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  OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES

  [Illustration]




  [Illustration: RADCLIFFE LIBRARY.]




  OXFORD
  AND HER COLLEGES

  A View from the Radcliffe Library

  BY
  GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L.

  AUTHOR OF "THE UNITED STATES: AN OUTLINE OF
  POLITICAL HISTORY," ETC.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

  New York
  MACMILLAN AND CO.
  AND LONDON
  1895

  _All rights reserved_




  COPYRIGHT, 1893,
  BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

  Norwood Press:
  J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




PREFACE.


The writer has seldom enjoyed himself more than in showing an American
friend over Oxford. He has felt something of the same enjoyment in
preparing, with the hope of interesting some American visitors, this
outline of the history of the University and her Colleges. He would
gladly believe that Oxford and Cambridge, having now, by emancipation
and reform, been reunited to the nation, may also be reunited to the
race; and that to them, not less than to the Universities of Germany,
the eyes of Americans desirous of studying at a European as well as at
an American University may henceforth be turned.

It was once the writer's duty, in the service of a Royal Commission of
Inquiry, to make himself well acquainted with the archives of the
University and its Colleges. But he has also availed himself of a number
of recent publications, such as the series of the Oxford Historical
Society, the history of the University by Mr. Maxwell Lyte, and the
volume on the Colleges of Oxford and their traditions, edited by Mr.
Andrew Clark, as well as of the excellent little Guide published by
Messrs. James Parker and Co.

[Illustration]




OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES.


To gain a view of Oxford from a central point, we mount to the top of
the Radcliffe Library. We will hope that it is a fine summer day, that,
as we come out upon the roof, the old city, with all its academical
buildings lying among their gardens and groves, presents itself to view
in its beauty, and that the sound of its bells, awakening the memories
of the ages, is in the air. The city is seen lying on the spit of gravel
between the Isis, as the Thames is here called, which is the scene of
boat races, and the Cherwell, famed for water-lilies. It is doubtful
whether the name means the ford of the oxen, or the ford of the river
(_oxen_ being a corruption of _ousen_). Flat, sometimes flooded, is the
site. To ancient founders of cities, a river for water carriage and rich
meads for kine were prime attractions. But beyond the flat we look to a
lovely country, rolling and sylvan, from many points of which, Wytham,
Hinksey, Bagley, Headington, Elsfield, Stowe Wood, are charming views,
nearer or more distant, of the city. Turner's view is taken from Bagley,
but it is rather a Turner poem than a simple picture of Oxford.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is in Oxford much that is not as old as it looks. The buildings of
the Bodleian Library, University College, Oriel, Exeter, and some
others, mediaeval or half mediaeval in their style, are