Bruno was a man
whom nothing could teach to speak well of people in authority.
Oxford enjoyed the religious peace (not extended to "Seminarists") of
Elizabeth's and James's reigns, and did not foresee that she was
about to become the home of the Court and a place of arms.
CHAPTER IV--JACOBEAN OXFORD
The gardens of Wadham College on a bright morning in early spring are
a scene in which the memory of old Oxford pleasantly lingers, and is
easily revived. The great cedars throw their secular shadow on the
ancient turf, the chapel forms a beautiful background; the whole
place is exactly what it was two hundred and sixty years ago. The
stones of Oxford walls, when they do not turn black and drop off in
flakes, assume tender tints of the palest gold, red, and orange.
Along a wall, which looks so old that it may well have formed a
defence of the ancient Augustinian priory, the stars of the yellow
jasmine flower abundantly. The industrious hosts of the bees have
left their cells, to labour in this first morning of spring; the
doves coo, the thrushes are noisy in the trees. All breathes of the
year renewal, and of the coming April; and all that gladdens us may
have gladdened some indolent scholar in the time of King James.
In the reign of the first Stuart king of England, Oxford became the
town that we know. Even in Elizabeth's days, could we ascend the
stream of centuries, we should find ourselves much at home in Oxford.
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