reaming spires,"

yet it is for her towers, especially, that she is famous. Glorious as
St. Mary's is, it certainly does not surpass Magdalen Tower; and it
may well be doubted whether the genius of Wren has not excelled both
Magdalen and St. Mary's in "Tom" Tower. Gothic purists, of course, do
not like it. There is a well-authenticated story of a really great
architect who, in the early days of the twentieth century, was asked
to submit a scheme for its repair; after long delay he sent in a plan
for an entirely new tower on correct Gothic lines, because (as he
wrote) no one would wish to preserve "so anomalous a structure" as
Tom Tower. The world, however, does not agree with the minute
critics; it is easy to find fault with the details of "Tom," but in
proportion, in dignity, in suitability to his position, the greatest
qualities that can be required in any building, "Tom" is pre-eminent.
This is the more to be wondered at, as the tower was erected a
century and a half after the great gateway which it crowns.

The genius of Wolsey had planned a magnificent front, but only a
little more than half of it was completed when Henry VIII ended the
career of his greatest servant, and altered the plans of the most
glorious college in Europe. It was not till the period just before
the Civil War that the northern part of the front of Christ Church
was built by the elder Dean Fell, and the work was only completed
when his son, the famous Dr. Fell, doomed to eternal notoriety by the
well-known rhymes about his mysterious unpopularity, employed Wren to
build the gate tower. Yet the whole presents one harmonious design,
worthy of the most famous of Oxford founders and of the greatest of
British architects. It is fitting that it should be Wolsey's statue
which adorns the gate--a statue given by stout old Jonathan Trelawny,
one of the Seven Bishops, whose name is perpetuated by the refrain of
Hawker's spirited ballad, which deceived even Macaulay as to its
authenticity:

"And must Trelawny die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why."

Tom Tower appeals to Oxford men through more than one of their
senses; it is a most conspicuous object in every view; and in it is
hung the famous bell, "Great Tom," the fourth largest bell in
England, weighing over seven tons. This once belonged to Osney Abbey,
when it was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and bore the
legend:

"In Thomae laude resono