The world, surely, has not
another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place and ever
to leave it, for it would take a lifetime and more than one, to
comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily.
At dinner, to-day, the golden vases were all ranged on the table, the
largest and central one containing a most magnificent bouquet of dahlias
and other bright-hued flowers.
On Tuesday, our first visit was to Christ Church, where we saw the large
and stately hall, above a hundred feet long by forty wide, and fifty to
the top of its carved oaken roof, which is ornamented with festoons, as
it were, and pendants of solid timber. The walls are panelled with oak,
perhaps half-way upward, and above are the rows of arched windows on each
side; but, near the upper end, two great windows come nearly to the
floor. There is a dais, where the great men of the College and the
distinguished guests sit at table, and the tables of the students are
arranged along the length of the hall. All around, looking down upon
those who sit at meat, are the portraits of a multitude of illustrious
personages who were members of the learned fraternity in times past; not
a portrait being admitted there (unless it he a king, and I remember only
Henry VIII.) save those who were actually students on the foundation,
receiving the eleemosynary aid of the College. Most of them were
divines; but there are likewise many statesmen, eminent during the last
three hundred years, and, among many earlier ones, the Marquis of
Wellesley and Canning.
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