[Plate XXI. St. John's College : Garden Front]
"An English home--gray twilight poured
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep, all things in order stored,
The haunt of ancient Peace."
TENNYSON, Palace of Art.
St. John's shares with Trinity and Hertford the distinction of having
been twice founded. As the Cistercian College of St. Bernard, it owed
its origin to Archbishop Chichele, the founder of All Souls', and it
continued to exist for a century as a monastic institution. At the
Reformation it was swept away with other monastic foundations by the
greed of Henry VIII, but it was almost immediately refounded, in the
reign of Mary, by Sir Thomas White, one of the greatest of London's
Lord Mayors. In all these respects it has an exact parallel in
Trinity, which had existed as a Benedictine foundation, being then
called "Durham College," and which was refounded, in the same dark
period of English History, by another eminent Londoner, Sir Thomas
Pope. It is characteristic of England and of the English Reformation
that men, who were undoubtedly in sympathy with the old form of the
Faith, yet gave their wealth and their labours to found institutions
which were to serve English religion and English learning under the
new order of things.
For the first generation after the Founder, St. John's was torn by
the quarrels between those who wished to undo the work of the
Reformation altogether, and those who wished to carry it further and
to destroy the continuity of English Church tradition. The final
triumph of the Anglican "Via Media" was the work, above all others,
of William Laud, who came up as scholar to St. John's in 1590, and
who, for most of the half century that followed, was the predominant
influence in the life of the University. First in his own college and
then in Oxford generally, he secured the triumph of his views on
religious doctrine and order. Of these, it is not the place to speak
here, nor yet of Laud's services to Oxford as the restorer of
discipline, the endower and encourager of learning, the organizer of
academic life, whose statutes were to govern Oxford for more than two
centuries; but it is indisputable that Laud takes one of the highest
places on the roll of benefactors, both to the University as a whole
and to his own college.
It was fitting that one who did so much for St. John's should leave
his mark on its buildings; the inner quadrangle was largely built by
him, and it owes to him its most characteristic features, the two
classic colonnades on its east and west sides, and the lovely garden
front, one of the three most beautiful things in Oxford: the north-
east corner of this is shown in Plate XXI.
Laud's building work was done between 1631 and 1635, and in 1636
Charles I and his Queen visited Oxford and were entertained in the
newly-finished college. Much bad verse was written on this event, two
lines of which as a specimen may be quoted from the quaintly-named
poem, "Parnassus Biceps":
"Was I not blessed with Charles and Mary's name,
Names wherein dwells all music? 'Tis the same."
The part of the entertainment to royalty on which the Archbishop
specially prided himself was the play of The Hospital of Lovers,
which was performed entirely by St. John's men, without "borrowing
any one actor." Laud goes on to observe that, when the Queen borrowed
the dresses and the scenery, and had it played over again by her
players at Hampton Court, it was universally acknowledged that the
professionals did not come up to the amateurs--a truly surprising and
somewhat incredible verdict. St. John's, however, was always strong
in dramatic ability; Shirley, the last great representative of the
Elizabethan tradition, was a student there, and the library has the
rare distinction of having possessed longest the same copy of the
works of Shakespeare; it still has the second folio, presented in
1638, by one of the fellows. St. John's connection with the lighter
side of literature has lasted to our own day; the most famous of
Oxford parodies is still the Oxford Spectator, which has not been
surpassed by any of its many imitators in the last half century.
Other colleges, however, might challenge the supremacy of St. John's
in the humours of literature.. In the richness and beauty of its
garden it stands unrivalled, whether quantity or quality be the basis
of comparison. It is not only that before the east front, seen in
Plate XXI, stretches the largest garden in Oxford; thanks to the
skill and the care of the present garden-master, the Rev. H. J.
Bidder, this shows from month to month, as the pageant of summer goes
on, what wealth of colour and variety of bloom the English climate
can produce. It may be said to be laid out on Bacon's rule: "There
ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which severally
things of beauty may be then in season"; only for "year" we naturally
must read "academic year." If Bacon is right, that a garden is the
"purest of human pleasures," then, indeed, St. John's should be the
Oxford paradise.