ich meadow-land of long green grass,"

in spite of her trees and gardens, which attract a visitor,
especially one from the more barren north, Oxford must yield the palm
of natural beauty to many English towns, not to mention those more
remote.

But she has every other claim, and first, perhaps, may be mentioned
that of historic interest.

An Englishman who knows anything of history is not likely to forget
of how many striking events in the development of his country Oxford
has been the scene. The element of romance is furnished early in her
story by the daring escape of the Empress-Queen, Matilda, from Oxford
Castle. The Provisions of Oxford (1258) were the work of one of the
most famous Parliaments of the thirteenth century, the century which
saw the building of the English constitution, and the students of the
University fought for the cause which those Provisions represented.
The burning of the martyr bishops in the sixteenth century is one of
the greatest tragedies in the story of our Church. The seventeenth
century saw Oxford the capital of Royalist England in the Civil War,
and though there was no actual fighting there, Charles' night march
in 1644 from Oxford to the West, between the two enclosing armies of
Essex and Waller, is one of the most famous military movements ever
carried out in our comparatively peaceful island. The Parliamentary
history, too, of Oxford in the seventeenth century is full of
interest, for it was there that in 1625 Charles' first Parliament met
in the Divinity School. And fifty years later, his son, Charles II,
triumphed over the Whig Parliament at Oxford, which was trying by
factious violence to force the Exclusion Bill on a reluctant king and
nation. Few towns beside London have been the scene of so many great
historical events; yet any one who looks below the surface will
attach less importance to these than to the great changes in thought
which have found in Oxford their inspiration, and which make it a
city of pilgrimage for those interested in the development of
England's real life. Matthew Arnold's famous description, hackneyed
though it is by quotation, gives one aspect of Oxford, an aspect
which will appeal to many beside the scholar poet:

"Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce
intellectual life of our century, so serene!

'There are our young barbarians, all at play.'

And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to