|Hertford college consists of an anomalous collection of buildings,
of various styles and dates. The eye rests with most pleasure on the
Jacobean part of the Quadrangle, opposite the gateway. One view
gives the interior of the Quadrangle--in which is a sloping stairway
reminiscent of a larger one of the same type in Blois Castle, the other
shews the College from without, and includes the new buildings recently
finished.
This medley of structures is suggestive of the vicissitude through which
the College has passed.
[Illustration: 0272]
[Illustration: 0273]
So far back as the thirteenth century it was in existence as Hart
Hall; and here the students of Exeter and New College were successively
lodged, while their own Colleges were building. Rightly or wrongly,
Exeter College claimed the ownership of Hart Hall for four centuries;
but in 1740 the then Principal of the Hall, Dr. Newton, was successful
in asserting its independence, and Hart Hall became Hertford College.
The endowments, however, were insignificant; the members fell off
and the walls (or a part of them) fell down; and in 1820 a commission
declared that Hertford College no longer existed.
About this time Magdalen Hall, which stood close to Magdalen College,
was burned down, and the University allotted the buildings of Hertford
to its roofless inhabitants; and the name of Hertford was changed to
Magdalen Hall.
The final transformation came in 1874, when Hertford College, its title
revived by Act of Parliament, was endowed by Mr. Baring, the banker.
Thus, with finances very different to the slender endowments of Dr.
Newton's time, the College began a new era of prosperity.
The famous Selden was at Hart Hall, and Charles James Fox at Hertford;
the old Magdalen Hall bred William Tyndale, Sir Matthew Hale, Lord
Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, author of _Leviathan_.