"And love the high-embowed roof
With antique pillars massy proof."
MILTON
When Wolsey began to build what he intended to be the most splendid college in the world, the first part to be finished was the dining-hall, with the kitchen. The wits of the time made very merry at this: their epigram /Egregium opus! Cardinalis iste instituit collegium et absolvit popinam/ may be rendered:
"Here's a fine piece of work! Your Cardinal
A college plans, completes a guzzling-hall."
Certainly the hall of Christ Church is the finest "popina" which has ever been abused by envious critics; its size and magnificence place it easily first among the halls of Oxford, and its great outline stands conspicuous in all views of Oxford from the south, whether by day, or when by night, to quote M. Arnold's "Thyrsis":
"The line of festal light in Christ Church Hall"
shines afar. And the kitchen, a perfect cube in shape, is worthy of the hall which it feeds, and is, perhaps, more appreciated by many of Oxford's visitors; for the taste for meringues is more common than that for masterpieces of portraiture. The report to Wolsey, in 1526, by his agent, the Warden of New College, is still true; the kitchen is "substantially and goodly done, in such manner as no two of the best colleges in Oxford have rooms so goodly and convenient."
The approach to the hall, seen in Plate XVIII, is later than Wolsey's work, but is fully worthy of him. The beautiful fan tracery, which hardly suffers by being compared with Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster, was put up, extraordinary as it may seem, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by the elder Dean Fell; all we know of its origin is that it was the work of "Smith, an artificer of London," surely the most modest architect who ever designed a masterpiece. The staircase itself is later, the work of the notorious Wyatt, who for once meddled with a great building without spoiling it.
The history of Christ Church is very largely the history of the University of Oxford. It is still our wealthiest and largest foundation, although the disproportion between it and other colleges is by no means so great as it once was; and, thanks to its having been ruled by a series of famous and energetic deans, its periods of inglorious inactivity have been fewer than those of most other colleges. The roll of deans contains such names as those of John Owen, the most famous of Puritan preachers, John Fell, theologian and founder of the greatness of the Oxford Press, Henry Aldrich, universally accomplished as scholar, logician, musician, architect, Francis Atterbury, Jacobite and plotter, Cyril Jackson, who ruled Christ Church with a rod of iron, and who ranks first among the creators of nineteenth-century Oxford, Thomas Gaisford and Henry George Liddell, great Greek scholars. It seems that a college gains something by having its head appointed from outside; the Dean at Christ Church is appointed by the Crown.
The importance of Christ Church is especially seen in its hall, through its collection of portraits. It is not only that this is superior to that of any one other college; it may well be doubted if the combined efforts of all the colleges could produce a collection equal to that of Christ Church in artistic merit, or superior to it in historical importance. The prime ministers of England, of whom Christ Church claims twelve (nine of them in the last century), are represented among others by George Grenville, the unfortunate author of the Stamp Act, George Canning, who called "the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old," and W. E. Gladstone; among the eight Christ Church men who have been Governor-Generals of India, the Marquess Wellesley stands out pre-eminent; Christ Church has sent five archbishops to Canterbury and nine to York; there is a portrait in the hall of Wake, the most famous of the holders of the See of Canterbury. Lord Mansfield's picture worthily represents the learning and impartiality of the English Bench. But even more interesting than any of those already mentioned are the portraits of John Locke, who was philosopher enough to forgive Christ Church for obeying James II and expelling him, of William Penn, presented, as was fitting, by the American state that bears his name, of John Wesley and of Dr. Pusey, whose names will be for ever associated with the two greatest of Oxford's religious movements. And it may well be hoped that C. L. Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll") will delight children for many generations to come, as he has delighted those of the last half- century, by his Alice and her "Adventures."
An interest, rather historical than personal, attaches to the group portrait that occupies a position of honour over the fireplace; it represents the three Oxford divines - John Fell (already mentioned), Dolben, who later was Archbishop of York, and Allestree, afterwards Provost of Eton, who braved the penal law against churchmen by reading the forbidden Church Service daily all through the time of the Commonwealth.
Nowhere, so much as in Christ Church, is the poet's description of Oxford appropriate; her students may:
"Stand, in many an ancient hall,
Where England's greatest deck the wall,
Prelate and Statesman, prince and poet;
Who hath an ear, let him hear them call."