Chapter 3

ORIEL COLLEGEThe 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 II. 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.

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 II. 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.

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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 theirpenates; 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 qualifications 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 sentiment on the part of the queens, enabled the college to[Pg 104]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[Pg 106][Pg 105]

GROVE STREETThis 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.

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.

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.

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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[Pg 110]attempt to banish the wild errant scholars, often Irishmen, 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 heedTwenty bookes clad in black or reedOf Aristotle and his philosophic,Than robës 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 henteOn bookes and his lernynge he it spent,And bisily gan for the soules preyeOf 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[Pg 112][Pg 111]

NEW COLLEGEWilliam 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.

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 new retaining walls in the foreground are part of a recent addition to the College.

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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 theirPatersandAves. 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,[Pg 116]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 pleasantness 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[Pg 118][Pg 117]

INTERIOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARYThe portion of the Library shown in the picture is a storey built above the Divinity School by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., and the spectator is looking east towards the wing added by Sir Thomas Bodley at the close of the sixteenth century.Books cover every available inch of wall space, but the trusses of the old timbered roof are visible, as are also the more modern galleries, supported by wooden columns. These are for obtaining access to books placed high in the Library. The strands of light which bar the centre aisle are from the south windows of the building, overlooking the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College. The windows also serve to light the “studies,” the latticed and balustered doors of which may be seen standing open at intervals (see illustration of one of these “studies”).The cases in the immediate foreground are used for modern books.

INTERIOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY

The portion of the Library shown in the picture is a storey built above the Divinity School by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., and the spectator is looking east towards the wing added by Sir Thomas Bodley at the close of the sixteenth century.Books cover every available inch of wall space, but the trusses of the old timbered roof are visible, as are also the more modern galleries, supported by wooden columns. These are for obtaining access to books placed high in the Library. The strands of light which bar the centre aisle are from the south windows of the building, overlooking the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College. The windows also serve to light the “studies,” the latticed and balustered doors of which may be seen standing open at intervals (see illustration of one of these “studies”).The cases in the immediate foreground are used for modern books.

Books cover every available inch of wall space, but the trusses of the old timbered roof are visible, as are also the more modern galleries, supported by wooden columns. These are for obtaining access to books placed high in the Library. The strands of light which bar the centre aisle are from the south windows of the building, overlooking the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College. The windows also serve to light the “studies,” the latticed and balustered doors of which may be seen standing open at intervals (see illustration of one of these “studies”).

The cases in the immediate foreground are used for modern books.

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books, who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully! by how many types ye are commended to learned men in the Scriptures given us by the inspiration of God!... Ye are the wells of living waters, which father Abraham first digged, Isaac digged again, and which the Philistines strive to fill up!...” Bury was a friend of Petrarch and Bradwardine, a Chancellor and Treasurer of England, and his love of books became so famous that he was reported “to burn with such a desire for books and especially old ones that it was more easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books than of money. The aumbries of the most famous monasteries were thrown open, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and volumes that had slumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished.” The great discoverer’s pleasure at the university of Paris corresponds to that of visitors to Oxford in later years. “There,” he says, “are delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spicery; there are luxuriant parks of all manner of volumes; there are Academic meads shaken by the tramp of scholars; there are lounges of Athens; walks of the Peripatetics; peaks of Parnassus; and porches of the Stoics. There is seen the surveyor of all Arts and Sciences, Aristotle, to whom belongs all that is most excellent in doctrine, so far as relates to this passing sublunary world; there Ptolemy measures epicycles and eccentric apogees and the nodes of the planets by figures and numbers; there Paul reveals the[Pg 122]mysteries.” And to complete the resemblance of Oxford to such a place, he gave all his books to “our hall at Oxford,” where the masters and scholars were to pray for his soul. The fate of his collection may have been worthy, but is mysterious. It is said to have been divided, and part of it perhaps went to Balliol. It could have found no more honourable abode than the Balliol library. From the beginning gifts of books had come in, but chiefly what was even then old-fashioned, until the middle of the fifteenth century. It was the period when Guarino at Ferrara was an inspiration to Europe. Robert Fleming was one of his pupils, and sent beautiful manuscripts to Lincoln College library; and at Lincoln books flowed in before cash. Three others of Guarino’s pupils were Balliol men: Gray, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor of the University, whose books were collected with Guarino’s help, and passed, the finest of their day, to Balliol at his death; Free, public reader of physic at Ferrara, a great benefactor of libraries, and a historian of trees and plants; and Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, splendid, eloquent, cruel; who had made golden speeches to the Pope, the Cardinals, the men of Padua; had translated Cicero; and on his return, adorned England with his learning and patronage, and shocked it with the refined cruelties of Italy. His collection of manuscripts went with Duke Humphrey’s to the University library, where a room was made for them, over the quiet Divinity School then being built between St. Mary’s and Durham Hall. Tiptoft was the most striking type of[Pg 124][Pg 123]

INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY, ALL SOULS’ COLLEGEAt the extreme east end of the Library is a seated marble figure of Sir William Blackstone, by Bacon, the standing figure on the north side in the recess being that of Sir Christopher Codrington, the Founder of the Library, by Sir Henry Cheere.Behind the statue is placed a case containing ancient articles discovered in excavations on the site of the College.Book-rests and chairs for students are placed at intervals in the Library, which is nearly 200 feet long by over 30 feet wide.Bronze busts of Fellows alternate with vases on the cornice of the upper bookcases.The colour of this Library is especially suited to its purpose, being quiet and restful to the eye; the proportions are excellent, and help the dignity of the room.

INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY, ALL SOULS’ COLLEGE

At the extreme east end of the Library is a seated marble figure of Sir William Blackstone, by Bacon, the standing figure on the north side in the recess being that of Sir Christopher Codrington, the Founder of the Library, by Sir Henry Cheere.Behind the statue is placed a case containing ancient articles discovered in excavations on the site of the College.Book-rests and chairs for students are placed at intervals in the Library, which is nearly 200 feet long by over 30 feet wide.Bronze busts of Fellows alternate with vases on the cornice of the upper bookcases.The colour of this Library is especially suited to its purpose, being quiet and restful to the eye; the proportions are excellent, and help the dignity of the room.

Behind the statue is placed a case containing ancient articles discovered in excavations on the site of the College.

Book-rests and chairs for students are placed at intervals in the Library, which is nearly 200 feet long by over 30 feet wide.

Bronze busts of Fellows alternate with vases on the cornice of the upper bookcases.

The colour of this Library is especially suited to its purpose, being quiet and restful to the eye; the proportions are excellent, and help the dignity of the room.

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the Renaissance, of English blood. But it was the Italian Renaissance; and after his death the direct influence of Italy was small in Oxford.

It was, however, an Italian, Vitelli, who uttered the first words of Greek in Oxford. Plato was soon to enjoy a new life there, and to be woven into the past of Oxford, as if he had really been of its children.It comes et paribus curis vestigia figit.It was an age of great, unpopular men who came and went suddenly and obscurely in Oxford, like the first lecturers of the twelfth century. They were divinely inflated with the beauty of Greek—a language always more strange and exotic and fascinating to Englishmen than Latin—and with admiration of the restorers of that beauty, Chrysoloras, Chalcondila, Politian. Grocyn, a Magdalen man, fresh from Italy, taught Greek in the hall of Exeter. Linacre, a great physician and Grecian, was Fellow of All Souls’. The refined, persuasive Colet, whose “sacred fury” in argument Erasmus praised, was also a Magdalen man, and founder of St. Paul’s school. Sir Thomas More, the most perfect, but unhappily not the most influential type of the English Renaissance, was at St. Mary Hall. Erasmus met them all in Oxford, within that old gateway of St. Mary’s College in New Inn Hall Street. As they stepped out after the symposium, one pointed to a planet in the sky:

“See how Jupiter shines; it is an omen,” said he.

“Yes,” said another, “and we have been listening to Apollo.”

For a time the Grecians were ridiculed and attacked[Pg 128]in the streets by men who called themselves Priam, Hector, and Paris, and behaved—like Trojans. In that first enthusiasm men seemed very near to the inaccessible gods. Perhaps some were disposed to follow Pico della Mirandola in pursuit of them. There was therefore a party which opposed the study of Greek as heretical; and More was withdrawn from Oxford to avoid the danger.

From the beautiful Magdalen cloisters came the men who launched Corpus Christi College, just after Erasmus had published the New Testament in Greek and the ancient Brasenose Hall had at last grown into a college. The founder gave copies of Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and Horace, which still survive. There was a public lecturer in Greek on the foundation. Erasmus himself applauded and prophesied liberally of its future. It was the “new college” of the Renaissance, as Wykeham’s had been of the Middle Ages. The readers were to be chosen from England or Greece or Italy. And among the first members of the college was the mystical Bavarian dialler, Nicholas Kratzer, who made a dial in Corpus garden, and that exquisite one for Wolsey, which is to be seen, in drawing, in the library. Wolsey’s own college was built over against St. Frideswide’s, part of which, together with one side of its cloisters, was destroyed to give it place. It contained the largest quadrangle and the most princely kitchen in Oxford. When Henry the Eighth spoiled the monasteries, the bells of Osney were carried to Christ Church; and one of them, over Wolsey’s gateway, does what it can to[Pg 130][Pg 129]

THE CLOISTERS, MAGDALEN COLLEGEThe Hall and Chapel of the College stretch nearly across the picture immediately in front of the spectator, the oriel window which lights the daïs of the Hall marking the division between the west end of the Hall and the east end of the Chapel.Farther west, and closely adjoining the Chapel, at the south-west angle of the Cloisters, rises the Founder’s Tower. A gateway under the Tower leads to the Quadrangle of St. John the Baptist and the entrance to the College.The figures above the buttresses of the Cloisters were probably not designed for their present position, but add to the picturesqueness of the Cloisters, which, it will be observed, project from the main body of the buildings.Above the gleaming roof of the Chapel appears the beautiful bell tower of the College, detached, and built at a different angle from the Hall and Chapel, which are continued in the same line. The tower is 145 feet high, and was completed about 1505.Men in Masters’ gowns walk and converse on the grass.The time is late afternoon.

THE CLOISTERS, MAGDALEN COLLEGE

The Hall and Chapel of the College stretch nearly across the picture immediately in front of the spectator, the oriel window which lights the daïs of the Hall marking the division between the west end of the Hall and the east end of the Chapel.

Farther west, and closely adjoining the Chapel, at the south-west angle of the Cloisters, rises the Founder’s Tower. A gateway under the Tower leads to the Quadrangle of St. John the Baptist and the entrance to the College.

The figures above the buttresses of the Cloisters were probably not designed for their present position, but add to the picturesqueness of the Cloisters, which, it will be observed, project from the main body of the buildings.

Above the gleaming roof of the Chapel appears the beautiful bell tower of the College, detached, and built at a different angle from the Hall and Chapel, which are continued in the same line. The tower is 145 feet high, and was completed about 1505.

Men in Masters’ gowns walk and converse on the grass.

The time is late afternoon.

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call the undergraduates home at nine, with a deep voice, as if it spoke through its beard, which pretends to be B flat—“Bim-bom,” as the old leonine hexameter says.

Hark! the bonny Christ Church bells—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—They sound so wondrous great, so wondrous sweet,As they trowl so merrily, merrily.Oh! the first and second bell,That every day, at four and ten, cry,“Come, come, come to prayers!”And the verger troops before the Dean.Tinkle, tinkle, ting, goes the small bell at nine,To call the bearers home:But the devil a manWill leave his canTill he hears the mighty Tom.

So runs the catch of a later Dean. At Christ Church also there was a lecturer in Greek. The dialler, Kratzer, was made mathematical professor. Wolsey’s chapel never rose above a few feet in height, and the uncompleted walls remained for a century; St. Frideswide’s became, almost at the same time, the cathedral of the newly-created see of Oxford, and the chapel of the college.

The grandiose Christ Church kitchen, which caused so much laughter because it was the Cardinal’s first contribution to his college, was in fact rather characteristic of the age that followed. It was built with the revenues of suppressed monasteries. It was almost contemporaneous with the destruction of many priceless books by reformers who were as ignorant of what is dangerous in books as a Russian censor. The shelves of Duke Humphrey’s library were denuded and sold.[Pg 134]The shrine of St. Frideswide’s, where the University had long offered reverence twice a year, was shattered; the fragments were used here and there in the buildings of the time. The relics of the saint were husbanded by a pious few in hope of a restoration; but they were finally interred with those of Peter Martyr’s wife—a significant mixture. It was the age when the University became the playground of the richer classes, and the nobleman’s son took the place of the poor scholar in a fellowship. Now men found time to dispute with Cambridge as to which university was of the greatest antiquity. The arguments put forward in Oxford were seldom more convincing than this: that Oxford was named from a ford, Cambridge from a bridge; and since the ford must have been older than the bridge, Oxford was therefore founded first. Greek for the time decayed, and the founder of Trinity College feared that its restoration was impossible in that age. As to Latin, Sir Philip Sidney, who was at Christ Church, told his brother that Ciceronianism was become an abuse among the Oxonians, “who neglected things for words.” Oxford was dignified mainly by the architecture of Christ Church; by the foundation of Trinity, St. John’s, and Jesus College, all on learned and holy ground; by the martyrdom of Latimer and Ridley, opposite Balliol; and by great names, like those of Burton and Marston at Brasenose, Peele at Broadgates Hall (Pembroke), Raleigh at Oriel, Hooker at Corpus Christi. Religion was still in the pot, and men could not confidently tell what it would turn out to be. On the one hand,[Pg 136][Pg 135]

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGEIt is the east front of the College we see in the picture, the library occupying the south end to the left. The garden upon which it looks is one of the most beautiful and extensive in Oxford.Some buildings of Balliol College show to the left.The time is late afternoon in summer.

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE

It is the east front of the College we see in the picture, the library occupying the south end to the left. The garden upon which it looks is one of the most beautiful and extensive in Oxford.

Some buildings of Balliol College show to the left.

The time is late afternoon in summer.

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the Earl of Leicester, as Chancellor of the University, mended and confirmed its organisation; on the other hand, John Lyly was “the fiddlestick of Oxford,” and other Magdalen men, lovers of open air, and especially in the windy forest of Shotover, slew the King’s deer. At the new college of St. John’s, fellows and presidents suffered for the old religion, and Edwin Campion was hanged; they preserved, and still preserve, the statue of St. Bernard from the old foundation to which their college succeeded. At the end of the century, the most effective Oxford man of his time, William Laud, became Fellow of St. John’s. He built a new quadrangle, and as Chancellor made of the statutes that long and many-tailed whip which every one knows. He created modern Broad Street by deleting the cottages which stood near and opposite to Trinity. The impressive, uncomfortable Convocation House was his work. Within sight of it was the library which Sir Thomas Bodley earlier in the century had built and stored. It became the calmest, most inviolate, and most learned place in Europe.

At Christ Church, Dean Duppa, the first of the improvers of Oxford, was beginning the work of destruction which the Puritans continued so well. But it was then the good fortune of several colleges to receive large additions of a simple and homely character, which did more than any others to make Oxford what it is. It was the age of the retired Lincoln College chapel, with its carved panels of perfumed cedar and rich, quaint glass; the placid garden front of Wadham, as seen through the cedar tree to-day; the front and colonnades[Pg 140]of St. John’s which look on the garden; the south end of the Exeter garden front that sees so much; the front quadrangle of University College; the hall and chapel of St. Mary’s Hall; the east end of Jesus College chapel, which was just finished when Henry Vaughan arrived; and the front quadrangle of Pembroke College, converted from Broadgates Hall by a clothier, the Earl of Pembroke, and James I., and opened with ceremonies which included a fantastic Latin oration by Sir Thomas Browne, as senior undergraduate. The architecture of Wadham is a remarkable proof of the influence of antiquity upon men and things in Oxford. The founders, in 1609, were Nicholas Wadham and Dorothy, his wife, of Merifield in Somerset. The builders were mainly west country men, and worked in that lingering Gothic style which was still vital in Oxford, and seems to have guided the hand of Wren (if it was Wren) when he planned the fan tracery of Brasenose library. But in the building of Wadham chapel, one John Spicer and his men seem to have been haunted by the beauty of the Perpendicular churches of their native Somerset. The windows are so clear a reconstruction of this dream that an experienced judge refused to believe that they were of later date than Christ Church. Thither came a son of Sir Walter Raleigh and Robert Blake, who took opposite sides when the Civil War broke out.

There was a prelusive struggle between town and gown in the year before the war. The chancellorship of Laud had roused opposition; but the University was almost unanimous for Charles, and easily chose[Pg 142][Pg 141]

MAGDALEN TOWER AND BOTANIC GARDENThe tower of Magdalen College is seen rising over the trees of the Botanic Garden, illumined by the last rays of the setting sun.Beneath the poplar is one of the gate piers, and through an opening in the clipped hedge shows the basin of a fountain.Two girls walk in the meadows.

MAGDALEN TOWER AND BOTANIC GARDEN

The tower of Magdalen College is seen rising over the trees of the Botanic Garden, illumined by the last rays of the setting sun.

Beneath the poplar is one of the gate piers, and through an opening in the clipped hedge shows the basin of a fountain.

Two girls walk in the meadows.

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its side, when he demanded a loan on the eve of the war.

Van Ling had just painted the windows of University College chapel. The Dean of Christ Church, or rather “Smith of London,” had just finished the airy over-traceried approach to Christ Church hall, upon which every one looks back as he steps down to the cloisters. Other work was in preparation at Christ Church. But all building suddenly ceased.

A brief visit of Parliament troops to the yet unfortified city was recorded by the shattering of the Virgin and her Child over St. Mary’s porch. After Edgehill, the King came to Oxford, and the effect was worse than the mutilation of a Virgin of stone. The University Volunteers, some armed with bows, were drilled in the quadrangle of New College and Christ Church, and skirmished in the Parks. The royal artillery lay in Magdalen Grove. New College tower and cloisters became the arsenal: New Inn Hall the mint. Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria were lodged at Merton. The Court was held at Christ Church. A Fellow of Magdalen and a Fellow of All Souls’ edited the royalist gazette,Mercurius Aulicus, “the latter pleasing more with his buffoneries.” The besieging Parliamentarians were spread about the high ground of Headington, and the low fields on the north of the city.

The greater number of scholars left Oxford, and their rooms were occupied by ladies and cavaliers. College trees were cut down for use in the defences.[Pg 146]A little war, much gallantry and coarseness, drove away learning and tranquillity, unwilling to linger for the sound of Sir John Denham’s smooth and insipid Muse, which producedCoopers Hillin 1642. The Muses were probably in hiding abroad with Lovelace and Marvell; for Milton was writing only prose, and George Wither, a Magdalen man, was a captain of Parliamentary horse at Maidstone. Yet a contemporary pamphlet says that “Robin Goodfellow” found the Muses near Eynsham. “He had not gone as far as Ensham, but he espied the nine Muses in a vintner’s porch crouching close together, and defending themselves as well as they could from the cold visitation of the winter’s night. They were extream poore, and (which is most strange) in so short an absence and distance from Oxford they were grown extreamly ignorant, for they took him for their Apollo, and craved his power and protection to support them.”

One room at Trinity College was pleasant still; for the glass of the window was richly painted with a St. Gregory. And there Aubrey received the newly-publishedReligio Medici, “which first opened my understanding.” He carried it to Eston with Sir Kenelm Digby. Coming back to Oxford, he bade a servant to draw the ruins of Osney “two or three ways before ’twas pulled down.”

Plague came in 1643, fire in the following year. The Cavaliers were reputed to have embezzled books from the Bodleian, which had formerly resisted, and won the respect of, Charles himself. The colleges[Pg 148][Pg 147]

MAGDALEN TOWER AND BRIDGEThe Bridge runs westward across the picture, some buildings of the Botanic Garden appearing on the extreme left.Over the centre of the Bridge rises the fine tower of the College, while to the right above the north balustrade of the Bridge shows the roof of the Hall and Chapel.On the ground floor of the gabled buildings are the kitchens, the upper storey being used as sets of rooms for students.We see part of the river Cherwell.

MAGDALEN TOWER AND BRIDGE

The Bridge runs westward across the picture, some buildings of the Botanic Garden appearing on the extreme left.

Over the centre of the Bridge rises the fine tower of the College, while to the right above the north balustrade of the Bridge shows the roof of the Hall and Chapel.

On the ground floor of the gabled buildings are the kitchens, the upper storey being used as sets of rooms for students.

We see part of the river Cherwell.

[Pg 151][Pg 150][Pg 149]

made what some call a “friendly loan” of all their plate: it was never returned or replaced by the King. Week by week, they furnished him with labour and cash. And when the Parliamentarians entered at last, there were at Merton, for example, “no Bachelors, hardly any Scholars, and few Masters,” and the hall was untenantable. The triumph of Parliament brought with it an inquisition in Oxford, which resulted in the exile, not without force, of the greater number of heads of houses and fellows for refusal to submit. The soldiers broke the Magdalen chapel window-glass; Cromwell himself took away the college organ to Hampton Court. But “the first thing General Fairfax did, was to set a good guard of soldiers to preserve the Bodleian Library. He was a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care, that noble library had been utterly destroyed.” The chief objection to the intruded fellows and heads of houses seems to have been that they were intruded and were likely to stay. As for their accomplishments, though some lacked humour, they seem to have been respectable. The undergraduates and bachelors were in the main loyal to Cromwell; and when Prince Charles was rumoured to be approaching Oxford, New College tower became a Parliament citadel, and a troop of horse was enlisted from the colleges. The old glory of religion faded; the sound of distant Latin chanted was no longer heard in Christ Church and New College. But in one house, three devoted men preserved the old religion right through the Commonwealth, constantly and without[Pg 152]molestation. Other changes made men more content. Three coffee-houses were opened in Oxford and patronised by royalists and “others who esteemed themselves virtuosi and wits.” Men who would have adorned any age came up. Christopher Wren came to Wadham, and thence to All Souls’. Evelyn revisited Oxford and found no just ground to regret the former times, ... “creation of Doctors, by the cap, ring, kiss, etc., those ancient ceremonies and institutions, as yet not wholly abolished.” At All Souls’ he heard “music, voices, and theorbos, performed by some ingenious scholars.” At New College “the chapel was in its ancient garb, notwithstanding the scrupulosity of the times,” and the chapel at Magdalen was “in pontificial order, the altar only I think turned table-wise.” Then he dined at Wadham, and wrote down an account of what he saw at the Warden’s, “that most obliging and universally curious Dr. Wilkins.” The transparent apiaries, hollow speaking statues, dials, waywisers, and other “artificial mathematical and magical curiosities,” which he saw, well illustrate the activities of the time in the cradle of the Royal Society.

A little after Wren came Thomas Traherne, the poet, to Brasenose, still enjoying that childhood which he praised so adeptly. We may think of him in the peaceful embowered city as having that characteristic ecstasy at the sight of common things which his lyrical prose describes. “The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to[Pg 154][Pg 153]

ALL SOULS’ COLLEGE AND THE HIGH STREETOn the right of the picture are the entrance gate and part of the south front of All Souls’ College. West of the College, and facing the narrow street leading into Radcliffe Square, shows the east end of the south aisle of St. Mary’s Church, and the white pinnacles of the Nave.Past the porch and the new extension of Brasenose to the High Street rises the tower and spire of All Saints’, the distance being closed by the tower of St. Martin at Carfax.

ALL SOULS’ COLLEGE AND THE HIGH STREET

On the right of the picture are the entrance gate and part of the south front of All Souls’ College. West of the College, and facing the narrow street leading into Radcliffe Square, shows the east end of the south aisle of St. Mary’s Church, and the white pinnacles of the Nave.

Past the porch and the new extension of Brasenose to the High Street rises the tower and spire of All Saints’, the distance being closed by the tower of St. Martin at Carfax.

[Pg 157][Pg 156][Pg 155]

everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees, when I saw them first through one of the gates, transported and ravished me; their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. The men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged men seem! Immortal cherubim! And young men glittering and sparkling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty!”

Again, books began to flow in their natural courses to the libraries. Selden’s eight thousand came to the Bodleian. Building was resumed; for Brasenose chapel was half built by the time of the Restoration.

The Restoration restored to Oxford the Church, a few excellent old men, and the morals of the siege. The august Clarendon was indeed Chancellor; but the city became a fashionable resort. Charles II., with his Queen and Castlemaine, were there in 1663, and again with the Parliament in the year of the plague. “High-thundering Jove,” runs a contemporary ballad, supposed to be spoken by London to Oxford:—

High-thundering Jove cannot withstand thy charms,That Britain’s mighty monarch in thy armsCanst hold so fast, and quite to overcomeThe greatest potentate in Christendom.

The aim of scholars, said Anthony à Wood, “is not to live as students ought to do, viz., temperate, abstemious, and plain and grave in their apparel; but[Pg 158]to live like gentry, to keep dogs and horses, to turn their studies into places to keep bottles, to swagger in gay apparell and long periwigs!” There was too much punning, thought Eachard. In his inquiry into the causes of the contempt of the clergy, he is not kind to the University of the day, and asks, “Whether or not Punning, Quibbling, and that which they call Joquing, and such delicacies of wit, highly admired in some academic exercises, might not be very conveniently omitted?” The first Common Room was established at Merton soon after the Restoration. But in that age even Common Rooms seem to have been but privileged and secluded inns, and quite without the severely genial amphictyonic character of to-day. When Pepys visited Oxford he naturally found it “a very sweet place”; spent 2s. 6d. on a barber in its honour; 10s. “to him that showed us All Souls’ College and Chichley’s picture”; 2s. for seeing the Brasenose butteries and the gigantic hand of the “Child of Hale”; and having seen the Physic Garden, the hospital, and Friar Bacon’s study, concluded: “Oxford mighty fine place, well seated, and cheap entertainment.” But the cheap entertainment is now among the lost causes. A little while afterwards, Evelyn attended the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre, built by Wren. He complained of the “tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsody” which was permitted on that occasion to theTerræ Filius, a kind of Billingsgate Aristophanes, who half-officially represented the undergraduate aversion to sweetness and light. The university printing-[Pg 159]offic[Pg 160]e

INTERIOR OF THE SHELDONIAN THEATREThe proceedings of Commemoration take place here, at which time thearea—entered by the door to the left—is crowded by visitors.One of the two figures is gazing at the pulpit from which the prize poems and essays of successful candidates are recited.The axe and fasces projecting from the pulpit denote the justice of the awards.The upper gallery is supported by wooden columns standing upon a podium partially surrounding thearea, and the building altogether is one of Sir Christopher Wren’s best works.

INTERIOR OF THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE

The proceedings of Commemoration take place here, at which time thearea—entered by the door to the left—is crowded by visitors.

One of the two figures is gazing at the pulpit from which the prize poems and essays of successful candidates are recited.

The axe and fasces projecting from the pulpit denote the justice of the awards.

The upper gallery is supported by wooden columns standing upon a podium partially surrounding thearea, and the building altogether is one of Sir Christopher Wren’s best works.

[Pg 163][Pg 162][Pg 161]

lay under the theatre, and, says a ballad of the time—

What structure else but prides it to revealTreasures? which bashful this would fain conceal; ...Spain, Gascoin, Florence, Smyrna, and the RhineMay taste their language there, tho’ not the wine.The Jew, Mede, Edomite, Arabian, Crete,In those deep vaults their wandring ideoms meet,And to compute, are in amazement hurld,How long since Oxford has been all the world.

At Magdalen, men were planting the elms of the grove and laying out the walks round the meadow. Bishop Fell was completing the west front of Christ Church, which the Civil War had interrupted, and planting those elms in the Broad Walk that look on the Cathedral and Corpus and Merton, and, farther off, Magdalen tower. In 1680 Wren’s tower over Wolsey’s gateway at Christ Church was finished. One of the Osney bells was recast to hang therein.

The resistance of James II. fell in this coarse, frivolous, self-satisfied age. He was welcomed to Oxford by music and ceremony. The conduit “ran claret for the vulgar.” But when he adventured to force his nominee into the presidentship of Magdalen, he could not even procure a blacksmith to burst a resisting door. Again, the University stood to arms to oppose Monmouth’s rebellion, and clothed its members in scarlet coats, with scarves, and white-plumed hats; but had to be contented with the bonfires in celebration of the victory at Sedgemoor, and a full-dress parade. Not long afterwards many yards of orange ribbon made[Pg 164]the High Street gaudy with a pretence at honouring William III. But the colleges were vigorously Jacobite, and proved it by drinking the healths of the Stuarts as long as they could. Merton, Exeter, All Souls’, and Wadham were the exceptions. One example of the lighter occupations of the period is to be found in a story of somewhat earlier date, told of Dr. Bathurst, Vice-Chancellor and President of Trinity. “A striking instance of zeal for his college, in the dotage of old age, is yet remembered. Balliol College had suffered so much in the outrages of the grand rebellion, that it remained almost in a state of desolation for some years after the Restoration, a circumstance not to be suspected from its flourishing condition ever since. Dr. Bathurst was perhaps secretly pleased to see a neighbouring and once rival society reduced to this condition, while his flourished beyond all others. Accordingly, one afternoon, he was found in his garden, which then ran almost continuous to the east side of Balliol College, throwing stones at the windows with much satisfaction, as if happy to contribute his share in completing the appearance of its ruin.” I seem to find an echo of the sentiment of very different men, with a love of the old time amidst the politics and wine of the day, in Aubrey’s ejaculation: he wished that monasteries had not entirely been suppressed; for if but a few had been left, “what a pleasure ’twould have been to have travelled from monastery to monastery!” Nevertheless, the Oxford output of bishops was not decreased, and the number of quiet scholars—men like[Pg 166][Pg 165]

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