“Privatus illis census erat brevis,
Commune magnum,”
for the splendour of her public buildings will quickly dwarf the most ambitious attempts of private proprietors; and one good result of the communal, or, as a Cantab would rather say, combinational life of Oxford, is the prospect that things will be achieved there by bodies of men imbued with the “genius loci,” which would surpass the aspiration, taste, or indeed ability of most individuals to accomplish elsewhere. So should it ever be. What can the use be of any individual, whose establishment does not assume palatial proportions, pluming himself on the possession of architectural decorations, or masterpieces of painting or sculpture, which, added to a public gallery, would give delight and instruction to thousands, instead of administering to the pleasures of a few? I do not know whether you have ever visited Oxford. If you have, I may remind you, though unnecessarily, that, besides the world-renowned High Street, there are two other streets in it not less characteristic—one the Broad Street, parallel with it for a part of its length; and the other St Giles’s, a continuation of the Corn Market, running at right angles to the High Street from Oxford Cross. The Broad Street is one of those areas reminding us of Continental cities, where the population might be mustered in arms if necessary. It was in the middle of this that Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were martyred; and at its junction with St Giles’s is now set up an elegant Gothic monument, something in the manner of Sir Walter Scott’s at Edinburgh, to perpetuate the memory of that event. St Giles’s is a most remarkable street. It has a church at its commencement and near its end, where it branches into two roads. It is so spacious that the houses on each side, irregularly built as they are, and ought to be, appear diminutive; and between the houses and the central road, on each side, is a row of trees, which gives it the appearance of a boulevard. On entering it, you have on the right the new buildings of Baliol, and farther on, the more ancient face of St John’s College; facing which are the new Taylor Buildings—a structure with which much fault has been found, as a weak centre on the side towards Beaumont Street appears to carry two heavy wings, but which must be allowed on all hands to conduce greatly to the adorning of its site, and indeed of the town generally. It is in this street that fountains, judiciously placed, would add much to the general effect; but many may doubt whether fountains would ever have other than an unnatural and artificial aspect in England, where the wetness of the atmosphere renders drier objects pleasanter to look upon. There are two seasons of the year when fountains are especially agreeable—in the summer heats, when it is delightful to be within reach of their spray; and in frost, when they are draped with pendulous icicles of the most fantastic beauty—a phenomenon I have indeed seen on the little fountain in the Botanic Garden at Oxford. Both these seasons are generally with us of short duration, and during all the rest, fountains to many would be somewhat of an eyesore, and create a shivering sensation. Those in Trafalgar Square count as nothing. As for the Crystal Palace and Versailles fountains, and all of the same description, people delight in them more for their mechanical cleverness than their artistic effect, and they are things got up for holiday occasions, not meant to form parts of the scenes of everyday life, like the fountains of Italy, or the gossip-haunted Brunnen of Germany. I fear then that, for the present, Oxford must be contented with her rivers, and not babble of fountains. She is one of the few large towns singularly blest with the presence of ever-flowing and ever-living water. The Isis runs beside her, covered with a fleet of pleasure-boats, probably as large as that of Athens during the Peloponnesian war, to which it has been wittily compared, and in the summer days, swarming in and out amongst each other like the gondolas of Venice. The Cherwell, which is a river as large as the famed Cam, or nearly so, encircles the meadows of Christchurch and Magdalen, and, with its sinuous course, and banks overshadowed with trees, presents numberless nooks of beauty, and spots of refuge from the heats of summer. The avenue in Christchurch meadow is second to none in the world, perhaps superior to all, though there are many like it; for instance, the avenue at Cambridge, which was compared by Porson to a college fellowship, as a long dreary vista with a church at the end of it; the avenue by the Severn, in the Quarries at Shrewsbury: that of the University of Bonn, and others at royal residences, and near places of academic retirement. In connection with this avenue, it is well to mention that there is a time-honoured custom prevalent in the University, of making it a general promenade on the Sunday in Commemoration-week, which generally occurs towards the end of the leafy month of June. On that day, most of the members of the University are to be seen in their distinctive dresses; and those are considered happy who are accompanied with friends, called, from their object in visiting the University, “lions and lionesses;” nor is the wealth and beauty of the city unrepresented. From this custom arises the name of “Show Sunday.”
The rivers afford an inexhaustible source of amusement, at a cheap and easy rate, to the gownsmen, who luxuriate in all sorts of boats, according to their activity or laziness—the energetic eight-oar, the social four-oar, the friendly pair-oar, the fantastic canoe, the adventurous outrigger-skiff, the dreamy sailing-boat, and the sleepy punt, the latter having come into fashion chiefly of late years, and in the hot season, and being a method of amusement which, at the price of the violent exertion of one of the party, purchases the perfect repose of the rest, who lie on their backs in boating-dresses, cigar in mouth, and the last work of Dickens or Thackeray, chosen for its lightness, in hand, and watch over the sides the swimmings of their Skye terriers. This peculiar dog, distinguished from all others by its sagacity, fidelity, and an ugliness which has worn into beauty, is now quite a part of the University system; yet I remember when the first was introduced into Oxford, and considered so remarkable that he gave his master the name among the townsmen of the “gentleman what belongs to the dog.” The poor little fellow had to suffer much for his resemblance to a door-mat, before his position was fully recognised.
Next in importance to the colleges and rivers of Oxford are the gardens. With the latter we must include the college-meadows, which are composed of a real meadow in the centre, surrounded by a planted gravel-walk, bounded generally, on the outer side, by one of the rivers. These gardens, though private, are liberally opened by the college authorities to the public, and, occupying a large part of the area of the town, they invite the residents to a number of short walks and lounges, the temptation to which in other towns is generally wanting, but which must be most conducive to health. In some of them—as in St John’s—the members of the college amuse themselves with archery, in others with bowls—a truly after-dinner recreation; while in the park that is attached to the grounds of Magdalen College the eye is gladdened by the sight of a number of browsing deer, who become singularly tame in consequence of the attentions of the Fellows. Well might Macaulay call it “their pleasant abode” of Magdalen! Magdalen is now rendered even more pleasant to some minds by the choral service of the Church of England having been brought to perfection in its chapel, so that its members can never attend Divine service without their ears being charmed by the most exquisite music. Others may be of opinion that the service solemnly read produces an effect which is appreciable by all rather than by a few of peculiar temperament. I do not take upon myself to strike the balance. In two other colleges is the service sung instead of being said—namely, in St John’s and New Colleges, and these three colleges are naturally a source of great attraction to strangers—so much so, that the chapels being of limited dimensions, admission to them has of necessity been made a favour. In the chapels at Oxford, customs have been perpetuated from time immemorial, which would shock rigid Protestantism, unless inured to them by habitual contact—such as the lighting of candles on the altar, and painted altar-pieces, instead of the Commandments-table which is usual in Anglican churches. Be this as it may, the attendance at morning chapel, which is enforced on the junior members, and sometimes considered by them a grievance, becomes in time so much a habit that they feel the want of it when they become parochial clergymen, and in many cases endeavour to perpetuate it by daily services (having certainly the letter of the law of their Church on their side), with considerable success indeed in some town parishes, and among the richer classes; but with doubtful result in the rural districts, where the peculiar habits of the labouring poor scarcely seem to allow them to fall in with it to any great extent.
While on the subject of Oxford, you naturally wish me to say what I think generally of the system of education of the place. I will tell you, then, in short, that I consider it the best possible system of education to form the character of a man and a gentleman. Do you ask me why? I answer that it is so for this simple reason—that it tends to develop in the fairest manner all the various energies of that many-sided creature, Man. There are two sorts of education at Oxford, as at our public schools—one enforced by law, the other dependent on social customs: both have their full sway at Oxford. Thus we have a practical illustration of the strongest kind of the Platonic theory of education. Plato very properly thought that the development of the bodily powers was almost of as much consequence as that of the mental, and accordingly enjoined that education in his Utopia should consist of music and gymnastics. By music he understood all that falls into the province of either of the nine Muses. By gymnastics he understood not a dreary tugging at ropes, and hugging of bars, and climbing ladders with hands, but a simultaneous exercise of mind and body in pastimes where the body is deceived by the mind into activity, and cheated into wholesome weariness—such as contests of strength and passages of arms, hunting, fowling, and the like. Even so at Oxford physical education is complete; and although it does not form a subject of examination in the schools under the new system, it is carried perhaps to greater perfection than any other kind, and therefore we may conclude that the Royal Commission does well to leave it where it stands. These Oxford gymnastics (using the word always in its special and Platonic sense) are for the greater part perfectly consistent with the “musical” part of the system which emanates from authority. Occasionally, however, those sports, which, as a Catholic founder of one of the colleges said, “miram atque incredibilem delectationem afferunt” (showing that the old boy himself, though he wished to see his seminary like a bee-hive, thoroughly appreciated them), interfere with the hours devoted to study; and therefore fox-hunting, which I especially allude to, is generally discouraged by the Dons even in the case of those students who are able to afford it. The delicious languor, so unlike the rude and partial fatigue resulting from any other exercise, which pervades the whole system after a good day’s riding, and gives a Parisian savour to the plainest dinner, is of course fatal for the rest of the day to any other intellectual work; for who shall deny that hunting is intellectual work?—intellectual for the hounds, who have the sagest of beasts to outwit—intellectual for the horses, who have the safest footing to choose in a moment of time, and the exactest distances to measure; intellectual for the rider, who requires the eye of an eagle and the judgment of a Solon to know where he ought to be, not to mention the huntsman and M. H., whose whole lives, if they take deep interest in the matter, as they generally do, must be spent in intense thought? An excellent exercise it is of mind, undoubtedly, but fatal to other exercises of a less absorbing character, and therefore consistently discouraged by the Dons. The same may be said of driving. Driving is at best but a lazy exercise; and though it requires skill, it is not sufficiently gymnastic; besides, it is expensive, and presents no advantage corresponding to the expense. But we cannot help thinking that if the thunders of each university Zeus had been less lavishly launched against tandem-driving in particular, this antiquated practice, very good in peculiar countries, but generally merely a puppyish display, would have died out of itself. There is always a peculiar sweetness to young minds in forbidden pleasures.
But boating and cricket and football, tennis, rackets, fives, and billiards, still please, although there is nothing illegitimate about them, and are perfectly consistent with the earnest pursuits of the place. With regard to billiards, I must just observe that this fascinating game has in a great measure lost its reputation, from the fact that the billiard-room is in most English towns the rendezvous of all the blackguardism of the place; but in Oxford the billiard-rooms are private, and engaged by each party of players; they are an especial refuge on wet days, nor can I see any exception that can be taken to the pastime, save when it degenerates into the public pool, becomes a species of gambling, and loses its real character, which is that of a game of skill, quite as much as that of chess, combined with gentle exercise. As there is not the slightest danger of the studies I have mentioned falling into desuetude, so have they been with good judgment overlooked by the University authorities, and as they present in every phase an examination of themselves, it has not been found necessary to create any special honours as a reward for proficiency in them. The universal existence of this gymnastic education in Oxford, superadded to a peculiar keenness and dampness in the air, induces an appetite which can only be satisfied by what appears to strangers an unusual amount of eating and drinking. In the latter particular there is indeed a great improvement. Excess in quantity is extremely rare even among extravagant students; but the fiery wines of Portugal and Spain still hold their ground against all comers, and public opinion is decidedly in their favour—so much so, that others are treated with a sort of contempt. It is said that on the occasion of the visit of a great personage to the sister University, whose habits bear a strong resemblance to those of Oxford, when the servants of that personage sent a complaint to the entertainer,—a Head of a House,—that they were only supplied with port when they were used to claret, he sent back a message to them that the college port, with a due admixture of pump-water, would make the best claret in the world. The substantial nature of an Oxford breakfast, enough of itself to convert Bishop Berkeley to a belief in the existence of Matter, is in itself an evidence that the potations of the preceding night have seldom been immoderate. With regard to that part of the education of the place, to the furtherance of which its gymnastics and good fare are supposed only to administer, it is truly “musical” in the Greek sense of the word. Of music, as we understand it, there is certainly little as yet enjoined; but every encouragement is given to its culture by chanted services in certain chapels, by a liberal allowance of concerts sanctioned by authority, by doctor’s degrees conferred in it, with a most splendid gown worthy of Apollo himself if he ever wore one; by especially the Grand Commemoration festival, at which the first public singers are often engaged. On the whole, there is a great taste in Oxford for this beautiful art, which requires little forcing, for it grows of itself in the climate of the place. This taste is especially shown by the liberality with which brass-bands playing your national airs are remunerated; but important as it is, it is sometimes found to interfere with the soundless but sounder elements of education, and therefore it becomes necessary in certain cases to check it. The rooms of the men have in general such thin partitions, that the noise of one seriously interferes with the silence of another. I once knew a reading man in —— College, who was placed between two pianofortes, one overhead, and the other underfoot: he especially complained of the interruption on Sundays, as on that day his more celestial neighbour played sacred tunes, while his neighbour of the nether world played profane, producing a discord in mid-air as ludicrous as painful to an ear of taste. But I take it that the sense in which music is used in old scholastic Latin, is in general the Platonic sense, and thus the Music school at Oxford means one not especially devoted to exercises in what we call music, but to exercises on examination in belles lettres. That this term has acquired a broader significance by the recent changes in the Oxford University system, I cannot but think a subject for congratulation. When the University departed as a general principle from the practice of making verse-writing in the dead languages the mainspring of erudition in them—a practice still far from obsolete in the public schools of England—it became necessary, if only to take up the time of the students, and prevent them from lapsing into intellectual inanition, to supply them with other food congenial to the spirit of the place. The germ of these new studies had existed before, and only required development. There could be no better foundation for culture in modern history and jurisprudence than the exact study of the ancient historians of Greece and Rome pursued under the old system. Even so with mathematics. The modern examinations are, for the most part, mere distributions of the former work, and by getting part of it over sooner, the student is less puzzled as to the disposal of his time. But the paucity of candidates for mathematical honours, in comparison with those who cling to belles lettres, is a sign that the exact sciences are still exotics in the atmosphere of Oxford; and as long as the spirit of the place remains what it is, they are scarcely likely to become otherwise. Nor are the physical sciences apparently likely to acquire soon a hold on the popular feeling of the University. Still, as before, the pivot around which Oxford studies revolve is formed by the solid metal of the ancient classical authors, whose words are picturesque and statuesque, and fraught with the same eternal beauty, the same adaptability as models for all time, as the things that the hands of their contemporaries produced. Although as yet no school of modern languages has been formed in which examination in them forms a part of the University system, yet every encouragement has been given to the study of them by the foundation of a professorship supported by public teacherships; and even if nothing more is done, there is every reason to think that, supported as it is by the cosmopolitan position which our country has taken of late years, this important branch of literature will sufficiently nourish in Oxford.
So far it appears that the changes which have been made in the constitution of Oxford have been of a conservative character—the reforms have destroyed nothing, but developed a great deal that formerly lay dormant in the University system. They will continue to be of this character if the University is allowed abundance of light and air and space to put forth its own energies, and not damaged by injudicious meddling from without. There have been rumours of further changes, some of which are apparently called for by the necessities of the time, while others have merely been engendered by the inventiveness of the spirit of innovation. One peculiarly delicate subject has been brought on the tapis, which, although I hold an opinion of my own respecting it, I should prefer stating in the position of one balancing two conflicting views, as far as my prejudice admits. I mean the celibacy of the Fellows. In the first place, if it is true that women are like a church, because there is no living without them, a proposition I heard the other day in the form of a riddle, the business is settled at once, because it is cruelty to condemn any body of men to a living grave; but, on the other hand, if the men themselves acquiesce in this social burial, and refuse to be delivered from it, they have undeniably a voice in the matter, even though it be from the catacombs, and ought to be heard in a manner so nearly and dearly affecting their own interests. The defenders of the present system have a great advantage in being able to raise a laugh against those who from within advocate a change, alleging that they have some gentle reasons for doing so. We are a nation peculiarly sensitive to being placed in a ridiculous position, and it requires no small amount of moral courage for any man who is a member of a body to start opinions which the rest, though they may in their hearts sympathise with, are not immediately prepared to fall in with. It must be allowed that the outcry against collegiate celibacy has been louder outside than inside the walls of common rooms. It may be said, on the other side, that the voices of those without are not stifled by the fear of snubbing and ridicule as those within are, and that those who see the effect of a system on others are better qualified to judge than those whose own minds are biassed by its pressure. Those who work in mines and live in unwholesome air only feel by diminished energy the evil effects of the miasma they have to breathe, while those who live apart from them see it in their pale and haggard looks. It is not the bondsman in general who calls for emancipation so loudly as the spectator who has tasted the sweets of freedom. To come to a practical aspect of the question; it is urged by the advocates of emancipation that celibacy was part of the religious system under which the colleges were founded, and that as that religious system has ceased to exist in reference to them, there is no object in keeping up a restriction which can have no such motive; and to those who would urge that the intentions of the founders ought to be consulted as that of any testator ought to be, it is answered that it is hypocrisy to pretend to consult the wills of founders in a matter which is merely a corollary to a rule which has been essentially broken through, and that the wills of founders are even in this instance nullified by the marriage of heads of colleges, who being of necessity priests by the statutes under the papal regime, would render such a prohibition in their cases superfluous. Again, those who are for continuing the celibacy system urge that a fellowship is intended only as a stepping-stone to a permanent provision in the view of the world, and that to allow the marriage of Fellows would render the succession so slow as to destroy the practical value of the foundations. To this is opposed the statement that in fact men are well content to settle down on a fellowship, which is indeed a premium on indolence, and that they acquire, even if industrious, habits of expense, which make them loth to part with a large proportion of their incomes without grave cause, so that in fact many men do continue Fellows until late in life, when they care naturally less about marriage; and moreover, that the slowness of succession might equally be urged in the case of livings which only become vacant by death, and that for the same reason it would be equally reasonable to enforce the celibacy of bishops were they not expressly commanded to be husbands, as some interpret Scripture; yet more, the fellowship might be made tenable for a certain number of years only, and superannuation might not entail, as it does now, the loss of the chance of college patronage to livings. Some satirical writers have drawn a humorous picture of the condition of colleges with sets of rooms inhabited by family Fellows, the quadrangles turned into play-grounds, and the sacred grass-plots invaded by nursemaids with their charges, still further presuming to imagine intestine feuds between jealous fellowinnen (as you Germans would call them), which they think would be incompatible with the feeling of collegiate brotherhood or sisterhood. To this it may be answered, that, as it is, the majority of Fellows reside in the country, and are otherwise occupied than with collegiate duties, and there would be less inducement than formerly for the plural Fellow to content himself with the limited accommodation of a college; and it would be easy to make a rule that a certain number of the Fellows,—that is to say, of the younger, should reside to undertake the offices; and even if they were married, those offices should only continue so long as to incur no danger of their inundating the quadrangles with urchins. The worst of it is, that the Oxford education has a peculiar tendency to develop the poetical and artistic temperament; and to men of this temperament, who are, in all countries, in a much larger proportion to others than is generally thought, the long vista of celibacy is little else than a long perspective of purgatory. To all who love the beautiful, whether saints or sinners, there is one central point round which all their thoughts revolve—one standard by which all their comparisons are made,—and that is none other than woman. The musical mind is drawn to her through the symphonies of Mozart or Handel—through the complicated opera strain, and the simple national air—
“The soul of love and bravery;”
for even the hero-songs of war, by arousing the manliness of man, suggest the loveliness of woman. The artistic mind is drawn to her through all the schools of painting—through even the sumptuous Madonnas which the sacred painters have imagined, as through the sun-warm but less heavenly creations of Titian or Correggio. It is impossible for the artistic eye to look at the symmetry of a tree or the graceful lines of a mountain, or even the crystal curves in a fountain, without dwelling on that form which, of all created, is undeniably the most beautiful without any of its associations, and dwelling on it, too, with somewhat other feelings than those expressed by the Italian priest when he remarked, in a tone of reproof, to a friend who wished to call his attention to a fair lady at an assembly—