At this crisis there stepped in a benefactor, Sir Thomas Crookes of Worcestershire, with a bequest of £10,000; and the transformed Hall was known, from 1698 onwards, as Worcester College. Worcester is comparatively at some distance from the other Colleges, a fact on which undergraduate humour loves to dwell; but jests on this subject reflect rather on the poor walking powers of those who make them. At any rate, a "well-girt" visitor to Oxford need not hesitate to take the journey, and will certainly find his pains rewarded, for Worcester has much to show that is of interest, and much that is beautiful. The first view gives the interior of the Front Quadrangle. The buildings here are stately and dignified, if a little cold; they are obviously of the same date as those overlooking the deer-park of Magdalen, and suggest the genius of the eighteenth century. There could hardly be a greater contrast to these than the ancient structures which are at the left hand of the Quadrangle, as one enters; for these old buildings take us back to the monastic days of Gloucester Hall. A glimpse of them, as viewed from the Garden, is given in the second illustration. [Illustration: 0268] [Illustration: 0269] The Garden itself is delightful, and has, alone of Oxford pleasances, the additional feature of a lake. Mr. Matthison's drawing shows how beautiful this lake and its surroundings can be, when the colours are newly laid on by the brush of summer. HERTFORD COLLEGE |Hertford college consists of an anomalous collection of buildings, of various styles and dates. The eye rests with most pleasure on the Jacobean part of the Quadrangle, opposite the gateway. One view gives the interior of the Quadrangle--in which is a sloping stairway reminiscent of a larger one of the same type in Blois Castle, the other shews the College from without, and includes the new buildings recently finished. This medley of structures is suggestive of the vicissitude through which the College has passed. [Illustration: 0272] [Illustration: 0273] So far back as the thirteenth century it was in existence as Hart Hall; and here the students of Exeter and New College were successively lodged, while their own Colleges were building. Rightly or wrongly, Exeter College claimed the ownership of Hart Hall for four centuries; but in 1740 the then Principal of the Hall, Dr. Newton, was successful in asserting its independence, and Hart Hall became Hertford College. The endowments, however, were insignificant; the members fell off and the walls (or a part of them) fell down; and in 1820 a commission declared that Hertford College no longer existed. About this time Magdalen Hall, which stood close to Magdalen College, was burned down, and the University allotted the buildings of Hertford to its roofless inhabitants; and the name of Hertford was changed to Magdalen Hall.