academic influence has spread even under the earth, for between the
Bodleian and the Radcliffe there is a great subterranean chamber of
two stories, excavated 1909-1910, which, when full, will contain
1,000,000 books.

It is refreshing to turn from the thought of so much dead industry,
as these multitudes of unread books will represent, to the
inspiration of the buildings. They are the very epitome of Oxford.
The classic symmetry of Gibbs' dome looks across at the soaring spire
of the mediaeval University Church, while the Bodleian is one of the
best examples of the Jacobean Gothic, which still held its own in
Oxford when the classical style was triumphing elsewhere. Such
contrasts are typical of Oxford. The University had a European
reputation in the days when it was one of the two great centres of
mediaeval scholasticism. Roger Bacon, the most famous name in
mediaeval science, no doubt saw the tower of St. Mary's beginning to
rise. The University welcomed the Classical Revival, it survived the
storms of the Reformation, it was the great centre of the building up
of Anglican theology under the Laudian rule, it was one of the
inspirations of English science in the seventeenth century, though
Dr. Radcliffe's generous benefactions are a little later, and have
hardly begun to yield their full fruit till our own day. Such are the
learned traditions of the Radcliffe Square, while it has also been
the centre of the young lives which, for seven centuries at least,
have enjoyed their happiest years in Oxford.

The view from the Radcliffe roof is undoubtedly the best in Oxford.
It has been thus described by the worst of the many poets who have
celebrated the University: