tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">V. BALLIOL COLLEGE, BROAD STREET FRONT

VI. MERTON COLLEGE, THE TOWER

VII. MERTON COLLEGE, THE LIBRARY INTERIOR

VIII. ORIEL COLLEGE AND ST. MARY'S CHURCH

IX. HIGH STREET

X. NEW COLLEGE, THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY

XI. NEW COLLEGE, THE TOWER

XII. LINCOLN COLLEGE, THE CHAPEL INTERIOR

XIII. MAGDALEN TOWER

XIV. MAGDALEN COLLEGE, THE OPEN AIR PULPIT

XV. BRASENOSE COLLEGE, QUADRANGLE AND THE RADCLIFFE LIBRARY

XVI. CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, THE FIRST QUADRANGLE

XVII. CHRIST CHURCH, THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE MEADOW

XVIII. CHRIST CHURCH, THE HALL STAIRCASE

XIX. CHRIST CHURCH, THE HALL INTERIOR

XX. CHRIST CHURCH, "TOM" TOWER

XXI. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE GARDEN FRONT

XXII. WADHAM COLLEGE, THE CHAPEL FROM THE GARDEN

XXIII. WADHAM COLLEGE, THE HALL INTERIOR

XXIV. HERTFORD COLLEGE, THE BRIDGE

XXV. ST. PETER-IN-THE-EAST CHURCH AND ST. EDMUND HALL

XXVI. IFFLEY, THE OLD MILL

OXFORD FROM THE EAST

INTRODUCTION

In what does the charm of Oxford consist? Why does she stand out among the cities of the world as one of those most deserving a visit? It can hardly be said to be for the beauty of her natural surroundings. In spite of the charm of her

in spite of her trees and gardens, which attract a visitor, especially one from the more barren north, Oxford must yield the palm of natural beauty to many English towns, not to mention those more remote.

But she has every other claim, and first, perhaps, may be mentioned that of historic interest.

An Englishman who knows anything of history is not likely to forget of how many striking events in the development of his country Oxford has been the scene. The element of romance is furnished early in her story by the daring escape of the Empress-Queen, Matilda, from Oxford Castle. The Provisions of Oxford (1258) were the work of one of the most famous Parliaments of the thirteenth century, the century which saw the building of the English constitution, and the students of the University fought for the cause which those Provisions represented. The burning of the martyr bishops in the sixteenth century is one of the greatest tragedies in the story of our Church. The seventeenth century saw Oxford the capital of Royalist England in the Civil War, and though there was no actual fighting there, Charles' night march in 1644 from Oxford to the West, between the two enclosing armies of Essex and Waller, is one of the most famous military movements ever carried out in our comparatively peaceful island. The Parliamentary history, too, of Oxford in the seventeenth century is full of interest, for it was there that in 1625 Charles' first Parliament met in the Divinity School. And fifty years later, his son, Charles II, triumphed over the Whig Parliament at Oxford, which was trying by factious violence to force the Exclusion Bill on a reluctant king and nation. Few towns beside London have been the scene of so many great historical events; yet any one who looks below the surface will attach less importance to these than to the great changes in thought which have found in Oxford their inspiration, and which make it a city of pilgrimage for those interested in the development of England's real life. Matthew Arnold's famous description, hackneyed though it is by quotation, gives one aspect of Oxford, an aspect which will appeal to many beside the scholar poet:

"Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!

And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering' from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Ages, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?"

But this is not the real intellectual charm of Oxford, which has been ever the centre of strenuous life, rather than of dilettante dreamings. From the very beginning, she has been a city of "Movements." Some visitors, then, will come to Oxford as the home and the burial-place of Roger Bacon, representing as he does the Franciscan Order, with its Christ-like sympathy for the poor and its early attempts to develop the knowledge of Natural Science; Oxford was in the thirteenth century