CHAPTER VIII.

_Oxford—New College—Magdalen._

Now came my first day in Oxford—a day depended upon from boyhood, and from which I had expected more quiet and meditative delight than from any other enjoyment whatever. To every one who has made English literature and English history a study, I need not explain why. But Oxford has not only a literary _prestige_: it is so intimately connected with the history of our holy religion, that all other associations receive, as it were, an unction from this. Every college has its history; every stone, and every tree, and every turf, suggest ennobling reflections, as memorials of departed worth, but the hallowed memory of Martyrs sheds over all a deep and sober glory, that awes while it inspires. I know that our age has seen men, aye, and Oxford men, who could sneer at the reverend names of Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley: but who that has a heart not absolutely dead to generous emotion, but must feel a warm re-action in view of such impotent malignity? Who, in the days of the apostate and the dupe, can go to Oxford without blessing God that other days have left us the blessed example of men faithful unto death, and triumphing in the fire?

I stopped at “The Angel,” but it was not long before I found myself hospitably taken up, and transported to the house of a friend in the Turl, next door to Exeter College. My kind entertainer was one widely known throughout Anglo-Saxondom, not only by the books which he publishes, but by those also which he writes: and to whose elementary works on architecture we, in America, are indebted for about all that is popularly known of that beautiful art and science. As it was now vacation, I had an opportunity of seeing Oxford first, as it were, in scene, without the _dramatis personæ_; and no one is more capable than my kind host, of explaining the antiquarian and architectural glories of Oxford to a stranger. As he courteously gave me his valuable time, I made my primary rounds under his guidance.

As I came into Oxford, from Cuddesdon, I heard the bells of St. Mary’s in full peal, and experienced an exhilarating emotion that greatly heightened my impressions. After my arrival in the Turl—a name which indicates that the street was once a country-lane, guarded by a _turn-stile_—I took my second walk through the city, my first having been on the previous Sunday, passing from St. Ebbe’s to Wadham College, with the Bishop. Now, beginning with New College and the glories of William of Wykeham, I felt a new impulse of wonder and admiration, as if the half had not been told me. In vain does the pedant complain of the architecture here displaying the genius of that munificent founder, and tell us that it marks a decline from the elevation of the decorated period; for who can but see, in what is called decline, something much more like an elaborate adaptation of sacred art to academic purposes, exhibiting high invention, and a sense of the fitting and appropriate, which proves a taste truly refined, and a fancy rich and creative? So, at least, it strikes me; and the moral element is not less observable, the very stones seeming vital and instinct with the designer’s great soul and spirit. Thus the gateways, as has been well remarked, exhibit strength and utility, with little to advertise what is within; the domestic part is simple, and chaste and homelike; the hall bespeaks a generous hospitality, and suggests the social and civilizing character with which religion invests the table and the meal, and elevates it to a feast of reason; while, at last, the chapel is full of divine majesty, and commands abasement of self in the house of God, and at the gate of heaven. Wykeham was, for his day, a reformer, as really as Wyckliffe, and nothing is more certain than that the true Anglican alone has a right to glory in his achievements. They mark a period of contest with the papacy, every step of which contributed to the ultimate liberation of the Church of England from its Italian yoke, and they were perfected in that English spirit, against which the Pope was always at war, and which late apostates from our Nicene faith detest and anathematize as schism. True it is that we differ with Wykeham and Waynefleet in many items of opinion and practice, in which they were no wiser than their times; but they are one with us, historically, in the communion of the Church of England, in the maintenance of her individuality and independence, and in the confession of the Nicene Creed, as the authorized symbol of Christendom. These impressions, forced upon me within these walls, and growing on me every day that I spent in England, returned with ten-fold power after I had seen the Continent, and again beheld English Churches and colleges, and felt their essential antagonism to what is Italian and Tridentine, and their almost physical tendency towards the production of such a Church, in their ultimate result, as the Anglican Communion is at this day, and is likely to be in future. Let us depend upon it, and act upon it, as a fact in the providence and design of God, that the Church of England, from the first day she was planted until now, has been, as it were, “the Church in the wilderness;” retaining always a primitive and individual element, and preparing for eventual manifestation in the pure glory of the Bride, the great adversary of the harlot, with whose painted front and virago fury she now patiently contends.

Although the modern parts of the College are conspicuous from the gardens, I found in them a fascination which I can hardly account for or describe. The ancient city walls, with their bastions and defences, are still preserved as the boundaries of the premises, and possibly it is to them, with their embowering verdure and isolating effect, that one owes a feeling of enchanting seclusion and quietude. Here my trans-Atlantic eyes first beheld the loop-holes and embrasures of mediæval fortification; first grasped the idea of intramural siege, and bow-and-arrow fight! It struck me overwhelmingly with a sense of loss and mental injury, that I should have known only faintly, and from books, what thus the Oxford student receives in passive impressions of reality—the ennobling idea of our connections with the past, and its paternal relations to us. To see every day the walls on which one’s forefathers, ages ago, patrolled in armor, or from which they aimed the cross-bow; to walk and study and repose habitually under their shadow; to have always, in sport and in toil, in sorrow and in joy, such monuments of time and history about one: how ought it not to refine and mature the character; and make a man feel his place between two eternities; and inspire him to live well the short and evil day in which, if ever, what he does for futurity must be done quickly, and with might!

But now, somehow or other, we emerged into “The Slipe,” where one gets a fine external view of old wall, chapel and tower. But I was impatient to see Magdalen College, and Addison’s Walk, and thither we bent our way. Passing under its new and beautiful gateway, I stood before that effective grouping of architectural detail which makes up the western front. Here are tower, turret and portal, chapel, lodge, and non-descript doorway; here are great window, and oriel, and all sorts of windows besides; and trees and vines lending grace to all; and here is that queer little hanging pulpit, for out-door preaching, which, with all the rest, always made Magdalen, to my boyish taste, the very Oxford of Oxford. And I am not sure that this notion was a wrong one; for now that my ideal has received the corrections of experiment, what college shall I prefer to Magdalen? Perfect and entire is Wadham, where, in the warden’s lodge, I first broke academic bread; lordly is Christ Church, with its walks and its quadrangles; lovely is Merton, as it were the sister of Christ Church, and gracefully dependent; New College is majestic; All Souls worthy of princes: but Magdalen alone is all that is the charm of others, compendious in itself; yielding only a little to each rival in particulars, but in the whole excelling them all.

In Addison’s walk I gave myself up to delightful recollections of the Spectator, and marvelled not that the thorough-bred Englishman of that bewitching collection, was the product, in part, of such a spot as this! Here that great refiner of our language breathed the sentiment of his country, and nourished the spirit that knew how to appreciate her, and how to transfuse the love of her into others. I defy the most stupid visitor to feel nothing of enthusiasm here! I made the circuit of the meadow, surveyed the bridge over the Cherwell, took a view of Merton-fields and Christ Church meadows; and, after meeting with the late Vice-President, Dr. Bloxam, and encountering in him a cordiality of reception which I can never forget, concluded by attending prayers in the chapel. I was placed in a stall, and had as favorable a position, for sight and sound, as I could have desired. The service was sung throughout—although, as it was now vacation, comparatively few were in attendance besides the singers themselves. I observed that here, as in other college-chapels, the chapel itself is the choir of a cruciform Church, the ante-chapel is the transept, and the nave is wanting. Add the nave, that is, and you have a cathedral, or minster, complete. In the ante-chapel of Magdalen, there are always persons devoutly following the service; and although they can see nothing, they hear it with very sweet effect, the chaunt being softened by their separation from the singers, while it is articulate and altogether devotional.

Magdalen became my home in Oxford, for there I more frequently walked, and worshipped, and visited than elsewhere—and there, for a time, I was lodged; while in its grounds I became a frequent and familiar guest; taking, in grateful confidence, the repeated invitations which I received from Dr. Bloxam and other members of the College, although obliged to decline far more of their kindness than I could possibly accept. During this first visit I dined in the Hall, meeting a number of eminent members of the University, and greatly enjoying their conversation. This superb Hall is lined with portraits of the distinguished sons of Magdalen. As I sat at meat, Addison’s portrait was just before me, and at the end of the Hall was the portrait of one whom I am accustomed to reverence even more, as the pattern of the true Anglican pastor, the pure and holy Hammond. All around hung the venerable pictures of great and historical personages, who have illustrated their college in becoming illustrious themselves. Among such worthies, none can forget Bishop Horne, who, although he died in 1792, was the immediate predecessor in the presidency of Dr. Routh, the present incumbent, now very nearly a hundred years of age. This venerable and extraordinary man is, indeed, as was often said to me—“the greatest wonder of Oxford.”

But how many are the sources of delight in this august University! Even the meanest are not unworthy of note. At dinner, in the Hall, for example, I remarked, that the queer old mug from which I was drinking, was the gift to the College of “Robert Greville, second son of Lord Brooke;” and when we adjourned to the common-room, for fruit and conversation, the traditions of the spot, which were recounted, were all of historical interest. In this very room, that sturdy champion of his College, Bishop Hough, by boldly resisting the Commissioners of the Popish James, with their three troops of horse at the door, paved the way for the Revolution of 1688; and yet no College in Oxford was so much distinguished for its subsequent loyalty to the house of Stuart as Magdalen—following, in this, the example of Bishop Ken and the non-jurors, who liked the usurpation of William quite as little as the oppression of James. A Jacobite goblet was put into my hand, bearing the inscription _Jus suum cuique_, which admirably apologizes for the position of the College, in both these historical issues; while, on the other side, is the legend, to which I gave emphatic utterance, as I drank—_Vivat Magdalena!_ After an hour in the common-room, we returned to the Hall, where the choristers were rehearsing the anthem for the next service, and where I heard not a little sweet singing during the evening. The fire was brightly blazing in its chimneys; and the light and shade of the vast apartment, with its pictures reflecting the playful glare from painted armor, or robes of lawn, and academic scarlet, to say nothing of the visages of ancient worthies clad in such array, very much heightened the effect of the scene.

Before returning to London, besides making a general survey of the city, I became somewhat more particularly acquainted with Christ Church, its hall, and common-room: and with its chapel, which is the cathedral. In Oriel College, also, I passed some pleasant moments, and drank of the College beer, from an old traditional cup of the time of Edward Second. I also worshipped at St. Mary’s, and did the same at St. Thomas’s, a picturesque and venerable fabric in the outskirts of the city, near the site of Oseney Abbey. Here the late restorations were very fine; and, although it is a parochial Church only, the service was sung. I observed a somewhat excessive external devotion on the part of a few of the worshippers, which struck me unfavorably; but, perhaps, in times of less dubious allegiance to the Church, I should not have noticed it as peculiarly pharisaical. I paid a visit to the Bodleian and the Picture Gallery, and inspected the architecture of “the Schools;” and, finally, saw some ceremonies in the Convocation House, which were very well worth seeing, as illustrating the academic system of Oxford. Several masters-of-arts were made, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Plumptre, presiding, in his scarlet robes; but all was done with an entire absence of pomp, and in presence of very few spectators. I was the more surprised, as this was the first day of Easter-term; and, from the general peal from towers and steeples, one might have supposed it a great day. Even the ceremony of admitting the new proctors, and the Latin speech of one of them going out, seemed hardly to have any interest for the academics, or others. The Heads of Houses were assisting, and looked well; and, when all was over, there was a procession, the Vice-Chancellor going in state, solemnly preceded by the bedels, with their maces—profanely called _pokers_ by the undergraduates. There was, however, no strut, but rather the contrary. You saw, at a glance, that all this was the mechanical routine of the University, done as business; and so regarded by every body concerned. It is only when men are _acting_ that they become sublimely ridiculous.

This remark applies to the May-morning celebration, on top of the Tower of Magdalen. To read of it, one would think it must be a romantic, or enthusiastic, piece of absurdity: but done, as a matter of course, and in continuity, year after year, from ancient times, it has, on the spot, a very different effect. The custom dates from 1501, the first year of the 16th century, when, in gratitude for a royal benefaction from Henry VII., a Hymn to the Holy Trinity, with the Collect of Trinity Sunday, and other solemnities, were instituted as a commemoration, to be celebrated on the first day of May. The produce of two acres of land, part of the royal gift, was at the same time to be distributed between the President and fellows. It now goes to pay for an entertainment supplied to the choristers, in the College-hall, at which a silver grace-cup is passed around with great formality. The boys have a complete holiday, moreover, and from sunrise to sunset are set free from College-bounds; but it must be understood that the boys here spoken of are those of the school and choir—not the undergraduates, of whom there are precious few at Magdalen—which is not an educational establishment, but a society of educated men, devoted to academic pursuits. But I suppose I need not explain the difference between such Colleges and our own, now so generally understood. To remedy what is considered by the progress-men a crying evil, and to turn the splendid revenues of Magdalen to the largest benefit of the largest number, is one of the professed purposes of the late Royal Commission: but, unfortunately, no confidence can be placed in its professions. Were the thing in the hands of true Churchmen, and relieved from the tinkering of Lord John Russell, there can be no doubt that a competent and moderate University reform might vastly augment the resources of the Anglican Communion, and furnish a noble and safe expansion to her missionary and colonization enterprises. The Lord hasten such a genuine improvement, and deliver the University from the rash and presumptuous hands of political capitalists and adventurers!

I was premonished by one of _the Dons_, that there would be very little danger of over-sleeping on a May-morning in Oxford, for that an old remnant of Druidical times still flourishes unrestrained among the lads of the town. This is nothing less than the blowing of all sorts of dissonant horns, about the streets, in honor of the British Flora, from the earliest peep of May-day; as if to remind every body of the shame of sleeping when nature is displaying her fairest and most fragrant charms. Awakened, then, by the promised croaking, up I rose, and repaired to the College, towards which the whole tide of early-risers was setting. Here, those who are not admitted to the Tower, station themselves in the street below, or line the bridge of the Cherwell, awaiting the aerial music. As I slowly wound my way to the top of the tower, I caught beautiful views through its loop-holes, and breathed occasional puffs of delicious air. On the summit were gathered almost as many gownsmen, and others, as half the place would hold: the other half was railed off for the singers—men and boys, in their surplices and caps, with sheets of music in their hands. The view of the surrounding country, towards Forest-hill and Cuddesdon, or round by Nuneham and Stanton Harcourt, to Woodstock, was exceedingly lovely—and, of course, the more so, for the inspiration of the hour. As the clocks of Oxford chimed the hour of five, every head was reverently uncovered—and, while the morning sun made all the landscape glitter, forth broke the sweet music of the old Latin hymn:—

“Te Deum patrem colimus, Te laudibus prosequimur: Qui corpus cibo reficis, Cœlesti mentem gratia.”

Alas! it was too soon over; for while it lasted, looking up into the blue heavens, one could almost imagine himself amid the clouds, and surrounded by the melodies of the heavenly host. As soon as it was done, the bells beneath us began their chorus, and the tower fairly rocked and reeled. After lingering for a time, to survey the effects of a bright morning on the domes and spires of the University, and on the aged trees of Christ-Church meadows and the windings of the river, I descended to the walks, and there passed an hour, sauntering about, as it were, in the very foot-prints of Addison and Bishop Horne. The bells discoursed their music for a full hour; the rooks chattered, and made holiday in the tree-tops; the sweet-briar and rose perfumed the cloisters; the deer bounded across the College park; and wherever I went, or wherever my eye rested, I saw nothing to remind me that this world is a wretched and work-day world, and that England is full of misery and sin. For a time, rhyme seemed reason, and fancy fact. In the enchantment of that delightful May-morning, one might be forgiven for loving life and being fain to see many such good days.