ever been abused by envious critics; its size and magnificence place
it easily first among the halls of Oxford, and its great outline
stands conspicuous in all views of Oxford from the south, whether by
day, or when by night, to quote M. Arnold's "Thyrsis":

"The line of festal light in Christ Church Hall"

shines afar. And the kitchen, a perfect cube in shape, is worthy of
the hall which it feeds, and is, perhaps, more appreciated by many of
Oxford's visitors; for the taste for meringues is more common than
that for masterpieces of portraiture. The report to Wolsey, in 1526,
by his agent, the Warden of New College, is still true; the kitchen
is "substantially and goodly done, in such manner as no two of the
best colleges in Oxford have rooms so goodly and convenient."

The approach to the hall, seen in Plate XVIII, is later than Wolsey's
work, but is fully worthy of him. The beautiful fan tracery, which
hardly suffers by being compared with Henry VII's Chapel at
Westminster, was put up, extraordinary as it may seem, in the middle
of the seventeenth century, by the elder Dean Fell; all we know of
its origin is that it was the work of "Smith, an artificer of
London," surely the most modest architect who ever designed a
masterpiece. The staircase itself is later, the work of the notorious
Wyatt, who for once meddled with a great building without spoiling
it.

The history of Christ Church is very largely the history of the
University of Oxford. It is still our wealthiest and largest
foundation, although the disproportion between it and other colleges
is by no means so great as it once was; and, thanks to its having