Water Walks by the Cherwell, or many other portions. The chapel music by its choir of men and boys is said to be one of the most exquisite in England; but, alas! it was the Long Vacation. Its reredos is modern and very beautiful, with canopied niches filled with statues; and the stained glass of its choir is the gift of Lord Selborne, who was a fellow here; as Wolsey, Hampden, Addison, Gibbon, Charles Reade, and Wilkie Collins were students in their day. Let him who is weary of even such college walls as these vary his delights by driving, as we did, across Magdalen Bridge to the suburbs of Cowley St. John; and then on down the Thames to Iffley with its picturesque mill and fine old Norman church; and Littlemore, the hamlet which Newman, when chaplain there, made noted through the United Kingdom; and the lovely shades of Nuneham Courtenay, for which we have Hawthorne's testimony that they are "as perfect as anything earthly can be." We paused at Cowley to see the new Church of the Holy Spirit, being built by the Society of St. John the Evangelist to replace the one of iron which it long used; and so came in contact - with the spot whence our own Anglo-American bishop was chosen from the Brotherhood here, the sole instance of priestly orders taken in England (here at Christ Church Cathedral) and supplemented by the episcopate conferred in America. Then back again by Merton Street to Merton College and Corpus Christi and Oriel, which lie clustered together before Merton Fields at the south, embosomed in verdure. Balliol and Merton are nearly identical in age; and the Fellows of Merton, always noted for free speech, were called Lollards till within two centuries, Wycliffe in the past and Bishop Patteson in the present being of their number. Harvey was once Master, and Duns Scotus, Steele, and Bodley among its alumni, who have also furnished six to be Primates of all England. No view of Oxford is complete without Merton's massive square tower, and the splendid east window of its chapel; and its library is the most ancient in the kingdom. Bishop Fox of Winchester founded Corpus Christi; and here was made the earliest provision for the teaching of the classics. Cardinal Pole, Bishops Jewell and Hooker, and Day, the author of "Sandford and Merton" |