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OXFORD.

great public acts are held, is built in imitation of the theatres of Greece, and is a work that would have done honour to an architect of Athens. It is the work of Sir Christopher Wren.-The Museum, which was also built under the direction of the same distinguished person, is generally admired for its symmetry and elegance. It contains the collections of Elias Ashmole, Esq. Windsor Herald in the reign of Charles the Second, and whose name it bears. It has received considerable additions since his time, and will reward the attention of the visitor.-The Clarendon Printing-house, which was built in the year 1711 with the profits arising from the sale of Lord Clarendon's History, is a very grand edifice. The books printed here must have the privilege of the University.-The Radcliffe Library is a splendid ornament of Oxford. The celebrated Dr. Radcliffe left the sum of forty thousand pounds for the erection, and funds for a suitable establishment. It is a large circular stone building, crowned with a dome, and enriched to profusion within and without with all the decorations of the Corinthian order. It was twelve years in building, and Gibbs was the architect. The University, City, and County of Oxford are also very highly indebted to the trustees of Dr. Radcliffe's will for the building and completely fitting up an Infirmary, which is maintained by voluntary subscription; and while it relieves the poor, serves as a school for students in physic. The same trustees have also erected a magnificent Astronomical Observatory: it is an elegant structure, after an appropriate design by Wyatt, and is furnished with an incomparable apparatus.

Such is the brief account, and it is all we are enabled to give, of the first University in the world.

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London Published Dec 11810 by Vernor Heed & Sharps Houltry & Win10 V an

Engraved by W. Cooke.

Nancham Comtena En Har

NUNEHAM COURTENAY,

THE SEAT OF EARL HARCOURT.

THE view of this beautiful spot is taken from the bottom. of a wood, which declines from the upper part of the park to the banks of the Thames, which are here enlivened by two pleasing cottages: the bridge, by connecting the island with the shore, adds to the picturesque appearance of the scene, and the house in the distance crowns the whole. As we consider this place to be the most distinguished for beauty along the course of the river, we consider ourselves as called upon to give an enlarged description of it.

Nuneham Courtenay, at the General Survey, belonged to Richard de Curcy, and afterwards to the family of Riparys or Redvers. Mary, youngest daughter of William de Redvers, Earl of Devon, who, as well as his uncle William, was surnamed de Vernon, married Robert de Courtenay, Baron of Okenhampton, in 1214. It is probable, that by this marriage the manor of Nuneham passed into the family of Courtenay, and thence assumed the name of Nuneham Courtenay. The Pollards of Devonshire next succeeded to the possession of it: from them it went to Audley, of the Court of Wards, called the rich Audley. From him it passed to Robert Wright, Bishop of Litchfield, whose son, Calvert Wright, sold it to John Robinson, Merchant of London, in the time of Oliver Cromwell, who was knighted in 1660, by Charles the Second, and made Lieutenant of the Tower. From the Robinsons it descended to David, Earl of Wemyss, who married Mary, daughter and co-heir of Sir John Robinson, Baronet, of whom it was purchased in the year 1710, by Simon, first Lord Harcourt, Lord High Chancellor of England.

The present house was built by the father of the late and the present earl, after a design of Ledbeater; but has been

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