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 I., but the chapel contains some of Grinling Gibbons’s best carvings, and a monument by Flaxman of Sir William Jones, who was a fellow of this University.  The modern part, fronting High-street, is from the designs of Barry, the architect of the Palace of Westminster.

University College has one of the old customs, of which several are retained in Oxford, called “chopping at the tree.”  On Easter Sunday a bough is dressed up with flowers and evergreens, and laid on a turf by the buttery.  After dinner each member, as he leaves the hall, takes up a cleaver and chops at the tree, and then hands over “largess” to the cook, who stands by with a plate.  The contribution is, for the master half a guinea, the fellows five shillings, and other members half a crown each.  In like manner, at Queen’s College, which stands opposite University, on Christmas day a boar’s head is brought into the hall in procession, while the old carol is sung—­

   The boar’s head in hand bear I
   Bedecked with bays and rosemary,
   And I pray you, my masters, be merry. 
   Qui estis in convivio,
   Caput apri defero,
   Reddens laudes Domino.