England, Picturesque and Descriptive Part 9

As we float along the quiet Thames the stately towers and domes of the university city of Oxford come in sight, and appear to suddenly rise from behind a green railway embankment. Here the Cherwell flows along the Christ Church meadows to join the great river, and we pause at the ancient Ousenford--or the ford over the Ouse or Water--a name which time has changed to Oxford. The origin of the famous university is involved in obscurity. The city is mentioned as the scene of important political and military events from the time of King Alfred, but the first undisputed evidence that it was a seat of learning dates from the twelfth century. Religious houses existed there in earlier years, and to these schools were attached for the education of the clergy. From these schools sprang the secular inst.i.tutions that finally developed into colleges, and common interest led to the a.s.sociation from which ultimately came the university. The first known application of the word to this a.s.sociation occurs in a statute of King John. In the thirteenth century there were three thousand students at Oxford, and Henry III.

granted the university its first charter. In those early times the university grew in wealth and numbers, and intense hostility was developed between the students and townspeople, leading to the quarrels between "Town and Gown" that existed for centuries, and caused frequent riots and bloodshed. A penance for one of these disturbances, which occurred in 1355 and sacrificed several lives, continued to be kept until 1825. The religious troubles in Henry VIII.'s time reduced the students to barely one thousand, but a small part of whom attended the colleges, so that in 1546 only thirteen degrees were conferred. In 1603 the university was given representation in Parliament; it was loyal to Charles I., and melted its plate to a.s.sist him, so that after his downfall it was plundered, and almost ceased to have an existence as an inst.i.tution of learning; it has since had a quiet and generally prosperous history. The university comprises twenty-one colleges, the oldest being University College, founded in 1249, and the youngest the Keble Memorial College, founded in 1870. University College, according to tradition, represents a school founded by King Alfred in 872, and it celebrated its millennial anniversary in 1872. Balliol College, founded between 1263 and 1268, admits no one who claims any privilege on account of rank or wealth, and is regarded as having perhaps the highest standard of scholarship at Oxford. Christ Church College is the most extensive in buildings, numbers, and endowments, and is a cathedral establishment as well as college. There are now about eighty-five hundred members of the university and twenty-five hundred undergraduates. The wealth of some of the colleges is enormous, and they are said to own altogether nearly two hundred thousand acres of land in different parts of the kingdom, and to have about $2,100,000 annual revenues, of which they expend not over $1,500,000, the remainder acc.u.mulating. They also have in their gift four hundred and forty-four benefices, with an annual income of $950,000. It costs a student about $1200 to $1500 a year to live at Oxford, and about $325 in university and college fees from matriculation to graduation, when he gets his degree of B.A., or, if inattentive, fails to pa.s.s the examination, and, in Oxford parlance, is said to be "plucked."

THE OXFORD COLLEGES.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATEWAY OF CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE.]

The enumeration of the colleges which make up the university will naturally begin with the greatest, Christ Church, founded by Cardinal Wolsey, of which the princ.i.p.al facade extends four hundred feet along St. Aldate's Street, and has a n.o.ble gateway in the centre surmounted by a six-sided tower with a dome-like roof. Here hangs the great bell of Oxford, "Old Tom," weighing seventeen thousand pounds, which every night, just after nine o'clock, strikes one hundred and one strokes, said to be in remembrance of the number of members the college had at its foundation. Wolsey's statue stands in the gateway which leads into the great quadrangle, called by the students, for short, "Tom Quad."

Here are the lodgings of the dean and canons, and also the Great Hall, the finest in Oxford, and the room where the sovereign is received whenever visiting the city. The ancient kitchen adjoins the hall, and near by is the entrance to the cathedral, which has been restored, and the ancient cloisters. From the buildings a meadow extends down to the rivers, the Cherwell on the left and the Thames (here called the Isis) on the right, which join at the lower part of the meadow. Beautiful walks are laid out upon it, including the famous Oxford promenade, the Broad Walk, a stately avenue of elms bordering one side of the meadow.

Here, on the afternoon of Show Sunday, which comes immediately before Commemoration Day, nearly all the members of the university and the students, in academic costume, make a promenade, presenting an animated scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERTON COLLEGE CHAPEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATEWAY, MERTON COLLEGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIEL COLLEGE.]

Corpus Christi College was founded by Bishop Fox of Winchester in 1516, and its quadrangle, which remains much as at the foundation, contains the founder's statue, and also a remarkable dial, in the centre of which is a perpetual calendar. This college is not very marked in architecture. It stands at the back of Christ Church, and adjoining it is Merton College, founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton. His idea was to forbid the students following in after life any other pursuit than that of parish priest. The chapel of Merton is one of the finest in Oxford, and its ma.s.sive tower is a city landmark. The entrance-gateway, surmounted by a sculptured representation of St. John the Baptist, is attractive, and the two college quadrangles are picturesque, the "Mob Quad," or library quadrangle, being five hundred years old, with the Treasury and its high-pitched ashlar roof and dormer windows above one of the entrance-pa.s.sages. St. Alban Hall, built about 1230, adjoins Merton, and is a Gothic structure with a curious old bell-tower. Oriel College stands opposite Corpus Christi, but the ancient buildings of the foundation in 1324-26 have all been superseded by comparatively modern structures of the seventeenth century: though without any striking architectural merits, the hall and chapel of this college are extremely picturesque. Its fame is not so much from its buildings as from some of its fellows, Whately, Keble, Wilberforce, Newman, Pusey, and Arnold having been among them. St. Mary's Hall, an offshoot founded in the fourteenth century, stands near this college. All Souls College is on the High Street, and was founded in 1437, its buildings being, however, modern, excepting one quadrangle. In the chapel is a magnificent reredos, presented by Lord Bathurst, who was a fellow of All Souls, and containing figures representing most of the fellows of his time: in the library are Wren's original designs for building St. Paul's. This college was founded by Archbishop Chichele for "the hele of his soul"

and of the souls of all those who perished in the French wars of King Henry V.; hence its name. We are told that the good archbishop was much troubled where to locate his college, and there appeared to him in a dream a "right G.o.dly personage," who advised him to build it on the High Street, and at a certain spot where he would be sure in digging to find a "mallard, imprisoned but well fattened, in the sewer." He hesitated, but all whom he consulted advised him to make the trial, and accordingly, on a fixed day after ma.s.s, with due solemnity the digging began. They had not dug long, the story relates, before they heard "amid the earth horrid strugglings and flutterings and violent quackings of the distressed mallard." When he was brought out he was as big as an ostrich, and "much wonder was thereat, for the lycke had not been seen in this londe nor in onie odir." The Festival of the Mallard was long held in commemoration of this event, at which was sung the "Merry Song of the All Souls Mallard," beginning--

"Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon, Let other hungry mortals gape on, And on the bones their stomach fill hard; But let All Souls men have their mallard.

Oh, by the blood of King Edward, It was a wopping, wopping mallard!"

While the festival has pa.s.sed away, the song is still sung at Oxford, and the tale has given rise to much literature, there having been vigorous contests waged over the authenticity of the mallard.

University College, also on the High Street, though the earliest founded, now has no building older than the seventeenth century. It has an imposing Gothic front with two tower-gateways, while the recently constructed New Building is an elegant structure erected in 1850.

Queen's College, founded in 1341 by Queen Philippa's confessor, and hence its name, is a modern building by Wren and his pupils. St. Edmund Hall, opposite Queen's College, is a plain building, but with magnificent ivy on its walls.

MAGDALEN AND BRASENOSE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE CLOISTERS.]

Bishop Patten of Winchester, who was surnamed Waynflete, founded Magdalen College in 1458. It stands by the side of the Cherwell, and its graceful tower, nearly four hundred years old, rises one hundred and forty-five feet--one of the most beautiful constructions in Oxford. Its quadrangles are fine, especially the one known as the Cloisters, which remains much as it was in the time of the founder, and is ornamented with rude sandstone statues erected in honor of a visit from King James I. In accordance with ancient custom, on the morning of the first of May, just as five o'clock strikes, a solemn Te Deum is sung on the top of Magdalen Tower, where the choristers a.s.semble in surplices and with uncovered heads. When it closes the crowd on the ground below give out discordant blasts from myriads of tin horns, but the Magdalen chime of bells, said to be "the most tunable and melodious ring of bells in all these parts and beyond," soon drowns the discord, and gives a glad welcome to the opening of spring. This custom survives from the time of Henry VII., and the produce of two acres of land given to the college by that king is used to pay for a feast for the choristers, spread later in the day in the college hall. The college has a meadow and small deer-park attached, known as the Magdalen Walks, and encircled by the arms of the Cherwell, while avenues of trees along raised d.y.k.es intersect it. The avenue on the north side of this meadow is known as "Addison's Walk," and was much frequented by him when at this college.

The little deer-park, a secluded spot, abounds with magnificent elms. It was at Magdalen that Wolsey was educated, being known as the "Boy Bachelor," as he got his B.A. degree at the early age of fifteen. The Botanic Garden is opposite Magdalen College, having a fine gateway with statues of Charles I. and II. Magdalen College School, a modern building, but an organization coeval with the college, is a short distance to the westward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUNDER'S TOWER, MAGDALEN COLLEGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE.]

The King's Hall, commonly known as Brasenose College, and over the entrance of which is a prominent brazen nose, still retains its chief buildings as originally founded by the Bishop of Lincoln and Sir Richard Sutton in 1512. The entrance-tower was recently restored, and the rooms occupied by Bishop Heber, who was a member of this college, are still pointed out, with their windows looking upon a large horse-chestnut tree in the adjoining Exeter Gardens. This famous college is said to occupy the spot where King Alfred's palace stood, and hence its name of the King's Hall, which the king in his laws styled his palace. The part of the palace which was used for the brew-house, or the _brasinium_, afterwards became the college, and as early as Edward I. this found ocular demonstration by the fixing of a brazen nose upon the gate. This is also a relic of Friar Bacon's brazen head. We are told that this famous friar, who lived at Oxford in the thirteenth century, became convinced, "after great study," that if he should succeed in making a head of bra.s.s which could speak, "he might be able to surround all England with a wall of bra.s.s." So, with the a.s.sistance of another friar and the devil, he went to work and accomplished it, but with the drawback that the brazen head when finished was "warranted to speak in the course of one month," but it was uncertain just when it would speak, and "if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labor would be lost." They watched it three weeks, but fatigue overmastered them, and Bacon set his servant on watch, with orders to awaken them if the head should speak. At the end of one half hour the fellow heard the head say, "Time is;" at the end of another, "Time was;" and at the end of a third half hour, "Time's past," when down fell the head with a tremendous crash. The blockhead thought his master would be angry if disturbed by such trifles, and this ended the experiment with the brazen head. Yet Friar Bacon was a much wiser man than would be supposed by those who only know him from this tale. He was esteemed the most learned man ever at the great university, and it is considered doubtful if any there in later years surpa.s.sed him.

NEW COLLEGE AND RADCLIFFE LIBRARY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

William of Wykeham founded the New College, or the College of St. Mary Winton, in 1380. It has a n.o.ble entrance, and in a niche above the gateway is the Virgin, to whom an angel and the founder are addressing themselves in prayer. The chapel has a ma.s.sive detached bell-tower, and in its windows are some fine stained gla.s.s, while the silver staff of William of Wykeham is still preserved there. The cloisters are extensive and picturesque, the ribbed roof resembling the bottom of a boat, while the restored hall has a fine oaken roof. The New College gardens are enclosed on three sides by the ancient walls of the city, which are well preserved, and the enclosure is one of the most beautiful in Oxford.

Through a door in a corner of the gardens there is a pa.s.sageway opening out of one of the bastions of the old walls into a strip of ground called the "Slype," where a fine view is had of the bastions, with the college bell-tower and chapel behind them. In making a recent addition to the buildings of this college on the edge of the "Slype," the workmen in digging for the foundations discovered the remains of a mammoth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW COLLEGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RADCLIFFE LIBRARY, FROM THE QUADRANGLE OF BRASENOSE.]

New College Lane leads to Radcliffe Square, in the centre of which is located the handsome Radcliffe Library, with colleges, churches, and schools all around the square. Dr. Radcliffe, who was the court-physician of King William III. and Queen Anne, founded this library, which is in a handsome rotunda surmounted by a dome on an octagonal base. The structure, which is one hundred feet in diameter, rises to a height of one hundred and forty feet, and from the top there is a fine view of the city. To the northward, at a short distance, are the Schools, a quadrangular building, now chiefly occupied by the famous Bodleian Library. From Radcliffe Square the entrance is through a vaulted pa.s.sage, the central gate-tower being a remarkable example of the combination of the five orders of architecture piled one above the other. In this building, on the lower floor, the public examinations of the candidates for degrees are held, while above is the library which Sir Thomas Bodley founded in the sixteenth century, and which contains three hundred thousand volumes, including many ancient and highly-prized works in print and ma.n.u.script.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DINING-HALL, EXETER COLLEGE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL.]

Lincoln College was founded by Richard Flemyng, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1427. Here John Wesley was a member, and the pulpit from which he preached is still kept as a precious relic. Opposite to Lincoln is Jesus College, founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1571, though others a.s.sisted; it was intended to be exclusively for Welshmen, but this has since been changed. The chapel has a double chancel. Alongside of Lincoln is Exeter College, founded by Walter Stapleton of Exeter in 1314: this is one of the largest colleges, the greater part of the buildings being modern; they are among the finest in Oxford. The hall, restored in the present century, has a high-pitched timber roof, while the chapel, which is one of the most remarkable edifices in Oxford, has a thin, small spire that is conspicuous from a great distance. The Ashmolean Museum adjoins Exeter College, and next to this is the Sheldonian Theatre, built in 1669 by Archbishop Sheldon of Canterbury, where the annual commemoration is held and the honorary degrees are conferred. Not far away is Wadham College, founded in 1613 by Nicholas Wadham and Dorothy his wife. It has excellent buildings and a most beautiful garden. There is a new Museum of Natural History in the park near by, and also Keble College, founded in 1868 as a memorial of Rev. John Keble, the author of the _Christian Year_. Its buildings are of variegated brick, the chapel being the loftiest, most costly, and finest of its style in Oxford. The building is a perfect glare of coloring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINDOW IN ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, GARDEN FRONT.]

Trinity College was founded in 1554 by Sir Thomas Pope. Its tower and chapel are Grecian, and the chapel has a most beautiful carved screen and altarpiece. The library contains a chalice that once belonged to St.

Alban's Abbey. Kettel Hall, now a private dwelling, is a picturesque building in front of Trinity. On Broad Street, where Trinity stands, is also Balliol College, founded in the thirteenth century by John Balliol.

None of the existing buildings are earlier than the fifteenth century, while the south front, with its ma.s.sive tower, has just been rebuilt. It was here that the martyrs Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were burned. A little farther along the same street is St. John's College, which Sir Thomas White founded in 1557. It is fronted by a terrace planted with fine elms. Its quadrangles and cloisters are much admired, especially the venerable oriel windows and quaint stone gables of the library. St.

John's gardens are regarded as among the most attractive in Oxford.

Opposite St. John's are the university galleries, with their display of the Pomfret Marbles and Raphael and Michel Angelo's paintings and drawings, and behind this building is Worcester College, founded in 1714 by Sir Thomas Cookes. Its gardens contain a lake. Pembroke College is opposite Christ Church, and was founded in 1624 in honor of the Earl of Pembroke, then the chancellor of the university. While its entrance-gateway and hall, recently built, are fine, the other buildings are not attractive. The chief remembrance of Pembroke is of Dr. Samuel Johnson, who occupied apartments over the original gateway, but was compelled by poverty to leave the college before taking his degree. This completes the description of the colleges, halls, and schools of the great university, which presents an array of inst.i.tutions of learning unrivalled in any part of the world, and of which Englishmen are justly proud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE.]

OXFORD CHURCHES AND CASTLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There are some fine churches in Oxford, notably the university church of St. Mary the Virgin, conspicuous from its Decorated spire rising one hundred and eighty-eight feet, which is a memorial of Queen Eleanor of Castile. A short distance to the westward is All Saints Church. Fronting Christ Church is St. Aldate's Church, also with a lofty spire and Decorated tower. Like most English towns, Oxford had a castle, but its remains are now reduced to a solitary tower, a few fragments of wall, and a high mound. This castle has long been the property of Christ Church, and was used for a prison, whence Cranmer and his fellow-martyrs went to the stake. The old tower was built in the days of William Rufus.

Beneath the ruins is a crypt known as Maud's Chapel. In the centre of the mound is an octagonal vaulted chamber, approached by a long flight of steps, and containing a well. It was in this castle that the empress Maud was besieged by King Stephen in 1141, but escaped in the night, the castle surrendering next morning. The ground was covered with snow at the time, and the empress, with three attendants, clad in white, pa.s.sed unnoticed through the lines of the besiegers and crossed the Thames on the ice. Just before this Maud escaped from the castle of Devizes as a dead body drawn on a hea.r.s.e. The castle of Oxford has been in a dilapidated condition since Edward III.'s time. As an evidence of the change of opinion, the Martyrs' Memorial stands on St. Giles Street in honor of the martyrs who found the old tower of the castle their prison-house until the bigots of that day were ready to burn them at the stake in front of Balliol College.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALL SAINTS, FROM HIGH STREET.]

The intersection of the four princ.i.p.al streets of old Oxford makes what is called the Carfax (a word derived from _quatre voies_), and here in the olden time stood a picturesque conduit. Conduits in former years were ornaments in many English towns, and some of them still remain in their original locations. This conduit, which stood in the way of traffic, was presented as a nuisance as long ago as the time of Laud, and Lord Harcourt in 1787 removed it to his park at Nuneham. One of the curious changes that have come over some Oxford landmarks is related of a group of statues in the entrance to the Schools, where the Bodleian Library is located. This group represents Mater Academia giving a book to King James I., sitting in his chair of state, while winged Fame trumpets the gift throughout the world. When the king saw this, embellished with appropriate mottoes, all of which were gloriously gilt, the ancient historian says he exclaimed, "By my soul! this is too glorious for Jeamy," and caused the gilded mottoes to be "whited out."

Originally, the statue of the king held a sceptre in his right hand, and a book, commonly taken for the Bible, in his left. Both have disappeared. The sceptre is said to have fallen upon the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill, and the book came down about the time of the abolition of the University Tests. The eastern part of Oxford is meadow-and garden-land, extending down to the two famous rivers which unite just below the town, and along whose sh.o.r.es the racing-boats in which the students take so much interest are moored. Pretty bridges span both streams, and we follow down the Thames again, skirting along its picturesque sh.o.r.es past Iffley, with its romantic old mill and the ancient church with its square tower rising behind, well-known landmarks that are so familiar to boating-men, till we come to Nuneham Park, with the old Carfax Conduit set on an eminence, and Blenheim Woods looming up in the background, as we look towards Oxford.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARFAX CONDUIT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IFFLEY MILL.]

The church of Iffley is beautifully situated on the Thames, but little is known of its origin or history. It was in existence in 1189, when King Henry II. died, and its architecture indicates that it could scarcely have been built much before that time. It is an unusually good specimen of the Norman style, and is in wonderful preservation, considering its age. This church is peculiarly rich in its doorways, having three of great value, and each differing from the other. The southern doorway is enriched with sculptured flowers, a style that is almost unique in Norman architecture; it also contains rudely carved imitations of Roman centaurs. On the south side of the church is an ancient cross and one of the most venerable yew trees in the kingdom, in the trunk of which time has made a hollow where a man could easily conceal himself. There is not on all the Thames a scene more loved by artists than that at Iffley, with its old mill and church embosomed in foliage, and having an occasional fisherman lazily angling in the smooth waters before them, while the Oxford oarsmen, some in fancy costumes, paddle by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IFFLEY CHURCH.]

BANBURY AND BROUGHTON.

If we go up the Cherwell towards the northern part of Oxfordshire, a brief visit can be paid to the famous town of Banbury, noted for its "castle, cross, and cakes." This was an ancient Roman station, and the amphitheatre still exists just out of town. The castle was built in the twelfth century, and many conflicts raged around it. Queen Elizabeth granted the castle to Lord Saye and Sele, and one of his successors first organized the revolt against Charles I. at his neighboring mansion of Broughton. Banbury was a great Puritan stronghold, and it is related that when a book descriptive of Banbury was being printed in those days, it contained a sentence describing Banbury as remarkable for its cheese, cakes, and ale. One Camden, looking at the press while the sheet was being printed, thought this too light an expression, and changed the word _ale_ into _zeal_, so that the town became noted for Banbury zeal as well as cheese and cakes. The old castle, after standing several desperate sieges, was demolished by the Puritans, and nothing now remains excepting the moat and a small remnant of wall on which a cottage has been built. The Banbury cakes are mentioned as early as 1686, and they are still in high repute, being sent to all parts of the world. The Banbury cheese of which Shakespeare wrote is no longer made.

The Banbury cross has been immortalized in nursery-rhymes, but it was taken down by the Puritans. The rhyme tells the little folk.