easily revived. The great cedars throw their secular shadow on the
ancient turf, the chapel forms a beautiful background; the whole
place is exactly what it was two hundred and sixty years ago. The
stones of Oxford walls, when they do not turn black and drop off in
flakes, assume tender tints of the palest gold, red, and orange.
Along a wall, which looks so old that it may well have formed a
defence of the ancient Augustinian priory, the stars of the yellow
jasmine flower abundantly. The industrious hosts of the bees have
left their cells, to labour in this first morning of spring; the
doves coo, the thrushes are noisy in the trees. All breathes of the
year renewal, and of the coming April; and all that gladdens us may
have gladdened some indolent scholar in the time of King James.

In the reign of the first Stuart king of England, Oxford became the
town that we know. Even in Elizabeth's days, could we ascend the
stream of centuries, we should find ourselves much at home in Oxford.
The earliest trustworthy map, that of Agas (1578), is worth studying,
if we wish to understand the Oxford that Elizabeth left, and that the
architects of James embellished, giving us the most interesting
examples of collegiate buildings, which are both stately and
comfortable. Let us enter Oxford by the Iffley Road, in the year
1578. We behold, as Agas enthusiastically writes:


"A citie seated, rich in everything,
Girt with wood and water, meadow, corn, and hill."


The way is not bordered, of course, by the long, straggling streets
of rickety cottages, which now stretch from the bridge half-way to