|WHERE is the centre, the [Greek words] of Oxford? The average
undergraduate will probably place it within the walls of his own
College; but we, detached observers whose salad days, presumably, are
over, look for a definition worthy of more catholic acceptance. To us
Oxford is not a city of Colleges only, but of noble streets and wide
spaces. Them it is our purpose to explore, not with the hasty stride of
one bound for lecture-room, or cricket-ground, or river, but leisurely
and with discrimination; we are ready to be chidden for curiosity, so we
incur not the gravamen of indifference. Where, then, shall we start on
our pilgrimage, and from what centre? If there be in any city a place
where four principal roads meet, as at the Cross in Gloucester, we may
listen there for the pulsations of that city's heart.
Such a place there is in Oxford, Carfax,--_Quatre voies_,--the spot
where four ways meet. This, not too arbitrarily, we will name the centre
of Oxford, and thence will wend upon our pilgrimage. But let us pause a
moment, before we set out, at the parting of the ways.
The old Church of St. Martin's at Carfax was pulled down in 1896, and
only the tower left. St. Martin's was the church of the city fathers, as
St. Mary's was (and is) the church of the University. Nowadays the
civic procession winds its way to All Saints, a nearer neighbour of
St. Mary's. Such propinquity would have sorted ill with the manners of
mediaeval Oxford, when the enmity of town and gown, at times quiescent,
was never wholly quelled. In an age when the clerks, regular and
secular, fell out among themselves in the precincts of St. Mary's, even
to the shedding of blood, it is idle to look for a more civil temper in
the burgesses: and the bells of Carfax and St. Mary's summoned those who
frequented them to battle as well as to prayer. They rang out with the
former intention on the feast of St. Scholastica in 1354. It is sad to
record that the quarrel arose in a tavern, where two gownsmen abused
the vintner for serving them with wine of wretched quality. The conflict
which ensued was of a very deadly nature. The scholars held their own
until evening, when the citizens called the neighbouring villagers of
Cowley and Headington to their aid, and the Gown were routed. As many as
forty students were slain, and twenty-three townsmen. Then Edward
111. took steps to protect the men of learning, lowering, among other
measures, the tower of Carfax, because they complained that in times of
combat the townsmen retired thither as to a castle, and from its summit
grievously annoyed and galled them with arrows and stones. The burgesses
also were forced to attend annually at St. Mary's Church, when mass
was offered for the souls of the slain, bearing on their persons sundry
marks of degradation; and though these were subsequently done away, it
was only in 1825 that they were excused the indignity of attending the
commemorative service.
[Illustration: 0068]
[Illustration: 0069]
Such are some of the memories evoked by the Tower of Carfax, the best
view of which is given in Mr. Matthison's first drawing. The second
illustration is from a point rather farther to the eastward. Both give
a glimpse of the Mitre Hotel, most picturesque of old Oxford hostelries,
and the second a part of the front of All Saints. At this point we may
for a moment leave the High Street (which we have begun to traverse,
half insensibly, under the artist's guidance) and wander down "The
Turl," as Turl Street is commonly called. "Turl" is said to be
a corruption of Thorold, and Thorold to have been the name of a
postern-gate in the old city walls. The quiet old street has Colleges on
either hand, Lincoln, Exeter, and Jesus. Retracing our footsteps, we get
the fine view of All Saints which is given in the third illustration.
The history of this Church, known originally as All Hallows, goes back
to the twelfth century, but the present building, designed by Dr.
Aldrich, a former Dean of Christ Church, has only been in existence
since 1708, the old one having been destroyed in 1699 by the fall of its
spire. The present graceful tower and spire are a worthy memorial of
Dean Aldrich's versatility.
[Illustration: 0072]
[Illustration: 0073]
We now return to our exploration of "The High," whose magnificence of
outline become more and more apparent as one walks eastwards. It was
a poet bred at Cambridge, no less a poet than Wordsworth, whom the
manifold charm of Oxford tempted "to slight his own beloved Cam"; and
he it is who has written the most quotable description of "The High" in
brief. "The streamlike windings of that glorious street," he writes: and
indeed its curve suggests nothing so much as the majestic bend of some
noble river. We may cite, too, Sir Walter Scott's testimony, who claimed
that the High Street of Edinburgh is the most magnificent in Great
Britain, _except the High Street of Oxford_. It is not at all difficult
to assent to this opinion. As the view gradually unfolds itself, we have
on our left successively the new front of Brasenose, St. Mary's, All
Souls, Queen's, and Magdalen; on our right the long, dark front of
University, and many old dwelling-houses, whose architecture does not
shame their situation. Looking backward for a moment at Queen's College
(perhaps when the west is rosy, as in Mr. Matthison's drawing), one sees
substantially the same view which delighted Wordsworth in 1820; and we,
if we are wise, shall take as much delight in it as he. Many thousand
times since then has the sun set behind the spires of St. Mary's and All
Saints, but the unaltered prospect obliterates the intervening years,
and we are at one with the great poet in his admiration.
Contrast is always pleasant, and one may reach Broad Street (which
certainly must not be neglected) by several thoroughfares totally unlike
"The High." We may traverse Long Wall Street, with Magdalen Grove on our
right, a pleasance hidden from the wayfarer by a high wall, but visible
to such as lodge in upper rooms on the other side of the way; thence
along Holywell Street, with its queer medley of old houses, many of them
pleasing to the eye. Or, still greater contrast, we may go by Queen's
and New College Lanes, with their rectangular turns and severe masonry
on either side. Or, again, we may go through the Radcliffe square with
its massive buildings on every hand--the Radcliffe dome in the centre,
girt about with St. Mary's, Brasenose, All Souls, and the Old Schools.
In any case we find ourselves, at the last, in Broad Street.
[Illustration: 0076]
[Illustration: 0077]
It is a wide and quiet street, with comparatively little traffic, a
street dear to meditation. Some such suggestion is conveyed by Mr.
Matthison's sketch. He has not given us here the fronts of Balliol,
Trinity, or Exeter,--views of the first two will be found later on,--but
just the old houses (the one in dark relief is Kettell Hall, built by a
President of Trinity in the seventeenth century) asleep in the
sunshine, with the Sheldonian on the right, whose guardian figure-heads,
traditionally said to represent the twelve Cæsars, seem by the
expression of their stony countenances to be thinking hard of nothing in
particular. At the other end of Broad Street, marked by a flat cross in
the roadway, is the spot where tradition says the martyrs suffered for
their faith.
[Illustration: 0080]
Their Memorial is a little distance off, in the neighbouring street
of St. Giles'. It is an effective and graceful structure, with
characteristic statues of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, and an
inscription stating the manner of their death and the reasons for their
martyrdom. It was erected in 1841, by public subscription, when also the
north aisle of the adjacent Church of St. Mary Magdalen was rebuilt
out of the same fund. The Memorial appears twice in Mr. Matthison's
drawings; once at the approach of evening, looking towards the city,
and once as it is seen in full daylight, with the widening vista of St.
Giles' Street in the background. St. Giles' is surely the widest street
in the three kingdoms; Broad Street is narrow when compared with it.
Each September it is the scene of what is said to be the largest and
the oldest fair in England. But we have not chosen a fair-day for our
pilgrimage.