ter of Oxford may be fitly named, as producing
a deep, a lasting, and peculiar impression.

"In one of the most fertile districts of the Queen of the Seas, whom
nature has so richly blessed, whom for centuries past no footstep of
foreign armies has desecrated, lies a broad green vale, where the
Cherwell and the Isis mingle their full, clear waters. Here and there
primeval elms and oaks overshadow them; while in their various windings
they encircle gardens, meadows, and fields, villages, cottages,
farm-houses, and country-seats, in motley mixture. In the midst rises
a mass of mighty buildings, the general character of which varies
between convent, palace, and castle. Some few Gothic church-towers and
Romaic domes, it is true, break through the horizontal lines; yet the
general impression at a distance and at first sight, is essentially
different from that of any of the towns of the middle ages. The
outlines are far from being so sharp, so angular, so irregular, so
fantastical; a certain softness, a peculiar repose, reigns in those
broader, terrace-like rising masses. Only in the creations of Claude
Lorraine or Poussin could we expect to find a spot to compare with the
prevailing character of this picture, especially when lit up by a
favourable light. The principal masses consist of Colleges, the
University buildings, and the city churches; and by the side of these
the city itself is lost on distant view. But on entering the streets,
we find around us all the signs of an active and prosperous trade.
Rich and elegant shops in profusion afford a sight to be found nowhere
but in England; but with all this glitter and show, they sink into a
modest, and, as it were, a menial attitude, by the side of the grandly
severe memorials of the higher intellectual life, memorials which have
been growing out of that life from almost the beginning of Christianity
itself. Those rich and elegant shops are, as it were, the domestic
offices of these palaces of learning, which ever rivet the eye of the
observer, while all besides seems perforce to be subservient to them.
Each of the larger and more ancient Colleges looks like a separate
whole--an entire town, whose walls and monuments proclaim the vigorous
growth of many centuries; and the town itself has happily escaped the
lot of modern beautifying, and in this respect harmonizes with the
Colleges."

There are those who, having felt the influence of this ancient School,
and being s