till the college purchased the building in 1890, and brought back the relic to a place of honour in the College Hall. Brasenose, too, is singular in another respect. Its founder, Sir Richard Sutton,* begins the short list of voluntary lay founders in Oxford (for John de Balliol founded his college as a penance) ; but he has to yield the chief part of the honour of the foundation to William Smyth,* one of many bishops of Lincoln who were benefactors of the University. In its statutes Brasenose is rather curious than important. Though the Revival of Learning had been going on for thirty years in Oxford, and though Corpus, which is the Humanist college above all others, was being actually built at the same time, yet there is no trace of the new influences in the foundation of Smyth and Sutton : their students were to pursue the old studies of logic and theology. This contrast between the two new colleges is reflected no doubt unconsciously in a quaint incident ; one of the undergraduates of Brasenose was arrested for assaulting a servant of Bishop Foxe, the founder of Corpus, and two years later even the late principal of Brasenose Hall had to be bound over to keep the peace towards the workmen at the " new college near Merton." In their discipline, however, the joint-founders made certain innovations ; a sys- tem of pecuniary fines is introduced, " varying from one farthing to two pence," " for coming late to lecture, for omitting to wear a surplice, . . . '79 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES or for speaking English in public. And it is at Brasenose first that corporal punishment is fully introduced ; the undergraduate is " stripped of all his mediaeval dignity " and " reduced to the schoolboy level." He is liable to the birch for " unprepared lessons, talking in lecture, making odious comparisons," and other small offences. The history of the college thus founded is singularly uneventful ; it seems from the first to have had a special connection with Cheshire and Lancashire, and to have drawn its students from the upper classes. Hence the same names appear again and again, and the college has always been remarkable in an unusual degree for its vigorous patriotism. In the first stage of its history down to the Restoration, the most famous names on its roll are John Foxe, the somewhat romancing his- torian of English martyrs, and Robert Burton,* the author of the " Anatomy of Melancholy," who was elected to Christ Church, and by that body was made Vicar of St Thomas, the church near the station, which was then outside Oxford. He is recorded by his contemporaries to have been " very merry, facete, and juvenile," and to have specially excelled in "larding" his dis- courses with verses from the poets. The curious learning of the " Anatomy" makes it easy to believe this. Among his contemporaries was Marston the dramatist. Rather later was the visit of John Middleton, the Lancashire giant, known as the " Child of Hale." The painting of his hand is preserved in the Buttery, and 1 80 BRASENOSE COLLEGE Pepys records that he paid 2s. to see it. The name of this famous man of might is always borne by the Brasenose boat. Even the troubles of the Great Rebellion passed comparatively lightly over the college ; nearly half the fellows submitted to the Visitors a most un- usual proportion. As they proceeded at once to elect a new Principal, in defiance of the Visitors' orders, their submission does not seem to have been a very real one. Perhaps, however, it is the reason why the college possesses a unique chapel, i.e., one built in the time of the Commonwealth. In the period following the Restoration Brasenose, says its loyal chronicler, is "not especially distinguished except by an undue pre- eminence in the records of the Vice-Chancellor's Court." Perhaps we may connect this with the devotion to ale, of which the famous " Ale Verses " are the commemoration. These were annually presented to the Principal by the butler on Shrove Tuesday ; the earliest extant co r y dates from 1 700. Of course the butler got the assistance of the best wits in college, and the series which is complete from 1826 to 1886, is full of humorous allusions to college and aca- demical gossip. The brilliant period of Brasenose history is at the beginning of the century when Reginald Heber, afterwards fellow of All Souls, was an undergraduate. It was after a breakfast in his rooms in Brasenose, which were at the N.E. corner, that the poet added at Sir Walter Scott's suggestion the two most famous lines to his 181 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES famous Newdigate prize poem on " Palestine " ; they refer of course to the building of the Temple. " No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung ; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung, Majestic silence." Heber was a member of the famous Brasenose Wine Club, the Phoenix, which has already kept its centenary, and is the longest lived social club in Oxford. He used his skill as a poet in writing topical verses for the college before he became a Newdigate prizeman and a great hymn writer. It was just after Heber's time that the college (Easter Term 1809) monopolised all the three first classes that were given, and that a B.N.C. tutor, Frodsham Hodson (* T.Phillips), drove into Oxford with a coach and four, that it might not be said " that the first tutor in the first college in the first University in the world entered Oxford with a pair." In the generation immediately succeeding Heber, the college can boast of Barham, the witty author of the Ingoldsby Legends, and of another famous Newdigate prize poet, H. H. Milman ; one line of his poem on the Apollo Belvidere is still often quoted : " And the cold marble leapt to life a God." He is now remembered rather for his historical than for his poetical talents. He, like another distinguished Brasenose clergyman, the Rev. F. W. Robertson (of Brighton), was in his day attacked for heterodoxy, on account of views 182 BRASENOSE COLLEGE which in our day would pass without any question. But it is impossible to leave the history of Brasenose without speaking of its athletic triumphs ; it has ever been " Queen of the Isis Wave, Who trains her crews on beef and beer, Competitors to brave." Its boat has been head of the river fourteen times since 1837; before this the records are incomplete, but it was head in at least four years. It has never been lower than tenth. And in cricket it has been equally distinguished, though here its reputation is no longer what it was ; in 1871 it had eight men in the University eleven, among them the famous Ottaway. And it may truly be said that Brasenose has merited these honours; it has devoted itself to those sports which Oxford loves, and no college has had, or has, a wider or more deserved popu- larity in the University generally. It is a curious chance that made the most cultured and delicate of modern Oxford prose writers, Walter Pater, 1 a fellow and tutor of Brasenose; but he appreciated to the full the vigour of the young life round him. It might well be argued that Brasenose is the most Greek of Oxford colleges on one side of Greek education. Such at least would have been the view of the late Principal, Dr Cradock, of whom there is a fine portrait in the Hall by Frank Roll. 1 There is a monument to him on the W. wall of the Chapel. 183 XV CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE OUILDINGS. The buildings at Corpus are the least interesting part of this most interesting college. They belong mainly to two periods, the Founder's time and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Of the earlier date, are the front quadrangle (though the N. and W. sides were raised a storey in 1737), the Hall, the Chapel, and the kitchen and other offices to the E. of the Hall ; these were completed by 1520. The Hall is extremely picturesque, though its proportions are dwarfed by several huge pictures. The Chapel has suffered very much from restorations, and is, as a former President said, " of a strictly domestic style of architecture." In the ante-chapel is the curious brass of the first President, Claymond, who gave the lectern ; he is represented, like his friend, Bishop Foxe, on his tomb at 184 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE Winchester, as a skeleton wrapped in a shroud. The altar-piece is a fine picture by Rubens, and was given in the present century. The Library is next to that of Merton the most pic- turesque in Oxford. To the beginning of the eighteenth century belong the present cloister and the fellows' buildings on the S. side of the college, which were begun in 1706 perhaps from a design by Dean Aldrich. Of the rest of the college, the President's lodgings were begun about 1600 ; till that time he had occupied the rooms over the gateway, one of which still has a magnificent Tudor ceiling; the lodgings have now been rebuilt (1905-6), except for the S.E. portion, which dates from the late lyth century. The new buildings on the N. side of Merton Street were put up in 1885, from a design by Mr Jackson. The quaint sun-dial in the centre of the front quadrangle was erected by a Corpus fellow in 1581. CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, Merton, ^ and New College, are the three typical colleges of Oxford ; as Merton founds the college 18 7 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES system, and New College establishes it, so Corpus adapts it to the new learning of the Renaissance. This is one great point in the peculiarly interest- ing history of Corpus ; the second is that it seems to have preserved a more unbroken career than any other college except, perhaps, Christ Church; all periods of its history are not equally bright, but it has never sunk into such prolonged obscu- rity as all other colleges have done. Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, the Founder, was one of the most remarkable men of the early Tudor period ; he was probably at Magdalen College, but soon went abroad, and attached himself to the service of Henry Tudor, afterwards Henry VII. ; this prince he served, both in adversity and in prosperity, especially by his diplomatic ability : it was Foxe who, among other delicate negotiations, arranged two of the most famous marriages of English history, that of Prince Arthur with Catherine of Aragon, and that of James IV. of Scotland with Margaret Tudor. He shared, with Archbishop Morton, the confidence of Henry VIL, and for a time was a prominent counsellor of Henry VIII. The scandal of Archbishop Parker that Wolsey displaced him, and that Foxe, at the close of his life, told Wolsey that, though he "could no longer distinguish white from black (he be- came blind), yet he could well discern the malice of an ungrateful man," is refuted by Foxe's own letters ; in these he expresses a warm admiration of Wolsey, and a touching care for his health amid his intolerable labours ; 188 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE " I heartily pray," he writes, " lay apart all such business from six of the clock in the evening, which shall greatly refresh you." Foxe was not only a man of affairs ; he was also a scholar and, still more, a patron of scholars ; few men have played a more prominent part in both Universi- ties ; he recast the statutes of Balliol (see p. 60), he was a benefactor of Magdalen College; at Cambridge he was Master of Pembroke (and a benefactor of the same) ; he carried out the will of the Lady Margaret, in founding St John's College, and he had a share in completing King's College Chapel. His house was a great resort of learned men among others, of Erasmus ; and he ventured to say in public that he found the Dutch scholar's version of the New Testament, " as good as ten commentaries." It is not surprising that, having so many secular duties on hand, Foxe had little time for his spiritual duties ; he writes in 1522 : u I have been so negligent that of four several cathedral churches that I have had, there be two, scilicet Exeter and Wells, that I never see ; and in- numerable souls whereof I never see the bodies." Accordingly at the close of his life he began to think of devoting some portion of his vast wealth to a special foundation at Oxford for the advantage of the Church. His first intention was to found a monastery, but he was dissuaded from carrying it out by his friend Bishop Old- ham,* the founder of the famous Manchester Grammar School ; the words of that prelate are a remarkable instance of prophecy ; " What, my 189 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES lord, shall we build houses and provide liveli- hoods for a company of bussing monks (i.e. drones), whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see." Within twenty-five years all the monasteries of England were swept away, but Foxe's bounty to which Oldham himself largely added provided a college for the " in- crease of learning," and for the "good of church and commonwealth." Corpus was founded in 1516, and the statutes given next year ; the motive cannot be better expressed than in the words of Foxe himself. "We have no continuing city here, but seek one that shall be in heaven, to which we hope to arrive more easily and quickly if we raise a ladder, calling its right side virtue and its left know- ledge." He therefore founds a college wherein, " as in a hive," " the scholars, like clever bees night and day may make wax and sweet honey to the honour of God and the advantage of themselves and all Christian men." This figure of the hive and the bees was a favourite one with Foxe, and it was employed by others also ; Erasmus, in a dedication to the first Pre- sident, speaks of him as " head of the college of the bees." According to tradition a swarm actually settled in the roof over the rooms of the scholar Vives, and remained there for more than a century ; but when the Parliamentary Visitors turned out the fellows, the bees went too, " as if the feminine sympathised with the masculine monarchy," says Plot, the naturalist. The Founder's statutes arrange most care- 190 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE fully the studies of his students. These are to be very largely classical, and a long range of authors is recommended, which will bear com- parison with the prescribed lists of our own times. Instruction was to be given by the two " Readers " in Greek and in Humanity, i.e. 9 Latin, whose lectures were to be open to the whole University. There was to have been a third Reader, i.e. 9 one in Theology, but he seems never to have been appointed ; probably the Vice - President discharged his duties, which were to lecture every working day throughout the year, except for ten weeks, on some part of the Bible. He was to use the commentaries of the ancient fathers, not of the mediaeval doctors, " far inferior in learning as in date," as the Founder says. When we add the lectures at Magdalen, which the B.A.'s were to attend twice a day, u going and returning in a body," and the University and the College disputa- tions and the preparations for them, we shall see that Foxe's bees had a busy time. They were allowed the amusement of playing ball in the garden, but when they went jfor a walk they were to go three together. Nor had they long vacations ; scholars were only to be away for twenty days in the whole year, fellows for forty days, unless they went abroad to improve their scholarship, as the Founder encouraged them to do, thus anticipating the research fellowships of our own day. The scholars had to pass a by no means con- temptible examination before admission; to OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES " write off a Latin letter, to compose fair verses, to have been initiated into logic, and to have some little training in ' plain song,' " are the requirements. We can best realise how these statutes worked by the example of the famous Jewel, who joined Corpus from Merton in 1539, at the age of seventeen. He began to study at four, one hour before early Mass, he went to bed at ten, and often spent whole days in the Library ; he took no recreation but walk- ing, and even then he either " meditated, or instructed boys, or argued 'in Aristotelian fashion.' " No wonder he was a prodigy ot learning ; no wonder, also, that his health broke down : but all Foxe's scholars were not so obedient to his regulations as Jewel. Erasmus prophesied that Foxe's foundation would rank among the "chief ornaments of Britain," and that its "trilinguis bibliotheca ''* (Hebrew, Greek, Latin), would attract more students than Rome formerly. Foxe did his best to make his college succeed by his choice of men ; his first President, Claymond of Magdalen, was a noted scholar, " a Cicero in Prose, an Ovid in Verse," and two distinguished foreigners at least were introduced, Vives, the Spaniard, and a German, Kratzer, to teach mathematics. Having seen his college thus successfully started, Foxe died in 1528. The college possesses no less than seven portraits of him, of which the best is in the Hall ; the Library too was enriched by him with a choice collection of printed books and MSS., and his plate (which is under 192 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE the special care of the President and not gene- rally shown) is the finest college plate in Ox- ford. His crozier too is still preserved, and the gold chalice and paten which he gave to the Chapel. Among the earliest members of Corpus were Reginald Pole, afterwards of Magdalen, the last Roman archbishop of Canterbury, and Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Eton, one of the earliest of English dramatic writers. The college during the early period of the Reformation seems to have been strongly on the side of the old form of faith, and in the reign of Mary one of the scholars, Anne, was flogged for writing a poem against the Mass ; as he received a stripe for every line, he must have repented of his poetic efforts. But even during the period of persecution, friendly feelings often prevailed ; Jewel was compelled to leave the college for his own safety, but the speech in which he bade his colleagues farewell is still extant and is most touching. One of Gardiner's own Commis- sioners told the college that, though they had kept all their copes and chapel ornaments, they "had thrown away a jewel more precious than all." This chapel furniture was preserved for some time after Elizabeth's accession, and even as late as 1 666, the college brought an action against three persons at Burford for sixty copes and no less than four hundred other vestments. A very few fragments still survive in a i yth cent, altar cloth. This permanence of Roman feeling led as at Merton (p. 79) to a fierce dispute about the N 193 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES election of President. Cole, who was forced upon the college by Elizabeth in 1 568, had been one of the Zurich exiles, and added to his other offences that of being a married man. His term of office was a stormy one, and his conduct seems to have been open to serious reproach, as he made his brother-in-law reader in Greek at the age of nineteen ; the Visitor, a fellow exile of Zurich, threatened to remove him, but relented when Cole pleaded "must I then eat mice at Zurich again " ? But amid all these storms, Corpus was the home of the two theo- logians, who perhaps more than any others contributed to the defence of the English Church. Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, has been already mentioned ; his "Apologia" was long the bulwark of English Protestantism. But far more famous was the great Richard Hooker, who came to Corpus through Jewel's influence in 1567: he was then not fifteen. He was emphatically "a poor student/' and was no less than five times assisted out of the benefaction of a certain Robert Nowell, who had left to trustees a considerable sum for the help of scholars at Oxford. He was lecturer on Logic in college, where he resided in all some sixteen years ; he only left it on his unfortunate marriage. The occasion of this was his going to London to preach, as the Founder had directed, at St Paul's Cross ; his hostess in London took such care of him that she succeeded in persuading him that it was "best for him to have a wife . . . who would prolong his life and make it more com- 194 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE fortable." He "like a true Nathanael, who feared no guile," allowed her to choose for him, with the result that she married him to her daughter, "who brought him neither beauty nor fortune" . . but was like that wife, "which is by Solomon compared to a dripping house." And so " he had to go forth from that garden of piety, of pleasure, and of peace into the thorny wilderness of a busy world." It was fitting that a Corpus man, Spenser, should pub- lish the first posthumous edition of Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity," while to his efforts was largely due the recovery of Book VIII. ; another Corpus man published Hooker's sermons. The combination of learning and piety which distinguished Jewel and Hooker is very striking in Hooker's old tutor, John Reynolds, although, unlike his pupil, he was a Puritan. He repre- sented that party at the Hampton Court Con- ference, and suggested to James the new translation of the Bible, which resulted in the Authorised Version. He himself was one of the translators of the Prophets, and the Ox- ford Revisers met at his house, though he died four years before the work was completed ; three other Corpus men seem to have been among the Revisers. Of Reynolds all men spoke well ; although Queen Elizabeth told him that she "willed him to follow her laws and not run before them," yet she offered him a bishopric. It is delightful to read in his life of his sympathy with and encouragement for young scholars, even to the last, when he worked himself to death at OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES the age of fifty-eight. King James I. probably referred to his lack of care for himself, when at the Hampton Court Conference he told Reynolds, who scrupled about the words in the marriage service, " With my body I thee wor- ship," " If you had a good wife yourself, you would think that all the honour and worship you could do to her were well bestowed." Of a similar character to Reynolds was an- other great President, Thomas Jackson (1631- 1640) ; of his rule at Corpus Fuller wrote his well-known encomium: " Here he lived piously, ruled peaceably, wrote profoundly, preached painfully." His works fill twelve volumes of the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. He was of the school of Laud, and as such is attacked by Prynne as "transported beyond himself with metaphysical contemplations" ; but he was so tender-hearted that the mere threaten- ing of the Civil War killed him. " One drop of Christian blood was a deep corrosive to his tender heart." Among his college contem- poraries was Pocock, the great Orientalist, the first Laudian Professor of Arabic. On Jackson's successor the storm broke. When Oxford was taken by the Parliamentarian army, he and almost all his fellows and scholars were removed, though some got their places back afterwards. Among these James Quin was particularly lucky ; he had a good voice, and was introduced to Cromwell, " who heard him sing with very great delight, liquored him with sack," and then asked what he could do 196 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE for him. Quin begged for the restoration of his student's place, and " kept it till his dying day." l The intruded President, Staunton, was a good man and a noted preacher; he preached once or twice every Lord's Day, and in the evening " he examined the younger sort, calling them to account about what they had heard that day." We are not surprised to hear from one of those expelled that the "Assemblers' Cate- chism was an ungrateful task put on the scholars." Joseph Alleyne, the author of the once famous "Alarm to the Unconverted," was admitted a member of Corpus at this time. After the Restoration the college had the doubtful honour of having Charles II.'s son, the Duke of Monmouth, matriculated ; when he came to Oxford with the King in 1665, he and the Duchess lodged in the President's house. After his rebellion his name was carefully erased from the college books. Discipline was very low ; Morley, the visitor, made up for laxity in serious matters, by attacking periwigs "whereby the clergy did conform themselves to the world." But things became better under President Turner, who began the new buldings in 1 706 ; he was brother of Turner of Ely, one of the " seven bishops," of whom he left a portrait to the President's lodgings. He is represented in the Bodleian by one sermon, in this resembling his successor, Dr Mather. Many, however, of the Presidents of Corpus, unlike most heads of houses in Oxford, have been prolific authors. 'Wood tells this tale, but Quin was really of Christ Church. I 97 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES The beginning of the eighteenth century was a dark period in the history of the college. The register of punishments shows a constant occurrence of serious offences ; not only were the authorities defied and insulted, but a scholar is actually punished for " attempted murder " ; the penalty was extraordinary deprivation of commons for Jifteen days. Another curious entry is that which records how, in 1754, five B.A.'s were punished for having a picture of the Pretender hung up in their Common Room. Among them was the future President, Cooke. Part of the penalty was to translate into Latin Archbishop Potter's Coronation sermon. Yet even during this obscure period, Corpus can boast the famous name of General Oglethorpe, the friend of John Wesley, and as a prison reformer one of the leading philanthropists of the eighteenth century. He was the founder of the State of Georgia, and so the last of the long roll of Oxford men who helped to build up the United States. From this obscurity and disorder Corpus was rescued by the wise administration (1748-1783) of Randolph, in his day one of the most famous of Christian apologists. Of his kindness and wisdom there is a charming picture in the memoirs of Edgeworth, father of the famous Maria Edgeworth, who entered in 1761, and speaks most warmly of his teachers and their teaching; "scarcely a day passed without my having added to my stock of knowledge some new fact or idea," It is instructive to compare CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE this with Gibbon's denunciation of contem- porary Magdalen. More famous names at this period are those of the two great lawyers, Lord Stowell (* Phillips) and Lord Tenterden (* Owen), both of whom were Corpus scholars. During the long reign of Dr Cooke (1783- 1823) Corpus entered on a still more brilliant period ; it may be illustrated by the names of three scholars who all became fellows of Oriel within twenty years. Copleston* was the leading man in Oxford of his time, and championed his University against the strictures of the Edinburgh Review ; Keble, 1 after a career of unexampled success, was elected at Oriel in 1 8 1 1 before he was twenty ; Arnold followed him there in 1815. The delightful society of Corpus at this time is well described in Stanley's " Life of Arnold," and the records of the Junior Common Room show the future head- master in the strange character of a not very successful topical poet. It is interesting to note that in his time the modern laxity of dress was beginning ; men were ceasing to come to their wine in silk stockings and buckled shoes. It is terrible to add that dogs seemed to have been usual in college at this time. During our own day Corpus has been true to the spirit of its Founder ; its late President was one of the leaders of the Liberal Reform movement in the middle of the century, and in 1 The Corpus tradition is that Keble lived in the right-hand corner of the quadrangle, and that it was his habit to shy his commons of bread at the Pelican. 199 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES 1853 the college agreed to make itself charge- able for the new Latin Professorship, " to effect a more complete fulfilment of the spirit of the Founder's Statutes/' It is impossible even to mention the names of the numerous Corpus men who have played, and are playing, prominent parts in the University, and in all departments of Church and State, but I must not omit to mention Mr Ruskin's connection with Corpus : on his return to Oxford in 1870 as Slade Professor, he migrated from Christ Church ; his rooms here (Fellows Building, No. II.) were the centre of an enthusiastic band of young Oxford men. 1 A characteristic story is told of Ruskin's reception by the then head of Corpus ; "Nothing would have induced me," said Mr Ruskin, " to leave the c House of Christ ' (aedes Chrtsti) except to be joined to the Body of Christ : ' " The old President was much puzzled, and could only reply, "I hope that you find your rooms comfortable." My own obligations to the two excellent histories of Corpus written by the late President, Dr Fowler (d. 1904), must be especially acknowledged here. He, like so many of his predecessors, was a learned and prolific author; he possessed, too, that special mark of so many Corpus Presidents, the power of stimulating and assisting the scholars of a younger generation. 1 It was in these rooms that Mr Ruskin's disciples used to be entertained at breakfast, in the days when his reforming ardour set young Oxford road-making at Ferry Hincksey. 20O XVI CHRIST CHURCH DUILDINGS. The oldest part of the college is the building to the South of the Cathedral, which was formerly the Refectory of St F rides wyde's. This was the original Library of the college, but was converted into rooms in 1775. The first part of Wolsey's buildings to be finished was the kitchen, a commencement over which the wits of the time made very merry. One epigram may be quoted : " Egregium opus ! Cardinalis iste instituit Collegium et absolvit popinam," which may be rendered : " Here's a fine piece of work ! Your Cardinal A college plans, completes a guzzling hall." Wolsey was true to the old Oxford tradition, which has never neglected the body in its care for the mind. 201 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES The rest of the Cardinal's completed work consisted of the East, South, and part of the West sides of the great quadrangle. The build- ings may still be seen in the portrait of Wolsey (once attributed to Holbein) in the Hall. 1 This magnificent room is far the finest of the Halls of Oxford, and measures 115 feet by 40 ; it is said to have been originally paved with green and yellow tiles, the effect of which must have been very curious. Wolsey's statue over the great gate and under Tom Tower was made by an Oxford man, Bird, in 1719, at the expense of Trelawny ( *by Kneller), Bishop of Winchester, one of the Seven Bishops, and the hero of the famous ballad : " And must Trelawny die ? " After Wolsey's fall, the buildings remained at a standstill for a century; then Dr Samuel Fell,* Dean under Charles L, attempted to complete the great quadrangle, the North side of which had been destined for Wolsey's Chapel, an 1 The collection of portraits in Christ Church Hall is unrivalled in Oxford ; special note should be taken of the Reynolds the two Gainsboroughs and the Romney below the dais on left, of the Lawrence (Lord Auckland) opposite, and of Dr Paget's portrait (Orchardson) above the dais. 2O2 CHRIST CHURCH Oxford rival of King's Cambridge ; this had never gone beyond the stage of foundations. Dr Fell made the present N.E. entrance into the quadrangle, and nearly completed the build- ings on the North side ; but the Civil War intervened, and they were left imperfect. His most beautiful work was the lovely approach to the Hall, which was put up in 1 640 ; it is the strangest of the many architectural marvels of Oxford that so graceful a piece of fan-tracery should have been designed at a date so late. Its architect was Smith, of London, as we are told with a brevity that sounds like irony. Dr Fell's more famous son, John Fell,* whose statue at the N.E. corner faces that of Wolsey, carried on his father's work, and deserves the title of a second founder. He not only com- pleted the unfinished buildings already men- tioned, but added the Northern part of the West front in St Aldate's. Above all, he employed Wren to build over Wolsey's gateway, the Tom Tower finished in November 1682. In this was hung the bell called " Great Tom of Christ Church," which had originally be- longed to Osney Abbey ; it was rung first on 205 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES May 29, 1684, the "great festival," as Wood calls it, of the Restoration, and from that time to this it has rung its 101 strokes every night (except once) at nine as a signal that all students should be within their college walls. It need hardly be said that the signal is not obeyed. The number is that of the students of King Henry's foundation, with one additional added by the Thurston bequest in 1663. Fell also built the Chaplains' buildings (since destroyed) to the South of the great quadrangle, and added another canon's house now attached to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the entry to Peckwater Quadrangle. He made also the Broad Walk, 1 and planted it with the elms, of which only a few battered fragments remain to our own day, but which twenty-five years ago were as famous for their beauty as for their associations. 1 Till the sixteenth century the meadows on this side of Oxford were very low, and Wood records that he had heard from old men how they used to row up to Corpus, and obtain a drink at the buttery. Wolsey began the raising of the walk ; both he and Fell employed the rubbish from their building works. The Broad Walk was originally called the " Long Walk " ; it is said that its present name is a corruption of " The Wide" (.., "The White") Walk, 206 CHRIST CHURCH Peckwater Quadrangle was built in 1 705 from the design of Dean Aldrich ; its name com- memorates the old inn which stood on its site. The South side is the famous Library, which, though begun in 1716, was not finished till I76I. 1 Then at the close of the i8th century, Canterbury Quadrangle, was erected in place of the old buildings which had once belonged to Canterbury College. This foundation had been attached to the great monastery of the metro- politan see, and had had John WyclifFe as its first head. The gateway was designed by Wyatt. Finally in our own day (1863) the buildings which look on the Broad Walk were put up, and soon after the Long Walk, down to the Barges, was opened. The tower, in the S.E. corner of the great quadrangle, was also put up about 1879 from the designs of Mr Bodley ; there had been a tower there in Wolsey's days, 1 The ground floor of the Library is occupied by the collection of pictures bequeathed by Gen. Guise (d. 1765). In this the names of great masters are much more common than their works ; but there is an excellent Madonna by Pietro della Francesco and a well painted but repulsive picture by Annibale Caracci of himself and his brothers as butchers. Much more interesting are the drawings by the Old Masters, bequeathed by the same donor, and his portrait, an early work of Reynolds. 207 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES but it had disappeared, none knew when or how. bidding prayer, formerly used by mem- bers of Christ Church at St Mary's, gave thanks for Henry VIII. (*Sonmans) as Founder; but now the name of Cardinal Wolsey, as is meet and right, is sometimes inserted before that ot his master. It was Wolsey who planned in Cardinal College the most magnificent home of learning in Europe, and who endowed it on a scale unknown before in Oxford, out of the revenues of suppressed monasteries. It was a dangerous precedent for a churchman, for, as Fuller says, " all the forest of religious founda- tions in England did shake, justly fearing the King would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the Cardinal began to cut the underwood." Henry justified these fears to the full, and Wolsey's foundation in Oxford nearly shared the destruc- tion of monasteries that it had superseded ; this was actually the fate of his sister college at Ips- wich (the foundation-stone of which is still pre- served as a relic in the wall of the Oxford Chapter House). Hence the details of the Cardinal's work have merely an antiquarian interest, and the only point which need be noticed as to it is that Wolsey, in his desire to provide the best scholars for his new foundation, infected it woefully with the Lutheran heresy ; of the eight Cambridge men whom he brought to Oxford, six were heretics, two of whom died excommunicate, perhaps from the hardships of 208 CHRIST CHURCH their imprisonment. As Warham pathetically wrote to Wolsey, Cambridge is " thought to be the original occasion and cause of the fall in Oxford." Wolsey had spared neither money nor pains to complete his college ; he had, as Foxe says, " gathered into that college whatsoever excellent thing there was in the whole realm " ; in one year (1528-9) he had spent nearly ^"8000 on the buildings, a sum which would be equivalent to more than ^100,000 in our day. Yet the workmen were too slow for his eager spirit, and were said to be shamefully idle. King Henry stopped all this work, and in 1532 refounded the college, to which he gave his own name. This again he suppressed in order (1546) to unite the college with his new bishopric of Oxford, which was removed thither from Osney. Christ Church from this time on- wards has its double character, and the Dean is head of a Cathedral Chapter as well as of a col- lege. The Dean of the second foundation, how- ^ver, had been Dean under Wolsey ; among his canons was Sir John Cheke, who "Taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek." Henry's foundation was to consist of a Dean, eight canons, eight petty canons (/.*., chaplains), sixty scholars, and forty children, besides an organist, singing men, etc. ; in place of the " chil- dren " forty more students from Westminster School were added by Elizabeth. It will be seen that, even as mutilated by the King, the new foundation was on a scale of unparalleled an OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES magnificence. In the next century the Dean's stipend was $oo a year, while no other col- lege gave its head more than ^250 (Magdalen and New). Christ Church accordingly was especially the scene of royal visits. King Henry himself was entertained there, as also was Queen Elizabeth,* on her famous visit to Oxford in 1 566 ; she was amused with plays in the Hall in the evening after her four hours of disputations at St Mary's in the afternoon. The old spell which made it unlucky for a sovereign to visit St Frideswyde on account of the ungallant ardour of the Saint's royal suitor seemed to have exhausted its force, or, perhaps we should say, was reserving it for King Charles L, who of all English sovereigns is most associated with Christ Church. But the college has more interesting associa- tions even than visits from Queen Elizabeth. Sidney, the pattern and flower of English chivalry, was there as a student, but left very young, as he was only eighteen when he started for his three years' travel abroad. Much more prolonged was the residence of the great his- torian of English discovery, Richard Hakluyt, who came up from Westminster in 1570. Even while an undergraduate he had made geographi- cal adventure his special study, and after his degree, had lectured on it probably at Oxford. He even was in correspondence with Sir Francis Drake for the establishment of a geographical lec- tureship in the University, but the scheme broke down as they could not agree about the stipend. 212 CHRIST CHURCH It was in the next generation that Ben Jonson had his degree at Christ Church (1619), but this, as he says, was "by their favour," not by " his study." A very different person was the noted Puritan Dean, Sampson, who, with Dr Humphrey of Magdalen, was the leader of the Calvinist party in the University. They preached by turns, says Ward, "to the academians," though they gave great scandal by wearing " round caps " instead of "square," and objecting to all cleri- cal vestments. Sampson was troublesome to the University also, because he insisted on proceed- ing to his B.D. and D.D. without having taken his M.A. This was allowed to him as Dean ; but he was too strong a Calvinist for the author- ities, and was removed from the Deanery of Christ Church in 1564. It is in the seventeenth century, however, that Christ Church begins its most famous period ; it may be said for two centuries to have been undoubtedly the first college in Oxford, not only in the numbers and the rank of its students, but also in the enterprise of a series of great Deans, and in the general vigour of its administration and the (comparative) excellence of its discipline. The visits of Charles I. have been already referred to: it was in 1636 that he was enter- tained in Christ Church Hall with the play of "Passions Calmed," at which, says Wood, stage scenery was used for the first time in the history of the English drama. The old annalist is proud of the talent of his University, but he is "3 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES careful to record, after the Restoration, the bad effects of acting on the students, who " arrived to strang degree and streyn of impudence," a very natural result, when the Dean gave them a supper and the canons encouraged them. Christ Church was a special home of royal- ist sympathies, and was searched with great thoroughness when Lord Saye occupied Oxford for the Parliament in September 1642. The " idolatrous painted windows " in the Cathedral were especially disapproved of. The plate, too, was confiscated as having been concealed, and Christ Church with University, alone among Oxford colleges, sent their plate perforce to the Parliament in 1642, instead of keeping it for the general sacrifice to the Royal Treasury in 1643. Allestree, the famous royalist divine, and perhaps the author of the once well-known book, "The Whole Duty of Man," nearly lost his life in attempting to rescue the Deanery plate from the Parliament forces. His career is typical of that of many Christ Church and Oxford men at this time. He had taken up arms for the King in 1642, and served at the Battle of Edge Hill and later; but "when carnal weapons proved frustrate, and Divine Providence called his servants to the more Christian exercises of prayers and tears, he took orders, and became censor of Christ Church. He v/as deprived by the Parliamentary visitors, but was one of those who continued to read the prohibited liturgy during the Common- wealth period, first in Christ Church, and then 214 CHRIST CHURCH in the house of the famous physician, Dr Willis, opposite Merton College Chapel (which is still standing). An interesting portrait (a copy from Lely) in Christ Church Hall shows the three divines, Allestree, Dolben and Fell, so engaged. The Parliamentary visitors installed first Dr Reynolds, and then the famous John Owen in the Deanery ; Mrs Fell, the Dean's wife, was removed by force when her husband refused to submit. Both the two intruded deans were great preachers and divines, especially Owen, the titles of whose works occupy twelve columns folio in Wood's " Athenae." Wood says of him that, as Vice-Chancellor, he " scorned all for- mality " and " undervalued his office by going in querpo like a young scholar with pow- dered hair, snake bone band-strings, Spanish leather boots (the equivalent, I suppose, of the 'brown boots' of our own day), and his hat mostly cocked." But Wood also bears strong witness to his scholarship, his command of English, and his temperate language, in opposi- tion to the abuse showered on Owen by the more prejudiced zealots of Wood's own party. With the Restoration begins the rule of Dr John Fell (* after Lely). His name is very familiar to many who know not Oxford from the epigram " I do not like thee, Dr Fell ; The reason why I cannot tell. But only this I know full well, I do not like thee, Dr Fell." Yet probably this unpopularity had a very academic origin. Fell, as Vice-Chancellor, set 217 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES himself to make the examinations of the University a reality ; he " held the examiners up to it," says Wood, "and if they could not or would not do their duty, he would do it himself, to the pulling down of many." No wonder he was unpopular, and that those who hated him thought it best to keep the reason of their hatred to themselves. Fell seems to have been the same throughout, pushing, vigorous, and self assertive ; he " wasted his spirits by too much zeal for the public," says Wood, who had considerable quarrels with him, and who else- where describes him as "a odde vult person." Fell insisted on having Wood's "History of the University of Oxford" translated into Latin before it was published, in order that it might appeal more to foreign scholars. He bore the charge of this himself, but took the intolerable liberty of "putting in and out several things according to his own judgment." It was through his influence at the University Press that Fell succeeded in getting this done, and it was in developing this institution that he most served Oxford: he was never weary in spend- ing money and time, either in improving the mechanical resources of the Press, or in securing for it scholarly editions of classical and other works. 1 Fell himself edited St Cyprian's works, and did it so well that it remained the standard edition for 200 years. 1 The Press from 1669 to 1713 had its home in the Sheldonian Theatre, which remains in the title-page of all Oxford books till 1759; after 1713, it was trans- 218 CHRIST CHURCH His activity is well described in the gossiping letters of Prideaux to his friend Ellis; Prid- eaux, too, was no mean scholar, and his " Con- nection between the Old and New Testaments " and his book on " Tithes " were standard works down to our own day. But now it is only his correspondence that is read, and the picture which it gives of Oxford morals and manners is very curious. One of the last acts of Fell's deanship was a discreditable one ; in obedience to the order of the King (which can still be read in the Christ Church Library), he deprived Locke of his studentship. The philosopher was unpopular as a Whig, but had behaved with such caution that nothing could be proved against him, though he was known to have been the friend of Shaftesbury. However, the King insisted, and Fell submitted ; his dis- grace is the greater, owing to the gallant re- sistance which Magdalen made immediately after to a similar arbitrary act on the part of James II. Locke himself seems to have borne no grudge against Oxford ; his portrait by Kneller one of the very few in which that great painter of wigs and gowns represented a real man still hangs in his college hall, and he him- self, when asked, sent his books to the Bodleian with a letter full of affection for his University. Another distinguished man expelled from Christ Church in Fell's time was William Penn the Quaker, who came up in 1660. ferred to the Clarendon Building (designed by Van- brugh); the present Press in Walton St. dates from 1 830. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Even while he was at Oxford his thoughts were turned towards the New World, where his colony, long afterwards, was to make him famous ; but he was sent down for non- comformity in 1661. Fell's immediate successor was an insignificant Romanist, but in 1689 came another great Dean, Dr Aldrich (* Kneller). He was famous as a logician, as an architect, as a composer, and as a smoker. His "Artis Logicse Com- pendium " was reprinted as late as 1862; his spire of All Saints is still one of the beauties of Oxford ; and the story is well known how an undergraduate made a bet that the Dean would be found smoking his pipe at 10 A.M., and lost it because, as the Dean pointed out, he was only filling his pipe at the moment. But he is best known to the general reader as the Dean who set the Hon. Charles Boyle* to edit the letters of Phalaris. Out of this unlucky edition grew the quarrel with the great Cambridge scholar, Bentley, who routed the whole host of Oxford scholars in his immortal "Dissertation." But for the time being the world thought that the Oxford wits had the better of the Cambridge pedant, and there was a caricature widely circulated which represented Bentley roasting in the famous " bull " of Phalaris, and crying, "I had rather be roasted than Boyled." This most famous of scholarly quarrels lives for ever in Macaulay's life of Sir William Temple. Aldrich was succeeded as Dean by Atter- 220 CHRIST CHURCH bury (* Kneller), another famous man, but better known now as a Jacobite bishop than as a scholar. His ability and his fiery temper are well shown in the saying of his friend and successor in the Deanery, Smalridge (* Kneller), " Atterbury comes and sets everything on fire, and I follow with a bucket of water." He was rather senior to his great fellow-Jacobite, Henry St John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, who also became connected with Christ Church, where he received an honorary degree, though he was never an undergraduate there. Immediately after Atterbury's time occur two names among the scholars of Christ Church, which are conspicuous even in so long a roll of worthies. Wesley (* Romney) matriculated in 1720, and Murray f* Martin), afterwards Lord Mansfield, Oxford s greatest Lord Chief Justice, in 1723. Wesley passed to Lincoln College to begin his life's work there, and Murray to be the ornament of the Bar. To the same decade belongs George Grenville (*Hoare) (matriculated 1730), whose Stamp Act lost England her American colonies. For a short period Christ Church shared the general decadence of Oxford in the eighteenth century; but under Dean Conybeare (1733- 1755), and afterwards under Markham and Cyril Jackson, discipline was restored and learning once more encouraged. It was under Markham, whose splendid portrait by Reynolds hangs over the dais, that another Grenville (* Owen), afterwards the last Whig 223 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Premier of George III., matriculated and won the prize for Latin verse. In this he was imi- tated some ten years later by the brilliant George Canning (* Lawrence), who showed at Oxford the versatile talent which made him afterwards the poet of the anti-Jacobin, and England's great Foreign Minister. A similar combination of scholarship and statesmanship is found in Lord Wellesley (* Bates), the famous Governor- General of India (student 1778). Canning was at Christ Church with his future chief, Jenkinson, afterwards Lord Liverpool. They belong to the period (1783-1809) when Cyril Jackson ruled his college and the Uni- versity with autocratic sway ; when the great Dean stepped into Tom Quad, no hat was allowed to remain on any head, nobleman's or tutor's ; the scouts alone went covered for fear of the Dean's making a mistake. Jackson was one of the creators of modern Oxford through the leading part which he took in carrying the Examination Statute. By this, as has been well said, he injured the com- parative position of his own college in the University, for he forced other colleges to come up to the level to which Christ Church had been raised by half a century of vigorous government. The first to win a double first- class, under the statute, was Robert Peel in 1808, England's greatest Finance Minister. Jackson refused all preferment, and is said to have passed on the offer of a bishopric to his brother William,* with characteristic bluntness. 224 CHRIST CHURCH "Try Bill," he said, "he'll take it." His portrait by Owen in the Hall was the model from which Chantrey made one of his most famous statues ; it now adorns the Library ; till the last restoration it was in the Cathedral, where it was said that Christ Church men worshipped it. Two more deans need to be specially men- tioned, Gaisford (* Pickersgill) and his successor, the late Dr Liddell (*by G. F. Watts), both among the great Greek scholars of the last cen- tury ; but the most famous churchmen of our time have been Dr Pusey and Dr Liddon, whose pos- thumous portraits by the elder Richmond and by Herkomer hang on the right of the Hall beyond the fireplace. Perhaps equally well known is C. L. Dodgson* (" Lewis Carroll "), the creator of "Alice in Wonderland" and of the Snark. Nor has Christ Church in our own day ceased to produce statesmen. It has never had so brilliant a group as at the close of the twenties, when three successive Governor-Generals of India were there together the enterprising Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning (honoured by his nick- name "Clemency"), and Lord Elgin. And with them was Mr Gladstone (by Millais), who, like Peel, his great leader, gained the honours of a double first. No other college in Oxford or Cambridge can boast of having given England three successive Premiers, as Christ Church has done in Mr Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Rosebery ; but perhaps the Christ Church man of our generation who will be longest remem- bered is the artist and the prophet, John Ruskin. p 225 XVII TRINITY COLLEGE D UILDINGS. The buildings of old Trinity may be assigned to two periods ; there are those which belonged to its predecessor, Durham College, and those which have been built and re- built since Sir T. Pope's foundation of Trinity College in 1555. Of Durham College there survives a good deal on the left or W. side of the small quad- rangle, i.e., the buttery at the N. end of the Hall, with a very ancient arch, and the two rooms at its South end, the bursary and the Common Room ; the latter, once perhaps the oratory, may well be original, as the outside masonry is visibly rougher in character. These buildings belong to the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century was erected the E. side of the small quadrangle, to which an upper storey of " cock lofts " was added in James I.'s time. 226 TRINITY COLLEGE The Library is on this side, and contains some curious pieces of old glass, among them an almost unique figure of Thomas Becket. The Hall was practically rebuilt 1618-1620. Of the later buildings the earliest part is the N. wing of the garden quadrangle, which dates from 1665. This is interesting as one of the first Italian buildings in Oxford. Wren, who de- signed it, had a magnificent scheme for sweeping away all the old buildings ; but fortunately it was never carried out, except in regard to the part be- tween the quadrangles, which was rebuilt in 1 728. The fifteenth century chapel, however, was replaced (1691-4) by the present building, which is said to have been designed by Dean Aldrich, with suggestions from Wren ; traditionally it was copied from the chapel at Chatsworth. Its interior is (or was thought to be) magnificent with the carving of Grinling Gibbons ; this and the screen are of fragrant cedar, so that a Trinity poet has written " Halat opus Lebanique refert fragrantis odorem." On the left of the altar is the fine sixteenth century monument of the Founder and his wife, OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES and the windows are filled with excellent modem glass (Powell) given by the late President (Dr Woods) representing the saints of the old mon- astery, Saints Cuthbert, Oswald, and others. Modern Trinity has added largely to its build- ings. It has turned into college rooms the quaint cottages, once old "halls," which look on the Broad Street ; they had a narrow escape of being pulled down. And between 1883 and 1887 it built from Mr Jackson's design the new buildings and the President's house; these are some of the most successful efforts of modern Oxford, and, with the old cottages, form another large and picturesque quadrangle, which makes an admirable approach to the chapel. Previ- ously to this change the college was hardly visible from the Broad Street, for the only access was by a road confined between high walls. "TRINITY COLLEGE occupies the site * and some of the buildings of the old Dur- ham College. This was founded before the end of the thirteenth century for the students from the great Benedictine monastery of Durham, which had no share in Gloucester Hall, the college of southern monasteries. The history of 230 TRINITY COLLEGE Durham does not immediately concern us ; it might have profoundly influenced the rest of the University had it received the great library of Richard de Bury, the book-collecting Bishop of Durham, the author of Philobiblon : unfortun- ately he died in debt, and his books seem never to have come to Oxford. His failure showed that libraries had other enemies than that " biped beast woman, to wit " who advises that books " should be bartered away for costly head dresses, cambric, silk," and so on. If, as some think, the books did come to Oxford, they were cer- tainly swept away by Henry VIII.'s commis- sioners with the rest of the college. The buildings of this are described as having become mere " dog kennels," when Sir Thomas Pope (old copy of Holbein's portrait) purchased them. He was a wealthy lawyer, and one of Henry VIII.'s trusted officials ; as Treasurer of the Court of Augmentations, which dealt with the property of the confiscated monasteries, he preserved the Abbey Church of St Albans, the chalice of which he presented to his college, which still possesses it. But he was a friend of the old order of things, and under Mary was entrusted with the onerous charge of the Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield ; he was, however, a kindly keeper, and he consulted the learned lady as to his statutes, while at her intercession he consented to pardon two of his junior fellows, who had climbed into college at night. The statutes, on which he consulted Pole as well as Elizabeth, mark the transition between the OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES mediaeval studies and those of the New Learning ; but they are largely modelled on the statutes of Corpus, and especially encourage the reading of the classical authors. Pope notes with sorrow that he could not do as much for Greek as he wished, because the study of it had decayed since he was a boy at Eton. 1 The college shared the Founder's Catholic sympathies, but was severely visited by Bishop Home, who swept away the ecclesiastical trea- sures which the Founder had bequeathed. The most famous name at this period is that of Thomas Lodge, the dramatist. In the seventeenth century Trinity was ruled by two great Presidents, Dr Kettell * and Dr Bathurst,* both of whom left their mark on the college buildings, and both of whom lived to become oddities. Dr Kettell was President for forty-four years, and besides adding the "cock lofts " to the quadrangle, built the charming old Hall in the Broad Street, which still bears his name. It was in his time that Laud opened up the present Broad Street by pulling down the cottages which had been built N. of the town ditch outside Trinity and elsewhere. It requires an effort to imagine that mediaeval Oxford had no real street but the High Street. Dr Kettell at the close of his life had a special dislike to long hair in his students. "He would bring a pair of scissors in his muffe, and woe be to them that sate outside." Aubrey 1 This is stated by Warton, but it is very doubtful. 232 TRINITY COLLEGE records that he cut one scholar's hair with the bread knife, singing out : " And was not Grim the collier finely trimmed" (from the play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle"). It is not surprising that the old man objected to the strange ways which came with the Court to Oxford in the Civil War. According to Aubrey, the fine ladies not only walked in the grove, but came to the chapel "half-dressed like angels." But when two of them in a " frolic " went to visit the old President, they heard some very plain speaking. Aubrey thinks he would have lived out his century, had not the Civil War killed him. The number of notable men at Trinity in his time is extraordinary. Archbishop Sheldon * is only the most famous of eight bishops ; Denham is a minor poet, but was inspired for once, when he sang Oxford's river, the Thames ; William Chillingworth represents theology, and James Harrington, the author of " Oceana," political science. Calvert, Lord Baltimore, is one of the founders of the United States, and Ireton and Ludlow show that Oxford was not wholly Cavalier in its sympathies. After the Civil War more than half the Trinity fellows a very unusual proportion submitted to the Puritan Visitors ; but the bursar, Howe, went off with the college papers into the country, till after the Restora- tion. He was the first person buried in the present ante-chapel. The havoc of the Civil War was restored OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES by Trinity's second great President, Dr Bathurst (by Kneller), who ruled from 1664 to 1704. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society, and afterwards president of the Oxford branch ; he was a reforming Vice-Chancellor, and almost rebuilt his college. He maintained good discipline, while at the same time he was specially popular with young men even to the last. Probably it was this sympathy with the young which made him think that the college chapel offices were too long ; as a rule, he had both lessons omitted in the morning service. But he, too, "fell into peculiar and capricious humours." He delighted to surprise his scholars in the grove at " unseasonable hours," on which occasions he touched them up with his whip, though mainly in fun, and not with the "in- tention of applying an illiberal punishment." Among his famous pupils were Lord Somers, one of the greatest of English Chancellors ; Lord Stanhope, another Whig leader, the con- queror of Minorca; and Dryden's enemy, Settle. It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century that the beautiful Lime Walk was made ; it cost about ^9. During this period Trinity was a little more intellectually active than other colleges, and certainly was more prolific of great men. William Pitt,* the great Earl of Chatham, who secured America for England, and Lord North,* who lost half of it, were both there. But the most pleasing part of the college story at this time is the friendship 234 TRINITY COLLEGE of Dr Johnson for Warton, 1 Professor of Poetry and the historian of English Literature. The great doctor was entertained at Kettel Hall, and said that he liked the Trinity Library best to read in. " If a man has a mind to prance^ he must study at Christ Church and All Souls." At the close of the century, we have a curious picture of Trinity life in the doggerel epistles of Skinner ; it is not very favourable, beginning with the account of the cold chapel : " With chattering teeth, and noses blue, We creep together to our pew, Responses quavering out " ; and ending with the drunken orgie, for which the scout provides supper, and " The sated guests he with delight Counts o'er, for this his perquisite Is, when their functions fail " ; but he gives a pleasant account of evenings spent in music, and of boating on the river. Almost a contemporary of his was Walter Savage Landor, who had to be rusticated for firing at the rooms of the man opposite, whom he hated for his Toryism, and whose wine Landor chose to regard as a personal insult. Neither then, nor ever, was the poet a sweetly reasonable person. 1 The head of him in the Hall is a copy from the fine original by Reynolds in the Fellows' Common Room. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Trinity shared to the full in the revival which marked the beginning of the present century ; its scholarships were virtually open, owing to the latitude as to counties allowed by the Founder, and hence were eagerly competed for. By far the most famous of Trinity scholars was New- man, who was elected in 1818. His feeling towards his college is expressed in his Apologia ; he was leaving Oxford (as he thought) finally, and he says : " Trinity had never been unkind to me ; there used to be much snapdragon grow- ing on the walls l opposite my freshman's room there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence, even unto death, in my University." Newman was made an honorary fellow in 1878, and a fine copy of Ouless' portrait of him hangs in the college Hall. Names like Newman's are rare everywhere, but of men of ordinary distinction, Trinity has had more than its share. The late Professor Free- man (* Vos) was fond of telling of the famous band of scholars who were with him at Trinity ; almost without exception they all became famous, including, among the ten of them, two professors of great distinction (Bernard and Freeman him- self), a bishop, and a future peer. Of this period, the portraits of Lord Selborne, Bishop Claugh- ton, Lord Lingen (both these latter by Jacomb Hood), and Freeman himself, hang in the Hall. Bishop Stubbs (*Furse), Freeman's predecessoi i This wall was that on the North West of the college, where the snapdragon still grows freely 236 TRINITY COLLEGE in the History Chair, was elected a fellow about the same time. Two men of a very different character the travellers Richard Burton and W. G. Palgrave belong to the same period. It is needless to say that the former quarrelled with everyone at college, as he did elsewhere, and after trying to fight a duel as a freshman, was sent down. In our own day the college has not only en- larged its buildings, but has doubled its numbers: if the schools furnish any criterion, its number of distinguished sons is not likely to diminish. The opening lines of a poem on Oxford by one of these, Mr Quiller Couch (better known as Q.), ma Y we ll en< i the storv of his " Alma Mater." " Know ye her secret none can utter ? Hers of the book, the tripled Crown ? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter ; Still by the gateway flits the gown ; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, Faces of stone look down." NOTE. Trinity has been very fortunate of recent years in the number and excellence of the portraits it has obtained of its great men. To those mentioned above may be added that of the great Latin scholar, Robinson Ellis (Jacomb Hood), of Canon Rawlinson (Foster), of Bryce (Foster), statesman and publicist, of the three last Presidents, Dr Percival (H. G. Riviere), Bishop of Hereford, Dr Woods (H. H, Brown), and Professor Pelham (Herkomer), of Pro- fessor Dicey (Langet, painted about 1870), and of Dr Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (H. G. Riviere) ; all these hang above the dais, except those of Dr Percival and Dr Davidson, which are on the left wall, and that of Professor Dicey, which is opposite. 237 XVIII ST JOHN'S COLLEGE DUIL DINGS. -Of the original buildings of St Bernard's College, founded by Arch- bishop Chichele in 1437, only the front and the W. side of the first quadrangle remain. The statue of St Bernard still stands in the gate Tower ; but a third storey has been added. The Hall was built about 1502, and the Chapel consecrated in 1530; both of these, however, have been very much modernised. The circu- lar-headed windows of the chapel date from its restoration, about 1662, and at that time, unfortunately, the old glass of the E. window was removed to "add more light/' The loss has been largely repaired by the liberality of one of the present fellows, who gave the beautiful window by Kempe. On the N. side there is a small chapel, with fan-tracery, which was added in 1662. 238 ST JOHN'S COLLEGE In the first half century of the college's exist- ence, the front quadrangle remained incomplete its E. side was completed in 1597, and about the same time the S. side of the second quad- rangle, containing the old Library, was put up. This quadrangle was completed through the munificence of Archbishop Laud, who (1631- 1635) built the remaining two sides, and com- pleted the President's lodgings, which lie be- tween the two quadrangles : to him are due the two famous colonnades and the beautiful garden front, which is not surpassed for charm by any building in Oxford. These buildings are most interesting architecturally, for in them their architect, Inigo Jones, has blended with the traditional Gothic of Oxford, the classical style which had charmed him during his recent travels in Italy. The contrast is very marked between the classical colonnades in the quad- rangle and the Gothic spirit of the garden front. The statues in the quadrangle are those of Charles I. and his Queen, Henrietta Maria ; they are the work of Le Sueur. The buildings to the W. of the Hall, with the kitchen, were built in 1613, and the Q 241 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Common Room, to the N. of the Chapel, about 1675. Finally, in 1 880-81, the college added another block of buildings (completed 1900), continuing its (St Giles) front, from the de- sign of Mr G. G. Scott. A feature of special interest at St John's is, that the college has preserved its rights over the enclosure in front of the college. A similar enclosure was once possessed by Balliol in the Broad St., but was surrendered more than a century since. The present elms in front of St John's were planted early in the I9th century; they took the places of those planted after the Great Rebellion. CT JOHN'S COLLEGE occupies the site and part of the buildings of the old Cister- cian College of St Bernard, which was swept away by Henry VIII.; it thus shared the fate of the neighbouring monastic foundation of Durham College, which preceded Trinity. Nor does the resemblance between Trinity and St John's cease here; they both were founded during the brief reign of Mary, and were un- doubtedly strong in sympathy with the old form of faith ; the founders, too, of both colleges were wealthy citizens of London. Sir Thomas White, the Founder of St John's College, was twice Lord Mayor, and in his first term of ST JOHN'S COLLEGE office, had distinguished himself by his share in suppressing the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He was a benefactor not only of St John's, but also of numerous towns throughout England concerned in the cloth manufacture, to which he owed his wealth. The most valuable of all the college estates, the manor of Walton, which has given to St John's the position of landlords of North Oxford, was purchased very soon after the Founder's death. White's position as a Merchant Taylor has markedly influenced the history of his college, for he established a special connection between it and the company's great school in London, a connection similar to that existing between Winchester and New College, and between Westminster and Christ Church. To this connection St John's owes many of its most distinguished scholars. The Founder is traditionally said to have chosen the site of St John's, because he found there the three trunks of an elm tree growing from one root, which according to a dream, were to be the sign to him of the proper place for his foundation. He began his work in 1555, and continued it on a larger scale in 1557 ; dying ten years later, he was buried in the chapel of his college. For this to the last he maintained the keenest affection. Less than a fortnight before his death, he sent to his fellows a letter (of which copies are still given to members of the foundation) exhorting them to unity. " If any strife or variance do arise among you, I shall desire you for God's love to pacify OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES it as much as you may, and so doing I put no doubt but God shall bless every one of you." Probably Sir Thomas White was conscious that the religious feuds which were distracting England were strong in his own college. His preference for the older form of faith is well shown in the rich store of ecclesiastical vest- ments, which are still preserved in the College Library, and which are unique in Oxford. Traditionally they are said to be Laud's gift, but more probably they were given by the Founder for use in his own college and, having been removed by his heirs to his manor house at Fy field after the Elizabethan settlement, came to St John's somewhat later. Certainly the sympathies of many in the college were strongly against the Reformation movement; two of the early presidents were deprived for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, and one of the most brilliant of the early fellows, Edmund Campion, who had been specially chosen to preach the funeral sermon of the Founder, and who in the same year had taken a prominent part in the ceremonies of welcome to Queen Elizabeth, lived to suffer at Tyburn as a Jesuit and a conspirator in 1581; his name is borne by the new Jesuit founda- tion in Oxford (Campion Hall, No. 1 1 St Giles). It was to a college with these traditions that William Laud (*by Vandyck) came up as one of Sir Thomas White's scholars from Reading in 1 590 ; it was his influence which was to confirm the college in its devotion to the Church, but at the same time to establish it in loyalty to the 244 ST JOHN'S COLLEGE English branch of the Church. Laud was, henceforth, closely identified with his college and University ; at first he was so much in the minority that it was reckoned, as he said, "a heresy to speak to him " or even to salute him in the street ; he lived to see his views so trium- phant in Oxford that from that time to our own day the University has always been strongly High Church in sympathy. It was the same in his own college ; his election as President (1611) was so bitterly resented that one of his opponents actually snatched the voting papers from the altar and tore them in pieces ; yet he lived to see this very fellow one of his warmest supporters. Laud was never connected with any in- stitution, great or small, which he did not extend and benefit. St John's owes to him the completion of its inner quadrangle, and especially of its beautiful Library. When the buildings were finished they were opened by the King (Charles I.) and Queen, who dined in the new room, and then were entertained with a play in the Hall, called the "Hospital of Lovers." " It was merry and without offence . . . and the college was so well furnished as that they did not borrow any one actor from any college," the Archbishop complacently observes ; he adds with satisfaction that when the Queen borrowed the dresses and "perspectives/' and had it acted over again by her own players at Hampton Court, it was generally agreed that the amateurs had been better than the pro- OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES fessionals a truly surprising result, considering the experience of our own day. St John's seems to have been famous for the dramatic ability of its members ; when King James visited Oxford in 1605, he was entertained there by a play which " was much better acted than either of the other that he had seen before." As, how- ever, it was not over till i A.M., it is not strange that His Majesty " distasted it and fell asleep " ; on waking he pettishly said, " I marvel what they think me to be." " Yet did he tarry till they had ended it." Of the dramatists of the seven- teenth century, who continued the great traditions of the Elizabethan days, one of the latest, Shirley, belonged to St John's. The college had at this time the unparalleled honour of giving two presidents in succession as archbishops to the see of Canterbury Laud and Juxon* ; but in the time of the Common- wealth such honours meant suffering and loss. When Oxford was taken by Lord Fairfax, the hand of the Parliamentary Visitors was heavy on St John's, the President and fellows were expelled, and their places were taken by men in whom, according to the college historian, " there was nothing lacking save religion, virtue, and learning." It is not necessary to take this too literally, but certainly St John's does not seem to have been as fortunate in the "intruded" fellows as were some of the other foundations. After the Restoration Laud received the only honour which it was still possible for the col- lege to pay to its benefactor. His body was 48 ST JOHN'S COLLEGE brought to St John's, from the Church of All Hallows Barking, where it had been buried after his execution, and, according to his wish, as expressed in his will, was laid "under the altar or communion table there." The cere- mony was quite private, according to his direc- tions, and took place by night. Besides Laud's benefactions, St John's pos- sesses as memorials of him his own notes made at his trial, his skull-cap and the staff on which he supported himself as he walked to the scaf- fold. It is only fitting that in our own day Laud should have found his most sympathetic biographer in a fellow and tutor of his own college (the Rev. W. H. Hutton). It is even said, by a tradition as well authenticated as that for most ghost stones, that his spirit still haunts the Library and the quadrangle. But Laud's discipline was certainly not main- tained by those who cherished his memory. At St John's, as elsewhere in Oxford, there were some who thought it impossible that " a man might study and not be a dullard, might be sober and yet a conformist, a scholar and yet a Church of England man.*' Prideaux tells a story which illustrates the character of some of the members of St John's at this time. Van Tromp the admiral "a drunken, greasy Dutchman," as he rudely calls him had come to Oxford, and though he would not take the Doctor's degree which the University offered him, he partook to the full of the generous Oxford hospitality ; Dr Speed, a St John's 249 OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES man, stayed up in the home of learning, espe- cially to engage in a drinking bout with the foreigner, and the student was much more than a match for the sea-dog, who confessed that he " was more drunk here than anywhere else since he came into England, which I think very little to the honour of our University," adds Prideaux. The loyalty of St John's found expression in special lectures on January 30, commemorating "the barbarous cruelty of that unparalleled parricide " which had been committed on that day ; and among the special treasures of the Library is a portrait of the Royal Martyr, over the features of which several psalms are written in a minute hand. When Charles II. visited the college, he asked for this relic of his father ; of course he could not be refused ; but when, pleased with his entertainment, he asked the fellows what he could do for them, they had nothing to ask for so precious as their portrait. It was accordingly restored, and still hangs in the Library. A college so loyal was naturally Jacobite, and the most famous St John's man of the eigh- teenth century is perhaps the non-juring bishop, Richard Rawlinson, who not only left the Bodleian his marvellous collection of MSS., but gave his own college the bulk of his estate. His heart was buried, at his wish, in the chapel to the N. of the altar, with the touching motto " Ubi Thesaurus, ibi cor." This Jacobite tradition was maintained in St John's at least 250 ST JOHN'S COLLEGE so far as loyal toasts could maintain it almost to within living memory. But in the end St John's, like the rest of Oxford, transferred its loyalty to George III., as is shown by the fine portrait of that King by Ramsay, which hangs over the door of the Hail. The eighteenth century deserves gratitude of us for one thing, at all events; about 1750 the gardens of St John's were laid out in " serpen- tine walks " ; they now form perhaps the most beautiful of the many beautiful pieces of green- ery in which Oxford is embowered. At the beginning of the century they had still been arranged in the old formal Dutch style, and then shared with Merton the honour of being the promenade on summer Sunday evenings of the Oxford beauties and beaux. 1 In the I Qth century St John's has maintained its seventeenth century reputation for wit and light literature. Dr Mansel, philosopher and theologian as he was, is likely to be remembered in Oxford longer for his bon mots than for his Bampton Lectures or his Prolegomena Logica ; and the Oxford Spectator, the most famous of all the ephemeral productions which flow peren- nially from Oxford pens, was the work of three friends, Nolan, scholar and fellow of St John's ; Copleston, the present Bishop of Calcutta, who was elected from Merton as fellow of St John's; and Humphry Ward, of Brasenose. 1 The garden under its present garden-master,jRev. H. J. Bidder, has gained an almost European reputa- tion for the variety and beauty of its flowers. 251 XIX JESUS COLLEGE D UILDINGS The oldest part of the College is the front to the Turl Street, as far as and including the entrance, and two staircases at the S.E. corner ; these date from the time of the Founder. The rest of the S. side, with the Hall, the Chapel, and the Principal's lodgings, were the work of Sir Eubule Thelwall* (Principal 1621-1630). The first part of the back quadrangle to be built was the N. and S. sides, which were erected, at least in part, before the Civil War ; this quadrangle was nearly com- pleted between 1675 and 1679, but the N.W. corner was left unfinished till 1713* The pres- ent E. end of the chapel was added in 1636, being a fine specimen of seventeenth century Gothic, while in 1856 the front of the college was refaced in the Perpendicular style by Mr 252 JESUS COLLEGE Buckler. The new buildings on Ship Street, begun in 1906, which include a science labora- tory, are from the design of Mr R. England. JESUS COLLEGE has the honour of being the first post - Reformation College in Oxford: its real Founder was Hugh Price (School of Holbein), who obtained from Queen Elizabeth* in 1571 a charter, but its nominal founder was the Queen herself, who was never averse from doing great and good works, if they cost her nothing. The Founder died in 1 574, and the college made little progress for half a century ; among its first scholars was the learned and pious Lancelot Andrewes,* afterwards Bishop of Win- chester, though he really belongs to Pembroke College, Cambridge. The Tudors always laid stress on their Welsh origin, and from the first the Principals were all Welshmen ; but there was no restriction as to nationality in the statutes, although the college became more and more exclusively attached to the Principality. Jesus College labours under the disadvantage, from the point of view of the English reader, that its great men have mainly done their work, whether for the Church, for the State, or for literature, in Wales, and hence are largely un- known to English exclusiveness. But names like those of Henry Vaughan "the Silurist," one of the greatest of our religious poets, James Usher, the learned Archbishop of Armagh (who was incorporated from Dublin in 1644), an d OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES Charles "of Bala" (1779), w ^ was driven out of the Church to found the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, adorn the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A far greater name in University history is that of Sir Leoline Jenkins (Tuer), the friend of Archbishop Sheldon, who was member for the University and Secretary of State to Charles II. He had suffered for his devotion to the royal cause under the Commonwealth, and had shared the exile in Wales of Sheldon and other royalists. In 1661 he was appointed Principal, and so restored the college, which had been laid waste by the Civil Wars, that he has been termed a " second founder." How great was his repu- tation in Oxford may be judged from the fact that gossip there pointed to him as Sheldon's successor at Canterbury, although he was never ordained. He was buried in the college chapel. During the eighteenth century the college established a special connection with the Bod- leian Library ; from 1 747 to 1813 this was ruled over by two Welsh librarians, and almost all the staff were also Welshmen. It cannot be said that the Library flourished under this exclusive system ; monopolies are never successful, if long maintained. The college traditions of noble hospitality are well symbolised by the famous silver punch- bowl, five feet two inches in girth, which was given by the great Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, in 1732 ; according to the well-known story, the bowl is to become the property of 254 JESUS COLLEGE whoever can span it with his arms, and then drain it full of strong punch. The first feat has been sometimes accomplished, but no person has yet been found with head strong enough to stand ten gallons, and so to win this silver fleece. Perhaps the hospitality of the college has never been exercised for a more famous guest than Dr Johnson, who was entertained by his " con- vivial friend" the Vice-Principal, Dr Edwards, in 1782. Johnson stayed in college, and it is interesting to find that the battels of all the fellows were unusually high. In our own cen- tury the University Commission threw open (1857) half the fellowships to non- Welshmen ; and the most famous name in the recent history of the college is that of an Oxford man by birth, J. R. Green the historian (scholar 1854). The influence of Jesus College in Wales has been strengthened by the restoration of its connection with the Church there. Between 1612 and 1714 Jesus College produced no less than twelve Welsh bishops, among them Lloyd of St Asaph, one of the famous " Seven." (He was after- wards a member of Wadham. ) But in the dark days of Whig ascendancy the spiritual needs of Wales were sacrificed to English selfishness and to party feeling, and aliens were appointed to rule her Church. In our own time a wiser policy has been adopted, and three of the four Welsh sees at present are filled by ex-scholars of the college. The border diocese of Chester, too, is filled by an ex-fellow, Dr Jayne. Though the pictures of Jesus College are OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES comparatively few, it possesses some of the most interesting in Oxford. Of the many portraits of Queen Elizabeth, there is none more splendid than that by Zucchero in one of the Common Rooms ; there are two others of equal interest, but less artistic merit, one of which is in the Hall, where there is also a fine Vandyke of Charles I. (who endowed a Channel Islands fellowship at Jesus) ; and one of the best works of Sir Thomas Lawrence in Oxford represents Nash the architect. 1 He was not a Jesus man, though his better known name- sake, the famous " Beau Nash," had (in the seventeenth century) been at the college, before he ruled the fashionable world of Bath with absolute sway. 1 Nash was the architect of Regent Street ; he was a Welshman by birth, and was often employed by Jesus College. He declined to receive any pay for his services, but asked the college instead to have his portrait painted and placed in their hall. Charles II. also, though not a member of the college, is represented by a portrait (Lely) in the hall ; he was a benefactor by deputy, for he ordered the corporation of Aber- gavenny, in "a most gracious letter," to transfer the rectory of Bedgeworth to the college. In the Common Room there is a good seventeenth century portrait, which perhaps represents the notorious Judge Jeffreys ; he was not, however, a Jesus man, and it is thought by some to be that of E. Meyricke (fellow 1662), a great benefactor of the college. 256 XX WADHAM COLLEGE DUILDINGS. The whole of the front quadrangle, with Hall and Chapel, dates (1613) from the time of the foundation. In the back quadrangle No. 9 Staircase, *.$. Vaughan, H., 253. Shirley, J., 248. Sidney, Sir P., 213. _ . to i I J3- Vives, L,, 190, 192. Smith, Adam, 65. , Goldwin, 55. W , Bishop, 179, 137. , Sydney, 128 Snell Exhibitioners, 65. Somers, Lord, 234. Somerville College, 19, Sortes, Vtrgiliana;, 304, Wadham, Dorothy, 258, 280, Walker, 0., 52. Walsham How, Bishop, s6& Ward, W. G M 68, 265. INDEX War ham, Arch bishop, 1 2 2, 114,13. Warton, T.,235- Waterhouse, work of, 59. Waynflete, W. of, 161 seq. Wesley, J., 223, 133; at St Mary's, 43. Westbury, Lordj 264. Whately, Archbishop, 99. White, Gilbert, 98. White, Sir T., 242 seq. Whitfield, G., 272, 43. Wilberforce, Bishop, 99. Wilkins, Bishop, 295, 262. William of Durham, 51. Williams, Lord Keeper, 136. Windham, W., 54. Wolsey, Cardinal, at Magdalen, 159. 167 ; W. and Foxe, 188 ; W. s vork at Christ Church, aoi, 211 ; in the Cathedral, 23. Wood, A., 81 ; his "History of the University," 218. Woodroffe, Dr, 281 seq. Wren, Sir C., 263, 151 ; works of, 105, 177, 205, 229, 299. Wyatt, works of, 56, 73, 91, 159, 207. Wycherley, W., 110. Wycliffe, John, 78, 61, 108 ; at Canterbury College, 207 \ movement of, 12, 133. Wykeham, W. of, 113, 117 seq. Voting, 153. 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