It is an excellent idea, for their own glory, and
as examples to the rising generations, to have this multitude of men, who
have done good and great things, before the eyes of those who ought to do
as well as they, in their own time. Archbishops, Prime Ministers, poets,
deep scholars,--but, doubtless, an outward success has generally been
their claim to this position, and Christ Church may have forgotten a
better man than the best of them. It is not, I think, the tendency of
English life, nor of the education of their colleges, to lead young men
to high moral excellence, but to aim at illustrating themselves in the
sight of mankind.
Thence we went into the kitchen, which is arranged very much as it was
three centuries ago, with two immense fireplaces. There was likewise a
gridiron, which, without any exaggeration, was large enough to have
served for the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. The college dinners are good,
but plain, and cost the students one shilling and eleven pence each,
being rather cheaper than a similar one could be had at an inn. There is
no provision for breakfast or supper in commons; but they can have these
meals sent to their rooms from the buttery, at a charge proportioned to
the dishes they order. There seems to be no necessity for a great
expenditure on the part of Oxford students.
From the kitchen we went to the chapel, which is the cathedral of Oxford,
and well worth seeing, if there had not been so many other things to see.
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