The interior is very plain; the chancel-arch is semicircular, without moldings, but has a screen closed with doors; this is in the taste of the times, and is formed of semicircular arches, supported by small pillars, the whole carved with Elizabethan ornaments. The pulpit is a good specimen of this same style. The standards of the open seats are, as is usual at this period, rude, clumsy, and massive, the poppies being in imitation of the more ancient fleur-de-lis. The roof is a copy of an early form, and consists of principals, collar and curved braces, very plain and simple, but producing a good effect.

This building is interesting from shewing that here, as at Wadham College before mentioned, though the house was built in the revived manner, it was still thought necessary to keep the chapel in the old style, that being considered even then as exclusively ecclesiastical.

In the foregoing remarks, though very imperfectly executed, it has been intended to shew by the buildings of Oxford, not only the gradual decline of Gothic Architecture, but also the attempts, more or less successful, which were made from time to time to stay its progress. It was, however, for a time doomed to perish, and no efforts could save it. In the buildings of the period following that which has here been spoken of, it is either wholly laid aside, or the only remains of it are to be found in the accidental insertion, as it were, of a traceried window or a pointed door, as if to shew that some faint recollections of the once-honoured forms still lingered in the minds of the architects, and caused them involuntarily to record their respect for it.

It would be an interesting investigation to trace the gradual awakening of the style from the deep slumber into which it had fallen, and to trace its gradual unfolding, step by step, until we have at length a more glorious rénaissance of the Gothic styles than we ever had of the Classic; and in this history no mean place would be assigned to the Architectural Society of Oxford.

O. Jewitt.

The following list will form an useful appendix to the foregoing:—

Late Gothic Buildings in Oxford, from the Reign of Elizabeth to the Endof the Seventeenth Century.
Eliz.1571.The old buildings of Jesus College commenced.
1596.Library, St. John’s College, built.
1597.Sir Thomas Bodley commenced the repairs of Duke Humphrey’s Library, and added the new roof.
1600.Front of St. Alban Hall built.
1602.Nov. 8. Duke Humphrey’s Library publicly re-opened after the repairs.
Jas. I.1610.July 16. First stone of the Bodleian Library and Proscholium laid.
1610.Great or main quadrangle of Merton built.
1610.July 31. First stone of Wadham College laid.
1612.West side of the lesser quadrangle of Lincoln College built.
1613.March 30. First stone of the Schools laid.
1613.April 20. Wadham College opened.
1617.Hall of Jesus College built.
1620.Hall of Trinity College finished.
1621.May 28. Chapel of Jesus College consecrated.
1624.Chapel of Exeter College built.
Ch. I.1626.Library of Jesus College built.
1628.Front of the house in St. Aldate’s, known as “Bishop King’s House,” built.
1631.July 26. First stone of the Garden front and lesser quadrangle of St. John’s College laid.
1631.Sept. 15. Chapel of Lincoln College consecrated.
1634.West side of University College built.
1635.West side of St. Edmund Hall built.
1635.June 19. Front of University College commenced.
1637.Oriel College quadrangle and hall built.
1639.Chapel of University commenced; finished in 1665.
1639-40.St. Mary Hall Chapel and Hall built.
1640.Staircase of Christ Church Hall built.
1640.Hall of University College commenced; finished in 1657.
1642.June or July. Oriel College Chapel consecrated.
1656.June 26. Chapel of Brasenose College, first stone laid; finished in 1666.
1663.Library of Brasenose College opened.
1665.March 30. Chapel of University College consecrated.
1666.Nov. 17. Chapel of Brasenose College consecrated.
1669.Library of University College opened.

Printed by Parker and Co., Crown Yard, Oxford.

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