The buildings of the University lie mainly in the centre of the city close around us. There is the Convocation House, the hall of the University Legislature, where, in times of collision between theological parties, or between the party of the ancient system of education and that of the modern system, lively debates have been heard. In it, also, are conferred the ordinary degrees. They are still conferred in the religious form of words, handed down from the Middle Ages, the candidate kneeling down before the Vice-Chancellor in the posture of mediæval homage. Oxford is the classic ground of old forms and ceremonies. Before each degree is conferred, the Proctors march up and down the House to give any objector to the degree--an unsatisfied creditor, for example--the opportunity of entering a _caveat_ by "plucking" the Proctor's sleeve. Adjoining the Convocation House is the Divinity School, the only building of the University, saving St. Mary's Church, which dates from the Middle Ages. A very beautiful relic of the Middle Ages it is when seen from the gardens of Exeter College. Here are held the examinations for degrees in theology, styled, in the Oxford of old, queen of the sciences, and long their tyrant. Here, again, is the Sheldonian Theatre, the gift of Archbishop Sheldon, a Primate of the Restoration period, and as readers of Pepys's "Diary" know, of Restoration character, but a patron of learning. University exercises used, during the Middle Ages, to be performed in St. Mary's Church. In those days the church was the public building for all purposes, that of a theatre among the rest. But the Anglican was more scrupulous in his use of the sacred edifice than the Roman Catholic. In the Sheldonian Theatre is held the annual commemoration of Founders and benefactors, the grand academical festival, at which the Doctorate appears in its pomp of scarlet, filing in to the sound of the organ, the prize poems and essays are read, and the honorary degrees are conferred in the presence of a gala crowd of visitors drawn by the summer beauty of Oxford and the pleasures that close the studious year. In former days the ceremony used to be enlivened and sometimes disgraced by the jests of the _terræ filius_, a licensed or tolerated buffoon whose personalities provoked the indignation of Evelyn, and in one case, at least, were visited with expulsion. It is now enlivened, and, as visitors think, sometimes disgraced, by the uproarious joking of the undergraduates' gallery. This modern license the authorities of the University are believed to have brought on themselves by encouraging political demonstrations. The Sheldonian Theatre is also the scene of grand receptions, and of the inauguration of the Chancellor. That flaunting portrait of George IV. in his royal robes, by Lawrence, with the military portraits of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia by which it is flanked and its gorgeousness is rebuked, mark the