Rides on Railways Part 4

It is droll to look back upon the movement which led public opinion to prefer a stockjobber to a gallant soldier.

Banbury manufactures horse girths and other kinds of webbing, as well as excellent ale. There are two inns, both good.

The Buckinghamshire Railway has reduced the price of coal to the inhabitants from 22s. to 15s. per ton, on 150,000 tons per annum.

BICESTER, commonly p.r.o.nounced Bister, is thirteen miles by the road from Oxford, a town as ancient as the Heptarchy; famous for a well once sacred and dedicated to St. Edburgh, for its well attended markets and cattle fairs, and especially for its excellent ale. It is in the centre of a capital hunting country. The women make a little bone lace.

OXFORD.

Oxford is one of the great gates through which our rich middle cla.s.ses send their sons to be amalgamated with the landed and t.i.tled aristocracy, who are all educated either there or at Cambridge.

To say of any one that he is an "Oxford man," at once implies that he is a gentleman, and when a well-looking, well-mannered, and even moderately endowed young gentleman has pa.s.sed respectably through his curriculum at Christchurch or Magdalen, Balliol, Oriel, University, or any other of the correct colleges, it rests with himself whether he runs the race of public life in England on equal terms with the sons of the oldest of the t.i.tled and unt.i.tled aristocracy, even though his father were an eminent retired dust contractor, and his mother laundry maid or factory girl. But money alone won't do it, and the pretension, the display, the c.o.xcombry permitted in a peer, must be carefully avoided by a parvenu. Thus Oxford interests cla.s.ses who care very little for its educational, antiquarian, or architectural resources, as one of the inst.i.tutions of the country by which any capable man may cut off his plebeian entail, and start according to the continental term "n.o.ble."

The material beauty of Oxford is great--the situation, in a rich valley bounded by softly flowing rivers, fine--the domes, and spires, and old grey towers rising in cl.u.s.ters, prepare the mind of the approaching traveller for the city where the old colleges and churches, planting out and almost composing it, afford at every bend of the long streets, at every turn of the narrow thoroughfares, some grand picture, or charming architectural effect; even our Quakers are proud of Oxford in England when they travel in America.

Then Oxford is so decorously clean, so spotlessly free from the smoke of engines and the roar of machinery; the groves and gardens, and trim green turf seen through richly-carved and corbeled archways, give such a feeling of calm study, and pleasant leisure, that we will defy the bitterest radical and the sourest dissenter not to be softened and charmed by his first impressions.

To those who arrive prepared to be pleased, stored with a.s.sociations of the past, fortunate enough to have leisure and introductions to some affable don long resident, and proud to display the treasures and glories of his beloved Alma Mater, Oxford affords for many days a treat such as no other city in the world can supply to an Englishman.

The best known route from London is by the Great Western Railway, which, according to the original plan, would have pa.s.sed close to the city. But all the University and ecclesiastical dignitaries were up in arms; they saw, in their mind's eye, the tender, innocent undergraduates flying from the proctor-guarded precincts, where modesty, virtue, and sobriety ever reign, to the vice-haunted purlieus of London, at all hours of the night and day. The proctors and professors triumphed; the railway was obliged to leave a gap of ten miles of common road between its invading, unhallowed course, and the sacred city; and great was the rejoicing in the Convocation Chamber, and many the toasts in the Senior Common Rooms to the health of the faithful sons of Oxon, who in Parliament had saved the city from this commercial desecration.

But as even Grosvenor-square was at length glad to admit gas after abiding longest of all in the genteel gloom of oil lamps, so was Oxford in the end glad to be put on a branch, as it could not be put on a main line; and now, beside the rail on which we are travelling, Worcester, Banbury, and Wolverhampton, and two roads to London and Birmingham are open to the wandering tastes of the callow youth of the University; as may be ascertained by a statistical return from the railway stations whenever a steeple-chase or Jenny Lind concert takes place in or near any of the towns enumerated.

The entrance from Bletchley is, perhaps, the finer, as rolling round a semicircle, we sweep into sight of the dome of Radcliffe Library and the spire of St. Mary's Church, descend, enter the city by the Cheltenham-road, and pa.s.sing through an inferior suburb, reach the head of High-street, of which a great German art critic declared, "that it had not its equal in the whole world." Wide, long, and gently curving, approached from either end, it presents in succession the colleges of Lincoln, Brasenose, University, All Souls, Queen's, St. Mary's Church, with peeps of gardens with private houses, and with shops, which do not detract, but rather add, to the dignity and weight of the grand old buildings.

Having slowly sauntered up and down, and scanned the various characters peculiar to the City of Universities--as, for instance, an autocrat in the person of a Dean of Christchurch, a Princ.i.p.al of Balliol, or a Master of Jesus, a Proctor newly made, but already endowed with something of the detective police expression; several senior fellows, plump, shy, proud, and lazy--walking for an appet.i.te, and looking into the fishmongers on their way to the parks; a "c.o.c.ky" Master of Arts, just made, and hastening to call on all his friends and tradesmen to show off his new dignity, and rustle the sleeves of his new gown; three lads, just entered from a public school (last month they laid out tip in Mother Brown's tarts), on their way to order three courses and dessert at the Mitre, where very indifferent fare is provided for fashionable credit prices; a pale student, after Dr. Pusey's own heart, in cap and gown, pacing monk-like along, secretly telling his beads; a tuft (n.o.bleman) lounging out of the shop of a tailor, who, as he follows his lordship to the door, presents the very picture of a Dean bowing to a Prime Minister, when a bishop is very sick.

A few ladies are seen, in care of papas in caps and gowns, or mammas, who look as if they were Doctors of Divinity, or deserved to be. The Oxford female is only of two kinds--prim and brazen. The latter we will not describe; the former seem to live in perpetual fear of being winked at, and are indescribable.

From these street scenes, where the ridiculous only is salient, for the quiet and gentlemanly pa.s.s by unnoticed, while pompous dons and c.o.xcombical undergraduates are as certain of attention as turkeyc.o.c.ks and bantams, we will turn into the solemn precincts of a few of the colleges.

At the head stands Christchurch in dignity and size, founded by Cardinal Wolsey, Pope Clement VII. consenting, in 1525, on the revenues of some dozen minor monasteries, under the t.i.tle of Cardinal College. The fall of Wolsey--England's last Cardinal, until by the invitation of modern mediaeval Oxford, Pius IX. sent us a Wiseman--stopped the works. One of Wolsey's latest pet.i.tions to Henry was, "That his college at Oxford might go on." And by the King, after some intermediate changes, it was finally established as Christchurch.

The foundation now consists of a dean, eight canons, eight chaplains, a schoolmaster, an organist, eight choristers, and 101 students, of whom a considerable number are exhibitioners from Westminster School. It is in symbolism of these students that the celebrated Great Tom of Christchurch clangs each evening 101 times. Besides these students, there are generally nearly 1000 independent members, consisting of n.o.blemen, gentlemen commoners, and commoners. To be a gentleman commoner of Christchurch, all other advantages being equal, is the most "correct thing" in the University; none can compete with them, unless it be the gentlemen commoners of Magdalen. The Christchurch n.o.blemen, or tufts, are considered the leaders of fashion, whether it be in mediaeval furniture, or rat hunting, boating, or steeple- chase riding, old politics or new religions.

Among the ill.u.s.trious men it claims as pupils are, Sir Philip Sydney and Ben Jonson, Camden and South, Bolingbroke and Locke, Canning and Sir Robert Peel, whom Oxford rejected. The front is in Aldate's-street, for which consult Mr.

Spier's pretty guide card, the entrance under the lofty clock tower, whence, at ten minutes past nine every evening, the mighty tom peals forth his sonorous summons. The "Tom Gateway" leads into the quadrangle familiarly termed "quad," 264 feet by 261, the dimensions originally planned by Wolsey; but the buildings which bound it on three sides were executed after the destruction of the old edifice in the great civil wars from designs by Sir Christopher Wren in 1688.

The Hall on the south side is ancient; we ascend to it by a flight of steps under a handsome groined roof supported by a single pillar. The Hall is 115 feet long, 40 wide, and 50 high. The open roof of oak richly carved, decorated with the arms of Wolsey and Henry VIII. Other carvings adorn the fire-place and a fine bay window.

On the sides of the rooms are hung a series of 120 portraits of ecclesiastics, poets, philosophers (these are few), statesmen, and n.o.blemen, representing distinguished students of the College.

The dinner hour, when the dean and chief officers sit in state on the dais, masters and bachelors at the side tables, and undergraduates at the lower end, is an impressive sight, recalling feudal times. The feeding is the worst of any in Oxford, much to the advantage of the taverns and pastrycooks.

When in 1566 Queen Elizabeth visited Oxford, a play was performed before her in this hall by the students, in the course of which, "a cry of hounds belonging to themselves" having been counterfeited in the quadrangle, the students were seized with a sudden transport; whereat her Majesty cried out, "O excellent! these boys in very truth are ready to leap out of the window to follow the hounds."

Amid the many changes of taste and opinion since the days of Queen Bess, the love of hunting still prevails in Christchurch, not one of the least healthy tastes, in an age of perpetual competing work; and the Christchurch drag is one of the stock amus.e.m.e.nts anathematized toward the end and permitted at the beginning of every hunting term, for the glory of the chief tuft and the benefit of hard-reading men, who cannot waste their time in trotting from cover to cover dependent on the vagaries of such an uncertain animal as a fox, and are therefore content to hunt a "cad" armed with a red herring over the stiffest country he can pick.

After the Hall, the Kitchen should be visited. It is the most ancient part of the building, for Wolsey, with a truly ecclesiastical appreciation of the foundation of all sound learning, began with the kitchen, and it survived him. Agriculture, gardening, cooking, and confectionery, were among the civilizing arts brought to great perfection by religious houses and lost for a long period after the Reformation, which, like other strong medicines, cleared our heads at the expense of our stomachs.

In Wolsey's kitchen may be seen the huge gridiron on which our ancestors roasted sheep whole and prepared other barbarous disgusting dishes.

In the Peckwater Quadrangle are to be found the Library and the Guise collection of pictures, which contains curious specimens of that early school which the mad mediaevalists are now fond of imitating, and a few examples of the famous Italian masters who rose on the force of genius, which did not disdain study but did disdain imitation.

Wickliff was a warden, and Sir Thomas More a student, in Canterbury Hall, which was amalgamated in Wolsey's College.

The Chapel of Christchurch is the Cathedral of Oxford. The oldest parts belonged to the church of St. Frideswide's Priory, consecrated A.D. 1180.

Wolsey pulled down fifty feet of the nave and adapted it to the use of his college. The stained gla.s.s windows, without which every Gothic cathedral has a bare, naked, cold appearance, and which were peculiarly fine, nearly all fell a sacrifice to puritanical bigotry.

For the many curious and beautiful architectural features we must refer in this instance, as in all others, to the architectural guides, such as Parker's, with which every one who feels any interest in the subject will provide himself.

Leaving Christchurch by the Canterbury Gate up Merton-lane, we pa.s.s on one hand Corpus Christi, founded in the reign of Henry VIII., where Bishop Sewel, author of "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," and Richard Hooker, a Protestant whom even a Pope praised, were bred; on the other, Oriel, where studied Walter Raleigh, one of England's greatest men, a poet and philosopher, soldier and statesman, mariner and historian; not guiltless, yet worthy of pity in his fall and long imprisonment, and of honour in his brave and Christian death,--the victim of the ever feeble treacherous Stuarts. What other line of kings has had the fate to sign away the lives of two such men as Raleigh and Strafford? Oriel also claims as students Prynne, who, with his libels and his ears, laid the foundation of our liberty of the press; Bishop Butler, whose "a.n.a.logy" showed how logic and philosophy could be applied to support the cause of Christian truth; Dr. Arnold, the reformer of our modern school system, whom Oxford persecuted during life and honoured in death; and lastly, the clever crotchety Archbishop Whateley, who has not only proved that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed, but that Mr. Gibbon Wakefield's bankrupt schemes of colonization were triumphant successes. Next we come to Merton, the most ancient of all the colleges, founded 7th January 1264. The oldest of its buildings now standing is the library, the oldest in England, erected 1377. Wickliff was a student of Merton. University College, which next falls in our way, claims to date from King Alfred, but has no charters so ancient as those of Merton. The buildings are not more early than Charles I., but the chapel contains some of Grinling Gibbons's best carvings, and a monument by Flaxman of Sir William Jones, who was a fellow of this University. The modern part, fronting High-street, is from the designs of Barry, the architect of the Palace of Westminster.

University College has one of the old customs, of which several are retained in Oxford, called "chopping at the tree." On Easter Sunday a bough is dressed up with flowers and evergreens, and laid on a turf by the b.u.t.tery.

After dinner each member, as he leaves the hall, takes up a cleaver and chops at the tree, and then hands over "largess" to the cook, who stands by with a plate. The contribution is, for the master half a guinea, the fellows five shillings, and other members half a crown each. In like manner, at Queen's College, which stands opposite University, on Christmas day a boar's head is brought into the hall in procession, while the old carol is sung--

The boar's head in hand bear I Bedecked with bays and rosemary, And I pray you, my masters, be merry.

Qui estis in convivio, Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes Domino.

While on New Year's day the bursar presents to every member a needle and thread with the words, "Take this and be thrifty." We have not been able to obtain a statistical return of the standing of the Queen's men in the books of the tradesmen of Oxford as compared with members of other colleges, but we recommend the question to Mr. Newdegate or some other Oxonian figure monger.

This college was founded by Philippa, queen of Edward III. It was directed by the statutes that there should be twelve fellows and seventy poor scholars, who were to be summoned to dinner by the sound of a trumpet; when the fellows, clothed in scarlet robes, were to sit and eat, while the poor scholars, kneeling in token of humility, were to dispute in philosophy. The kneeling, disputing, and scarlet robes have been discontinued, but the trumpet still sounds to dinner. There are usually about 300 members on the books of this college.

Lower down the High-street is All-Souls, whose two towers are picturesque centres of most views of Oxford. The buildings are various in character and merit, and well worth examination. The grand court was designed by Hawksmoor rather on the principles of a painter than an architect; he wished it to make a good picture with the existing buildings, and he succeeded. All-Souls is composed entirely of fellows, who elect from other colleges gentlemen whose qualification consists in being "bene nati, bene vest.i.ti, et moderater docti in arte musica."

With so easy a qualification as that of being well born, well dressed, and able to sing the Old Hundredth Psalm, Old King Cole, or Kilruddery, it may be imagined that All-Souls has never done anything to disturb the minds of kings, cabinets, or reviewers, or even of the musical critics. Pleasant gentlemanly fellows, when they do get into parliament it is usually as the advocates of deceased opinions. Had Joanna Southcote been genteel, the fellows of All-Souls and some other colleges would have continued Joanna Southcotians fifty years after her decease.

All-Souls, too, has its legend and its commemorative ceremony. The diggers of the foundations found in an old drain a monstrous mallard, a sort of alderman among wild ducks, thriving and growing fat amid filth. On being cooked he was found first-rate, and, in memory of this treasure-trove and of the foundation-day, annually on the 14th January the best mallard that can be found is brought in in state, all the mallardians chanting--

O the swapping swapping mallard, etc.

From Queen's we proceed to New College, built in the palmiest days of Gothic architecture by William of Wykeham, also architect of Windsor Castle and of Winchester Cathedral, of which he was bishop, as well as Chancellor of England under Edward III. He was indeed a learned, pious, earnest man. "A worker-out of the glorious dreams he dreamed." According to his plan, a certain number of poor boys, of origin as humble as his own, were to receive a training in the best learning of the age; from these, the ablest were to be selected annually and sent to New College, with the enjoyment of such an income as would support them while studying philosophy and theology. At present, after a year's probation, youths at eighteen or nineteen become actual fellows, in enjoyment of an income varying from 190 to 250 pounds per annum, until such time as they marry or are provided with a college living.

"Wykeham laid the first stone of his new college on the 5th March 1380. Being finished, the first warden and fellows took possession of it April 14, 1386, at three o'clock in the morning." The original buildings consist of the princ.i.p.al quadrangle, containing the hall, chapel, and library, the cloisters, and the tower. Additions, quite out of keeping with the rich simplicity of the original design, were made by Sir Christopher Wren. The chapel, first shorn of its ancient splendour by puritan zeal, and since restored in mistaken taste, is still one of the most beautiful edifices of the kind in England,--perhaps in Europe. Weeks of study will not satisfy or exhaust the true student of Gothic architecture here. We trust that, sooner or later, some of the funds now spent on guttling and guzzling will be devoted to subst.i.tuting facsimiles of ancient coloured gla.s.s for the painted mistakes of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and restoring the ancient glories of gilt and colour to the carved work.

If possible, the stranger should attend the service, when he will hear grand singing and accompanied by a magnificent organ. The silver gilt crozier of Wykeham, formerly studded with rich gems, is one of the few relics of value preserved by New College. Charles I. received the greater part of a rich collection of plate as a contribution to his military chest in the great civil war. This crozier interests, for, gazing on it, we are carried back five centuries, when it was not a bauble made in Birmingham, but a symbol of actual power and superior intelligence. The sceptre of a prince of a church which then absorbed almost all the intellect and all the learning of the age.

The garden with its archery-ground, and the "Slipe," with its stables and kennels, complete what was meant to be a temple of sacred learning and active piety, but which has become a very Castle of Indolence, a sort of Happy Valley, for single men. Winchester School still retains its ancient character for scholarship. (It is said to be almost impossible to "pluck" a Wykehamist); but the foundation has been grossly abused, the elected being not poor boys but the sons of wealthy clergymen and gentlemen, as indeed they had need be, for, by another abuse, the parents of boys on the foundation have to pay about 40 pounds a-year for their board. But, when a boy, distinguished for diligence and ability among his fellows, has been, at eighteen or nineteen years, elected to a Fellowship of New College, his work for life is done,--no more need for exertion,--every incentive to epicurean rest. Fine rooms, a fine garden, a dinner daily the best in Oxford, served in a style of profusion and elegance that leaves nothing to be desired, wine the choicest, New College ale most famous, a retiring-room, where, in obsequious dignity, a butler waits on his commands, with fresh bottles of the strong New College port, or ready to compound a variety of delicious drinks, amid which the New College cyder cup and mint julep can be specially recommended. Newspapers, magazines, and novels, on the tables of both the junior and senior common rooms, and a stable for his horse and a kennel for his dog, form part of this grand club of learned ignorance. And so, in idle uselessness, he spends life, unless by good fortune he falls in love and marries; even then, we pity his wife and his cook for the first twelve months,--or, by reaction, flies into asceticism and becomes a father of St.

Philip Neri or a follower of Saint p.u.s.s.eycat.

But, after all this virtuous remonstrance on the misdirection of William of Wykeham's n.o.ble endowment, we must own that, of our Oxford acquaintance, none are more agreeable than those New College fellows of the old school, "who wore shocking bad hats and asked you to dinner." Much better than the cold- blooded "monks without ma.s.s" who are fast superseding them, just as idle and more ill-natured.

From New College we will go on to Magdalen, the finest--the wealthiest of all: it cannot be described, it must be seen; with its buildings occupying eleven acres and pleasure-grounds a hundred acres, its tower whereon every May morning at daybreak a ma.s.s used to be and a carol is still sung, and its deer-park. Here we may say, as of New College, is too much luxury for learning.

The sons of dukes have become mathematicians; we have known an attorney's clerk, the son of a low publican, become an accomplished linguist in his leisure hours,--but such men are mental miracles, almost monsters: a fellow of Magdalen or New College who works as hard as other men deserves to be canonized.