Erasmus had taught at Paris. He went to Oxford (1498) to learn and to observe. His return home from London had been delayed unexpectedly. He determined to use the opportunity of paying a visit to Oxford. The reputation of the learned men there attracted him more than the company of "the gold-chained courtiers" of the capital. He was received as an inmate of S. Mary's College, which had been built as a house for students of his own Augustinian order (1435). This house, when it was dissolved (1541), was converted into a hall for students, and then into a charitable institution (Bridewell). The site, on the east side of New Inn Hall Street, is occupied by a house and garden, now called Frewen Hall, which was chosen in 1859 as the residence of the Prince of Wales during his studies at Oxford. The west gateway, a few remains of groining and the wall facing the street north of the gate are practically all that remains of the building as Erasmus saw it, unless we reckon the roof of the chapel of B.N.C., which is said to have been taken from the chapel of S. Mary's College. Erasmus had nothing to complain of in his welcome to Oxford. He found the prior of his college, Richard Charnock, an intelligent companion and useful friend. Colet, having heard from Charnock of his arrival, addressed to him a letter of welcome, which in the midst of its formal civility has a characteristic touch of Puritan sincerity. To this Erasmus replied in his own rhetorical fashion with a letter of elaborate compliment. His wit, his learning and the charm of his brilliant conversation soon won him friends. Delightful himself, he found everybody delightful. The English girls were divinely pretty, and he admired their custom of kissing visitors. Erasmus made a fair show in the hunting-field, and was charmed with everything, even with our English climate. "The air," he wrote from Oxford, "is soft and delicious. The men are sensible and intelligent. Many of them are even learned, and not superficially either. They know their classics and so accurately that I seem to have lost little in not going to Italy. When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato. Linacre is as deep and acute a thinker as I have ever met. Grocyn is a mine of knowledge, and Nature never formed a sweeter and happier disposition than that of Thomas More. The number of young men who are studying ancient literature here is astonishing." In one of his letters he gives a very lively picture of a gathering of witty divines at the house of his "sweet and amiable friend" Colet, when the latter "spoke with a sacred fury" and Erasmus himself, finding the conversation growing too serious for a social gathering, entertained the company with a happily invented tale.