[Excerpt from Description of a Journey to Marlborough, Bath, Portsmouth etc.]
Thee, BODLEY, would I sing; who can refuse
A Verse to BODLEY, Patron of the Muse?
Whose letter'd Bounty to the World declares
The treasur'd Wisdom of three thousand Years.
Nor should the Muse forget the Prelate's Fame,
Who grac'd the River with a stately Frame,
Known by the flow'ry Meads, which round it lie,
And beauteous Walks, that charm the Student's Eye;
Where courtly ADDISON attun'd his Lays,
And rais'd his own, by singing DRYDEN's Praise.
Author's Note: The Prelate is Wainflet, Bishop of Winchester, Founder of Magdalen College, where Mr. Addison writ a Panegyric on Mr. Dryden, the first English Verses he ever made public.
The gardens of Magdalen College by the River Cherwell are the most beautiful of all the University's college gardens. You can cirumnabulate them on Addison's Walk. Oscar Wilde wrote a poem about Magdalen Walks.
The Bodleian is the great library of Oxford University.
Oxford was the last place visited by Duck in the journey described in this lengthy poem. You can find selections about other places here.