Hark the bonny Christ Church Bells
1 2 3 4 5 6—­
They sound so wondrous great, so woundy sweet
As they trowl so merrily, merrily. 
Oh! the first and second bell. 
That every day at four and ten, cry,
“Come, come, come, come to prayers!”
And the verger troops before the Dean. 
Tinkle, tinkle, ting, goes the small bell at nine. 
To call the bearers home;
But the devil a man
Will leave his can
Till he hears the mighty Tom.

The great bell originally belonged to Oseney Abbey, and hung in the fine cupola over the entrance gate, named after it the “Great Tom Gate,” and had been tolled every night with one exception since May 29, 1684.

The statue of Wolsey, which now stood over the gateway, was carved by an Oxford man named Bird in the year 1719, at the expense of Trelawny, Bishop of Winchester, one of the seven bishops and hero of the famous ballad—­

  And shall Trelawny die?

At the time of the Restoration Dr. John Fell was appointed Vice-Chancellor, and he not only made the examinations very severe, but he made the examiners keep up to his standard, and was cordially hated by some of the students on that account.  An epigram made about him at that time has been handed down to posterity: 

  I do not like thee, Dr. Fell;
  The reason why I cannot tell;
  But this I know, and know full well,
  I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

William Penn, the Quaker, the famous founder of the Colony of Pennsylvania, “came up” to Christ Church in 1660, but was “sent down” in 1660 for nonconformity.

[Illustration:  LEWIS CARROLL.]

But we were more interested in a modern student there, C.L.  Dodgson, who was born in 1832 at Daresbury in Cheshire, where his father was rector, and quite near where we were born.  There was a wood near his father’s rectory where he, the future “Lewis Carroll,” rambled when a child, along with other children, and where it was thought he got the first inspirations that matured in his famous book The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, which was published in 1865—­one of the most delightful books for children ever written.  We were acquainted with a clergyman who told us that it was the greatest pleasure of his life to have known “Lewis Carroll” at Oxford, and that Queen Victoria was so delighted with Dodgson’s book Alice in Wonderland, that she commanded him if ever he wrote another book to dedicate it to her.  Lewis Carroll was at that time engaged on a rather abstruse work on Conic Sections, which, when completed and published, duly appeared as “Dedicated by express command to Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.”  The appearance of this book caused some surprise and amusement, as it was not known that the Queen was particularly interested in Conic Sections.  No doubt Her Majesty anticipated, when she gave him the command personally, that his next book would be a companion to the immortal Alice.