Oxford

ives to amuse and gratify the unwonted throng it entertains. War, women, wit--all stirred together in one seat of learning! Surely never was such a medley known!

Then from each point of vantage within our view on that hillside--nay, from the very spot on which we lie and dream--there are continual movements of the troops. The King brings his cavalry right here, within a mile or two of Abingdon, waiting to do battle with Essex should he advance from Reading. Brown leads the Roundheads now to Wolvercote, now to Shotover, and anon to Abingdon. Down there by Sandford Ferry Essex takes his troops across the river, skirts the city to the eastwards and makes his camp at Islip for a while, then on across Cherwell and so to Bletchington and Woodstock, blockading all approaches on the north. Now one sees glitter of steel and gleam of pennon to the west, as Waller is beat back at Newbridge on the Isis, above Eynsham. Scarcely has this scene flitted through the brain, than from far away eastwards, hard by Chinnor,