"Here at each coign of every antique street
A memory hath taken root in stone,
Here Raleigh shone."
L. JOHNSON.
[Plate VIII. Oriel College and St. Mary's Church]
It is a curious coincidence that three of the most troubled reigns of
English history have been marked by double college foundations in
Oxford. That of Henry VI, in spite of constant civil war, threatening
or actual, saw the beginnings of All Souls' and of Magdalen; the
short and sad reign of Mary Tudor restored to Oxford Trinity and St.
John's; and in an earlier century the ministers of Edward II, the
most unroyal of our Plantagenet kings, gave to Oxford Exeter and
Oriel. The king himself was graciously pleased to accept the honour
of the latter foundation, and his statue adorns the College Quad,
along with that of Charles I, in whose day the whole College was
rebuilt. The front may be compared architecturally with those of
Wadham and of University, which date from about the same period (the
first part of the seventeenth century), when, under the fostering
care of Archbishop Laud, Oxford increased greatly in numbers, in
learning, and in buildings. Though Oriel has neither the bold sweep
of University nor the perfect proportions of Wadham, it yet is a
pleasing building, at least in its front.
Like New College, Oriel is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and, also
like New College, the name of "St. Mary's" early gave way to a
popular nickname. The College at once on its foundation received the
gift of a tenement called "L'Oriole," which occupied its present
site, and its name has displaced the real style of the College in
general use.
It is only fitting that, as in our picture, St. Mary's Church should
be combined with Oriel, for the founder was Vicar of St. Mary's, and
the presentation to that living has ever since been in the hands of
the College. It was as a Fellow of Oriel that Newman became, in 1828,
Vicar of St. Mary's, from the pulpit of which, during thirteen years,
he moulded all that was best in the religious life of Oxford. The
glorious spire of the church was still new when the College was
founded.
Oriel and its chapel are among the places for religious pilgrimage in
Oxford. As Lincoln draws from all parts of the world those who
reverence the name of John Wesley, so the Oxford Movement and the
Anglican Revival had their starting-point, and for some time their
centre, in Oriel. The connection of the College with the Movement was
not in either case a mere accident; the Oxford Revival, at any rate,
was profoundly influenced by the personality of Newman, and Newman,
both by attraction and by repulsion, was largely what Oriel made him.
Among those who were with him at the College were Archbishop Whately,
whose Liberalism repelled him, Hawkins, the Provost, whose views on
"Tradition" began to modify the Evangelicalism in which he had been
brought up, Keble, whose /Christian Year/ did more for Church
teaching in England than countless sermons, Pusey, already famous for
his learning and his piety, who was to give his name to the Movement,
and, slightly later, Church, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, the
historian of the Movement, and Samuel Wilberforce, who, as Bishop of
Oxford, was to show how profoundly it would increase the influence of
the English Church.
Such a combination of famous names at one time is hardly found in the
history of any other college, and it would be easy to add others
hardly less known, who were also members of the same body at that
famous time. Hero-worshippers can still see the rooms where these
great men lived, and the Common Room in which they met and argued, in
the days when Oxford did less teaching and had more time for talking
and for thinking than the busy, hurrying ways of the twentieth
century allow. But Oriel has many other associations besides those of
the Oxford Movement. Walter Raleigh, the most fascinating of
Elizabethans, was a student there, and probably in Oxford met the
great historian of travel and discovery, Richard Hakluyt (a Christ
Church man), whose influence did so much to bring home to Oxford the
wonders of the strange worlds beyond the seas. It was probably also
through his connection with Oriel that Raleigh made the acquaintance
of Harriot, who shared in his colonial ventures in Virginia, and who
became the historian of that foundation, so full of importance as the
beginning of the new England across the Atlantic. It was only fitting
that the Raleigh of the nineteenth century, Cecil John Rhodes, should
also be an Oriel man, who was never weary of acknowledging what he
owed to Oxford, and who showed his faith in her by his works. The
Rhodes' Foundation expends his millions in bringing scholars to
Oxford from the whole world; already its influence has been great
during its twenty years of existence; what it will be in the future,
only the future can show. If Mr. Rhodes gave his millions to the
University, he gave his tens of thousands to his old College. The
result on the High Street is--to put it gently--not altogether happy;
but perhaps time may soften the lines of Mr. Champney's somewhat
uninspired front, though it is not likely to quicken interest in the
statues of the obscure provosts which adorn it.