IF Magdalen is the most beautiful of Oxford Colleges, Christ Church is assuredly the most magnificent. Building was one of the favourite pursuits of Cardinal Wolsey, first Founder of Christ Church, as it was of Wykeham and Waynflete before him: it is almost mysterious how men of this type, who had the highest affairs of the State as well as of the Church upon their shoulders, found so much leisure to devote to architecture. Wolsey's plans were cut short by his fall from power, but he had already shewn by his completed palace in Whitehall and by Hampton Court, which he built as a present for his sovereign, the grandeur and largeness of his ideas. Out of the revenues of suppressed monasteries he had designed to establish a College far larger and far more richly endowed than any of its predecessors; and three sides of the Great Quadrangle had arisen before he fell upon adversity. Then the king stopped the work, and for a century the unfinished structure stood as a reminder of

Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself,

And falls o' the other side.

Yet Wolsey had a public as well as a private ambition. He loved learning, and desired to promote it: he sought to save the Church by rearing instructed ministers for her service. If he failed, it was a noble failure; for though Henry VIII., who now assumed the title of Founder, sanctioned an establishment less wide and generous than Wolsey proposed, even so the new College easily surpassed all others in the scale of its endowments.

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The finest view of Christ Church from without is that which is obtained from St. Aldates Street, and is shewn in Mr. Matthison's first drawing. "Tom" Tower, which forms the centre of the faÇade, was not part of the original scheme, but was added in 1682, when Dr. John Fell was Dean. The College owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Fell for employing Wren as his architect, if for nothing else. Wolseys gate, which was no higher than the two smaller towers between which his statue stands, might easily have been spoilt by a less skilful designer, but Wren added to its beauty, and made it one of the finest structures in Oxford. The Tower is named after the great bell which it contains, brought from Osney Abbey. Every night "Tom" tolls a curfew of a hundred and one strokes at nine o'clock, and at the closing stroke all College gates are shut and all undergraduates supposed to be within their College walls. Dr. John Fell, by the way, is the Dr. Fell whom the epigrammatist disliked without being able to assign a cause. His pictures shew a forbidding countenance enough, but he deserved well of his College and the University. In addition to the Tower, he completed the front towards St. Aldates, fostered the University Press, and did his best to make examinations a reality. He planted also the elms of the Broad Walk, a beautiful avenue which custom has decreed as the regulation promenade on "Show Sunday" (in Commemoration Week); but within the last twenty years storms have made havoc of the trees, and little of the Walk's former beauty remains.

The Great Quadrangle—"Tom Quad." in Oxford parlance—dwarfs by its large dimensions all the other courts of Oxford. The arches and rib-mouldings indicate the original intention of the first builders, which was to surround the Quadrangle with a cloister. As it is, though this design was never carried out, the impression conveyed is one of great splendour. Never is the appearance of "Tom Quad." more effective than at the moment when the white-robed congregation comes out of the Cathedral doors. All undergraduates of "The House" wear surplices—worn by scholars only, save here and at Keble—and the Cathedral is their Chapel. Mr. Matthison has chosen such a moment for his drawing, when the Quadrangle is in a moment flooded by the white surplices, varied here and there by the crimson hood of a Master or a Doctor's scarlet robes.

On the left of the drawing appears the Cathedral spire; in the centre the Belfry Tower, a solid and handsome structure put up in Dean Liddell's day; and on the right the windows and pinnacles of the Hall.

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To approach the Hall one passes through the archway at the south-east corner of the Quadrangle, and ascends a wide staircase notable for the wonderful fanwork tracery of the ceiling. This tracery dates from the time of Dean Samuel Fell (father of Dr. John Fell), and was completed in 1640; it appears in Mr. Matthison's fourth drawing. The Hall itself (which is the subject of the next illustration) has no rival in Oxford and no superior in England, Westminster Hall only excepted. It measures 115 feet by 40, and is 50 feet in height. The window above the dais contains full length stained-glass representations of Wolsey, More, Erasmus, Colet, and other great men of the Reformation era; and the walls are hung with a very fine collection of portraits, including those of Henry VIII. and Wolsey (by Holbein), Deans Aldrich and Atterbury (by Kneller), Charles Wesley (by Romney), George Canning (by Lawrence), Gladstone (by Millais), "Lewis Carroll" (by Herkomer), and Dean Liddell (by Watts).

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There is still much of Christ Church to explore, as the remaining illustrations indicate. From Merton Street one approaches "The House" by Canterbury Gate, which opens upon the small Canterbury Quadrangle (erected towards the end of the eighteenth century). Beyond is Peckwater Quadrangle, built in 1705 after the Italian model, on the site of Peckwater's Inn. The black and crumbling walls of this quadrangle are in striking contrast to the smooth surface of "Tom Quad.," but in the summer term, when every window is gay with flowers, the gloom of Peckwater is forgotten. On the right hand is the Library, which, beside books, contains an interesting collection of paintings of the early Italian schools. The outlook from the Meadow Buildings (1863), which includes the Broad Walk, the Long Walk, and glimpses of the River, is a pleasant one, though the buildings themselves are not, from the outside, particularly attractive.

Some of the famous sons of Christ Church have already been incidentally mentioned. As might be expected from its numerous muster-roll, it has had members who attained distinction in every walk of life; but statistics seem to shew that there is something in the atmosphere of "The House" peculiarly favourable to the growth of statesmen. No other College, at any rate, has given England three premiers in succession, Mr. Gladstone (a double first), Lord Salisbury, and Lord Rosebery. To make an exhaustive list might weary the reader, but the honoured name of Sir Robert Peel must at least be mentioned. Strenuous as were these men's labours in after-life, it is permissible to fancy that amid the pleasant surroundings of their student days they did not altogether "scorn delights." Here, for instance, is an extract from the diary kept by Charles Wesley when an undergraduate: "Wrote to V.—translated—played an hour at billiards." There is no harm in supposing "V." a girl, if we choose.

How strangely runs the little list

Of Wesley's day, like Isis rippling,

While yet the mighty Methodist

'Mid striplings merry made, a stripling.

to quote the words of an anonymous rhymer.

Again, the expounding of mathematics term after term is a sober pursuit enough, yet C. L. Dodgson, mathematical tutor of Christ Church, had leisure to be "Lewis Carroll" also, the nursery classic, the delight of children of all ages. The serious purpose of John Ruskin, who as the anonymous "Oxford Graduate" took the Art world by storm, could not extinguish his lambent humour. It is a part of the genius of Christ Church to keep alive a certain sunshine of the mind. Let us hope that this was the case even with her austerer thinkers; with Locke, who was forced to leave the College on account of his Whig opinions; with William Penn, who was sent down for nonconformity—you will find sunshine as well as shadow in his little volume, Some Fruits of Solitude, which he is thought to have composed, partly at any rate, in prison; and with Dr. Pusey, as he searched for the way of perfection among the dusty folios of patristic lore.

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