ad at
Magdalen, and the skilful adaptation of old English tradition to
modern needs by Sir Thomas Jackson at Trinity and at Hertford--what
other city can show such a series of architectural beauties? And it
must not be forgotten that Oxford disputes with York the honour of
having the most representative sequence of painted glass windows in
England. Oxford, indeed, is a paradise for the student of Art.
Nowhere, except at Cambridge, can the series of architectural works
be paralleled, and at both universities the charm of their ancient
buildings is enhanced by their beautiful setting in college gardens.

It is not an accident that in the old universities more than anywhere
else, so much of beauty has survived, nor is it to be put down as a
happy piece of academic conservatism. It is rather the natural result
of their constitution and endowment. What has been so fatal to the
beauty of old England elsewhere has been material prosperity. The
buildings inherited from the past had to go, at least so it was
thought, because they were not suited to modern methods, or because
the site they occupied was worth so much more for other purposes. But
the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge could not carry on their work on
different sites; "residence" was an essential of academic
arrangements; and there was no temptation to the fellows of a college
to make money by parting with their old buildings, for their incomes
were determined by Statute, and any great increase of wealth would
not advantage individual fellows. Hence, while great nobles and great
merchants sold their splendid houses and grounds, and grew rich on
the unearned increment, and while non-residential universities moved
bodily from their old positions to new and more fashionable quarters,
Oxford and Cambridge colleges went on working and living in the same
places. Much the same reasons have preserved, in many old towns,
picturesque alms-houses, to show the modern world how beautiful
buildings once could be, while all around them reigns opulent
ugliness. Certain it is that only in one instance, in recent times,
has an Oxford college contemplated selling its old site and buildings
and migrating to North Oxford, and then the sacrilegious attempt was
outvoted. Hence, as has been said, the two old English Universities
possess in an unique degree the

"Strange enchantments of the past
And memories of the days of old."

The charms of Oxford for the historical student an