[Illustration: 0265]
|WORCESTER COLLEGE is the successor to Gloucester Hall, a hostel of
the Benedictine Order founded in the thirteenth century. This Hall was
originally designed for students from the monastery at Gloucester, but
was soon thrown open to other Benedictine houses. Suppressed at the
Reformation, it was called back to life in Elizabeth's reign by Sir
Thomas White, who had already shewn his zeal for education by founding
St. John's College, and for several generations had a successful
career. Among its distinguished members may be mentioned Thomas Allen,
mathematician; Sir Kenelm Digby, the romantic wooer of the brilliant and
high-spirited Venetia Stanley; and Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet.
At the Restoration bad times came, and Gloucester Hall, like the
earlier Hertford College of a subsequent age, seemed likely to perish of
inanition.
At this crisis there stepped in a benefactor, Sir Thomas Crookes of
Worcestershire, with a bequest of £10,000; and the transformed Hall was
known, from 1698 onwards, as Worcester College.
Worcester is comparatively at some distance from the other Colleges,
a fact on which undergraduate humour loves to dwell; but jests on this
subject reflect rather on the poor walking powers of those who make
them. At any rate, a "well-girt" visitor to Oxford need not hesitate
to take the journey, and will certainly find his pains rewarded,
for Worcester has much to show that is of interest, and much that is
beautiful.
The first view gives the interior of the Front Quadrangle. The buildings
here are stately and dignified, if a little cold; they are obviously
of the same date as those overlooking the deer-park of Magdalen, and
suggest the genius of the eighteenth century.
There could hardly be a greater contrast to these than the ancient
structures which are at the left hand of the Quadrangle, as one enters;
for these old buildings take us back to the monastic days of Gloucester
Hall. A glimpse of them, as viewed from the Garden, is given in the
second illustration.
[Illustration: 0268]
[Illustration: 0269]
The Garden itself is delightful, and has, alone of Oxford pleasances,
the additional feature of a lake. Mr. Matthison's drawing shows how
beautiful this lake and its surroundings can be, when the colours are
newly laid on by the brush of summer.