[42 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

foundation;" and thus the guide went on, perfectly independent of the
artificial trammels of punctuation, and not particular whether his
hearers understood him or not: that was not ~his~ business. And as
it was that gentleman's boast that he "could do the alls, collidges,
and principal hedifices in a nour and a naff," it could not be
expected but that Mr. Green should take back to Warwickshire
otherwise than a slightly confused impression of Oxford.

When he unrolled that rich panorama before his "mind's eye," all its
component parts were strangely out of place. The rich spire of St.
Mary's claimed acquaintance with her poorer sister at the
cathedral. The cupola of the Tom Tower got into close quarters with
the huge dome of the Radcliffe, that shrugged up its great round
shoulders at the intrusion of the cross-bred Graeco-Gothic tower of
All Saints. The theatre had walked up to St. Giles's to see how the
Taylor Buildings agreed with the University galleries; while the
Martyrs' Memorial had stepped down to Magdalen Bridge, in time to see
the college taking a walk in the Botanic Gardens. The Schools and
the Bodleian had set their back against the stately portico of the
Clarendon Press; while the antiquated Ashmolean had given place to
the more modern Townhall. The time-honoured, black-looking front of
University College had changed into the cold cleanliness of the
"classic" ~facade~ of Queen's. The two towers of All Souls', - whose
several stages seem to be pulled out of each other like the parts of
a telescope, - had, somehow, removed themselves from the rest of the
building, which had gone, nevertheless, on a tour to Broad Street;
behind which, as every one knows, are the Broad Walk and the Christ
Church meadows. Merton Chapel had got into ~New~ quarters; and