a bare, naked, cold appearance, and which were peculiarly fine, nearly all
fell a sacrifice to puritanical bigotry.

For the many curious and beautiful architectural features we must refer in
this instance, as in all others, to the architectural guides, such as
Parker's, with which every one who feels any interest in the subject will
provide himself.

Leaving Christchurch by the Canterbury Gate up Merton-lane, we pass on one
hand Corpus Christi, founded in the reign of Henry VIII., where Bishop Sewel,
author of "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," and Richard Hooker, a
Protestant whom even a Pope praised, were bred; on the other, Oriel, where
studied Walter Raleigh, one of England's greatest men, a poet and
philosopher, soldier and statesman, mariner and historian; not guiltless, yet
worthy of pity in his fall and long imprisonment, and of honour in his brave
and Christian death,--the victim of the ever feeble treacherous Stuarts. What
other line of kings has had the fate to sign away the lives of two such men
as Raleigh and Strafford? Oriel also claims as students Prynne, who, with
his libels and his ears, laid the foundation of our liberty of the press;
Bishop Butler, whose "Analogy" showed how logic and philosophy could be
applied to support the cause of Christian truth; Dr. Arnold, the reformer of
our modern school system, whom Oxford persecuted during life and honoured in
death; and lastly, the clever crotchety Archbishop Whateley, who has not only
proved that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed, but that Mr. Gibbon Wakefield's
bankrupt schemes of colonization were triumphant successes. Next we come to
Merton, the most ancient of all the colleges, founded 7th January 1264. The
oldest of its buildings now standing is the library, the oldest in England,
erected 1377. Wickliff was a student of Merton. University College, which
next falls in our way, claims to date from King Alfred, but has no charters
so ancient as those of Merton. The buildings are not more early than Charles