The "heaviness" of Vanbrugh's buildings was a jest even in his own
time; someone wrote as an epitaph for him

"Lie heavy on him. Earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee."

Blenheim Palace, his greatest work, is indeed a "heavy load." But the
same criticism can hardly be brought against the columned portico,
which forms a fine ending for the Broad Street. Vanbrugh's building
was superseded in its turn, when the increasing business of the
Oxford Printing Press was moved to the present building in 1830.

[Plate IV. Sheldonian Theatre, etc., Broad Street]

Since then, all kinds of University business have been carried on in
the old Printing Press. The University Registrar and the University
Treasurer (his style is "Secretary of the University Chest") have
their offices there; the Proctors exercise discipline from there; the
various University delegacies and committees meet there. And another
side of Oxford life, not yet (in January 1920) fully recognized as
belonging to the University, has found a home there; the top floor
has been for twenty years past the centre of women's education in
Oxford, a position elevated indeed, for it is up more than fifty
stairs, but commodious and dignified when reached at last.

Perhaps the Clarendon Building has gained in lightness of effect by
being contrasted with the clumsy mass of the Indian Institute, which
forms the background of our picture. The nineteenth century proudly
criticized the taste of the eighteenth; but it may well be doubted if
any building in Oxford of the earlier and much-abused century is more