Title: Beautiful Britain—Cambridge
Author: Home, Gordon, 1878-1969
Language: English
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BEAUTIFUL BRITAIN--CAMBRIDGE

By Gordon Home



[Illustration: THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE

This is now the Entrance to the University Library. At the end of the
short street is part of the north side of King's College Chapel.]



CONTENTS


PAGE              CHAPTER

 3                  I. SOME COMPARISONS
 6                 II. EARLY CAMBRIDGE
15                III. THE GREATER COLLEGES
35                 IV. THE LESSER COLLEGES
51                  V. THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, THE SENATE HOUSE, THE
                         PITT PRESS, AND THE MUSEUMS
57                 VI. THE CHURCHES IN THE TOWN

64                     INDEX


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE              ILLUSTRATION

Frontispiece        1.  THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE
17                  2. THE LIBRARY WINDOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE
24                  3. IN THE CHOIR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL
33                  4. THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE
40                  5. THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE
49                  6. THE OLD COURT IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE
56                  7. THE CIRCULAR NORMAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY
                         SEPULCHRE
On the cover        8. THE "BRIDGE OF SIGHS," ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE



CHAPTER I


SOME COMPARISONS

"..._and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir Edward Scott and
Lord Carlingford, to the Spanish Ambassador's, where I dined the first
time.... And here was an Oxford scholar, in a Doctor of Laws'
gowne.... And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merry
at my defending Cambridge against Oxford._"--PEPYS' _Diary_ (May 5,
1669).

In writing of Cambridge, comparison with the great sister university
seems almost inevitable, and, since it is so usual to find that Oxford
is regarded as pre-eminent on every count, we are tempted to make
certain claims for the slightly less ancient university.  These claims
are an important matter if Cambridge is to hold its rightful position
in regard to its architecture, its setting, and its atmosphere.
Beginning with the last, we do not hesitate to say that there is a
more generally felt atmosphere of repose, such as the mind associates
with the best of our cathedral cities, in Cambridge than is to be
enjoyed in the bigger and busier university town. This is in part due
to Oxford's situation on a great artery leading from the Metropolis to
large centres of population in the west; while Cambridge, although it
grew up on a Roman road of some importance, is on the verge of the
wide fenlands of East Anglia, and, being thus situated off the
trade-ways of England, has managed to preserve more of that genial and
scholarly repose we would always wish to find in the centres of
learning, than has the other university.

Then this atmosphere is little disturbed by the modern accretions to
the town. On the east side, it is true, there are new streets of dull
and commonplace terraces, which one day an awakened England will wipe
out; there are other elements of ugly sordidness, which the lack of a
guiding and controlling authority, and the use of distressingly
hideous white bricks, has made possible, but it is quite conceivable
that a visitor to the town might spend a week of sight-seeing in the
place without being aware of these shortcomings. This fortunate
circumstance is due to the truly excellent planning of Cambridge. It
is not for a moment suggested that the modern growth of the place is
ideal, but what is new and unsightly is so placed that it does not
interfere with the old and beautiful. The real Cambridge is so
effectively girdled with greens and commons, and college grounds
shaded with stately limes, elms, and chestnuts, that there are never
any jarring backgrounds to destroy the sense of aloofness from the
ugly and untidy elements of nineteenth-century individualism which are
so often conspicuous at Oxford.

Cambridge has also made better use of her river than has her sister
university; she has taken it into her confidence, bridged it in a
dozen places, and built her colleges so that the waters mirror some of
her most beautiful buildings. Further than this, in the glorious
chapel Henry VI. built for King's College, Cambridge possesses one of
the three finest Perpendicular chapels in the country--a feature
Oxford cannot match, and in the church of the Holy Sepulchre Cambridge
boasts the earliest of the four round churches of the Order of the
Knights Templars which survive at this day.

But comparisons tend to become odious, and sufficient has been said to
vindicate the exquisite charm that Cambridge so lavishly displays.



CHAPTER II


EARLY CAMBRIDGE

Roman Cambridge was probably called Camboritum, but this, like the
majority of Roman place names in England, fell into disuse, and the
earliest definite reference to the town in post-Roman times gives the
name as Grantacaestir. This occurs in Bede's great _Ecclesiastical
History_, concluded in A.D. 731, and the incident alluded to in
connection with the Roman town throws a clear ray of light upon the
ancient site in those unsettled times. It tells how Sexburgh, the
abbess of Ely, needing a more permanent coffin for the remains of
AEtheldryth, her predecessor in office, sent some of the brothers from
the monastery to find such a coffin. Ely being without stone, and
surrounded by waterways and marshes, they took a vessel and came in
time to an abandoned city, "which, in the language of the English, is
called Grantacaestir; and presently, near the city walls, they found a
white marble coffin, most beautifully wrought, and neatly covered with
a lid of the same sort of stone." That this carved marble sarcophagus
was of Roman workmanship there seems no room to doubt, and Professor
Skeat regards it as clear that this ruined town, with its walls and
its Roman remains, was the same place as the Caer-grant mentioned by
the historian, Nennius.

In course of time the Anglo-Saxon people of the district must have
overcome their prejudices against living in what had been a Roman
city, and Grantacaestir arose out of the ruins of its former
greatness. In the ninth century a permanent bridge was built, and the
town began to be known as Grantabrycg, or, as the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle gives it, Grantebrycge. Domesday toned this down to
Grentebrige, and that was the name of Cambridge when a Norman castle
stood beside the grass-grown mound which is all that remains to-day of
the Saxon fortress. What caused the change from G to C is hard to
discover, but when King John was on the throne the name was written
Cantebrige, and the "m" put in its appearance in the earlier half of
the fifteenth century, the "t" being discarded at the same period. It
seems that the name of the river was arrived at by the same process.
Perhaps the oddest feature of the whole of these vicissitudes in
nomenclature is the similarity between the Roman Camboritum and
Cambridge, for the two names have, as has been shown, no connection
whatsoever.

A map of Cambridgeshire, compiled by the Rev. F.G. Walker, showing the
Roman and British roads reveals instantly that the university town has
a Roman origin, for it stands at the junction of four roads, or rather
where Akeman Street crossed Via Devana, the great Roman way connecting
Huntingdon and Colchester. Two or three miles to the south, however,
the eye falls on the name of a village called Grantchester, and if we
had no archaeology to help us, we would leap to the conclusion that
here, and not at Cambridge, was the ancient site mentioned by the
earlier chroniclers. And this is precisely what happened. Even recent
writers have fallen into the same old mistake in spite of the
discovery of Roman remains on the site of the real Roman town, and
notwithstanding the fact that the two roads mentioned intersect there.
The trouble arose through the alterations in spelling in the name of
the village of Granteceta, or, as it often appears in early writings,
Gransete, but now that Professor Skeat has given us the results of his
careful tracking of the name back to 1080, when it first appears in
any record, we see plainly that this village has never had a past of
any importance, and that the original name means nothing more than
"settlers by the Granta." There is a Roman camp near this village, and
a few other discoveries of that period have been made there, but such
finds have been made in dozens of places near Cambridge.

It is therefore an established fact that modern Cambridge has been
successively British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman, and the original town,
situated on the north-western side of the river, has extended across
the water and filled the space bounded on three sides by the Cam.

Being on the edge of the Fen Country, where the Conqueror found the
toughest opposition to his completed sovereignty in England, the patch
of raised ground just outside modern Cambridge was a suitable spot for
the erection of a castle, and from here he conducted his operations
against the English, who held out under Hereward the Wake on the Isle
of Ely. In the hurried operations preceding the taking of the "Camp of
Refuge" in 1071, there was probably only sufficient time to strengthen
the earthworks and to build stockades, but soon afterwards William
erected a permanent castle of stone on this marsh frontier--a building
Fuller describes as a "stately structure anciently the ornament of
Cambridge." In her scholarly work on the town, Miss Tuker tells us how
Edward III. quarried the castle to build King's Hall; how Henry VI.
allowed more stone to be taken for King's College Chapel; and how Mary
in 1557 completed the wiping out of the Norman fortress by granting to
Sir Robert Huddleston permission to carry away the remaining stone to
build himself a house at Sawston! Wherever building materials are
scarce such things have happened, even to the extent of utilizing the
stones of stately ruins for road-making purposes. It thus comes about
that the artificial mound and the earthworks on the north side of it
are as bare and grass-grown as any pre-historic fort which has not at
any period known a permanent edifice.

Owing to its fairs, and particularly to the famous Stourbridge Fair,
an annual mart of very great if uncertain antiquity, held near the
town during September, Cambridge at an early date became a centre of
commerce, and it had risen to be a fairly large town of some
importance before the Conquest. In the time of Ethelred a royal mint
had been established there, and it appears to have recovered rapidly
after its destruction by Robert Curthose in 1088, for it continued to
be a mint under the Plantagenets, and even as late as Henry VI. money
was coined in the town.

A bridge, as already stated, was built at Cambridge in the ninth
century, but in 870, and again in 1010, the Danes sacked the town, and
it would seem that the bridge was destroyed, for early in the twelfth
century we find a reference to the ferry being definitely fixed at
Cambridge, and that before that time it had been "a vagrant,"
passengers crossing anywhere that seemed most convenient. This fixing
of the ferry, and various favours bestowed by Henry I., resulted in an
immediate growth of prosperity, and the change was recognized by
certain Jews who took up their quarters in the town and were, it is
interesting to hear, of such "civil carriage" that they incurred
little of the spite and hatred so universally prevalent against them
in the Middle Ages. The trade guilds of Cambridge were founded before
the Conquest, and, becoming in course of time possessed of wealth and
influence, some of them were enabled to found a college.

As England settled down under the Norman Kings, the great Abbey of Ely
waxed stronger and wealthier, and in the wide Fen Country there also
grew up the abbeys of Peterborough, Crowland, Thorney, and Ramsey--all
under the Benedictine rules. To the proximity of these great
monasteries was due the beginning of the scholastic element in
Cambridge, and perhaps the immense popularity of Stourbridge Fair,
which Defoe thought the greatest in Europe, may have helped to locate
the University there. Exactly when or how the first little centre of
learning was established in the town is still a matter of uncertainty,
but there seems to have been some strong influence emanating from the
Continent in the twelfth century which encouraged the idea of
establishing monastic schools. Cambridge in quite early times began to
be sprinkled with small colonies of canons and friars, and in these
religious hostels the young monks from the surrounding abbeys were
educated. Mr. A.H. Thompson, in his _Cambridge and its Colleges_,
suggests that the unhealthy dampness of the fens would have made it
very desirable that the less robust of the youths who were training
for the cloistered life in the abbeys of East Anglia should be
transferred to the drier and healthier town, where the learning of
France was available among the many different religious Orders
represented there.

In 1284 the first college was founded on an academic basis. This was
Peterhouse. Its founder was Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, who had
made the experiment of grafting secular scholars among the canons of
St. John's Hospital, afterwards the college. Finding it difficult to
reconcile the difficulties which arose between secular and religious,
he transferred his lay scholars, or Ely clerks, to two hostels at the
opposite end of the town, and at his death left 300 marks to build a
hall where they could meet and dine. After this beginning there were
no imitators until forty years had elapsed, but then colleges began to
spring up rapidly. In 1324 Michael House was founded, and following it
came six more in quick succession: Clare in 1326, King's Hall in 1337,
Pembroke in 1347, Gonville Hall in 1348, Trinity Hall in 1350, and
Corpus Christi in 1352. These constitute the first period of
college-founding, separated from the succeeding by nearly a century.

The second period began in 1441 with King's, and ended with St. John's
in 1509. After an interval of thirty-three years the third period
commenced with Magdalene, and concluded with Sidney Sussex in 1595. A
fourth group is composed of the half-dozen colleges belonging to last
century.



CHAPTER III


THE GREATER COLLEGES

St. John's.--With its three successive courts and their beautiful
gateways of mellowed red brick, St. John's is very reminiscent of
Hampton Court. Both belong to the Tudor period, and both have
undergone restorations and have buildings of stone added in a much
later and entirely different style. Across the river stands the fourth
court linked with the earlier buildings by the exceedingly beautiful
"Bridge of Sighs."

To learn the story of the building of St. John's is a simple matter,
for the first court we enter is the earliest, and those that succeed
stand in chronological order,--eliminating, of course, Sir Gilbert
Scott's chapel and the alterations of an obviously later period than
the courts as a whole.

To Lady Margaret Beaufort, the foundress of the college, or, more
accurately, to her executor, adviser and confessor, John Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester, who carried out her wishes, we owe the first
court, with its stately gateway of red brick and stone. It was built
between 1511 and 1520 on the site of St. John's Hospital of Black
Canons, suppressed as early as 1509.

[Illustration: THE LIBRARY WINDOW ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE FROM THE BRIDGE
OF SIGHS. From this spot beautiful views are obtained up and down the
river.]

The second court, also possessing a beautiful gate tower, was added
between 1595 and 1620, the expense being mainly borne by Mary
Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose statue adorns the gateway.
Filling the space between the second court and the river comes the
third, begun in 1623, when John Williams, then Lord Keeper and Bishop
of Lincoln, and afterwards Archbishop of York, gave money for erecting
the library whose bay window, projecting into the silent waters of the
Cam, takes a high place among the architectural treasures of
Cambridge. If anyone carries a solitary date in his head after a visit
to the University it is almost sure to be 1624, the year of the
building of this library, for the figures stand out boldly above the
Gothic window just mentioned. The remaining sides of the third court
were built through the generosity of various benefactors, and then
came a long pause, for it was not until after the first quarter of the
nineteenth century had elapsed that the college was extended to the
other side of the river. This new court came into existence, together
with the delightful "Bridge of Sighs," between the years 1826 and
1831, when Thomas Rickman, an architect whose lectures and published
treatises had given him a wide reputation, was entrusted with the
work. The new buildings were not an artistic success, in spite of the
elaborate Gothic cloister, with its stupendous gateway and the
imposing scale of the whole pile. Their deficiencies might be masked
or at least diminished if ivy were allowed to cover the unpleasing
wall spaces, and perhaps if these lines are ever read by the proper
authority such a simple and inexpensive but highly desirable
improvement will come to pass.

The stranger approaching St. John's College for the first time might
be easily pardoned for mistaking the chapel for a parish church, and
those familiar with the buildings cannot by any mental process feel
that the aggressive bulk of Sir Gilbert Scott's ill-conceived edifice
is anything but a crude invasion. More than half a century has passed
since this great chapel replaced the Tudor building which had
unluckily come to be regarded as inadequate, but the ponderous Early
Decorated tower is scarcely less of an intrusion than when its masonry
stood forth in all its garish whiteness against the time-worn brick of
Lady Margaret Beaufort's court. A Perpendicular tower would have added
a culminating and satisfying feature to the whole cluster of courts,
and by this time would have been so toned down by the action of
weather that it would have fallen into place as naturally as the Tudor
Gothic of the Houses of Parliament has done in relation to Westminster
Abbey. Like Truro Cathedral, and other modern buildings imitating the
Early English style, the interior is more successful than the
exterior; the light, subdued and enriched by passing through the
stained glass of the large west window (by Clayton and Bell) and
others of less merit, tones down the appearance of newness and gives
to the masonry of 1869 a suggestion of the glamour of the Middle Ages.
Fortunately, some of the stalls with their "miserere" seats were
preserved when the former chapel was taken down, and these, with an
Early English piscina, are now in the chancel of the modern building.
The Tudor Gothic altar tomb of one of Lady Margaret's executors--Hugh
Ashton, Archdeacon of York--has also been preserved.

At the same time as the chapel was rebuilt, Sir Gilbert Scott rebuilt
parts of the first and second courts. He demolished the Master's
Lodge, added two bays to the Hall in keeping with the other parts of
the structure, and built a new staircase and lobby for the Combination
Room, which is considered without a rival in Cambridge or Oxford. It
is a long panelled room occupying all the upper floor of the north
side of the second court and with its richly ornamented plaster
ceiling, its long row of windows looking into the beautiful
Elizabethan court, its portraits of certain of the college's
distinguished sons in solemn gold frames, it would be hard to find
more pleasing surroundings for the leisured discussion of subjects
which the fellows find in keeping with their after-dinner port. There
is an inner room at one end, and continuing in the same line and
opening into it, so that a gallery of great length is formed, is the
splendid library, built nearly three centuries ago and unchanged in
the passing of all those years.

The library of St. John's is rich in examples of early printing by
Caxton and others whose books come under the heading of incunabula,
but it would have been vastly richer in such early literature had
Bishop Fisher's splendid collection--"the notablest library of books
in all England, two long galleries full"--been allowed to come where
the good prelate had intended. When he was deprived, attainted, and
finally beheaded in 1535 for refusing to accept Henry as supreme head
of the Church, his library was confiscated, and what became of it I do
not know. Over the high table in the hall, a long and rather narrow
structure with a dim light owing to its dark panelling, hangs a
portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort, the foundress of the college, and
on either side of this pale Tudor lady are paintings of Archbishop
Williams, who built the library, and Sir Ralph Hare. The most
interesting portraits are, however, in the master's lodge, rebuilt by
Sir Gilbert Scott on a new site north of the library.

[Illustration]

It was through no sudden or isolated emotion that Lady Margaret was
led to found this college in 1509, the year of her death, for she had
four years earlier re-established the languishing grammar college,
called God's House, under the new name of Christ's College, and had
been a benefactress to Oxford as well. On the outer gateways of both
her colleges, therefore, we see the great antelopes of the Beauforts
supporting the arms of Lady Margaret, with her emblem, the daisy,
forming a background. Sprinkled freely over the buildings, too, are
the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis.

St. John's Hospital, which stood on the site of the present college,
had been founded in 1135, and was suppressed in 1509, when it had
shrunk to possessing two brethren only. The interest of this small
foundation of Black Canons would have been small had it not been
attached to Ely, and through that connection made the basis of Bishop
Balsham's historic experiment already mentioned.

The founding of St. John's by a lady of even such distinction as the
mother of Henry VII. could not alone have placed the college in the
position it now occupies: such a consummation could only have been
brought about by the capacity and learning of those to whom has
successively fallen the task of carrying out her wishes, from Bishop
Fisher down to the present time. To mention all, or even the chief, of
these rulers of the college is not possible here, and before saying
farewell to the lovely old courts, we have only space to mention that
among the famous students were Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Matthew Prior, the poet-statesman; William
Wilberforce, and William Wordsworth.

KING'S COLLEGE.--Henry VI. was only twenty when, in 1441, he founded
King's College. In that year the pious young Sovereign himself laid
the foundation stone, and five years later it is believed that he
performed the same ceremony in relation to the chapel, which grew to
perfection so slowly that it was not until 1515 that the structure had
assumed its present stately form.

It was Henry's plan to associate his college at Eton, which he founded
at the same time, with King's. The school he had established under the
shadow of his palace at Windsor was to be the nursery for his
foundation at Cambridge in the same fashion as William of Wykeham had
connected Winchester and New College, Oxford. Henry's first plan was
for a smaller college than the splendid foundation he afterwards began
to achieve with the endowments obtained from the recently-suppressed
alien monasteries. Had the young King's reign been peaceful, there is
little doubt that a complete college carried out on such magnificent
lines as the chapel would have come into being; but Henry became
involved in a disastrous civil war, and his ambitious plans for a
great quadrangle and cloister, three other courts, one on the opposite
side of the river connected with a covered bridge and an imposing gate
tower as well, never came to fruition. Fortunately, Henry's successor,
anxious to be called the founder of the college, subscribed towards
the continuance of the chapel, but he also diverted (a mild expression
for robbery) a large part of Henry's endowments. Richard III., in his
brief reign, found time to contribute £700 to the college, but it was
not until the very end of the next reign that Henry VII., in 1508,
devoted the first of two sums of £5,000 to the chapel, so that the
work of finishing the building could go forward to its completion,
which took place in 1515.

At the present time the chapel is on the north side of the college,
but when originally planned it stood on the south, for the single
court which was built is now incorporated in the University Library,
and the existing buildings, all comparatively modern, stand in
somewhat disjointed fashion to the south, and extend from King's
Parade down to the river. Fellows' Building, the isolated block
running north and south between the chapel and this long perspective
of bastard Gothic, was designed by Gibbs in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century, and its severe lines, broken by an open archway in
the centre, are a remarkable contrast to the graceful detail, of the
chapel. Framed by the great arch, there is a delicious peep of smooth
lawn sloping slightly to the river, with a forest-like background
beyond.

In the other buildings of King's it is hard to find any interest, for
the crude Gothic of William Wilkins, even when we remember that he
designed the National Gallery, St. George's Hospital, and other
landmarks of London, is altogether depressing. Even the big hall,
presided over by a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, is unsatisfying. It
is the custom to scoff at the gateway and stone arcading Wilkins
afterwards threw across the fourth side of the grassy court of the
college; but, although its crocketed finials are curious, and we
wonder at the lack of resource which led to such a mass of unwarranted
ornament, it is not aggressive, neither does it jar with the academic
repose of King's Parade.

[Illustration: IN THE CHOIR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL. This Chapel and
that of Henry VII at Westminster and St. George's at Windsor, are the
finest examples of the gorgeous fan tracery belonging to the last
phase of English gothic architecture.]

Owing to the extreme uniformity of the exterior of the chapel the eye
seems to take in all there is to see in one sweeping vision, refusing
subconsciously to look individually at each of the twelve identical
bays, each with its vast window of regularly repeated design. But
there are some things it would be a pity to pass over, for to do so
would be to fail to appreciate the profound skill of the mediaeval
architects and craftsmen who could rear a marvellous stone roof upon
walls so largely composed of glass. In this building, like its only
two rivals in the world--St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle and
Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster--the wall space between the windows
has shrunk to the absolute minimum; in fact, nothing is left beyond
the bare width required for the buttresses, and to build those
reinforcements with sufficient strength to take the thrust of a
vaulted stone roof must have required consummate capacity and skill.
At Eton, where, however, the stone roof was never built, the
buttresses planned to carry it appear so enormous that the building
seems to be all buttress, but here such an impression could never for
a moment be gained, for the chapel filling each bay completely masks
the widest portion of the adjoining buttresses. The upper portions are
so admirably proportioned that they taper up to a comparatively slight
finial with the most perfect gradations.

Directly we enter the chapel our eyes are raised to look at the roof
which necessitated that stately row of buttresses, but for a time it
is hard to think of anything but the splendour of colour and detail in
this vast aisleless nave, and we think of what Henry's college might
have been had the whole plan been carried out in keeping with this
perfect work. Wordsworth's familiar lines present themselves as more
fitting than prose to describe this consummation of the pain and
struggle of generations of workers since the dawn of Gothic on English
soil:

     Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,
     With ill-matched aims the architect who planned--
     Albeit labouring for a scanty band
     Of white-robed Scholars only--this immense
     And glorious work of fine intelligence!
     Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore
     Of nicely-calculated less or more;
     So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
     These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
     Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
     Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
     Lingering--and wandering on as loth to die;
     Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
     That they were born for immortality.

When the sunlight falls athwart the great windows the tracery and the
moulded stonework on either side are painted with "the soft
chequerings" of rainbow hues, and the magnificent glass shows at its
best all its marvellously fine detail, as well as the beauty of its
colour. The whole range of twenty-six windows having been executed
under two contracts, dated 1516 and 1526, there was opportunity for
carrying out a great subject scheme, and thus it was found possible to
illustrate practically the whole Gospel story, culminating in the
Crucifixion in the east window, and continuing into apostolic times
until the death of the Virgin Mary. At the west end is the one modern
window. It represents the Last Judgement. It is safe to say that of
their period this glorious set of windows has no real rival, and it is
hardly possible to do them any justice if the visitor has become a
little jaded with sight-seeing. In one of the windows there is a
splendidly drawn three-masted ship of the period (Henry VIII.'s
reign), high in the bow and stern, with her long-boat in the water
amidships, and every detail of the rigging so clearly shown that the
artist must have drawn it from a vessel in the Low Countries or some
English port. It is one of the best representations of a ship of the
period extant. This is merely an indication of the vivid
archaeological interest of the glass, apart from its beauty in the
wonderful setting of fan vaulting and tall, gracefully moulded shafts.

The splendid oaken screen across the choir, dividing the chapel into
almost equal portions, was put up in 1536, at the same time as nearly
the whole of the stalls. It is rather startling to see the monogram of
Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, entwined with true lovers' knots, on this
wonderful piece of Renaissance woodwork, for in 1536, the date of the
screen, Anne, charged with unfaithfulness, went to the scaffold. How
was it, we wonder, that these initials were never removed? The screen
also reminds us of the changes in architecture and religion which had
swept over England between the laying of the foundation stone and the
completion of the internal fittings, for, not only had the Gothic
order come to its greatest perfection in this building, and then its
whole traditions been abandoned and a reversion to classic forms taken
place, but the very religion for which the chapel had been built had
been swept away by the Reformation.

The Tudor rose and portcullis frequently repeated within and without
the chapel constantly remind us of the important part Henry VII.
played in the creation of one of the chiefest flowers of the Gothic
order and the architectural triumph of Cambridge.

TRINITY COLLEGE.--Oxford does not possess so large a foundation as
Trinity College, and the spaciousness of the great court impresses the
stranger as something altogether exceptional in collegiate buildings,
but, like the British Constitution, this largest of the colleges only
assumed its present appearance after many changes, including the
disruptive one brought about by Henry VIII. In that masterful manner
of his the destroyer of monasticism, having determined to establish a
new college in Cambridge, dissolved not only King's Hall and Michael
House, two of the earliest foundations, but seven small university
hostels as well. The two old colleges were obliged to surrender their
charters as well as their buildings; the lane separating them was
closed, and then, with considerable revenues obtained from suppressed
monasteries, Henry proceeded to found his great college dedicated to
the Trinity.

There is something in the broad and spacious atmosphere of the Great
Court suggestive of the change from the narrow and cramped thought of
pre-Reformation times to the age when a healthy expansion of ideas was
coming like a fresh breeze upon the mists which had obscured men's
visions. But even as the Reformation did not at once sweep away all
traces of monasticism, so Henry's new college retained for a
considerable time certain of the buildings of the two old foundations
which were afterwards demolished or rebuilt to fit in with the scheme
of a great open court. Thus it was not until the mastership of Thomas
Nevile that King Edward's gate tower was reconstructed in its present
position west of the chapel. On this gate, beneath the somewhat
disfiguring clock, is the statue of Edward III., regarded as a work of
the period of Edward IV.

Shortly before Henry made such drastic changes, King's Hall had been
enlarged and had built itself a fine gateway of red brick with stone
dressings, and this was made the chief entrance to the college. The
upper part and the statue of Henry VIII. on the outer face were added
by Nevile between 1593 and 1615, but otherwise, the gateway is nearly
a whole century earlier.

It is interesting to read the founder's words in regard to the aims of
his new college, for in them we seem to feel his wish to establish an
institution capable in some measure of filling the gap caused by the
suppression of so many homes of learning in England. Trinity was to be
established for "the development and perpetuation of religion" and for
"the cultivation of wholesome study in all departments of learning,
knowledge of languages, the education of youth in piety, virtue,
self-restraint and knowledge; charity towards the poor, and relief of
the afflicted and distressed."

To the right on entering the great gateway is the chapel, a late Tudor
building begun by Queen Mary and finished by her sister Elizabeth
about the year 1567. The exterior is quite mediaeval, and all the
internal woodwork, including the great _baldachino_ of gilded oak, the
stalls and the organ screen dividing the chapel into two, dates from
the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the ante-chapel the memory
of some of the college's most distinguished sons is perpetuated in
white marble. Among them we see Macaulay and Newton, whose rooms were
between the great gate and the chapel, Tennyson, Whewell--the master
who built the courts bearing his name, was active in revising the
college statutes, and died in 1866--Newton, Bacon, Wordsworth and
others.

On the west side of the court, beginning at the northern end, we find
ourselves in front of the Lodge, which is the residence of the Master
of the College. The public are unable to see the fine interior with
its beautiful dining- and drawing-rooms  and the interesting
collection of college portraits hanging there, but they can see the
famous oriel window built in 1843 with a contribution of £1,000 from
Alexander Beresford-Hope. This sum, however, even with £250 from
Whewell, who had just been elected to the mastership, did not cover
the cost, and the fellows had to make up the deficit. It was suggested
that Whewell might have contributed more had not his wife dissuaded
him, and a fellow wrote a parody of "The House that Jack Built" which
culminated in this verse:

     This is the architect who is rather a muff,
     Who bamboozled those seniors that cut up so rough,
     When they saw the inscription, or rather the puff,
     Placed by the master so rude and so gruff,
     Who married the maid so Tory and tough,
     And lived in the house that Hope built.

The Latin inscription, omitting any reference to the part the fellows
took in building the oriel, may still be read on the window.

In the centre of this side of the court is a doorway approached by a
flight of steps, and, from the passage to which this leads, we enter
the Hall. It was built in the first decade of the seventeenth century,
and the screen over the entrance with the musicians' gallery behind
belongs to that period.

[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE. Trinity was
expanded by Henry III from the "great college"  built by Edward III.
The gateway dates from about 1535.]

Unfortunately, the panelling along the sides has replaced the old
woodwork in recent times. This beautiful refectory resembles in many
ways the Middle Temple Hall in London. The measurements are similar,
it has bay windows projecting at either end of the high table, a
minstrels' gallery at the opposite end, and well into the last century
was heated by a great charcoal brazier in the centre. The fumes found
their way into every corner of the hall before reaching their outlet
in the lantern. Among the numerous portraits on the walls there are
several of famous men. Among them we find Dryden, Vaughan, Thompson
(by Herkomer), the Duke of Gloucester (by Sir Joshua Reynolds), Coke
(the great lawyer), Thackeray, Tennyson (by G.F. Watts), Cowley and
Bentley. On the other side of the entrance passage are the kitchens
with the combination rooms above, where more notable portraits hang.
The remainder of the court is composed of living-rooms broken by the
Queen's Gate, a fine tower built in 1597 facing King Edward's Gate. It
has a statue of Elizabeth in a niche and the arms of Nevile and
Archbishop Whitgift.

Nevile's Court is approached by the passage giving entrance to the
hall. The eastern half was built when Nevile was master between 1593
and 1615, and the library designed by Sir Christopher Wren occupies
the river frontage. To the casual observer this building is a
comparatively commonplace one, built in two stories, but although it
allows space for the arcaded cloister to go beneath it, the library
above consists of one floor and the interior does not in the least
follow the external lines. On great occasions Nevile's Court is turned
into a most attractive semi-open-air ball or reception room. One
memorable occasion was when the late King Edward, shortly after his
marriage, was entertained with his beautiful young bride at a ball
given at his old college.

Passing out of the court to the lovely riverside lawns, shaded by tall
elms and chestnuts, we experience the ever-fresh thrill of the
Cambridge "Backs," and, crossing Trinity Bridge, walk down the stately
avenue leading away from the river with glimpses of the colleges seen
through the trees so full of suggestive beauty as to belong almost to
a city of dreams.

There are other courts belonging to Trinity, including two gloomy ones
of recent times on the opposite side of Trinity Street, but there is,
alas! no space left to tell of their many associations.



CHAPTER IV


THE LESSER COLLEGES

PETERHOUSE.--Taking the smaller colleges in the order of their
founding, we come first of all to Peterhouse, already mentioned more
than once in these pages on account of its antiquity, so that it is
only necessary to recall the fact that Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely,
founded this the first regular college in 1284. Of the original
buildings of the little hostel nothing remains, and the quadrangle was
not commenced until 1424, but the tragedy which befell the college
took place in the second half of the eighteenth century, when James
Essex, who built the dreary west front of Emmanuel, was turned loose
in the court. His hand was fortunately stayed before he had touched
the garden side of the southern wing, and the picturesque range of
fifteenth-century buildings, including the hall and combination room,
remains one of the most pleasing survivals of mediaeval architecture
in Cambridge.

Dr. Andrew Perne, also known as "Old Andrew Turncoat," and other names
revealing his willingness to fall in with the prevailing religious
ideas of the hour, was made Master of Peterhouse in 1554, and
subsequently he became Vice-Chancellor of the University. He added to
the library the extension which now overlooks Trumpington Street, and
to him the town is largely indebted for those little runnels of
sparkling water to be seen flowing along by the curbstones of some of
the streets. The chapel was added in 1632 by Bishop Matthew Wren in
the Italian Gothic style then prevalent, and its dark panelled
interior is chiefly noted for its Flemish east window. The glass was
taken out and hidden in the Commonwealth period, and replaced when the
wave of Puritanism had spent itself. All the other windows are later
work by Professor Aimmuller of Munich. Before this chapel was built
the little parish church of St. Peter, which stood on the site of the
present St. Mary the Less, supplied the students with all they needed
in this direction.

CLARE.--Michael House, the second college, was, as we have seen, swept
away to make room for Trinity, so that the second in order of
antiquity is Clare College, whose classic facade of great regularity,
with the graceful little stone bridge spanning the river, is one of
the most familiar features of the "Backs." The actual date of the
founding of the college by Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of Gilbert de
Clare, was 1342, and the court, then built in the prevalent Decorated
style, continued in use until 1525, when it was so badly damaged by
fire that a new building was decided upon, but the work was postponed
until 1635, and was only finished in the second year of the
Restoration. Although no shred of evidence exists as to the architect,
tradition points to Inigo Jones, whose death took place, however, in
1652. The bridge is coeval with the earliest side of the court, having
been finished in 1640. In the hall, marred by great sheets of
plate-glass in the windows, there are portraits of Hugh Latimer,
Thomas Cecil (Earl of Exeter), Elizabeth de Clare (foundress), and
other notable men.

PEMBROKE.--Like Clare, Pembroke College was founded by a woman. She
was Marie de St. Paul, daughter of Guy de Chatillon, and on her
mother's side was a great-granddaughter of Henry III. She was also the
widow of Aymer de Valance, Earl of Pembroke, whose splendid tomb is a
conspicuous feature of the Sanctuary in Westminster Abbey.

Instead of the usual modest beginning with one or two existing hostels
adapted for the purposes of a purely academic society, the foundress
cleared away the hostels on the site nearly opposite historic
Peterhouse, and began a regular quadrangle, the first of the
non-religious type Cambridge had known. An existing hostel formed one
side, but the others were all erected for the special purpose of the
college. A hall and kitchen were built to the east, and on the street
side opposite was a gateway placed between students' rooms. Marie de
St. Paul also received permission from two successive Avignonese Popes
to build a chapel with a bell tower at the north-west corner of the
quadrangle, and to some extent these exist to-day, incorporated in the
reference library and an adjoining lecture-room. Of the other
buildings to be seen at the present time the oldest is the Ivy Court,
dating from 1633 to 1659. Since then architect has succeeded
architect, from Sir Christopher Wren, who built a new chapel in 1667,
to Mr. G.G. Scott, the designer of the most easterly buildings in the
style of the French Renaissance. Between these comes the street front
by Waterhouse, for whose unpleasing façade no one seems to have a good
word. There has indeed been such frequent rebuilding at Pembroke that
the glamour of association has been to a great extent swept away. This
is doubly sad in view of the long list of distinguished names
associated with the foundation. Among them are found Thomas Rotherham,
Archbishop of York, who was Master of Pembroke; Foxe, the great Bishop
of Winchester and patron of learning; Ridley; Grindal, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury; Matthew Hutton and Whitgift. Beside these
masters Edmund Spenser, the poet Gray, and William Pitt are names of
which Pembroke will always be proud.

CAIUS.--In the year following the founding of Pembroke Edmund de
Gonville added another society to those already established. This was
in 1348, but three years later the good man died and left the carrying
on of his college to William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, who had just
founded Trinity Hall. He found it convenient to transfer Gonville's
foundation to a site opposite his own college, and from this time
until the famous Dr. Caius (Kayes or Keyes) reformed it in 1557, the
college was known as Gonville Hall.

[Illustration: THE GATE OF HONOUR CAIUS COLLEGE. On the left is the
Senate House, in the centre the East End of King's College Chapel, and
on the right the University Library.]

The buildings now comprise three courts, the largest called Tree
Court, being to the east, and the two smaller called Gonville and
Caius respectively, to the west side, separated from Trinity Hall by a
narrow lane. Tree Court had been partly built in Jacobean times by Dr.
Perse, whose monument can be seen in the chapel; but in 1867 Mr.
Waterhouse was given the task of rebuilding the greater part of the
quadrangle. He decided on the style of the French Renaissance, and
struck the most stridently discordant note in the whole of the
architecture of the colleges. The tall-turreted frontage suggests
nothing so much as the municipal offices of a flourishing borough. The
present hall, built by Salvin in 1854, was decorated and repanelled by
Edward Warren in 1909. Two of the three curiously named gateways built
by Dr. Caius still survive, and one of them, the Gate of Honour,
opening on to Senate House Passage, is one of the most delightful
things in Cambridge. Dr. Caius had been a Fellow of Gonville Hall,
and, having taken up medicine, continued his studies at the University
of Padua; and after considerable European travel practised in England
with such success that he was appointed Physician to the Court of
Edward VI. Philip and Mary showed him great favour, and his reputation
grew owing to his success in treating the sweating sickness. Having
acquired much wealth, he decided to refound his old college, and the
Italian Gothic of the two gateways is evidence of his delight in the
style with which he had become familiar at Padua and elsewhere. He
built the two wings of the Caius Court, leaving the Court open towards
the south. The idea of his three gates, beginning with the simple Gate
of Humility, leading to the Gate of Virtue, and so to that of Honour,
is very fitting, for such sermons in stones could scarcely find a
better place than in a university. Caius has many famous medical men,
treasuring the memory of Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the
blood, and of Dr. Butts, who was Henry VIII.'s physician.

TRINITY HALL.--As already mentioned, Trinity Hall was founded two
years after Gonville made his modest foundation. It is specialized in
relation to law as its neighbour is to medicine. Although
architecturally of less account, its modern work is free from anything
obtrusively out of keeping with academic tradition. Salvin's
uninspired eastern side of the court containing the entrance was built
after a fire in 1852, and is typical of his harsh and unsympathetic
work. Behind the Georgian front of the north side of this court, there
is a good deal of the fabric of the Tudor buildings, and some of the
lecture-rooms, with their oak panelling and big chimneys, are most
picturesque.

On the west side is the hall, dating from 1743, and the modern
combination room, containing a curious old semi-circular table, with a
counter-balance railway for passing the wine from one corner to the
other. The chapel is on the south side, and is a few years earlier
than the hall.

CORPUS CHRISTI.--Within two years from the founding of Trinity Hall
Corpus Christi came into being, the gild of St. Benedict's Church, in
conjunction with that of St. Mary the Great, having obtained a charter
for this purpose from Edward III. in 1352, Henry Duke of Lancaster,
the King's cousin, being alderman at that time.

This was the last of the colleges founded in the first period of
college-building, and it has managed to preserve under the shadow of
the Saxon tower of the parish church, which was for long the college
chapel, one of the oldest and most attractive courts in Cambridge.
Several of the windows and doors have been altered in later times, but
otherwise three sides of the court are completely mediaeval. Having
retained this fine relic, the college seems to have been content to
let all the rest go, when, in 1823, Wilkins, whose bad Gothic we have
seen at King's College, was allowed to rebuild the great court,
including the chapel and hall. Sir Nicholas Bacon and Matthew Parker,
Archbishop of Canterbury, are two of the most famous names associated
with Corpus Christi. Parker left his old college a splendid collection
of manuscripts, which are preserved in the library. This college has a
strong ecclesiastical flavour, and it is therefore fitting that it
should possess such a remarkable document as the original draft of the
Thirty-nine Articles, which is among the treasured manuscripts.

QUEENS'.--After the founding of Corpus there came an interval of
nearly a century before the eight colleges then existing were added
to. Henry VI. founded King's in 1441, and seven years later his young
Queen Margaret of Anjou, who was only eighteen, was induced by Andrew
Docket to take over his very modest beginning in the way of a college.
It was refounded under the name of Queen's College, having in the two
previous years of its existence been dedicated to St. Bernard. As in
the case of King's, the progress of Margaret's college was handicapped
by the Wars of the Roses, but fortunately Edward IV.'s Queen,
Elizabeth Woodville, espoused the cause of Margaret's college when
Docket appealed to her for help.

Above all other memories this college glories in its associations with
Erasmus, who was probably advised to go there by Bishop Fisher. There
are certain of his letters extant which he dates from Queens', and it
is interesting to find that he wrote in a querulous fashion of the bad
wine and beer he had to drink when his friend Ammonius failed to send
him his usual cask of the best Greek wine. He also complained of being
beset by thieves, and being shut up because of plague, but it need not
be thought from this that Cambridge was much worse than other places.

Of all the colleges in the University Queens' belongs most completely
to other days. Its picturesque red brick entrance tower is the best of
this type of gateway, which is such a distinctive feature of
Cambridge, and the first court is similar to St. John's, with which
Bishop Fisher was so closely connected as Lady Margaret Beaufort's
executor. In the inner court, whose west front makes a charming
picture from the river, is the President's Lodge occupying the north
side. Its oriel windows and rough cast walls of quite jovial contours
overhanging the dark cloisters beneath strike a different note to
anything else in Cambridge. Restoration has altered the appearance of
the hall since its early days, but it is an interesting building, with
some notable portraits and good stained glass. The court, named after
Erasmus, at the south-west angle of the college was, it is much to be
regretted, rebuilt by Essex in the latter part of the eighteenth
century; but for this the view of the river front from the curiously
constructed footbridge would have been far finer than it is. Like the
sundial in the first court, this bridge, leading to soft meadows
beneath the shade of great trees, is attributed to Sir Isaac Newton.

ST. CATHERINE'S.--This college was founded in 1473 by Robert Woodlark,
Chancellor of the University, and dedicated to "the glorious Virgin
Martyr, St. Catherine of Alexandria." Undergraduate slang, alas!
reduces all this to "Cat's." It was originally called St. Catherine's
Hall, and is one of the smallest of the colleges. Although not
claiming the strong ecclesiastical flavour of Corpus, it has educated
quite a formidable array of bishops. From Trumpington Street the
buildings have the appearance of a pleasant manor-house of Queen Anne
or early Georgian days, and, with the exception of the wing at the
north-west, the whole of the three-sided court dates between 1680 and
1755. Both chapel and hall are included in this period.

JESUS.--Standing so completely apart from the closely clustered
nucleus, Jesus College might be regarded as a modern foundation
ranking with Downing or Selwyn by the hurried visitor who had failed
to consult his guide-book and had not previous information to aid him.
It was actually founded as long ago as 1497, and the buildings include
the church and other parts of the Benedictine nunnery of the Virgin
and St. Rhadegund.

Bishop Alcock, of Ely, was the founder of the college, and his badge,
composed of three cocks' heads, is frequently displayed on the
buildings. The entrance gate, dating from the end of the fifteenth
century, with stepped parapets, is the work of the founder, and is one
of the best features of the college.  Passing through this Tudor arch,
we enter the outer court, dating from the reign of Charles I., but
finished in Georgian times. From this the inner court is entered, and
here we are in the nuns' cloister, with their church, now the college
chapel, to the south, and three beautiful Early English arches, which
probably formed the entrance to the chapter-house, noticeable on the
east. In this court are the hall, the lodge, and the library, but the
most interesting of all the buildings is the chapel. It is mainly the
Early English church of the nunnery curtailed and altered by Bishop
Alcock, who put in Perpendicular windows and removed aides without a
thought of the denunciations he has since incurred. In many of the
windows the glass is by Morris and Burne-Jones, and the light that
passes through them gives a rich and solemn dignity to the interior.

CHRIST'S.--Perhaps the most impressive feature of Christ's College is
the entrance gate facing the busy shopping street called Petty Cury.
The imposing heraldic display reminds us at once of Lady Margaret
Beaufort, who, in 1505, refounded God's House, the hostel which had
previously stood here. Although restored, the chapel is practically of
the same period as the gateway, and it and the hall have both
interesting interiors. From the court beyond, overlooked on one side
by the fine classic building of 1642 attributed to Inigo Jones,
entrance is gained to the beautiful fellows' garden, where the
mulberry-tree associated with the memory of Milton may still be seen.

[Illustration: THE OLD COURT IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE. The Large stained
glass window of the Hall is seen on the right, and beyond that the
window of the Combination Room. The Dormer window of Harvard's room is
seen on the extreme left.]

MAGDALENE.--This college is the only old one on the outer side of the
river. It stands on the more historic part of Cambridge; but although
an abbey hostel was here in Henry VI.'s time, it was not until 1542,
after the suppression of Crowland Abbey, to which the property
belonged, that Magdalene was founded by Thomas, Baron Audley of
Walden. In the first court of ivy-grown red brick is the rather
uninteresting chapel, and on the side facing the entrance the hall
stands between the two courts. It has some interesting portraits,
including one of Samuel Pepys, and a good double staircase leading to
the combination room, but more notable than anything else is the
beautiful Renaissance building in the inner court, wherein is
preserved the library of books Pepys presented to his old college. In
the actual glass-covered bookcases in which he kept them, and in the
very order, according to size, that Pepys himself adopted, we may see
the very interesting collection of books he acquired. Here, too, is
the famous Diary, in folio volumes, of neatly written shorthand, and
other intensely interesting possessions of the immortal diarist.

EMMANUEL.--The college stands on the site of a Dominican friary, but
Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder, or his executors, being imbued with
strong Puritanism, delighted in sweeping away the monastic buildings
they found still standing. Ralph Symons was the first architect, but
all his excellent Elizabethan work has vanished, the oldest portion of
the college only dating back to 1633. From that time up to the end of
the eighteenth century the rest of the structures were reconstructed
in the successive styles of classic revival. Wren began the work, but
unluckily it was left to Essex to complete it, and he is responsible
for the dreary hall occupying the site of the old chapel.

SIDNEY SUSSEX.--At the foot of the list of post-Reformation colleges
comes Sidney Sussex, founded, in 1589, by Frances Lady Sussex,
daughter of Sir William Sidney, and widow of the second Earl of
Sussex. During the mania for rebuilding, all the Elizabethan work of
Ralph Symons was replaced by Essex, and in the nineteenth century the
notorious Wyatville, whose Georgian Gothic removed all the glamour
from Windsor Castle, finished the work.

DOWNING.--The remaining colleges belong to the period we may call
recent. Downing, the first of these, was not a going concern until
1821, although Sir George Downing, the founder, made the will by which
his property was eventually devoted to this purpose as early as the
year 1717.

RIDLEY HALL came into being in 1879, and is an adjunct to the other
colleges for those who have already graduated and have decided to
enter the Church.

SELWYN COLLEGE, founded about the same time, is named after the great
Bishop Selwyn, who died in 1877. The college aims at the provision, on
a hostel basis, of a University education on a less expensive scale
than the older colleges.

Of the two women's colleges, Girton was founded first. This was in
1869, and the site chosen was as far away as Hitchen, but four years
later, gaining confidence, the college was moved to Girton, a mile
north-west of the town, on the Roman Via Devana. Newnham arrived on
the scene soon afterwards, and, considering proximity to the
University town no disadvantage, the second women's college was
planted between Ridley and Selwyn, with Miss Clough as the first
principal.



CHAPTER V

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, THE SENATE HOUSE, THE PITT PRESS, AND THE
MUSEUMS


In the early days when the University of Cambridge was still in an
embryonic state, the various newly formed communities of academic
learning had no corporate centre whatever. "The chancellor and
masters" are first mentioned in a rescript of Bishop Balsham dated
1276, eight years before he founded Peterhouse, the first college, and
six years before this Henry III. had addressed a letter to "the
masters and scholars of Cambridge University," so that between these
two dates it would appear that the chancellor really became the prime
academic functionary. But it was not until well into the fourteenth
century that any University buildings made their appearance.

The "schools quadrangle" was begun when Robert Thorpe, knight, was
chancellor (1347-64), and during the following century various schools
for lecturing and discussions on learned matters were built round the
court, now entirely devoted to the library. Unfortunately, the
medieval character of these buildings has been masked by a classic
façade on the south, built in 1754, when it was thought necessary to
make the library similar in style to the newly built Senate House.
Thus without any further excuse the fine Perpendicular frontage by
Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln and fellow of King's, was
demolished to make way for what can only be called a most unhappy
substitute. George I. was really the cause of this change, for in 1715
he presented Cambridge with Dr. John Moore's extensive library, and
not having the space to accommodate the little Hanoverian's gift, the
authorities decided to add the old Senate House, which occupied the
north side of the quadrangle, to the library, and to build a new
Senate House; and the building then erected, designed by Mr.,
afterwards Sir James, Burrough, is still in use. It is a
well-proportioned and reposeful piece of work, although the average
undergraduate probably has mixed feelings when he gazes at the double
line of big windows between composite pillasters supporting the rather
severe cornice. For in this building, in addition to the
"congregations," or meetings, of the Senate consisting of resident and
certain non-resident masters of art, the examinations for degrees were
formerly held. Here on the appointed days, early in the year, the
much-crammed undergraduates passed six hours of feverish writing, and
here, ten days later, in the midst of a scene of long-established
disorder, their friends heard the results announced. Immediately the
name of the Senior Wrangler was given out there was a pandemonium of
cheering, shouting, yelling, and cap-throwing, and the same sort of
thing was repeated until the list of wranglers was finished. Following
this, proctors threw down from the oaken galleries printed lists of
the other results, and a wild struggle at once took place in which
caps and gowns were severely handled, and for a time the marble floor
was covered with a fighting mob of students all clutching at the
fluttering papers, while the marble features of the two first Georges,
William Pitt, and the third Duke of Somerset remained placidly
indifferent.

Although there is no space here to describe the many early books the
library contains, it is impossible to omit to mention that among the
notable manuscripts exhibited in the galleries is the famous _Codex
Bezae_ presented to the University by Theodore Beza, who rescued it,
in 1562, when the monastery at Lyons, in which it was preserved, was
being destroyed. This manuscript is in uncial letters on vellum in
Greek and Latin, and includes the four Gospels and the Acts.

It was a pardonable mistake for the old-time "freshman" to think the
Pitt Press in Trumpington Street was a church, but no one does this
now, because the gate tower, built about 1832, when the Gothic revival
was sweeping the country, is now known as "the Freshman's Church." The
Pitt Press was established with a part of the fund raised to
commemorate William Pitt, who was educated at Pembroke College nearly
opposite.

The University Press publishes many books, and gives special attention
to books the publication of which tends to the advancement of
learning. The two Universities and the King's printer have still a
monopoly in printing the Bible and Book of Common Prayer.

The magnificent museum founded by Richard, Viscount Fitzwilliam, is a
little farther down Trumpington Street. It was finished in 1847 by
Cockerell, who added the unhappy north side to the University Library,
but the original architect was Basevi, who was prevented from
finishing the building he had begun by his untimely death through
falling from one of the towers of Ely Cathedral. The magnificence of
the great portico, with its ceiling of encrusted ornament, is vastly
impressive, but the marble staircase in the entrance lobby, with its
rich crimson reds, is rather overpowering in conjunction with the
archaeological exhibits. Plainer, cooler and less aggressive marble
such as that employed in the lobby of the Victoria and Albert Museum
would have been more suitable. A very considerable proportion of the
museum's space is devoted to the collection of pictures--some of them
copies--which the University has gathered. The interesting Turner
water-colours presented by John Ruskin are here, with a Murillo,
reputed to be his earliest known work, and a good many other examples
of the work of famous men of the Italian and Dutch Schools.

Besides the Museum of Archaeology, between Peterhouse and the river,
the vigorous growth of the scientific side of the University is shown
in the vast buildings newly erected on both sides of Downing Street,
which has now become a street of laboratories and museums. Now that
the outworks of the hoary citadel of Classicism have been stormed, and
the undermining of the great walls has already begun, the development
of modern science at Cambridge will be accelerated, and in the face of
the urgency of the demands of worldwide competition it would appear
that the University on the Cam is more fitted to survive than her
sister on the Isis.

[Illustration: THE CIRCULAR NORMAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. This
splendid survival of the Norman age is one of the four churches in
England planned to imitate the form of the Holy Sepulchre of
Jerusalem.]



CHAPTER VI

THE CHURCHES IN THE TOWN


Almost everyone who goes to Cambridge as a visitor bent on sightseeing
naturally wishes to see the colleges before anything else, but it
should not be forgotten that there are at least two churches, apart
from the college chapels, whose importance is so great that to fail to
see them would be a criminal omission. There are other churches of
considerable interest, but for a description of them it is
unfortunately impossible to find space.

Foremost in point of antiquity comes St. Benedict's, or St Benet's,
possessing a tower belonging to pre-Conquest times, and the only
structural relic of the Saxon town now in existence. The church was
for a considerable time the chapel of Corpus Christi, and the ancient
tower still rises picturesquely over the roofs of the old court of
that college.

Without the tower, the church would be of small interest, for the nave
and chancel are comparatively late, and have been rather drastically
restored. The interior, nevertheless, is quite remarkable in
possessing a massive Romanesque arch opening into the tower, with
roughly carved capitals to its tall responds. Outside there are all
the unmistakable features of Saxon work--the ponderously thick walls,
becoming thinner in the upper parts, the "long and short" method of
arranging the coigning, and the double windows divided with a heavy
baluster as at Wharram-le-Street in Yorkshire, Earl's Barton in
Northamptonshire, and elsewhere.

Next in age and importance to St. Benedict's comes what is popularly
called "the Round Church," one of the four churches of the Order of
Knights Templar now standing in this country. The other three are the
Temple Church in London, St. Sepulchre's at Northampton, and Little
Maplestead Church in Essex, and they are given in chronological order,
Cambridge possessing the oldest. It was consecrated the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and was built before the close of the eleventh
century, and is therefore a work of quite early Norman times. The
interior is wonderfully impressive, for it has nothing of the
lightness and grace of the Transitional work in the Temple, and the
heavy round arches opening into the circular aisle are supported by
eight massive piers. Above there is another series of eight pillars,
very squat, and of about the same girth as those below, and the spaces
between are subdivided by a small pillar supporting two semi-circular
arches. Part of the surrounding aisle collapsed in 1841, and the
Cambridge Camden Society (now defunct) employed the architect Salvin
to thoroughly restore the church. He took down a sort of battlemented
superstructure erected long after the Norman period, and built the
present conical roof.

After these early churches, the next in interest is Great St. Mary's,
the University Church, conspicuously placed in the market-place and in
the very centre of the town. It has not, however, always stood forth
in such distinguished isolation, for only as recently as the middle of
last century did the demolition take place of the domestic houses that
surrounded it. And inside, the alterations in recent times have been
quite as drastic, robbing the church of all the curious and remarkable
characteristics it boasted until well past the middle of the
nineteenth century, and reducing the whole interior to the stereotyped
features of an average parish church.

If we enter the building to-day without any knowledge of its past, we
merely note a spacious late Perpendicular nave, having galleries in
the aisles with fine dark eighteenth-century panelled fronts, and more
woodwork of this plain and solemn character in front of the organ, in
the aisle chapels, and elsewhere. A soft greenish light from the
clerestory windows (by Powell), with their rows of painted saints,
falls upon the stonework of the arcades and the wealth of dark oak,
but nothing strikes us as unusual until we discover that the pulpit is
on rails, making it possible to draw it from the north side to a
central position beneath the chancel arch. This concession to
tradition is explained when we discover the state of the church before
1863, when Dr. Luard, who was then vicar, raised an agitation, before
which the Georgian glories of the University Church passed away.
Before the time of Laud, when so many departures from mediaeval custom
had taken place, we learn, from information furnished during the
revival brought about by the over-zealous archbishop, that the church
was arranged much on the lines of a theatre, with a pulpit in the
centre, which went by the name of the Cockpit, that the service was
cut as short as "him that is sent thither to read it" thought fit, and
that during sermon-time the chancel was filled with boys and townsmen
"all in a rude heap between the doctors and the altar." But this
concentration on the University sermon and disrespect for the altar
went further, for, with the legacy of Mr. William Worts, the existing
galleries were put up in 1735, the Cockpit was altered, and other
changes made which Mr. A.H. Thompson has vividly described:

     ... the centre of the church was filled with an immense
     octagonal pulpit on the "three-decker" principle, the
     crowning glory and apex of which was approached, like a
     church-tower, by an internal staircase. About 1740 Burrough
     filled the chancel-arch and chancel with a permanent
     gallery, which commanded a thorough view of this object. The
     gallery, known as the "Throne," was an extraordinary and
     unique erection. The royal family of Versailles never
     worshipped more comfortably than did the Vice-Chancellor and
     heads of houses, in their beautiful armchairs, and the
     doctors sitting on the tiers of seats behind them. In this
     worship of the pulpit, the altar was quite disregarded....
     The church thus became an oblong box, with the organ at the
     end, the Throne at the other, and the pulpit between them.

Of all this nothing remains besides the organ and the side galleries,
and of the splendid screen, built in 1640 to replace its still finer
predecessor, swept away by Archbishop Parker nearly a century before,
only that portion running across the north chapel remains.

Until the Senate House was built, the commencements were held in the
church, but thereafter it would appear that the sermon flourished
almost to the exclusion of anything else.

The diminutive little church of St. Peter near the Castle mound is of
Transitional Norman date, and has Roman bricks built into its walls.

     O fairest of all fair places,
       Sweetest of all sweet towns!
     With the birds and the greyness and greenness,
       And the men in caps and gowns.

     All they that dwell within thee,
       To leave are ever loth,
     For one man gets friends, and another
       Gets honour, and one gets both.

AMY LEVY: _A Farewell_.



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND
ESHER.

[Illustration: PLAN OF CAMBRIDGE. By permission, from _A Concise Guide
to the Town and University of Cambridge_ (J. Willis Clark), published
by Bowes and Bowes, Cambridge.]


INDEX

Akeman Street, 8
Alcock, Bishop, 46, 47
Ashton,  Hugh, Archdeacon of York, 18
Audley of Walden, Thomas Baron, 48

"Backs," The, 34
Bicon, Sir Nicholas, 43
Bolsham, Bishop, 13, 21, 51
Beaufort, Lady Margaret, 15, 18, 20, 45, 47
Bede, 6
Beza, Theodore, 54
Boleyn, Anne, 28
Burrough, Sir James, 52, 61

Cains College, 39-41
Caius, Dr., 40
Cambridge Camden Society, 59
Cambridge Castle, 7-10
Cambridge, Origin of Name, 6-9
Cavendish, Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, 16
Caxton, William, 19
Christ's College, 20, 47-48
Clare College, 36-37
Corpus Christi College, 13, 42-43, 57
Curthose, Robert, 11

Docket, Andrew, 43
Downing College, 50
Downing, Sir George, 50

Edward III., 10, 30, 42
Edward VI., 41
Edward VII., 34
Elizabeth, Queen, 33
Elizabeth Woodville, Queen, 44
Ely, 6, 9, 12, 21
Emmanuel College, 48-49
Erasmus, 45
Essex, James, 35, 49

Fisher, Bishop, 15, 19, 44, 45

George I., 52, 53
Gibbs, James, 23
Girton, 50
Gonville, Edmund de, 39
Gonville Hall, 13, 40
Grantchester, 8
Great St. Mary's Church, 42, 59

Henry I., 11
Henry III., 51
Henry IV., 10
Henry VI., 11, 22, 23, 43
Henry VII., 23
Henry VIII., 20, 28, 29, 30
Hereward the Wake, 9

Jesus College, 46
Jones, Inigo, 37-38, 48

King's College, 10, 14, 22-28
King's Hall, 10, 13, 29

Magdalene College, 14, 48, 49
Margaret of Anjou, Queen, 43
Mary, Queen, 10, 31
Michael House, 13, 29
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 49
Moore, Dr. John, 52

Nevile, Thomas, 30
Newnham, 50
Newton, Sir Isaac, 31, 45

Parker, Archbishop, 62
Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury, 43
Pembroke College, 13, 37-38
Pepys, Samuel, 3, 48
Perne, Dr. Andrew, 36
Perse, Dr., 40
Peterhouse, 13, 35-36, 51
Philip and Mary, 41
Pitt Press, 54
Pitt, William, 39, 53, 54

Queens' College, 43-45

Richard III., 23
Rickman, Thomas, 17
Ridley Hall, 50
Roman Cambridge, 6-9
Round Church, The, 58

St. Benedict's Church, 42, 57
St. Catherine's College, 45-46
St. John's College, 14, 15-21
St. John's Hospital, 13, 16, 21
St. Mary the Less, 36
St. Peter's Church, 36, 62
Salvin, Anthony, 59
Scott, Sir Gilbert, 15, 17
Selwyn College, 50
Senate House, 52, 53, 62
Sidney, Sir William, 49
Sidney Sussex College, 14, 49
Skeat, Professor, 7, 9
Stourbridge Fair, 10, 12
Sussex, Frances Lady, 49
Symons, Ralph, 49

Tennyson, Lord, 31
Thirty-nine Articles, 43
Trinity College, 29-31
Trinity Hall, 13, 41-42

Valance, Aymer de, 38
Via Devana, 8

Walpole, Sir Robert, 24
Whewell, William, 32
Wilberforce, William, 21
Wilkins, William, 24
William the Conqueror, 9, 10
Williams, Lord Keeper, 16
Wordsworth,  William, 21, 26, 31
Wren, Bishop Matthew, 35
Wren, Sir Christopher, 34, 38
Wyatville, Sir J., 49
Wykeham, William of, 2





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