The Charm of Oxford Part 2

The founder died in 1277, so that none of the college buildings were complete in his time, except perhaps the treasury, which, with its high-pitched roof of stone, lies in the opposite corner of the Mob Quad to that shown in our picture. Why the Quad is called "The Mob Quad," n.o.body knows. As was fitting, the chapel was the first part of the college to be finished--about 1300--and it is a splendid specimen of early Geometrical Gothic; it retains a little of the old gla.s.s, given by one of the early fellows.

The north side of the Mob Quad, which is shown in our picture, is very little later than the Chapel, and the whole of the Quad was finished before 1400; the rooms in it have been the homes of Oxford men for more than five centuries. It is sad to think that so unique a building was almost destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth century, by the zeal of "reformers"; it was actually condemned to be pulled down, to make way for modern buildings, but, fortunately, there was an irregularity in the voting. Mr. G. C. Brodrick, then a young fellow, later the Warden of the college, insisted on the matter being discussed again at a later meeting, and at this the Mob Quad was saved by a narrow majority. "He will go to Heaven for it," as Corporal Trim said of the English Guards, who saved his broken regiment at Steinkirk.

The "reformers" of Merton had to be content with cutting down their beautiful "Grove" and spoiling the finest view in Oxford by erecting the ugliest building which Mid-Victorian taste inflicted on the University.

In the old buildings which so narrowly escaped destruction may have lived John Wycliffe, who is claimed as a fellow of Merton in an almost contemporary list; his activity in Oxford belongs rather to the later time, when he was Master of Balliol. His is one of the outstanding names in English history; the success of Merton in producing great men of a more ordinary kind can be judged from the fact that between 1294 and 1366 six out of the seven Archbishops of Canterbury were Merton men.

In the great period of the seventeenth century, Merton had the distinction of being one of the few colleges which were Parliamentarian in sympathy. Hence the Warden was deposed by King Charles, who installed in his place a really great man, William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. But the king did more harm than good to the college; it was turned into lodgings for Queen Henrietta Maria and her court, and ladies were intruded and children born within college walls. These proceedings were respectable, though unusual; but the college was even more humiliated by the visit of Charles II, who installed there, among other court ladies, the notorious d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland. The college, however, with the Revolution, returned to less courtly views, and its Whig connection found an honourable representative in Richard Steele, the founder of the /Tatler/. It is not surprising that so cheerful a gentleman left Oxford without a degree, but "with the love of the whole society." The college register specially notes his gift of his /Tatler/; he was acting on the sound rule, by no means so universally followed as it ought to be, that Oxford authors should present their books to their college library.

Merton, as has been said, is the "type" college, if one may thus apply a scientific term; hence it is fitting that to it belong the two men to whom perhaps Oxford owes most. Thomas Bodley was a fellow and lecturer in Greek there, before he left Oxford for diplomacy, and acc.u.mulated that wealth which he used to endow the oldest and the most fascinating, if not the largest, of British libraries. And among the men who have gained from "the rare books in the public library" a way to a "perfect elysium," none better deserves remembrance than the Mertonian, Antony Wood, whose monument stands in Merton Chapel, but who has raised /monumentum aere perennius/ to himself, in his /History of the University of Oxford/ and his /Athenae Oxonienses/.

[Plate VII. Merton College : The Library Interior]

MERTON LIBRARY

"Hail, tree of knowledge! thy leaves fruit; which well Dost in the midst of Paradise arise, Oxford, the Muses' paradise, From which may never sword the blest expel.

Hail, bank of all past ages! where they lie To enrich, with interest, posterity."

COWLEY.

"The appearance of the library" (at Merton), says the great Cambridge scholar, J. Willis Clark, in his /Care of Books/, "is so venerable, so unlike any similar room with which I am acquainted, that it must always command admiration."

He cla.s.ses it with the libraries at Oxford of Corpus, St. John's, Jesus, and Magdalen, and he regretfully adds that no college library in his own University has retained the same old features as these have done. But none of the four can compare with Merton, either in antiquarian interest or in picturesqueness; it stands in a cla.s.s by itself.

The Library was built by the munificence of Bishop Reed of Chichester between 1377 and 1379; the dormer windows, however (seen in Plate VII), are later in date. The bookcases in the larger room were made in 1623; one of the original half cases, however, was spared, that nearest to the entrance on the north side, and this is the most interesting single feature in the whole library. It need hardly be said that the reading-desk in early times was actually attached to the bookcase; the library then was a place to read in, not one from which books were taken to be read. The books were to be kept "in some common and secure place," and they were "chained in the library chamber for the common use of the fellows" (J. W. Clark).

The old case that has been retained still has its chained books, and traces of the arrangement for chains can be seen in the other cases.

Merton was one of the last libraries in Oxford to keep its books in chains; these were only removed in 1792; in the Bodleian the work had been begun a generation earlier (in 1757).

Not all books, however, were chained; by special arrangements in old college statutes, some of them were allowed out to the fellows. The register of Merton contains interesting entries as to how the books were distributed, e.g. on August 26, 1500, "choice was made of the books on philosophy; it was found there were in all 349 books, which were then distributed." This was a large number: at King's, Cambridge, less than half a century before, there were only 174 books on all subjects, and in the Cambridge University Library in 1473, only 330.

If a book was borrowed, great precautions were taken; the Warden of Merton in 1498 had to obtain the leave of the college to take out a book which he wanted; then, "in the presence of the four seniors," he received his book, depositing two volumes of St. Jerome's Commentaries as pledges for its safe return. A similar ceremony, with a similar entry in the register, marked the replacement of the book in the library. Though printing was already beginning to multiply books, yet then, and for long after, a book was a most valuable possession. The features of these venerable tomes are well described by Crabbe:

"That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid, Those ample clasps, of solid metal made, The close pressed leaves, unclosed for many an age, The dull red edging of the well-filled page, On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, Where yet the t.i.tle shines in tarnished gold, These all a sage and laboured work proclaim, A painful candidate for lasting fame."

Such books are numbered by hundreds in every college library, and it is only too true of them that:

"Hence in these times, untouched the pages lie And slumber out their immortality."

The reception of such a book in a library was an event, and the record of one gift occupies six whole lines in the Merton Register; its donors are named as "two venerable men," and the entry sweetly concludes, "Let us, therefore, pray for them."

The library, problem, acute everywhere, is perhaps especially so in a college library. How can it keep pace with the multiplicity of studies? How should it deal with books indispensable for a short time, perhaps for one generation, and then superseded? Even apart from the question of the cost of purchase, the amount of s.p.a.ce available is small, considering modern needs. These problems and such as these have not yet been solved by college librarians; but the college library, quite apart from the books in it, is an education in itself. The old days of neglect are past, the days reflected in the scandalous story--told of more than one college--about the old fellow who was missing for two months, and, after being searched for high and low, was found hanging dead in the college library. Now the libraries everywhere are being used continually, and men can realize in them, perhaps better than anywhere else, how great the past of Oxford has been, and can form some idea of the labours of forgotten generations, which have made the University what it was and what it is.

Every library has its treasures, to show the present generation how beautiful an old book can be which was produced in days when its production was not a mere publisher's speculation, but the work of a scholar seeking to promote knowledge and advance the cause of Truth.

And it does not require much imagination for a student, in a building like Merton Library, to conjure up the picture of his mediaeval predecessor, sitting on his hard wooden bench, with his chained MSS.

volume on the shelf above, and poring over the crabbed pages in the unwarmed, half-lighted chamber. If the picture brings with it the thought of the transitoriness of human endeavour, and if the words of the Teacher seem doubly true, "Of making of books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh," yet in the fresh life of young Oxford, such reflections are only salutary; pessimism, despair of humanity, are not vices likely to flourish among undergraduates in the healthy society of modern colleges.

Those only, it might be said, can properly reform the present who understand the past, and it is perhaps the spirit of the Merton Library, at once old and new, which has inspired the statesmen whom Merton has sent to take part in the government of Britain during the last half-century. Lord Randolph Churchill, the founder of Tory democracy, his present-day successor in the same role, Lord Birkenhead, and the ever young Lord Halsbury are men of the type which Walter de Merton wished to train, "for the service of G.o.d in Church and State," men who champion the existing order, but who are willing to develop and improve it on the old lines.

ORIEL COLLEGE

"Here at each coign of every antique street A memory hath taken root in stone, Here Raleigh shone."

L. JOHNSON.

[Plate VIII. Oriel College and St. Mary's Church]

It is a curious coincidence that three of the most troubled reigns of English history have been marked by double college foundations in Oxford. That of Henry VI, in spite of constant civil war, threatening or actual, saw the beginnings of All Souls' and of Magdalen; the short and sad reign of Mary Tudor restored to Oxford Trinity and St.

John's; and in an earlier century the ministers of Edward II, the most unroyal of our Plantagenet kings, gave to Oxford Exeter and Oriel. The king himself was graciously pleased to accept the honour of the latter foundation, and his statue adorns the College Quad, along with that of Charles I, in whose day the whole College was rebuilt. The front may be compared architecturally with those of Wadham and of University, which date from about the same period (the first part of the seventeenth century), when, under the fostering care of Archbishop Laud, Oxford increased greatly in numbers, in learning, and in buildings. Though Oriel has neither the bold sweep of University nor the perfect proportions of Wadham, it yet is a pleasing building, at least in its front.

Like New College, Oriel is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and, also like New College, the name of "St. Mary's" early gave way to a popular nickname. The College at once on its foundation received the gift of a tenement called "L'Oriole," which occupied its present site, and its name has displaced the real style of the College in general use.

It is only fitting that, as in our picture, St. Mary's Church should be combined with Oriel, for the founder was Vicar of St. Mary's, and the presentation to that living has ever since been in the hands of the College. It was as a Fellow of Oriel that Newman became, in 1828, Vicar of St. Mary's, from the pulpit of which, during thirteen years, he moulded all that was best in the religious life of Oxford. The glorious spire of the church was still new when the College was founded.

Oriel and its chapel are among the places for religious pilgrimage in Oxford. As Lincoln draws from all parts of the world those who reverence the name of John Wesley, so the Oxford Movement and the Anglican Revival had their starting-point, and for some time their centre, in Oriel. The connection of the College with the Movement was not in either case a mere accident; the Oxford Revival, at any rate, was profoundly influenced by the personality of Newman, and Newman, both by attraction and by repulsion, was largely what Oriel made him.

Among those who were with him at the College were Archbishop Whately, whose Liberalism repelled him, Hawkins, the Provost, whose views on "Tradition" began to modify the Evangelicalism in which he had been brought up, Keble, whose /Christian Year/ did more for Church teaching in England than countless sermons, Pusey, already famous for his learning and his piety, who was to give his name to the Movement, and, slightly later, Church, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, the historian of the Movement, and Samuel Wilberforce, who, as Bishop of Oxford, was to show how profoundly it would increase the influence of the English Church.

Such a combination of famous names at one time is hardly found in the history of any other college, and it would be easy to add others hardly less known, who were also members of the same body at that famous time. Hero-worshippers can still see the rooms where these great men lived, and the Common Room in which they met and argued, in the days when Oxford did less teaching and had more time for talking and for thinking than the busy, hurrying ways of the twentieth century allow. But Oriel has many other a.s.sociations besides those of the Oxford Movement. Walter Raleigh, the most fascinating of Elizabethans, was a student there, and probably in Oxford met the great historian of travel and discovery, Richard Hakluyt (a Christ Church man), whose influence did so much to bring home to Oxford the wonders of the strange worlds beyond the seas. It was probably also through his connection with Oriel that Raleigh made the acquaintance of Harriot, who shared in his colonial ventures in Virginia, and who became the historian of that foundation, so full of importance as the beginning of the new England across the Atlantic. It was only fitting that the Raleigh of the nineteenth century, Cecil John Rhodes, should also be an Oriel man, who was never weary of acknowledging what he owed to Oxford, and who showed his faith in her by his works. The Rhodes' Foundation expends his millions in bringing scholars to Oxford from the whole world; already its influence has been great during its twenty years of existence; what it will be in the future, only the future can show. If Mr. Rhodes gave his millions to the University, he gave his tens of thousands to his old College. The result on the High Street is--to put it gently--not altogether happy; but perhaps time may soften the lines of Mr. Champney's somewhat uninspired front, though it is not likely to quicken interest in the statues of the obscure provosts which adorn it.

QUEEN'S COLLEGE

"The building, parent of my young essays, Asks in return a tributary praise; Pillars sublime bear up the learned weight, And antique sages tread the pompous height."

TICKELL.

Queens's is one of the six oldest colleges in Oxford, and is far on to celebrating its s.e.xcentenary, but it has purged itself of the Gothic leaven in its buildings more completely than any other Oxford foundation. It does not even occupy its own old site, for the building originally lay well back from the High Street. It was only the "civilities and kindnesses" of Provost Lancaster which induced the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford, in 1709, to grant to Queen's College "for 1,000 years," "so much ground on the High Street as shall be requisite for making their intended new building straight and uniform." And so the most important of "the streamlike windings of the glorious street" was in part determined by a corrupt bargain between "a vile Whig" (as Hearne calls this hated Provost) and a complaisant mayor. But much of the credit for the beauty of this part of the High must also be given to the architect of University College (seen in Plate IX on the left), who, whether by skill or by accident, combined at a most graceful angle the two quads, erected with an interval of some eighty years between them (1634 and 1719).

A man must, indeed, be a Gothic purist who would wish away the stately front quadrangle of Queen's, designed by Wren's favourite pupil, Hawkmoor, while the master himself is said to be responsible for the chapel of the College, the most perfect basilican church in Oxford.

If Queen's has been revolutionary in its buildings, it has been singularly tenacious of old customs. Its members still a.s.semble at dinner to the sound of the trumpet (blown by a curious arrangement /after/ grace has been said); it still keeps up the ancient and honoured custom of bringing in the boar's head--"the chief service of this land"--for dinner on Christmas Day; while on New Year's Day, the Bursar still, as has been done for nearly 600 years, bids his guests "take this and be thrifty," as he hands each a "needle and thread,"

wherewith to mend their academic hoods; the /aiguille et fil/ is probably a pun on the name of the founder, Robert Eglesfield. The College at these festivities uses the loving, cup, given it by its founder, perhaps the oldest piece of plate in constant use anywhere in Great Britain; five and a half centuries of good liquor have stained the gold-mounted aurochs' horn to a colour of unrivalled softness and beauty.

Robert Eglesfield was almoner of the good Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III, and, like Adam de Brome, the founder of Oriel, he, too, commended his college to a royal patron. Ever since his time, the "Queen's College" has been under the patronage of the Queen's consort of England, and the connection has been duly acknowledged by many of them, especially by Henrietta Maria, the evil genius of Charles I, and by Queen Caroline, the good genius of George II. Her present Gracious Majesty, too, has recognized the college claim. The Queens Regnant have no obligations to the college, but Queen Elizabeth gave it the seal it still uses, and good Queen Anne was a liberal contributor to the rebuilding of the college in her day; her statue still adorns the cupola on the front to the High.

[Plate IX. High Street]

No doubt it was the royal connection which brought to Queen's, if tradition may be trusted, two famous warrior princes, the Black Prince and Henry V; though it is at least doubtful whether the Queen's poet, Thomas Tickell, Addison's flattering friend, had any authority for the picture he gives of their college life. He describes them as:

"Sent from the Monarch's to the Muses' Court, Their meals were frugal and their sleeps were short; To couch at curfew time they thought no scorn, And froze at matins every winters morn."