MAGDALEN TOWER _from the_ BRIDGE.] Different folk, of course, will regard different colleges as holding pride of place; but, I am sure, all will agree that one of the finest is Magdalen College, a beautiful building standing amid cool, green meadows. Very fine indeed is the great tower, built in 1492, from the top of which every May morning the College choir sings a glad hymn of praise; and very fine too are the cloisters below, and the lovely leafy walks in whose shade many famous men have walked in their youthful days. If we grant to Magdalen its claim to be the most beautiful of the colleges, we must undoubtedly recognize Christ Church as the most magnificent. We shall see something of the splendour of Cardinal Wolsey’s ideas with regard to building when we talk about his palace at Hampton Court, and we need feel no surprise at the grandeur of Christ Church. Unfortunately, Wolsey’s ideas were never carried out: his fall from favour put an end to the work when but three sides of the Great Quadrangle had been completed; and then for just on a century the fabric stood in its unfinished state—a monument to o’erleaping ambition. Nevertheless it was completed, and though it is not all that Wolsey intended it to be, it is still one of the glories of the city. Built round about the old Cathedral, it stands upon the site of the ancient St. Frideswide’s priory. The famous “Tom Tower” which stands in the centre of the front of the building was not a part of the original idea: it was added in 1682 by Dr. Fell, according to the design of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral. “Tom Tower” is so called because of its great bell, brought from Osney Abbey. “Great Tom,” which weighs no less than six tons, peals forth each night at nine o’clock a hundred and one strokes, and by the time of the last stroke all the College gates are supposed to be shut and all the undergraduates safely within the College buildings. The most wonderful possession of Christ Church is its glorious “Early English” hall, in which the members of the College dine daily: 115 feet long, 40 feet broad, and 50 feet high, it is unrivalled in all England, with perhaps the exception of Westminster Hall. Here at the tables have sat many of England’s most famous men—courtiers, writers, politicians, soldiers, artists—and the portraits of a number of them, painted by famous painters, look down from the ancient walls. But these are only two of the colleges. At every turn some other architectural beauty, some dream in stone, discloses itself, for the colleges are dotted about all over the centre of the town, and at every other corner there is some spot of great interest. To describe them all briefly would more than fill the pages of this book.