way for constructing on the line of High Street, which would thus receive an accession of magnificence, a new and splendid southern front.

Opposite to us, as we repass the gate of Brasennose, lies the next and the last object of our first day's Walk, the College of

ALL SOULS,

Collegium Omnium Animarum Fidelium defunctorum de Oxon.; so called from an obligation under which the Society lay, to offer up prayers for the good estate of King Henry VI. and of the Founder, during their lives; and for the souls not only of the King and the Archbishop after their decease, but of all subjects who had fallen in the war with France, and of all the faithful deceased.

Into this College we shall, as is usual, introduce our stranger from the High Street; but let him first step across the way, and examine with us the southern front of this fair daughter of Alma Mater.

Here the venerable predoininates; for although the irregularity of its architectural features is too great to admit of its being viewed with unmixed satisfaction, an air of antique dignity still sits upon this aspect of the College, and heightens our regret for the injury which it has sustained from the innovations of modern repair. The door-ways are dissimilar in size and in decoration; the windows have been modernized in complete defiance of uniformity; one part of the parapet is embattled, the other plain; and only one of the gateways is surmounted by a tower. This tower is, however, an interesting feature. It rises to a respectable height, is embattled, and ornamented

by well-executed statues of Henry VI. and of Archbishop Chichele. Along the front is a range of those grotesque waterspouts, in which many of the ancient buildings of Oxford are so affluent ; and nearly adjoining to it on the east, a good dwelling house, the residence of the Warden.

Passing through the tower gateway into the first court, the scene improves upon us. The eye first catches, in front, a part of the Chapel, and a superb dial, on whose ample surface the flight of time is marked with peculiar accuracy; the maker having drawn one whole and two half rays, for the greater divisions of the hour, and having marked the minutes, fifteen in number, on each side of the rays. Sir Christopher Wren, when a Fellow, constructed this dial, and presented it to the College, which is besides indebted greatly to him for the interior arrangement of its Chapel.

The buildings of the first court, which although low, and for the most part plain, are regular, and uniformly embattled, consist chiefly of the chambers of the Society.

Proceeding through a passage in the eastern side of this square, we find ourselves in a small court, the sweetly retired air of which is particularly pleasing.

The pointed windows and graduated buttresses which distinguish the building on the north belong to the Hall, into which we now beg permission to lead the way.

Although in point of size this room yields to some of the other College refectories, its proportions are excellent, and it is richly furnished with subjects of decoration. On entering, the eye of the stranger will rest upon a noble statue in white marble, of a Judge, (Blackstone,) whose Com

mentaries on English law have justly entitled him to the epithet" celebrated," and will transmit his name with distinguished honour to remote posterity. Of this statue, which has great merit, Bacon was the sculptor, and, as a remuneration for his labour, received from the Society four hundred and fifty guineas. Among the other ornaments of the Hall are various paintings, busts, and a series of casts from the antique. At a picture over the chimney-piece we would pause a little, for the purpose of introducing our tourist to Archbishop Chichele, the munificent Founder of the College. This excellent Prelate occupied the archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury at a time in which the church, as then established, was peculiarly disturbed. Lollardism, as the doctrines and opinions of Wickliffe were termed, was spreading with great rapidity over the land. It consequently became the Archbishop's peculiar duty to exert himself in the support of an ecclesiastical establishment, in which he occupied so distinguished a rank, and to which the Wicklivian tenets were so decidedly inimical. A task of so much delicacy and difficulty could not be performed without exciting the enmity of those against whom its operation was directed, and the Archbishop has accordingly been branded with the name of persecutor. But with how little justice he was thus stigmatized, may be inferred from the virulent martyrologist Fox, who, although ever ready to impugn his conduct, and vilify the memory of Catholic ecclesiastics, has found nothing to allege against our venerable diocesan. Archbishop Chichele was born at Higham Ferrars, educated at Winchester, and, by William of Wykeham, made one of the first Fellows of that Prelate's