Over the Ocean Part 12

The chapel is an elegant structure, the interior being fifty-eight feet long, twenty-five wide, and thirty-two high. Over the doorway, on entering, we see the arms of Beauchamp, supported on each side by sculptures of the Bear, Ragged Staff, oak leaves, &c. The fine old time-blackened seats of oak are richly and elaborately carved, and above, in the groined roof, are carved s.h.i.+elds, bearing the quarterings of the Earls of Warwick; but the great object of interest is the tomb of the great Earl of Warwick, which this splendid chapel was built to enshrine. It is a large, square, marble structure, situated in the centre of the building, elegantly and elaborately carved with ornamental work, and containing, in niches, fourteen figures of lords and ladies, designed to represent relatives of the deceased, while running around the edge, cut into bra.s.s, is the inscription, in Old English characters.

Upon the top of this tomb lies a full-length bronze or bra.s.s effigy of the great earl, sheathed in full suit of armor,--breastplate, cuishes, greaves, &c.,--complete in all its details, and finished even to the straps and fastenings; the figure is not attached, but laid upon the monument, and its back is finished as perfectly as the front in all its equipments and correctness of detail. The head, which is uncovered, rests upon the helmet, and the feet of the great metal figure upon a bear and a griffin. Above this rec.u.mbent figure is a sort of rail-work of curved strips and thick transverse rods of bra.s.s, over which, in old times, hung a pall, or curtain, to s.h.i.+eld this wondrous effigy from the dust; and a marvel of artistic work it is, one of the finest works of the kind of the middle ages in existence, for the earl died in 1439; and another curious relic must be the original agreement or contract for its construction, which, I was told, is still in existence.

Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's Leicester, has an elaborately-executed monument in the chapel, consisting of a sort of altar-tomb, beneath a canopy supported by Corinthian pillars. Upon the tomb are rec.u.mbent effigies of Leicester and his Countess Lettice, while an inscription sets forth the many t.i.tles of the deceased, and concludes that, "his most sorrowful wife, Laet.i.tia, through a sense of _conjugal love and fidelity_, hath put up this monument _to the best and dearest of husbands_."

I have heard of the expression "lying like a tombstone," before I ever saw Robert Dudley's monument; but it seemed now that I must be before the very one from whence the adage was derived, unless all of that which is received by the present generation as the authentic history of this man and the age in which he lived be thrown aside as a worthless fable.

Indeed, there were those of the generation fifty years ago who felt an equal contempt at this endeavor to send a lie down to posterity, for in an odd old, well-thumbed volume of a History of the Town of Warwick, published in 1815, which I found lying in one of the window-seats of the Warwick Arms, where I seated myself to wait for dinner on my return, I found this pa.s.sage, which is historical truth and justice concentrated into such a small compa.s.s, that I transferred it at once into my note-book. Having referred to the Earl of Leicester's (Robert Dudley's) monument, the writer goes on as follows:--

"Under the arch of this grand monument is placed a Latin inscription, which proclaims the honors bestowed with profusion, but without discernment, upon the royal favorite, who owed his future solely to his personal attractions, for of moral worth or intellectual ability he had none. Respecting his two great military employments, here so powerfully set forth, prudence might have recommended silence, since on one occasion he acquired no glory, as he had no opportunity, and on the other the opportunity he had he lost, and returned home covered with deep and deserved disgrace. That he should be celebrated, even on a tomb, for conjugal affection and fidelity, must be thought still more remarkable by those who recollect that, according to every appearance of probability, he poisoned his first wife, disowned his second, dishonored his third before he married her, and, in order to marry her, murdered her former husband. To all this it may be added, that his only surviving son, an infant, was a natural child, by Lady Sheffield. If his widowed countess did really mourn, as she here affects, it is believed that into no other eye but hers, and perhaps that of his infatuated queen, did a single tear stray, when, September 4, 1588, he ended a life, of which the external splendor, and even the affected piety and ostentatious charity, were but vain endeavors to conceal or soften the black enormity of its guilt and shame."

In the chapel are monuments to others of the Warwicks, including one to Leicester's infant son, who is said to have been poisoned by his nurse at three years of age, and who is called, on his tomb, "the n.o.ble Impe Robert of Dudley," and another to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, brother to Leicester, and honorably distinguished, as a man, for his virtues, as the other for his crimes.

We go from Warwick to Oxford by rail; but I must not omit to mention that in one of our excursions not far from Warwick, as the train stopped at Rugby junction, the "Mugby junction" that d.i.c.kens has described, we visited the refreshment-room, and got some _very good_ sandwiches, and were very well served by the young ladies at the counter; indeed, d.i.c.kens's sketch has been almost as good an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the "Mugby sandwiches" as Byron's line, "Thine incomparable oil, Maca.s.sar," was for Rowland's ruby compound; and the young ladies have come to recognize Americans by their invariably purchasing sandwiches, and their inquiry, "Where is the boy?"

From Warwick, on our way to Oxford, we pa.s.sed near Edgehill, the scene of the first battle of Charles I. against his Parliament, and halted a brief period at Banbury, where an accommodating English gentleman sought out and sent us one of the venders of the noted "Banbury cakes," and who informed us that the Banbury people actually put up, a few years ago, a cross, that is now standing there, from the fact that so many travellers stopped in the town to see the Banbury Cross mentioned in the rhyme of their childhood,--

"Ride a c.o.c.k horse to Banbury Cross To see an old woman get on a white horse,"--

who, before it _was_ erected, went away disappointed at not seeing what they had set down in their minds was the leading feature of the town, thinking that they had, in some way or other, been imposed upon by not finding any one in the place who knew of it, or cared to show it to them.

But we will leave the old town of Warwick behind us, for a place still more interesting to the American tourist--a city which contains one of the oldest and most celebrated universities in Europe; a city where Alfred the Great once lived; which was stormed by William the Conqueror; where Richard the Lion-hearted was born; and where, in the reign of b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were burned at the stake; through whose streets the victorious parliamentary army marched, with drums beating and colors flying, after the battle of Naseby--Oxford.

Oxford, that Hughes's Tom Brown at Oxford has made the youngsters of the present day long to see; Oxford, that figures in so many of the English novels; Oxford, where Verdant Green, in the novel, had so many funny experiences; Oxford, where the "Great Tom"--a bell spoken of in story-books and nursery rhymes--is; and a thousand other things that have made these celebrated old cities a sort of dreamland to us in America, who have longed to see the curious relics of the past with which they are crammed, and walk amid those scenes, the very descriptions of which fill one's mind with longings or pleasant antic.i.p.ations as we hang over the printed pages that describe them.

We rode in our cab to the old Mitre Tavern, and a very old-fas.h.i.+oned place it is. Indeed, to the tourist, one of the lions of the place will be the "Mitre." The first thing noticeable upon entering the low-linteled front entrance of this first-cla.s.s Oxford hotel was a framework of meat-hooks overhead, along one side of the ceiling of the whole entrance corridor; and upon these were suspended mutton, beef, game, poultry, &c.; in fact, a choice display of the larder of the establishment. I suppose this is the English "bill of fare," for they have no way here of letting guests know what they can have served at the table, other than through the servant who waits upon you; and his a.s.sortment, one often finds, dwindles down to the everlasting "chops,"

"'am and heggs," or "roast beef," "mutton," and perhaps "fowls."

The cooking at the Mitre is unexceptionable, as, indeed, it is generally in all inns throughout England. The quality of the meats, the bread, the ale, the wines, in fact everything designed for the palate at this house is of the purest and best quality, and such as any gastronomist will, after testing them, cherish with fond recollections; but the other accommodations are of the most old-fas.h.i.+oned style. The hotel seems to be a collection of old dwellings, with entrances cut through the walls, judging from the quaint, crooked, dark pa.s.sages, some scarcely wide enough for two persons to pa.s.s each other in, and the little low-ceiled rooms, with odd, old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture, such as we used to see in our grandfathers' houses forty years ago--solid mahogany four-post bedsteads, with chintz spreads and curtains; old black mahogany bra.s.s-trimmed bureaus; wash-stands, with a big hole cut to receive the huge crockery wash-bowl, which held a gallon; feather beds, and old claw-footed chairs.

This is the solid, old-fas.h.i.+oned comfort (?) an Englishman likes.

Furthermore, you have no gas fixtures in your room. Gas in one's sleeping-room is said by hotel-keepers in England to be unhealthy, possibly because it might prevent a regulation in the charge for light which the use of candles affords. Upon my ringing the bell, and asking the chambermaid who responded--waiters and bell-boys never "answer a bell" here--for a lighter and more airy room than the little, square, one-windowed, low-ceiled apartment which was a.s.signed me, I was informed that the said one-windowed box was the same that Lord Sophted "halways 'ad when he was down to Hoxford."

Notwithstanding this astounding information, to the surprise of the servant, I insisted upon a different room, and was a.s.signed another apartment, which varied from the first by having two windows instead of one. The fact that Sir Somebody Something, or Lord Nozoo, has occupied a room, or praised a brand of wine, or the way a mutton chop was cooked, seems to be in England the credit mark that is expected to pa.s.s it, without question, upon every unt.i.tled individual who shall thereafter presume to call for it; and the look of unmitigated astonishment which the servant will bestow upon an "Hamerican" who dares to a.s.sert that any thing of the kind was not so good as he was accustomed to, and he must have better, is positively amusing. Americans are, however, beginning to be understood in this respect by English hotel-keepers, and are generally put in the best apartments--and charged the best prices.

It would be an absurdity, in the limits permissible in a series of sketches like these, to attempt a detailed description of Oxford and its colleges; for there are more than a score of colleges, besides the churches, halls, libraries, divinity schools, museums, and other buildings connected with the university. There are some rusty old fellows, who hang round the hotels, and act as guides to visitors, showing them over a route that takes in all the princ.i.p.al colleges, and the way to the libraries, museums, &c. One of these walking encyclopedists of the city, as he proved to be, became our guide, and we were soon in the midst of those fine old monuments of the reverence for learning of past ages. Only think of visiting a college founded by King Alfred, or another whose curious carvings and architecture are of the twelfth century, or another founded by Edward II. in 1326, or going into the old quadrangle of All Souls College, through the tower gateway built A. D. 1443, or the magnificent pile of buildings founded by Cardinal Wolsey, the design, ma.s.sive structure, and ornamentation of which were grand for his time, and give one some indication of the ideas of that ambitious prelate.

The college buildings are in various styles of architecture, from the twelfth century down to the present time, most of them being built in form of a hollow square, the centre of the square being a large, pleasant gra.s.s plot, or quadrangle, upon which the students' windows opened. Entrance to these interiors or quadrangles is obtained through a Gothic or arched gateway, guarded by a porter in charge. The windows of the students' rooms were gay with many-colored flowers, musical with singing birds hung up in cages, while the interior of some that we glanced into differed but very little from those of Harvard University, each being fitted or decorated to suit the taste of the occupant.

In some of the old colleges, the rooms themselves were quaint and oddly-shaped as friars' cells; others large, luxurious, and airy. Nearly all were entered through a vestibule, and had an outer door of oak, or one painted in imitation of oak; and when this door is closed, the occupant is said to be "sporting his oak" which signifies that he is studying, busily engaged, and not at home to any one. There were certain quarters also more aristocratic than others, where young lordlings--who were distinguished by the gold in their hatbands from the unt.i.tled students--most did congregate. The streets and shops of Oxford indicated the composition of its population. You meet collegians in gowns and trencher caps, snuffy old professors, with their silk gowns flying out behind in the wind, young men in couples, young men in stunning outfits, others in natty costumes, others artistically got up, tradesmen's boys carrying bundles of merchandise, and washer or char women, in every direction in the vicinity of the colleges.

Splendid displays are made in the windows of tailors' and furnis.h.i.+ng goods stores--boating uniforms, different articles of dress worn as badges, stunning neck-ties, splendidly got up dress boots, hats, gloves, museums of canes, sporting whips, cricket bats, and thousands of attractive novelties to induce students to invest loose cash, or do something more common, "run up a bill;" and if these bills are sometimes not paid till years afterwards, the prices charged for this species of credit are such as prove remunerative to the tradesmen, who lose much less than might be supposed, as men generally make it a matter of principle to pay their college debts.

The largest and most magnificent of the quadrangles is that of Christ Church College. It is two hundred and sixty-four feet by two hundred and sixty-one, and formed part of the original design of Wolsey, who founded this college. This n.o.ble quadrangle is entered through a great gate, known as Tom Gate, from the tower above it, which contains the great bell of that name, the Great Tom of Oxford, which weighs seventeen thousand pounds. I ascended the tower to see this big tocsin, which was exhibited to me with much pride by the porter, as being double the weight of the great bell in St. Paul's, in London, and upon our descending, was shown the rope by which it was rung, being a.s.sured that, notwithstanding the immense weight of metal, it was so hung that a very moderate pull would sound it. Curiosity tempted me, when the porter's back was turned, to give a smart tug at the rope, which swung invitingly towards my hand; and the pull elicited a great boom of bell metal above that sounded like a musical artillery discharge, and did not tend to render the custodian desirous of prolonging my visit at that part of the college.

The dining-hall of Christ Church College is a notable apartment, and one that all tourists visit; it is a n.o.ble hall, one hundred and thirteen feet by forty, and fifty feet in height. The roof is most beautifully carved oak, with armorial bearings, and decorations of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey, and was executed in 1529. Upon the walls hangs the splendid collection of original portraits, which is one of its most interesting features, many of them being works of great artists, and representations of those eminent in the history of the university. Here hangs Holbein's original portrait of King Henry VIII.,--from which all the representations of the bluff polygamist that we are accustomed to see are taken,--Queen Elizabeth's portrait, that of Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Fell, Marquis Wellesley, John Locke, and over a hundred others of "old swells, bishops, and lords chiefly, who have endowed the college in some way," as Tom Brown says.

Indeed, many of the most prominent men of English history have studied at Oxford--Sir Walter Raleigh, the Black Prince, Hampden, Butler, Addison, Wycliffe, Archbishop Laud, and statesmen, generals, judges, and authors without number. Long tables and benches are ranged each side of the room; upon a dais at its head, beneath the great bow window, and Harry VIII.'s picture, is a sort of privileged table, at which certain officers and more n.o.ble students dine on the fat of the land. Next comes the table of the "gentleman commoners," a trifle less luxuriously supplied, and at the foot of the hall "the commoners," whose pewter mugs and the marked difference in the style of their table furniture indicate the distinctions of t.i.tle, wealth, and poor gentlemen.

After a peep at the big kitchen of this college, which has been but slightly altered since the building was erected, and which itself was the first one built by Wolsey in his college, we turned our steps to that grand collection of literary wealth--the Bodleian Library.

The literary wealth of this library, in one sense, is almost incalculable. I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Dr.

Hachman, a graduate of the university and one of the librarians, and through his courtesy enabled to see many of the rare treasures of this priceless collection, that would otherwise have escaped our notice.

Here we looked upon the first Latin Bible ever printed, the first book printed in the English language, by Caxton, at Bruges, in 1472, and the first English Bible, printed by Miles Coverdale. Here was the very book that Pope Gregory sent to Augustin when he went to convert the Britons, and which may have been the same little volume that he held in his hand when he pleaded the faith of the Redeemer to the Saxon King Ethelbert, whom he converted from his idolatrous belief twelve hundred years ago. I looked with something like veneration upon a little shelf containing about twenty-five volumes of first editions of books from the presses of Caxton, Guttenberg, and Faust, whose money value is said to be twenty-five thousand pounds; but bibliomaniacs will well understand that no money value can be given to such treasures.

We were shown a curious old Bible,--a "Breeches" Bible, as it is called,--which has a story to it, which is this. About one hundred years ago this copy was purchased for the library at a comparatively low price, because the last ten or fifteen pages were missing. The volume was bound, however, and placed on the shelf; seventy-five years afterwards the purchasing agent of the library bought, in Rome, a quant.i.ty of old books, the property of a monk; they were sent to England, and at the bottom of an old box, from among stray pamphlets and rubbish, out dropped a bunch of leaves, which proved, on examination and comparison, to be the very pages missing from the volume. They are placed, not bound in, at the close of the book, so that the visitor sees that they were, beyond a doubt, the actual portion of it that was missing.

Ranged upon another shelf was a set of first editions of the old cla.s.sics. In one room, in alcoves, all cla.s.sified, were rich treasures of literature in Sanscrit, Hebrew, Coptic, and even Chinese and Persian, some of the latter brilliant in illumination. Here was Tippoo Saib's Koran, with its curious characters, and the Book of Enoch, brought from Abyssinia by Bruce, the African explorer; and my kind cicerone handed me another volume, whose odd characters I took to be Arabic or Coptic, but which was a book picked up at the capture of Sebastopol, in the Redan, by an English soldier, and which proved, on examination, to be The Pickwick Papers in the Russian language.

Besides these, there were specimens of all the varieties of illuminated books made by the monks between the years 800 and 1000, and magnificent book-makers they were, too. This collection is perfect and elegant, and the specimens of the rarest and most beautiful description, before which, in beauty or execution, the most costly and elaborate ill.u.s.trated books of our day sink into insignificance. This may seem difficult to believe; but these rare old volumes, with every letter done by hand, their pages of beautifully prepared parchment, as thin as letter paper,--the colors, gold emblazonry, and all the different hues as bright as if laid on but a year--are a monument of artistic skill, labor, and patience, as well as an evidence of the excellence and durability of the material used by the old cloistered churchmen who expended their lives over these elaborate productions. The illuminated Books of Hours, and a Psalter in purple vellum, A. D. 1000, are the richest and most elegant specimens of book-work I ever looked upon. The execution, when the rude mode and great labor with which it was performed are taken into consideration, seems little short of miraculous. These specimens of illuminated books are successively cla.s.sified, down to those of our own time.

Then there were books that had belonged to kings, queens, and ill.u.s.trious or noted characters in English history. Here was a book of the Proverbs, done on vellum, for Queen Elizabeth, by hand, the letters but a trifle larger than those of these types, each proverb in a different style of letter, and in a different handwriting. Near by lay a volume presented by Queen Bess to her loving brother, with an inscription to that effect in the "Virgin Queen's" own handwriting. Then we examined the book of Latin exercises, written by Queen Elizabeth at school; and it was curious to examine this neatly-written ma.n.u.script of school-girl's Latin, penned so carefully by the same fingers that afterwards signed the death-warrants of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Duke of Norfolk, and her own favorite, Ess.e.x. Next came a copy of Bacon's Essays, presented by Bacon himself to the Duke of Buckingham, and elegantly bound in green velvet and gold, with the donor's miniature portrait set on the cover; then a copy of the first book printed in the English language, and a copy of Pliny's Natural History, translated by Landino in 1476, Mary de Medicis' prayer-book, a royal autograph-book of visitors to the university, ending with the signatures of the present Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra.

There was also a wealth of ma.n.u.script doc.u.ments, a host of curious old relics of antiquity I have forgotten, and others that time only allowed a glance at, such as the autographic letters of Pope, Milton, Addison, and Archbishop Laud, Queen Henrietta's love letters to Charles I. before marriage, and Monmouth's declaration, written in the Tower the morning of his execution, July 15, 1685.

Among the bequests left to this splendid library was one of thirty-six thousand pounds, for the purchasing of the most costly ill.u.s.trated books that could be had; and the collection of these magnificent tomes in their rich binding was of itself a wonder: there were hosts of octavo, royal octavo, elephant folio, imperials, &c.; there were Audubon's Birds, and Boydell's Shakespeare, and hundreds of huge books of that size, many being rare proof copies. Then we came to a large apartment which represented the light literature of the collection. For a s.p.a.ce of two hundred years the library had not any collection of what might properly be termed light reading. This gap was filled by a bequest of one of the best, if not the very best, collections of that species of literature in the kingdom, which commences with first editions of c.o.c.k Robin and Dame Trott and her Cat, and ends with rare and costly editions of Shakespeare's works.

Weeks and months might be spent in this magnificent library (which numbers about two hundred and fifty thousand volumes, besides its store of curious historical ma.n.u.scripts) without one's having time to inspect one half its wealth; and this is not the only grand library in Oxford, either. There are the Library of Merton College, the most genuine ancient library in the kingdom; the celebrated Radcliffe Library, founded in 1737 by Dr. Radcliffe, physician to William III., and Mary, and Queen Anne, at an expense of forty thousand pounds, and which is sometimes known as the Physic Library;--in this is a reading-room, where all new publications are received and cla.s.sified for the use of students; the Library of Wadham College, the Library of Queen's College, that of All Souls College, and that of Exeter College, in a new and elegant Gothic building, erected in 1856, all affording a mine of wealth, in every department of art, science, and belles-lettres.

A mine of literature, indeed; and the liberality of some of the bequests to that grand university indicates the enormous wealth of the donors, while a visit even to portions of these superb collections will dwarf one's ideas of what they have previously considered as treasures of literature or grand collections in America.

In one of the rooms I felt almost as if looking at an old acquaintance, as I was shown the very lantern which Guy Fawkes had in his hand when seized, which was carefully preserved under a gla.s.s case, and was like the one in the picture-books, where that worthy is represented as being seized by the man in the high-peaked hat, who is descending the cellar stairs. Another relic is the pair of gold-embroidered gauntlet gloves worn by Queen Elizabeth when she visited the university, which are also carefully kept in like manner.

In the picture gallery attached to the library are some fine paintings, and among those that attracted my attention were two portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, looking quite unlike. Their history is to the effect that the college had purchased what was supposed to be a fine old original portrait of the ill-fated queen, and as such it hung in its gallery for a number of years, till at length a celebrated painter, after repeated and close examinations, declared to the astonished dons that doubtless the picture was an original, and perhaps one of Mary, but that it had been re-costumed, and the head-dress altered, and various additions made, that detracted from its merit as a portrait. The painter further promised to make a correct copy of the portrait as it was, then to skilfully erase from the original, without injury, the disfiguring additions that had been made, leaving it as when first painted. This was a bold proposition, and a bold undertaking; but the artist was one of eminence, and the college government, after due deliberation, decided to let him make the trial. He did so, and was perfectly successful, as the two pictures prove. The original, divested of the foreign frippery that had been added in the way of costume and head drapery, now presents a sweet, sad, pensive face, far more beautiful, and in features resembling those of the painting of the decapitated head of the queen at Abbotsford.

Here also hung a representation of Sir Philip Sidney, burned in wood with a hot poker, done by an artist many years ago--a style of warm drawing that has since been successfully done by the late Ball Hughes, the celebrated sculptor in Boston, United States. Pa.s.sing on beneath the gaunt, ascetic countenance of Duns Scotus, which looks down from a frame, beneath which an inscription tells us that he translated the whole Bible without food or drink, and died in 1309, we come to many curious relics in the museum. Among others was a complete set of carved wooden fruit trenchers, or plates, that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth. Each one was differently ornamented, and each bore upon it, in quaint Old English characters, a verse of poetry, and most of these verses had in them, some way or other, a slur at the marriage state. The little plates were said to be quite favorite articles with her single-blessed majesty. So, with some labor and study, I transcribed a few of the verses for American eyes, and here they are:--

"If thou be young, then marry not yet; If thou be old, thou hast more wit; For young men's wives will not be taught, And old men's wives are good for nought."

How many "old men" will believe the last line of this pandering lie to the ruddy-headed queen? But here are others:--

"If that a bachelor thou be, Keep thee so still; be ruled by me; Least that repentance, come too late, Reward thee with a broken pate."

"A wife that marryeth husbands three Was never wedded thereto by me; I would my wife would rather die, Than for my death to weep or cry."

"Thou art the happiest man alive, For every thing doth make thee thrive; Yet may thy thrift thy master be; Therefore take thrift and all for me."

"Thou goest after dead men's shoes, But barefoot thou art like to go.

Content thyself, and do not muse, For fortune saith it must be so."

Emerging all unwillingly from the charms of the library, museum, and the interesting interiors of these beautiful old buildings, we stroll out to that delightful place of oaks, and elms, and pleasant streams, Christ Church Meadows, walk beneath the broad, overarching canopy of elms, joining together like the roof of a cathedral, that shades the famous "Broad Walk;" we saunter into "Addison's Walk," a little quiet avenue among the trees, running down towards the River Isis, and leaving Magdalen College,--which was Addison's college,--and its pretty, rural park, we come to the beautiful arched bridge which spans the River Isis, and, crossing it, have a superbly picturesque view of Oxford, with the graceful, antique, and curious spires rising above the city, the swelling dome of the Radcliffe Library, and the great tower of Christ Church.

Here, at this part of the "Meadows," is the place where cricket and other athletic games are played. Throngs and groups of promenaders are in every direction, of a pleasant afternoon, and groups are seated upon the benches, around the trunks of the elms, from which they gaze upon the merry throng, or at the boats on the Isis. This river, which is a racing and practice course of the Oxonians, appears so absurdly narrow and small to an American who has seen Harvard students battling the waves of the boisterous Charles, as nearly to excite ridicule and laughter. We should almost denominate it a large brook in America. For most of its length it was not more than sixteen or eighteen feet in width. The Isis is a branch of the River Cherwell, which is a branch of the Thames, and has this advantage--the rowers can never suffer much from rough weather.

Down near its mouth, where it widens towards the Cherwell, are the barges of the different boat clubs or universities. They are enormous affairs, elegantly ornamented and fitted up, and remind one of the great state barges seen in the pictures of Venice, where the Doge is marrying the Adriatic. Their interiors are elegantly upholstered, and contain cabins or saloons for the reception of friends, for lounging, or for lunch parties. Farther up the river, and we see the various college boats practising their crews for forthcoming trials of skill. These boats are of every variety of size, shape, and fas.h.i.+on--two-oared, six-oared, eight-oared, single wherries shooting here and there; long craft, like a line upon the water, with a crew of eight athletes, their heads bound in handkerchiefs, stripped to the waist, and with round, hardened, muscular arms, bending to their oars with a long, almost noiseless sweep, and the exact regularity of a chronometer balance.