Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/265

 TRINITY , dedicated in 1554 "To the Holy and Undivided Trinity," occupies the site, and some fragments of the buildings, of Durham College, a much older institution, which was founded toward the end of the Thirteenth Century for the students of the Benedictine Monastery of Durham.

The original cost of the beautiful Lime Walk of Trinity, planted during the opening years of the Eighteenth Century, was, we are told, nine pounds sterling! For that sum, in dollars at Princeton, New Jersey, and in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, one can plant a short, consumptive, hemlock hedge, which will live, if it is lucky, not two centuries, but a couple of weeks, without rain!

Tradition says that Richard de Bury was a student of the ancient Durham at Oxford; but the tradition is based upon another tradition to the effect that de Bury, after leaving Oxford, became a Benedictine Monk! He had, most certainly, something to do with Oxford; and to Oxford, unquestionably, he intended to bequeath his great and famous library. But his books were 227