border, added to the charm of college gardens. It has
been said with truth that the secret of a garden's beauty lies mainly in
its background. How true this is! Flowers may blaze with colour in an
open field--and who has not marvelled as he passes in the train the
seed-ground of some great horticulturist?--but seen thus they have but
little charm. In a college garden a border filled with delphiniums and
madonna lilies is backed by sombre yews, while the thick foliage of elm
or chestnut quiets harmoniously the farther distance. See how the
spires of blue--now declaring themselves for Oxford, now for
Cambridge--are twice as vivid for the contrast, and how the lilies shine
against the deep dark green, like fairest maidens round some black
panelled hall! Or see again the monthly roses, blushing at intervals
along an old grey wall: how tenderly are their hues enhanced by contrast
with the time-stained stones! Such are a part of the fascination of
Oxford gardens.

Quite unlike these, yet having an attraction of their own which many
miss, are the Botanical Gardens hard by Magdalen Bridge. Their situation
on the brink of the River Cherwell, and almost under the shadow of
Magdalen Tower, is what probably appeals most strongly to the ordinary
observer, while those who merely pass the gardens by will delight in the
gateway, the work of Inigo Jones, with its statues of Charles I and II.
Formal these gardens are of necessity, but there hangs about them a
certain feeling of antiquity. They somehow seem to take their place
among their old-world surroundings; and fitly so, for they are the
oldest gardens of their kind in the country, having been originated by
the Earl of Danby as an assistance to the study of medicine, nearly
three hundred years ago.

Across the way, at Magdalen College, exists a pleasure ground which
cannot rightly be included among Oxford's gardens, though it is
certainly one of her best-known natural adornments. This is the deer
park adjoining the New Buildings. It is almost worth while in the summer
vacation to loiter near the narrow passage leading from the cloisters,
to witness the start of surprise and to hear the sight-seers' remarks,
as they suddenly come out from the dusk and impressive gloom into a
blaze of sunlight, with gay new buildings bright with window-boxes
straight before them, and a little herd of dappled deer feeding in the
sunshine and the shadow of the park. Hundreds of years seem to roll
away: