* * * We landed at the East India docks, five or six miles from St. Paul's, and considering myself pretty well informed in the law, and not easily to be cheated, I hired a hack, without saying a word as to the price, and had the pleasure of being forced to pay five times the lawful fare, because, forsooth, the law did not extend down the river, and moreover, it was a glass coach.
* * * The University of Oxford, which has existed since the year 886, comprises no less than twenty-one different colleges, each distinct and independent, with a president and faculty; but united in a sort of federal compact, and governed by a Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, the latter being the acting and responsible officer. The Duke of Wellington, as you well know, at present fills the Chancellor's chair. The college buildings are nearly all of the Tudor style of architecture, and most of them, indeed, were erected in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., and of Elizabeth; and they bear now a stately and venerable aspect. They are in the quadrangular form, covering two or three acres, with a large area in the centre. Several of them front on High-street, which is considered one of the most imposing in Europe.
I had no letters to Oxford; and my kind reception by Mr. and Mrs. T——, with only a self-introduction, gave me a most favorable impression of English hospitality. They freely invited me to their house, and took pains to show me every thing of interest. On Sunday I attended their church, which boasts no little antiquity, having been founded by Alfred the Great, in the eighth century. Its style of architecture is of course Anglo-Saxon.
In the afternoon, I went with Mr. T—— to the beautiful chapel of Magdalen college, to hear the chanting, which is performed by a choir of boys, in the most perfect and touching manner. It was much the most beautiful, and, as I thought, appropriate, church music I had ever heard. The effect can scarcely be imagined by one who has only heard the Episcopal chants in our churches. In this chapel is a painting by Carlo Dolci, valued at eleven thousand guineas! Addison was educated at Magdalen college; and his favorite walk, on the banks of the Isis, is yet called 'Addison's Walk.' Gibbon, whose stately style is so strongly in contrast with the classic ease and purity of the 'Spectator,' took his degree here, also. The 'crack' college, in size, wealth, the extent of its library, and gallery of paintings, and the aristocracy of its members, is Christ Church. Most of its graduates are sons of the nobility, and the higher classes; but yet it was in this college I was shown the room occupied by Dr. Johnson, who was certainly a plebeian, albeit an inveterate tory.
But I will not inflict on you a prosing account of this renowned University, or a catalogue of her sons; are they not all written in books? I must say a word or two, howbeit, of the two big libraries; for, as friend Harper says, 'that is somewhat in my line.' The Radcliffe library is in a circular building, with a huge dome, and an elegant interior. It contains, beside its one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, a fine collection of casts and busts, such as the Laöcoon, Apollo Belvidere, Warwick Vase, etc. The Bodleian is still more extensive. It has three hundred thousand volumes, and a large picture-gallery, with many noble paintings, and models of ancient temples. These immense repositories of literary treasures, and gems of art, are alone well worth a visit to Oxford. But I could not help thinking, that the world would not be much the wiser for a greater part of these books. It strikes us practical yankees, that books were made for use, rather than to fill up long shelves, to be looked at only on the outside, and the mass of them never to be opened, even by the 'favored few.' Among the rarities which they, show here, are an Ethiopic MS. version of the Book of Enoch, recently brought from Africa, and Queen Elizabeth's Latin exercise-book, in her own hand-writing. Connected with the Bodleian, is a hall of ancient sculpture, containing about eighty statues, which have been brought from Greece and Italy. Near by, are kept the celebrated Arundelian marbles; and here I saw the original Parian Chronicle, made two hundred and sixty-four years before Christ! and of course now somewhat illegible. This chronicle, you know, was an important authority in ancient chronology. I must not forget the 'Theatre,' an edifice not for dramatic performances, but the college anniversaries, which we call 'commencements.' This extensive hall is elegantly decorated, and well contrived for a large audience. It was here that the Emperors of Russia and Austria, etc., were pompously received, when they visited England, in 1815. The connoisseur in paintings will find ample entertainment in Oxford; and if you come here, especially do not omit seeing the altar-piece in All-Soul's chapel, a most exquisite 'Magdalen,' with an expression of countenance I can never forget. A few miles from Oxford, is the splendid palace and park of Blenheim, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough, for his military services.
Warwick Castle.—It were as well, perhaps, for me to say nothing of these places which a thousand and one tourists have already made familiar to you. As to this; Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon, and indeed the European tour, I know the subject has been pretty well used up, and scribblers must now be content to tell an old story as best they may. I might tell you how I went down to this famous castle, and knocked at the porter's lodge, and how he took me within it, to see the walking-stick of Guy, Earl of Warwick, nine feet high, and his 'porridge-pot' of iron, which would contain half a barrel!—how he sent me up a long circular path-way, cut through a solid rock, to the castle itself; how I marvelled at its vastness, and passed under the towers into the area; how I wandered about, bewildered with the number of entrances to the huge pile, on all sides, but finally ventured one, and got into a chapel, without being challenged; how they took me through a range of gorgeous apartments, extending three hundred and thirty-three feet in a line, on only one side of the castle; and all the princely furniture, the tables of inlaid brass and precious stones; the rare paintings and sculpture which fill these halls; the antique armory, cut out of the thickness of the castle walls; the earl's family, and how naughty he is; and sundry other matters, may be buried in oblivion. You are aware that this is much the finest, perhaps the only one remaining entire, of the old English baronial castles. Its walls have been standing eight hundred years; and yet they seem imperishable. A novice like myself is 'taken aback' with the grandeur of these lordly abodes.
The change of the scene to the ruins of Kenilworth, in the course of an hour, naturally led to instructive recollections of the past. Here was once a castle as extensive and impregnable as the one we had just left; but now the lofty towers are fast falling to decay; and the sheep are grazing in peace and quiet, where once all the magnificence of the Elizabethan age was concentrated. I passed the same portal that admitted the great Eliza and her train, when she came to honor the princely entertainments of her favorite Leicester. The ruins are extremely picturesque; and they prove that the castle was of prodigious extent. They forcibly remind one that