And yet steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection,--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?--nearer, perhaps, than all the science of Tübingen. Adorable dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic! who hast given thyself so prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to the Philistines! home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties! whose example could ever so inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all so prone, that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of Schiller, makes it his friend’s highest praise (and nobly did Schiller deserve the praise) to have left miles out of sight behind him--the bondage of _Was uns alle bändigt, DAS GEMEINE!_ She will forgive me, even if I have unwittingly drawn upon her a shot or two aimed at her unworthy son; for she is generous, and the cause in which I fight is, after all, hers. Apparitions of a day, what is our puny warfare against the Philistines, compared with the warfare which this queen of romance has been waging against them for centuries, and will wage after we are gone?” MATTHEW ARNOLD. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * [Illustration: J&L Black London] * * * * * A COMPANION VOLUME TO ‘OXFORD’ IN MESSRS. BLACK’S SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL BOOKS CAMBRIDGE BY M. A. R. TUKE JOINT AUTHOR OF ‘ROME’ IN THE SAME SERIES PAINTED BY W. MATTHISON SQUARE DEMY 8vo (9 × 6¼ INCHES), BOUND IN CLOTH, GILT TOP, CONTAINING 77 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR FACSIMILE (_Post free_, =20/6=) PRICE =20/-= NET (_Post free_, =20/6=) SOME PRESS OPINIONS “Miss Tuker’s careful monograph has more abiding claims than those of a mere gift-book or souvenir.... She has produced a book of no little literary charm and of considerable character and individuality.”--_Daily Telegraph._ “Mr. William Matthison’s charming coloured illustrations count for much in the volume’s attractiveness.... All are painted with a richness and sobriety of colour that accords well with the inner associations of the subject. With both text and pictures so good, the book will take a Cambridge man both by the head and by the heart.”--_The Scotsman._