THE BEAUTY OF OXFORD HERE, if anywhere, in this town of ancient colleges, is abundant material of beauty for eye and mind. It is not, it is true, the simple beauty of nature; but nature has been invoked to sanctify and mellow art. These 5 stately stone-fronted buildings have weathered like crags and precipices. They rise out of rich ancient embowered gardens. They are like bright birds of the forest, dwelling contentedly in gilded cages. These great palaces of learning, beautiful when seen in the setting of sunny gardens, 10 and with even a sterner dignity when planted, like a fortress of quiet, close to the very dust and din of the street, hold many treasures of stately loveliness and fair association; this city of palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, as rich and dim as Camelot, is invested with a 15 romance that few cities can equal; and then the waterside pleasaunces with their trim alleys, their air of ancient security and wealthy seclusion, have an incomparable charm; day by day, as one hurries or saunters through the streets, the charm strikes across the mind with an incredible 20 force, a newness of impression which is the test of the highest beauty. Yet these again are beauties of a sensational order which beat insistently upon the dullest mind. The true connoisseur of natural beauty acquiesces in, nay prefers, an economy, an austerity of effect. The 25 curve of a wood seen a hundred times before, the gentle line of a fallow, a little pool among the pastures, fringed with rushes, the long blue line of the distant downs, the cloud-perspective, the still sunset glow these will give him ever new delights, and delights that grow with ob30 servation and intuition. The tumult and the shouting dies- Far-called our navies melt away- Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 5 IO 15 20 5 For heathen heart that puts her trust Amen. ! NOTES THE ENGLISH BIBLE (Page 1) The English translations of the Old and New Testament literature in Hebrew and Greek have justly become classics in our language. The so-called Authorized Version, based somewhat upon the earlier work of Wyclif, Coverdale, and others, was begun in 1604, as the result of the proceedings of the Hampton Court Conference called by James I, and was completed in 1611, a large body of eminent scholars and divines having contributed their services to the task. The Revised Version, undertaken in the light of recent investigation, with the object of correcting some recognized errors in the older translation, was finished in 1884. Four selections are here printed in the Authorized Version: two from the Old Testament, translated from ancient Hebrew; and two from the New, or Greek, Testament. Comment would be superfluous on passages so familiar, and so distinguished by felicity of diction and beauty of style. HOMER (Page 6) The Homeric poems the Iliad, treating of the wrath of the Greek hero, Achilles, during the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, narrating the adventures of the Ithacan chief, Odysseus, while on his perilous voyage home after the war - deal with a comparatively early period of Greek civilization. Of their supposed author, Homer, little is known; indeed the theory that the poems are in the nature of communal literature, and therefore by no one bard, has many able supporters. The extract given here, from Pope's well-known translation (1721), describes the grief of Andromache, wife of Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam, at the death of her husband, who, after vanquishing many Greeks in single combat, had been slain by the redoubtable Achilles and dragged ignominiously by the heels behind his conqueror's chariot. 66 7:16. Venus, the lovely goddess of beauty and love, had been awarded by Paris, the youngest son of Priam, the golden apple presented by the goddess of Discord "to the Fairest." In return she had given to Paris, Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, and the fairest woman in the world. Paris abducted Helen, with the aid of Venus, and carried her to Troy; and the Greek chiefs, in retaliation, launched an expedition against the foreign city, capturing it after a ten years' siege. 7:24. Hippoplacia was Andromache's native city. 8:23. Astyanax was the son of Hector and Andromache. DEMOSTHENES (Page 10) Demosthenes (c. 383-322 B.C.), the greatest of Greek orators, was born in Attica, and devoted himself early to public life, overcoming serious physical defects in the effort to make himself qualified as a speaker. The Greek states were at this time weak and divided; and Demosthenes courageously exposed the grasping policy of Philip, King of Macedon, who was trying to subdue the peninsula. The scathing invective of the so-called Philippics, delivered by Demosthenes against the tyrant, has rarely been equalled. In 331 B.C., Ctesiphon, in return for the ser |