Robert Southey

High-street, Oxford.—Dress of the Oxonians.—Christ Church Walk.—Friar Bacon's Study.—Lincoln College.—Baliol.—Trinity.—New College.—Saint John's.—Mode of Living at the Colleges.—Servitors.—Summer Lightning.

D. has a relation at one of the colleges, to whom he dispatched a note immediately upon our arrival. By the time tea was ready he was with us. It must be admitted, that though the English are in general inhospitable towards foreigners, no people can be more courteous to those who are properly introduced. The young student told us that he should show us the University with as much pleasure as we could see it; for he had abstained from visiting many things himself, till he should have a lion to take with him. Upon enquiring the meaning of this strange term, I found that I was a lion myself; it is the name for a stranger in Oxford.

The High-street, in which our inn is situated, is said to be the finest street in Europe. The Calle de Alcala is longer, broader, straighter, and, were the trees in the Prado of tolerable size, would have a finer termination. In point of fine buildings, I should suppose no street can be compared with this; but the whole cannot be seen at once, because it is not sufficiently straight.

The dress of the collegians is picturesque; that which the great body of students wear is not unlike that of a secular priest. The cap is square, worn diagonally, covered with black cloth, and has a silk tassel in the middle: noblemen have the tassel of gold. It is graceful, but inconvenient, being of no use against sun, wind, or rain. Every degree has its distinguishing habit; they are not numerous, and all are of the same colour. I was the more sensible of the beauty of this collegiate costume, as cloaks are not worn in this country: there are no monastics, and the clergy are not to be distinguished from the laity; so that there is a total want of drapery in the dress of Englishmen every where, except in the universities.

We went after tea to a walk belonging to the college of Christ Church, a foundation of the famous Wolsey, who thus made some compensation to literature, and, as he thought, to the church, for the injury which he had done them. The foundation has been greatly increased;—it has a modern square, finely built, with a modern gateway leading to it; but modern buildings are not in keeping with the monastic character of the place. Our monasteries, indeed, are rarely or never so beautiful as these colleges: these are lighter, without being the less venerable in appearance, and have that propriety about them which characterizes every thing English. The greater part of Christ Church college is antient; nothing can be finer than the great gateway, the great square, and the open ascent to the refectory, though the great square is debased by a little miserable fountain of green and stinking water in the centre, so pitiful, that the famous MannekÈ of Brussels might well be placed in the midst of it, as the appropriate god of the puddle.

The walk belonging to this college is truly beautiful: a long avenue of fine old elms, whose boughs form a perfect arch in the vista, well exemplifying the hypothesis, that Gothic church architecture was designed to imitate the places where the Pagan Goths worshipped in the forest. At the termination of the walk a narrower way trends off, and winds round a large meadow by the side of the Isis, a river as much celebrated by the English poets, as the Mondego by the Portuguese. Nothing could be conceived more cheerful than the scene: a number of pleasure-boats were gliding in all directions upon this clear and rapid stream; some with spread sails; in others the caps and tassels of the students formed a curious contrast with their employment at the oar. Many of the smaller boats had only a single person in each; and in some of these he sat face forward, leaning back as in a chair, and plying with both hands a double-bladed oar in alternate strokes, so that his motion was like the path of a serpent. One of these canoes is, I was assured, so exceedingly light, that a man can carry it; but few persons are skilful or venturous enough to use it. Just where the river approaches nearest to the city, an old indented bridge stretches across, and a little fall cuts off all communication by boats with the upper part. Several smaller bridges over branches of the river were in sight, on some of which houses are built. On one of these formerly stood the study of Roger Bacon, the celebrated Franciscan. It was said, that whenever a wiser than he should pass under it, it would fall upon his head. I know not whether he who ordered its demolition was under any personal apprehensions, but it has been pulled down, not many years ago. It might have stood another millennium before the prediction would have been accomplished.

Our land view was not less interesting, nor less cheerful, than that towards the water. The winding walk was planted, with trees well disposed in groups, and all flourishing in a genial soil and climate: some poplars among them are of remarkable growth. Here the students were seen in great numbers; some with flowing gowns, others having rolled them up behind, others again with the folds gathered up and flung loosely over the arm. Spires, and towers, and pinnacles, and the great dome of the Radcliffe library, appeared over the high elms. The banks of Ilyssus, and the groves of Academus, could never have presented a sight more beautiful.

We walked till nine o'clock was announced by Great Tom, as the bell of Christ Church college is called: probably the last bell in the kingdom which has been baptized. It is of great size, and its tone full and sonorous. This is the supper hour in the colleges, after which the gates are shut. The names of those students who return late are taken down, and reported to the master; and if the irregularity be often repeated, the offender receives a reprimand. Order seems to be maintained here without severity; I heard no complaint of discipline from the young men, and the tutors on their part have as little reason to be displeased.

The next morning when I awoke, so many bells were chiming for church service, that for a while I wondered where I was, and could not immediately believe myself to be in England. We breakfasted with our fellow-traveller at Lincoln. This is a small and gloomy college; but our friend's apartments far exceeded in convenience and propriety, any which I have ever seen in a convent. The tea-kettle was kept boiling on a chafing-dish; the butter of this place is remarkably good; and we had each a little loaf set before us, called by the singular name of George Brown.[1] One man, whom they call a scout, waits upon the residents; another is the bed-maker. Service is performed in the chapels twice every day, at seven in the morning, and at five in the afternoon. The fellows lose their fellowships if they marry. It is surprising that so much of the original institution should still be preserved. A figure of the devil formerly stood upon this college; why placed there I have not learnt; but it is still a proverbial phrase to say of one who shows displeasure in his countenance, that he looks like the devil over Lincoln. Another college here has the whimsical ornament of a brazen nose on its gateway, from which it derives its name.

At ten o'clock the students go to their tutor, and continue with him an hour. At eleven therefore we called upon D.'s relation at Baliol college, which, though not large, nor of the handsomest order, is very neat, and has of late received many improvements, in perfectly good taste. The refectory is newly built, in the Gothic style; nothing can be less ornamented, yet nothing seems to need ornament less. There are four long tables, with benches for the students and bachelors. The fellow's table is on the dais at the upper end; their chairs are, beyond comparison, the easiest in which I ever sate down, though made entirely of wood: the seats are slightly concave from side to side; I know not how else to describe their peculiarity of construction, yet some thought and some experience must have been requisite to have attained to their perfection of easiness, and there may be a secret in the form which I did not discover. The chapel has some splendid windows of painted glass: in one, which represents the baptism of Queen Candace's eunuch, the pearl in the Ethiop's ear was pointed out to me as peculiarly well executed.

Our friend told us that Cranmer and Latimer were burnt before the gateway of this college, in bloody Queen Mary's days, by which name they always designate the sister of the bloody Elizabeth. I could not refrain from observing that these persecutors only drank of the same cup which they had administered to others, and reminded him of the blessed John Forrest, at whose martyrdom these very men had assisted as promoters, when he and the image of Christ were consumed in the same fire! It is truly astonishing to see how ignorant the English are of their own ecclesiastical history.

From hence we went to the adjoining college, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The garden here is remarkable for a wall of yew, which encloses it on three sides, cut into regular pilasters and compartments. D. cried out against it, but I should lament if a thing, which is so perfect in its kind, and which has been raised with so many years of care—indeed, so many generations—were to be destroyed, because it does not suit with the modern improved taste in gardening. You would hardly conceive that a vegetable wall could be so close and impervious, still less, that any thing so unnatural could be so beautiful as this really is. We visited the gardens of two other colleges. In those of New College, the college arms were formerly cut in box, and the alphabet grew round them; in another compartment was a sun-dial in box, set round with true lovers' knots. These have been destroyed, more easily as well as more rapidly than they were formed; but as nothing beautiful has been substituted in their places, it had been better if they had suffered these old oddities to have remained. One proof of their predecessors' whimsical taste has however been permitted to stand; a row of trees, every one of which has its lower branches grafted into its next neighbour, so that the whole are in this way united. The chapel here is the most beautiful thing in the university: it was repaired about ten years ago: and when the workmen were preparing the wall to set up a new altar-piece, they discovered the old one, which had been plastered up in the days of fanaticism, and which, to the honour of the modern architect, is said to have differed little in design from that which he was about to have erected in its place. The whole is exquisitely beautiful; yet I have heard Englishmen say that new Gothic, and even old Gothic dust renovated, never produces the same effect as the same building would do, with the mellowed colouring, the dust, and the crumbliness of age. The colouring, they say, is too uniform, wanting the stains which time would give it: the stone too sharp, too fresh from the chisel. This is the mere prejudice of old habits. They object with better reason to a Gothic organ, so shaped that a new painted window can be seen through it, as in a frame: a device fitter for stage effect than for a chapel. The window itself, which is exceedingly beautiful, was designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English master.

The other garden to which we were led, was that of StJohn's; it is laid out in the modern taste, with a grass lawn, winding walks, and beds of flowers and flowering shrubs. High elms, apparently coeval with the building itself, grow in its front, the back looks into the garden; and this view is that which I should select, of all others, as giving the best idea of the beauty and character of the English colleges.

We dined with our friend at Baliol, in the refectory. Instead of assembling there at the grace, we went into the kitchen, where each person orders his own mess from what the cook has provided, every thing having its specific price. The expenses of the week are limited to a certain sum, and if this be exceeded the transgressor is reprimanded. I was well pleased at this opportunity of becoming acquainted with the oeconomy of the colleges. The scene itself was curious: the kitchen was as large as that of a large convent; the grate of a prodigious size, because roast meat is the chief food of the English; it was so much shallower than any which I had seen in private families, as to consume comparatively but little coal; and the bars, contrary to the usual practice, placed perpendicularly. The cook's knife was nearly as long as a small sword, and it bent like a foil. The students order their messes according to seniority: but this custom was waived in our friend's favour, in courtesy to us as strangers. Every thing was served with that propriety which is peculiar to the English; we ate off pewter, a relic of old customs, and drank from silver cups.

I observed that the person who waited on us wore a gown, and had the appearance of a gentleman. On enquiry, I learnt that he was one of a class called servitors, who receive their education gratuitously, and enjoy certain pensions on condition of tolling the bell, waiting at table, and performing other menial offices. They are the sons of parents in low life, and are thus educated for the inferior clergy. When we talked upon this subject, D. said that he felt unpleasantly at calling to a man as well educated as himself, and of manners equally good, to bring him a piece of bread or a cup of beer. To this it was replied, that these persons, being humbly born, feel no humiliation in their office; that in fact it is none, but rather an advancement in life; that this was the tenure on which they held situations which were certainly desirable, and enjoyed advantages which would not else have been within their reach; and that many eminent men in the English church, among others the present primate himself, had risen from this humble station.

After dinner we adjourned to our friend's rooms. A small party had been invited to meet us: wine was set on the table in readiness, and fruit handed round. This, it seems, is the regular way of passing the afternoon. The chapel bell rung at five for evening service; some of our party left us at this summons; others remained, being permitted to absent themselves occasionally; a relaxation easily granted where attendance is looked upon as a mere matter of form, not as an act of religion.

Tea was served as in a private family, the English never dispensing with this meal. We then walked out, and ascending a hill close to the city, enjoyed a magnificent prospect of its towers and trees and winding waters. About ten there began one of the most glorious illuminations which it is possible to conceive,—far more so than the art of man can imitate. The day had been unusually hot, and the summer lightning was more rapid and more vivid than I had ever before seen it. We remained till midnight in the great street, watching it as it played over the bridge and the tower of StMagdalen's church. The tower, the bridge, the trees, and the long street were made as distinct as at noon-day, only without the colours of day, and with darker shadows,—the shadows, indeed, being utterly black. The lightning came not in flashes, but in sheets of flame, quivering and hanging in the sky with visible duration. At times it seemed as if the heavens had opened to the right and left, and permitted a momentary sight of the throne of fire.