A few buildings have been added to the city in later times,—not like the former ones. Protestantism builds no cathedrals, and endows no colleges. These later monuments of liberality have had science in view, instead of religion: the love of fame upon earth has been the founders' motive, not the hope of reward in heaven. The theatre, a library, a printing-office, and an observatory, have all been built since the great rebellion; the last is newly erected with the money which was designed to supply the library with books. The Bodleian was thought sufficient; and as there are college libraries beside, there seems to have been good reason for diverting the fund to a more necessary purpose. The Radcliffe library, therefore, as it is called, though highly ornamental to the city, is of little or no immediate use, the shelves being very thinly furnished. The Bodleian well deserves its celebrity. It is rich in manuscripts, especially in Oriental ones, for which it is chiefly indebted to archbishop Laud, a man who was so nearly a Catholic that he lost his head in this world, yet still so much a heretic, that it is to be feared he has not saved his soul in the next. Yet is this fine collection of more celebrity than real advantage to the university. Students are not allowed access to it till after they have graduated, and the graduates avail themselves so little of their privilege, that it may be doubted whether the books are opened often enough to save them from the worms. In their museums and libraries the English are not liberal; access to them is difficult, and the books, though not chained to the shelf, are confined to the room. Our collections of every kind are at the service of the public; the doors are open, and every person, rich or poor, may enter in. If the restrictions in England are necessary, it must be because honesty is not the characteristic of the nation.
The schools wherein the public examinations are held, are also of later date than the schism. James I. built them in a style as mixed and monstrous as that of his own church: all the orders are here mingled together, with certain improvements after the manner of the age, which are of no order at all. At the university printing-office, which is called the Clarendon press, they are busied upon a superb edition of Strabo, of which great expectations have long been formed by the learned. The museum contains but a poor collection. Oliver Cromwell's skull was shown me here, with less respect than I felt at beholding it. Another of their curiosities is the lanthorn which Guy Vaux held in his hand when he was apprehended, and the gunpowder plot detected. The English still believe that this plot was wholly the work of the Catholics!
[2] In reply to such instances of the author's bigotry, which occur but too often, the words of an old English divine may not unaptly be quoted. "Sufficeth it us to know, that as the herneshaw, when unable by main strength to grapple with the hawk, doth slice upon her, bespattering the hawk's wings with dung or ordure, so to conquer with her tail what she cannot do with her bill and beak: so Papists, finding themselves unable to encounter the Protestants by force of argument out of the Scriptures, cast the dung of foul language and filthy railing upon them."—Tr.
LETTER XXXIV.
Godstow.—Fair Rosamund.—Blenheim.—Water-works at Enstone.—Four-shire Stone.—Road to Worcester.—Vale of Evesham.—Hop-yards.—Malvern Hills.
Monday, July 5.
The coach by which we were to proceed passes through Oxford between four and five o'clock in the morning; we left our baggage to be forwarded by it, and went on one stage the preceding day, by which means we secured a good night's rest, and saw every thing which could be taken in upon the way. Two of our Oxford acquaintances bore us company: we started soon after six, and went by water, rowing up the main stream of the Isis, between level shores; in some places they were overhung with willows or alder-bushes, in others the pasture extended to the brink; rising ground was in view on both sides. Large herds of cattle were grazing in these rich meadows, and plovers in great numbers wheeling over head. The scenery was not remarkably beautiful, but it is always delightful to be upon a clear stream of fresh water in a fine summer day. We ascended the river about a league to Godstow, where we breakfasted at a little ale-house by the water-side.
This place is celebrated for the ruins of a nunnery, wherein Fair Rosamund was buried, the concubine of King Henry II., a woman as famous for her beauty and misfortunes as our Raquel the Jewess, or the Inez de Castro of the Portugueze. The popular songs say that Henry, when he went to the wars, hid her in a labyrinth in the adjoining park at Woodstock, to save her from his queen. The labyrinth consisted of subterranean vaults and passages, which led to a tower: through this, however, the jealous wife found her way, by means of a clue of thread, and made her rival choose between a dagger and a bowl of poison; she took the poison and died. The English have many romances upon this subject, which are exceedingly beautiful. But the truth is, that she retired into this convent, and there closed a life of penitence by an edifying death. She was buried in the middle of the quire, her tomb covered with a silken pall, and tapers kept burning before it, because the king for her sake had been a great benefactor to the church; till the bishop ordered her to be removed as being a harlot, and therefore unworthy so honourable a place of interment. Her bones were once more disturbed at the schism, when the nunnery was dissolved; and it is certain, by the testimony of the contemporary heretical writers themselves, that when the leather in which the body had been shrouded within the leaden coffin was opened, a sweet odour issued forth. The remains of the building are trifling, and the only part of the chapel which is roofed, serves as a cow-house, according to the usual indecency with which such holy ruins are here profaned. The man who showed us the place, told us it had been built in the times of the Romans, and seemed, as well he might, to think they were better times than his own. The grave of Rosamund is still shown; a hazel tree grows over it, bearing every year a profusion of nuts which have no kernel. Enough of the last year's produce were lying under the tree to satisfy me of the truth of this, explain it how you will.
From hence we walked to Blenheim, the palace which the nation built for the famous Duke of Marlborough; a magnificent monument of public gratitude, befitting such a nation to erect to such a man. The park in which it stands is three leagues in circumference. It is the fashion in England to keep deer within these large, and almost waste, inclosures: the flesh of these animals is preferred to any other meat; it is regarded as the choicest dainty of the table, and the price at which it sells, when it can be purchased, is prodigious. They were standing in groups under the fine trees which are always to be found in these parks, others quietly feeding upon the open lawn: their branching antlers, their slender forms, their spotted skin, the way in which they spring from the ground and rebound as they alight, and the twinkling motion of their tails which are never at rest, made them beautiful accompaniments to the scenery.