11 JANUARY 1957, Page 23

Et ego in Arcadia . . .

PORTRAIT OF OXFORD. By A. F. Kersting, with text by Marcus Dick. (Batsford, 30s.) Tuts is a lovely book. No other adjective fits it quite so well, and about the illustration little more need be said.

The historical accounts of each college and each building are admirably done, and even challenge comparison with those historical notices of the colleges which, almost exactly a century ago, Burgon wrote for Shaw's Arms of the Colleges of Oxford. How little the terms used by critics vary! Of Magdalen Dean Burgon writes: `Mr. Wyatt, in 1790 (as usual) destroyed the ancient timber roof which had survived the ravages of all previous barbarians.' Mr. Dick speaks of 'Wyatt, as usual, ravening to tear out the medimval structure.'

Mr. Dick's criticisms are indeed forthright and usually well founded, but robust though they are (and let the reader glance at his account of his own college!) they are never peevish. It is not, however, his criticisms which enthral me; it is his faculty of appreciation. So at the Queen's College we are invited to notice that the front Quad 'shows the century in its mood of boldest arrogance'; at New College, that the entrance to the Cloisters is 'perhaps the most peaceful spot in Oxford . . . and rendered peculiarly beauti- ful by a feature rare in cloisters, a gnarled and venerable ilex tree.' And how good he is on the Old Ashmolean! The attribution to Wren 'seems to have been based on no more than the estheti- cally plausible but unscientific view that it was too perfect to have been designed by anyone else.'

From the account of each college in turn I suck an unexpected sip of honey. So, for example, in the front Quad of Corpus I savour the 'blinding dusty quality . . . dear to those addicted to Mediterranean countries, and not to be found elsewhere in Oxford.' Alas! it is only a few short years that in Peckwater, too, young and vigorous life could erupt from any doorway on to an open expanse of gravel untrammelled by geometrical segments of inappropriate grass. And Keble! How right Mr. Dick is to castigate 'the ornamental stripes and chequers of black and light coloured stone' spoiling 'the perfectly respectable red brick'; how more than right to praise the Chapel—'seen from the Parks it is the authentic look of the Gothic cathedral.'

Shall I be overbold if I make one' comment? On Sunday, December 2, on the rising land out- side Oxford (on Frilford Heath) I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my experience—but how can I keep all those lights and colours in my mind? Is it, then, indeed beyond the power Of modern photography to have another pictorial record, this time in colour? I wish that I could think that Mr. Kersting would do this for us, and that Mr. Dick would collaborate again. But it would be churlish to ask for more almost before thanks had been returned for what the authors have already given us. I end where I began; this