In the chapel are monuments to others of the Warwicks, including one to Leicester's infant son, who is said to have been poisoned by his nurse at three years of age, and who is called, on his tomb, "the noble Impe Robert of Dudley," and another to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, brother to Leicester, and honorably distinguished, as a man, for his virtues, as the other for his crimes.
We go from Warwick to Oxford by rail; but I must not omit to mention that in one of our excursions not far from Warwick, as the train stopped at Rugby junction, the "Mugby junction" that Dickens has described, we visited the refreshment-room, and got some very good sandwiches, and were very well served by the young ladies at the counter; indeed, Dickens's sketch has been almost as good an advertisement for the "Mugby sandwiches" as Byron's line, "Thine incomparable oil, Macassar," was for Rowland's ruby compound; and the young ladies have come to recognize Americans by their invariably purchasing sandwiches, and their inquiry, "Where is the boy?"
From Warwick, on our way to Oxford, we passed near Edgehill, the scene of the first battle of Charles I. against his Parliament, and halted a brief period at Banbury, where an accommodating English gentleman sought out and sent us one of the venders of the noted "Banbury cakes," and who informed us that the Banbury people actually put up, a few years ago, a cross, that is now standing there, from the fact that so many travellers stopped in the town to see the Banbury Cross mentioned in the rhyme of their childhood,—
"Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see an old woman get on a white horse,"—
who, before it was erected, went away disappointed at not seeing what they had set down in their minds was the leading feature of the town, thinking that they had, in some way or other, been imposed upon by not finding any one in the place who knew of it, or cared to show it to them.
But we will leave the old town of Warwick behind us, for a place still more interesting to the American tourist—a city which contains one of the oldest and most celebrated universities in Europe; a city where Alfred the Great once lived; which was stormed by William the Conqueror; where Richard the Lion-hearted was born; and where, in the reign of Bloody Mary, Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were burned at the stake; through whose streets the victorious parliamentary army marched, with drums beating and colors flying, after the battle of Naseby—Oxford.
Oxford, that Hughes's Tom Brown at Oxford has made the youngsters of the present day long to see; Oxford, that figures in so many of the English novels; Oxford, where Verdant Green, in the novel, had so many funny experiences; Oxford, where the "Great Tom"—a bell spoken of in story-books and nursery rhymes—is; and a thousand other things that have made these celebrated old cities a sort of dreamland to us in America, who have longed to see the curious relics of the past with which they are crammed, and walk amid those scenes, the very descriptions of which fill one's mind with longings or pleasant anticipations as we hang over the printed pages that describe them.
We rode in our cab to the old Mitre Tavern, and a very old-fashioned place it is. Indeed, to the tourist, one of the lions of the place will be the "Mitre." The first thing noticeable upon entering the low-linteled front entrance of this first-class Oxford hotel was a framework of meat-hooks overhead, along one side of the ceiling of the whole entrance corridor; and upon these were suspended mutton, beef, game, poultry, &c.; in fact, a choice display of the larder of the establishment. I suppose this is the English "bill of fare," for they have no way here of letting guests know what they can have served at the table, other than through the servant who waits upon you; and his assortment, one often finds, dwindles down to the everlasting "chops," "'am and heggs," or "roast beef," "mutton," and perhaps "fowls."
The cooking at the Mitre is unexceptionable, as, indeed, it is generally in all inns throughout England. The quality of the meats, the bread, the ale, the wines, in fact everything designed for the palate at this house is of the purest and best quality, and such as any gastronomist will, after testing them, cherish with fond recollections; but the other accommodations are of the most old-fashioned style. The hotel seems to be a collection of old dwellings, with entrances cut through the walls, judging from the quaint, crooked, dark passages, some scarcely wide enough for two persons to pass each other in, and the little low-ceiled rooms, with odd, old-fashioned furniture, such as we used to see in our grandfathers' houses forty years ago—solid mahogany four-post bedsteads, with chintz spreads and curtains; old black mahogany brass-trimmed bureaus; wash-stands, with a big hole cut to receive the huge crockery wash-bowl, which held a gallon; feather beds, and old claw-footed chairs.