The University comprises twenty colleges: University, founded 1249; Balliol, 1263 to 1268; Merton, 1264 (removed from Malden in 1274); Exeter, 1314; Oriel, 1326; Queen's, 1340; New, 1386; Lincoln, 1427; All Souls, 1437; Magdalen, 1456; Brazenose, 1509; Corpus Christi, 1516; Christ Church, 1546-1547; Trinity, 1554; St. John's, 1555; Jesus, 1571; Wadham, 1613; Pembroke, 1620; Worcester, 1714; Keble (by subscription, as a memorial to Rev. John Keble), 1870. The number of undergraduates for the year 1873-4 was 2,392; the whole number of members on the books was 8,532. The college buildings are located near each other, though they extend over an area of at least a square mile. Three or four are sometimes on a single street, their grounds adjoining. The undergraduates in each college average one hundred and twenty--or if all the students and members be included, the average is four hundred and twelve: numbers, which are small when compared with those of our leading American colleges. These colleges are in most respects as independent of each other as if they were in different towns. Each has its own Master, or, as we should say, President. It governs its own affairs to the minutest detail, but acts always in subordination to certain regulations made by the Council of Management, which is composed of all the Masters. No institutions have exerted a greater influence on the world than this and its companion at Cambridge. As we walked along the shadow of these venerable walls, beneath the shade of their old trees, or sat beside the gently flowing streams; as we went into the dining-halls and looked upon the portraits of renowned men and upon their heraldry; as we sat on the benches which had been occupied by eminent men; as in the chapels we were inspired with new reverence for things great and good; as we wandered at will--at this time of college vacation--from close to close, and remembered the name and fame of the ecclesiastics, poets, historians, philosophers, scientists,--new school and old, High Church, Low Church, and No Church,--and thought of the six hundred years of results since the charter and first foundation,--we felt that Oxford was inexpressibly great. The fine weather--which, as we say at home, was apparently _settled_--enabled us, for the first time since our landing, to dispense with overcoats; but, as the sequel proved, only for an hour. The new foliage, the odor of flowers, the birds, the familiar croak and incessant wheeling of the rooks, seemed part and parcel of the premises, as if, like the trees and buildings, they had been there for a century.