The ruins of Wolsey’s unfinished church seem to have been for a while something of an encumbrance to the path from Peckwater to the Cathedral; and the present way under the deanery arch is due to Dean Samuel Fell, father of Bishop (and Dean) John Fell, who made it through his garden. The way up to the Hall was then very incomplete, and he “made it as it is now, by the help of one Smith, an artificer of London;” and built the arch as it now is, besides re-edifying the cloister.
The north side of the great quadrangle was completed by Bishop Fell; and a balustrade was substituted on the roof for the original battlements, possibly for the purpose of lecturing from the housetop, a course which, however, has not been pursued in recent times. Tom Tower was finished by Wren in 1682; Tom himself (the bell) having been recast by Christopher Hodson in 1680. He, or his original metal, was once the old clock bell of Oseney Abbey.[259]
The original grant of Peckwater Inn to St. Frideswide’s is as early as Henry III.’s time. Dean Aldrich and Dr. Anthony Radcliffe are answerable for the present structure, which contains seventy-two sets of rooms and a canon’s lodgings. Dr. Radcliffe also gave a statue “Mercury” to adorn the central fountain in the great quadrangle, which had originally issued from a sphere, as seen in old prints. Long ago, before the Reformation, there is said to have been a cross in the place now occupied by the fountain, with a pulpit, from which Wycliffe may have frequently preached. The base of this cross is preserved in the gallery at the end of the S. Transept.
The common-room under the hall, was fitted up by Dr. Busby, whose bust in marble long adorned it, but is now transferred to the library. This bust is a work of merit, with a countenance unlikely to spare for anybody’s crying. The room is panelled with oak, and contains a Nineveh tablet presented by Hormuzd Rassam, Esq.
What is called the Old Library was once the Refectory of St. Frideswide’s convent. A few books remain in charge of the Margaret Professor. The large Library in Peckwater was begun in 1716, but not finally completed till 1761. The original intention was to leave an open piazza beneath it, but the space was required for its books and collections, and its massive columns were accordingly connected by a wall. Its gallery of pictures (or the bulk of the collection) was the gift of Brigadier-General Guise in 1765, and of the Hon. W. F. Fox-Strangeways in 1828.
Canterbury Gate was built by Wyatt in 1778; and we presume that the laws of gravity and attraction will continue to apply to it as to other objects, so that it may reasonably be expected to remain there till it is taken away. QVOD BENE VORTAT, as the Bodleian motto, with pantheistic piety, observes.
It only remains to say, that the present Meadow buildings occupy the position of the Chaplains’ quadrangle and Fell’s buildings, or “the garden staircase” of other days, up to 1863. Their gate-tower is not admired; otherwise they are a solid and beautiful building in quasi-Italian Gothic. Their quadrangle is bounded on the north by the old library, on the south by the meadow, on the east by the Margaret Professor’s garden, and on the west by the vast and venerable kitchen, with its time-honoured gridiron, happily employed in culinary labours only, and never (so far as we know) for purposes of persecution. The kitchen was said to be the first-completed of all Wolsey’s buildings, greatly to the amusement of the outer world of Oxford. This recognition of the dependence of the spirit on the body was ingeniously defended by the Rev. M. Creighton[260] in a well-remembered University sermon.
Christ Church has naturally had from the first its share of pageant and festivity. Henry VIII. took his pastime therein in 1533 with grandeur and jollity. There were public declamations of the whole University here under Edward VI.; and plays were acted in the hall before Queen Elizabeth in 1566 and 1592, and before James I. in 1605 and 1621; and again before Charles I. in 1636. It is a question whether scenery and stage-mechanism were used for the first time in England, says Anthony à Wood, on this occasion, or as early as the festivity of 1605. All are gone by this time who could remember the visit of the allied sovereigns in 1814, and their entertainment in the Hall by the Prince Regent, on whom the title of “the first gentleman in Europe” then sat very gracefully. Old General Blücher, as best regarded of all foreign soldiers present, had to acknowledge his honours in German, and the Prince translated him with freedom and elegance, only omitting his own praises.
Four years after Charles I.’s entertainment, were to develop the full bitterness of evil days already begun. On August 18th, 1642, came the first Cavalier muster; three hundred and fifty and more of “privileged” University men and their servants, and also many scholars. They met at the Schools and marched by High Street to Christ Church, “where in the great quadrangle they were reasonably instructed in the word of command and their postures;” and this mustering and drilling continued more or less till the end of all things by surrender on St. John’s Day, 1646. Some considerable part of the corps were bowmen volunteers (about 1200, it is said further on), duly armed with “barbed arrows.” By that time, out of the one hundred and one students of Christ Church twenty were officers in the King’s army; the rest, almost to a man, were either there, or formed part of the Oxford garrison. And so of commoners in full proportion. All plate and available money were gone, and the House as much damaged, not to say demoralized, as the rest of the University.