late there has been small response to feelings such as these in the great world, for we have not been looking much toward what is above us, nor discriminating from meaner things those which approach to heroic natures. We must abandon Mammon, politics, and polemics, when we would approach the threshold of elevated meditation--when we dwell on the illustrious names of the past, and tread over the stones which they trod. I never wandered along the banks of the sedgy Cam, at that lone, twilight hour, when the dimness of external objects tends most to concentrate the faculties upon the immediate object of contemplation, but I have fancied the shades of Bacon, Milton, or Locke, to be near me, as the Indian fancies the shades of his fathers haunt the old hunting-grounds of his race. I know that these are heterodox feelings in the present day. I know that he who speaks of Homer or Milton, for example, is continually answered by the question, "Who reads them now?" The truth being, perhaps, that we are getting too far below them to relish their superior standard in sterling merit. But there are still in our universities, if not elsewhere, some who are content to be the last of the Goths in the estimation of the multitude, who cannot see the Isis, or Cherwell, or the reedy Cam, without feelings of which the crowd knows nothing; who can dream away an hour in the avenue of Christ Church, and almost conjure spirits from the depths of the grave to realize the pictures of imagination, which are there always invested with purity and holiness, so much do external things impress their character on our imaginings. This is the true poetry of life, neither found in the haunts of fashion, nor among the denizens of Cornhill or St. Giles'. The good and deep things of the mind, the search into the secrets of nature, the sublimest truth, the purest philosophy of which man has to boast, has proceeded from those who were inhabitants of such seats of learning. It is impossible to state the precise amount of assistance which genius and learning may derive from the ease and peace enjoyed in such a university. They are inestimable to the student from association, tranquillity, and convenience. The very "dim religious light" of college rooms are solicitations to reflection. Then there are the conveniences of first-rate professors, and access to the writings of the learned in all ages. Thus some who professed a distaste for a university life, have returned to it again, and made it the arena where they have conquered a lasting reputation--such, for example, was the case with Gray the poet.
The increase of knowledge, and consequently of morality, is the great aim of such a noble establishment as this; and the rewards and honours dispensed there are bestowed in proportion to the industry and good conduct of those who receive them. If the offences of freshmen outside the walls be unvisited by the university from wariness in the offenders, or the impossibility of controlling them, they are certain to meet with a just estimation of their demerit here; and, as before noticed, this is perhaps the best mode of repressing them. The assistance derived by the industrious student from the university itself is invaluable. The very locality is an aid to progress. Where can there be places more favourable for thought than those noble buildings, ancient halls, and delightful walks? Everything invites to contemplation. Magdalen always seemed to me as if soliciting the student's presence in a peculiar manner. A favourite resort of mine, at certain times, was the road passing the Observatory, leading to Woodstock. But of all the college walks, those of Magdalen were the more impressive and attractive. It appeared to embody the whole of the noble city in its own personification, as a single word will sometimes express the pith of an entire sentence. The "Mighty Tom" in the olden time, even of Walter de Mapes, if its metal was then out of the ore, never sounded (then perhaps not nine) but the midnight hour, to that worthy archdeacon, with more of the character of its locality, than the visual aspect of Magdalen represents the beautiful city to one in its entirety. It seems a sort of metonymy; Maudlin put for Oxford. The walk is, after all, but a sober path, worthy by association with one of the walks of Eden. Yet it shows no gay foliage, nor "shade above shade a woody theatre," such as is seen on a mountain declivity. It is a simple shadowy walk--shadowy to richness, cool, tranquil, redolent of freshness. There the soul feels "private, inactive, calm, contemplative," linked to things that were and are not. The mellow hue of time, not yet stricken by decay, clothes the buildings of this college, which, compared with other edifices more steeped in maturity of years, occupies, as it were, a middle term in existence.
The variety of building in this city is amazing, and would occupy a very considerable time to study even imperfectly. At a little distance no place impresses the mind more justly with its own lofty pretensions. The towers, steeples, and domes, rising over the masses of foliage beneath, which conceal the bodies of the edifices, seen at the break of morning or at sunset, appear in great beauty. Bathed in light, although not the "alabaster tipped with golden spires" of the poet, for even the climate of Oxford is no exception to the defacement of nature's colouring, everywhere that coal smoke ascends; but the tout ensemble is truly poetical and magnificent.
Oriel still, they say, maintains its precedency of teaching its students how to conduct themselves with a view to university honours, and to the world's respect. The preliminary examinations there have proved a touchstone of merit, and elevated Oriel College into something near the envy of every other in this country. Worthy Oriel, the star of Oxford. "I don't know how it is," said the Rev. C. C., walking down High Street one day, "but Oriel College is all I envy Oxford. It is the richest gem in the ephod of the high-priest (vice-chancellor) of this university. I should like to steal and transplant it to my Alma Mater among the fens."
There was formerly a Welsh harper in Oxford, whom the collegians sometimes denominated King David. He was the first of the Cymri brotherhood I ever heard perform. Since that distant day I have often heard those minstrels in their native land, particularly in North Wales, at Bedd Gelert, Caernarvon, and other places, but I confess I never was so much struck as by this Oxford harper. He often played at the Angel, where the university men used to group round him, for he excited general admiration. His music was not of so plaintive a character as that in his own land, or else the scenery of the latter had some effect in saddening the music there through association--perhaps this difference was, after all, only in fancy.
Christchurch, the noblest of the churches! How have I heard with delight its merry peal of bells, and the deep resonance of the "Mighty Tom," that sounds with no "friendly voice" the call home of the students still, I presume, as it did so many years ago! There is a long list of names, of no mean reputation, educated here, since the rapacious Henry VIII. seized the foundations, which had belonged to Cardinal Wolsey. The gratitude of posterity, never very strong, has in the present case preserved the remembrance of Wolsey, if I recollect aright, by a statue of the proud man in his cardinal's robes. The grove of trees belonging to Christchurch, and the scenery accompanying the entire buildings, are eminently impressive. Here, when divine service is celebrating, there is a peculiar propriety, or rather adaptation of the architecture to the feeling; the trees, and every accompaniment, are suitable to the end. There is religion or its sentiment addressing the mind here through every sense. All that can raise devotion in external appliances, combines in a wonderful manner; and when the sound of the organ is reverberated deeply along the vaulted roofs and walls, the effect was indescribably fine. Christchurch walk or meadow is an adjunct to this college, such as few places possess. I have trod it with those who will never tread it again. I have skimmed over its smooth shaven surface when life seemed a vista of unmeasured years. Its very beauty touches upon a melancholy chord, since it vibrates the sound of time passed away with those who lie in dust in distant climates, of whom memory alone is now the only record that they were and are not.
I remember being told by an eminent, but aged doctor in divinity, who had been the better part of his life employed in the education of youth, that he had kept an account of the history of all his pupils as far as he could obtain it, and they were very numerous. From his own tuition--and there were some celebrated names amongst them--he traced them to the university, or to professions of a more active nature than a sojourn at the university would allow. To Oxford he had sent the larger number of his pupils. "And afterwards, doctor?" "Some came off nobly there: others I heard of in distant parts of the globe in their country's service: but it is the common tale with nearly all of them--they are dead." What hosts, I often thought, who had moved among, the deep shades of this university until it became entwined with their earliest affections --who had studied within those embattled walls until the sight of them became almost a part of his existence --what hosts of such have but served to swell the waters of oblivion, and press the associations of a common mortality upon the mind