Chapter IV: The River Thames and London (1)

The Thames Head--Cotswold Hills--Seven
Springs--Cirencester--Cheltenham--Sudeley
Castle--Chavenage--Shifford--Lechlade--Stanton Harcourt--Cumnor
Hall--Fair Rosamond--Godstow Nunnery--Oxford--Oxford
Colleges--Christ Church--Corpus Christi--Merton--Oriel--All
Souls--University--Queen's--Magdalen--Brasenose--New
College--Radcliffe Library--Bodleian
Library--Lincoln--Exeter--Wadham--Keble--Trinity--Balliol--St.
John's--Pembroke--Oxford Churches--Oxford Castle--Carfax
Conduit--Banbury--Broughton
Castle--Woodstock--Marlborough--Blenheim--Minster
Lovel--Bicester--Eynsham--Abingdon--Radley--Bacon, Rich, and
Holt--Clifton Hampden--Caversham--Reading--Maidenhead--Bisham
Abbey--Vicar of Bray--Eton College--Windsor Castle--Magna Charta
Island--Cowey Stakes--Ditton--Twickenham--London--Fire
Monument--St. Paul's Cathedral--Westminster Abbey--The
Tower--Lollards and Lambeth--Bow Church--St.
Bride's--Whitehall--Horse Guards--St. James Palace--Buckingham
Palace--Kensington Palace--Houses of Parliament--Hyde Park--Marble
Arch--Albert Memorial--South Kensington Museum--Royal
Exchange--Bank of England--Mansion House--Inns of Court--British
Museum--Some London Scenes--The Underground Railway--Holland
House--Greenwich--Tilbury Fort--The Thames Mouth.

THE THAMES HEAD.

The river Thames is the largest and most important river in England, and carries the greatest commerce in the world. From the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire it flows to the eastward past London, and after a course of two hundred and twenty miles empties into the North Sea. The confluence of many small streams draining the Cotswolds makes the Thames, but its traditional source, or "The Thames Head," is in Trewsbury Mead, about three miles from Cirencester, and at an elevation of three hundred and seventy-six feet above the sea-level. The waters of the infant stream are at once pressed into service for pumping into the higher levels of a canal, which pierces the Cotswolds by a long tunnel, and connects the Thames with the Severn River, flowing along their western base. It receives many tiny rivulets that swell its current, until at Cricklade the most ambitious of these affluents joins it, and even lays claim to be the original stream. This is the Churn, rising at the "Seven Springs," about three miles from Cheltenham, and also on the slope of the Cotswolds. The Churn claims the honor because it is twenty miles long, while the Thames down to Cricklade measures only ten miles. But they come together affectionately, and journey on through rich meadows much like other streams, until the clear waters have acquired sufficient dignity to turn a mill. Cirencester (pronounced Cisseter), which thus has the honor of being a near neighbor of the Thames Head, is an ancient town, occupying the site of the Roman city of Corinium, and is known as the "metropolis of the Cotswolds." Here four great Roman roads met, and among the many Roman remains it has is part of the ruins of an amphitheatre. It was a famous stronghold before the Saxons came to England, and Polydorus tells how one Gormund, an African prince, in the dim ages of the past, besieged it for seven long years. Then he bethought him that if he could only set fire to the thatched roofs of the houses he could in the commotion that would follow force an entrance. So he set his troops at work catching sparrows, and when many were caught fastened combustibles under their tails and let them loose. The poor birds flew straight to their nests under the thatches, set them in a blaze, and while the people were busy putting out the fires Gormund got into the town. In memory of this it was afterwards called the "City of Sparrows." The Normans built a strong castle here, and Stephen destroyed it. The castle was rebuilt, and suffered the usual fate in the successive civil wars, and in the Revolution of 1688 the first bloodshed was at Cirencester. It had a magnificent abbey, built for the Black Canons in the twelfth century, and ruled by a mitred abbot who had a seat in Parliament. A fine gateway of this abbey remains, and also the beautiful church with its pretty tower. It is known now as the parish church of St. John, and has been thoroughly restored. Within are the monuments of the Bathurst family, whose seat at Oakley Park, near the town, has some charming scenery. Pope's Seat, a favorite resort of the poet, is also in the park. Cheltenham, near which is the "Seven Springs," the source of the Churn, is a popular watering-place, with the Earl of Eldon's seat at Stowell Park not far away. Here in 1864 a Roman villa was discovered, which has been entirely excavated. It has twenty chambers communicating with a long corridor, and there are several elegant tessellated pavements, while the walls are still standing to a height of four feet. Two temples have also been found in the immediate neighborhood. Substantial buildings have been erected to protect these precious remains from the weather.

SUDELEY CASTLE AND CHAVENAGE.

In the Cotswolds is the castle of Sudeley, its ruins being in rather good preservation. It was an extensive work, built in the reign of Henry VI., and was destroyed in the Civil Wars; it was a famous place in the olden time, and was regarded as one of the most magnificent castles in England when Queen Elizabeth made her celebrated progress thither in 1592. After the death of Henry VIII., his queen, Catharine Parr, married Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and she died and was buried in this castle: it is related that her leaden coffin was exhumed in 1782, two hundred and eighty years after her death, and the remains were found in excellent preservation. Among the records of the castle is a manuscript stating that Catharine Parr was told by an astrologer who calculated her nativity that she was born to sit in the "highest state of imperial majesty," and that she had all the eminent stars and planets in her house: this worked such lofty conceit in the lady that "her mother could never make her sew or do any small work, saying her hands were ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and thimbles." Near Tatbury, and also in the Cotswolds, is the source of the classic river Avon, and north-west of the town is the fine Elizabethan mansion of Chavenage, with its attractive hall and chapel. The original furniture, armor, and weapons are still preserved. This was the old manor-house of the family of Stephens, and Nathaniel represented Gloucestershire in Parliament at the time of the conviction of Charles I.: it is related that he was only persuaded to agree to the condemnation by the impetuous Ireton, who came there and sat up all night in urgent argument "to whet his almost blunted purpose." Stephens died in May, 1649, expressing regret for having participated in the execution of his sovereign. We are further told in the traditions of the house that when all the relatives were assembled for the funeral, and the courtyard was crowded with equipages, another coach, gorgeously ornamented and drawn by black horses, solemnly approached the porch: when it halted, the door opened, and, clad in his shroud, the shade of Stephens glided into the carriage; the door was closed by an unseen hand, and the coach moved off, the driver being a beheaded man, arrayed in royal vestments and wearing the insignia of the Star and Garter. Passing the gateway of the courtyard, the equipage vanished in flames. Tradition maintains also that every lord of Chavenage dying in the manor-house since has departed in the same awful manner.

The Thames flows on after its junction with the Churn, and receives other pretty streams, all coming out of the Cotswolds. The Coln and the Leche, coming in near Lechlade, swell its waters sufficiently to make it navigable for barges, and the river sets up a towing-path, for here the canal from the Severn joins it. The river passes in solitude out of Gloucestershire, and then for miles becomes the boundary between Oxfordshire on the north and Berkshire on the south. The canal has been almost superseded by the railway, so that passing barges are rare, but the towing-path and the locks remain, with an occasional rustic dam thrown across the gradually widening river. In this almost deserted region is the isolated hamlet of Shifford, where King Alfred held a parliament a thousand years ago. Near it is the New Bridge, a solid structure, but the oldest bridge that crosses the Thames, for it was "new" just six hundred years ago. The Thames then receives the Windrush and the Evenlode, and it passes over frequent weirs that have become miniature rapids, yet not too dangerous for an expert oarsman to guide his boat through safely. Thus the famous river comes to Bablock Hythe Ferry, and at once enters an historic region.

STANTON HARCOURT AND CUMNOR HALL.

A short distance from the ferry in Oxfordshire is Stanton Harcourt, with its three upright sandstones, "the Devil's Coits," supposed to have been put there to commemorate a battle between the Saxons and the Britons more than twelve centuries ago. The village gets its name from the large and ancient mansion of the Harcourts, of which, however, but little remains. Pope passed the greater part of two summers in the deserted house in a tower that bears his name, and where he wrote the fifth volume of his translation of Homer in the topmost room: he recorded the fact on a pane of glass in the window in 1718, and this pane has been carefully preserved. The kitchen of the strange old house still remains, and is a remarkable one, being described as "either a kitchen within a chimney or a kitchen without one." In the lower part this kitchen is a large square room; above it is octangular and ascends like a tower, the fires being made against the walls, and the smoke climbing up them until it reaches the conical apex, where it goes out of loopholes on any side according to the wind. The distance from the floor to the apex is about sixty feet, and the interior is thickly coated with soot. The fireplaces are large enough to roast an ox whole.

Not far from the ferry, in Berkshire, is the ancient manor-house of Cumnor Hall, sacred to the melancholy memory of poor Amy Robsart. She was the wife of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and when his ambition led him to seek Queen Elizabeth's hand it was necessary to get her out of the way. So he sent Amy to Cumnor, where his servant Anthony Forster lived. At first poison was tried, but she suspected it, and would not take the potion. Then, sending all the people away, Sir Richard Varney and Forster, with another man, strangled her, and afterwards threw her down stairs, breaking her neck. It was at first given out that poor Amy had fallen by accident and killed herself, but people began to suspect differently, and the third party to the murder, being arrested for a felony and threatening to tell, was privately made away with in prison by Leicester's orders. Both Varney and Forster became melancholy before their deaths, and finally a kinswoman of the earl, on her dying bed, told the whole story. The earl had Amy buried with great pomp at Oxford, but it is recorded that the chaplain by accident "tripped once or twice in his speech by recommending to their memories that virtuous lady so pitifully _murdered_, instead of saying pitifully _slain_." Sir Walter Scott has woven her sad yet romantic story into his tale of _Kenilworth_; and to prove how ambition overleaps itself, we find Lord Burghley, among other reasons which he urged upon the queen why she should not marry Leicester, saying that "he is infamed by the murder of his wife." The queen remained a virgin sovereign, and Leicester's crime availed only to blacken his character.

FAIR ROSAMOND.

The Thames flows on past the wooded glades of Wytham Abbey, and then revives the memory of Fair Rosamond as it skirts the scanty ruins of Godstow Nunnery. This religious house upon the river-bank was founded in the reign of Henry I., and the ruins are some remains of the walls and of a small chapter-house in which Rosamond's corpse was deposited. It was at Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, then a royal palace, that in the twelfth century Henry II. built "Fair Rosamond's Bower" for his charmer, who was the daughter of Lord Clifford. This bower was surrounded by a labyrinth. Queen Eleanor, whom the king had married only from ambitious motives, was much older than he, and he had two sons by Rosamond, whom he is said to have first met at Godstow Nunnery. The bower consisted of arched vaults underground. There are various legends of the discovery of Rosamond by Eleanor, the most popular being that the queen discovered the ball of silk the king used to thread the maze of the labyrinth, and following it found the door and entered the bower. She is said to have ill-treated and even poisoned Rosamond, but the belief now is that Rosamond retired to the nunnery from sorrow at the ultimate defection of her royal lover, and did not die for several years. The story has been the favorite theme of the poets, and we are told that her body was buried in the nunnery, and wax lights placed around the tomb and kept continually burning. Subsequently, her remains were reinterred in the chapter-house, with a Latin inscription, which is thus translated:

"This tomb doth here enclose the world's most beauteous rose--
Rose passing sweet erewhile, now naught but odor vile."

OXFORD.

As we float along the quiet Thames the stately towers and domes of the university city of Oxford come in sight, and appear to suddenly rise from behind a green railway embankment. Here the Cherwell flows along the Christ Church meadows to join the great river, and we pause at the ancient Ousenford--or the ford over the Ouse or Water--a name which time has changed to Oxford. The origin of the famous university is involved in obscurity. The city is mentioned as the scene of important political and military events from the time of King Alfred, but the first undisputed evidence that it was a seat of learning dates from the twelfth century. Religious houses existed there in earlier years, and to these schools were attached for the education of the clergy. From these schools sprang the secular institutions that finally developed into colleges, and common interest led to the association from which ultimately came the university. The first known application of the word to this association occurs in a statute of King John. In the thirteenth century there were three thousand students at Oxford, and Henry III. granted the university its first charter. In those early times the university grew in wealth and numbers, and intense hostility was developed between the students and townspeople, leading to the quarrels between "Town and Gown" that existed for centuries, and caused frequent riots and bloodshed. A penance for one of these disturbances, which occurred in 1355 and sacrificed several lives, continued to be kept until 1825. The religious troubles in Henry VIII.'s time reduced the students to barely one thousand, but a small part of whom attended the colleges, so that in 1546 only thirteen degrees were conferred. In 1603 the university was given representation in Parliament; it was loyal to Charles I., and melted its plate to assist him, so that after his downfall it was plundered, and almost ceased to have an existence as an institution of learning; it has since had a quiet and generally prosperous history. The university comprises twenty-one colleges, the oldest being University College, founded in 1249, and the youngest the Keble Memorial College, founded in 1870. University College, according to tradition, represents a school founded by King Alfred in 872, and it celebrated its millennial anniversary in 1872. Balliol College, founded between 1263 and 1268, admits no one who claims any privilege on account of rank or wealth, and is regarded as having perhaps the highest standard of scholarship at Oxford. Christ Church College is the most extensive in buildings, numbers, and endowments, and is a cathedral establishment as well as college. There are now about eighty-five hundred members of the university and twenty-five hundred undergraduates. The wealth of some of the colleges is enormous, and they are said to own altogether nearly two hundred thousand acres of land in different parts of the kingdom, and to have about $2,100,000 annual revenues, of which they expend not over $1,500,000, the remainder accumulating. They also have in their gift four hundred and forty-four benefices, with an annual income of $950,000. It costs a student about $1200 to $1500 a year to live at Oxford, and about $325 in university and college fees from matriculation to graduation, when he gets his degree of B.A., or, if inattentive, fails to pass the examination, and, in Oxford parlance, is said to be "plucked."

THE OXFORD COLLEGES.

The enumeration of the colleges which make up the university will naturally begin with the greatest, Christ Church, founded by Cardinal Wolsey, of which the principal façade extends four hundred feet along St. Aldate's Street, and has a noble gateway in the centre surmounted by a six-sided tower with a dome-like roof. Here hangs the great bell of Oxford, "Old Tom," weighing seventeen thousand pounds, which every night, just after nine o'clock, strikes one hundred and one strokes, said to be in remembrance of the number of members the college had at its foundation. Wolsey's statue stands in the gateway which leads into the great quadrangle, called by the students, for short, "Tom Quad." Here are the lodgings of the dean and canons, and also the Great Hall, the finest in Oxford, and the room where the sovereign is received whenever visiting the city. The ancient kitchen adjoins the hall, and near by is the entrance to the cathedral, which has been restored, and the ancient cloisters. From the buildings a meadow extends down to the rivers, the Cherwell on the left and the Thames (here called the Isis) on the right, which join at the lower part of the meadow. Beautiful walks are laid out upon it, including the famous Oxford promenade, the Broad Walk, a stately avenue of elms bordering one side of the meadow. Here, on the afternoon of Show Sunday, which comes immediately before Commemoration Day, nearly all the members of the university and the students, in academic costume, make a promenade, presenting an animated scene.

Corpus Christi College was founded by Bishop Fox of Winchester in 1516, and its quadrangle, which remains much as at the foundation, contains the founder's statue, and also a remarkable dial, in the centre of which is a perpetual calendar. This college is not very marked in architecture. It stands at the back of Christ Church, and adjoining it is Merton College, founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton. His idea was to forbid the students following in after life any other pursuit than that of parish priest. The chapel of Merton is one of the finest in Oxford, and its massive tower is a city landmark. The entrance-gateway, surmounted by a sculptured representation of St. John the Baptist, is attractive, and the two college quadrangles are picturesque, the "Mob Quad," or library quadrangle, being five hundred years old, with the Treasury and its high-pitched ashlar roof and dormer windows above one of the entrance-passages. St. Alban Hall, built about 1230, adjoins Merton, and is a Gothic structure with a curious old bell-tower. Oriel College stands opposite Corpus Christi, but the ancient buildings of the foundation in 1324-26 have all been superseded by comparatively modern structures of the seventeenth century: though without any striking architectural merits, the hall and chapel of this college are extremely picturesque. Its fame is not so much from its buildings as from some of its fellows, Whately, Keble, Wilberforce, Newman, Pusey, and Arnold having been among them. St. Mary's Hall, an offshoot founded in the fourteenth century, stands near this college. All Souls College is on the High Street, and was founded in 1437, its buildings being, however, modern, excepting one quadrangle. In the chapel is a magnificent reredos, presented by Lord Bathurst, who was a fellow of All Souls, and containing figures representing most of the fellows of his time: in the library are Wren's original designs for building St. Paul's. This college was founded by Archbishop Chichele for "the hele of his soul" and of the souls of all those who perished in the French wars of King Henry V.; hence its name. We are told that the good archbishop was much troubled where to locate his college, and there appeared to him in a dream a "right godly personage," who advised him to build it on the High Street, and at a certain spot where he would be sure in digging to find a "mallard, imprisoned but well fattened, in the sewer." He hesitated, but all whom he consulted advised him to make the trial, and accordingly, on a fixed day after mass, with due solemnity the digging began. They had not dug long, the story relates, before they heard "amid the earth horrid strugglings and flutterings and violent quackings of the distressed mallard." When he was brought out he was as big as an ostrich, and "much wonder was thereat, for the lycke had not been seen in this londe nor in onie odir." The Festival of the Mallard was long held in commemoration of this event, at which was sung the "Merry Song of the All Souls Mallard," beginning--

"Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon,
Let other hungry mortals gape on,
And on the bones their stomach fill hard;
But let All Souls men have their mallard.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a wopping, wopping mallard!"

While the festival has passed away, the song is still sung at Oxford, and the tale has given rise to much literature, there having been vigorous contests waged over the authenticity of the mallard.

University College, also on the High Street, though the earliest founded, now has no building older than the seventeenth century. It has an imposing Gothic front with two tower-gateways, while the recently constructed New Building is an elegant structure erected in 1850. Queen's College, founded in 1341 by Queen Philippa's confessor, and hence its name, is a modern building by Wren and his pupils. St. Edmund Hall, opposite Queen's College, is a plain building, but with magnificent ivy on its walls.

MAGDALEN AND BRASENOSE.

Bishop Patten of Winchester, who was surnamed Waynflete, founded Magdalen College in 1458. It stands by the side of the Cherwell, and its graceful tower, nearly four hundred years old, rises one hundred and forty-five feet--one of the most beautiful constructions in Oxford. Its quadrangles are fine, especially the one known as the Cloisters, which remains much as it was in the time of the founder, and is ornamented with rude sandstone statues erected in honor of a visit from King James I. In accordance with ancient custom, on the morning of the first of May, just as five o'clock strikes, a solemn Te Deum is sung on the top of Magdalen Tower, where the choristers assemble in surplices and with uncovered heads. When it closes the crowd on the ground below give out discordant blasts from myriads of tin horns, but the Magdalen chime of bells, said to be "the most tunable and melodious ring of bells in all these parts and beyond," soon drowns the discord, and gives a glad welcome to the opening of spring. This custom survives from the time of Henry VII., and the produce of two acres of land given to the college by that king is used to pay for a feast for the choristers, spread later in the day in the college hall. The college has a meadow and small deer-park attached, known as the Magdalen Walks, and encircled by the arms of the Cherwell, while avenues of trees along raised dykes intersect it. The avenue on the north side of this meadow is known as "Addison's Walk," and was much frequented by him when at this college. The little deer-park, a secluded spot, abounds with magnificent elms. It was at Magdalen that Wolsey was educated, being known as the "Boy Bachelor," as he got his B.A. degree at the early age of fifteen. The Botanic Garden is opposite Magdalen College, having a fine gateway with statues of Charles I. and II. Magdalen College School, a modern building, but an organization coeval with the college, is a short distance to the westward.

The King's Hall, commonly known as Brasenose College, and over the entrance of which is a prominent brazen nose, still retains its chief buildings as originally founded by the Bishop of Lincoln and Sir Richard Sutton in 1512. The entrance-tower was recently restored, and the rooms occupied by Bishop Heber, who was a member of this college, are still pointed out, with their windows looking upon a large horse-chestnut tree in the adjoining Exeter Gardens. This famous college is said to occupy the spot where King Alfred's palace stood, and hence its name of the King's Hall, which the king in his laws styled his palace. The part of the palace which was used for the brew-house, or the _brasinium_, afterwards became the college, and as early as Edward I. this found ocular demonstration by the fixing of a brazen nose upon the gate. This is also a relic of Friar Bacon's brazen head. We are told that this famous friar, who lived at Oxford in the thirteenth century, became convinced, "after great study," that if he should succeed in making a head of brass which could speak, "he might be able to surround all England with a wall of brass." So, with the assistance of another friar and the devil, he went to work and accomplished it, but with the drawback that the brazen head when finished was "warranted to speak in the course of one month," but it was uncertain just when it would speak, and "if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labor would be lost." They watched it three weeks, but fatigue overmastered them, and Bacon set his servant on watch, with orders to awaken them if the head should speak. At the end of one half hour the fellow heard the head say, "Time is;" at the end of another, "Time was;" and at the end of a third half hour, "Time's past," when down fell the head with a tremendous crash. The blockhead thought his master would be angry if disturbed by such trifles, and this ended the experiment with the brazen head. Yet Friar Bacon was a much wiser man than would be supposed by those who only know him from this tale. He was esteemed the most learned man ever at the great university, and it is considered doubtful if any there in later years surpassed him.

NEW COLLEGE AND RADCLIFFE LIBRARY.

William of Wykeham founded the New College, or the College of St. Mary Winton, in 1380. It has a noble entrance, and in a niche above the gateway is the Virgin, to whom an angel and the founder are addressing themselves in prayer. The chapel has a massive detached bell-tower, and in its windows are some fine stained glass, while the silver staff of William of Wykeham is still preserved there. The cloisters are extensive and picturesque, the ribbed roof resembling the bottom of a boat, while the restored hall has a fine oaken roof. The New College gardens are enclosed on three sides by the ancient walls of the city, which are well preserved, and the enclosure is one of the most beautiful in Oxford. Through a door in a corner of the gardens there is a passageway opening out of one of the bastions of the old walls into a strip of ground called the "Slype," where a fine view is had of the bastions, with the college bell-tower and chapel behind them. In making a recent addition to the buildings of this college on the edge of the "Slype," the workmen in digging for the foundations discovered the remains of a mammoth.

New College Lane leads to Radcliffe Square, in the centre of which is located the handsome Radcliffe Library, with colleges, churches, and schools all around the square. Dr. Radcliffe, who was the court-physician of King William III. and Queen Anne, founded this library, which is in a handsome rotunda surmounted by a dome on an octagonal base. The structure, which is one hundred feet in diameter, rises to a height of one hundred and forty feet, and from the top there is a fine view of the city. To the northward, at a short distance, are the Schools, a quadrangular building, now chiefly occupied by the famous Bodleian Library. From Radcliffe Square the entrance is through a vaulted passage, the central gate-tower being a remarkable example of the combination of the five orders of architecture piled one above the other. In this building, on the lower floor, the public examinations of the candidates for degrees are held, while above is the library which Sir Thomas Bodley founded in the sixteenth century, and which contains three hundred thousand volumes, including many ancient and highly-prized works in print and manuscript.

Lincoln College was founded by Richard Flemyng, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1427. Here John Wesley was a member, and the pulpit from which he preached is still kept as a precious relic. Opposite to Lincoln is Jesus College, founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1571, though others assisted; it was intended to be exclusively for Welshmen, but this has since been changed. The chapel has a double chancel. Alongside of Lincoln is Exeter College, founded by Walter Stapleton of Exeter in 1314: this is one of the largest colleges, the greater part of the buildings being modern; they are among the finest in Oxford. The hall, restored in the present century, has a high-pitched timber roof, while the chapel, which is one of the most remarkable edifices in Oxford, has a thin, small spire that is conspicuous from a great distance. The Ashmolean Museum adjoins Exeter College, and next to this is the Sheldonian Theatre, built in 1669 by Archbishop Sheldon of Canterbury, where the annual commemoration is held and the honorary degrees are conferred. Not far away is Wadham College, founded in 1613 by Nicholas Wadham and Dorothy his wife. It has excellent buildings and a most beautiful garden. There is a new Museum of Natural History in the park near by, and also Keble College, founded in 1868 as a memorial of Rev. John Keble, the author of the _Christian Year_. Its buildings are of variegated brick, the chapel being the loftiest, most costly, and finest of its style in Oxford. The building is a perfect glare of coloring.

Trinity College was founded in 1554 by Sir Thomas Pope. Its tower and chapel are Grecian, and the chapel has a most beautiful carved screen and altarpiece. The library contains a chalice that once belonged to St. Alban's Abbey. Kettel Hall, now a private dwelling, is a picturesque building in front of Trinity. On Broad Street, where Trinity stands, is also Balliol College, founded in the thirteenth century by John Balliol. None of the existing buildings are earlier than the fifteenth century, while the south front, with its massive tower, has just been rebuilt. It was here that the martyrs Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were burned. A little farther along the same street is St. John's College, which Sir Thomas White founded in 1557. It is fronted by a terrace planted with fine elms. Its quadrangles and cloisters are much admired, especially the venerable oriel windows and quaint stone gables of the library. St. John's gardens are regarded as among the most attractive in Oxford. Opposite St. John's are the university galleries, with their display of the Pomfret Marbles and Raphael and Michel Angelo's paintings and drawings, and behind this building is Worcester College, founded in 1714 by Sir Thomas Cookes. Its gardens contain a lake. Pembroke College is opposite Christ Church, and was founded in 1624 in honor of the Earl of Pembroke, then the chancellor of the university. While its entrance-gateway and hall, recently built, are fine, the other buildings are not attractive. The chief remembrance of Pembroke is of Dr. Samuel Johnson, who occupied apartments over the original gateway, but was compelled by poverty to leave the college before taking his degree. This completes the description of the colleges, halls, and schools of the great university, which presents an array of institutions of learning unrivalled in any part of the world, and of which Englishmen are justly proud.

OXFORD CHURCHES AND CASTLE.

There are some fine churches in Oxford, notably the university church of St. Mary the Virgin, conspicuous from its Decorated spire rising one hundred and eighty-eight feet, which is a memorial of Queen Eleanor of Castile. A short distance to the westward is All Saints Church. Fronting Christ Church is St. Aldate's Church, also with a lofty spire and Decorated tower. Like most English towns, Oxford had a castle, but its remains are now reduced to a solitary tower, a few fragments of wall, and a high mound. This castle has long been the property of Christ Church, and was used for a prison, whence Cranmer and his fellow-martyrs went to the stake. The old tower was built in the days of William Rufus. Beneath the ruins is a crypt known as Maud's Chapel. In the centre of the mound is an octagonal vaulted chamber, approached by a long flight of steps, and containing a well. It was in this castle that the empress Maud was besieged by King Stephen in 1141, but escaped in the night, the castle surrendering next morning. The ground was covered with snow at the time, and the empress, with three attendants, clad in white, passed unnoticed through the lines of the besiegers and crossed the Thames on the ice. Just before this Maud escaped from the castle of Devizes as a dead body drawn on a hearse. The castle of Oxford has been in a dilapidated condition since Edward III.'s time. As an evidence of the change of opinion, the Martyrs' Memorial stands on St. Giles Street in honor of the martyrs who found the old tower of the castle their prison-house until the bigots of that day were ready to burn them at the stake in front of Balliol College.

The intersection of the four principal streets of old Oxford makes what is called the Carfax (a word derived from _quatre voies_), and here in the olden time stood a picturesque conduit. Conduits in former years were ornaments in many English towns, and some of them still remain in their original locations. This conduit, which stood in the way of traffic, was presented as a nuisance as long ago as the time of Laud, and Lord Harcourt in 1787 removed it to his park at Nuneham. One of the curious changes that have come over some Oxford landmarks is related of a group of statues in the entrance to the Schools, where the Bodleian Library is located. This group represents Mater Academia giving a book to King James I., sitting in his chair of state, while winged Fame trumpets the gift throughout the world. When the king saw this, embellished with appropriate mottoes, all of which were gloriously gilt, the ancient historian says he exclaimed, "By my soul! this is too glorious for Jeamy," and caused the gilded mottoes to be "whited out." Originally, the statue of the king held a sceptre in his right hand, and a book, commonly taken for the Bible, in his left. Both have disappeared. The sceptre is said to have fallen upon the passing of the Reform Bill, and the book came down about the time of the abolition of the University Tests. The eastern part of Oxford is meadow-and garden-land, extending down to the two famous rivers which unite just below the town, and along whose shores the racing-boats in which the students take so much interest are moored. Pretty bridges span both streams, and we follow down the Thames again, skirting along its picturesque shores past Iffley, with its romantic old mill and the ancient church with its square tower rising behind, well-known landmarks that are so familiar to boating-men, till we come to Nuneham Park, with the old Carfax Conduit set on an eminence, and Blenheim Woods looming up in the background, as we look towards Oxford.

The church of Iffley is beautifully situated on the Thames, but little is known of its origin or history. It was in existence in 1189, when King Henry II. died, and its architecture indicates that it could scarcely have been built much before that time. It is an unusually good specimen of the Norman style, and is in wonderful preservation, considering its age. This church is peculiarly rich in its doorways, having three of great value, and each differing from the other. The southern doorway is enriched with sculptured flowers, a style that is almost unique in Norman architecture; it also contains rudely carved imitations of Roman centaurs. On the south side of the church is an ancient cross and one of the most venerable yew trees in the kingdom, in the trunk of which time has made a hollow where a man could easily conceal himself. There is not on all the Thames a scene more loved by artists than that at Iffley, with its old mill and church embosomed in foliage, and having an occasional fisherman lazily angling in the smooth waters before them, while the Oxford oarsmen, some in fancy costumes, paddle by.

BANBURY AND BROUGHTON.

If we go up the Cherwell towards the northern part of Oxfordshire, a brief visit can be paid to the famous town of Banbury, noted for its "castle, cross, and cakes." This was an ancient Roman station, and the amphitheatre still exists just out of town. The castle was built in the twelfth century, and many conflicts raged around it. Queen Elizabeth granted the castle to Lord Saye and Sele, and one of his successors first organized the revolt against Charles I. at his neighboring mansion of Broughton. Banbury was a great Puritan stronghold, and it is related that when a book descriptive of Banbury was being printed in those days, it contained a sentence describing Banbury as remarkable for its cheese, cakes, and ale. One Camden, looking at the press while the sheet was being printed, thought this too light an expression, and changed the word _ale_ into _zeal_, so that the town became noted for Banbury zeal as well as cheese and cakes. The old castle, after standing several desperate sieges, was demolished by the Puritans, and nothing now remains excepting the moat and a small remnant of wall on which a cottage has been built. The Banbury cakes are mentioned as early as 1686, and they are still in high repute, being sent to all parts of the world. The Banbury cheese of which Shakespeare wrote is no longer made. The Banbury cross has been immortalized in nursery-rhymes, but it was taken down by the Puritans. The rhyme tells the little folk.

"Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady ride on a white horse;
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes."

Diligent research has developed some important information about this fine lady. It appears that in "the Second Edward's reign a knight of much renown, yclept Lord Herbert, chanced to live near famous Banbury town." Now, this knight had one son left, and "fearless and brave was he; and it raised the pride in the father's heart his gallant son to see." The poetic tale goes on to relate "that near Lord Herbert's ancient hall proud Banbury Castle stood, within the noble walls of which dwelt a maiden young and good;" with much more to the same effect. There is the usual result: the knight loves the lady, has a mortal combat with the rival, and nearly loses his life. The fair lady nurses him with care, but as he gradually sinks she loses hope and pines away. A holy monk lived in the castle, and, noticing her despondency, offers to effect a cure. He prescribes: "To-morrow, at the midnight hour, go to the cross alone: for Edward's rash and hasty deed perhaps thou mayst atone." She goes there, walks around the cross, and Edward is cured. Then all rejoice, and a festival is ordered, whereat,

"Upon a milk-white steed, a lady doth appear:
By all she's welcomed lustily in one tremendous cheer:
With rings of brilliant lustre her fingers are bedecked,
And bells upon her palfrey hung to give the whole effect."

A noble cavalier rode beside her, and the result has been

"That even in the present time the custom's not forgot;
But few there are who know the tale connected with the spot,
Though to each baby in the land the nursery-rhymes are told
About the lady robed in white and Banbury Cross of old."

Broughton Castle is a fine castellated mansion a short distance south-west of Banbury. It dates from the Elizabethan era, and its owner, Viscount Saye and Sele, in Charles I.'s reign, thinking that his services were not sufficiently rewarded, took the side of Parliament, in which his son represented Banbury. When the king dissolved Parliament, it assembled clandestinely in Broughton Castle. Here the Parliamentary leaders met in a room with thick walls, so that no sounds could escape. Here also were raised the earliest troops for the Parliament, and the "Blue-coats" of the Sayes were conspicuous at the battle of Edgehill, which was fought only a few miles away. Immediately afterwards King Charles besieged Broughton Castle, captured and plundered it. This famous old building witnessed in this way the earliest steps that led to the English Revolution, and it is kept in quite good preservation. Subsequently, when Oliver Cromwell became the leader of the Parliamentary party, he held his Parliament in Banbury at the Roebuck Inn, a fine piece of architecture, with a great window that lights up one of the best rooms in England of the earlier days of the Elizabethan era. A low door leads from the courtyard to this noted council-chamber where Cromwell held his Parliament, and it remains in much the same condition as then.

Through Oxfordshire is laid out one of those picturesque water-ways of the olden time--the Berks and Wilts Canal--which, though almost superseded by the omnipresent railway, still exists to furnish pretty scenery with its shady towing-paths and rustic swing-bridges. Almost the only traffic that remains to this canal, which comes out upon the Thames near Oxford, is carrying timber. The growth of English timber is slow, but some is still produced by the process of thinning the woods so as to make shapely trees, for otherwise the tall trunks would force themselves up almost without spreading branches.

WOODSTOCK AND BLENHEIM.

Not far away from Oxford is the manor of Woodstock, where "Fair Rosamond's Bower" was built by King Henry II. This manor was an early residence of the kings of England, and Henry I. built a palace there, adding to it a vast park. Of this palace not a sign is now to be seen, but two sycamores have been planted to mark the spot. The poet Chaucer lived at Woodstock, and is supposed to have taken much of the descriptive scenery of his _Dream_ from the park. Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III., was born at Woodstock. Henry VII. enlarged the palace, and put his name upon the principal gate; and this gate-house was one of the prisons of the princess Elizabeth, where she was detained by her sister, Queen Mary. Elizabeth is said to have written with charcoal on a window-shutter of her apartment, in 1555, a brief poem lamenting her imprisonment. Her room had an arched roof formed of carved Irish oak and colored with blue and gold, and it was preserved until taken down by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. In the Civil War the palace was besieged, and after surrender, unlike most similar structures, escaped demolition. Cromwell allotted it to three persons, two of whom pulled down their portions for the sake of the stone. Charles II. appointed the Earl of Rochester gentleman of the bedchamber and comptroller of Woodstock Park, and it is said that he here scribbled upon the door of the bedchamber of the king the well-known mock epitaph:

"Here lies our sovereign lord, the king.
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one."

In Queen Anne's reign Woodstock was granted to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, for his eminent military services. The condition of the grant, which is still scrupulously performed, was that on August 2d in every year he and his heirs should present to the reigning monarch at Windsor Castle one stand of colors, with three fleurs-de-lis painted thereon. The estate was named Blenheim, after the little village on the Danube which was the scene of his greatest victory on August 2, 1704. Ten years later, the duchess Sarah took down the remains of the old palace of Woodstock, and Scott has woven its history into one of his later novels. Hardly any trace remains of old Woodstock, and the only ruin of interest is a curious chimney-shaft of the fourteenth century, which a probably inaccurate tradition says was part of the residence of the Black Prince.

Woodstock Park covers twenty-seven hundred acres, and is nearly twelve miles in circuit, abounding with fine trees and having an undulating surface, over which roam a large herd of deer and a number of kangaroos. When the manor was granted to the Duke of Marlborough, Parliament voted a sum of money to build him a palace "as a monument of his glorious actions." The park is entered through a fine Corinthian gateway, built by the duchess Sarah in memory of her husband the year after his death. A pretty stream of water, the river Glyme, with a lake, winds through a valley in front of the palace, and is crossed by a stately stone bridge with a centre arch of one hundred feet span. Not far from this bridge was Fair Rosamond's Bower, now marked by a wall; beyond the bridge, standing on the lawn, is the Marlborough Column, a fluted Corinthian pillar one hundred and thirty-four feet high, surmounted by the hero in Roman dress and triumphal attitude. This monument to the great duke has an account of his victories inscribed on one face of the pedestal, while on the others are the acts of Parliament passed in his behalf, and an abstract of the entail of his estates and honors upon the descendants of his daughters. Parliament voted $2,500,000 to build Blenheim Palace, to which the duke added $300,000 from his own resources. The duke died seventeen years after the palace was begun, leaving it unfinished. We are told that the trees in the park were planted according to the position of the troops at Blenheim. The architect of the palace was John Vanbrugh, of whom the satirical epitaph was written:

"Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee."

The palace is a massive structure, with spacious portals and lofty towers, and its principal front, which faces the north, extends three hundred and forty-eight feet from wing to wing, with a portico and flight of steps in the centre. The interior is very fine, with magnificently-painted ceilings, tapestries, statuary, and a rare collection of pictures. The tapestries represent Blenheim and other battles, and there are one hundred and twenty copies of famous masters, made by Teniers. A stately statue of Queen Anne stands in the library. There are costly collections of enamels, plaques, and miniatures; on the walls are huge paintings by Sir James Thornhill, one representing the great duke, in a blue cuirass, kneeling before Britannia, clad in white and holding a lance and wreath; Hercules and Mars stand by, and there are emblem-bearing females and the usual paraphernalia. We are told that Thornhill was paid for these at the rate of about six dollars per square yard. The duchess Sarah also poses in the collection as Minerva, wearing a yellow classic breastplate. Among other relics kept in the palace are Oliver Cromwell's teapot, another teapot presented by the Duc de Richelieu to Louis XIV., two bottles that belonged to Queen Anne, and some Roman and Grecian pottery. The great hall, which has the battle of Blenheim depicted on its ceiling, extends the entire height of the building; the library is one hundred and eighty-three feet long; and in the chapel, beneath a pompous marble monument, rest the great duke and his proud duchess Sarah, and their two sons, who died in early years. The pleasure-gardens extend over three hundred acres along the borders of the lake and river, and are very attractive. They contain the Temple of Health erected on the recovery of George III. from his illness, an aviary, a cascade elaborately constructed of large masses of rock, a fountain copied after one in Rome, and a temple of Diana. This great estate was the reward of the soldier whose glories were sung by Addison in his poem on the _Campaign_. Addison then lived in a garret up three pair of stairs over a small shop in the Haymarket, London, whither went the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get him to write the poem, and afterwards gave him a place worth $1000 a year as a reward. The Marlboroughs since have been almost too poor to keep up this magnificent estate in its proper style, for the family of Spencer-Churchill, which now holds the title, unlike most of the other great English houses, has not been blessed with a princely private fortune. Not far from Woodstock is Minster Lovel, near the village of Whitney. Some fragments of the house remain, and it has its tale of interest, like all these old houses. Lord Lovel was one of the supporters of the impostor Simnel against Henry VII., and his rebellion being defeated in the decisive battle at Stoke in Nottinghamshire, Lord Lovel escaped by unfrequented roads and arrived home at night. He was so disguised that he was only known by a single servant, on whose fidelity he could rely. Before daybreak he retired to a subterranean recess, of which this servant retained the key, and here he remained several months in safe concealment. The king confiscated the estate, however, and dispersed the household, so that the voluntary prisoner perished from hunger. During the last century, when this stately house was pulled down, the vault was discovered, with Lord Lovel seated in a chair as he had died. So completely had rubbish excluded the air that his dress, which was described as superb, and a prayer-book lying before him on the table, were entire, but soon after the admission of the air the body is said to have fallen into dust.

BICESTER AND EYNSHAM.

A pleasant and old-fashioned town, not far away from Oxford, is Bicester, whereof one part is known as the King's End and the other as the Market End. Here is the famous Bicester Priory, founded in the twelfth century through the influence of Thomas à Becket. It was intended for a prior and eleven canons, in imitation of Christ and his eleven disciples. The priory buildings remained for some time after the dissolution of the religious houses, but they gradually disappeared, and all that now exists is a small farm-house about forty feet long which formed part of the boundary-wall of the priory, and is supposed to have been a lodge for the accommodation of travellers. In the garden was a well of never-failing water held in high repute by pilgrims, and which now supplies a fish-pond. The priory and its estates have passed in regular succession through females from its founder, Gilbert Basset, to the Stanleys, and it is now one of the possessions of the Earl of Derby. Bicester is an excellent specimen of an ancient English market-town, and its curious block of market-buildings, occupied by at least twenty-five tenements, stands alone and clear in the marketplace. There are antique gables, one of the most youthful of which bears the date of 1698. On the top is a promenade used by the occupants in summer weather. In the neighboring village of Eynsham is said to be the stone coffin that once held Fair Rosamond's remains, but it has another occupant, one Alderman Fletcher having also been buried in it in 1826. Eynsham once had an abbey, of which still survives the shaft of a stone cross quaintly carved with the figures of saints. It is a relic probably of the thirteenth century, but nothing remains of the abbey beyond a few stones that may have belonged to it. It was near Eynsham, not very long ago, that a strange dark-green water-plant first made its appearance in the Thames, and spread so rapidly that it soon quite choked the navigation of the river, and from there soon extended almost all over the kingdom. The meadows and the rivers became practically all alike, a green expanse, in which from an eminence it was difficult to tell where the water-courses lay. This plant was called the "American weed," the allegation being that it came over in a cargo of timber from the St. Lawrence. It caused great consternation, but just when matters looked almost hopeless it gradually withered and died, bringing the navigation welcome relief.

ABINGDON AND RADLEY.