disputations, relieved at intervals by theatrical shows. It is all brilliant and light-hearted; a weight has been taken from the country.

Then comes a vision of such times as Oxford has never seen before or since. The city is in turmoil. The whole countryside is alive with troops. There is civil war. The University is for the King, the townsmen (had they their way) are Roundheads to a man. Citizens in scant numbers, scholars in profusion, are working at the trenches to fortify the place. What with these trenches across from the Cherwell past Wadham and St John's and so by St Giles' Church, to the Isis on the north, and from Folly Bridge, through Christ Church meadows and Merton gardens (where the remains can still be seen) to Magdalen on the south, and with the numerous rivers and conduits which form so many natural moats on west and east, the city soon becomes impregnable. To-day such puny efforts would be ludicrous, but in those times of cannon balls which could scarcely pierce a two-inch board, they more than suffice, did he for whom the work was done but have a better heart.

In Christ Church and in New College quads there is a sound of drums and tramping feet as the bands of pikemen and halberdiers furnished by the students are busily at drill. Magdalen Bridge is fortified. On the great tower hard by stones have been heaped to hurl upon a passing enemy, but are destined to be never used.

Now there is a fresh stir. The bands of armed students march through all the streets, finally parade the High, and disband at the Divinity School—a demonstration to impress the townsmen and encourage the royal guests.

Side by side with all this warlike preparation, and mingled with the martial ring of steel and discipline of troops, Oxford presents an aspect of frivolity unequalled except by an Eights' Week of to-day. The Queen has her Court at Merton, and the city is full of ladies of high degree. Their flounces and their furbelows are everywhere, and daily they congregate in Christ Church meadows and Trinity Grove, to hold revels displeasing to the Heads of Houses, who fear for the youth in their charge, and a mockery to their own hearts, which are anxious enough. Their dresses may be fine, but they themselves are lodged in garrets, and they miss the dainty fare to which they are accustomed. And all the while the wit and learning of the University knows little diminution. It takes, perhaps, a lighter and more courtly tone, as it strives to amuse and gratify the unwonted throng it entertains. War, women, wit—all stirred together in one seat of learning! Surely never was such a medley known!

Then from each point of vantage within our view on that hillside—nay, from the very spot on which we lie and dream—there are continual movements of the troops. The King brings his cavalry right here, within a mile or two of Abingdon, waiting to do battle with Essex should he advance from Reading. Brown leads the Roundheads now to Wolvercote, now to Shotover, and anon to Abingdon. Down there by Sandford Ferry Essex takes his troops across the river, skirts the city to the eastwards and makes his camp at Islip for a while, then on across Cherwell and so to Bletchington and Woodstock, blockading all approaches on the north. Now one sees glitter of steel and gleam of pennon to the west, as Waller is beat back at Newbridge on the Isis, above Eynsham. Scarcely has this scene flitted through the brain, than from far away eastwards, hard by Chinnor, there seems to come a shouting and a noise of horses at the gallop, as Rupert bursts upon the enemy's convoy, and drives them into the Chiltern Hills, himself returning with his prisoners and spoils by way of Chalgrove, when again comes sound of battle, and he in his turn is for a moment held at bay by Roundheads' "insolence". No matter which way we turn our eyes, each bit of rising ground, each bridge across a stream gives birth to some imagining of skirmish or of ambuscade in that long civil war that waged round Oxford.

MARTYRS' MEMORIAL AND ST. GILES

One dream more. Naseby has been fought and lost. Fairfax is at the gates of Oxford, where Charles has once again sought shelter. The city might have resisted long, but his heart has failed him. It is three o'clock on an April morning, and dark. A little company of three—a gentleman, a scholar, and a servant—ride out of the city over Magdalen Bridge. The servant is the King. So comes the beginning of the end, and Oxford has no more visions of the ill-fated Charles.

Thus dreaming an hour or two has passed away, and she still lies there before us unexplored—beckoning us to her with every charm that delights the eye and kindles boundless expectation. Let us, then, draw closer and get a nearer view. Old as she is, she invites an inspection as close as we will. The ravages of time do not in her case mar the loveliness which each year seems to renew and to increase. Most people are conscious of the fact that in looking back upon their past lives, especially upon the days of their childhood, it is the sunshine that abides with them and not the shadow. In all the memories, let us say, of a garden in which we played as children, the days are hot and bright, the flowers always blooming.

So it is with Oxford. Heaven knows the place is often enough shrouded in cold, wet mist: for weeks together the streets are muddy beyond all other streets: at the beginning of each term (save that one by courtesy called "summer") the chemists' shops are (or used to be) filled with rows of bottles of quinine, to enable the poor undergraduate to struggle against a depressing climate. But who remembers all these things in after years? The man of fifty hears Oxford mentioned, and there comes back to him at once a place where old grey buildings throw shadows across shaven lawns; where the young green of the chestnut makes a brilliant splash of colour above the college garden wall; where cool bright waters wind beneath ancient willows, and it is good to bask in flannels in a punt. In fact it is the few days of real summer—the two or three in each "summer" term—that he remembers in accordance with memory's happy scheme, in which it is the fittest that survive.

It is in summer, then, that we draw near to feast our eyes more intimately on Oxford's charms. Not first of all upon those which she hides away within her outer cloak of beauty, but upon the garment which she borrows from Dame Nature, and wears with such inimitable grace. Meadows, gardens, rivers, trees: these are the materials of which the robe is woven, and to each belong at least some names that have become famous beyond the boundaries of Oxford.

Who has not heard of Port Meadow—the town's meadow, as the name infers? Low it lies on the river bank to the north-west of the town. For hundreds of years—since the time, indeed, of the Domesday Book—it has belonged to the freemen of Oxford, and to-day may still be seen their flocks of geese, white patterned on a ground of green, with here and there a horse with tired feet ending his days where grass is soft and plentiful. The Isis, the Upper River as here it is commonly called, has a special beauty as it flows along the edge of Port Meadow, for above it hang the Witham woods, and on its edge is the little hamlet of Binsey, giving a touch of human interest and rural picturesqueness to the scene. It is worth while to row or sail against the stream until the whole of the meadow is passed by, for then comes Godstow, where Fair Rosamond found refuge, and where she was at last laid to rest. It must in all honesty be confessed that to the average undergraduate the place was reckoned desirable, not so much on account of the historical interest just mentioned, as because, after a long pull up the river on a summer afternoon, it was possible to obtain at the little inn upon the river bank what was euphemistically called "eel