Others saw in the uncompromising squareness of the new tower a subtle compliment to the Greek lexicon of Liddell, who then was Dean. But in spite of the wits, who resented any innovation in so famous a group of buildings, Bodley's tower is a fine one, and really enhances the effect of Tom Quad. CHRIST CHURCH (2) THE HALL STAIRCASE "And love the high-embowed roof With antique pillars massy proof." MILTON [Plate XVIII. Christ Church : The Hall Staircase] When Wolsey began to build what he intended to be the most splendid college in the world, the first part to be finished was the dining- hall, with the kitchen. The wits of the time made very merry at this: their epigram /Egregium opus! Cardinalis iste instituit collegium et absolvit popinam/ may be rendered: "Here's a fine piece of work! Your Cardinal A college plans, completes a guzzling-hall." Certainly the hall of Christ Church is the finest "popina" which has ever been abused by envious critics; its size and magnificence place it easily first among the halls of Oxford, and its great outline stands conspicuous in all views of Oxford from the south, whether by day, or when by night, to quote M. Arnold's "Thyrsis": "The line of festal light in Christ Church Hall" shines afar. And the kitchen, a perfect cube in shape, is worthy of the hall which it feeds, and is, perhaps, more appreciated by many of Oxford's visitors; for the taste for meringues is more common than that for masterpieces of portraiture. The report to Wolsey, in 1526, by his agent, the Warden of New College, is still true; the kitchen is "substantially and goodly done, in such manner as no two of the best colleges in Oxford have rooms so goodly and convenient." The approach to the hall, seen in Plate XVIII, is later than Wolsey's work, but is fully worthy of him. The beautiful fan tracery, which hardly suffers by being compared with Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster, was put up, extraordinary as it may seem, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by the elder Dean Fell; all we know of its origin is that it was the work of "Smith, an artificer of London," surely the most modest architect who ever designed a masterpiece. The staircase itself is later, the work of the notorious Wyatt, who for once meddled with a great building without spoiling it.