Part 3

|THIS College," wrote Fuller the historian, in words which Exeter men will approve, "consisteth chiefly of Cornish and Devonshire men, the gentry of which latter, Queen Elizabeth used to say, were courtiers by their birth. And as these western men do bear away the bell for might and sleight in wrestling, so the scholars here have always acquitted themselves with credit in _Palaestra literaria!'_

The western College was founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, who twelve years later met his death as a supporter of Edward II., when that king was overthrown and murdered. A later and liberal patron was Sir William Petre, father of Dorothy Wadham, a statesman of the Tudor period. Of the ancient buildings of Exeter hardly anything remains. The Hall dates from the seventeenth century, the fronts to the Turl and Broad Streets from the nineteenth. The present Chapel is the third in which Exeter men have worshipped. Designed by Sir Gilbert Scott on the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, it is certainly the most attractive of the College buildings. Its interior is richly decorated, and contains a tapestry representing "The Visit of the Magi," the work of Burne-Jones and William Morris, formerly undergraduates of Exeter.

Among interesting members of this Foundation may be cited Dr. Prideaux, Rector from 1612 to 1642, who began residence at Exeter as a kitchen-knave, and lived to be a Bishop; the first Lord Shaftesbury, Dryden's "Achitophel"; the Marquis of Winchester, a loyal Cavalier, whose epitaph by the same poet may be read in Englefield Church, Berkshire; William Browne, author of _Britannia's Pastorals_; and Sir Simon Baskerville (ob. 1641), an eminent physician, who would take no fee from any clergyman under the rank of dean. The Fellows' Gardens, a secluded and beautiful spot, contains two noted trees, a large chestnut known as "Heber's Tree," from the fact that it overshadowed his rooms in Brasenose, and "Dr. Kennicott's Fig Tree." Dr. Kennicott, the great Hebrew scholar, regarded this tree as peculiarly his own. During his proctorate, some irreverent undergraduates stole its fruit, upon which Dr. Kennicott caused a board to be hung upon it, inscribed "The Proctor's Fig." Next morning it was discovered that someone had substituted the audacious legend, "A fig for the Proctor."

ORIEL COLLEGE

|ORIEL COLLEGE was founded by Adam de Brome, almoner to King Edward II., in 1324. He was Rector of St. Mary's, whose spire forms with the dome of the Radcliffe a background to the view of Oriel Street, and obtained leave from the king to transfer the Church and its revenues to his College. The College originally had the same title as the Church, but five years after its foundation it received from King Edward III. a messuage known as _La Oriole_ (a title of disputed meaning), and from this date was renamed "Oriel College."

The Front Quadrangle, whose exterior and interior are here depicted, was erected in the first half of the seventeenth century. Viewed from without, it has an air of quiet dignity; but the visitor will be even better pleased when he has passed the Porters Lodge. A striking feature is the central flight of steps, with a portico, by which the Hall is reached. On either side of the statues of the two kings (Edward II. and Charles I.) stretches a trio of finely moulded windows, flanked by an oriel to right and left. Mr. Matthison clearly made his drawing when the "Quad." was gay with flowers and Eights-week visitors, but at no season is it anything but beautiful. The Garden Quadrangle, which lies to the north and includes the Library, was built during the eighteenth century. The adjacent St. Mary Hall, with its buildings, was recently incorporated with Oriel, on the death of its last Principal, Dr. Chase.

Among famous men nurtured at this College were Raleigh, Prynne, Bishop Butler, and Gilbert White, the naturalist; but it was in the first half of the nineteenth century that Oriels intellectual renown was at its highest. To recall the names of Pusey, Keble, Newman, Whately, and Thomas Arnold suffices to indicate the subject which most preoccupied the Oxford of that epoch. Oriel seemed fated to be the seat of religious controversy, from the seventeenth century days of Provost Walter Hodges, whose _Elihu_, a treatise on the Book of Job, brought him into suspicion of favouring the sect of Hutchinsonians. Happily there was some tincture of humour in the differences of those days. When this Provost resented the imputation, his detractors told him that a writer on the Book of Job should take everything with patience. Controversy apart, any College might be proud of a group of Fellows of whom one became an archbishop, another a really great headmaster, and a third a cardinal. Oriel has had poets, too, within her gates, for in a later day Clough and Matthew Arnold won fellowships here.

But Oriel has had no more dutiful son, if liberality is any measure of dutifulness, than Cecil Rhodes. It is too soon to appraise the value of his scholarship scheme, which provides an Oxford education for numerous colonial and foreign students; but his old College, which benefited so largely by the provisions of his will, can have no hesitation in including him among its benefactors.

QUEEN'S COLLEGE

|OPINIONS will differ as to whether the Italian style, of which this College is a fine example, is as suitable for collegiate buildings as the Gothic, and whether the contrast which Queen's presents to its neighbour, University, is not more striking than pleasing; but the intrinsic splendour of its façade, as viewed from "The High," is indisputable. "No spectacle," said Dr. Johnson, "is nobler than a blaze"; and those who saw the west wing of the Front Quadrangle of Queen's in flames, one summer night in 1886, must have felt their regrets tempered by admiration, so imposing was the sight. Happily the damage was mainly confined to the interior of the building. A fire had already devastated the same wing in 1778. On that occasion, as Mr. Wells narrates in _Oxford and its Colleges_, the Provost of the day "nearly lost his life for the sake of decorum. He was sought for in vain, and had been given up, when he suddenly emerged from the burning pile, full dressed as usual, in wig, gown, and bands." This recalls Cowley's story of a gentleman in the Civil Wars, who might have escaped from his captors had he not stayed to adjust his perri-wig. Less fortunate than the Provost, his sense of ceremony cost him his life.

Queen's College was founded by Robert Eglesfield of Cumberland, Confessor to Philippa, Edward III.'s queen. Impressed with the lack of facilities for education among Englishmen of the North, he practically restricted the benefits of his Foundation to students from the north country, and Queen's is still intimately connected with that part of England. Philippa did her best for her Confessor's institution, and later queens have shewn a similar interest. The statue under the cupola, above the gateway, represents Queen Caroline.

With the exception of the Library (1696) and the east side of the Inner Quadrangle, all the present buildings were erected in the eighteenth century. The Library, a handsome room in the classical style, was decorated by Grinling Gibbons, and contains, as well as a very valuable collection of books, ancient portraits on glass of Henry v. and Cardinal Beaufort. The Chapel (1714) was designed by Wren, and the Front Quadrangle by his pupil Hawksmoor.

Queen's is tenacious of her old customs. Still the trumpet calls the Fellows to dinner; still, on Christmas day, the boar's head is brought in bedecked with bays and rosemary; a survival, possibly, of the pagan custom by which at Yule-tide a boar was sacrificed to Freyr, god of peace and plenty.

Peace and plenty, at any rate, have characterised the annals of Queen's; and among those who have enjoyed these good things within her walls may be mentioned "Prince Hal," Addison (before his migration to Magdalen), Tickell, Wycherley, Bentham, Jeffrey of the _Edinburgh Review_, and Dr. Thomson, late Archbishop of York.

ST. EDMUND HALL

|HALLS for the accommodation of students existed in Oxford before Colleges were founded, and a few were established subsequently; of these St. Edmund Hall is the only one which retains its independence. The quaintness and irregular beauty of its buildings may plead with stern reformers for its continued survival.

Opposite to the side entrance of Queen's, St. Edmund Hall is in another respect under the wing of that College; for Queen's has the right of nominating its Principal.

The origin of St. Edmund Hall is uncertain, but it is commonly supposed to derive its name from Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1234 to 1240. Its buildings, grouped round three sides of an oblong quadrangle, date from the middle of the seventeenth century.

The first view shews the entrance to the Hall, with the interesting old Church of St. Peter-in-the-East in the background. The crypt and chancel of this Church take us back to the times of the Conqueror, and may have been the work of Robert D'Oily, one of William's Norman followers, who is known to have built Oxford Castle.

In the view of the interior of the Quadrangle the building at the back is the Library; the abundance of creepers on the left hand adds to the idea of comfort suggested by the homeliness of the architecture.

The third illustration shews the Hall as seen from St. Peter's Churchyard. The vicinity of the monuments may serve to remind members of the Hall of their mortality.

Hearne, the antiquary, was a member of St. Edmund Hall; so also was Sir Richard Blackmore, who was in residence for thirteen years. It was his lot, says Johnson, "to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends"; but this is hardly surprising, in view of the interminable epics which he inflicted upon his contemporaries.

NEW COLLEGE

|THIS College, in respect of its buildings and its endowments, is one of the most splendid in the University. Its founder, William of Wykeham, rose through the favour of Edward III. to high positions in Church and State, being made Bishop of Winchester in 1366 and Chancellor of England in the following year. He was a man of affairs, liberal and tolerant, who took delight in building, and had himself great skill in architecture. He had already, before he designed New College, as Clerk of the Works to Edward III., rebuilt Windsor Castle. Doubtless, zeal for education was one of his incentives; but he must have known a deep gratification, as the work went on, in the growth of the stately buildings which were to perpetuate his name. Richard II.'s sanction was given in 1379, and Wykeham's Society took possession of its completed home in 1386. During the six years which followed, its founder was occupied with the building of Winchester College, the other great institution connected with his name. He died in 1404, in his eightieth year, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, having lived long enough to see his two Foundations prosperously started upon their several careers.

New College, as left by William of Wyke-ham, consisted of the chief Quadrangle (which includes the Chapel, Hall, and Library), the Cloisters with their tower, and the gardens. It is this Quadrangle (shewing the Chapel) which appears in Mr. Matthison's first drawing; but it is not quite as Wykeham saw it, for the third storey was added, as at Brasenose, in the seventeenth century, when the windows also were modernised.

Passing through this Quadrangle, the visitor reaches the Garden Court, which is also the creation of the seventeenth century, and was built in imitation of the Palace of Versailles. Seen from the garden (as in the second illustration) it certainly has, with its fivefold frontage and its extensive iron palisade, a most imposing appearance.

The garden contains a structure older by several centuries than any of the Colleges--that fragment of the old City Wall which is shewn in Mr. Matthison's third drawing. Its reverse side is visible from the back of Long Wall Street, and another fragment now acts as the wall of Merton garden. The city wall existed in its entirety in Wykeham's time, though already falling into decay: there is a brief of Richard n., issued to the then mayor and burgesses of Oxford, wherein the king complains of the ruinous state of the fortifications, and demands that they be at once repaired. He thought of taking refuge in Oxford, it appears, if his enemies in France should invade the country. He was soon to learn, at Flint Castle, how impotent is any masonry to protect a sovereign against subjects whose affections he has estranged. One may climb the old wall in New College garden and think of the days when it was a real defence, when the occupants of the "mural houses" at its base were exempted from all imposts, with the reservation that they should defend the wall with their bodies, in the event of an enemy's assault. On some part of the ground now occupied by the College and its garden stood several of those Halls where students lodged in the pre-collegiate days; but the greater part was waste land, strewn with rubbish and haunted by all sorts of bad characters. Certainly the whole community benefited, and not Wykeham's scholars only, when king and pope sanctioned his undertaking.

The Cloisters, of which two views are given, are singularly beautiful. They were designed, together with the area which they enclose, as a burial-ground for the College. It is unfortunate that many of the brass tablets were removed during the Civil War, when the College was used as a garrison. Royalist pikes, in those days, were trailed in the Quadrangle, and ammunition was stored in Cloisters and Tower. Later on the College was tenanted by soldiers of the Commonwealth, who in course of fortifying it did some damage to the buildings.

The Chapel is perhaps the finest extant specimen of the Perpendicular style. It suffered severely during the Reformation, when the niches of the reredos were denuded and filled up with stone and mortar, with a coat of plaster over all. In course of time the original east end was rediscovered, and the reredos renewed. By 1894 statues were erected in the niches; and as the open timber roof had been replaced in 1880, the whole may now be considered to have been restored, as far as is possible, to its original appearance. The west window (in the ante-chapel) is famous as having been designed by Reynolds. An illustration of it is here given. The beauty of the figures and of the colouring is universally admitted.

The last illustration shews the New Buildings, through which is a back entrance to the College, as seen from Holywell Street. Of these it must be said that they are far less interesting than the quaint old street in which they are situated. The best of them is the most recent addition, a fine tower put up in 1880 to the memory of a former Bursar, Mr. Robinson.

The Hall is a fine building, though its original proportions have been altered, not for the better. Here on August 29, 1605, King James I. with his queen and the Prince of Wales were entertained to dinner; and here on festival days the scholars were bidden by their Founder to amuse themselves after supper with singing and with recitations, whose themes were to be "the chronicles of the realm and the wonders of the world." On the walls are portraits of Chichele and William of Waynflete, members of the College, who were presently to rival, as Founders, the munificence of William of Wykeham himself; of Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, friend of Erasmus and promoter of humanism; and of Sydney Smith.

The exclusive connection between Winchester and New College, which the Founder planned, proved in course of time a disadvantage. In 1857 half the fellowships and a few scholarships were thrown open to public competition. Since then the College has largely increased its numbers, and representatives of all the great schools of England are sojourners within its walls. The Founder's motto, "Manners Makyth Man," is of too wide an application to be limited to the members of any one school; and it is permissible to think that William of Wykeham, shrewd and liberal-minded as he was, would approve the change. An earlier alteration he would certainly have endorsed. He secured as a special privilege to the Fellows of his Foundation, that they should be admitted to all degrees in the University without asking any grace of congregation, provided they passed a satisfactory examination in their own College. His object was to impose a severer educational test than that which the University then afforded; when, however, University examinations became a reality, his good intention was nullified. Wykehamists pleaded their privilege, and so evaded the ordeal which members of other Colleges must undergo. Thus was an originally good custom corrupted. The College, to its credit, voluntarily abjured this questionable privilege in 1834; and is now second only to Balliol in the intellectual race.

LINCOLN COLLEGE

|JOHN FLEMMYNGE, Bishop of Lincoln, was for the greater part of his life a sympathiser with the Lollards; but on changing his opinions--for what reason is not known--he founded a College for the express purpose of training divines who should confute their doctrines. Such was the origin of Lincoln College, in the year 1429.

Mr. Matthison's first picture shews the entrance to the College, as seen from Turl Street. Farther on is a part of the front of Exeter, and the spire of its Chapel, with Trinity in the background. Lincolns entrance-tower dates from the Founder's time.

The second gives the interior of the Front Quadrangle. Reference to old engravings, such as that given in Chalmers' _History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings of the University of Oxford_ (1810), shews the battlements to be a modern addition, and anything but an improvement.

The Chapel, which stands in the inner court, was built at the expense of Dr. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards Archbishop of York, and was consecrated on September 15, 1631. Its roof and wainscoting are of cedar, the roof in particular being richly ornamented. The painted windows are also noteworthy. Tradition says that they were bought by Dr. Williams in Italy. That at the east end represents six principal events of the gospel narrative, with their corresponding types in the Old Testament. The following is the complete list:--The Creation of Man--the Nativity of Christ; the Passage through the Red Sea--the Baptism of Christ; the Jewish Passover--the Lord's Supper; the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness--the Crucifixion; Jonah delivered from the Whale--the Resurrection; the Ascent of Elijah in the Chariot of Fire--the Ascension.

John Wesley spent nine years in Lincoln College, being elected Fellow in 1726. Among its members may be named Sir William Davenant, Poet Laureate; and Dr. Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, a man of great piety, learning, and amiability, who forms the theme of one of Izaak Walton's Lives. It is to him that our English Liturgy owes the beautiful "Prayer for all Conditions of Men" and "General Thanksgiving." A recent Rector of Lincoln was Mark Pattison, B.D., who might rival Sanderson in learning, though not in the quality of forbearance. His Memoirs, posthumously published, contained, with much that was of interest, some unusually outspoken judgments upon his contemporaries in Oxford.

ALL SOULS COLLEGE

|C_OLLEGIUM Omnium Animarum Fidelium defunctorum de Oxon_. This title expresses one of the purposes for which All Souls was founded. It was a Chantry first, a home of learning afterwards. An obligation was imposed upon the Society to pray for the good estate of the Founders, during their lives, and for their souls after their decease; also for the souls of Henry v. and the Duke of Clarence, together with those of all the dukes, earls, barons, knights, esquires, and other subjects of the Crown of England who had fallen in the French War; and for the souls of all the faithful departed. To think of All Souls is to think of Agincourt.

As to learning, sixteen of the Fellows were directed to study civil and canon law, the rest philosophy, theology, and the arts.

The Founders were Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry vi. Chichele is the Archbishop who in Shakespeare's _King Henry V_. urges the king (quite in accordance with history) to vindicate his claims to the crown of France. Educated in all the prejudices of his age, he set his face against the followers of Wyckliffe; at the same time he protested against the encroachments of Rome, and was spoken of in Oxford as "the darling of the people, and the foster-parent of the clergy." He was deeply read in the law, and All Souls still bears the impress of his legal tastes.

The buildings are very extensive, and are grouped around three quadrangles. The first view (which gives also a glimpse of the Radcliffe and the Old Schools) shews the front of the North Quadrangle, as seen from St. Catherine Street, with the windows of the magnificent Codrington Library.

But the Library is eclipsed, in general opinion, by the Chapel. "It is usually observed," says Chalmers, "that whatever visitor remembers anything of Oxford, remembers the beautiful Chapel of All Souls, and joins in its praises." It is characterised by dignity and simplicity, and its great reredos has a remarkable history. The Chapel was wrecked in Reformation days, and the remains of the reredos were covered with plaster in the reign of Charles II. In 1870 some workmen accidentally discovered, on removing some of the plaster, the ruins of the now forgotten reredos. It was then reconstructed, and the empty niches refilled with statues of Chichele, Henry VI., and the great ones of their time. The College also owns a fine sundial, the work of Sir Christopher Wren, who was one of its Fellows.

The four Bible-clerks, as is well known, are the only undergraduates. An All Souls' Fellowship is now what an Oriel Fellowship was in the early part of the nineteenth century, the blue ribbon of Oxford. Since its foundation in 1437 the following are a few of the eminent men who have been members of this Society:--Linacre, Sheldon, Jeremy Taylor, the poet Young, Blackstone, and Bishop Heber.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE

|WILLIAM OF WAYNFLETE, who founded this College, was brought up in the traditions of William of Wykeham, and maintained them most worthily. A member of Wykeham's school, and perhaps of New College, he became Headmaster of Winchester, only leaving it to act as first Headmaster of Eton, on the foundation of that College by Henry vi. Like Wykeham he lived through troubled times, and like him occupied the see of Winchester and was Chancellor of England. The latter post he resigned in the last year of Henry vi., but remained Bishop of Winchester until his death in 1486. He was buried in Winchester Cathedral, where eighty-two years earlier Wykeham had been laid to rest.