?ij MVsl TW io£^i%Avi?«->'<:j^- ■*? l»»)«J««»t«4«4«ttB cr/v. ^^"fcr^^ ^J^^/ty^^^*2\cv^-vi^ THE CLARENDON BUILDING, BROAD STREET It is the Roman Doric portico of the "Building" we see rising in the centre of the picture, surmounted by a huge leaden figure, forming one of the acroteria of the pediment. This noble piece of architecture was erected from the proceeds of the sale of copies of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, completed in 1713. Looking west, on the right are some old houses, beyond which lie Trinity and Balliol Colleges. OXFORD- PAINTED BY JOHN FULLEYLOVE R.I. DESCRIBED BY EDWARD THOMAS • PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK . LONDON -W Published November 1903 liCNRY MORSE STErTHSSS Prefatory Note Most of these chapters have been filled by a brief search into my recollections of Oxford. They aim, therefore, at recording my own impressions as faithfully as the resultant stir of fancy would allow. But I am also deeply and obviously indebted to several books, and in particular to the histories of Oxford by Parker, Maxwell Lyte, and Boase ; to Mr. F. E. Robinson's series of College Histories ; to Reminiscences of Oxford and its companion volumes from the Clarendon Press ; and, above all the rest, to Anthony a Wood, and to the Rev. Andrew Clark's perfect editions of that writer's Life and Times^ and of John Aubrey's Brief Lives. The Editors of The Daily Chronicle, The Illustrated London News, and Cramf ton's Magazine have kindly given me permission to reprint a few pages from my contributions thereto. EDWARD THOMAS. Contents CHAPTER I PAGE On entering Oxford ....... i CHAPTER n The Stones of Oxford . . . . . . .23 CHAPTER III Dons Ancient and Modern ...... 69 CHAPTER IV Undergraduates of the Present and the Past . . loi CHAPTER V College Servants of the Present and the Past . . 147 CHAPTER VI The Oxford Day ........ 165 CHAPTER VII In a College Garden ....... 207 vii Oxford CHAPTER VIII PAGE Old Oxford Days . . . . . . . .219 CHAPTER IX The Oxford Country . . . . vni 245 CHAPTER X In Praise of Oxford . . , . . . .255 List of Illustrations Owner of Original. 1. The Clarendon Building, Mr. Joh?! Ful/ey- Frontispiece Broad Street love, R.I. Facing page 2. Oxford, from the Sheldonian Mr. Cecil Turner, M.J. . 6 Theatre 3. Bishop Heber's Tree . Mr. John Fulleylove, R.I. . 8 4. St. Edmund's Hall . „ „ . 12 5. The University Church of ,, ,, .18 St. Mary 6. Iffley Church from the Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 20 South-East 7. Tom Tower, Christ Mr. F. E. Sidney, F.S.J. . 24 Church College 8. St. Giles's, looking towards Rev. George Wharton, M.J. 26 St. Mary Magdalen (South) 9. Christ Church — Interior of Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 28 Latin Chapel 10. St. Peter's-in-the-East , „ „ , 30 11. University College — Private ,, ,, . 34 Garden of the Master 12. Merton College and St. „ „ . 36 Alban's Hall ix Oxford Owner of Original. Facing page 13. Oriel College . . . The Royal hntitute of 38 Painters in Water-Colours 14. Grove Street . . . Mr. J. W. Taphouse . . 40 15. New College . . . Mr. Jo/?n Fulleylove, R.I. . 42 16. Interior of the Bodleian ,, „ . 44 Library 17. Interior of the Library, All Sir William R. Anson, Bart., 46 Souls' College D.C.L., M.P. 18. The Cloisters, Magdalen Mr. John Fiilleylove, R.I. . 48 College 19. St. John's College . . ,, „ .50 20. Magdalen Tower and Bo- „ „ . 52 tanic Garden 21. Magdalen Tower and Bridge ,, „ . 54 22. All Souls' College and the Mr. F. P. Osmaston, M.J. 56 High Street 23. Interior of the Sheldonian Mr. John Fulleylove, R.I. . 58 Theatre 24. Corpus Christi College . „ „ . 60 25. Christ Church — Peckwater Mr. J. IT. Taphouse. . 62 (Quadrangle 26. The RadclifFe Library, or Mr. Henry Silver . . 64 Camera Bodleiana, from All Souls' College 27. Entrance Gateway of Hert- Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 66 ford College and the RadclifFe Library 28. Interior of the Cathedral of Mr. James Orrock, R.I. . 68 Christ Church 29. Magdalen College, from the Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 72 Botanic Garden 3{ List of Illustrations 30. The RadclifFe Library, or Camera Bodleiana, from Brasenose College Quad- rangle 31. Bishop King's House . Mr. 32. The Clarendon Building, Mr. looking East 33. All Saints' Church, from Dr. Turl Street 34. Trinity College . . Dr. 35. Interior of the Library of Mr. Merton College 36. Christ Church College — Mr. Tom Quadrangle 37. Holywell Church . . Mr. 38. The Bathing Sheds, or " Parsons' Pleasure " 39. Interior of the Hall, Mag- Mr. dalen College 40. A " Study " in the Bodleian Mr. Library 41. The Tom Quadrangle, Christ Church, from the South Entrance 42. Corpus Christi College and Merton Tower, from Christ Church Meadows 43. The Entrance to Queen's College from Logic Lane 44. Exeter College Chapel, from Ship Street xi Owner of Original. Mr. He?iry Silver Facing page 80 "John Fulk'^iove, R.I. Henry Silver A. Hugh Thomson George Gar lick . J. IV. Taphouse Edgar J. El good, M.J John Pulley love, R.I. James Or rock, R.I. John Fulleylove, R.I. 82 86 92 96 98 104 1 12 1 20 136 138 156 158 Mr. Horace Field, . 162 F.R.I. B.J. Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 172 Oxford Owner of Original. Facing page 45. Entrance to the Divinity Mr. Jolm Fulkylove, R.I. . 178 School 46. The River Isis . . . „ „ .184 47. The Sheldonian Theatre „ „ .188 and Old Clarendon Buildings 48. Jesus College . . . „ ,, . 200 49. Fellows' Garden, Exeter Mr. J. fV. Taphouse . 210 College 0. In Trinity College Gardens The Rev. Arthur H. Stan- 214 to?i, M.J. 1. The Fellows' Garden, Mer- Mr. Jolm Ful/eylove, R.I. . 216 ton College 2. The Library, Oriel College Mr. C. F. Be//, M.J. . 224 3. Magdalen College Tower, Mr. John Ful/ey/ove, R.I. . 226 from the Meadows 4. The Cloisters, New College Mr. James Orroc/:, R.I. . 232 5. Broad Street, looking West Mr. Wa/ter S. S. Tyrzvhitt, 238 M.J. 6. The High Street looking Mr. J. T. Ho/Zingsworth . 240 East 7. The Botanic Garden. . Mr. Christopher Bradshaw . 242 8. Oxford, from South Hinksey Mr. J. W. Taphouse . 248 9. Oxford from Headington „ „ .250 Hill 60. The Old Ashraolean Mr. John Fu//ey/ove, R.I. . 260 Museum and Sheldonian Theatre xu ON ENTERING OXFORD CHAPTER I ON ENTERING OXFORD Passing rapidly through London, with its roar of causes that have been won, and the suburbs, where they have no causes, and skirting the willowy Thames, — glassy or silver, or with engrailed grey waves — and brown ploughlands, elm-guarded, solitary, I approached Oxford. Nuneham woods made one great shadow on the land, one great shadow on the Thames, According to an old custom, it rained. But rain takes away nothing from Oxford save a few nice foot passengers. It transmutes the Franciscan habit of the city to a more Dominican cast ; and if the foil of sky be faintly lighted, the rain becomes a visible beatitude. One by one the churches of St. Mary the Virgin and All Saints', and the pleasant spire of the Cathedral, appear ; with the dome of the RadclifFe Camera, Tom Tower of Christ Church, and that old bucolic tower of Robert d'Oigli's castle on the west. For a minute several haystacks, a gasometer, and the engine smoke replace them. But already that one cameo from 3 Oxford February's hand has painted and lit and garnished again that city within the heart, which is Oxford. I think, when I see an old woodcut of a patron holding his towered foundation in his hand, about to bestow it as a gift, — as William of Wykeham is depicted, holding Winchester, — that even so Oxford gives to us the stones of church and college, the lawns and shrubs of gardens, and the waters of Isis, to be stored in the chambers of the soul — " Mother of Arts ! " Mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess City or suburban, studious walks and shades. So ran my thoughts and Milton's verse ; and possessed, as it is easy to become in such a place, with its great beauty, thinking of its great renown, my mind went naturally on in the channel of that same stream of verse, while I saw the Christ Church groves, the Hinksey Hills, and the grey Isis — See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the Summer long ; There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing ; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream. But the dark entry to the city, on the western side, suddenly changed my thoughts. It is well known. It is the most contemptible in Europe. It consists of a hoarding, a brewery, and suitable appurtenances. Of more recent date is the magnificent marmalade shop, 4 On Entering Oxford the most conspicuous building in Oxford. On the north and east the approach is not worse, consisting, as it does, of sermons in brick, arranged in perfectly successful imitation of Tooting. On the south the fields are melancholy in apprehension of a similar fate. In short, one ignorant of the city might believe that he was approaching the hub of the universe. Then, the Norman tower appeared again, and the afforested castle mound rose up. A bell, and many bells, began to sound. The present vanished in charge of a westward-going motor car, containing three gentle- men with cigars and a lady ; and the past, softer than the cooing of doves and more compelling than organ music, came with the twilight from the tower of St. Michael's church. At sunset or at dawn the city's place in the world, as a beautiful thing, is clearest. Few cities look other than sad at those hours ; many, unless hid in their own smoke, look cheap. Oxford becomes part of the magic of sunset and dawn, — is, as it were, gathered into the bosom of the power that is abroad. Yet, if it is one with the hills and the clouds and the silence, the human dignity of the place is also significant. The work of the ancient architect conspires with that of the sunset and of long, pregnant tracts of time ; and I know not whether to thank, for the beauty of the place, its genius or perhaps the divinest series of accidents that have ever agreed to foster the forward-looking designs of men. In the days when what is admirable in Oxford was built, the builder made no pretence to 5 Oxford please his neighbour. He made what he loved. In many cases he was probably indifferent to everything else. But the genius of the place took care ; and only the recent architects who have endeavoured to work in harmony with the place have failed. There is a gentle and puissant harmonising influence in Oxford which nothing can escape. I am no lover of Georgian architecture and am often blind to the power of Wren ; but in Oxford I have no such incapacities ; and I believe that here architecture should be judged, not as Norman or classical, as the work of Wolsey or Aldrich, but as Oxford architecture. The library at Christ Church, or any other work of the eighteenth century, seems to me as divine a thing, though as yet it lacks the complete unction of antiquity, as Mob Quad at Merton or Magdalen Tower. To pass from the Norman work of St. Peter's in the East to the Palladianism of Peckwater quadrangle, is but to descend from one to another of the same honourable race. If certain extremely new edifices wear out a thousand years they will probably be worthy of reverence at the end of that time, and be in harmony with Merton chapel and Balliol hall at once. Nothing is so deserving, few things so exacting, of respect, from transitory men as age. Things change, and improvements are questioned or questionable ; but, for me, age is as good as an improvement ; and Oxford honours what is old with particular dignities and graces ; under her influence the work of age is at once blander and more swift. But this gentle tyranny, — as of the Mother of 6 OXFORD, FROM THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE On the extreme left of the picture shows the roof of the Schools ; the dome of the Radcliffe Library, St. Mary's tower and spire, and Merton tower, occupying the centre of the picture. To the right, over part of Brasenose College, are the elm trees of the Broad Walk. In the foreground are the pinnacles and roof of the Bodleian Library. ^ The view is from the Cupola of the Sheldonian Theatre, looking south on a stormy day. On Entering Oxford Christ, who, in Leonardo's picture, unites angel and holy child and St. John with outspread hands, — is exerted not only upon the stones, but also upon the people of the place. A man may at Oxford rejoice in the company of another whom it is a self-sacrifice to meet elsewhere. He finds himself marvelling that one who was merely a gentleman in London can be interesting in Long Wall Street or on the Cherwell. The superb, expensive young man who thinks that there is " practically nobody in Oxford " — the poor, soiled scholar — the exuberant, crimson-lipped athlete, whose stride is a challenge, his voice a trumpet call — the lean and larded aesthete, busily engaged upon the quaint designs of oriental life, — all discover some point in common when they are seen together in the Schools, or on the riverside. I was never more effectually reminded of this Oxford magic than when I heard the City Band playing opposite University one day. I was indifferent, and for the time ignorant and incapable of knowing, whether the music was that of Wagner or Sousa. It seemed to me the music of Apollo, certainly of some one grander than all grand composers. And yet, as I was informed, what I had entirely loved was from an inferior opera which every street boy can improve. It was another music, and yet symphonious, that I heard, when I came again to Addison's Walk at Magdalen. I stopped at Magdalen cloisters on my way — Oxford O blessed shades ! O gentle cool retreat From all th' immoderate Heat In which the frantic World does burn and sweat ! — Let any one who has laughed at Oxford discipline, or criticised her system of education, go there in the morning early and be abased before the solemnity of that square lawn ; and should he be left with a desire to explain anything, let him take up his abode with the stony mysterious beasts gathered around that lawn. I like that grass amidst the cloisters because it is truly common. No one, I hope and believe, except a gardener, an emblem, is permitted to walk thereon. It belongs to me and to you and to the angels. Such an emerald in such a setting is a fit symbol of the university, and its privy seal. It is still unnecessary to pass an examination before entering Addison's walk. It is therefore unfrequented. A financier made a pretty sum one Midsummer -day by accepting gratuities from all the strangers who came to its furthest point — " a custom older than King Alfred." But, although they are not vulgarly so called, these walks are the final school of the Platonist. It is an elucidation of the Phasdo to pace therein. That periwinkle-bordered pathway is the place of long thoughts that come home with circling footsteps again and again. It is the home of beech and elm, and of whatsoever that is beautiful and wise and stately dwells among beech and elm. More than one college history is linked with a tree. Lincoln College reverently entreats the solitary plane BISHOP HEBER'S TREE To the left are seen the steps leading to the Radclift'e Library, over which appears a portion of the buildings of Brasenose College, divided by a lane from the gardens of Exeter College, in which the Bishop planted the chestnut tree named after him. The spire of Exeter Chapel shows to the right. The iron railings surround the RadclifFe Library. On Entering Oxford tree. William of Waynfleet commanded that Magdalen College should be built over against the oak that fell after six hundred years of life a century ago. Sir Thomas White was " warned in a dream " to build a college at a place where there stood a triple elm tree. Hence arose St. John's College. Two hundred years ago the tree was known to exist, and there is ground for the pious belief that a scion still flourishes there. Nowhere is green so wonderful as at Magdalen or Trinity. But their sweetness is no more than the highest expression of the privacy of Oxford. Turn aside at the gate that lies nearest your path ; enter ; and you will find a cloister or cloistral calm, free from wolf and ass. " The walks at these times," said a vacation visitor, " are so much one's own — the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen ! The halls deserted, and with open doors inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their overlooked beadsman and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitaHty ; the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses ; ovens where the first pies were baked four centuries ago ; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple." With a little effrontery and an English accent you may enjoy the inmost bowers of the Fellows 9 Oxford or, Si qua est ea gloria^ gather fruit from the espahers of the president. The walls are barricaded only with ivy, or wallflower, or the ivy-leaved toadflax and its delicate bells. But the stranger never learns that the seclusion of Oxford is perennial, and that only in the vacations may he sufi^er from what the old pun calls ■porta eburna. The place is habitually almost deserted, except by the ghosts of the dead. Returning to it, when friends are gone, and every one is a stranger, the echoes of our footsteps in the walls are as the voices of our dead selves ; we are among the ghosts ; the past is omnipotent, even terrible. Echoes, quotes Montaigne, are the spirits of the dead, and among these mouldering stones we may put our own interpretation upon that. And no one that has so returned, or that comes a reverent stranger for the first time to Oxford, can read without deep intelligence the lines which are put into the mouth of Lacordaire in " lonica " : — Lost to the Church and deaf to me, this town Yet wears the reverend garniture of peace. Set in a land of trade, like Gideon's fleece Bedewed where all is dry ; the Pope may frown ; But, if this city is the shrine of youth. How shall the Preacher lord of virgin souls. When by glad streams and laughing lawns he strolls, How can he bless them not ? Yet in sad sooth. When I would love those English gownsmen, sighs Heave my frail breast, and weakness dims mine eyes. These strangers heed me not — far off in France Are young men not so fair, and not so cold. My listeners. Were they here, their greeting glance Might charm me to forget that I were old. Some time ago I went into a grey quadrangle, filled lO On Entering Oxford with gusty light and the crimson of creeper -leaves, tremulous or already in flight. A tall poplar, the favourite of the months from April to October, was pensively distributing its foliage upon the grass. There, the leaves became invisible, because of brilliant frost, and in a high attic I heard once again the laud or summons or complaint of bells. That was All Saints'; that, St. Mary's ; that, the Cathedral's ; and that was their blended after-tone, seeming to come from the sky. Each bell had its own character or mood, sometimes constant, sometimes changing with the weather of the night. One, for example, spoke out sullenly and ceased, as if to return to musing that had been pain- fully interrupted. Another bell seemed to take deep joy in its frequent melodious duty — like some girl seated alone in her bower at easy toil, now and then lifting her head, and with her embroidery upon her knee, chanting joys past and present and yet to come. Once again I felt the mysterious pleasure of being in an elevated Oxford chamber at night, among cloud and star, — so that I seemed to join in the inevitable motion of the planets, — and as I saw the sea of roofs and horned turrets and spires I knew that, although architecture is a dead language, here at least it speaks strongly and clearly, pompous as Latin, subtle as Greek. I used to envy the bell-ringers on days of ancient festival or recent victory, and cannot wonder that old Anthony a Wood should have noted the eight bells of Merton as he came home from antiquarian walks, and would often ring those same bells " for recreation's 1 1 Oxford sake." When their sound is dead it is sweet to enter that peacefuUest and homeliest of churchyards, St. Peter's in the East, overlooked by St. Edmund's Hall and Queen's College and the old city wall. There is a peace which only the thrush and blackbird break, and even their singing is at length merely the most easily distinguishable part of the great melody of the place. Most of the graves are so old or so forgotten that it is easy — and in Spring it is difficult not — to perceive a kind of dim reviving life among the stones, where, as in some old, quiet books, the names live again a purged and untroubled existence. In Oxford nothing is the creation of one man or of one year. Every college and church and garden is the work of centuries of men and time. Many a stone reveals an octave of colour that is the composition of a long age. The founder of a college laid his plans ; in part, perhaps he fixed them in stone. His successors continued the work, and without haste, without con- tempt of the future or ignorance of the past, helped the building to ascend unto complete beauty by means of its old and imperfect selves. The Benedictine Gloucester ' House of 1283 has grown by strange methods into the Worcester College of to-day. The Augustinian Priory site is now occupied by Wadham. St. Alban's Hall is no more ; but its lamp — " Stubbin's moon " — is a light in a recess of Merton. Wolsey drew upon the bank of old foundations for the muni- ficence which is still his renown. A chantry for the comfort of departed souls became a kind of scholarship. 12 ST. EDMUND'S HALL The picture shows the north wall of the Hall, pierced with windows looking on to the graveyard of St. Peter's in the East. The confused mass of chimneys and dormer windows give a picturesque appearance to this side of the Hall. New College Gardens lie beyond the wall running across the picture. On Entering Oxford Duke Humphrey's library was the nest from which Bodley's august collection overflowed ; the very timber of the Bodleian was in part Merton's gift. No city preserves the memory and signature of so many men. The past and the dead have here, as it were, a corporate life. They are an influence, an authority ; they create and legislate to-day. Everything in the present might have been foretold, and in fact existed in some latent form, in the past, as Merlin was said to have foretold the migration of Oxford scholars from Cricklade, i.e. Greeklade. Therefore, in Oxford alone, as I walk, I seem to be in the living past. The oldest thing is not as in most places a curiosity. Since it is told of Oxford, the story is not lightly to be discredited, that Ludovicus Vives, who was sent as professor of rhetoric by Wolsey, was welcomed by a swarm of bees, and that they, " to signify the incomparable sweetness of his eloquence," settled under the leads of his study at Corpus Christi College, and there for a hundred and thirty years continued, until they dispersed out of sorrow for the fallen Stuart family. When dawn arrives to the student, after a night among books, and the towers and spires seem to be just fresh from the acting of some stately drama ; or at nightfall, when the bells ring as he comes, joyful and tired, home from the west, — then the city and all its component ages speak out, as if the past were but a fine memory, richly stored and ordered. Once, answering the call of one of those bells that are to a scholar as a trumpet to a soldier, I found 13 Oxford myself at a service that had in it elements older than Oxford. I was surely at a Greek festival. The genial, flushed, slightly grotesque faces of the College fellows contrasted with the white children of the choir, very much as the swarthy faun with the young god in Titian's " Bacchus and Ariadne." The notes of the choristers and of the organ were moulded to finer results by the severe decorations of the carven stone around and above. When one sang alone, it was as it had been a dove floating to the windows and away, away. There were parts of the music so faint and so exquisitely blended that the twenty voices were but as the sound of a reverberating bell. A voice of baser metal read the lesson with a melancholy dignity that made the words at once pleasing and unintelligible. When the last surplice had floated past the exit, the worshippers looked a little pained and confused, as if doubting whether they had not assisted some beautiful rash heresy. Turning into High Street, I was rudely called back from a fantastic visit to Tempe, by the wind and rain of every day. The usual pageant of study and pleasure was passing up and down. Here was a smiling gentleman, red as the opening morn, with black clothes, white tie, — one who scoffs at everything but gout. He notes in the fragrance of his favourite dishes omens of greater import than augurs used to read from sacrificial victims. Here was a pale seraph, his eyes commercing with the sky. He has taken every possible prize. Nobody but his friends can think that he is uninteresting. 14 On Entering Oxford Here was a little, plain-featured, gentle ascetic, one of the " last enchantments of the middle ages " that are to be seen still walking about Oxford. Five hundred years ago he might have ridden, " coy as a maid," to Canterbury and told "the clerk of Oxford's tale." Now, the noises of the world are too much for him, and he murmurs among his trees — How safe, methinks, and strong behind These trees have I encamped my mind, Where beauty aiming at the heart, Bends in some tree its useless dart, And where the world no certain shot Can make, or me it toucheth not. But I on it securely play. And gall its horsemen all the day. Bind me, ye woodbines in your twines. Curl me about, ye gadding vines. And oh so close your circles lace. That I may never leave this place ! Here was a youth not much past seventeen. In his face the welt schmerz contends with the pride in his last bon mot. He is a wide and subtle reader ; he has contributed to the halfpenny press. He has materialised spirits and moved objects at a distance. In the world, there is little left for him except repose and weak tea. Here was one that might be a monk and might equally well be St. Michael, with flashing eyes and high white forehead that catches a light from beyond the dawn and glows. He is a splendour among men as he walks in the crowd of high churchmen, low churchmen, broad churchmen, nonconformists, and men who on Sunday wear bowler hats. 15 Oxford Here was a shy don, married to Calliope — a brilliant companion — one who shares a wisdom as deep and almost as witty as Montaigne's, with a few fellows of colleges, and ever murmuring " Codex." Here was one, watched over alike by the Muses and the Graces ; honey-tongued ; athletic ; who would rather spend a life in deciding between the Greek and Roman ideals than in ruling Parliament and being ruled by society. He strode like a Plantagenet. When he stood still he was a classical Hermes. Here was a Blue " with shy but conscious look " ; and there the best of all Vices. Here was a youth, with gaudy tie, who believed that he was leading a bull-dog, but showed a wise acquiescence in the intricate canine etiquette. May his dog not cease before him. Here was a martial creature, walking six miles an hour, pensively, in his master's gown. His beard, always blown over his shoulder, has been an inspiration to generations of undergraduates, and, with his bellying gown, gives him a resemblance to Boreas or Notus. Probably because the able novelist has not visited Oxford, men move about its streets more naively and with more expression in their faces than anywhere else in the world. There you may do anything but carry a walking-stick. (As I write, fashion has changed her mind, and walking-sticks of the more flippant kinds are commonly in use.) There are therefore more unmasked faces in half of Turl Street than in the whole of the Strand. Almost every one appears to have i6 On Entering Oxford a sense of part proprietorship in the city ; walks as if he were in his own garden ; has no fear lest he should be caught smiling to himself, or, as midnight approaches, even singing loudly to himself. A don will not hesitate to make the worst joke in a strong and cheerful voice in the bookseller's shop, when it is full of clever freshmen. Yonder they go, the worldly and the unworldly, the rich and poor, high and low, proving that Oxford is one of the most democratic places in Europe. The lax discipline that broadens the horizon of the inexpert stranger is probably neither unwise nor unpremeditated. It is certainly not inconsistent with the genius of a city whose very stones may be supposed to have acquired an educative faculty, and a sweet presence that is not to be put by. No fool ever went up without becoming at least a coxcomb before he came down. In no place are more influences brought to bear upon the mind, though it is emphatically a place where a man is expected to educate himself. A man is apt to feel on first entering Oxford, and still more on leaving it, that the beautiful city is unfortunate in having but mortal minds to teach. There is a keen and sometimes pathetic sense of a great music which one cannot wholly follow, a light unapprehended, a wisdom not realised. Yet much is to be guessed at or privily understood, when we behold St. Mary's spire, marvellously attended, and crowned, when the night is one sapphire, by Cassiopeia. And the ghosts take shape — the cowled, mitred, mail -coated, sceptred company of founders, 17 2 THE UNIVERSITY CHURCH OF ST. MARY The podium and part of one ot the Doric columns of the Canterbury Gate of Christ Church show at the extreme left of the picture. The lantern of the RadclifFe Library appears between the column and the picturesque house covered with greenery, above which rises the tower and spire of St. Mary's, the University Church. Between this house and a lower building — St. Mary's Hall — runs St. Mary's Hall Lane, emerging into "the High" opposite the porch of St. Mary's Church. The buildings on the extreme right of the picture are those belonging to Oriel College. On Entering Oxford with jests and fancies that disenthroned all powers except fantasy and adventure and mirth. Out of doors, at Yarnton or Cumnor or Tew, he seemed near kinsman to the sun and the south wind, so that for a time we were one with them, with a sense of mystery and of pride. And, whether in or out of doors, he loved the night, because her hands were soft, and he found the shadows infernis hilares sine regibus, as in the world of Saturn. He would hail the morn as he saw her from a staircase window with " Sweet cousin " and such follies ; and would go into the chapel on summer evenings without a candle to see prophet and apostle lit by the tender beam. He wrote, and never printed, much verse. When I look at it now, I wonder in what language it was conceived, and where the key is hidden, and by what shores and forests to-day, men speak or dream it. The verses seem to maturer eyes but as crude translations out of silence. Yet in the old days we called him sometimes the Last, sometimes the First, of the Bards, so nimble and radiant was his spirit. He seemed one that might have written Tamerlane in his youth, after a pot of sack with Shakespeare at the *' Crown " in Cornmarket Street. I know not whether to call him immemorially old or young. He had touches of the golden age, and as it were a tradition from the singer who was in that ship which First through the Euxine seas bore all the flower of Greece. Unlike other clever people in Oxford he was brilliant in early morning ; would rise and talk and write at 19 IFFLEY CHURCH FROM THE SOUTH-EAST The massive Norman tower of the Church shows to the left of the picture, the chancel extending eastward to the right. A yew tree — perhaps of the same age as the Church — covers part of the building, serving to throw into relief the remains of a cross, the shaft and base of which are ancient. On Entering Oxford Oh, to the sad how pleasant thy age, to the joyous how admirable thy youth ! Yet to the wise, perhaps, thou art neither young nor old, but eternal ; and not so much beautiful as Beauty herself, masked as Cybele ! And perhaps, oh sweet and wise and solemn mother, thou wilt not hear unkindly thy latest froward courtier, or at least will let him pass unnoticed, since one that speaks of thee, " Cannot dispraise without a kind of praise. Or will it more delight thee to be praised in a tongue that is out of time, as thou seemest out of space and time ? — "Vive Midae gazis et Lydo ditior auro Troica et Euphratea super diademata felix, Quem non ambigui fasces, non mobile vulgus, Non leges, non castra tenent, qui pectore magno Spemque metumque domas. Nos, vilia turba, caducis Deservire bonis semperque optare parati, Spargimur in casus. Celsa tu mentis ab arce Despicis errantes, humanaque gaudia rides." 21 THE STONES OF OXFORD 23 TOM TOWER, CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE The palisade enclosing the graveyard of St. Aldate's Church is on the .left ; some of the buildings of Pembroke College appear to the right. The gateway in the centre of the picture is the west entrance to Christ Church from St. Aldate's, and leads into the Fountain Quadrangle. The tower, to the level of the finial of the ogee-headed window, is of the date of Wolsey's foundation ; the remaining part was added by Sir Christopher Wren. CHAPTER II THE STONES OF OXFORD Quia lapis de pariete clamabit, et lignum, quod inter juncturas aedificiorum est, respondebit. Standing at Carfax, and occasionally moving a step to one side or another, I see with my eyes, indeed, the west front of Christ Church, with Tom Tower ; the borders of All Saints' and St. Mary's ; and that grim tower of St. Michael's ; and the handsome curves of High Street and St. Aldate's, which are part of the mere good fortune of Oxford : but, especially if a dawn light recall the first dim shining, or a sunset recall the grey and golden splendour of its maturity, I may also see the past of the University unrolled again. For at Carfax I am in sight of monuments on which is implied or recorded all its history. On the south, above Folly Bridge, is the gravelly reach that formed the eponymous ford ; between that and Christ Church was the old south gate ; and, through Wolsey's gateway, lies the Cathedral, speaking of St. Frideswide, the misty, original founder, — King's daughter, virgin, martyr, saint, — and, with its newly revealed Norman crypt, which perhaps 25 Oxford held the University chest in the beginning, represen- tative of Oxford's piety and generosity. On the east, in the High Street, University College and St, Mary's and Brasenose speak clearly, although falsely, of King Alfred. There, by St. Peter's in the East, was the old east gate ; and in sight of these is Merton, the fount of the collegiate idea. On the north, in Cornmarket Street, St. Michael's marks the place of the north gate, and while it is one of the oldest, is by far the oldest- looking place in Oxford, rising up always to our surprise, like a piece of substantial night left by the dark ages, yet clothed with green in June. On the west, the Castle tower, twin made with St. Michael's by the first Norman lord of Oxford, lies by the old west gate ; and the quiet, monstrous mound beyond recalls the days of King Alfred's daughter's supremacy in Mercia. At Carfax itself there is still a St. Martin's church, a descendant of the one whose bells in the Middle Ages and again in the seventeenth century, called the city to arms against the University, but long ago deprived of its insolent height of tower, because the citizens pelted the scholars therefrom. Moved by the presence of a city whose strange beauty was partly interpreted from these vigorous hieroglyphics, mediasval and later men, who had the advantage of living before history was invented, framed for it a divine or immensely ancient origin. Even kings, or such as quite certainly existed, were deemed unworthy to be the founders. We believe now that the first mention of Oxford was as an inconsiderable 26 ST. GILES'S, LOOKING TOWARDS ST. MARY MAGDALEN (SOUTH) Some picturesque houses on the left lead to the entrance of St. John's College, seen through the trees. Farther on appears the tower of the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Cornmarket. The mass to the extreme right above the cab shelter is part of the west side of St. Giles's and the houses surrounding the Taylor Institution and new Ashmolean Museum. The posts and rails in the foreground enclose a grassed space in front of St. Giles's Church. The time is sunset in summer. The Stones of Oxford but progressive township in the reign of Edward the Elder, Alfred's son : but those old lovers attributed to Alfred the restoration of a university that was in his time old and honoured ; and some said that he endowed three doctors of grammar, arts, and theology, there ; others, less precise than those who put the foundation of Cambridge at 4317 b.c, discovered that Oxford was founded by the Trojans who (as used to be well known) came to Britain from their burning city. But to Oxford the Trojans brought certain Greek philosophers, and at that early date illustrated the universal hospitality and independence of nationality and language that were so characteristic, before the place became a Stuart park. And as the Athenians had in their city and its attendant landscape all those natural beauties and utilities which make possible a peerless academy, so also had the Britons, says Anthony a Wood, herein agreeing with Polydore Vergil, " when by a remnant of the Grecians, that came amongst them, they or their successors selected such a place in Britain to plant a school or schools therein, which for its pleasant situation was afterwards called Bellositmn or Bellosite, now Oxford." Among these generous suppositions or dreams was the story that Apollo, at the downfall of the Olympians, flying now to Rome and now to Athens, found at last something congenial in the brown oak woods and silver waters of Oxford, and a bride in the puissant nymph of Isis ; on which favoured site, as was fitting, there afterwards arose a place, with the learn- ing and architectural beauty of Athens, the divine 27 Oxford inspiration of Delphi, and the natural loveliness of Delos . . . There is, said Anthony a Wood, " an old tradition that goeth from father to son of our inhabitants, which much derogateth from the antiquity of this city — and that is : When Frideswyde had bin soe long absent from hence, she came from Binsey (triumphing with her virginity) into the city mounted on a milk-white ox betokening innocency ; and as she rode along the streets, she would forsooth be still speaking to her ox, ' Ox forth,' 'Ox forth' or (as 'tis related) '•bos perge'' (that is, ' ox goe on,' or ' ox (goe on) forth ') — and hence they indiscreetly say that our city was from thence called Oxforth or Oxford." But there has never been composed a quite appro- priately magnificent legend that could be received by the faithful as the canonical fiction for Oxford, as the Aeneid is for Rome ; and now there can never be. There is, however, still a pleasant haze (that might encourage a poet or a herald) suspended over the early history of Oxford. It is unlikely that the place was of importance in Roman times ; later, its position on a river and a boundary brought it many sufferings at the hands of Dane and Saxon. But no one need fear to believe that, early in the eighth century, Didan, an under king, and his daughter Frideswide established there a nunnery and built a church of stone, now perhaps mingled with the later masonry. It was rebuilt by Ethelred in the eleventh century with a quite exceptional fineness in the Saxon workmanship ; and was girdled by the churches 28 CHRIST CHURCH— INTERIOR OF LATIN CHAPEL The Shrine of St. Frideswide appears in the middle of the picture, standing in one of the eastern bays of the north wall of the choir. The north side of the Shrine is seen, together with the ancient wooden watching-chaniber above. A tomb shows between the column and the seventeenth-century reading-desk at the right of the picture, also a glimpse of the choir. The carved oak stall front immediately under the Shrine is probably of the time of Wolsey, and part of the furniture of his choir. To the left is the east window of the Chapel — filled with stained glass representing scenes in the life of St. Frideswide, designed by Sir Edward Burne- Jones, Bart., and executed by Mr. William Morris. The two figures represent a visitor to the shrine of the saint and a verger. The Stones of Oxford of St. Martin, St. George, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ebbe, St. Michael, and St. Peter in the East ; and the last two, to one who had stood at Carfax in iioo, would still be recognised, if he visited the shadowed doorway and stern crypt of the one, and the tower of the other, though he might look in vain for what he knew in "The Seven Deadly Sins lane" and elsewhere. Whatever learning then flourished in the city is now to be found in its architecture, in Prior Philip's book on the miracles of St. Frideswide, and in the inestimable atmosphere of the place. We can guess that there was much that is worthy to be known, from the eloquent monkish figures of the corbels in Christ Church chapter- house ; and can wistfully think of the wisdom that was uttered in Beaumont, the royal palace and learned resort, whose gardens lay at Broken Hays and near Worcester College ; and in Osney Abbey, whose bells — Hautclere, Douce, Clement, Austin, Marie, Gabriel et John — made music that was known to the Eynsham abbot on May evenings, when it was a rich, calm retreat, and not as now, a shadowy outline and a sorrowful heap of stones beyond the railway station. More than the ghost of the abbey survives in the sketch of its ruined but still noble walls, in the background of that picture of its last abbot, in a window of the south choir aisle at Christ Church. Before the Conquest Oxford had been visited by parliaments and kings ; it now began to be honoured by learning and art. Olim truncus erani .... 29 Oxford maluit esse deum. It had often been violated or burned ; in Doomsday Book it appears as a half desolate city, despite the churches ; but it had already begun, though again checked by fire that flew among the wooden houses with such ghastly ease, to assume the proportions and the grace which were fostered by William of Wykeham and a hundred of the great unknown, and in the last few years by Aldrich and Wren and Jones, — crowned by the munificence of Radcliff*e, — illuminated with green and white and gold and purple by the unremembered and by Reynolds, Morris, and Burne-Jones. The Saxon work at St. Frideswide's was superseded or veiled by the Norman architects ; the fine old pillars were in part altered or replaced ; and the relics of the Saint herself were transferred cere- moniously and " with all the sweet odours and spices imaginable," to a more imposing place of rest. Upon the base of the old fortifications probably now rose the bastions of the mediasval city wall, once so formidable but now defensive only against time, and unable any longer to make history, but only poetry, as they stand peacefully and muffled with herbage in New College Gardens, or at Merton or Pembroke, or by the church- yard of St. Peter's in the East. The history of that age in Oxford is indistinct, and recorded events therein have a suddenness, for modern readers, which is vivid and fascinating, but to the historian at least, painful and false. And so the birth of the University, in the midst of darkness and noise, is to us to-day a melodious sudden cry. It is as if a voice, 30 ST. P£TER'S-IN-THE-EAST To the extreme right of the picture, through a huge buttress on the south side of the chancel, is pierced the doorway to the twelfth-century crypt, extending some 36 feet under the chancel of the Church. To the west of this buttress, in the angle formed by another buttress, appear the remains of a Norman arca 3 Oxford which until fifty years ago was equal with it in ancient beauty, and has been clouded in the same way. He left in his will a sum of money to the University. It was employed in making more steadfast abodes for Oxford students ; at a house, for example, that stood on the site of the bookseller's shop opposite University College lodge. This act is counted the foundation of University College, with its original four masters, who shall be thought " most fit to advance or profit in the Holy Church and who have not to live handsomely without it in the state of Masters of Arts." There had previously been similar Halls, and many were afterwards founded, — Hawk Hall, Perilous Hall, Elm Hall, Winton Hall, Beef Hall, Greek Hall, Segrim Hall ; in fact so large a number that half the Oxford inns are or were perversions of the old Halls ; and even tradesmen who are not innkeepers now make their rich accounts among the ghosts of forgotten principals. These had not in them the necessary statutes and " great bases for eternity " which a college deserves. But henceforward there were some fortunate students who might indeed have to sing or make Latin verses in order to earn a bed, or a crust and a pot of ale, while making their way to or from Oxford ; but, once there, they were sure of such a home as no other place, unless, perhaps, the place of their nativity, could give. " It is all," says Newman, speaking of a college, " and does all that is implied in the name of home. Youths, who have left the maternal roof, and travelled some hundred miles for the acquisition of knowledge, find an 34 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE— PRIVATE GARDEN OF THE MASTER The building to the left is the east end of the College Chapel, the entrance tower being seen over the divitling wall almost in the centre of the picture. A bay window to the extreme right of the picture, looking over the garden, is part of the Master's Lodging. The Stones of Oxford altera Troja and simulata Pergama at the end of their journey and their place of temporary sojourn. Home is for the youth, who knows nothing of the world, and who would be forlorn and sad, if thrown upon it. It is the refuge of helpless boyhood, which would be famished and pine away if it were not maintained by others. It is the providential shelter of the weak and inexperienced who have still to learn how to cope with the temptations which lie outside of it. It is the place of training for those who are not only ignorant, but have not yet learned how to learn, and who have to be taught, by careful individual trial, how to set about profiting by the lessons of a teacher. And it is the school of elemen- tary studies, not of advanced ; for such studies alone can boys at best apprehend and master. Moreover, it is the shrine of our best affections, the bosom of our fondest recollections, a spell upon our after life, a stay for world-weary mind and soul, wherever we are cast, till the end comes. Such are the attributes or offices of home, and like to these in one or other sense and measure, are the attributes and offices of a College in a University." In the unconscious preparation for such a place William of Durham was the first to leave money ; the founders of Balliol the first to gather a number of scholars under one roof, with a corporate life, and as we may assume, a set of customary, unwritten laws ; but Walter de Merton was the first to endow and provide with tenements and statutes a college, in all important respects, like a college of to-day, — a place even at that time standing in a genial avuncular relationship towards Oxford the students, which was rich in influence and the making of endearing tradition. Perhaps the Merton treasury, still conspicuous for its steep roof and burliness, was part of the founder's gift ; and no building could have been a fitter nest of an idea which was for so long to make little of time. The Hall retains some features of the same date. Almost at once the chapel began to rise, and its light was coloured by the topmost glass just as it is to-day. In fact, Merton with its older little sister foundation of St. Alban Hall was, until the annus mirabilis of Mr. Butterfield, in itself a symbol of the origin and growth of Oxford as a collegiate university and as a place of beauty. The royal Dervorguilla was the godmother of the kindly college life of to-day. She was the wife of the founder of Balliol, and was often in Oxford, with her honoured Franciscan, Richard of Slikeburne, to look after her sixteen scholars at Old BalHol Hall, in Horse- monger Street, now Broad Street. Close by, at the Church of St. Mary Magdalen, she devised an oratory for the Balliol men. They chose their own Principal, who presided at disputations and meals. They had breakfast and supper together, and the more comfortable of them paid anything in excess of their allowance which the expenses of the common table might demand. One poor scholar lived on the crumbs. Thus were men less often compelled to borrow from the Jews at 60 per cent on the security of their books. While Balliol was so progressing, and University College had its statutes, and Merton already had its Hall,. 36 MERTON COLLEGE AND ST. ALBAN'S HALL The entrance Quadrangle of the College is shown in the picture, to the right of which is the Warden's residence. The building farther to the right is the Library, the steps of which show in the immediate foreground. St. Alban's Hall, recently attached to Merton College, appears over the north-east corner of the Quadrangle. The Stones of Oxford the spire of the church of St. Mary the Virgin first rose against the sky. Then also the ashes of St. Frideswide were promoted to a new and more precious place of rest. The sculptor at work upon the shrine had evidently at his side the leaves of maple and crowfoot and columbine, ivy and sycamore and oak, hawthorn and bryony, from the neighbouring woods, where the saint had lain in hiding or ministered to the calamities of the poor ; and perhaps the season was late autumn, for among the oak leaves are acorns, and some of the cups are empty. All these things he carved on the base of the shrine. It was of this period that the story was told that two barefooted, hungry travellers from the west were approaching Oxford, and had come in sight of it near Cumnor, when they found a beautiful woman seated by the wavside. So beautiful was she that they knelt at her feet, " being simple men." Sahe Regina I they cried. Then, she bending forward and speaking, they were first surprised that she should speak to them ; and next ventured to speak to her, and ask her name. Whereat she " raised her small golden head so that in the sun her hair seemed to flow and flow continually down," and looked towards Oxford. There two spires and two towers could just be seen betwixt the oak trees. " My name," she said, " is known to all men save you. It is Pulchritudo. And that," as she pointed to the shining stones of the city, " is my home." Those two were silent, between amazement and joy, until one said " It is our Lady ! " and the other " Lo ! it is Venus, and 37 Oxford she sits upon many waters yonder." Hardly had they resumed their ordinary pace when they found an old man, seated by the wayside, very white and yet " very pleasant and alluring to behold." So to him also the simple wayfarers knelt down. Then that old man bent forward and spoke to them with golden words, and only the one who had called the beautiful woman "Venus" dared to speak. He it was that questioned the old man about the woman and about himself. " My name is Sapientia," he said, and " that is my home," he con- tinued, and looked towards Oxford, where two spires and two towers could just be seen betwixt the oak trees. " And," he concluded solemnly, " that woman is my mother and she grows not old." The men went their way, one saying, " It is a place of lies " ; the other saying, " It is wonderful " ; and when they looked back the old man and the beautiful woman had vanished. In the city they were often seen, but the two strangers could not speak with them, " for they were greatest in the city of Oxford. Some said that he was an Austin friar and she a light woman ; but they are not to be believed." And when they had dwelt in Oxford a short time and had seen " what store of pious and learned and illuminated books were in the Halls, and what costly and fine things in its churches and Convents," the one said, " I believe that what Sapientia and Pulchritudo said was the truth " ; and the other said, " Truly, the city is worthy of them both " ; wherefore they dwelt there until their deaths, and found it " the most loving and lovely city " in Christendom. 38 ORIEL COLLEGE The Hall and Chapel stretch across the picture, in the centre of which appears the porch. The three niches contain figures of the Virgin and Child and Edward IL and III. under canopies. The tower of Merton College shows above the roof of the Chapel. This, with the louvres and ogee gables, forms a picturesque sky-line. The Stones of Oxford Dervorguilla and Walter de Merton had thus made the University a father and a mother to the scholar. For a time, indeed, the principals had often to transfer their penates ; the founder's inheritors lived in scattered tenements which they changed from necessity or choice, now and then ; yet they had the imperishable sentiment of home, and for some years they had little more, except in a small degree at Merton and Queen's, since the colleges neither demanded nor provided that the scholars should study according to rule. Under Edward II. Exeter College was founded, and linked from the beginning with the west country, by the simultaneous co-foundation of a school, and the rule that all the scholars should thence be drawn. Decent poverty and love of learning were the other qualifica- tions of a scholar. Then followed Oriel, with Edward II. as its founder, the advowson of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin as part of its support, and its name derived from the Hall of La Oriole, which it received early, and soon afterwards occupied. Its library was the first college library ; but the acquirement was technically defective, and the Fellows of Oriel could not resist the students who broke in and carried away the books. Fellows and admirers repaired the loss. Philippa, Queen of Edward III., was joined with her chaplain in the foundation of Queen's College " for the cultivation of Theology, to the glory of God, the advance of the Church, and the salvation of souls." A little subtlety on the part of the founder and senti- ment on the part of the queens, enabled the college to 39 Oxford exchange compliments with Anne of Bohemia, Henrietta Maria, Charlotte and Adelaide. The founder was a Cumberland man, and his college attracted a neighbour or a man who spoke with his accent or had the same traditions to become one of the fellows, equal in number with Christ and His apostles. Before and after the beginning of colleges, men from the same district made a small " new Scotland " or " new France " in Oxford streets. Thus the scholars of St. George's and Oriel were for some time largely Welsh ; at Balliol and University College there were many northerners. At all times these divisions were emphasised by conflicts with tongue and arrow and sword. Scholars overlooked their Aristotle at bloody arguments in Grove Street and Cornmarket, between North and South, Irish and Welsh and Scotch, in combinations that varied unaccountably or according to the politics of the day. You might know a scholar, as an ancient tinker remarked the other day, remembering the boxing booths of his youth, by the way he fought. The election of a chancellor, or a church wake, and an exchange of lusty oaths between men of two parties were the occasion. In later years Realists and Nominalists, — Orthodox and Wycliffites, — now and then reduced their disagreement to simple terms. Nor were the citizens with difficulty persuaded to take or make a side in the disputes, whether they encountered the scholars at inns, or as they stood on market-days, — the sellers of hay and faggots and hogs, stretching in their regular places from the East gate, in front of St. Mary's and All Saints', to Carfax and the 40 GROVE STREET This narrow street runs from the High Street opposite St. Mary's Church alongside St. Mary's Hall and Oriel College, emerging near to Merton, part of the tower of which College appears. It contains some picturesque half-timbered buildings, some of which are shown in the picture. The Stones of Oxford Cross Inn. Once, a northern chaplain, *' with other malefactors," embattled themselves and sought out the Welshmen with bent bows, crying to the " Welsh dogs and their whelps " that an Owen or a Meredydd who looked out at his door was a dead man. The Welshmen were driven out of the city with ignominy and blood. The Northeners robbed and murdered indiscriminately, and destroyed not only books but harps, until, finding an ale-house, they were incontinently appeased. On another occasion some townsmen burst in, on a Sunday, upon a few scholars, wounding and despoiling them. The scholars spread their story and collected friends. The townsmen responded to the sound of horns and St. Martin's bell. Countrymen from Hinksey and Headington came to the help of the unlearned. The air whistled and hummed with the flight of arrows and stones ; the streets were crimsoned. But the reverend gentleman who led the learned was untimely shot down, and his cause evaporated. Some scholars fled to the country, some to sanctuary, and were comforted by the excommunication and fining of their opponents. After a similar fight the University was allowed that exemption from the city courts which it still enjoys. In fact, the disturbances earned very cheaply for the University concessions which put the citizens at a disadvantage, and emphasised distinctions, so as to cause other disturbances in turn. Henry V,, himself a Queen's College man, at last interfered with an order that scholars would only be treated as such if they were under the rule of an approved head. It was an 41 Oxford attempt to banish the wild errant scholars, often Irish- men, and to make a common type of Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford, who had been to Padua and knew Petrarch's verse. He was one who, even in his devotion to books, did not forget the souls of his benefactors, for which he was, in the first instance, endowed to pray — And he was not right fat, I undertake, But looked holwe, and therto sobrely ; Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy ; For he hadde geten hym yet no benefice, Ne was so worldly for to have office ; For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes clad in black or reed Of Aristotle and his philosophic, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie ; But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre ; But al that he myghte of his freendes hente On bookes and his lernynge he it spent, And bisily gan for the soules preye Of him that yaf hym wherewith to scoleye. Of studie tooke he moost cure and moost heede, Noght o word spake he moore than was neede. And that was seyd in forme and reverence, And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence. Sounynge in moral vertu was his speche. And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche. But William of Wykeham, before that time, had given to New College a code of ornate and intricate rules for morals and manners, which became a legacy to the University at large ; and in the first place checked the savage liberties of scholars ; in the second, helped to make learning more " humane," to make the " Arts " the " humanities." He built a chapel for the exclusive use of the scholars of his foundation. That in itself 42 NEW COLLEGE William of Wykeham (1404) built the noble tower which stands free to the extreme right of the picture. A portion of the chapel is seen to the left of the tower, and forms, with it and the trees, a noble group. The new retaining walls in the foreground are part of a recent addition to the College. The Stones of Oxford was an inestimable addition to the golden chain by which Oxford holds the memories of men. To the chapel they were to go every day, and there to say their Faters and Aves. Its Latin — the fittest language to be uttered amidst old architecture — and its coloured windows alone are not to-day as they were in Wykeham's time. He built the bell-tower and the cloisters, and so gave to generations a pleasant vision, and — when dreams are on the wing — a starting-place or an eyrie for dreams. He built also a kitchen, a brewery, and a bakehouse. He stocked both a garden and a library for college use. Long before the " first tutor of the first college of the first University of the world " entered Oxford with post horses to assert his position, the Warden of New College had the use of six horses. He wore an ermine amice in chapel. He had his own palace apart. But the humblest member of the foundation had been as minutely provided for by Wykeham's code. Above all, the scholar was not to be left to himself in his studies, but to the care of an appointed tutor. And in 1387 the new college proceeded to William of Wykeham's quadrangle, with singing and pomp. It was the first home of scholars in Oxford, which was completely and specially fashioned for their use alone, to be A place of friends ! a place of books ! A place of good things olden ! In the next century the ideas of Walter de Merton and Dervorguilla and William of Wykeham were borrowed and developed by loving founders, architects, 43 Oxford and benefactors. The building of Lincoln College, next founded, was begun as soon as its charter was received ; a chapel and a library, a hall and a kitchen, and chambers on three storys, finely and nobly built, were a matter of course. In the same way. All Souls' front quadrangle, practically as we see it to-day, was built at once by Archbishop Chichele, the founder ; and at Magdalen, which was next founded, the tower began to rise on the extreme east of the city, to salute the rising sun with its pinnacles, and on May morning, with a song of choristers. For Oxford, the fifteenth century was an age of libraries and books. Looking back upon it, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester seems its patron saint, — donor of books to the Benedictines who lived on the site of Worcester College, and to the University, — harbinger of the Bodleian. We can still catch the savour of the old libraries at Merton where the light coloured by painted glass used to inlay the gloom under the wooden roof, or behind the quiet latticed windows above the cloisters at Christ Church. "What pleasant- ness of teaching there is in books, how easy, how secret," says Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, an old Oxford man, and the giver of the first library to Oxford. " They are masters who instruct us without rod or ferule, without angry words, without clothes or money. If you come to them, they are not asleep ; if you ask and inquire of them, they do not withdraw themselves ; they do not chide if you make mistakes ; they do not laugh at you if you are ignorant. O 44 INTERIOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY The portion of the Library shown in the picture is a storey built above the Divinity School bv Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., and the spectator is looking east towards the wing added bv Sir Thomas Bodley at the close of the sixteenth century. Books cover every available inch of wall space, but the trusses of the old timbere