day after mass, with due solemnity the digging
began. They had not dug long, the story relates, before they heard "amid
the earth horrid strugglings and flutterings and violent quackings of
the distressed mallard." When he was brought out he was as big as an
ostrich, and "much wonder was thereat, for the lycke had not been seen
in this londe nor in onie odir." The Festival of the Mallard was long
held in commemoration of this event, at which was sung the "Merry Song
of the All Souls Mallard," beginning--

"Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon,
Let other hungry mortals gape on,
And on the bones their stomach fill hard;
But let All Souls men have their mallard.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a wopping, wopping mallard!"

While the festival has passed away, the song is still sung at Oxford,
and the tale has given rise to much literature, there having been
vigorous contests waged over the authenticity of the mallard.

University College, also on the High Street, though the earliest
founded, now has no building older than the seventeenth century. It has
an imposing Gothic front with two tower-gateways, while the recently
constructed New Building is an elegant structure erected in 1850.
Queen's College, founded in 1341 by Queen Philippa's confessor, and
hence its name, is a modern building by Wren and his pupils. St. Edmund
Hall, opposite Queen's College, is a plain building, but with
magnificent ivy on its walls.

MAGDALEN AND BRASENOSE.

[Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE CLOISTERS.]

Bishop Patten of Winchester, who was surnamed Waynflete, founded
Magdalen College in 1458. It stands by the side of the Cherwell, and its
graceful tower, nearly four hundred years old, rises one hundred and
forty-five feet--one of the most beautiful constructions in Oxford. Its
quadrangles are fine, especially the one known as the Cloisters, which
remains much as it was in the time of the founder, and is ornamented
with rude sandstone statues erected in honor of a visit from King James
I. In accordance with ancient custom, on the morning of the first of
May, just as five o'clock strikes, a solemn Te Deum is sung on the top
of Magdalen Tower, where the choristers assemble in surplices and with
uncovered heads. When it closes the crowd on the ground below give out
discordant blasts from myriads of tin horns, but the Magdalen chime of
bells, said to be "the most tunable and melodious ring of bells in all
these parts an