The
loop-holes through which the archers and musketeers used to shoot still
pierce through deep recesses in the wall, which is here about six feet
thick. I wish I could put into one sentence the whole impression of this
garden, but it could not be done in many pages.
We looked also at the outside of the wall, and Mr. Parker, deeply skilled
in the antiquities of the spot, showed us a weed growing,--here in little
sprigs, there in large and heavy festoons,--hanging plentifully downward
from a shallow root. It is called the Oxford plant, being found only
here, and not easily, if at all, introduced anywhere else. It bears a
small and pretty blue flower, not altogether unlike the forget-me-not,
and we took some of it away with us for a memorial. We went into the
chapel of New College, which is in such fresh condition that I think it
must be modern; and yet this cannot be, since there are old brasses
inlaid into tombstones in the pavement, representing mediaeval
ecclesiastics and college dignitaries; and busts against the walls, in
antique garb; and old painted windows, unmistakable in their antiquity.
But there is likewise a window, lamentable to look at, which was painted
by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and exhibits strikingly the difference between
the work of a man who performed it merely as a matter of taste and
business, and what was done religiously and with the whole heart; at
least, it shows that the artists and public of the last age had no
sympathy with Gothic art.
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