tOBOiraO OF OLTD. 99 



XXXVir. -QUEEN STREET— THE COLLEGE AVENUE AND PARK. 



The fine vista of the College Avenue, opposite to whieh we have now arrived, always recallB 

 %o our recollection a certain bright spring morning, when on reaching school a whole holiday 

 was unexpectedly announced ; and when, as a mode of filling up a portion of the unlooked-for 

 vacant time, it was agreed between two or three joung lads to pay a visit to the place on Lot 

 •Street where, as the report had spread amongst us, they were beginning to make visible 

 preparations for the commencement of the University of King's College. The minds of grow- 

 ing lads in the neighbourhood of York at that period had very vague ideas of what a University 

 really was. It was a place where studies were carried on, but how or under what conditions, 

 •there was of necessity little conception. Curiosity, however, was naturally excited by the talk 

 on the lips of every one that a University was one day to be established at York ; and now 

 suddenly we learned that actual beginnings were to be seen of the much-talked-of institution. 

 On the morning of the fine spring day referred to, we accordingly undertook an exploration. 



On arrivmg at the spot to whieli we had been directed, we found that a long strip of land 

 running in a straight line northwards had been marked out, after the manner of a newly-opened 

 iside line or concession line in the woods. We found a number of men actually at work with 

 -axes and ma:ttocks ; yokes of oxen, too, were straining at strong ploughs, which forced a way 

 an amongst the roots and small stumps of the natural brushwood, and, here and there, under- 

 neath a rough mat of tangled grass, bringing to light, now black vegetable mould, now dry clay, 

 ■aow loose red sand. Longitudinally, up the middle of the space marked off, several bold 

 furrows were turned up, those on the right inclining to the left, and those on the left inclining 

 to the right, as is the wont in primitive turn piking. . 



One novelty we discovered, viz. , that on each side along a portion of the newly cleared ground, 

 young saplings had been planted at regular intervals ; these, we were told, were young horse- 

 'Chestnuts, procured from the United States, expressly for the purpose of forming a double row 

 of trees here. In the neighbourhood of York the horse-chestnut was then a rarity. 



Everywhere throughout the North American continent, as in the numerous newly-opened 

 ■areas of the British Empire elsewhere on the globe's surface, instances, of course, abound of 

 "wonderful progress made in a brief interval of time. For ourselves, we seem sometimes as if 

 we were moving among "the unrealities of a dream when we deliberately review the steps in the 

 march of physical and social improvement, which, within a fractional portion only of a range 

 of recollections not so very extended, can be recalled, in the region where our own lot has been. 

 ■cast, and, in particular in the neighbourhood where we are at this moment pausing. 



The grand mediaval-looking structure of University College in the grounds at the head of the 

 Avenue, continues to this day to be a surprise somewhat bewildering to the eye and mind, 

 ■whenever it breaks upon the view. It looks so completely a thing of the old world and of an 

 age long past away. To think that one has walked over its site before one stone was laid upon 

 another thereon, seems almost like a mental hallucinaS)ion. A certain quietness of aspect and 

 absence of overstrain after architectural effect give the massive pile an air of great genuineness. 

 The irregular grouping of its many parts appears the undesigned result of accretion growing 

 out of the necessities of successive years. The whole looks in its place, and as if it had long 

 occupied it. The material of its walls, left for the most part superficially in the rough, has the 

 appearance of being weather-worn. An impression of age too is given by the smooth finish of 

 the surrounding grounds and spacious drives by which, on several sides, the building is 

 approached, as well as by the goodly size of the well-grown oaks and other trees through whose 

 outstretched branches it is usually first caught sight of, from across the picturesque ravine. 

 Of the stiU virgin condition of the surrounding soil, however, we have some unmistakeabl* 

 -evidence in the ponderous granitic boulders every here and there heaving up their gray back 

 above the natural greensward, undisturbed since the day when they dropped suddenly down 

 trom the dissolving ice-rafts that could no longer endure theii weight. Seen at a little distance, 

 as from Yonge Street for example, the square central tower of the University, with the cone- 

 •capped turret at one of its angles, rising above a pleasant horizon of trees, and outlined against 

 an afternoon sky, is something thoroughly English, recalling Rugby or Warwick. On a nearer 

 approach, this same tower, combined with the portal below, bears a certain resemblance to the 

 gateway of the Abbey of Bury St. Bdmuads, as figured in Palsgrave's " Anglo-Saxons ;" and the 



