Oxford — Context and Discussion

Proctor had already been instituted, and that functionary had plenty of students to employ his time--30,000 one writer assures us, but him we cannot credit. A fourth of that number is a liberal estimate. They lived in Halls and lodgings, a hard and an undisciplined life, preyed upon by the townsfolk and biting their thumbs at them in return (whence collisions frequently ensued) until Walter de Merton devised the College system, to the no small advantage of all concerned.

Benefactions poured in upon the several Colleges, but the greater institution was not forgotten. In the Divinity School, within whose walls Latimer and Ridley defended their opinions, and Charles II.'s Parliament debated, the University possesses, as is fit and proper, the most beautiful room in Oxford and one of the most beautiful in England. The style is Perpendicular and the ceiling is particularly admirable. Together with the fine room above it, in which Duke Humphrey's manuscripts were housed, the Divinity School was completed in 1480.

Those six hundred manuscripts of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, which he bestowed on the University, had a sad history. They were dispersed by Edward vi.'s Commissioners, who judged them to be popish in tendency, and only four of them were ever restored to their old home. Nevertheless, Duke Humphreys gift was the origin of the Bodleian Library. One does not like to think what the Library was like in the days which followed, when its manuscripts were scattered abroad and its shelves sold; but in the last years of the sixteenth century there arose a man who took pity upon its desolation. This was Sir Thomas Bodley, Fellow of Merton, a man of travel and affairs, who devoted the last years of his life to the creation of what is now one of the most famous libraries in existence. It has ever been the delight of scholars since the days of James I., who wished he might be chained to the Library, as some of the books were.

The original chamber did not long suffice to contain the volumes; an east and then a west wing were added, the latter over Archbishop Laud's Convocation House (1640) which superseded Cobham's Chapel. From these the books overflowed into various rooms in the Old Schools Quadrangle, which had been rebuilt in James I.'s reign. Further space was gained in 1860, when the Radcliffe, set free by the removal of its collection of scientific works to the New Museum, was lent to the Bodleian; and again in 1882, on the opening of the New Examination Schools (sketched by Mr. Matthison), when the Old Schools were rendered available for the uses of the Library.

The various public buildings belonging to the University erected during the nineteenth century, such as the Taylor Institution, the University Art Galleries, the New Museum, and the Indian Institute, can hardly escape attracting the attention of visitors to Oxford. It remains to say a word of two older structures, which appear side by side in Mr. Matthison's next drawing--the Clarendon Building and the Sheldonian Theatre.

The Clarendon Building was designed by Vanbrugh, and completed in 1713. It is named after the author of the _History of the Rebellion_, and was partially built out of the profits of the copyright of that work, which Clarendon's son presented to the University. It was the home of the University Press until 1830, and is now occupied by the offices of various University Boards.

The Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, is associated with less tranquil occupations. It is here that honorary degrees are conferred and the Encænia held; here the _Terrce Filius_, a licensed jester, used to hurl his witticisms at whomsoever he pleased; and here, in later times, the occupants of the Undergraduates' Gallery have endeavoured to keep up his tradition. Here, too, Convocation sometimes meets, when a burning question is to be discussed and Masters of Arts assemble in their hundreds. On such occasions the Sheldonian has been known to be as full of clamour as at the Encaenia. It is perhaps pleasanter to view Wren's stately building when it is void alike of undergraduate merriment and of graduate contention.