a city of health compared to what she was in the middle ages. In 1448 ‘a pestilence broke out, occasioned by the overflowing of waters, . . . also by the lying of many scholars in one room or dormitory in almost every Hall, which occasioned nasty air and smells, and consequently diseases.’ In the general dulness and squalor two things were remarkable: one, the last splendour of the feudal time; the other, the first dawn of the new learning from Italy. In 1452, George Neville of Balliol, brother of the King-maker, gave the most prodigious pass-supper that was ever served in Oxford. On the first day there were 600 messes of meat, divided into three courses. The second course is worthy of the attention of the epicure: SECOND COURSE Vian in brase. Carcell. Crane in sawce. Partrych. Young Pocock. Venson baked. Coney. Fryed meat in paste. Pigeons. Lesh Lumbert. Byttor. A Frutor. Curlew. A Sutteltee. Against this prodigious gormandising we must set that noble gift, the Library presented to Oxford by Duke Humfrey of Gloucester. In the Catalogue, drawn up in 1439, we mark many books of the utmost value to the impoverished students. Here are the works of Plato, and the _Ethics_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle, translated by Leonard the Aretine. Here, among the numerous writings of the Fathers, are Tully and Seneca, Averroes and Avicenna, _Bellum Trojae cum secretis secretorum_, Apuleius, Aulus Gellius, Livy, Boccaccio, Petrarch. Here, with Ovid’s verses, is the Commentary on Dante, and his _Divine Comedy_. Here, rarest of all, is a Greek Dictionary, the silent father of Liddel’s and Scott’s to be. [Picture: Broad Street, a fine wide street containing many historic buildings, and showing the Sheldonian and the old Clarendon Building on the right]