The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
§ 6. The Isis
As The Cambridge Review was supplemented by The Granta, The Isis was started in 1892 as a light-hearted and flippant variant on the sobriety of The Oxford Magazine. A prominent feature in the paper is the series of “Isis Idols” with illustrations.
Of other Oxford magazines of the nineteenth century, The Oxford Critic and University Magazine (1857), conducted chiefly by undergraduates, was the first to shake off the lumbering verbosity which came from Johnson and survived longer in the universities than elsewhere. Its criticism was occasionally smart, but its verse lacked distinction. The Oxford Spectator of Copleston and Nolan (1868), in shape and size like Addison’s famous periodical, is still remembered as a deserved success. It was humorous on esoteric subjects like Oxford philosophy, but, also, was capable of seizing the charm of Oxford in such a passage as this: