But, after all this virtuous remonstrance on the misdirection of William of Wykeham’s noble endowment, we must own that, of our Oxford acquaintance, none are more agreeable than those New College fellows of the old school, “who wore shocking bad hats and asked you to dinner.” Much better than the cold-blooded “monks without mass” who are fast superseding them, just as idle and more ill-natured.
From New College we will go on to Magdalen, the finest—the wealthiest of all: it cannot be described, it must be seen; with its buildings occupying eleven acres and pleasure-grounds a hundred acres, its tower whereon every May morning at daybreak a mass used to be and a carol is still sung, and its deer-park. Here we may say, as of New College, is too much luxury for learning.
The sons of dukes have become mathematicians; we have known an attorney’s clerk, the son of a low publican, become an accomplished linguist in his leisure hours,—but such men are mental miracles, almost monsters: a fellow of Magdalen or New College who works as hard as other men deserves to be canonized.
We have not space to say anything of the other Colleges. St. John’s is noted for its gardens, Pembroke because Samuel Johnson lodged there for as long a space as his poverty would permit.
The Colleges visited, we proceed to “The Schools,” which contain the Bodleian Library, founded by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1573, and by bequests, gifts from private individuals, by the expenditure of a sum for the last seventy years out of the University chest, and the privilege of a copy of every new British publication, has become one of the finest collections in Europe; especially rich in Oriental literature. The books are freely open to the use of all literary men properly introduced, and the public are permitted to view the rooms three times a week.
The Picture Gallery contains a collection of portraits of illustrious individuals connected with the University, by Holbein, Vandyke, Kneller, Reynolds, Wilkie, and others. Among these are Henry VIII., the Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas More, by Holbein. Among the sculptures are a bust of the Duke of Wellington by Chantrey, and a brass statue of the Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of the University from 1616 to 1630, which is said to have been executed from a design by Rubens.
There is also a chair made from timber of the ship in which Drake sailed round the world, and the lantern of Guy Fawkes.
On the ground floor are the Arundel marbles, brought from Smyrna in the seventeenth century by the earl of that name.
The Theatre, close at hand, built by Sir Christopher Wren, will contain three thousand persons, and should be seen to be appreciated when crowded by the élite of the University and of England, on the occasion of some of the great Oxford festivals, when the rich costumes of the University, scarlet, purple, and gold, are set off by the addition of England’s beauty not unadorned; as, for instance, on the last visit of the Queen and Prince Albert.
The Clarendon Press, built from designs of Vanbrugh out of the profits of the University (garbled) edition of “Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion,” and the Ashmolean Museum, where may be seen the head of the dodo, that extinct and deeply to be regretted bird, are close at hand, as also the Radcliffe Library, from the dome of which an excellent view of the city may be obtained.