The sun., 1902-01-26

Oxford Old and New.

Oxford Old and New.
Those who know the oldest OF brftisn
universities, whether at first hand or through
:. books, will be glad 10 see the papers ooi-
Iected In a volume entitled Oxford Studies
by JoHx RroHARD GREEN (Maominans).
The editor, Mrs. ]. r. GREEN. tails US In an
introduction that the papers here brought
together represent successive attempts
70 10 carry out q plan which was In her bus
hands thoughts for many years. the plan,
namely, OF writing q history OF Oxford.
His hrst work was the accumulation OF
materials for such history; this was also
one Of his last occupations. He had nlled
many notebooks with "details drawn from
eli sorts Of sources, and In 1873 he pro-
poscd to prepare q book Of Essays on
Z Oxford History working into II paper on
> sEarly Oxford paper on Oxford In tho
Great Rebellion,' and another on Puritan
Oxford. and closing with two long studies
4 on rOxford Society In the Eighteenth
Century and sThe Oxford Jsoobites.
taken from essays written As an under
g graduate. The last Of these papers he had
begun to put into form and correct, but the
q work was not finished. and, consequently,
Mrs Green Ia able only TO give the studies
, tn their original form.
, A word should be said about the order
IA Of time In which these fragments Of an
) Intended history appeared. The essays
on oxford In the Last Century constitute
the hrst outcome OF the authors study Of
the subject, having been written for the
Ortord Chronicle In 1859 Almost his first
/ contribution u the Saturday Reriev In
1887 was on watch and Ward In Oxford
and his first articles In MdcmiVdn's MAG
z mime In 1871 were on oxford and Its Early
History whereof he says, The thesis
8 h twofold: C) That the university killed
the city and t2) that the church pretty
we'll killed the university Finally We
observe that In 1860 and In 1870 Green
wrote the two papers In the Saturday Pc
vieu on Modern Oxford which are In
cluded In the book before US.
John Richard Green was q native OF
Oxford, having been born In 4 St. John
: street. Those who have read his lately
published letters will have noted that he
, was peculiarly sensitive TO the spirit OF
the city. Its visible beauty had lifted his
imagination. or Magdalen College. with.
which he was most familiar as a boy. having
been sent to a school connected with that
institution, he says truly that -the college
r was a poem In itself: It's dim cloisters, it's
noble chapel. its smooth lawns, it's park
with tho deer browsing beneath venerable
eims. It's walks. with 'Addison's Walk In
the midst Of them He adds with equal
truth, that. "of all the Oxford colleges,
Magdalen is the stateiest and the most Sc
oluded from the outer world" AS a boy.
too. Green was impressed. not only with
the beauties, but with tho historical sig
nificancs OF Oxford. considered as a link |
between the present and the past. His |
first prize at school had been given him !
by DR.. Routh. the old President OF Mag |
dalen lin his ninety-third year in is4s) |
who wore the last wig ever seen in Oxford. |
and himself had seen DR.. johnson.
'We boys wrote Green. used 70 stand |
overawed as the old man passed by. the ,
keen eyes looking out OF the white drawn |
face, and feel as II we were looking on
some one from another world 1t was
from Oxford itself that Green learned TO /
reject the convention that would separate
ancient and modern history: Oxford seems
TO me the one place where this distinction |
vsnishes. There, In it's very system of |
training. the old and the new worlds are |
brought together as they are brought |
nowhere else