to see Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, Kenilworth, York, Edinburgh, and all that glorious company.
Oxford we saw out of term-time. There were no gowns and caps walking about, no races on the Isis. But what a regal old town it is! How we enjoyed the architecture — the quaint old gargoyles, the delicious gardens of Merton, Magdalen, and St. John's! How heavy the air was with the perfume of the lime-trees, then in full bloom! Nowhere in England is the turf more green, the English landscape purer or more characteristic. The air is eloquent with learning and splendid names. We drove to Blenheim and enjoyed its magnificence, tried to realize that we were in Woodstock Park; but here two sets of reminiscences clashed, and it was hard to define where Fair Rosamond ended and the stormy Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, began. We drove home by Godstow Abbey, where the frail favorite ended her career; and we finished the day by a visit to a sweet English rectory right out of Birket Foster, all strawberries and roses and diamond-paned windows. Our host was full of the legends of the spot, and told me he had an apple in his garden called the "Fair Rosamond," which shows (for he was a divine) how meritorious a thing it is to be pretty.
From Leamington we drove over to Stratford-on-Avon, on one of the loveliest summer days I remember, and lunched in Washington Irving's parlor at the "Red House." We afterwards walked to Shakespeare's house, where we found five Americans before us. We were not surprised, though perhaps our national vanity was a little gratified, when the sensible old lady who acts as custodian took down an American edition of Shakespeare and told us how highly the English scholars appreciated the work of our Shakespearian scholar, Richard Grant White.
