By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. EVENING-Engraving by Elbridge Kingsley after the painting by Tryon. VOL. I. THE SYMPOSIUM. NOVEMBER, 1896. No. 2. AN AMERICAN WOMAN'S GLIMPSE OF OXFORD. T was years ago, while the great Jowett was still there, there under clouded skies, and enveloped in a misty haze which permeated and idealized it, I first saw Oxford. It unfolded itself gradually before our approaching steps in all its architectural beauty, gray, solemn, venerable, historic, yet palpitating with the life of to-day, just as the vines of the Virginia creeper hung blood-red upon its aged walls. How beautiful it was! What exquisite tones of gray and brown! What an air of ancient repose! A great procession of ghostly figures flits before one, once living personalities that helped to shape and mold the destinies of England, or were themselves borne onward by the irresistible tide of her progress. Church, and waking echoes that would soon rouse Europe; Ridley, Latimer, and Cramner, burning at the stake; Charles I., hiding among his loyal subjects; historians, poets, dramatists, statesmen, warriors, saints, sinners— one and all-how they haunt the place! Creatures of a past age, yet ever present, memories that are always green, living forces to-day, proofs of immortality! The High street, one of the most beautiful in Europe, stretched away in front of us, or rather wound in and out in beautiful curves, and presented a unique perspective of college buildings, domes, and towers. It is one thousand yards in length, and contains part of the buildings of Magdalen, Queen's, All Souls', and University colleges, and St. Mary's and All Saints' churches. King Alfred the Great, fostering the first germs of its student life; Parallel to it is Broad street, in which Canute in Parliament; William the are situated Balliol, Trinity, and Exeter Conqueror, thundering at its gates; colleges, and close by are the AcaStephen and Henry II., struggling for demic schools, the Bodleian library, the crown; the Empress Maud, flit- and picture gallery. Christchurch Colting by night from its shelter; Wycliffe, lege, famous for its magnificent hall, raising his voice in righteous indigna- picture gallery, its chapel (the cathetion against the corruptions of the dral church of Oxford), and its ex [Copyright, 1896, by GEORGE W. CABLE. All rights reserved.] tensive grounds, deserves a day to cloisters. Among recent portraits is a itself, for the study of its beauties. beautiful one of Pusey, whose intelThe entrance tower to the college con- lectual face, calmly thoughtful and tains what a former undergraduate, benign, contrasts very forcibly with who was guiding us, designated as others on canvases not far from it; "one of the jolliest things in Oxford," Queen Elizabeth, ruffed and haughty, the great bell "Tom," which weighs and stern countenances of men who upwards of seventeen thousand pounds. lived in an age of broils and strife and I did not hear it sound, but could held their lives at their swords' point. well imagine the grand solemnity of We sat down at one of the long, underits note. The "Tom" tower, as it graduate tables for a moment, and is called, is a comparatively modern took in the beauty of the room. As structure, designed, I think, by Sir it was out of term we were left quite Christopher Wren. unmolested, and could almost feel the silence that reigned throughout the college. One could well imagine it filled with students, however, the "scouts" rushing hither and thither, and a babel of voices clamoring for "grub." I thought of Tom Brown taking his first dinner in the hall, and pitying the bigwigs who ate their meals in solemn state on the raised platform. The chapel, or cathedral, is Norman in style, and though inferior to some other English cathedrals, is yet very lovely, and contains two beautiful windows, recently put in by Burne-Jones. The hall is, indeed, imposing; so imposing that one wonders upon entering how the callow youth of Great Britain can do anything so prosaic in it as ordinary eating. It is a very lofty apartment, vast, and beautifully proportioned, with a raised dais at one end, for the college dignitaries, and its walls lined with portraits of different celebrities, whose footsteps once sounded through the Leaving the hall, we found our way to Christchurch meadows, opposite to which are moored the skiffs, and boats, and the University barge. A stroll through the famous broad walk, which is bordered on either side by magnificent old oaks that have seen Magdalen College is the most complete and beautiful of all the colleges at Oxford. None of the others is so perfect architecturally. Time has wrought its usual havoc with most of them, and modern additions to the old buildings detract, in a measure, from their ancient beauty; but Magdalen retains its celebrated "TOM" TOWER, CHRISTCHURCH COLLEGE. tower and cloisters of the 15th century intact. The view of them from the quadrangle is something to be remembered, a treasured possession of the mind for all time. The illustration gives, of course, only a section, including the tower on the left, as the cloisters, in all cases, entirely surround the quadrangle. The "quads, as they are called for short, are great features of Oxford. Big, open spaces, either flagged or with grass plots in the center, inclosed and surrounded by the cloisters, with chapel hall and library at one side, and men's rooms above, they form exits and entrances to the colleges, and are always beautiful with their gables and old mullioned windows, and their noble antiquity of outline. Fortunate is he who sees Oxford in the autumn when the vines have turned bright red, and hang blushing, in beautiful contrast, upon those dear old walls that they vivify and caress. Addison's walk also belongs to Magdalen College; a lovely haunt, sequestered and idyllic, dedicated for all time to the memory of the editor of the Spectator. It is completely circular, bordered with a double row of overarching trees. Here, perhaps, he composed those Latin verses which won him such distinction at the University, and brought the first whisper of fame to one who was soon to be one of the animating spirits of the age. The list of literary celebrities that Oxford has produced is so extensive that it would be impossible to enumerate them. Beginning with Chaucer, whom Warton, at least, claims to have been an Oxford man, and embracing Kingsley, Ruskin, and Froude in our own day, what a gulf of time is spanned and illuminated by such names as More, Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh, Locke, Addison, Steele, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon, Shelley, Southey! Only a few names these in that great roll call, the pride of the English-speaking race. We had yet to admire Balliol, one of the oldest of the colleges, with a fine, modern chapel, and whose graduates are noted for the extreme purity of their English; Queen's College, Trinity, Exeter, with its splendid frontage on the west; and New College, whose chapel, hall, cloisters, groined gateways, and even some original doors remain as they came from the hand of their master architect, William Wykeham, five hundred years ago! Merton College is situated at the south of High street, and was founded by Walter Merton in the 13th century. It retains the original chapel and part of the other buildings erected by him. He was also the originator of the college system, in something like its present form, and fixed the University on the site it now occupies. The colleges were of course founded at various periods, from the 13th century to the 18th, and fourteen out of the twenty date from before the Reformation. The only modern one is Keble Col |