Oxford Part 1

Oxford.

by Frederick Douglas How.

For beauty and for romance the first place among all the cities of the United Kingdom must be given to Oxford. There is but one other--Edinburgh--which can lay any serious claim to rival her. Gazing upon Scotland's capital from Arthur's Seat, and dreaming visions of Scotland's wondrous past, it might seem as though the beauty and romance of the scene could not well be surpa.s.sed. But there is a certain solemnity, almost amounting to sadness, in both these aspects of the Northern capital which is altogether absent from the sparkling beauty of the city on the Isis, and from the genius of the place.

The impression that Oxford makes upon those who, familiar with her from early years, have learnt to know and love her in later life is remarkable. Teeming with much that is ancient, she appears the embodiment of youth and beauty. Exquisite in line, sparkling with light and colour, she seems ever bright and young, while her sons fall into decay and perish. "Alma Mater!" they cry, and love her for her loveliness, till their dim eyes can look on her no more.

And this is for the reason that the true lovableness of Oxford cannot be learnt at once. As her charms have grown from age to age, so their real appreciation is gradual. Not that she cannot catch the eye of one who sees her for the first time, and, smiling, hold him captive. This she can do now and then; but even so her new lover has yet to learn her preciousness.

It is worth while to try to understand what are the charms that have grown with her growth. There was a day when in herself Oxford was unlovely to behold, and when romance had not begun to cling to her like some beautiful diaphanous robe. It is possible to imagine a low-lying cl.u.s.ter of wooden houses forming narrow streets, and occupying the land between the Cherwell and the Isis, nearly a thousand years ago. In those days no doubt it was reckoned a town of some importance, but, with the possible exception of the minster of St. Frideswide, there was nothing to relieve its squalid appearance.

After the Norman Conquest, when most of the houses in the town had been destroyed, there began to be a certain severe dignity rising up with the building of the forts and the castle by Robert D'Oily, who came over with King William. The fine and ma.s.sive tower, with a swiftly flowing branch of the Isis at its very feet, forming a natural moat, still stands as the single relic of D'Oily's castle, and the first in point of age of the existing charms of Oxford. Standing, as it does, inextricably mixed up with breweries and the county jail, it must feel itself in a forlorn position, and slighted by those who give it a mere glance on their way from the station to view colleges, old indeed, but, in the opinion of the ancient tower, things of mushroom growth! And yet, close by stands something older even than the tower. Inside the castle walls was an immense mound, and there it stands to this day. No one rightly knows its age, and, except for the romance which hangs about anything, the origin of which is lost in the mists of ages, it adds but little to the charm of Oxford.

Another grand old tower is said to have been the work of Robert D'Oily, viz. that of St. Michael's Church in Cornmarket Street. Besides being part of a church, this was also one of the watch towers on the city walls. It is well worth looking at, for it has the further interest of having adjoined the north gate into the city, over which were certain chambers forming the Bocardo Prison, which remained in use until comparatively modern times.

The severity which marked the outward appearance of the city during the first few centuries after the Norman Conquest gradually disappeared, to make way for the brighter and more exquisite beauty of later days. Thus, in the fifteenth century, the ma.s.sive walls and watch towers still dominated the place. From close to Magdalen College they ran by the edge of New College gardens (where the most perfect remains are still to be seen), and then turned to go along the city ditch (now Broad Street), and so to St. Michael's in "the Corn", and away down to the castle tower near St. Thomas's. Nowadays these severe lines have practically disappeared. Oxford has laid aside the armour which once she had in self-defence to wear, and has clothed herself in lovelier garb.

One by one the objects upon which we feast our eyes to-day sprang up, and more and more beautiful became the view of Oxford. Mr. Andrew Lang in his charming book tells us that at the end of the thirteenth century "the beautiful tower of Merton was still almost fresh, and the spires of St. Mary's, of old All Saints, of St. Frideswide, and the strong tower of New College on the city wall, were the most prominent features in a bird's-eye view of the town." To these must be added (as has been mentioned) the walls and watch towers, which must have lent a certain grimness to the whole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE FROM THE CHERWELL]

Two hundred years later Oxford's most beautiful tower came into being, on the site of what had been the ancient Hospital of St. John, and had been given about the year 1560 by King Henry VI to William Patten, in order that he might there establish the college of St. Mary Magdalen.

Magdalen Tower, rising 150 feet in exquisite proportion, and standing just where the Cherwell is spanned by the well-known bridge, is in the opinion of many the fairest sight in Oxford. The way in which it springs from a pile of embattlements, and the grace of its pose and form, claim for it more than a word of admiration for its share in the adornment of Oxford.

So far the view of the town was dependent for beauty upon its spires and towers. To-day it would be allowed by all that a great deal has been added to this beauty by the domes, which have brought their dignity and rounded lines to the general scenic effect.

It was not till two centuries had pa.s.sed from the creation of Magdalen Tower that the central gateway into Christ Church was surmounted by the well-known Tom Tower, erected by Sir Christopher Wren to hold "Great Tom", a mighty bell which once belonged to Osney Abbey. This was the first of the domes to rear its head. But it was not long left solitary.

Seventy years afterwards the great dome of the Radcliffe Camera rose up in the s.p.a.ce between All Souls and Brasenose colleges, and was thenceforth the first object to take the eye of one who looks on Oxford lying glorious in her meadows.

And so we come to one aspect of the place. For him who wants to look upon her as a whole, to realize at once that he is drawing near to one who is all beautiful, everything depends upon the manner of his approach.

It is probably true that the people of a hundred years ago had the best of it. In very early days, when men rode on pack horses or were drawn thither in wains, or tramped through marshy tracts and by evil roads, their eyes were apt to be fixed upon the ground lest they or the horse they rode should put foot in a hole. Then, too, the view they obtained was not at first so beautiful as it has since become.

To-day the disadvantages are greater still. Far the larger number of people approach Oxford by train, and although on drawing near the city from the south a sight is obtained of towers and spires, it is by no means a happy point of view; and the visitor is probably engaged in getting his bag out of the rack and collecting his papers and umbrella, when he might be obtaining a first impression, though a poor one, of Oxford. Should he be more fortunate, and approach by motor car, again he loses much. A vision, perhaps, for a moment, as he tops some rising ground, and then, before he has had time to gasp his admiration, he finds himself bounded on either side by the unlovely villas of a suburb.

No, the coaching days were the best for those who wanted to see what Oxford looked like as a whole. From the top of the London coach, as Headington Hill was reached, there must have been on a summer morning a minute or two of ecstasy for those who first caught sight of the glittering city at their feet. Not quite so fair a view, but beautiful enough, was theirs who came by way of c.u.mnor from the Berkshire Downs; but the coach top was the place, from whichever side the traveller came.

And yet there is something better still. I would have, could I arrange it for my friend, a more gradual approach yet. I would take him off the converging roads while yet Oxford was unseen. I would lead him in the early morning of a summer day--it must ever be summer--away where the river washes the feet of the old town of Abingdon, and thence by pleasant paths through Sunningwell we would ascend Boar's Hill. There on a gra.s.sy spot, a hanging wood partly revealed below us, we would lie face downwards on the turf and gaze on Oxford lying far below--the Oxford Turner saw--Oxford in fairy wreaths of light-blue haze, which as they part, now here now there, reveal her sparkling beauty. There is no other place so fit to see her first; no day too long to gaze on her from here, and mark fresh beauties as the shadows change. Here we would lie and marvel at the scene, then let the dreams of days gone by--the days that wove the long romance of Oxford--enthral us till we hardly know whether time is or was.

Away there to the east and south the river shines. Now in the heat of summer well within its reedy banks, but often spreading itself in flood-time far and wide. So those two Franciscans find it. They draw near to Oxford, but when a mile or two from Abingdon are checked by many waters, and take refuge in a house in a wood belonging to the monastery of that place. Nearly seven hundred years ago! And yet they come into the dream as if it all had happened yesterday, and they were still to set on foot the labours of their order in the low wooden slums of St.

Ebbe's, and still to train such men as Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon.

And the scene changes as the eye follows the river to the city walls.

There is a mellower sunshine on the plain, and autumn mists hang lightly over tower and spire. What is that slender blue column which rises above the centre of the town and melts into the hazy air? Surely it is the smoke of the pyre on which the martyrs have but now perished! Ridley and Latimer--for months they have been face to face with death. Their figures move through the streets. From Bocardo, the town prison, they are led to separate confinement in other parts of the city. Now to St.

Mary's Church, now to the Divinity School are they taken to be examined--a miserable farce--by those who seek to curry favour with a b.l.o.o.d.y queen. At last the end. Was it this morning that the sheriff's officers came to lead Ridley from the mayor's house, where he had pa.s.sed a peaceful night, and risen to write a letter on behalf of certain tenants of his in London, that justice might be done them when he died?

There he goes in close custody, dressed in his bishop's gown and tippet, with a velvet scull cap on his head. Behind him comes Latimer, an old, old man in threadbare gown and leathern girdle, keeping up as well as he can with the rest. They pa.s.s along what is now called Cornmarket Street, and under the Bocardo gateway, where is St. Michael's Church, and as they get close beneath the prison each casts a look upwards if he should see Archbishop Cranmer at the window.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OXFORD FROM HEADINGTON HILL]

So they go on a few yards more till the city ditch is reached, which now is Broad Street. There are the crowd, the f.a.ggots, and the stake. No time is lost. Cheerfully they two embrace and strip themselves for death. The chains secure them to the posts. The bags of gunpowder are hung around their necks. They loudly commend their souls to G.o.d. Soon comes release to the aged Latimer. The flames have leapt up to the powder, and in a moment his sufferings are done. Not so merciful is the end of his brother martyr. Slowly, with shocking agony, his lower limbs are burnt away, and not till he has suffered the extremity of pain does he at last join Latimer in Paradise. That little slender column of blue smoke! So was the dream provoked, and the pathetic tragedy of 1555 has pa.s.sed before our eyes to-day.

The summer sun shines out, a gentle air blows off the mists, and from afar the road to Woodstock is all lively with a gallant company. Mary is dead. The University have sent a deputation to meet Elizabeth the Queen at G.o.dstow. No longer a prisoner at Woodstock, she rides gaily into Oxford. At the northern gate she is welcomed by the mayor, and the city bestows its gifts of plate and money. For days her scholarly mind is entertained with public disputations, relieved at intervals by theatrical shows. It is all brilliant and light-hearted; a weight has been taken from the country.

Then comes a vision of such times as Oxford has never seen before or since. The city is in turmoil. The whole countryside is alive with troops. There is civil war. The University is for the King, the townsmen (had they their way) are Roundheads to a man. Citizens in scant numbers, scholars in profusion, are working at the trenches to fortify the place.

What with these trenches across from the Cherwell past Wadham and St John's and so by St Giles' Church, to the Isis on the north, and from Folly Bridge, through Christ Church meadows and Merton gardens (where the remains can still be seen) to Magdalen on the south, and with the numerous rivers and conduits which form so many natural moats on west and east, the city soon becomes impregnable. To-day such puny efforts would be ludicrous, but in those times of cannon b.a.l.l.s which could scarcely pierce a two-inch board, they more than suffice, did he for whom the work was done but have a better heart.

In Christ Church and in New College quads there is a sound of drums and tramping feet as the bands of pikemen and halberdiers furnished by the students are busily at drill. Magdalen Bridge is fortified. On the great tower hard by stones have been heaped to hurl upon a pa.s.sing enemy, but are destined to be never used.

Now there is a fresh stir. The bands of armed students march through all the streets, finally parade the High, and disband at the Divinity School--a demonstration to impress the townsmen and encourage the royal guests.

Side by side with all this warlike preparation, and mingled with the martial ring of steel and discipline of troops, Oxford presents an aspect of frivolity unequalled except by an Eights' Week of to-day. The Queen has her Court at Merton, and the city is full of ladies of high degree. Their flounces and their furbelows are everywhere, and daily they congregate in Christ Church meadows and Trinity Grove, to hold revels displeasing to the Heads of Houses, who fear for the youth in their charge, and a mockery to their own hearts, which are anxious enough. Their dresses may be fine, but they themselves are lodged in garrets, and they miss the dainty fare to which they are accustomed. And all the while the wit and learning of the University knows little diminution. It takes, perhaps, a lighter and more courtly tone, as it strives to amuse and gratify the unwonted throng it entertains. War, women, wit--all stirred together in one seat of learning! Surely never was such a medley known!

Then from each point of vantage within our view on that hillside--nay, from the very spot on which we lie and dream--there are continual movements of the troops. The King brings his cavalry right here, within a mile or two of Abingdon, waiting to do battle with Ess.e.x should he advance from Reading. Brown leads the Roundheads now to Wolvercote, now to Shotover, and anon to Abingdon. Down there by Sandford Ferry Ess.e.x takes his troops across the river, skirts the city to the eastwards and makes his camp at Islip for a while, then on across Cherwell and so to Bletchington and Woodstock, blockading all approaches on the north. Now one sees glitter of steel and gleam of pennon to the west, as Waller is beat back at Newbridge on the Isis, above Eynsham. Scarcely has this scene flitted through the brain, than from far away eastwards, hard by Chinnor, there seems to come a shouting and a noise of horses at the gallop, as Rupert bursts upon the enemy's convoy, and drives them into the Chiltern Hills, himself returning with his prisoners and spoils by way of Chalgrove, when again comes sound of battle, and he in his turn is for a moment held at bay by Roundheads' "insolence". No matter which way we turn our eyes, each bit of rising ground, each bridge across a stream gives birth to some imagining of skirmish or of ambuscade in that long civil war that waged round Oxford.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARTYRS' MEMORIAL AND ST. GILES]

One dream more. Naseby has been fought and lost. Fairfax is at the gates of Oxford, where Charles has once again sought shelter. The city might have resisted long, but his heart has failed him. It is three o'clock on an April morning, and dark. A little company of three--a gentleman, a scholar, and a servant--ride out of the city over Magdalen Bridge. The servant is the King. So comes the beginning of the end, and Oxford has no more visions of the ill-fated Charles.

Thus dreaming an hour or two has pa.s.sed away, and she still lies there before us unexplored--beckoning us to her with every charm that delights the eye and kindles boundless expectation. Let us, then, draw closer and get a nearer view. Old as she is, she invites an inspection as close as we will. The ravages of time do not in her case mar the loveliness which each year seems to renew and to increase. Most people are conscious of the fact that in looking back upon their past lives, especially upon the days of their childhood, it is the sunshine that abides with them and not the shadow. In all the memories, let us say, of a garden in which we played as children, the days are hot and bright, the flowers always blooming.

So it is with Oxford. Heaven knows the place is often enough shrouded in cold, wet mist: for weeks together the streets are muddy beyond all other streets: at the beginning of each term (save that one by courtesy called "summer") the chemists' shops are (or used to be) filled with rows of bottles of quinine, to enable the poor undergraduate to struggle against a depressing climate. But who remembers all these things in after years? The man of fifty hears Oxford mentioned, and there comes back to him at once a place where old grey buildings throw shadows across shaven lawns; where the young green of the chestnut makes a brilliant splash of colour above the college garden wall; where cool bright waters wind beneath ancient willows, and it is good to bask in flannels in a punt. In fact it is the few days of real summer--the two or three in each "summer" term--that he remembers in accordance with memory's happy scheme, in which it is the fittest that survive.

It is in summer, then, that we draw near to feast our eyes more intimately on Oxford's charms. Not first of all upon those which she hides away within her outer cloak of beauty, but upon the garment which she borrows from Dame Nature, and wears with such inimitable grace.

Meadows, gardens, rivers, trees: these are the materials of which the robe is woven, and to each belong at least some names that have become famous beyond the boundaries of Oxford.

Who has not heard of Port Meadow--the town's meadow, as the name infers?

Low it lies on the river bank to the north-west of the town. For hundreds of years--since the time, indeed, of the _Domesday Book_--it has belonged to the freemen of Oxford, and to-day may still be seen their flocks of geese, white patterned on a ground of green, with here and there a horse with tired feet ending his days where gra.s.s is soft and plentiful. The Isis, the Upper River as here it is commonly called, has a special beauty as it flows along the edge of Port Meadow, for above it hang the Witham woods, and on its edge is the little hamlet of Binsey, giving a touch of human interest and rural picturesqueness to the scene. It is worth while to row or sail against the stream until the whole of the meadow is pa.s.sed by, for then comes G.o.dstow, where Fair Rosamond found refuge, and where she was at last laid to rest. It must in all honesty be confessed that to the average undergraduate the place was reckoned desirable, not so much on account of the historical interest just mentioned, as because, after a long pull up the river on a summer afternoon, it was possible to obtain at the little inn upon the river bank what was euphemistically called "eel tea", a meal which, as a matter of fact, consisted of stewed eels washed down by unlimited libations of cider-cup!

Far smaller in extent, but even more famous, is the tree-girt s.p.a.ce called Christ Church Meadow, lying between that college and the river.

Port Meadow may be said to be a wide bright outskirt of the natural robe of Oxford: Christ Church Meadow, with its Broad Walk and its mighty trees, is like a fold about her feet deep-trimmed and bordered with a silver braid. It is here that on Show Sunday, in Commemoration Week, in June, those who hold high places in the University, with favoured guests, and some few undergraduates, pace up and down, or used to pace in days gone by; for it belongs to a more modern pen to say whether the old custom still obtains, or whether it has pa.s.sed away with other things of ceremony, such as (to compare small things with great) the custom of forty years ago, in pursuance of which an undergraduate would now and then array himself in his most brilliant attire and saunter up and down the High. Does the old street feel slighted, one wonders, at the fact that it is "done" no more?

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COLLEGE BARGES AND FOLLY BRIDGE]

Close by the meadow the college barges line the banks of the Isis, and then come other meadows on either side--meadows nameless and undignified by pageantry, but sacred to Oxford's special flower, the fritillary, and stretching away to where Iffley stands, with its memories of J.H.

Newman, and where the old mill, beloved of painters, was burnt down a few years ago.

One other meadow there is, smaller than either of those already mentioned, and less beautiful in itself, though highly favoured in its immediate surroundings. It stands within the grounds of Magdalen College, and is bordered on either side by the divided waters of the Cherwell, before they pa.s.s beneath Magdalen Bridge. Around this meadow is a shady path beneath an avenue of trees, and it is this path that attracts attention to the meadow; for it is said that it was here that Addison loved to pace up and down, as in the early years of the eighteenth century he thought out his essays for the _Tatler_ or _Spectator_.

The rivers of Oxford--the Isis and the Cherwell--are so much part of her meadow loveliness, that the one seems almost to include the others.

Where the meadows are the fairest, there the rivers gleam and sparkle in the summer sun of memory. The Isis, stately stream, proud of the great oarsmen she has taught, and of historic boats that she has borne; the Cherwell, winding, secretive, alluring, willow-girt, whispering of men and maidens, and of the dream days of ambitious youth. Each river has its bridge. The mightier stream, as is most fitting, spanned where for centuries the road has pa.s.sed from Oxford into Berkshire; the little Cherwell, to make up for any loss in navigable importance, crossed near Magdalen Tower by the lovely bridge which was built over the two branches of the stream more than two hundred years ago.

The meadows and the rivers bring to mind the trees. What and where would be the loveliness of Oxford without her trees? Some have already been mentioned--the stately elms of the Broad Walk, and the old gnarled willows along the Cherwell's banks. But there are others, needing perhaps a little looking for, but none the less an integral part of Oxford's beauty when once found. One of these, the great cedar in the Fellows' garden at Wadham, was wrecked in a gale not so very long ago, and many who had been familiar with its dark-green foliage contrasting with the soft grey of the chapel walls, feel almost as though they had lost a friend.

Then just across the road there are the limes of Trinity, pollarded every seven years to form the roof of an avenue, a most retired spot, but counting for much with those who love green leaves and dappled shade.

Of the trees of Oxford pages might be written. They are everywhere, though not everywhere in prominence. Often enough it is just the peep, the suggestion of hidden beauty, that is seen as we pa.s.s from one college to another and a green bough overtops the wall. Lovers of Venice know how delightful is the same thing here and there along a side ca.n.a.l, where a treetop is reflected with a crumbling wall in the still water below. In Oxford these overhanging boughs have no reflections, but the patch of purple shadow on the pavement is often as valuable to the picture. Talking of Venice brings to mind a bit of Oxford that must often remind the wayfarer to and from the railway of the Italian city.

Not far from the old castle tower that has been already mentioned, a branch of the river flows in a lovely curve, and has upon one side weather-stained old brick walls, and on the other a causeway upon which stand ancient gabled houses. These buildings and the causeway reflect in the grey-green water of the river, and when the posts that edge the latter are taken into account, and a figure or two lounging by the rails are repeated in the reflections, the whole scene is not a little reminiscent of Venice in a quiet scheme of colour.