The window in the “study” looks south into the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College. To the right, outside the picture, is the main aisle of the Library, shown in another drawing, and to the extreme left is a glimpse of the cross aisle leading to the staircase entrance to the Library, the columns supporting the galleries, and the ancient timbered roof.
Beneath the coloured bust of Sir Thomas Sackville, and on the screen forming one side of the “study,” are placed rare portraits of distinguished persons, and “drawings” by old masters, etc.
In the showcase fixed over the specimen-drawers are books, relics, autographs, etc., and objects of great value and antiquity.
The Past
I
Whilome ther was dwellynge at Oxenford
A riche gnof, that gestės heeld to bord,
And of his craft he was a carpenter.
With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler,
Hadde lernėd art, but al his fantasye
Was turnėd for to lern astrologye,
And koude a certeyn of conclusions,
To demen by interrogaciouns,
If that men sholde have droghte or ellės shoures.
Or if men askėd him what sholde bifalle
Of everythyng, I may nat rekene hem alle.
This clerk was clepėd hendė Nicholas.
Of deernė love he koude, and of solas,
And ther-to he was sleigh and full privee,
And lyk a mayden mekė for to see.
A chambrė hadde he in that hostelrye
Allone withouten any compaignye,
And fetisly y-dight, with herbės swoote,
And he himself as sweete as is the roote
Of lycorys, or any cetėwale.
His Almageste, and bookės grete and small,
His astrelabie, longynge for his art,
His augrym stonės, layen faire apart,
On shelvės couchėd at his beddės heed.
His presse y-covered with a faldyng reed,
And all above there lay a gay sautrie,
On which he made a-nyghtės melodie
So swetėly, that al the chambrė rong,
And Angelas ad Virginem, he song;
And after that he song the “Kyngės noote”;
Ful often blessėd was his myrie throte,
And thus this sweetė clerk his tymė spente
After his freendės fyndyng and his rente.
Such was a “clerk of Oxenford” in Chaucer’s day, living probably on the generosity of a patron, and differing only from his patron’s son, inasmuch as he[Pg 312] was saved the expense of a fur hood. In the rooms of most, Bibles, Missals, or an Aristotle or Boethius, took the place of the Almagest of the astrologer; and more conspicuous were the rosaries, lutes, bows and arrows of the undergraduates. In their boisterous parti-coloured life of almost liberty, even an examination was a vivid thing, and meant a disputation against all comers in a public school, to be followed by a feast of celebration, visits to taverns, and probably a dance,