St. Edmund's Hall would be in its present place,
and Queen's would present its ancient Gothic front. It is easy to
imagine the change in the High Street which would be produced by a
Queen's not unlike Oriel, in the room of the highly classical edifice
of Wren. All Souls would be less remarkable; at St. Mary's we should
note the absence of the "scandalous image" of Our Lady over the door.
At Merton the fellows' quadrangle did not yet exist, and a great
wood-yard bordered on Corpus. In front of Oriel was an open space
with trees, and there were a few scattered buildings, such as
Peckwater's Inn (on the site of "Peck"), and Canterbury College. Tom
Quad was stately but incomplete. Turning from St. Mary's past B. N.
C., we miss the attics in Brasenose front, we miss the imposing
Radcliffe, we miss all the quadrangle of the Schools, except the
Divinity school, and we miss the Theatre. If we go down South
Street, past Ch. Ch. we find an open space where Pembroke stands.
Where Wadham is now, the most uniform, complete, and unchanged of all
the colleges, there are only the open pleasances, and perhaps a few
ruins of the Augustinian priory. St. John's lacks its inner
quadrangle, and Balliol, in place of its new buildings, has its old
delightful grove. As to the houses of the town, they are not unlike
the tottering and picturesque old roofs and gables of King Street.
To the Oxford of Elizabeth's reign, then, the founders and architects
of her successor added, chiefly, the Schools' quadrangle, with the
great gate of the five orders, a building beautiful, as it were, in
its own despite.
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