EVENING-Engraving by Elbridge Kingsley after the painting by Tryon. WTRYON 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 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 unique perspective of college buildone, once living personalities that ings, domes, and towers. It is one helped to shape and mold the desti- thousand yards in length, and contains nies of England, or were themselves part of the buildings of Magdalen, borne onward by the irresistible tide of Queen's, All Souls', and University colher progress. leges, and St. Mary's and All Saints' churches. King Alfred the Great, fostering the first germs of its student life; Canute in Parliament; William the Conqueror, thundering at its gates; Stephen and Henry II., struggling for the crown; the Empress Maud, flitting by night from its shelter; Wycliffe, raising his voice in righteous indignation against the corruptions of the dral church of Oxford), and its ex [Copyright, 1896, by GEORGE W. CABLE. All rights reserved.] Parallel to it is Broad street, in which are situated Balliol, Trinity, and Exeter colleges, and close by are the Academic schools, the Bodleian library, and picture gallery. Christchurch College, famous for its magnificent hall picture gallery, its chapel (the cathe 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. Leaving the hall, we found our way to Christchurch meadows, opposite to which are moored the skiffs, and boats, and the University barge. stroll through the famous broad walk, which is bordered on either side by magnificent old oaks that have seen 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 "TOM" TOWER, CHRISTCHURCH COLLEGE. 47 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 |