Part 3

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 passed 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 pass 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 canal, 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.

But this has nothing to do with Oxford's trees. Before turning our thoughts to any of her other beauties, that noble chestnut tree must be remembered which stands in Exeter garden, and, surmounting the wall, shades some of the Brasenose College rooms. In one of these lived Bishop Heber, and the tree on which he looked from his window has ever since been called by his name.

It is but natural that such thoughts as these should bring to mind the Oxford gardens, which some have thought the very choicest jewels that she wears. And indeed there is an indescribable charm in these old college gardens, with their trees and their herbaceous borders, their lawns and their high old walls--a charm which must, one fancies, have grown gradually, so that it depends for its existence not so much upon the actual beauty of each spot, as upon the spirit and associations that differentiate them from all other gardens. Not that they have not beauty of a most enchanting kind. St. John's, New College, Worcester--to name the three that occur most readily--possess gardens of special loveliness, and the two former of great size, that of St. John's being five acres in extent. It is to this that one should find one's way to see the most fascinating garden of all. The front of the buildings, with the beautiful library windows, suggests some lovely old manor house, and as one looks back across the lawns and through the trees the effect is not only dignified, as is that of so many college gardens, but is full of the peace and quiet beauty of one of England's stately homes.

Not a little has the modern revival of gardening, which has brought back the old herbaceous border, added to the charm of college gardens. It has been said with truth that the secret of a garden's beauty lies mainly in its background. How true this is! Flowers may blaze with colour in an open field--and who has not marvelled as he passes in the train the seed-ground of some great horticulturist?--but seen thus they have but little charm. In a college garden a border filled with delphiniums and madonna lilies is backed by sombre yews, while the thick foliage of elm or chestnut quiets harmoniously the farther distance. See how the spires of blue--now declaring themselves for Oxford, now for Cambridge--are twice as vivid for the contrast, and how the lilies shine against the deep dark green, like fairest maidens round some black panelled hall! Or see again the monthly roses, blushing at intervals along an old grey wall: how tenderly are their hues enhanced by contrast with the time-stained stones! Such are a part of the fascination of Oxford gardens.

Quite unlike these, yet having an attraction of their own which many miss, are the Botanical Gardens hard by Magdalen Bridge. Their situation on the brink of the River Cherwell, and almost under the shadow of Magdalen Tower, is what probably appeals most strongly to the ordinary observer, while those who merely pass the gardens by will delight in the gateway, the work of Inigo Jones, with its statues of Charles I and II. Formal these gardens are of necessity, but there hangs about them a certain feeling of antiquity. They somehow seem to take their place among their old-world surroundings; and fitly so, for they are the oldest gardens of their kind in the country, having been originated by the Earl of Danby as an assistance to the study of medicine, nearly three hundred years ago.

Across the way, at Magdalen College, exists a pleasure ground which cannot rightly be included among Oxford's gardens, though it is certainly one of her best-known natural adornments. This is the deer park adjoining the New Buildings. It is almost worth while in the summer vacation to loiter near the narrow passage leading from the cloisters, to witness the start of surprise and to hear the sight-seers' remarks, as they suddenly come out from the dusk and impressive gloom into a blaze of sunlight, with gay new buildings bright with window-boxes straight before them, and a little herd of dappled deer feeding in the sunshine and the shadow of the park. Hundreds of years seem to roll away: the very locality appears to change: the visitor could scarcely look more astonished if he were suddenly transported from the Coliseum to the gardens of the Tuileries! No wonder a tourist once remarked, as he issued from the cloisters: "I guess, sir, I've riz from the dead!"

It is tempting on this summer day to linger where grass is green and trees throw grateful shade; and indeed it would seem that few of all the many pens that have set down Oxford's charms have given their due to these her natural delights. But there is much that crowds into the mind and urgently complains lest there be not space enough to do them honour. What of her streets? Perhaps no other city in England--some say in the world--can boast of streets of equal beauty.

From Magdalen gate the High Street begins its curve--a true line of beauty. Its variety of architecture and mixture of old with new might suggest (to those who have only read and never seen) an inharmonious whole. But somehow this is not so. The severe front of University neither kills nor is killed by the seventeenth-century work, with eighteenth-century cupola and statue of George II's consort, just across the way. The old-world shops and gabled houses contrast with the modern buildings, which contain the new Examination Schools, or show where some college or other has forced its way into the High. They contrast, and do not spoil the picture. Indeed it will be a cause of much lamentation, if more of these old houses of the citizens of Oxford should be thrust away, and the character of the street be changed to one long series of college buildings, losing in colour, in variety, and in antiquity, and especially in the story that it still tells of University and city interdependent, and seeking each the other's good. It is the glorious Church of St. Mary the Virgin that seems to bind all the varying charms of the street together. Standing near the centre of the High, it dominates the whole. The stately thirteenth-century tower with its massive buttresses is surmounted by "a splendid pyramidal group of turrets, pinnacles, and windows", from which the spire shoots upwards. To a trained eye this spire is a continual marvel, when seen from a short distance away, on account of the transparency of colour which for some unexplained reason it presents. A silver grey hardly describes it; but light clothes it with a diaphanous glory, now warm now cool in colour, and always lovely. Facing the street is an ornate Italian porch with twisted pillars, erected in 1637. Above the entrance is the famous statue of the Virgin and Child which gave such offence to the Puritans.

What stories the place could tell! It was here that John Wycliffe thundered against the Romanism of his day. It was here that Cranmer recanted his recantation, and promised that the hand that wrote it should be the first to suffer at the stake. Hither, too, were laid to rest the remains of Amy Robsart, brought after death from Cumnor. Space will not allow of any recital of the famous names of those who have occupied the University pulpit herein. But memories crowd into the mind as the rather dreary interior of the Church is pictured. Here some thirty-six or seven years ago an undergraduate went, full of expectation, to hear Dr. Pusey preach. The crowd was great, and he had to stand, while for an hour and a half or so the great man poured out a learned disquisition against the Jews! Here too, about the same time, the youthful members of the University flocked to hear Burgon's evening sermons--quaint and original as the man himself--in one of which, after describing the episode of Balaam and the ass, he threw up his hands and cried, "To think that that type of brutality should speak with the voice of a man--it delighteth me hugely!"

One of the beauties of the streets of Oxford is that they mostly have something admirable at either end. Thus the picture of the High Street is finished at one end with Magdalen Tower and Bridge, and at the other with Carfax Church, or rather, nowadays, with all that is left--a very ancient tower--of the City Church which stood upon the site of a building so old that coins of the date of Athelstan were found beneath its pavement.

Then see how Broad Street, as it narrows again towards the east, gives a fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre, where many who have helped to make their country's history, have been honoured by the granting of degrees, and of the Clarendon Building with its lofty pillared porch, where once the University Press was housed. Or look at that superb approach to Oxford from the north, a boulevard of great breadth and dignity. From St. Giles' Church, at which the road from Woodstock and from Banbury converge, how fine is the prospect ending as it does in the tall trees, before the dignified front of St. John's College, and the tower of St. Mary Magdalen's Church.

The streets of Oxford! What scenes have been enacted there! Kings and queens have paced them between cheering crowds; town and gown have surged and struggled up and down their length, till from the highest point at Carfax the water was turned on from Nicholson's old conduit just to cool their ardour. Now and again a hush has fallen on all the city, and from St. Mary's booms a minute-bell. Shops are half-closed and flags half-masted. Then through the silent streets winds a black-robed procession, half a mile in length, and one of Oxford's best-known sons is carried to his rest. Or, maybe, all is bright with pleasure-seeking crowds and ladies decked in all their bravery, and just a glimpse is caught of scarlet and of black, with gleam of silver mace, as the Vice-Chancellor's procession goes to give degrees. Or, just once more, a line of Oxford cabs--who does not know the Oxford cab?--each with unlicensed number of undergraduate fares, goes to the sound of rattle and of song to speed the departure from his Alma Mater's arms of one who has outstepped the limits of her patience.

So it goes on: a varying scene of dignity and ribaldry, taking each other's place from time to time. But most often through all the years the streets are filled with those who, day by day, come in from all the country round, bringing their produce, seeking what they lack, and all oblivious of the learned life of Oxford.

But there are so many people, to whom the human interest in the fairest city counts for more than all the rest, that it is time to wander among the quadrangles, the halls, the chapels, and the other ancient fabrics that speak of the university life of Oxford. As we pass in through many a massive gateway, tread many a stone-paved path, climb many an old oak stair worn by the feet of many generations, it is strange if no strand of sentiment puts us in touch with some of those who have passed that way before.

And first to Merton, oldest of university colleges. It is almost sad to write the words, for it is hard not to feel a pang of regret that the charming old tale, once indeed confirmed by the Court of King's Bench itself, that King Alfred founded University College in the High Street years before any other was suggested, is a myth. The men of "Univ" have at least the consolation that the tradition has existed, and if, in spite of hard facts, they cling to the romance, there will be few to blame them. It was Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England and Bishop of Rochester, who invented colleges as we know them, and, by founding that one which is known by his name, did, in 1265, set the model for all future collegiate establishments. Mr. Eric Parker in "Oxford and Cambridge" truly says, "Walter de Merton founded more than Merton College. His idea of a community of students working together in a common building towards a common end, inspired by the same influence and guided by the same traditions, was the first and the true idea of all colleges founded since."

The momentous step taken by this great Bishop in thus founding an institution on these lines for the study of Theology, is remarkable as illustrating the spirit of revolt from the absorption by monks and friars of all existing educational affairs. The College was strictly limited to secular clerks, who were "sent down" if they chose to join any of the regular Orders. The subsequent religious history of the College has had curious vicissitudes. Wycliff was a Fellow, and Merton stood by him in the face of the rest of Oxford. Then came a wave of Romanism; and in the reign of Mary she could count on Merton to provide fanatics in her cause. A Fellow of Merton presided over the burning of Ridley and Latimer, and the Vice-Chancellor who preached on the occasion was also a Merton man. In the middle of the seventeenth century all this was changed, and no grimmer Puritans were found in Oxford than the men of Merton. It seems as though the founder's spirit of religious freedom has from time to time cropped up, with an independence and hardihood worthy of his name.

But it was not all at once in 1265 that the College sprang into existence. At first Walter de Merton housed the students in lodgings in what is now called Merton Street, building a hall and kitchen to provide for their sustenance. Then followed the chapel with its grand tower, and lastly the buildings for the students. As one stands in the quaint little Mob Quad (the origin of which name has apparently been lost) it is good to realize that this is the first collegiate quadrangle known. How far the thought takes us back! How near to the fountainhead of much that has grown familiar--so familiar that few people, and no undergraduates, trouble their heads about it! It is just there: like the river, and the trees, and the sky it exists, but why or how it came into existence matters nothing to them. Take for example the office of Dean. In every college there is a Dean, to whom is committed the order and discipline of the place. Should there be a bonfire in the quad, it is he who comes out and frantically attempts to put it out. Should an unlucky undergraduate oversleep himself more often in the week than college rules allow, it is the Dean who sends for him and gates him, that is to say, confines him within the college gates after sunset or thereabouts. The Dean is looked upon as an "institution", not wholly delightful but still a necessary bit of Oxford life; but very few undergraduates are aware that one must go back to the times of Walter de Merton to find out how he came into being. The life of a student in the first college was planned to be lived in great simplicity. His fare was to be of the plainest, and he was not to talk at dinner. He was never to be noisy. The rules, indeed, went so far as to say that, if he wanted to talk at any time, he must talk in Latin. It may be supposed that human nature was much the same in the thirteenth century as in the twentieth, and such a life must have proved difficult to some. In order to enforce the rules one student in every ten was made a kind of "præfect", with disciplinary power over the others. Hence the "decanus", and lo! the first of all the Deans!

Merton had not existed for much more than a century when it became possessed through the magnificence of Rede, Bishop of Chichester, of its wonderful library, so that not only has it the oldest quadrangle, but also the oldest mediæval library in the kingdom. There is not a room in Oxford so impressive with a sense of antiquity. Its lancet windows, its rough desks sticking out from the bookcases, the chains which thwart the project of the book-thief, all help to obliterate the ages; though the decorations of the ceiling, and the stained-glass windows, tell of the desire of later centuries to soften the original sternness of the room. It is here that one must wait quietly as dusk begins to fall, if one would see faint forms of those of whom Merton boasts as her noblest sons. To all of them is this old room familiar, and to none more so than to Henry Savile, lover of books and warden of the College just three hundred years ago. He it was who induced Merton to give prompt and generous aid to that other Fellow of the College, Sir Thomas Bodley, when founding the great library that bears his name. Surely the spirits of these two men at least must haunt the place!

And he who wrote of Oxford's sons--Anthony Wood--is he too never here? And Patteson and Creighton of these later days, bishops who gave their lives, the one upon a savage shore, the other to the endless toil of the great diocese of London. Do they not pass along, and people with their memory the shadowy recesses of this ancient place?

Now let us stroll on--'tis but a step--to Christ Church. Sometimes it seems as though this should take precedence of all other colleges. Its chapel is Oxford's Cathedral, its quadrangles are the finest, its founder was in some ways the most famous; and lastly (and of least account), if one who has tried the task of "seeing Oxford" in an afternoon is asked what he remembers best, it is ten to one that he will say "the staircase and its ceiling leading up to Christ Church Hall". And it is of extraordinarily impressive beauty. The fan groining of the roof, supported by just one slender column, which springs from the foot of the staircase, is of exquisite form and lightness. Then the wide, flat steps that turn at an acute angle, and then lead on straight to the entrance of the Hall, form a worthy approach to what has been described as the grandest of all mediæval halls in the kingdom, except only that at Westminster. Let us stand aside here for a moment and picture some of those who have ascended these stairs in days gone by. A fanfare of trumpets sounds, and Henry VIII goes up with ponderous step. Here too comes Queen Elizabeth, jesting in caustic fashion with her courtiers, as she sweeps along to witness a dramatic entertainment in the Hall. Of lesser folk there pass by Dr. Fell ("I do not like thee, Dr. Fell"), who finished the building of Tom Quad in 1665; and then a quiet studious-looking man, a fellow or senior student of the College, who has nothing in his appearance to call attention. But this is Burton, by some accounted a morose person, but by those who knew him intimately a cheery and witty companion. Here, too, with slow and faltering step comes Pusey in extreme old age, and Liddon of ascetic mien. Hark to the laughter! It is Stubbs--historian Bishop--with witty saying falling from his lips. And there is Liddell, feared of the undergraduate, but splendid both in figure and in face. And many another shade would fancy depict taking the old familiar way: men of renown, but none, however royal his demeanour, however high his literary rank, none to compare with him, Wolsey the great Cardinal, the founder of the place.

It is worth while before we explore further to think for a few moments about this wonderful personality, one of the most remarkable of all Oxford's sons. At the very end of the fifteenth century he is discovered as a Junior Fellow of Magdalen, then as Dean of Divinity, and in the first years of the next century as Rector of Lymington. Rapidly climbing the ecclesiastical tree, he reappears as Cardinal Archbishop of York, and resumes his close connection with Oxford, in the guise of a great promoter of learning, paying the salaries of lecturers out of his own pocket and so on. But the position of a mere patron of education did not satisfy his ambition. He determined on founding a college which should eclipse even that of Wykeham--the already famous New College. He was a rich man, but the vast undertaking upon which he had set his heart could not be paid for out of the private purse of any living man. He was in high favour with the King, and persuaded him to allow him to plunder the monasteries, and devote the proceeds to the expenses of the great foundation which he called Cardinal's College. Besides several small religious houses, he, in 1522, obtained the surrender of the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford itself.

Wolsey was possessed of sufficient funds to make a beginning. Clearing away some portion of the old Church of St. Frideswide, he laid the foundation of what afterwards became Christ Church in the summer of 1525. The work went on apace, but in a very few years there came a serious check. Henry VIII had made up his mind to marry Ann Boleyn, and this particular matrimonial venture had a curious influence on the fortunes of the College. It came about in this way. To marry Ann, it was necessary for the King to get his marriage with Catherine dissolved. The Papacy declined to grant the decree. The ultimate result of this was Henry's determination to free himself and his country from the power of Rome. This in its turn resulted in Wolsey's downfall. The work of building Cardinal's College ceased, and there was a great probability that the beginning already made would be demolished. The King, however, changed his mind, and in 1532 refounded and endowed it. It now received the name of King Henry VIII's College. This title it bore for some fourteen years, at the end of which the See of Oxford was removed from Olney Abbey to St Frideswide's, which had already become a part of the College. From that date the whole foundation, partly educational and partly ecclesiastical in character, became one institution, and was then and for ever after called Christ Church. It is an extraordinary story, and, mixed up as it is with the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey, lends a great amount of human interest to the inspection of the College.

There is nothing else at all like it in existence. Collegiate and ecclesiastical life are inextricably mixed up. There is a Dean: but instead of being an official appointed to keep order among the undergraduates, he is both Head of the College and Dean of the Cathedral. The great quadrangle is partly like the quad of another college, in containing certain sets of rooms in the occupation of undergraduates, and partly like a cathedral close, inasmuch as therein is the Deanery and the residences of an archdeacon and canons. The Cathedral itself is, though small, a dignified and beautiful building of true cathedral character. At the same time it is the College Chapel, and the undergraduates who daily attend its services are privileged to worship in a magnificent fane, but at the same time must lose that sense of what, for want of a better word, must be called the home-like charm which endears to so many their College Chapel. The scenes, too, that the quadrangles witness are curiously varied. Now there is a procession of divines wending their way to some diocesan function, with bishops and chaplains bringing up the rear, and anon a crowd of undergraduates, smarting beneath some fancied grievance, or merely celebrating some success upon the river, noisily express their wish to paint the college red.

But Christ Church is not the only unique college in Oxford. As there is no other to be found in any university so curiously combined with the cathedral and ecclesiastical dignitaries of a see, so is there no other, in this country at all events, that has preserved its original intention, as a college for Fellows only, as has All Souls. Here no noisy undergraduate is allowed to disturb the calm. There are, indeed, four Bible Clerks who are undergraduate members and reside within its walls, but their very name is enough to guarantee their unobtrusive respectability--if indeed they exist in the flesh at all, for it is said that none except the Fellows of the College have ever seen one! The foundation is rich both in money and in fine buildings. Taking no share in education within its own walls--having, that is to say, none of the usual routine of college lectures and so on--it has had to justify the retention of its wealth. This it has done to the full, for it provides a large part of the funds for the teaching of Law in the University, and greatly aids the study of Modern History. It also has shown itself most liberal in supplying the wherewithal for the ever-increasing needs of the Bodleian Library.

To most people All Souls is chiefly familiar for its entrance facing the High Street, with porch and tower of the founder's date (1437), and for its chapel and library. The chapel possesses in its reredos a work of art which is one of the chief goals of the sightseer in Oxford. It covers the entire east wall, and consists of an immense series of niches, in which are numberless statues, surrounding a crucifixion scene in the centre. Of its kind it is certainly the most beautiful thing in the whole University. It was robbed of its statues and walled up in the seventeenth century, but has been restored with wonderful success a quarter of a century ago. The Library, called after its donor, Sir Christopher Codrington, is singularly beautiful in decoration. It is 200 feet long, and contains every imaginable book necessary for the Student of Law. By permitting a very wide use of this room All Souls College gives one more evidence of its desire to further the general educational work of Oxford.