100 CA JTADIAN LO€AL HISTORY '. 



elaborate and exquisite work about the recessed circular-headed entrance enables one to realize 

 with some degree of certainty how the enriched front of that and other noble medieval 

 structures, seen by us now corroded and mutilated, looked when fresh from the hands that sa 

 cunningly carved them. In the two gigantic blind-worms, likewise, stretched in terroreni, 

 on the sloping parapets of the steps leading to the door, benumbed, not dead ; giving in their 

 extremities, still faint evidence of life, we have a sermon in stone, which the brethren of 

 a masonic guild of Wykeham's day would readily have expounded. As we enter a house devoted 

 to learning and study, is it not fitting that the eye should be greeted with a symbol of the- 

 paralyzing power of Science over Ignorance and Superstition? 



Moreover sounds that come at stated intervals from that central tower, make another link of 

 sympathy with the old motherland. Every night at nine, "swinging slow with solemn roar" 

 the great bell of the University is agreeably suggestive of Christ Church, Oxford, St. Mary's, 

 Cambridge, and other places beyond the sea, which to the present hour give back an echo of the 

 ancient Curfew. — And if to this day the University building, in its exterior aspect and 

 accidents, is startling to those who knew its site when as yet in a state of nature, its interior 

 also, when traversed and explored, tends in the same persons to produce a degree of confusion 

 as between things new and old ; as between Canada and elsewhere. Within its walls are to be 

 seen appliances and conveniences and luxuries for the behoof and use of teacher and student, 

 unknown a few years since in many an ancient seat of learning. In a library of Old World 

 aspect and arrangement, is a collection rich and recherche in the Greek and Latin Classics, in 

 Epigraphy and Archseology, beyond anything of the kind in any other collection on this continent, 

 and beyond what is to be met with in those departments in many a separate College within the 

 precincts of ancient iUniversities — a pre-eminence due to the tastes and special studies of the 

 first president and other early professors of the Canadian Institution. Strange, it is, yet true, 

 that hither, as to a recognized source of indispensable aid in identification and decipherment, 

 are duly transmitted by cast, rubbing and photograph, the "finds" that from time to time 

 create such excitement aud delight among the epigrapMsts, and ethnologists, the minute 

 historical investigators, archaeologists, and craniologists, of the British Islands and elsewhere. 



The original architectural design for the great educational institution to which the Avenue 

 was intended to be an approach, was a very curious one. A model of it on a large scale, cut 

 out in cork, wood and card-board used to be preserved in the Old Hospital. If it had been 

 carried into effect a large portion of the park provided for the reception of the University would 

 have been covered with buildings. A multitude of edifices, isolated and varying in magnitude, 

 were scattered about, with gardens and ornamental grounds interspersed. These were halls of 

 science, lecture-rooms, laboratories, residences for president, vice-president, professors, officials 

 and servants of every grade. On the widely-extended premises occupied by the proposed 

 institution, a population was apparently expected to be found that would have sufficed to 

 justify representation in Parliament — a privilege the college was actually by its charter to 

 enjoy. We should have had in fact realized before our eyes, on a considerable scale, a part of 

 the dreams of Plato and More, a fragment of Atlantis and Utopia, 



When the moment arrived, however, for calling into visible being the long-contemplated seat 

 of learning, it was found expedient to abandon the elaborate model which had been constructed. 

 Mr. Young, a local architect, was directed to devise new plans. His ideas appear to have been 

 wholly modern. Notwithstanding the tenor of the Royal Charter, which suggested the prece- 

 dents of the old universities of " our United Kingdom of Grreat Britain and Ireland," wherever 

 practicable to be followed, the architecture and arrangements customary in those places were 

 ignored. Girard College, Philadelphia, seems to have inspired the idea of the new designs. 

 Happily only a minute angle of one of the buildings of the new plan was destined ever to exist. 

 The formal commencement of the abortive work took place on the 23rd of April, 1842 — a day 

 indelibly impressed on the memory of those who participated in the proceedings. — It was one 

 of the sunniest and brightest of days. In the year just named it happened, that so early as St. 

 George's day the leaves of the horse-chestnut were bursting their glossy sheaths, and the vege- 

 tation generally was in a very advanced stage. A procession, such as had never before been 

 seen in these parts, slowly defiled up the Avenue to the spot where the corner-stone of the 

 proposed University was to be laid. 



A high-wrought contemporary description of the scene is given in a note in Curice Canadenses, 

 " The vast procession opened its ranks, and his Excellency, the Chancellor, with the President, 



