Chapter V (2)

The college buildings are in various styles of architecture, from the twelfth century down to the present time, most of them being built in form of a hollow square, the centre of the square being a large, pleasant grass plot, or quadrangle, upon which the students' windows opened. Entrance to these interiors or quadrangles is obtained through a Gothic or arched gateway, guarded by a porter in charge. The windows of the students' rooms were gay with many-colored flowers, musical with singing birds hung up in cages, while the interior of some that we glanced into differed but very little from those of Harvard University, each being fitted or decorated to suit the taste of the occupant.

In some of the old colleges, the rooms themselves were quaint and oddly-shaped as friars' cells; others large, luxurious, and airy. Nearly all were entered through a vestibule, and had an outer door of oak, or one painted in imitation of oak; and when this door is closed, the occupant is said to be "sporting his oak" which signifies that he is studying, busily engaged, and not at home to any one. There were certain quarters also more aristocratic than others, where young lordlings--who were distinguished by the gold in their hatbands from the untitled students--most did congregate. The streets and shops of Oxford indicated the composition of its population. You meet collegians in gowns and trencher caps, snuffy old professors, with their silk gowns flying out behind in the wind, young men in couples, young men in stunning outfits, others in natty costumes, others artistically got up, tradesmen's boys carrying bundles of merchandise, and washer or char women, in every direction in the vicinity of the colleges.

Splendid displays are made in the windows of tailors' and furnishing goods stores--boating uniforms, different articles of dress worn as badges, stunning neck-ties, splendidly got up dress boots, hats, gloves, museums of canes, sporting whips, cricket bats, and thousands of attractive novelties to induce students to invest loose cash, or do something more common, "run up a bill;" and if these bills are sometimes not paid till years afterwards, the prices charged for this species of credit are such as prove remunerative to the tradesmen, who lose much less than might be supposed, as men generally make it a matter of principle to pay their college debts.

The largest and most magnificent of the quadrangles is that of Christ Church College. It is two hundred and sixty-four feet by two hundred and sixty-one, and formed part of the original design of Wolsey, who founded this college. This noble quadrangle is entered through a great gate, known as Tom Gate, from the tower above it, which contains the great bell of that name, the Great Tom of Oxford, which weighs seventeen thousand pounds. I ascended the tower to see this big tocsin, which was exhibited to me with much pride by the porter, as being double the weight of the great bell in St. Paul's, in London, and upon our descending, was shown the rope by which it was rung, being assured that, notwithstanding the immense weight of metal, it was so hung that a very moderate pull would sound it. Curiosity tempted me, when the porter's back was turned, to give a smart tug at the rope, which swung invitingly towards my hand; and the pull elicited a great boom of bell metal above that sounded like a musical artillery discharge, and did not tend to render the custodian desirous of prolonging my visit at that part of the college.

The dining-hall of Christ Church College is a notable apartment, and one that all tourists visit; it is a noble hall, one hundred and thirteen feet by forty, and fifty feet in height. The roof is most beautifully carved oak, with armorial bearings, and decorations of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey, and was executed in 1529. Upon the walls hangs the splendid collection of original portraits, which is one of its most interesting features, many of them being works of great artists, and representations of those eminent in the history of the university. Here hangs Holbein's original portrait of King Henry VIII.,--from which all the representations of the bluff polygamist that we are accustomed to see are taken,--Queen Elizabeth's portrait, that of Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Fell, Marquis Wellesley, John Locke, and over a hundred others of "old swells, bishops, and lords chiefly, who have endowed the college in some way," as Tom Brown says.

Indeed, many of the most prominent men of English history have studied at Oxford--Sir Walter Raleigh, the Black Prince, Hampden, Butler, Addison, Wycliffe, Archbishop Laud, and statesmen, generals, judges, and authors without number. Long tables and benches are ranged each side of the room; upon a dais at its head, beneath the great bow window, and Harry VIII.'s picture, is a sort of privileged table, at which certain officers and more noble students dine on the fat of the land. Next comes the table of the "gentleman commoners," a trifle less luxuriously supplied, and at the foot of the hall "the commoners," whose pewter mugs and the marked difference in the style of their table furniture indicate the distinctions of title, wealth, and poor gentlemen.

After a peep at the big kitchen of this college, which has been but slightly altered since the building was erected, and which itself was the first one built by Wolsey in his college, we turned our steps to that grand collection of literary wealth--the Bodleian Library.

The literary wealth of this library, in one sense, is almost incalculable. I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Dr. Hachman, a graduate of the university and one of the librarians, and through his courtesy enabled to see many of the rare treasures of this priceless collection, that would otherwise have escaped our notice.

Here we looked upon the first Latin Bible ever printed, the first book printed in the English language, by Caxton, at Bruges, in 1472, and the first English Bible, printed by Miles Coverdale. Here was the very book that Pope Gregory sent to Augustin when he went to convert the Britons, and which may have been the same little volume that he held in his hand when he pleaded the faith of the Redeemer to the Saxon King Ethelbert, whom he converted from his idolatrous belief twelve hundred years ago. I looked with something like veneration upon a little shelf containing about twenty-five volumes of first editions of books from the presses of Caxton, Guttenberg, and Faust, whose money value is said to be twenty-five thousand pounds; but bibliomaniacs will well understand that no money value can be given to such treasures.

We were shown a curious old Bible,--a "Breeches" Bible, as it is called,--which has a story to it, which is this. About one hundred years ago this copy was purchased for the library at a comparatively low price, because the last ten or fifteen pages were missing. The volume was bound, however, and placed on the shelf; seventy-five years afterwards the purchasing agent of the library bought, in Rome, a quantity of old books, the property of a monk; they were sent to England, and at the bottom of an old box, from among stray pamphlets and rubbish, out dropped a bunch of leaves, which proved, on examination and comparison, to be the very pages missing from the volume. They are placed, not bound in, at the close of the book, so that the visitor sees that they were, beyond a doubt, the actual portion of it that was missing.

Ranged upon another shelf was a set of first editions of the old classics. In one room, in alcoves, all classified, were rich treasures of literature in Sanscrit, Hebrew, Coptic, and even Chinese and Persian, some of the latter brilliant in illumination. Here was Tippoo Saib's Koran, with its curious characters, and the Book of Enoch, brought from Abyssinia by Bruce, the African explorer; and my kind cicerone handed me another volume, whose odd characters I took to be Arabic or Coptic, but which was a book picked up at the capture of Sebastopol, in the Redan, by an English soldier, and which proved, on examination, to be The Pickwick Papers in the Russian language.

Besides these, there were specimens of all the varieties of illuminated books made by the monks between the years 800 and 1000, and magnificent book-makers they were, too. This collection is perfect and elegant, and the specimens of the rarest and most beautiful description, before which, in beauty or execution, the most costly and elaborate illustrated books of our day sink into insignificance. This may seem difficult to believe; but these rare old volumes, with every letter done by hand, their pages of beautifully prepared parchment, as thin as letter paper,--the colors, gold emblazonry, and all the different hues as bright as if laid on but a year--are a monument of artistic skill, labor, and patience, as well as an evidence of the excellence and durability of the material used by the old cloistered churchmen who expended their lives over these elaborate productions. The illuminated Books of Hours, and a Psalter in purple vellum, A. D. 1000, are the richest and most elegant specimens of book-work I ever looked upon. The execution, when the rude mode and great labor with which it was performed are taken into consideration, seems little short of miraculous. These specimens of illuminated books are successively classified, down to those of our own time.

Then there were books that had belonged to kings, queens, and illustrious or noted characters in English history. Here was a book of the Proverbs, done on vellum, for Queen Elizabeth, by hand, the letters but a trifle larger than those of these types, each proverb in a different style of letter, and in a different handwriting. Near by lay a volume presented by Queen Bess to her loving brother, with an inscription to that effect in the "Virgin Queen's" own handwriting. Then we examined the book of Latin exercises, written by Queen Elizabeth at school; and it was curious to examine this neatly-written manuscript of school-girl's Latin, penned so carefully by the same fingers that afterwards signed the death-warrants of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Duke of Norfolk, and her own favorite, Essex. Next came a copy of Bacon's Essays, presented by Bacon himself to the Duke of Buckingham, and elegantly bound in green velvet and gold, with the donor's miniature portrait set on the cover; then a copy of the first book printed in the English language, and a copy of Pliny's Natural History, translated by Landino in 1476, Mary de Medicis' prayer-book, a royal autograph-book of visitors to the university, ending with the signatures of the present Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra.

There was also a wealth of manuscript documents, a host of curious old relics of antiquity I have forgotten, and others that time only allowed a glance at, such as the autographic letters of Pope, Milton, Addison, and Archbishop Laud, Queen Henrietta's love letters to Charles I. before marriage, and Monmouth's declaration, written in the Tower the morning of his execution, July 15, 1685.

Among the bequests left to this splendid library was one of thirty-six thousand pounds, for the purchasing of the most costly illustrated books that could be had; and the collection of these magnificent tomes in their rich binding was of itself a wonder: there were hosts of octavo, royal octavo, elephant folio, imperials, &c.; there were Audubon's Birds, and Boydell's Shakespeare, and hundreds of huge books of that size, many being rare proof copies. Then we came to a large apartment which represented the light literature of the collection. For a space of two hundred years the library had not any collection of what might properly be termed light reading. This gap was filled by a bequest of one of the best, if not the very best, collections of that species of literature in the kingdom, which commences with first editions of Cock Robin and Dame Trott and her Cat, and ends with rare and costly editions of Shakespeare's works.

Weeks and months might be spent in this magnificent library (which numbers about two hundred and fifty thousand volumes, besides its store of curious historical manuscripts) without one's having time to inspect one half its wealth; and this is not the only grand library in Oxford, either. There are the Library of Merton College, the most genuine ancient library in the kingdom; the celebrated Radcliffe Library, founded in 1737 by Dr. Radcliffe, physician to William III., and Mary, and Queen Anne, at an expense of forty thousand pounds, and which is sometimes known as the Physic Library;--in this is a reading-room, where all new publications are received and classified for the use of students; the Library of Wadham College, the Library of Queen's College, that of All Souls College, and that of Exeter College, in a new and elegant Gothic building, erected in 1856, all affording a mine of wealth, in every department of art, science, and belles-lettres.

A mine of literature, indeed; and the liberality of some of the bequests to that grand university indicates the enormous wealth of the donors, while a visit even to portions of these superb collections will dwarf one's ideas of what they have previously considered as treasures of literature or grand collections in America.

In one of the rooms I felt almost as if looking at an old acquaintance, as I was shown the very lantern which Guy Fawkes had in his hand when seized, which was carefully preserved under a glass case, and was like the one in the picture-books, where that worthy is represented as being seized by the man in the high-peaked hat, who is descending the cellar stairs. Another relic is the pair of gold-embroidered gauntlet gloves worn by Queen Elizabeth when she visited the university, which are also carefully kept in like manner.

In the picture gallery attached to the library are some fine paintings, and among those that attracted my attention were two portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, looking quite unlike. Their history is to the effect that the college had purchased what was supposed to be a fine old original portrait of the ill-fated queen, and as such it hung in its gallery for a number of years, till at length a celebrated painter, after repeated and close examinations, declared to the astonished dons that doubtless the picture was an original, and perhaps one of Mary, but that it had been re-costumed, and the head-dress altered, and various additions made, that detracted from its merit as a portrait. The painter further promised to make a correct copy of the portrait as it was, then to skilfully erase from the original, without injury, the disfiguring additions that had been made, leaving it as when first painted. This was a bold proposition, and a bold undertaking; but the artist was one of eminence, and the college government, after due deliberation, decided to let him make the trial. He did so, and was perfectly successful, as the two pictures prove. The original, divested of the foreign frippery that had been added in the way of costume and head drapery, now presents a sweet, sad, pensive face, far more beautiful, and in features resembling those of the painting of the decapitated head of the queen at Abbotsford.

Here also hung a representation of Sir Philip Sidney, burned in wood with a hot poker, done by an artist many years ago--a style of warm drawing that has since been successfully done by the late Ball Hughes, the celebrated sculptor in Boston, United States. Passing on beneath the gaunt, ascetic countenance of Duns Scotus, which looks down from a frame, beneath which an inscription tells us that he translated the whole Bible without food or drink, and died in 1309, we come to many curious relics in the museum. Among others was a complete set of carved wooden fruit trenchers, or plates, that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth. Each one was differently ornamented, and each bore upon it, in quaint Old English characters, a verse of poetry, and most of these verses had in them, some way or other, a slur at the marriage state. The little plates were said to be quite favorite articles with her single-blessed majesty. So, with some labor and study, I transcribed a few of the verses for American eyes, and here they are:--

"If thou be young, then marry not yet;
If thou be old, thou hast more wit;
For young men's wives will not be taught,
And old men's wives are good for nought."

How many "old men" will believe the last line of this pandering lie to the ruddy-headed queen? But here are others:--

"If that a bachelor thou be,
Keep thee so still; be ruled by me;
Least that repentance, come too late,
Reward thee with a broken pate."

"A wife that marryeth husbands three
Was never wedded thereto by me;
I would my wife would rather die,
Than for my death to weep or cry."

* * * * *

"Thou art the happiest man alive,
For every thing doth make thee thrive;
Yet may thy thrift thy master be;
Therefore take thrift and all for me."

* * * * *

"Thou goest after dead men's shoes,
But barefoot thou art like to go.
Content thyself, and do not muse,
For fortune saith it must be so."

Emerging all unwillingly from the charms of the library, museum, and the interesting interiors of these beautiful old buildings, we stroll out to that delightful place of oaks, and elms, and pleasant streams, Christ Church Meadows, walk beneath the broad, overarching canopy of elms, joining together like the roof of a cathedral, that shades the famous "Broad Walk;" we saunter into "Addison's Walk," a little quiet avenue among the trees, running down towards the River Isis, and leaving Magdalen College,--which was Addison's college,--and its pretty, rural park, we come to the beautiful arched bridge which spans the River Isis, and, crossing it, have a superbly picturesque view of Oxford, with the graceful, antique, and curious spires rising above the city, the swelling dome of the Radcliffe Library, and the great tower of Christ Church.

Here, at this part of the "Meadows," is the place where cricket and other athletic games are played. Throngs and groups of promenaders are in every direction, of a pleasant afternoon, and groups are seated upon the benches, around the trunks of the elms, from which they gaze upon the merry throng, or at the boats on the Isis. This river, which is a racing and practice course of the Oxonians, appears so absurdly narrow and small to an American who has seen Harvard students battling the waves of the boisterous Charles, as nearly to excite ridicule and laughter. We should almost denominate it a large brook in America. For most of its length it was not more than sixteen or eighteen feet in width. The Isis is a branch of the River Cherwell, which is a branch of the Thames, and has this advantage--the rowers can never suffer much from rough weather.

Down near its mouth, where it widens towards the Cherwell, are the barges of the different boat clubs or universities. They are enormous affairs, elegantly ornamented and fitted up, and remind one of the great state barges seen in the pictures of Venice, where the Doge is marrying the Adriatic. Their interiors are elegantly upholstered, and contain cabins or saloons for the reception of friends, for lounging, or for lunch parties. Farther up the river, and we see the various college boats practising their crews for forthcoming trials of skill. These boats are of every variety of size, shape, and fashion--two-oared, six-oared, eight-oared, single wherries shooting here and there; long craft, like a line upon the water, with a crew of eight athletes, their heads bound in handkerchiefs, stripped to the waist, and with round, hardened, muscular arms, bending to their oars with a long, almost noiseless sweep, and the exact regularity of a chronometer balance.

The banks were alive with the friends of the different crews, students and trainers, who ran along, keeping up with them, prompting and instructing them how to pull, and perfecting them in their practice. Every now and then, one of these college boats, with its uniformed crew, would shoot past, and its group of attendant runners upon the dike, with their watchful eyes marking every unskilful movement.

"Easy there, five." "Pull steady, three." "Straighten your back more, two."

"Shoulders back there, four; do you call that pulling? mind your practice. Steady, now--one, two, three; count, and keep time."

"Well done, four; a good pull and a strong pull."

"I'm watching you, six; no gammon. Pull, boys, pull," &c.

The multitude of boats, with their crews, the gayly decorated barges, the merry crowds upon the pleasure-grounds, the arched bridge, and the picturesque background of graceful domes and spires, combined to form a scene which will not soon fade from memory. How many advantages does the Oxford student enjoy, besides the admirable opportunities for study, and for storing the mind, from the treasure-houses that are ready at his hand, with riches that cannot be stolen; the delicious and romantic walks, rural parks, and grounds about here; the opportunities for boating, which may be extended to the River Cherwell, where the greater width affords better opportunities for racing--attrition with the best mettle of the nation; instruction from the best scholars; and a dwelling-place every corner of which is rich in historic memories!

We walk to the place in front of Baliol College, where Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were burned at the stake. The spot is marked by a small stone cross in the pavement; and a short distance from here, in an open square, stands an elaborately decorated Gothic monument, surmounted by a cross, and bearing beneath its arches the statues of the bishops, erected about twenty years ago, and is denominated the Martyrs' Memorial. But adieu to Oxford; students, libraries, colleges, and historical relics left behind, we are whirling over the railroad on our way up to London. Always say _up_ to London, in England. Going to London is always going up, no matter what point of the compass you start from. No true Englishman ever talks of going to the great city in any way except going "up" to it.