nd with _camera obscurae._ Those amateurs
especially, and they are not few, who find the rules of _perspective_
difficult to learn and to apply--and who moreover have the misfortune to be
lazy--prefer to use a method which dispenses with all that trouble. And
even accomplished artists now avail themselves of an invention which
delineates in a few moments the almost endless details of Gothic
architecture which a whole day would hardly suffice to draw correctly in
the ordinary manner.

[PLATE XVIII. GATE OF CHRISTCHURCH.]

PLATE XVIII. GATE OF CHRISTCHURCH.

PLATE XVIII. GATE OF CHRISTCHURCH.

The principal gate of Christchurch College in the University of Oxford.

On the right of the picture are seen the buildings of Pembroke College in
shade.

Those who have visited Oxford and Cambridge in vacation time in the summer
must have been struck with the silence and tranquillity which pervade
those venerable abodes of learning.

Those ancient courts and quadrangles and cloisters look so beautiful so
tranquil and so solemn at the close of a summer's evening, that the
spectator almost thinks he gazes upon a city of former ages, deserted, but
not in ruins: abandoned by man, but spared by Time. No other cities in
Great Britain awake feelings at all similar. In other towns you hear at
all times the busy hum of passing crowds, intent on traffic or on
pleasure--but Oxford in the summer season seems the dwelling of the Genius
of Repose.

[PLATE XIX. THE TOWER OF LACOCK ABBEY]

PLATE XIX. THE TOWER OF LACOCK ABBEY

PLATE XIX. THE TOWER OF LACOCK ABBEY

The upper part of the tower is believed to be of Queen Elizabeth's time,
but the lower part is probably coeval with the first foundation of the
abbey, in the reign of Henry III.

The tower contains three apartments, one in each story. In the central
one, which is used as a muniment room, there is preserved an invaluable
curiosity, an original copy of the Magna Charta of King Henry III. It
appears that a copy of this Great Charter was sent to the sheriffs of all
the counties in England. The illustrious Ela, Countess of Salisbury, was
at that time sheriff of Wiltshire (at least so tradition confidently
avers), and this was the copy transmitted to her, and carefully preserved
ever since her days in the abbey which she founded about four years after
the date of this Great