Bim Bom sine fraude."

It was transplanted to Christ Church in the reign of Queen Mary, and
at the time it was proposed to rechristen it "Pulcra Maria," in
honour at once of the Queen and of the Blessed Virgin; but the old
name prevailed. Every night but one, from May 29, 1684, until the
Great War silenced him, Tom has sounded out, after 9 p.m., his 101
strokes, as a signal that all should be within their college walls;
the number is the number of the members of the foundation of Christ
Church in 1684, when the tower was finished. During the war Tom was
forbidden to sound, along with all other Oxford bells and clocks, for
might not his mighty voice have guided some zeppelin or German
aeroplane to pour down destruction on Oxford? Few things brought home
more to Oxford the meaning of the Armistice than hearing Tom once
more on the night of November 11, 1918.

[Plate XX. Christ Church: "Tom" Tower]

A patriotic tradition claims for Tom the honour of having inspired
Milton's lines in "Il Penseroso":

"Hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered, shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar."

But it is difficult to believe this; Milton's connection with Oxford
does not get nearer than Forest Hill, and blow the west wind as hard
as it would, it could scarcely make Tom's voice reach so far. And the
"wide-watered shore" is only appropriate to Oxford in flood time, the
very last season when a poet would wish to remember it.

The view in Plate XX of the tower is taken from the front of
Pembroke, and must have been often admired by Oxford's devoted son,
Samuel Johnson, when, as a poor scholar of Pembroke, "he was
generally to be seen (says his friend. Bishop Percy) lounging at the
college gate, with a circle of young students round him, whom he was
entertaining with his wit and keeping from their studies."

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE

[Plate XXI. St. John's College : Garden Front]

"An English home--gray twilight poured
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep, all things in order stored,
The haunt of ancient Peace."
TENNYSON, Palace of Art.

St. John's shares with Trinity and Hertford the distinction of having
been twice founded. As the Cistercian College of St. Bernard, it owed
its origin to Archbishop Chichele, the founder of All Souls', and it
continued to exist for a century as a monastic institution. At the
Reformation it was swept awa