The time is late afternoon.
call the undergraduates home at nine, with a deep voice, as if it spoke through its beard, which pretends to be B flat—“Bim-bom,” as the old leonine hexameter says.
Hark! the bonny Christ Church bells—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—
They sound so wondrous great, so wondrous sweet,
As they trowl so merrily, merrily.
Oh! the first and second bell,
That every day, at four and ten, cry,
“Come, come, come to prayers!”
And the verger troops before the Dean.
Tinkle, tinkle, ting, goes the small bell at nine,
To call the bearers home:
But the devil a man
Will leave his can
Till he hears the mighty Tom.
So runs the catch of a later Dean. At Christ Church also there was a lecturer in Greek. The dialler, Kratzer, was made mathematical professor. Wolsey’s chapel never rose above a few feet in height, and the uncompleted walls remained for a century; St. Frideswide’s became, almost at the same time, the cathedral of the newly-created see of Oxford, and the chapel of the college.
The grandiose Christ Church kitchen, which caused so much laughter because it was the Cardinal’s first contribution to his college, was in fact rather characteristic of the age that followed. It was built with the revenues of suppressed monasteries. It was almost contemporaneous with the destruction of many priceless books by reformers who were as ignorant of what is dangerous in books as a Russian censor. The shelves of Duke Humphrey’s library were denuded and sold.[Pg 134] The shrine of St. Frideswide’s, where the University had long offered reverence twice a year, was shattered; the fragments were used here and there in the buildings of the time. The relics of the saint were husbanded by a pious few in hope of a restoration; but they were finally interred with those of Peter Martyr’s wife—a significant mixture. It was the age when the University became the playground of the richer classes, and the nobleman’s son took the place of the poor scholar in a fellowship. Now men found time to dispute with Cambridge as to which university was of the greatest antiquity. The arguments put forward in Oxford were seldom more convincing than this: that Oxford was named from a ford, Cambridge from a bridge; and since the ford must have been older than the bridge, Oxford was therefore founded first. Greek for the time decayed, and the founder of Trinity College feared that its restoration was impossible in that age. As to Latin, Sir Philip Sidney, who was at Christ Church, told his brother that Ciceronianism was become an abuse among the Oxonians, “who neglected things for words.” Oxford was dignified mainly by the architecture of Christ Church; by the foundation of Trinity, St. John’s, and Jesus College, all on learned and holy ground; by the martyrdom of Latimer and Ridley, opposite Balliol; and by great names, like those of Burton and Marston at Brasenose, Peele at Broadgates Hall (Pembroke), Raleigh at Oriel, Hooker at Corpus Christi. Religion was still in the pot, and men could not confidently tell what it would turn out to be. On the one hand,[Pg 136][Pg 135]
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
It is the east front of the College we see in the picture, the library occupying the south end to the left. The garden upon which it looks is one of the most beautiful and extensive in Oxford.