part of the fascination of Oxford gardens.

Quite unlike these, yet having an attraction of their own which many miss, are the Botanical Gardens hard by Magdalen Bridge. Their situation on the brink of the River Cherwell, and almost under the shadow of Magdalen Tower, is what probably appeals most strongly to the ordinary observer, while those who merely pass the gardens by will delight in the gateway, the work of Inigo Jones, with its statues of Charles I and II. Formal these gardens are of necessity, but there hangs about them a certain feeling of antiquity. They somehow seem to take their place among their old-world surroundings; and fitly so, for they are the oldest gardens of their kind in the country, having been originated by the Earl of Danby as an assistance to the study of medicine, nearly three hundred years ago.

Across the way, at Magdalen College, exists a pleasure ground which cannot rightly be included among Oxford's gardens, though it is certainly one of her best-known natural adornments. This is the deer park adjoining the New Buildings. It is almost worth while in the summer vacation to loiter near the narrow passage leading from the cloisters, to witness the start of surprise and to hear the sight-seers' remarks, as they suddenly come out from the dusk and impressive gloom into a blaze of sunlight, with gay new buildings bright with window-boxes straight before them, and a little herd of dappled deer feeding in the sunshine and the shadow of the park. Hundreds of years seem to roll away: the very locality appears to change: the visitor could scarcely look more astonished if he were suddenly transported from the Coliseum to the gardens of the Tuileries! No wonder a tourist once remarked, as he issued from the cloisters: "I guess, sir, I've riz from the dead!"

It is tempting on this summer day to linger where grass is green and trees throw grateful shade; and indeed it would seem that few of all the many pens that have set down Oxford's charms have given their due to these her natural delights. But there is much that crowds into the mind and urgently complains lest there be not space enough to do them honour. What of her streets? Perhaps no other city in England—some say in the world—can boast of streets of equal beauty.

From Magdalen gate the High Street begins its curve—a true line of beauty. Its variety of architecture and mixture of old with new might suggest (to those who have only read and never seen) an inharmonious whole. But somehow this is not so. The severe front of University neither kills nor is killed by the seventeenth-century work, with eighteenth-century cupola and statue of George II's consort, just across the way. The old-world shops and gabled houses contrast with the modern buildings, which contain the new Examination Schools, or show where some college or other has forced its way into the High. They contrast, and do not spoil the picture. Indeed it will be a cause of much lamentation, if more of these old houses of the citizens of Oxford should be thrust away, and the character of the street be changed to one long series of college buildings, losing in colour, in variety, and in antiquity, and especially in the story that it still tells of University and city interdependent, and seeking each the other's good. It is the glorious Church of St. Mary the Virgin that seems to bind all the varying charms of the street together. Standing near the centre of the High, it dominates the whole. The stately thirteenth-century tower with its massive buttresses is surmounted by "a splendid pyramidal group of turrets, pinnacles, and windows", from which the spire shoots upwards. To a trained eye this spire is a continual marvel, when seen from a short distance away, on account of the transparency of colour which for some unexplained reason it presents. A silver grey hardly describes it; but light clothes it with a diaphanous glory, now warm now cool in colour, and always lovely. Facing the street is an ornate Italian porch with twisted pillars, erected in 1637. Above the entrance is the famous statue of the Virgin and Child which gave such offence to the Puritans.

THE COTTAGES, WORCESTER COLLEGE GARDENS

What stories the place could tell! It was here that John Wycliffe thundered against the Romanism of his day. It was here that Cranmer recanted his recantation, and promised that the hand that wrote it should be the first to suffer at the stake. Hither, too, were laid to rest the remains of Amy Robsart, brought after death from Cumnor. Space will not allow of any recital of the famous names of those who have occupied the University pulpit herein. But memories crowd into the mind as the rather dreary interior of the Church is pictured. Here some thirty-six or seven years ago an undergraduate went, full of expectation, to hear Dr. Pusey preach. The crowd was great, and he had to stand, while for an hour and a half or so the great man poured out a learned disquisition against the Jews! Here too, about the same time, the youthful members of the University flocked to hear Burgon's evening sermons—quaint and original as the man himself—in one of which, after describing the episode of Balaam and the ass, he threw up his hands and cried, "To think that that type of brutality should speak with the voice of a man—it delighteth me hugely!"

One of the beauties of the streets of Oxford is that they mostly have something admirable at either end. Thus the picture of the High Street is finished at one end with Magdalen Tower and Bridge, and at the other with Carfax Church, or rather, nowadays, with all that is left—a very ancient tower—of the City Church which stood upon the site of a building so old that coins of the date of Athelstan were found beneath its pavement.

Then see how Broad Street, as it narrows again towards the east, gives a fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre, where many who have helped to make their country's history, have been honoured by the granting of degrees, and of the Clarendon Building with its lofty pillared porch, where once the University Press was housed. Or look at that superb approach to Oxford from the north, a boulevard of great breadth and dignity. From St. Giles' Church, at which the road from Woodstock and from Banbury converge, how fine is the prospect ending as it does in the tall trees, before the dignified front of St. John's College, and the tower of St. Mary Magdalen's Church.

The streets of Oxford! What scenes have been enacted there! Kings and queens have paced them between cheering crowds; town and gown have surged and struggled up and down their length, till from the highest point at Carfax the water was turned on from Nicholson's old conduit just to cool their ardour. Now and again a hush has fallen on all the city, and from St. Mary's booms a minute-bell. Shops are half-closed and flags half-masted. Then through the silent streets winds a black-robed procession, half a mile in length, and one of Oxford's best-known sons is carried to his rest. Or, maybe, all is bright with pleasure-seeking crowds and ladies decked in all their bravery, and just a glimpse is caught of scarlet and of black, with gleam of silver mace, as the Vice-Chancellor's procession goes to give degrees. Or, just once more, a line of Oxford cabs—who does not know the Oxford cab?—each with unlicensed number of undergraduate fares, goes to the sound of rattle and of song to speed the departure from his Alma Mater's arms of one who has outstepped the limits of her patience.

So it goes on: a varying scene of dignity and ribaldry, taking each other's place from time to time. But most often through all the years the streets are filled with those who, day by day, come in from all the country round, bringing their produce, seeking what they lack, and all oblivious of the learned life of Oxford.

But there are so many people, to whom the