"Like to a queen in pride of place, she wears
The splendour of a crown in Radcliffe's dome."
L. JOHNSON.
[Plate III. View of Radcliffe Square]
The visitor to Oxford often asks--"Where is the University?" The
proper answer is: "The University is everywhere," for the colleges
are all parts of it. But if a distinction must be made, and some
buildings must be shown which are especially "University Buildings,"
then it is undoubtedly in the Square, of which this picture shows one
side, that they must be found. Immediately on the right is the
Bodleian Library, the domed building in the centre is the Radcliffe
Library, and in the background rises the spire of St. Mary's. Of this
last building the tower and spire go back nearly to the beginnings of
Oxford; they date from the time of Edward I; but for a century, at
least, before they were erected, the students of Oxford had met for
worship and for business in the earlier church, which stood on the
site of the present St. Mary's.
The Bodleian Library occupies the old Examination Schools, which were
built, in the reign of James I, for the reformed University of
Archbishop Laud; within the memory of men who do not count themselves
old, the university examinations were still held in this building.
Finally, the shapely dome between the Bodleian and St. Mary's is the
work of James Gibbs, the greatest English architect of the eighteenth
century, to whom Cambridge owes its Senate House, and London the
noble church of St. Martin's in the Fields. The dome was built for a
separate library, the foundation of Dr. John Radcliffe, Queen Anne's
physician, the most munificent of Oxford benefactors; it is still
managed by his trustees, a body independent of the University, but
since 1861 they have lent it to the Bodleian Library for a reading-
room. It is fitting that the oldest public library in the modern
world, a title the Bodleian can proudly claim, should have the finest
reading-room, where 400 students can have each his separate desk, and
where, if so minded and so physically enduring, they can put in
twelve hours' work in a day. No other great library in Europe allows
such privileges.
Round these three University buildings are grouped three colleges:
Hertford, the youngest of Oxford foundations, the re-creation of an
old hall by a Victorian financial magnate. Sir Thomas Baring; All
Souls', standing a little beyond, of which the part here shown is the
corner of the great Law Library, founded by Sir William Codrington in
the days of good Queen Anne; while on the other side of the Radcliffe
is Brasenose College (for pictures of which see Plates II and XV). No
non-academic building fronts on the Square; the one or two houses
facing on the south-west corner are occupied by college tutors. The
academic influence has spread even under the earth, for between the
Bodleian and the Radcliffe there is a great subterranean chamber of
two stories, excavated 1909-1910, which, when full, will contain
1,000,000 books.
It is refreshing to turn from the thought of so much dead industry,
as these multitudes of unread books will represent, to the
inspiration of the buildings. They are the very epitome of Oxford.
The classic symmetry of Gibbs' dome looks across at the soaring spire
of the mediaeval University Church, while the Bodleian is one of the
best examples of the Jacobean Gothic, which still held its own in
Oxford when the classical style was triumphing elsewhere. Such
contrasts are typical of Oxford. The University had a European
reputation in the days when it was one of the two great centres of
mediaeval scholasticism. Roger Bacon, the most famous name in
mediaeval science, no doubt saw the tower of St. Mary's beginning to
rise. The University welcomed the Classical Revival, it survived the
storms of the Reformation, it was the great centre of the building up
of Anglican theology under the Laudian rule, it was one of the
inspirations of English science in the seventeenth century, though
Dr. Radcliffe's generous benefactions are a little later, and have
hardly begun to yield their full fruit till our own day. Such are the
learned traditions of the Radcliffe Square, while it has also been
the centre of the young lives which, for seven centuries at least,
have enjoyed their happiest years in Oxford.
The view from the Radcliffe roof is undoubtedly the best in Oxford.
It has been thus described by the worst of the many poets who have
celebrated the University:
"Spire, tower and steeple, roofs of radiant tile,
The costly temple and collegiate pile,
In sumptuous mass of mingled form and hue,
Await the wonder of thy sateless view."
But Robert Montgomery is more likely to be remembered for Macaulay's
merciless but well-deserved chastisement than for his praises of
Oxford. Even their utter bathos cannot degrade a group of buildings
so wonderful.