. But there is a certain
solemnity, almost amounting to sadness, in both these aspects of the
Northern capital which is altogether absent from the sparkling beauty of
the city on the Isis, and from the genius of the place.

The impression that Oxford makes upon those who, familiar with her from
early years, have learnt to know and love her in later life is
remarkable. Teeming with much that is ancient, she appears the
embodiment of youth and beauty. Exquisite in line, sparkling with light
and colour, she seems ever bright and young, while her sons fall into
decay and perish. "Alma Mater!" they cry, and love her for her
loveliness, till their dim eyes can look on her no more.

And this is for the reason that the true lovableness of Oxford cannot be
learnt at once. As her charms have grown from age to age, so their real
appreciation is gradual. Not that she cannot catch the eye of one who
sees her for the first time, and, smiling, hold him captive. This she
can do now and then; but even so her new lover has yet to learn her
preciousness.

It is worth while to try to understand what are the charms that have
grown with her growth. There was a day when in herself Oxford was
unlovely to behold, and when romance had not begun to cling to her like
some beautiful diaphanous robe. It is possible to imagine a low-lying
cluster of wooden houses forming narrow streets, and occupying the land
between the Cherwell and the Isis, nearly a thousand years ago. In those
days no doubt it was reckoned a town of some importance, but, with the
possible exception of the minster of St. Frideswide, there was nothing
to relieve its squalid appearance.

After the Norman Conquest, when most of the houses in the town had been
destroyed, there began to be a certain severe dignity rising up with the
building of the forts and the castle by Robert D'Oily, who came over
with King William. The fine and massive tower, with a swiftly flowing
branch of the Isis at its very feet, forming a natural moat, still
stands as the single relic of D'Oily's castle, and the first in point of
age of the existing charms of Oxford. Standing, as it does, inextricably
mixed up with breweries and the county jail, it must feel itself in a
forlorn position, and slighted by those who give it a mere glance on
their way from the station to view colleges, old indeed, but, in the
opinion of the ancient tower, things of mushroom growth! And yet, close
by stands something older eve