e, as it
strives to amuse and gratify the unwonted throng it entertains. War,
women, wit--all stirred together in one seat of learning! Surely never
was such a medley known!

Then from each point of vantage within our view on that hillside--nay,
from the very spot on which we lie and dream--there are continual
movements of the troops. The King brings his cavalry right here, within
a mile or two of Abingdon, waiting to do battle with Essex should he
advance from Reading. Brown leads the Roundheads now to Wolvercote, now
to Shotover, and anon to Abingdon. Down there by Sandford Ferry Essex
takes his troops across the river, skirts the city to the eastwards and
makes his camp at Islip for a while, then on across Cherwell and so to
Bletchington and Woodstock, blockading all approaches on the north. Now
one sees glitter of steel and gleam of pennon to the west, as Waller is
beat back at Newbridge on the Isis, above Eynsham. Scarcely has this
scene flitted through the brain, than from far away eastwards, hard by
Chinnor, there seems to come a shouting and a noise of horses at the
gallop, as Rupert bursts upon the enemy's convoy, and drives them into
the Chiltern Hills, himself returning with his prisoners and spoils by
way of Chalgrove, when again comes sound of battle, and he in his turn
is for a moment held at bay by Roundheads' "insolence". No matter which
way we turn our eyes, each bit of rising ground, each bridge across a
stream gives birth to some imagining of skirmish or of ambuscade in that
long civil war that waged round Oxford.

[Illustration: MARTYRS' MEMORIAL AND ST. GILES]

One dream more. Naseby has been fought and lost. Fairfax is at the gates
of Oxford, where Charles has once again sought shelter. The city might
have resisted long, but his heart has failed him. It is three o'clock on
an April morning, and dark. A little company of three--a gentleman, a
scholar, and a servant--ride out of the city over Magdalen Bridge. The
servant is the King. So comes the beginning of the end, and Oxford has
no more visions of the ill-fated Charles.

Thus dreaming an hour or two has passed away, and she still lies there
before us unexplored--beckoning us to her with every charm that delights
the eye and kindles boundless expectation. Let us, then, draw closer and
get a nearer view. Old as she is, she invites an inspection as close as
we will. The ravages of time do not in her case mar the loveliness which
each year seems