8 THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY CHAP. Seraphic Doctor." Should he mount the broad and easy staircase that leads to the reading room of the Bodleian, he will no longer see any signs of vacation: to all appearances it is still the height of full term; beneath the painted roof of Duke Humphrey, and amidst the laden shelves of Sir Thomas, such merely pædagogic distinctions of times and seasons are unknown. The librarians are at their posts, the clerks are hurrying up and down with their armfuls of books, the readers are hunting in the catalogue, or immersed in their researches at the desks. And nowhere in the world can researches be prosecuted with such readiness and comfort. Within easy reach of his chair the student has all the books of reference he most frequently wishes to consult, while by the simple process of turning up an entry in the catalogue and writing the pressmark, or title, on a slip, he may command the use of some 600,000 volumes of printed books, and 30,000 volumes of MSS. Any guidance or information he may require is promptly and courteously afforded him by the staff, and any complaints or suggestions he may have to make he is invited to enter in a book kept for the purpose, for the inspection and consideration of the librarian. But the charms of the Bodleian must not detain us now; fascinated though we are, we must leave the happy scholars to their books, and sally forth as in duty bound to explore the "Highways and Byways in Oxford." The two principal thoroughfares run from North to South, and from West to East. The former enters the City at St. Giles's Church1 and quits it at Folly Bridge, while the latter enters by the station and leaves by Magdalen Bridge. The two roads cross each other at Carfax (the quadrifure, or four-forked place), which marks the highest point and centre of the City. The University quarter of the town lies almost wholly to the east of the north and south artery only two Colleges are situated on its western side, 1 The City boundary extends much further to the north, but for our purposes the suburbs may be neglected. MEDIEVAL OXFORD 9 Worcester, on the site of the pre-Reformation and Benedictine Gloucester College, and Pembroke, the successor of the older Broadgates Hall. It is the eastern side therefore which has most interest, and with which the guide-books are most concerned. For this very reason we shall begin our perambulations on the western side, for it is not the purpose of these scanty pages to weary the reader with what he will find better done elsewhere. But first of all, in order to get some idea of the compass of mediæval Oxford, it may be well to make a brief circuit of the site of the City walls. Like the Castle, they early became ruinous and defective, and in the time of the Civil War the defences consisted practically of the two rivers, which were connected on the north by a line of entrenchments, starting from Holywell mill on the Cherwell, and carried round where the Museum and Keble College now stand, behind St. Giles's Church, and so down to the Thames, in the neighbourhood of Worcester College. If we start from Carfax and proceed down St. Aldate's, past the front of Christ Church, we shall find the first traces of the wall on the right at the corner of Brewers' Street. From this point, for some distance westwards its remains are incorporated with the south side of Pembroke College, but at the end of the street, where Little Gate once stood, we lose it again, and can only follow it in imagination to the south of St. Ebbe's Church, and across Church Street to the Castle, where it terminated in West Gate and the moat. For some distance northwards the Castle and its moat now carried on the line of fortification; but the wall started again from the moat somewhere near the present termination of the canal, and crossing Bulwarks (formerly Bullock's) Lane followed the line of St. Michael Street to North Gate, traces of which are visible on the tower of St. Michael's, and which, together with East Gate, was removed in consequence of the Oxford Improvements Act of 1771. From this gate it continued along the back of the houses on the south side of Broad Street, where a fragment still remains, IO PICTURESQUE REMNANTS to Smith Gate at the end of Cat Street. CH. I Here you may enter St. Helen's passage, and you will find a bastion still remaining before New College Tower is reached. From this point it forms the wall of the slipe and of two sides of the College garden. The corner of the garden is its north-eastern angle, and hence it ran southward to East Gate in the High Street, the site of which is now marked by the new Eastgate Hotel. From this gate it continues (a small fragment marks its course) at the back of the houses on the east side of King Street, till it appears again as the wall of Merton garden, the corner of which forms its south-eastern angle. Between Merton and South Gate it was destroyed as long ago as Edward the First's time by the Priory of St. Frideswide, who, says Wood, "did damnify that part of the wall . . . for they pulled downe the 'quarnelli,' or the battlements with the uppermost part of the wall, to build on." At South Gate we are again at the corner of Brewers' Street, and have thus completed our circuit. The outside of the walls northwards and eastwards from the Castle to St. Frideswide's was surrounded by a ditch full of water, and from St. Frideswide's back to the Castle its place appears to have been taken by the Trill mill stream a few yards further south. It will be seen that the space included within the walls was rather more than half a mile from west to east, and rather more than a quarter from north to south. With the exception of the two principal thoroughfares the streets must have been very narrow and the houses much crowded together. To come now to the district west of Carfax, we shall not easily find a quarter of any ancient city in which the vestiges of the past have been more effectually swept away. It is now mostly given up to cheap streets, slums, coal-yards, cattle markets, railway stations, gaols, breweries, and gas-works. In Fisher Row, and the Castle tower, Mr. Griggs has managed to discover some remnants of the picturesque; I do not think he could have found many more. The visitor's curiosity may for instance lead him to the Clarendon Press. He will, of course, 12 THE CASTLE CH. I be amply rewarded for his trouble, but his way thither lies through Walton Street, one of the most depressing thoroughfares in Europe. It was once a country road leading through the fields to Aristotle's well, so called, says Wood, “because that it was then (as now 'tis) frequented in the summer season by our Peripateticks." Now by way of contrast let us see what this district formerly contained: the abbeys of Osney and Rewley, the Castle, Beaumont Palace, afterwards the house of the White Friars, and the houses of the Grey Friars, Black Friars, and Penitentiary Friars. Of all these there remains only the Castle mound and tower, and a few stones of the two abbeys-and first for the Castle. Of the Castle as it once existed there is little left but the mound and the lofty square tower which forms so conspicuous an object from the railway as you enter Oxford from the south. To picture the fortress as it was, you must imagine an enclosure, roughly circular, and surrounded by a moat. Through this enclosure, in 1766, was cut the new road which now skirts the mound on the north-west, and, in the next century the modern prison and the assize courts were built within the circuit of the remaining precincts. We shall get the most impressive view of the tower if we quit the New Road at Pacey's bridge and walk up Fisher Row: the tower will face us all the way, we shall pass Quaking bridge on the left, and so a few yards farther arrive at New bridge, which is the central point of Mr. Griggs's sketch. The tower batters from the base, and at the top, above the lead roof, which is invisible from below, are traces of six round-headed doorways, now built up. These gave access to the "hourdes," a movable wooden gallery covered by raw hides, which could be thrown out in time of danger for the purpose of discharging missiles upon the assailants underneath. When not in use the timbers of this gallery would be stored in a room at the top of the tower. No greater monument of strength and durability than this tower exists in Oxford, though, owing to the greater attractions of the |