No alteration whatever has taken place in the Front Quadrangle since its erection; only, where the stones have crumbled, they have been cunningly replaced. The Chapel, though Perpendicular, was erected at the same time as the other buildings. The late Mr. J. H. Parker made the reasonable suggestion that the architect desired to emphasise by this variation of style the religious and secular uses of the several structures. Wadham, whether viewed from Parks Road or from its own delightful gardens, is a veritable joy to the beholder, as our illustrations indicate. The Hall, moreover, which is one of the finest in Oxford and contains a large collection of portraits, should not be neglected, nor the interior of the Chapel, with the sombre grandeur of its stained windows and "prophets blazoned on the panes." [Illustration: 0253] [Illustration: 0254] Wadham's early prosperity received a check in Civil War times, when its plate was melted down for the king and its Warden driven out by the Roundheads. Yet Wilkins, its new Warden, did not abuse his trust; and, thanks to his interest in science, it was within the walls of this College that the idea of the Royal Society was conceived. Wadham has not lacked famous members, of diverse professions and highly divergent opinions. There is Admiral Blake, whose statue watches to-day over his native Bridgewater; Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who was made Master of Arts at fourteen; Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons; Lord Westbury, whose inscription in the ante-chapel tells us that he "dated all his success in life from the time when he was elected a scholar of Wadham at the age of fifteen"; Dean Church among ecclesiastics and Dr. Congreve among Positivists. Finally, there is Sir Christopher Wren, whose name has been kept to the end in order that there may be coupled with it the name of Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A.; for these two architects, both sons of Wadham, have left impressions which deserve to be indelible upon the Oxford that we know. PEMBROKE COLLEGE |PEMBROKE dates its collegiate life from 1624, but it had already existed and flourished for several centuries as Broadgates Hall. It owed its rise in the world to the benefactions of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwick, burgesses of Abingdon, who desired to endow a College for the benefit of their native town, and its new name to the Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of Oxford. Thomas Browne, who was later to be the author of _Religio Medici_, being senior commoner of the Hall at this epoch, delivered a Latin oration at the opening ceremony, in which he did not fail to employ the metaphor of the Phoenix rising out of its ashes.