Mary's was suffering restoration, and "the old men,"
including Wood, we may believe, "exceedingly exclaim against it."
That is the way of Oxford, a college is constantly rebuilding amid
the protests of the rest of the University. There is no question
more common, or less agreeable than this, "What are you doing to your
tower?" or "What are you doing to your hall, library, or chapel?" No
one ever knows; but we are always doing something, and working men
for ever sit, and drink beer, on the venerable roofs.
Long intercourse with Prideaux's letters, and mournful memories of
Oxford new buildings, tempt a writer to imitate Prideaux's spirit.
Let us shut up his book, where he leaves Oxford, in 1686, to become
rector of Saham-Toney, in Norfolk, and marry a wife, though, says he,
"I little thought I should ever come to this."
CHAPTER VI--HIGH TORY OXFORD
The name of her late Majesty Queen Anne has for some little time been
a kind of party watch-word. Many harmless people have an innocent
loyalty to this lady, make themselves her knights (as Mary Antoinette
has still her sworn champions in France and Mary Stuart in Scotland),
buy the plate of her serene period, and imitate the dress. To many
moral critics in the press, however, Queen Anne is a kind of
abomination. I know not how it is, but the terms "Queen Anne
furniture and blue china" have become words of almost slanderous
railing.
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