treet is an ornate Italian porch
with twisted pillars, erected in 1637. Above the entrance is the famous
statue of the Virgin and Child which gave such offence to the Puritans.

[Illustration: THE COTTAGES, WORCESTER COLLEGE GARDENS]

What stories the place could tell! It was here that John Wycliffe
thundered against the Romanism of his day. It was here that Cranmer
recanted his recantation, and promised that the hand that wrote it
should be the first to suffer at the stake. Hither, too, were laid to
rest the remains of Amy Robsart, brought after death from Cumnor. Space
will not allow of any recital of the famous names of those who have
occupied the University pulpit herein. But memories crowd into the mind
as the rather dreary interior of the Church is pictured. Here some
thirty-six or seven years ago an undergraduate went, full of
expectation, to hear Dr. Pusey preach. The crowd was great, and he had
to stand, while for an hour and a half or so the great man poured out a
learned disquisition against the Jews! Here too, about the same time,
the youthful members of the University flocked to hear Burgon's evening
sermons--quaint and original as the man himself--in one of which, after
describing the episode of Balaam and the ass, he threw up his hands and
cried, "To think that that type of brutality should speak with the voice
of a man--it delighteth me hugely!"

One of the beauties of the streets of Oxford is that they mostly have
something admirable at either end. Thus the picture of the High Street
is finished at one end with Magdalen Tower and Bridge, and at the other
with Carfax Church, or rather, nowadays, with all that is left--a very
ancient tower--of the City Church which stood upon the site of a
building so old that coins of the date of Athelstan were found beneath
its pavement.

Then see how Broad Street, as it narrows again towards the east, gives a
fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre, where many who have helped to make
their country's history, have been honoured by the granting of degrees,
and of the Clarendon Building with its lofty pillared porch, where once
the University Press was housed. Or look at that superb approach to
Oxford from the north, a boulevard of great breadth and dignity. From
St. Giles' Church, at which the road from Woodstock and from Banbury
converge, how fine is the prospect ending as it does in the tall trees,
before the dignified front of St. John's College, and the tower of St.