DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22423#0056
44
OXFORD.
Letter XXIV.
LETTER XXIV.
Oxford : The High. Street — Archaeological meeting in 1850 — Fete at
Exeter College — Christ Church College — General Guise's collection
of pictures ; of drawings by the old masters — Drawing by Raphael —
MSS. with miniatures — Antique marble — Merton College — The
Radcliffe Library — Ruysdael in Worcester College — Collections of art
in the University Galleries — Pomfret statues — Casts presented by
Lady Chantrey —■ English sculpture —■ Pictures — Drawings by Raphael
and Michael Angelo — Ashmolean Museum — Alfred Jewel — MSS.
with miniatures — A Zoology—The Bodleian Library — MSS. with
miniatures : Byzantine, French, Netherlandish, English, German, Italian
— Wadham College — MSS. with miniatures — Woodcuts — Drawings
by Raphael — Professor Johnson's MSS. with miniatures — Blenheim
Palace : Collection of pictures — Rubens — Raphael, the Virgin and
Child enthroned, with saints—Ditchley Park—Basildon Park.
OXFORD.
Whoever sees Oxford for the first time has seen an entirely new
thing, and laid in a store of impressions as ineffaceable as they
are novel. There is something in the exclusively peculiar charac-
ter of this city which I can compare to no other city I know,
except perhaps to Venice. In each the abundance of the grand
and the beautiful in art is such as to amount to a kind of se-
cond nature, to which the imagination readily consents. The
Gothic glories of Oxford are announced from afar by innumerable
grey towers, spires, and pinnacles rising from among woods of the
richest verdure. My admiration, however, knew no bounds when
I had fairly entered the city and beheld one venerable and
magnificent building after the other present themselves to my
astonished view, each different in its grandeur, beauty, or pic-
turesqueness, and all forming a tout ensemble to which I know no
parallel.
The High Street of Oxford has not its equal in the world.
Loitering, spell-bound, through it, you would imagine that the
middle ages, with their learning, their piety, their zeal, and their
art, were still in full freshness of vigour. The facades of their
colleges fronting the street are decorated with gateways, towers,
and embattled walls, more after the fashion of feudal castles;
but no sooner do you enter the courts, quadrangles, and clois-
OXFORD.
Letter XXIV.
LETTER XXIV.
Oxford : The High. Street — Archaeological meeting in 1850 — Fete at
Exeter College — Christ Church College — General Guise's collection
of pictures ; of drawings by the old masters — Drawing by Raphael —
MSS. with miniatures — Antique marble — Merton College — The
Radcliffe Library — Ruysdael in Worcester College — Collections of art
in the University Galleries — Pomfret statues — Casts presented by
Lady Chantrey —■ English sculpture —■ Pictures — Drawings by Raphael
and Michael Angelo — Ashmolean Museum — Alfred Jewel — MSS.
with miniatures — A Zoology—The Bodleian Library — MSS. with
miniatures : Byzantine, French, Netherlandish, English, German, Italian
— Wadham College — MSS. with miniatures — Woodcuts — Drawings
by Raphael — Professor Johnson's MSS. with miniatures — Blenheim
Palace : Collection of pictures — Rubens — Raphael, the Virgin and
Child enthroned, with saints—Ditchley Park—Basildon Park.
OXFORD.
Whoever sees Oxford for the first time has seen an entirely new
thing, and laid in a store of impressions as ineffaceable as they
are novel. There is something in the exclusively peculiar charac-
ter of this city which I can compare to no other city I know,
except perhaps to Venice. In each the abundance of the grand
and the beautiful in art is such as to amount to a kind of se-
cond nature, to which the imagination readily consents. The
Gothic glories of Oxford are announced from afar by innumerable
grey towers, spires, and pinnacles rising from among woods of the
richest verdure. My admiration, however, knew no bounds when
I had fairly entered the city and beheld one venerable and
magnificent building after the other present themselves to my
astonished view, each different in its grandeur, beauty, or pic-
turesqueness, and all forming a tout ensemble to which I know no
parallel.
The High Street of Oxford has not its equal in the world.
Loitering, spell-bound, through it, you would imagine that the
middle ages, with their learning, their piety, their zeal, and their
art, were still in full freshness of vigour. The facades of their
colleges fronting the street are decorated with gateways, towers,
and embattled walls, more after the fashion of feudal castles;
but no sooner do you enter the courts, quadrangles, and clois-