John's,
the triumph of Wren's genius, alike in the classical style at the
Sheldonian and in "Gothic" as in Tom Tower, the Classical work of
Hawkesmore at Queen's and of Gibbs in the Radcliffe, the wonderful
beauty of Mr. Bodley's modern Gothic in St. Swithun's Quad at
Magdalen, and the skilful adaptation of old English tradition to
modern needs by Sir Thomas Jackson at Trinity and at Hertford--what
other city can show such a series of architectural beauties? And it
must not be forgotten that Oxford disputes with York the honour of
having the most representative sequence of painted glass windows in
England. Oxford, indeed, is a paradise for the student of Art.
Nowhere, except at Cambridge, can the series of architectural works
be paralleled, and at both universities the charm of their ancient
buildings is enhanced by their beautiful setting in college gardens.
It is not an accident that in the old universities more than anywhere
else, so much of beauty has survived, nor is it to be put down as a
happy piece of academic conservatism. It is rather the natural result
of their constitution and endowment. What has been so fatal to the
beauty of old England elsewhere has been material prosperity.
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