Chapter III: Part 3

On the right hand, as one enters the Front Quadrangle, is the Library, formerly the refectory of Broadgates Hall, and the only surviving part of that institution. The Chapel, renovated and decorated by Mr. C. E. Kempe in 1884, should be visited. The view of the gateway possesses an added interest from the fact that Samuel J ohnson, when an undergraduate of Pembroke, lodged in a room in the second storey over the entrance. Johnson ever retained an affection for his University and College, but it is to be feared that during his residence of fourteen months poverty and ill-health combined to make him far from happy. To others, perhaps, he appeared "gay and frolicsome," bent on entertaining his companions and keeping them from their studies, but to Boswell he gave a different explanation. "Ah, sir," he said, "I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit, so I disregarded all power and all authority." In a more cheerful, mood he spoke of Pembroke as "a nest of singing birds"; and it is on record that he cut lectures to go sliding on Christ Church Meadow. Dr. Johnson is Pembroke's most famous son; but she can also point to the names of Francis Beaumont, John Pym, Shenstone, Blackstone, and Birkbeck Hill, Boswell's greatest editor.

WORCESTER COLLEGE

|WORCESTER COLLEGE is the successor to Gloucester Hall, a hostel of the Benedictine Order founded in the thirteenth century. This Hall was originally designed for students from the monastery at Gloucester, but was soon thrown open to other Benedictine houses. Suppressed at the Reformation, it was called back to life in Elizabeth's reign by Sir Thomas White, who had already shewn his zeal for education by founding St. John's College, and for several generations had a successful career. Among its distinguished members may be mentioned Thomas Allen, mathematician; Sir Kenelm Digby, the romantic wooer of the brilliant and high-spirited Venetia Stanley; and Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet. At the Restoration bad times came, and Gloucester Hall, like the earlier Hertford College of a subsequent age, seemed likely to perish of inanition.

At this crisis there stepped in a benefactor, Sir Thomas Crookes of Worcestershire, with a bequest of £10,000; and the transformed Hall was known, from 1698 onwards, as Worcester College.

Worcester is comparatively at some distance from the other Colleges, a fact on which undergraduate humour loves to dwell; but jests on this subject reflect rather on the poor walking powers of those who make them. At any rate, a "well-girt" visitor to Oxford need not hesitate to take the journey, and will certainly find his pains rewarded, for Worcester has much to show that is of interest, and much that is beautiful.

The first view gives the interior of the Front Quadrangle. The buildings here are stately and dignified, if a little cold; they are obviously of the same date as those overlooking the deer-park of Magdalen, and suggest the genius of the eighteenth century.

There could hardly be a greater contrast to these than the ancient structures which are at the left hand of the Quadrangle, as one enters; for these old buildings take us back to the monastic days of Gloucester Hall. A glimpse of them, as viewed from the Garden, is given in the second illustration.

The Garden itself is delightful, and has, alone of Oxford pleasances, the additional feature of a lake. Mr. Matthison's drawing shows how beautiful this lake and its surroundings can be, when the colours are newly laid on by the brush of summer.

HERTFORD COLLEGE

|Hertford college consists of an anomalous collection of buildings, of various styles and dates. The eye rests with most pleasure on the Jacobean part of the Quadrangle, opposite the gateway. One view gives the interior of the Quadrangle--in which is a sloping stairway reminiscent of a larger one of the same type in Blois Castle, the other shews the College from without, and includes the new buildings recently finished.

This medley of structures is suggestive of the vicissitude through which the College has passed.

So far back as the thirteenth century it was in existence as Hart Hall; and here the students of Exeter and New College were successively lodged, while their own Colleges were building. Rightly or wrongly, Exeter College claimed the ownership of Hart Hall for four centuries; but in 1740 the then Principal of the Hall, Dr. Newton, was successful in asserting its independence, and Hart Hall became Hertford College. The endowments, however, were insignificant; the members fell off and the walls (or a part of them) fell down; and in 1820 a commission declared that Hertford College no longer existed.

About this time Magdalen Hall, which stood close to Magdalen College, was burned down, and the University allotted the buildings of Hertford to its roofless inhabitants; and the name of Hertford was changed to Magdalen Hall.

The final transformation came in 1874, when Hertford College, its title revived by Act of Parliament, was endowed by Mr. Baring, the banker. Thus, with finances very different to the slender endowments of Dr. Newton's time, the College began a new era of prosperity.

The famous Selden was at Hart Hall, and Charles James Fox at Hertford; the old Magdalen Hall bred William Tyndale, Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, author of _Leviathan_.

KEBLE COLLEGE

|MEMBERSHIP of this College is restricted to those who belong to the Church of England. Another primary purpose of Keble is to provide a less expensive education than that afforded by other Colleges. At the moment when the scheme was formulated died John Keble, author of the Christian Year, and it was decided to name the new foundation after him, at once as a tribute to his memory and in order to enlist the active sympathies of his many admirers. An appeal for funds met with a liberal and widespread response, and Keble College was opened in the Michaelmas term of 1870.

The external appearance of Keble is not commonly admired. It is a pleasanter task to dwell for a moment on the beauty of the interior of the Chapel, which was presented by Mr. William Gibbs, and completed in 1876. The visitor will be struck by the noble proportions of this edifice, its finely toned windows and its elaborate mosaics. A small ante-chapel contains Holman Hunts celebrated picture--The Light of the World, presented by Mrs. Combe.

Keble soon took its place among the other Colleges, both in work and play. It has a splendid Hall and Library, given by the Gibbs family. In accordance with the economy of the scheme, the rooms of the undergraduates are small, and all meals are taken in common in Hall. There is consequently more of the air of a public school about Keble than is looked for in ordinary College life. Its first warden, Dr. Talbot, is now Bishop of Southwark.