had been performed at its
opening was performed once more. It is a building interesting from
many points of view. Architecturally it marks the first complete
flowering of the genius of Sir Christopher Wren. He was only thirty-
seven when it was completed, and had been previously known rather as
a man of science than as an architect; he was Oxford's Professor of
Astronomy; but Archbishop Sheldon chose him to build a worthy meeting
place for his University, even as at the same time he was being
called by the king to prepare plans for rebuilding London after the
Great Fire.

The very existence of the Sheldonian marks the development of
University ideas. The simple piety--or was it the worldliness?--of
Pre-Reformation Oxford had seen nothing unsuitable in the ceremonies
of graduate Oxford and the ribaldries of undergraduate Oxford taking
place in the consecrated building of St. Mary's; but the more sober
genius of Anglicanism was shocked at these secular intrusions, and
Sheldon provided his University with a worthy home, where its great
functions have been performed ever since.

The building is a triumph of construction; it is doubtful if so large
an unsupported roof can be found elsewhere; but Wren is not to be
held responsible for the outside ugly flat roof, which was put on 100
years ago, because it was said, quite falsely, that Wren's roof was
unsafe. That architect had set himself the problem of getting the
greatest number of people into the space at his disposal, and he
managed to fit in a building that will hold 1,500. It was also
intended for the Printing Press of the University, but was only used
in that way for a short time, as in 1713 Sir John Vanbrugh put up the
Clarendon Building, to house this department of University activity.
The "heaviness" of Vanbrugh's buildings was a jest even in his own
time; someone wrote as an epitaph for him

"Lie heavy on him. Earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee."

Blenheim Palace, his greatest work, is indeed a "heavy load." But the
same criticism can hardly be brought against the columned portico,
which forms a fine ending for the Broad Street. Vanbrugh's building
was superseded in its turn, when the increasing business of the
Oxford Printing Press was moved to the present building in 1830.

[Plate IV. Sheldonian Theatre, etc., Broad Street]

Since then, all kinds of University business have been carried on in
the old Printing Press. The University Regi