Part 5

|TRINITY COLLEGE was founded by Sir Thomas Pope, a rich lawyer, in 1555. The site was previously occupied by Durham College, a now extinct foundation, which existed for the training of students from the Benedictine monastery of Durham.

There is much that is admirable about the buildings and grounds of Trinity; and its position is so little secluded that anyone passing down Broad Street or Parks Road can hardly help noticing its beauties. The first illustration shews the College as seen from Broad Street. In the foreground are the handsome wrought-iron gates--there is a companion pair at the verge of the garden, in Parks Road--beyond which is the square Entrance Tower leading to the Small Quadrangle, decorated by four figures representing Astronomy, Geometry, Divinity, and Medicine. The old cottage buildings on the right of the Porter's Lodge, facing Broad Street, which are now used as College rooms, are in striking contrast with the new buildings designed by Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., and finished in 1887; these are some of the last century's most successful additions to ancient Oxford.

The Chapel has an unwonted fragrance, for the wainscot is of cedar; it is famous also for its carving, being in this particular one of the best examples of the work of Grinling Gibbons. The Hall has an unusually good collection of portraits. Of all the buildings the Buttery is probably the most ancient.

The second illustration, taken from Parks Road, shews a part of the garden, with the Inner Quadrangle in the background; this latter is built in the Italian manner, after Wren's design. The costume of the loiterers in the garden, of both sexes, suggests that Mr. Matthison painted his picture on some warm day of spring. On such a day it is pleasant to fleet the time carelessly amid such scenes as these; nor must the beautiful Lime Tree Walk escape mention, whose pleached boughs form a continuous archway of foliage.

Trinity can point to a remarkably long list of distinguished members, of whom it may suffice to name here the poets Lodge and Denham, Harrington (author of _Oceana_), Chatham, Professor Freeman, Bishop Stubbs, and Richard Burton. But Burtons stay was a short one; he heard already "the call of the wild."

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE

|ARCHBISHOP CHICHELE'S College of St. Bernard, established by him in 1437 and suppressed by Henry VIII., occupied the site of what is now St. John's College. One reminder of the older foundation is the statue of St. Bernard, which still stands in the Tower over the Gateway. This Gateway, sketched from St. Giles', forms the subject of the second illustration. The Hall and Chapel too, though much altered in later times, were in the first instance used by the Cistercians.

St. John's was founded by Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor of London, in 1555. His portrait hangs in the Hall, as well as those of Laud and Juxon, successively Presidents of the College and Archbishops of Canterbury, and that of George III. St. John's was devoted to the Stuart cause, so it may be supposed that the likeness of the Hanoverian king was not hung without compunctions on the part of senior members. The Library contains a portrait of Charles I., and statues of him and of his queen face each other in the Inner Quadrangle.

Reference has been already made to the second illustration. The first shews the exterior of the Front Quadrangle, sketched from within the walled row of elm trees. This Quadrangle was only finished in 1597, when its eastern side (facing the Gateway) was built.

The Inner Quadrangle, which was begun at the same date and completed in the first half of the seventeenth century, is, from an architectural point of view, of unusual interest. The visitor may naturally inquire what two classical colonnades are doing in a Gothic quadrangle. There is no more satisfactory reply than that the architect, Inigo Jones, made a somewhat bold experiment, combining Italian reminiscences with a Gothic scheme. Individual taste may determine how far he was successful; probably most critics will admire the colonnades in themselves, but think them out of place where they are. Laud furnished the funds for Inigo Jones' work, but happily the pair excluded the Italian element from their Garden Front, which is certainly one of the most beautiful things in Oxford. Diverse as are the judgments which have been passed upon Laud's character and actions, there cannot be two opinions as to the beauty and fitness of this building, nor could any Head of a College desire a worthier memorial. Coming up to St. John's as a scholar in 1590, Laud became President in 1611, and on the completion of his new buildings had the honour of receiving King Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria as his guests. Full of stress as his life was, and tragic as was its end, his most peaceful hours were probably passed within the walls of the Foundation which his generosity did so much to adorn. His body, which had been buried in London after his execution, was brought to St. John's at the Restoration, and laid to rest, as he had desired, beneath the altar in the Chapel. The Library contains a valuable collection of ecclesiastical vestments which are said to be his gift.

The third and fourth illustrations shew the north and south ends of the Garden Front. The open window in Mrs. Waltons sketch is that of the room occupied by Laud.

The Garden is among the most delightful in Oxford; and for beauty and diversity of flowers it certainly bears the palm. Like the garden at Wadham, it was formerly laid out in the stiff Dutch style.

Sir Thomas White, the Founder, was a member of the Guild of Merchant Taylors; and a considerable number of the scholarships are given to members of that Company's London school.

JESUS COLLEGE

|JESUS COLLEGE since its birth in 1571 has always been closely connected with Wales. Queen Elizabeth, who did not forget her Welsh ancestry, and "took no scorn," perhaps, "to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day," was willing to accept from Hugh Price, its actual originator, the honorary title of Founder. The College possesses three portraits of this sovereign, as well as pictures of Charles I. and Charles II. (who were benefactors).

The buildings are in the late Gothic style. The two illustrations shew different aspects of the Front Quadrangle, which conveys an impression of beauty and restfulness.

The Chapel is interesting. Above the entrance is a Latin inscription, signifying "May prayer ascend, may grace descend." Within are the tombs of Dr. Henry Maurice, Professor of Divinity, 1691; Sir Edward Stradling, a colonel in Charles I.'s army, 1644; and several Principals of the College:--Dr. Francis Mansell, who held that office three times; Sir Eubule Thelwall, Principal from 1621 to 1630; and Sir Leoline Jenkins, appointed in 1661. First appointed in 1620, Dr. Mansell resigned the following year in favour of Thelwall, who had completed the building of the College. His second term of office was cut short in Commonwealth days, but he was reinstated at the Restoration; the only Head of a College, perhaps, who underwent such repeated vicissitudes. Sir Leoline Jenkins did much to repair the damages which the College suffered in the Civil Wars.

The service in the Chapel on Wednesday and Friday evenings is entirely in the Welsh language.

Distinguished members in the past of Jesus College were Henry Vaughan, the poet; "Beau Nash," the arbiter of fashion in Bath; Lloyd of St. Asaph, one of "the Seven Bishops"; and J. R. Green, the historian.

Were Sir Hugh Evans and Fluellen, those embodiments of Welsh humours, suggested by Jesus men? We may think so, if we will; for Shakespeare is known to have visited Oxford, and is quite as likely to have picked up his Welshmen there as anywhere else.

WADHAM COLLEGE

|IT can only be conjectured how long the vision of a stately building which, like Absalom's Pillar, should preserve the memory of his childless house, haunted the vacant hours of Nicholas Wadham of Merifield, in the county of Somerset. What is certain is that death cut short his day-dreams, and that he committed the accomplishment of his design to his wife Dorothy. This remarkable woman was seventy-five years of age when the task devolved upon her. She assumed its responsibilities to such good purpose that within three years the College which bears her name was completed. The members of the first Foundation were admitted in 1613, and the Foundress lived some five years more.

Wadham is one of the most perfect specimens of late Gothic architecture in existence.

No alteration whatever has taken place in the Front Quadrangle since its erection; only, where the stones have crumbled, they have been cunningly replaced. The Chapel, though Perpendicular, was erected at the same time as the other buildings. The late Mr. J. H. Parker made the reasonable suggestion that the architect desired to emphasise by this variation of style the religious and secular uses of the several structures. Wadham, whether viewed from Parks Road or from its own delightful gardens, is a veritable joy to the beholder, as our illustrations indicate. The Hall, moreover, which is one of the finest in Oxford and contains a large collection of portraits, should not be neglected, nor the interior of the Chapel, with the sombre grandeur of its stained windows and "prophets blazoned on the panes."

Wadham's early prosperity received a check in Civil War times, when its plate was melted down for the king and its Warden driven out by the Roundheads. Yet Wilkins, its new Warden, did not abuse his trust; and, thanks to his interest in science, it was within the walls of this College that the idea of the Royal Society was conceived.

Wadham has not lacked famous members, of diverse professions and highly divergent opinions. There is Admiral Blake, whose statue watches to-day over his native Bridgewater; Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who was made Master of Arts at fourteen; Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons; Lord Westbury, whose inscription in the ante-chapel tells us that he "dated all his success in life from the time when he was elected a scholar of Wadham at the age of fifteen"; Dean Church among ecclesiastics and Dr. Congreve among Positivists. Finally, there is Sir Christopher Wren, whose name has been kept to the end in order that there may be coupled with it the name of Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A.; for these two architects, both sons of Wadham, have left impressions which deserve to be indelible upon the Oxford that we know.

PEMBROKE COLLEGE

|PEMBROKE dates its collegiate life from 1624, but it had already existed and flourished for several centuries as Broadgates Hall. It owed its rise in the world to the benefactions of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwick, burgesses of Abingdon, who desired to endow a College for the benefit of their native town, and its new name to the Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of Oxford. Thomas Browne, who was later to be the author of _Religio Medici_, being senior commoner of the Hall at this epoch, delivered a Latin oration at the opening ceremony, in which he did not fail to employ the metaphor of the Phoenix rising out of its ashes.

Architecturally, Pembroke is a little put out of countenance by the neighbouring glories of Christ Church; nevertheless, the interior of the Inner Quadrangle ("The Grass Quad.," as it is called), which is the subject of the first illustration, possesses an irregular but restful beauty. Up and down its staircases trod George Whitefield, who, as a servitor, had the ungrateful duty of seeing that the students were in their rooms at a fixed hour; yet not one syllable of discontent with so humble a vocation disfigures the pages of his diary.

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.