Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/92

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
64

frida, is associated with the beginnings of Christ Church College, which was built upon the site of her Nunnery. She was born in the first quarter of the Eighth Century, and she has since become a legalized Saint.

Her name is original, and suggestive of the modern British novel whose writers must already be weary of the Gladises and the Hildegardes and the Glendowins of their creation. Frideswyde Didan, or even Saffrida Didan, bestowed upon the willowy heroine with the inevitable wealth of golden hair will make the fortune of the first lady-novelist who introduces her to Mudie's Library, and to American servant-girl, and school-girl, readers. Robert de Ewelme, who was of Christ Church some six or seven hundred years later, would suit admirably the proud faced hero, with the clear blue eyes; and the Lady Elizabeth de Montacanute, who figures as a Benefactress of the College, might give her name to the gentle, self-contained governess who is to be married, in the last chapter, to the haughty baronet by the Perpetual Curate, her father, who stoops when he walks, and who is generally absent-minded, and always short of sight.

Anthony Wood claimed for Christ Church that in its Hall was used stage scenery for the first time in England. The play was "Passions Calmed,"