Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/107

 clan. First among the institutions ranks the Bodleian Library (see LIBRARIES, vol. xiv. p. 519). This noble home of study consists in the first place of the quadrangle once known as the &quot; Schools &quot; containing a Jacobean gateway tower, erected 1613-18, which exemplifies the so-called five orders of architecture and the upper part of an H -shaped building immediately adjoining. In this older part the manuscripts and most of the printed books are preserved ; the fabric of the central part of the H dates from the 15th century, when it housed the library given by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester ; while the contents and fittings, even to the readers seats, have been hardly altered since the days of Charles I. The present library, founded by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602, has since 1610 had the right to receive a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom, and its growth has been accelerated by dona tions from Selden, Rawlinsan, Malone, Gough, Douce, and others. The modern books are contained in the ad jacent circular building known as the &quot; Camera Bodleiana&quot; or &quot;Radcliffe,&quot; built 1737-49 by James Gibbs with money left by Dr Radcliffe to erect and endow a scientific library. The Radcliffe Library pro per was removed in 1861 to the New Museum. The height of the dome is 140 feet. The Bodleian at pre sent gives a home to the Pomfret and Arundel mar bles, including the famous Parian Chronicle, to a num ber of models and pictures, to the Hope collection of 200,000 engraved por traits, and in the tower to the archives of the uni- iinity versity. The Divinity 3ol. School, immediately be low the older reading- l room of the Bodleian, | with its beautiful roof and pendants of carved Caen stone, was finished in 1480, and is still the finest room in Oxford. The Proscholium, a rare ex ample of an original am bulatory, adjoins it on the east, and the Convocation House on the west. To the 1- north of these is the Sheldonian Theatre, built at the ian. expense of Archbishop Sheldon from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, and opened in 1669. The annual Act or &quot;Encaenia,&quot; a commemoration of benefactors, accom panied by the recitation of prize compositions and the conferment of honorary degrees, has almost invariably been held in this building. It contained also the University Press from 1669 until, in 1713, the Clarendon Building, a conspicuous object in Broad Street, was erected to contain the growing establishment, which was finally moved in 1830 to the present Clarendon Press; the Building is now used imo- for university offices. The Ashmolean Museum, which also n - faces Broad Street, is an unpretentious edifice, the first public museum of curiosities in the kingdom, founded by EliasAshmole, and opened in 1683. The nucleus was formed by the collections of John Tradescant, and not till lately has the museum been made to serve a scientific purpose. It contains models, ethnographical collections, English and Egyptian antiquities, and miscellaneous curiosities. The last and not the least of this central group of university buildings is the church of St Mary the Virgin in the High St Mary s, Street, which derives peculiar interest from its long connexion with academic history. Here were held the disputations preparatory to a degree ; here, time out of mind, the university sermons have been preached ; and the north-east corner is the ancient seat of the Houses of Convocation and Congregation. Round it were the earliest lecture-rooms, and its bell was the signal for the gathering of the students, as St Martin s for the townsmen. It has memories too of Wickliffe, of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, of Laud, of Newman, and of Pusey. The tower and spire, of which the height is about 190 feet, date from 1400, the chancel and nave from the succeeding century. The design of the porch was the ground of one of the articles Plan of Oxford in the impeachment of Laud. Farther down on the south New- side of the High Street (the curve of which, lined with Schools, colleges and churches in its course from the centre of the city at Carfax, leads with beautiful effect to Magdalen tower and bridge) is an extensive building completed in 1882, known as the New Examination Schools, on the site of the old Angel Hotel. The architect was Mr T. G. Jackson, the style Jacobean Gothic. The size and elaborate decoration of the rooms, which form three sides of an oblong quadrangle with an entrance hall opening on the street, well adapt them for the lighter as well as the graver uses of the xiniversity. Farther on, and close to the Cherwell, is the Botanic Garden, the first of its kind in Botanic England, opened in 1683, the design having been supplied Garden, by Inigo Jones. The study of plants is unfortunately carried on at a great distance from the home of the other branches of natural history and science, the New Museum, New which was built between 1855 and 1860 in the south-west Museum.