[Illustration: GATEWAY OF CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE.]
The enumeration of the colleges which make up the university will
naturally begin with the greatest, Christ Church, founded by Cardinal
Wolsey, of which the principal facade extends four hundred feet along
St. Aldate's Street, and has a noble gateway in the centre surmounted by
a six-sided tower with a dome-like roof. Here hangs the great bell of
Oxford, "Old Tom," weighing seventeen thousand pounds, which every
night, just after nine o'clock, strikes one hundred and one strokes,
said to be in remembrance of the number of members the college had at
its foundation. Wolsey's statue stands in the gateway which leads into
the great quadrangle, called by the students, for short, "Tom Quad."
Here are the lodgings of the dean and canons, and also the Great Hall,
the finest in Oxford, and the room where the sovereign is received
whenever visiting the city. The ancient kitchen adjoins the hall, and
near by is the entrance to the cathedral, which has been restored, and
the ancient cloisters. From the buildings a meadow extends down to the
rivers, the Cherwell on the left and the Thames (here called the Isis)
on the right, which join at the lower part of the meadow. Beautiful
walks are laid out upon it, including the famous Oxford promenade, the
Broad Walk, a stately avenue of elms bordering one side of the meadow.
Here, on the afternoon of Show Sunday, which comes immediately before
Commemoration Day, nearly all the members of the university and the
students, in academic costume, make a promenade, presenting an animated
scene.
[Illustration: MERTON COLLEGE CHAPEL.]
[Illustration: GATEWAY, MERTON COLLEGE.]
[Illustration: ORIEL COLLEGE.]
Corpus Christi College was founded by Bishop Fox of Winchester in 1516,
and its quadrangle, which remains much as at the foundation, contains
the founder's statue, and also a remarkable dial, in the centre of which
is a perpetual calendar. This college is not very marked in
architecture. It stands at the back of Christ Church, and adjoining it
is Merton College, founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton. His idea was to
forbid the students following in after life any other pursuit than that
of parish priest. The chapel of Merton is one of the finest in Oxford,
and its massive tower is a city landmark. The entrance-gateway,
surmounted by a sculptured representation of St. John the Baptist, is
attractive, and the two college quadrangles are picturesque, the "Mob
Quad," or library quadrangle, being five hundred years old, with the
Treasury and its high-pitched ashlar roof and dormer windows above one
of the entrance-passages. St. Alban Hall, built about 1230, adjoins
Merton, and is a Gothic structure with a curious old bell-tower. Oriel
College stands opposite Corpus Christi, but the ancient buildings of the
foundation in 1324-26 have all been superseded by comparatively modern
structures of the seventeenth century: though without any striking
architectural merits, the hall and chapel of this college are extremely
picturesque. Its fame is not so much from its buildings as from some of
its fellows, Whately, Keble, Wilberforce, Newman, Pusey, and Arnold
having been among them. St. Mary's Hall, an offshoot founded in the
fourteenth century, stands near this college. All Souls College is on
the High Street, and was founded in 1437, its buildings being, however,
modern, excepting one quadrangle. In the chapel is a magnificent
reredos, presented by Lord Bathurst, who was a fellow of All Souls, and
containing figures representing most of the fellows of his time: in the
library are Wren's original designs for building St. Paul's. This
college was founded by Archbishop Chichele for "the hele of his soul"
and of the souls of all those who perished in the French wars of King
Henry V.; hence its name. We are told that the good archbishop was much
troubled where to locate his college, and there appeared to him in a
dream a "right godly personage," who advised him to build it on the High
Street, and at a certain spot where he would be sure in digging to find
a "mallard, imprisoned but well fattened, in the sewer." He hesitated,
but all whom he consulted advised him to make the trial, and
accordingly, on a fixed day after mass, with due solemnity the digging
began. They had not dug long, the story relates, before they heard "amid
the earth horrid strugglings and flutterings and violent quackings of
the distressed mallard." When he was brought out he was as big as an
ostrich, and "much wonder was thereat, for the lycke had not been seen
in this londe nor in onie odir." The Festival of the Mallard was long
held in commemoration of this event, at which was sung the "Merry Song
of the All Souls Mallard," beginning--
"Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon,
Let other hungry mortals gape on,
And on the bones their stomach fill hard;
But let All Souls men have their mallard.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a wopping, wopping mallard!"
While the festival has passed away, the song is still sung at Oxford,
and the tale has given rise to much literature, there having been
vigorous contests waged over the authenticity of the mallard.
University College, also on the High Street, though the earliest
founded, now has no building older than the seventeenth century. It has
an imposing Gothic front with two tower-gateways, while the recently
constructed New Building is an elegant structure erected in 1850.
Queen's College, founded in 1341 by Queen Philippa's confessor, and
hence its name, is a modern building by Wren and his pupils. St. Edmund
Hall, opposite Queen's College, is a plain building, but with
magnificent ivy on its walls.