Christ Church and Queen's College are the most modern, and, I think,
indisputably the best built of all the colleges. Balliol College
seems particularly to be distinguished on account of its antiquity,
and its complete Gothic style of building.
Mr. Maud told me that a good deal of money might be sometimes earned
by preaching at Oxford; for all the members of a certain standing
are obliged in their turn to preach in the church of the university;
but many of them, when it comes to their turn, prefer the procuring
a substitute; and so not unfrequently pay as high as five or six
guineas for a sermon.
Mr. Maud also told me he had been now eighteen years at this
university, and might be made a doctor whenever he chose it: he was
a master of arts, and according to his own account gave lectures in
his college on the classics. He also did the duty and officiated as
curate, occasionally, in some of the neighbouring villages. Going
along the street we met the English poet laureate, Warton, now
rather an elderly man; and yet he is still the fellow of a college.
His greatest pleasure next to poetry is, as Mr. Maud told me,
shooting wild ducks.
Mr. Maud seemed upon the whole to be a most worthy and philanthropic
man. He told me, that where he now officiated the clerk was dead,
and had left a numerous family in the greatest distress; and that he
was going to the place next day, on purpose to try if he could bring
about the election of the son, a lad about sixteen years of age, in
the place of his deceased father, as clerk, to support a necessitous
family.
At the Mitre, the inn where I lodged, there was hardly a minute in
which some students or others did not call, either to drink, or to
amuse themselves in conversation with the daughter of the landlord,
who is not only handsome, but sensible, and well behaved.
They often spoke to me much in praise of a German, of the name of
Mitchel, at least they pronounced it so, who had for many years
rendered himself famous as a musician. I was rejoiced to hear one
of my countrymen thus praised by the English; and wished to have
paid him a visit, but I had not the good fortune to find him at
home.
CHAPTER XI.
Castleton, June 30th.
Before I tell you anything of the place where I now am, I will
proceed regularly in my narrative, and so begin now where I left off
in my last letter.
