Far smaller in extent, but even more famous, is the tree-girt space
called Christ Church Meadow, lying between that college and the river.
Port Meadow may be said to be a wide bright outskirt of the natural robe
of Oxford: Christ Church Meadow, with its Broad Walk and its mighty
trees, is like a fold about her feet deep-trimmed and bordered with a
silver braid. It is here that on Show Sunday, in Commemoration Week,
in June, those who hold high places in the University, with favoured
guests, and some few undergraduates, pace up and down, or used to pace
in days gone by; for it belongs to a more modern pen to say whether the
old custom still obtains, or whether it has passed away with other
things of ceremony, such as (to compare small things with great) the
custom of forty years ago, in pursuance of which an undergraduate would
now and then array himself in his most brilliant attire and saunter up
and down the High. Does the old street feel slighted, one wonders, at
the fact that it is "done" no more?
[Illustration: THE COLLEGE BARGES AND FOLLY BRIDGE]
Close by the meadow the college barges line the banks of the Isis, and
then come other meadows on either side--meadows nameless and undignified
by pageantry, but sacred to Oxford's special flower, the fritillary, and
stretching away to where Iffley stands, with its memories of J.H.
Newman, and where the old mill, beloved of painters, was burnt down a
few years ago.
One other meadow there is, smaller than either of those already
mentioned, and less beautiful in itself, though highly favoured in its
immediate surroundings. It stands within the grounds of Magdalen
College, and is bordered on either side by the divided waters of the
Cherwell, before they pass beneath Magdalen Bridge. Around this meadow
is a shady path beneath an avenue of trees, and it is this path that
attracts attention to the meadow; for it is said that it was here that
Addison loved to pace up and down, as in the early years of the
eighteenth century he thought out his essays for the _Tatler_ or
_Spectator_.
The rivers of Oxford--the Isis and the Cherwell--are so much part of her
meadow loveliness, that the one seems almost to include the others.
Where the meadows are the fairest, there the rivers gleam and sparkle in
the summer sun of memory. The Isis, stately stream, proud of the great
oarsmen she has taught, and of historic boats that she has borne; the
Cherwell, winding, secretive, alluring, willow-girt, whispering of men
and maidens, and of the dream days of ambitious youth. Each river has
its bridge. The mightier stream, as is most fitting, spanned where for
centuries the road has passed from Oxford into Berkshire; the little
Cherwell, to make up for any loss in navigable importance, crossed near
Magdalen Tower by the lovely bridge which was built over the two
branches of the stream more than two hundred years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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