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Title: Cambridge and Its Colleges
Author: Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Language: English
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[Illustration: Map _of the_ Colleges & Churches _of_ CAMBRIDGE
References
1 _Sᵗ. Botolph’s ch._
2 _Sᵗ. Benedict’s ”_
3 _Sᵗ. Edward’s ”_
4 _Sᵗ. Mary the Gᵗ._
5 _Sᵗ. Michael’s ch._
6 _Senate House_
7 _Univʸ. Libʸ. & Mus. of Geology_
8 _Guildhall & Free Library_]
CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES
[Illustration: The Gate of Honour
Caius Coll:]
CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES
by
A · HAMILTON · THOMPSON · B.A.
St John’s College
Illustrated by
Edmvnd · H · New
“Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men.”
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
London
Methven & Co
MDCCCXCIX
TO MY MOTHER
PREFACE
So much has been written about Cambridge that it is difficult to say
anything new; and this little book is therefore merely an attempt to put
together recorded facts in an orderly way. I have followed throughout
the arrangement adopted by Mr Wells in his book on “Oxford and its
Colleges,” and have also borrowed his method of marking the portraits
of college worthies with an asterisk. Every writer on Cambridge must be
under a great obligation to Willis and Clark’s Architectural History
of the University; and Mr Atkinson’s lately published book gives a
singular completeness to the authorities for the architectural side of
the question. Building at Cambridge, however, is a complex problem,—the
history of Clare and the University Church are cases in point—and to
follow out carefully every date and mark every alteration would be beyond
these limits. My endeavour has been, therefore, to indicate the general
date of every building rather than to assign a date to every particular
part of its construction. For the historical part of the book, the
authorities, grave and anecdotal, are too numerous to mention. Among
modern works on the subject, I owe a great deal to Mr J. W. Clark’s
“Cambridge: Historical and Picturesque Notes” (Seeley, 1890). I am sure,
too, that whatever interest my own part in this book may lack, Mr New’s
drawings will more than supply.
WISBECH,
_April 23, 1898_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CAMBRIDGE 1
II. THE UNIVERSITY CHURCH 18
III. PETERHOUSE 29
IV. CLARE COLLEGE 42
V. PEMBROKE COLLEGE 53
VI. GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE 65
VII. TRINITY HALL 76
VIII. CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE 85
IX. KING’S COLLEGE 93
X. QUEENS’ COLLEGE 120
XI. ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE 135
XII. JESUS COLLEGE 144
XIII. CHRIST’S COLLEGE 160
XIV. ST JOHN’S COLLEGE 174
XV. MAGDALENE COLLEGE 201
XVI. TRINITY COLLEGE 211
XVII. EMMANUEL COLLEGE 244
XVIII. SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE 254
XIX. DOWNING COLLEGE 263
XX. SELWYN COLLEGE, ETC. 266
XXI. GIRTON AND NEWNHAM 272
XXII. THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS 277
XXIII. THE CHURCHES OF CAMBRIDGE 294
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE _Frontispiece_
ST MARY THE GREAT 19
ST PETER’S COLLEGE 31
CLARE COLLEGE 43
CLARE BRIDGE 47
PEMBROKE COLLEGE 55
KING’S COLLEGE 95
KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL 99
QUEENS’ COLLEGE 121
THE BRIDGE, QUEENS’ COLLEGE 125
ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE 137
JESUS COLLEGE 145
CHRIST’S COLLEGE 161
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE 175
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE 179
BRIDGES OF ST JOHN’S 183
MAGDALENE COLLEGE 203
TRINITY COLLEGE 213
THE FOUNTAIN, TRINITY COLLEGE 219
SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE 255
NEWNHAM COLLEGE 275
THE SENATE HOUSE 279
THE ROUND CHURCH 299
NOTE
The drawings have been made from photographs mostly taken by Messrs
Stearn of Cambridge and Messrs Valentine.
I
CAMBRIDGE
Dr Caius’ ingenious contention that Cambridge was founded in 3538 B.C.
by Cantaber, a Spanish prince, has never received the support which its
audacity deserves. The town cannot pretend to so great an antiquity, nor
is its Roman origin even certain. It stood in the middle of a country
intersected by Roman lines of road; in no part of England are Roman and
British remains more plentiful and more interesting. The Via Devana,
the great highroad from Colchester to Chester, was the road which runs
through the modern town from the station to Magdalene Bridge, and
continues in a straight line to Godmanchester and Huntingdon. The Via
Iceniana, or Icknield Way, which ran straight across England from the
Eastern Counties, parts company with the Cambridge road on Newmarket
Heath, and pursues an undulating course south-westward to Royston and
Hitchin. Ermine Street, the Old North Road, ran through Caxton, ten
miles west of Cambridge, and met the Via Devana at Huntingdon. At
Gogmagog Hills, five miles out of the town, we can trace the remains of
Vandlebury Camp, which commanded the course of the Roman roads, and
looked over the southern Fens and the Essex border. The familiar name of
Grantchester is certainly of Roman origin. Instances might be multiplied
to show how important this country was to Roman strategy. But there is no
direct evidence to prove that Cambridge of to-day represents the ancient
Camboritum. The Castle Hill, that odd mound from which so good a view of
the town is obtained, is supposed to be in its origin Saxon; it formed
an important outpost against the Danes, who have left so many traces
of their occupation in Norfolk and Suffolk. And the municipal history
of Cambridge certainly begins with Saxon times, and it was the seat of
one of the earliest Gilds. Mr Atkinson, who has so admirably traced the
municipal constitution of the town, gives us some details of the purpose
and form of the Cambridge Gild of Thanes. It was what we should call
to-day a friendly society; its members afforded each other mutual help.
Such Gilds became common in Cambridge as in every town during the Middle
Ages; they were the great aids to municipal life, and we shall find that
some of them grew rich and powerful enough to found a College on their
own account.
Our business is, however, with the University. One cannot fix a
deliberate date of foundation. Universities, like every other great
design, have small beginnings, and the origin of schools at Cambridge
was probably insignificant. Cambridge is on the border of the Fenland,
and the Fenland contained the richest abbeys in England. Besides the
great house of Ely, where the bishop was by virtue of his office abbot,
there were, within easy reach of Cambridge, the four Benedictine abbeys
of Peterborough, Ramsey, Thorney and Crowland, all of them in the very
first rank of English houses. Life in the Fens was hard and dismal, and
even Peterborough, the Medehampstead or Goldenburgh of Saxon times, must
have been largely under water for a great part of the year. The towns
on the borders, Cambridge or Stamford, formed an excellent asylum for
those brethren who were too weak to endure the unhealthy mists of the
Nene and Welland Wash. During the middle ages, Cambridge bristled with
small religious houses, cells depending on the greater abbeys; and in
these the young monks of Crowland and the other houses received their
education. This was the beginning of the University. The academic life
was the life of the cloister. The teaching consisted of the ordinary
medieval sciences, Aristotle and the scholastic logic. In after years,
Erasmus deprecated the attachment of Cambridge pedants to Aristotle and
their unreadiness to accept the new learning. Cambridge never was quite
so famous a nursery of schoolmen as Oxford; her history is somewhat more
peaceful. Nor, when the medieval theology fell into discredit, did she
produce a teacher with the European fame of Wyclif. Her history, however,
has a chronology almost parallel with that of Oxford. Out of the monastic
system was evolved the freer life of colleges. Oxford led the way with
University and Merton; Cambridge followed with Peterhouse. The college,
as distinct from the monastery, was a place of retreat whose aim was
learning; the aim of the monastery was self-discipline. It is needless
to say that these colleges were established upon a clerical basis: each
was a society consisting of a master and a certain number of fellows.
Their constitution was that of a public School; the modern undergraduate
system was a much later development. The early founders had no idea of a
college in the modern sense; a society principally composed of laymen,
and a large body of undergraduates who to all intents and purposes are
the College. The one link which connects our colleges of to-day with the
original foundations is the existence of a college chapel, uniting the
various members of the institution for the prime object of the learned
society, the glory of God.
Medieval Cambridge lay, as our Cambridge still lies, east of the river,
which flowed in a course more or less corresponding to its present
direction. It was enclosed by the King’s Ditch, a stream at a tangent to
the main river. This started from the Mill Pool at the bottom of Silver
Street, and was crossed by Trumpington Street at the Trumpington Gate,
close to Pembroke. In fact, it followed the present Mill Lane and Downing
Street pretty closely, keeping to the left, until it reached Barnwell
Gate at the bottom of Petty Cury. From Barnwell Gate it followed the
present Hobson Street, ran across Sidney Gardens and down Park Street,
skirted Midsummer Common and rejoined the Cam about a hundred and fifty
yards below Magdalene Bridge. Within this elliptic space the old town
was contained. If you stood at the Round Church, you would see the two
familiar main thoroughfares separate as they do to-day. That to the left,
Bridge Street and Sidney Street, was called Conduit Street: it led to the
King’s Ditch at Barnwell Gate. That to the right, St John’s Street and
Trinity Street, led to the principal medieval foundations. On the right
hand of it was the Hospital of St John; on the left the Jewry and All
Saints’ Church, with its tower projecting over the roadway, like St John
Maddermarket’s at Norwich. Just beyond on the right was King’s Hall, with
King’s Hall Lane leading to the river. The next turning, St Michael’s
Lane, the present Trinity Lane, led in the same direction to Garret
Hostel Bridge. In St Michael’s Lane was Michael House, and St Michael’s
and King’s Hall Lanes were connected by the narrow and dirty street
called Foul Lane. These two colleges and the tortuous lanes connecting
them occupied the site of Trinity. The main street, after passing St
Michael’s Church, came to Great St Mary’s Church, and proceeded along
King’s Parade as High Street. On either side of this thoroughfare was an
indiscriminate mass of houses—the great court of King’s did not exist.
Its site was then a labyrinth of narrow alleys and beetling tenements.
A winding lane led across the space now occupied by the lawn east of
King’s Chapel, to the Schools, and skirting them, ran into the street
leading from Michael House to the Mill Pool, called Milne Street. Of
this street, which passed Clare and crossed King’s where Gibbs’ building
stands, we still preserve the original course in Queen’s Lane. It was
connected with the parallel High Street by Piron Lane, which occupied
the north side of the court at King’s, and St Austin’s Lane, which was
the modern King’s Lane. Several lanes led from Milne Street down to the
river. Milne Street was terminated by Small Bridges Street, now Silver
Street, which crossed the river from Newnham and joined High Street at St
Botolph’s Church.
On the other side of High Street the confusion was even worse. Many
people can remember the days when the broad thoroughfares on either side
of Great St Mary’s were filled with tumble-down houses. This picturesque
and unsanitary state of things was almost the last remnant of medieval
Cambridge. In this rabbit-warren lived many of the tradespeople.
The names of the lanes between High Street and the Market Place are
sufficient testimony. The Sheerer’s Row, north of Great St Mary’s, was
continued by the Shoemaker’s Row, which is now Market Street. The Market
Place was so largely blocked up by this dense mass of houses that it
occupied not more than half of its present site. In its centre was the
Conduit; west of the Conduit was the Cross. The Tolbooth and Prison
were on the south of the space, where the Guildhall is. In front of
the Tolbooth were the shambles, and, east of this savoury neighbourhood
Petty Cury, the Little Cookery, led to Barnwell Gate. From the Market
Place, Peas Hill led, as now, to Bene’t Street, and Bene’t Street led
back to High Street, just where King’s Parade joins Trumpington Street.
Free School Lane, at the back of Saint Bene’t’s Church and Corpus, was
called Luthburgh Lane, and the original buildings of Corpus opened into
this and not into Trumpington Street, as at present. Just before reaching
Pembroke, High Street was brought to a stop by Trumpington Gate, just as
Conduit Street was finished by Barnwell Gate. On the other side of the
King’s Ditch were the Church of St Peter and the foundation of Peterhouse.
Another point which the visitor to medieval Cambridge would notice would
be the abundance of religious houses. Great towns, such as London or
Bristol, were well off in this way, but Cambridge could not compare in
size with these cities. There are few of these houses whose remains we
cannot trace in one or other of the colleges. It became, in the fifteenth
century, the fashion to appropriate the monasteries to purposes of
learning. All the great colleges absorbed some of these institutions. The
chief were outside the King’s Ditch. If accounts are true, the monastery
of the Augustinian Canons at Barnwell must have formed a splendid object
in any prospect of Cambridge. To reach it, one would pass through
meadows, with the nunnery of St Mary and St Rhadegund away to the left.
In the southern part of Barnwell, beyond Barnwell Gate, was the house
of Black Friars, on one side of Preachers’ Street, the _faubourg_ which
stretched outside the town boundaries and formed the southern approach to
Cambridge. This friary is now Emmanuel College. Outside Trumpington Gate
was a house of Gilbertine Canons; and opposite it was the house of Friars
of the Sack, which became incorporated with Peterhouse. In Cambridge
itself the Friars were well represented. The Grey Friars occupied the
site of Sidney Sussex College; the White Friars, that picturesque order
which reckoned Elijah as its patriarch, had a house on part of the site
of Queens’ College. The Austin Friars lived on a piece of ground very
nearly corresponding to the University laboratories, which was entered
from Bene’t Street, just where that street meets Peas Hill. All these
friaries were bounded on one side by water: the Carmelite house met the
river; the Franciscan and Augustinian houses abutted on the ditch. Of
these monastic buildings in the town we have scarcely any trace; their
position is merely distinguishable. The Dominican house was swept away by
the founders of Emmanuel, and no one could detect any monastic remains
in the prosaic aspect of that eminently Puritan college. At Jesus,
however, Alcock successfully preserved the plan of the nunnery; and
the college which we see is in substance a monastic building. Barnwell
Priory, with the exception of a small chantry-chapel, has disappeared.
The Augustinian hospital of St John has been blotted out by St John’s
College; its beautiful piscina, incorporated in Sir Gilbert Scott’s
chapel, is its only relic. And, actually, the only building which has
been allowed to stand without alteration is the remote and melancholy
Lepers’ Chapel at Stourbridge, a beautiful Norman building, which was
attached to the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene.
Stourbridge is a good mile beyond Jesus College. In the field close by
the Leper’s Chapel was held the famous Stourbridge Fair, the English
counterpart of Beaucaire and Nijni-Novgorod. There is no doubt that the
medieval Cambridge owed its fame in a very large measure to this annual
mart. It was the most important of a series of fairs in the Eastern
Counties—Tombland Fair at Norwich and the marts of Lynn and Wisbech have
still a certain celebrity—and its interest is largely enhanced by the
fact that, after the dissolution of the leper’s hospital, its original
proprietor under a charter of King John, the University had an official
connection with it. It lasted for a month, from August 24th to September
28th, and during that period received visits from all the principal
merchants in England. It was opened by the Vice-Chancellor in person and
was patronised, perhaps rather noisily, by the University generally. Its
commercial importance is to be gathered from a passage in Defoe’s _Tour
of Great Britain_, quoted by Mr Atkinson in his interesting account
of the fair. Hops and wool were the two great staples of trade, and
Stourbridge Fair determined the price of hops in England. It was thus not
a mere place of pleasure, but resembled the great nomadic markets of the
east. Anybody who has been to Lynn Mart or to Stourbridge Fair itself
in its sorry old age knows that to-day the great business of the fairs
consists in steam roundabouts and side-shows. The roundabout is a late
development, but the side-show has an honourable antiquity. Stourbridge
Fair boasted, within the last century, a theatre where legitimate
Shaksperian drama was admirably performed by a Norwich company. The
performances were largely attended by the University, and enterprising
ladies like Mrs Frere of Downing were to be seen there with fashionable
parties. The story is often told of “rare Richard Farmer,” Master of
Emmanuel, how he and a few friends, ardent lovers of Shakspere, attended
the Stourbridge Theatre night after night, occupying a bench especially
reserved for them.
At Stourbridge Fair University and Town took joint management of the
proceedings. They did not, however, love one another very cordially,
and the Town resented the rights which the University enforced with
some arrogance. “Town and Gown rows” were, in the ordinary course of
things, not very common. When they broke out, they were serious; but
usually the University was much to blame. For example, in James I.’s
time, George Ruggle, fellow of Clare, wrote a play in derision of the
town’s folk, to which the college, with the worst taste, invited the
Mayor and Corporation. But that the town, at any rate in medieval times,
watched the growth of the University with favour, is sufficiently proved
by the refoundation of Corpus Christi College, the work of townspeople.
The University repaid the debt in subsequent years by foundations like
Perse’s Grammar School and Addenbrooke’s Hospital. We must remember that,
ecclesiastically, the connection of town and university was for some
centuries very close. The church of St Mary by the Market was not merely
the chapel of King’s Hall; it was also a parish church, and a large and
important gild of merchants had their chapel within its walls. At first,
the colleges were entirely opposed to the monastic spirit. They did not
worship in their own chapels, but joined in the devotions of the ordinary
congregations, going to church just as the grammar school of any town in
England attends the parish church, as a matter of course. The extreme
youth of the scholars completes the comparison. But, as the colleges grew
in riches and numbers, they reverted to the monastic ideal, and each
built its own chapel. The Town and University drew apart from each other,
and the University became the more important body. Moreover, while the
learning of the University grew, the trade of the town diminished. The
gradual diversion of trade from the Eastern Counties, the decay of ports
like Lynn, with whose commerce Cambridge was inseparably linked, all the
changes in the physical geography of the Fens, reduced the importance
of the town. It would be unfair to assert that Cambridge, as a whole,
exists for the sake of the University; but there is no doubt that the
nucleus of the town, its whole western quarter, is devoted to that
purpose, and that, without the University, it would be of little more
importance than Huntingdon or St Ives—of less importance, probably, than
Ely or Wisbech, which are still at the head of an excellent water-way.
Cambridge, no less than Oxford, took her part in the religious commotions
of the sixteenth century. She was deeply concerned in the revival of
learning. She shares with Oxford the honour of enrolling Waynflete and
Foxe among the members of the University. Bishop Fisher belongs entirely
to her, and, in consequence, Cambridge was the University which the Lady
Margaret favoured more conspicuously. Erasmus taught in her schools. Even
before the Dissolution, she showed, by her appropriation of religious
houses to scholastic purposes, the growth of that liberal spirit which
is thought to be her intellectual distinction. We shall see how pious
Churchmen like Bishop Alcock and a medieval devotee like Lady Margaret
did not scruple to sweep away monasteries for the sake of learning.
Even monasteries themselves, in these later days, followed up their
own initiative and endowed colleges. Several abbeys united to found
Buckingham College. Alcock, by virtue of his episcopal office, was abbot
of the great monastery of Ely. In the great struggle which followed the
revival of learning as its natural outcome, Cambridge contributed her
martyrs to both sides. Fisher died in the defence of a rigid principle.
On the other hand, Cambridge prepared those three reformers who suffered
for their opinions at Oxford. Cranmer was a fellow of Jesus, Ridley
was Master of Pembroke, Latimer belonged to the societies of Christ’s
and Clare. It is not at all surprising that their influence, combined
with the constant importation of Genevan teachers, rendered Cambridge
very susceptible for a time to reformed doctrine of a foreign type. But
the final result of the Reformation in the University is shown by the
intellectual freedom of her greatest sons. Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton
are the obvious examples of this, but their illustrious personalities
should not allow us to forget the brilliant ingenuity of the Cambridge
Platonists; while, side by side with the greatest of all we may place the
name of John Milton.
Milton, whose life is very largely bound up with Cambridge, brings us
to another critical point in University history. It is difficult to
estimate the attitude of Cambridge as a whole to the Civil Wars. Oxford
remained faithful to the King, but, while Cambridge possessed no college
so unanimously loyal as St John’s at Oxford, there were one or two
colleges, such as Sidney and Emmanuel, whose sympathies were undeniably
Puritan. An University cannot help a certain amount of conservatism,
and Cambridge sacrificed a great deal in the Stewart cause. A few
years ago, at the exhibition of plate in the Fitzwilliam Museum, one
realised the substantial cost of that sacrifice. But the Fens and the
whole neighbourhood were devoted to the interest of the Parliament, and
there were actually few who surrendered themselves as martyrs to the
royalist cause. On the religious side of the question, however, Cambridge
has a good deal to show. Some of the most eminent Caroline divines are
hers. Lancelot Andrewes, John Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, Peter Gunning, to
mention no other names, were all Cambridge men. George Herbert and
Nicholas Ferrar were men of some academical distinction. But, if it
is true that architecture is the best witness to history, no town in
England shows more trace of the Puritan spirit than Cambridge. While
the Oxford buildings of the seventeenth century are gravely Gothic and
semi-ecclesiastical, the only building of this type in Cambridge is the
picturesque chapel at Peterhouse. The library of St John’s, beautiful
though it is, is a hybrid example of the order. Other seventeenth century
work, the work of Ralph Symons, for example, the court of Clare, and
Wren’s masterpieces at Trinity and Emmanuel, are frankly domestic.
Men such as I have mentioned above, belong to a _coterie_, but do not
represent the general temper of their age.
During the eighteenth century the state of the University was more
or less torpid. It was the age of combination rooms and good port,
of hard-and-fast social distinctions and formal gatherings. The
Universities, during this period, lost their touch with English life,
and were not even the forcing-houses of wit. This is especially true
of Cambridge. The first half of the century is absorbed in the great
quarrel between Bentley and his society. Bentley is unquestionably the
most commanding figure of his time at Cambridge; for Newton by this time
belonged chiefly to London. But Bentley was hated by the great company of
wits, who had, for the most part, little to do with either University.
Pope, Swift, Fielding and Richardson, the four writers who had the
greatest influence on their century, were connected with neither Oxford
nor Cambridge. And, from 1750 to 1790, there is very little to relieve
the general dulness which settled over Cambridge. Mr John Willis Clark,
in a delightful and only too short chapter, has revived for us the social
etiquette and pleasures of the period. But the pleasures themselves are
remarkable, for the most part, for their unconscious humour. And even the
epigrams, in spite of their uniform cleverness, are a trifle heavy.
The French Revolution woke Cambridge from this long sleep. It was an
active stimulant to the imagination. The fall of the Bastille had its
effect upon Wordsworth at St John’s and Coleridge at Jesus; its immediate
result, the general cry for independence, moved Byron at Trinity. The
romantic enthusiasm set in, and with it that love for a liberal education
apart from mechanical scholarship which is so prominent a factor in both
Oxford and Cambridge to-day. In short, the modern life of the University
began; Cambridge began once more to play its part in English intellectual
life. Wordsworth and Tennyson, of all poets, have done most to stimulate
the minds of their countrymen, and both owe no small portion of their
personal influence to Cambridge. And, side by side with this intellectual
revival, one cannot fail to notice the spiritual revival inaugurated by
the Wesleys at Oxford, and naturalised by Charles Simeon at Cambridge.
This simply means the awakening of the University to the other side of
her responsibilities. In the Oxford movement, which was the logical
result of this revival, Cambridge had very little share. Her traditions
were somewhat different from those of Oxford, and her theological
tendencies took what is usually known as a “broader” direction. Her
position is indicated by the names of F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley.
At the same time, her school of theology, under Ellicott, Lightfoot,
Hort and Westcott, has preserved its scientific basis and cannot be
surpassed in any University. And time would fail to tell of what triumphs
she has won in other fields. Darwin in biology, Thomson in electricity,
Adams in astronomy, are names which tell their own tale. With these main
activities, too, others have grown. The energies of the University have
been expanded in every direction. The multiplication of open scholarships
and prizes, the University Extension system, the foundation of colleges
for women, are only a few of the ways in which her influence has been
doubled throughout Great Britain. And in all this surely her founders
and benefactors have full recompense for their labours—in the love which
the University excites in her sons and in the contribution of each member
to the corporate action of the whole body.
II
THE UNIVERSITY CHURCH
[Illustration: Sᵗ. Mary the Great]
The Church of St Mary-by-the-Market, better known as Great St Mary’s, is,
as it stands at present, a fine example of the latest style of English
architecture. Two churches, when it was built, had already occupied the
site. The first, entirely parochial, was probably built in Norman times,
but was burned down in 1290. By that time, however, the University then
emerging from its embryonic state into actual life, had begun to use it
for its meetings. The church formed, as it were, the earliest Senate
House. After the fire, which, like so many medieval catastrophes, was
put down to the Jews, the structure was renewed in the style of the
period. We find that Thomas de L’Isle, Bishop of Ely, granted a license
for the consecration of the High Altar in 1346; and that, in 1351, the
consecration took place under his successor, Simon of Langham. The
chancel still retains some features of this remodelled church. In
the year after the consecration, the Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
parishioners of this church, joined with the Gild of Corpus Christi in
the foundation of Corpus College; and, in 1342, Edward III. had granted
the advowson of St Mary’s to the scholars of King’s Hall. In this way it
happened that, at the subsequent rebuilding of the church, the town, the
University, and the college were equally concerned in it. The present
building was begun in 1478, when John Morton was Bishop of Ely, and
the main structure, roughly speaking, belongs to the period between
that year and 1491. It is supposed that, during this reconstruction,
the services were held in the chancel, which, presumably, was merely
remodelled in the perpendicular manner. The character of the nave is,
for its period, strikingly excellent, and the work is not unlike that at
St Nicholas, Lynn, and other fine churches in the eastern counties. The
surface-ornament in the spandrils of the chancel-arch and nave arcade
is exceptionally good, and the depression of the arches is very slight.
Characteristically, the piers have no capitals, but a small shaft with
a plain capital carries the innermost moulding. But the best feature
of the interior is the high, plain clerestory, from which the church
originally received its principal light. This forms, as it were, a wall
of glass running along the upper storey of the church. Its lowest part is
panelled, forming a kind of mock triforium. On the whole, there are few
more stately churches of the date in England.
Although this nave was completed in 1491, it was not ready for service
till 1519, when the nave was seated and the Great Rood suspended from the
chancel-arch. Meanwhile, the tower had been begun in 1491, and progressed
very slowly. In 1515 it was at a standstill and had a thatched roof.
The west window, however, which, considering that it belongs to Henry
VIII.’s reign, is surprisingly good Gothic, was glazed by 1536. After
this time a certain amount of work went on, and the tower was carried up
to the string-course. In 1576, Sir Walter Mildmay gave twenty tons of
freestone towards the building, which was employed in erecting a somewhat
heavy Italianised porch at the west end. This, with its great pediment
and the clock above it, filled up the space between the buttresses and
reached up to the sill of the west window. Sir Walter Mildmay promised
other materials for the completion of the tower by a stone spire. This
never took place, and, in 1593, the parish decided to add a final storey
on their own account, which was completed in 1596. This storey, with
its octagonal corner-turrets and debased windows, is nevertheless in no
violent contrast to the work below. In 1608, the turrets were completed
and stone balls were placed upon the pinnacles by Robert Grumbold, to
whom we owe the balls on Clare Bridge.
The last internal addition to the church was the magnificent rood-loft,
finished in 1523. It extended not only across the chancel-arch, but
across the northern arch, leading to the Chapel of St Andrew, and the
southern, leading to the Chapel of Our Lady. These chapels were further
separated from the chancel by parclose-screens. The contract states
that the rood-lofts at Thriplow, south of Cambridge, and at Gazeley,
between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds, were the models used for this
structure. It must have been something like the great rood-lofts which
still exist in Devonshire and parts of Norfolk. In the middle, below
the rood-beam and facing the choir, was the University pulpit. But this
screen, with its elaborate furniture, its “yomages,” candles and gilding
did not have a long existence. It was destroyed by Archbishop Parker,
that sworn enemy of rood-lofts, in 1562. However, during the Laudian
revival, in 1640, another chancel-screen was erected, part of which
remains across the chapel of St Andrew. Its fine composition and carving
are characteristic of the Stewart era. Another and even better screen
of a somewhat earlier date is to be seen in the church of Tilney All
Saints, near Lynn. However, this screen perished in its turn, not at the
hands of the zealot Dowsing, who destroyed as much as he could, but under
the gentle influence of Georgian restorers. It appears that, after the
Reformation, the University sermon became more of an institution than
it had been, and was no longer preached to the chancel. Great St Mary’s
was, however, put to other and more secular uses. Laud was informed that
the body of the church was seated like a theatre; that the pulpit was
placed in the middle and called the Cock-pit; that at sermon-time the
chancel was filled with boys and townsmen “and other whiles (thereafter
as the Preacher is) with _Townswomen_ also, all in a rude heap between
the Doctors and the Altar”; that the “Service there (which is done by
Trin. Coll.) is commonly posted over and cut short at the pleasure of
him that is sent thither to read it.” Divers other informations were
laid against the state of the church. It certainly seems curious to our
own day that the Commencements should have been held in church, and that
the feeble buffoonery of the “Prevaricator” should have been, under
these circumstances, their leading feature. The feeling against these
extraordinary ceremonies led to the building of the Senate House, which
was large enough for disputations as well as meetings of the senate.
But Sir James Burrough, to whom the Senate House is partly due, did his
best to spoil the University Church. The screen of 1640, which, with its
spirelets and canopies, must have been very like the Laudian screens
remaining in one or two northern churches,[1] was taken down; and the
church was devoted entirely to the cult of the sermon. Mr William Worts
had previously left a legacy to the University, which was employed in
erecting the present galleries (1735). The Cock-pit was remodelled, and
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 arm-chairs, and the doctors,
sitting on the tiers of seats behind them. In this worship of the
pulpit, the altar was quite disregarded, and Cole the antiquary remarked
sorrowfully on this discreditable fact. Undergraduates, whose power of
expression was not equal to their sense of humour, irreverently called
the Throne Golgotha, because the heads of houses sat there. The church
thus became an oblong box, with the organ at one end, the Throne at the
other, and the pulpit between them. The portentous array of bevelled and
panelled oak plunged the church in darkness, and so, in 1766, the aisle
windows were altered and the present meagre insertions made.
This domestic comfort pervaded the church until 1863. The Camden
Society destroyed the picturesque top of the tower in 1842, but did
not touch the interior of the church. In 1851 Sir Gilbert Scott took
away Mildmay’s porch, and substituted for it the present west door.
Much about the same time, the ground round St Mary’s was cleared of
houses. Dr Luard, the late registrary, who was then Vicar, agitated
for the removal of the “throne” for a long time, and at last the work
of reconstruction began. The present nave-seats and chancel-stalls, in
a somewhat florid style, were put in, and the only remains of the old
preaching-house were the galleries and the organ at the west end. This
organ, which dates from 1698, and is in part the work of Father Smith,
was rebuilt by Messrs Hill in 1870. In 1888 the south porch was rebuilt
on the lines of a porch which had been destroyed in 1783. Under the
present vicar, Dr Cunningham, the work of restoration has advanced. The
tower has been thoroughly repaired, and a new organ has been built for
parochial services on the south side of the choir. Further, the late Mr
Sandars, who did so much for the University, filled in the lower part
of the aisle windows with the arms of those noblemen and prelates who
subscribed to the nave between 1478 and 1519. These windows, which are
by Messrs Powell, are full of interesting matter for the student of
monastic heraldry. Messrs Powell are similarly engaged in filling the
clerestory windows with admirable figure-glass. Altogether, during the
last half-century, the church has returned some way towards its original
design. There is now a side altar in St Andrew’s Chapel, which is used as
the chapel of the Clergy Training-School; the Lady Chapel is occupied by
the vestry. And, finally, one must not forget the “Cambridge chimes” in
the tower, which were composed in 1790 by Dr Jowett of garden fame, and
are the model of all such chimes throughout England.
III
PETERHOUSE
From the churchyard of Little St Mary’s Church a good idea of the
medieval buildings of Peterhouse may be obtained. Unfortunately, James
Essex was allowed to do as he liked with the old court somewhere about
1770, and faced it in the hideous, commonplace style of the time. It
is astonishing that he allowed the back of the older building, so out
of harmony with the cherished classical unities of his day, to remain
in so conspicuous a position. But the obvious history of the buildings
begins with Dr Andrew Perne’s library, whose later extension with its
gabled end and oriel is such a picturesque object in the perspective of
Trumpington Street, and contrasts so oddly with the Corinthian portico of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, just beyond. Perne’s work is in that familiar,
country-house style which, rather later, we associate in Cambridge
with the name of Ralph Symons. The building of 1590 forms the eastern
extension of the Hall and Combination Room. It was prolonged in 1632 to
stand flush with the present street-pavement. Bishop Matthew Wren made
a more notable and more characteristic addition. He built the chapel,
which was consecrated in 1632, on a site in the eastern half of the
court, just midway between the two wings. At the same time he united his
building to the wings by an open cloister supporting a covered gallery.
The chapel and cloisters, which divide the court into two unequal halves,
have a good deal of picturesqueness, but they are built in a very stilted
Italian manner, full of shallow late Gothic detail. The chapel has a
considerable reputation founded on its stained glass windows, which are
by Professor Aimmüller of Munich. They are astonishing specimens of their
art, and reflect the taste of the middle of the century very well. An
excellent Flemish east window, contemporary with the building, is usually
considered to harmonise very ill with these productions, whose qualities,
nevertheless, it considerably enhances.
[Illustration: Sᵗ. Peter’s College]
Under the Georgian _régime_ Peterhouse suffered a great deal. Sir James
Burrough of Caius, then neither Master nor a Knight, had a grand plan
for taking down Perne’s library and Wren’s cloisters and putting up
buildings of his own. Happily, the funds for this undertaking allowed
him to finish only the imposing northern wing, next to Little St Mary’s
Church. Like most of his work, this wing, completed in 1742, is in very
good taste, and the influence of Gibbs’ building at King’s is to be
traced throughout. Nearly half a century later came Essex with a neat
taste acquired, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of St Marylebone, and
made a beautiful structure exceptionally ugly. Last of all, Mr Francis
Gisborne’s trustees, after his death in 1821, built a new western court
in the then fashionable sort of Gothic with a part of £20,000 bequeathed
to the College in his will. This court calls for little remark.
Too late to stay the hand of the spoiler, the Gothic revival has
nevertheless done much for Peterhouse. Mr Gilbert G. Scott in 1870
rebuilt the Hall and Combination Room and incorporated in them the
remains of the medieval Master’s Lodge, which had been long ago
superseded by the comfortable brick house just across Trumpington Street.
Good, unassuming and appropriate work in themselves, these buildings are
further decorated with some very successful stained glass by the late
Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr William Morris. The bright oriel of the
Hall is especially beautiful, and the small figures of poets and of the
good women of Chaucer’s dream in the windows of the comfortable parlour,
share, with the chapel glass, the impartial admiration of the visitor. It
is satisfactory to think that this historical college has received some
compensation for all the damage inflicted on it.
* * * * *
In 1281 Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded St Peter’s College.
The reign of Edward I. is the date from which our universities derive
their organisation, and in many other ways it marks an epoch in
English history. Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, had, seventeen
years before, founded Merton College at Oxford.[2] It was therefore
emulation which, to a certain extent, inspired Hugh de Balsham in his
new departure. He was a native of Cambridgeshire: his native place is
about ten miles distant from Cambridge, on the confines of Essex; and
he had probably received his education in one of the numerous religious
houses which filled the Cambridge of that period. As Bishop of Ely, and
therefore as titular abbot of the monastery, he had much to do with the
monastic institutions of the town, and it was only natural that, with
Walter de Merton’s example before his eyes, he should wish to make his
name famous in the same way. He lived just long enough to see the college
established and in a fair way to success, with a master and fourteen
scholars in residence. His successors at Ely continued his favours to
the college, and during the next century we find the names of Bishops
Simon Montague, Thomas de L’Isle, Simon Langham and John de Fordham among
the benefactors. It is interesting to note how purely local University
education must have been at first. Although the first two masters of
Peterhouse appear to have been natives of distant parts of England, the
names of most of the masters during the fourteenth century recall the
neighbouring fenland. Roger of Mildenhall, Ralph of Holbeach, William of
Whittlesea, Richard of Wisbech, John of Bottisham, all are natives of
Cambridgeshire or the counties immediately adjoining. Thomas of Barnard’s
Castle, who became master in 1400, takes us further north, and he is the
last of the list who derives his surname from his native place.
The early history of Peterhouse is concerned chiefly with its buildings.
Under the rule of John Holbrook (1418-1431) and during the long
mastership of Dr Thomas Lane (1431-73) the college assumed a definite
shape. The old buildings north of it belong to Holbrook’s mastership. It
took in the house of the Friars of the Sack, which existed on part of its
site, and thus set a precedent which was followed almost universally—the
substitution of learned foundations for monasteries and convents. The
Peterhouse of that day, substantially the building of our own time, was
scarcely in Cambridge. St Peter’s Church lay north of it, and was itself
just outside the Trumpington or South Gate of the town. It had given its
name to the college, and was used as its chapel from the earliest period.
About the beginning of Edward III.’s reign, the church was pulled down,
and the present beautiful church of St Mary’s the Less was built on its
site, the college still continuing to use it as their place of worship.
We may assume that the scholars were required to assist at mass every
morning and at the parochial mass on Sundays, and that they formed, as it
were, the choir, using the chancel stalls. They entered the church by the
passage and staircase which still exist south of the chancel.
No famous names occur in connection with the college before the
Reformation. The early sixteenth century produced a good number of
benefactors, and Hugh de Balsham’s original provisions were considerably
amplified. In 1553 Andrew Perne became master. His fame is largely
local, but he is a very significant figure in an age chiefly remarkable
for the strength of its religious convictions. His mastership begins
at the end of Edward VI.’s reign, and lasted for thirty-six years. He
combined with it the Deanery of Ely, and showed great sagacity in the
tenure of both offices. During Mary’s reign, he was Chancellor of the
University, and under his auspices the burning of Bucer’s and Fagius’
remains took place. However, although this somewhat unnecessary act of
vengeance might have stamped his opinions, he seems to have veered at
the accession of Elizabeth with great suppleness, and to have trimmed
his sails to the royal wind up to the day of his death. The wits of
the University made his accommodating policy their butt, and, with the
heavy wit of the day, coined the verb _pernare_, which signified “to
turn one’s coat.” Perne, although he possibly merits some contempt,
made nevertheless a very good use of his unscrupulous comfort. I have
already mentioned his additions to the college. He also originated that
water-supply which is now so ornamental a feature in certain parts of the
town. The broad gutters along which streams run down Trumpington Street
for most of the year were not constructed till after his death, but it
was he who first suggested that healthy water might be brought from the
neighbouring Gogmagog Hills.
To the society of Peterhouse, for some years of Perne’s time, belonged
the celebrated John Whitgift. Whitgift was an example of a system which
has now ceased to a great extent in Cambridge. He was an undergraduate
of Queens’ to begin with; he then obtained a fellowship at Peterhouse,
and was in succession Master of Pembroke and Trinity before his elevation
to a bishoprick. His connection with Peterhouse is very passing, but,
while a member of the college, he held the Lady Margaret Professorship of
Divinity. In 1567, when he became Master of Pembroke, he vacated it for
the Regius Professorship, which he held until his translation to the See
of Worcester. At the same time Peterhouse held also another professor, Dr
Thomas Lorkin, who occupied the Regius Chair of Physic. Professorships
were then commonly held with other offices, and John Richardson, fellow
of Emmanuel, who was Master of Peterhouse from 1609 to 1615 was also
Regius Professor of Divinity.
Richardson became Master of Trinity in 1615. In the time of his
successor, Thomas Turner, one of Peterhouse’s most celebrated sons was
in residence, the poet Richard Crashaw. The beginning of the sixteenth
century found many poets at Cambridge, of whom Crashaw is certainly not
the least remarkable. Like George Herbert, who was some twenty years his
senior, he was brought up in the traditions of the Church of England,
but scarcely had time to prove his principles before the outbreak of the
Civil War. He was by temperament a mystic, and his early love-poems show
a certain religious tendency. It is probable that his study of St Theresa
and the bigotry of the Puritan party drove him, between them, into the
Church of Rome. He eventually took orders and died as a Canon of Loreto.
His mystical poems have become very fashionable of late years, and he
certainly deserves a very high place among our lyric poets. He was also a
musician. Although we know little of his life at Cambridge, it is certain
that he must have been a prominent figure in the intellectual life of a
period when University life was entirely intellectual.
In 1632 the chapel was finished and was consecrated in the next year
by Bishop Francis White of Ely. Next year the master, Dr Matthew Wren,
was succeeded by Dr John Cosin. The new master was one of the most
acute theologians of the century, and was deeply impressed, like most
contemporary churchmen, with the possibilities of the Church of England.
He was one of the first to vindicate its position and maintain its orders
as valid. His proceedings at Peterhouse were hardly popular. Cambridge
has never been guilty of over-rating external forms of worship, and,
in the case of Cosin, she showed her indignation very plainly. The
Puritans were furious at his ritual; they complained of his bowings and
genuflexions, and of the crucifix he set up over the altar of his chapel.
In 1643 the iconoclast Dowsing paid a visit to Cambridge, and used the
most drastic remedies at Peterhouse. Fortunately, the beautiful east
window, which would have provoked his zealous wrath, was hidden by the
Society and escaped damage. Cosin was ejected by Parliament in 1644, and
for sixteen years the college was ruled by Lazarus Seaman. Cosin returned
at the Restoration, and the “idols” were restored to their proper place.
But in the same year Cosin was rewarded for his long exile with the See
of Durham. In the magnificent chapel which he built at Auckland Castle,
we may trace in some measure his affection to Peterhouse; for its
beautiful late Gothic was doubtless suggested by Dr Wren’s chapel.
Cosin has had no very conspicuous successors. He was the last Master
of Peterhouse but one who became a bishop. His immediate predecessors,
Leonard Maw and Matthew Wren, were both translated to bishopricks: Maw to
Bath and Wells, and Wren, whose name is most famous, to Ely. During the
time of Dr Law,* Bishop of Carlisle, who was master from 1754 to 1788,
and filled for a short time the chair of Moral Philosophy, the poet Gray
was obliged to change his residence to Pembroke. Gray is one of those
persons, uncommon in the last century, who saw beauty in nature, and he
became a kind of artistic apostle at Cambridge. This position, which
usually connotes a superiority amounting to superciliousness, did not
render him popular at Peterhouse. He had a horror of fire, and kept a
fire-escape attached to his window. One night, some of the more normal
members of the college raised an alarm of fire, and Gray descended
his fire-escape into a bucket of water which had been prepared for
him. Having all that lack of humour which is distinctive of æsthetic
reformers, he migrated to Pembroke, where he seems to have been better
appreciated than in his own college. He lived in Pembroke for the last
twenty-five years of his life, and, for the last three (1768-71), was
Regius Professor of Modern History.
Dr Law died in 1788, and was succeeded by Dr Francis Barnes,* who
continued in his seat for fifty years, holding, like his predecessor, the
Professorship of Moral Philosophy from 1813 to his death in 1838. Then
Dr Hodgson was master for nine years, and his successor, Dr Cookson, was
succeeded in 1876 by the present Master. Among the notable men of the
present day Peterhouse claims the Archbishop of York and Lord Kelvin.*
Through Lord Kelvin’s generosity, it was the first college in Cambridge
to use electric light. None of the rest have adopted this modern
improvement till quite recently, and even now it is by no means general.
Peterhouse, however, has kept up its traditions and occupies a leading
place in the history of scientific progress: for, beside Lord Kelvin, its
books contain the names of the mathematician Dr Routh* and the well-known
Professor Dewar (* Orchardson).
IV
CLARE COLLEGE
[Illustration: Clare College]
Loggan, in his invaluable _Cantabrigia Illustrata_, gives us two views of
the court of Clare, the first a bird’s-eye view of the whole building,
the second an elevation of the north side, as it was completed at the
end of Queen Anne’s reign. The college had to pass through some trouble
before its buildings were completed. After its foundation in 1342, a
court was built which lasted till 1525. It was then injured by fire. The
remains were taken down, and preparations were made for a new building,
which was not begun till 1638, an unfortunate period. During the Civil
Wars, the work was at a standstill, and the north side, built principally
during the mastership of Dr Samuel Blythe (1678-1713), was not actually
finished till 1715. Sir George Downing, then a fellow commoner,
contributed to its completion. Later, in 1769, the present Chapel was
built from the designs of the Master of Caius, Sir James Burrough. Clare
thus presents examples of three distinct periods in Renaissance work. The
earliest portion is the eastern side of the court with the gateway, the
beauty of which cannot be too highly praised. The style is the fantastic
Italian Gothic of the period, mixed largely with classical forms; but the
work is free from what Mr Ruskin would call insincerity. It is useful to
compare it with the chapel at Peterhouse, consecrated five years before
this was begun. Its characteristics are those of all the cultured work
of the early Stewart period, and have points in common with a building
like Ingestre Hall near Stafford, which has unfortunately perished by
fire. The south side is of the same date; the admirable proportions of
this part of the court may be seen from the grounds of King’s. On the
western side is a building of the time of Charles II. and James II. Its
inner face harmonises fairly well with the rest, but debased forms,
such as the meaningless broken arch, appear. The river front is pure
Palladian, and the effect of the order of pilasters which runs through
the two upper stories is very harsh. The northern face of the court is
good, solid, ugly Queen Anne work, which has, of late years, been spoiled
rather than improved. On this side is the Hall with great sash-windows,
which the famous Clare creeper does not succeed in hiding. The Chapel is
a plain building of excellent proportions. Internally, it has most of the
virtues and faults of a Georgian college chapel: the domical antechapel
is an original feature. On the whole, Clare, which covers less ground
than most colleges, is, architecturally, among the best; but it is a pity
that all was not carried out in the style of the western side, which is
almost unrivalled in any country, considering its date. The celebrated
bridge, not unlike the Kitchen Bridge at St John’s, belongs to the reign
of Charles I. and is therefore contemporary with the older part of the
court. It is well set off by its charming surroundings. The architect of
this bridge, completed in 1640, was Robert Grumbold, who was master-mason
to the college, and worked at Great St Mary’s as well as at Clare.
[Illustration: Clare Bridge]
* * * * *
The idea of Clare Hall originated with Richard de Badew, who, in 1326,
while Chancellor of the University, founded a small college called
University Hall. The first master of this new foundation was Walter of
Thaxted. But, in the twelfth year of its existence, the college was
burned down. Usually the present college dates its foundation from 1338,
when the rebuilding began, but the actual date at which Elizabeth de
Burgh took over the foundation was 1342. She was daughter and coheir
of Gilbert, Count of Clare, Hertford and Gloucester. Clare lies on the
border of Suffolk and Essex, and the college was essentially an Essex
colony. Two of the early masters, Walter of Thaxted and William of
Radwinter, came from villages in the same part of the county, and their
names, occurring not far apart, argue a certain feeling in favour of
natives of the district. There was for a long time a tradition that
Clare Hall was the Soler Hall of Chaucer’s _Reve’s Tale_, but it is not
necessary to suppose that Chaucer had any particular college in his mind.
His use of the epithet “great” may point to Clare and distinguish it from
the numerous hostels which were then springing up in Cambridge; but there
can be no certainty on the point. Chaucer merely borrowed a tale from
Boccaccio and put it into English dress, without any particular accuracy
of detail.
Clare has, on the whole, no very momentous annals. Hugh Latimer,* the
famous Bishop of Worcester, was a member of this foundation, and, as
Fellow of Clare, preached in St Edward’s Church. Until the foundation
of King’s, the chapel of Clare was the parish church of St John the
Baptist, which stood on the south side of the college. After St John’s
had been removed to make way for King’s, Clare shared the possession of
St Edward’s Church with Trinity Hall. Latimer, however, is by no means
the typical theologian of Clare. The worthies of the college are chiefly
religious, and, a century after, it contributed to the Laudian revival.
When James I. paid his visit to Cambridge, he was entertained with a
comedy at Clare. The name of the piece was “Ignoramus” and its author was
Mr George Ruggle, one of the society. It satirised the civil law, which
was then doing its best to oust the canon law, and James, who always
had a keen sympathy for the obsolete, was hugely delighted. Some years
before, Ruggle had satirised the townsfolk in a play called _Club-Law_,
to which the Corporation were invited. The absence of good feeling which
marked such an invitation explains the “town and gown rows” common at
this period.
A less festive spirit than George Ruggle was Nicholas Ferrar,* who
appears at Clare about the same time. Ferrar ranks with Herbert and
Crashaw as the third of the mystics and pietists whom Cambridge sent out
during the seventeenth century. He became famous as the head of what he
called the “Protestant Nunnery.” It was established at Little Gidding, an
out-of-the-way village in Huntingdonshire, and consisted of Ferrar, some
members of his family, and some near relations, who devoted themselves to
contemplation and works of piety. The neighbourhood of Little Gidding to
Cambridge was probably felt in the University, and there is the strongest
probability that men like Cosin and Andrewes came over from Cambridge
very often, and went into retreat, as we say, with Ferrar. A man of this
type was the great Peter Gunning,* Fellow of Clare and Lady Margaret
Professor of Divinity. In 1661 he exchanged his offices for those of
Regius Professor and Master of Corpus, which he soon left for St John’s.
While the new court of Clare was building, the Commonwealth came, and
with it the mastership of Ralph Cudworth. This profound thinker held the
chair of Hebrew with his mastership, and continued to hold it till his
death in 1688. He is certainly one of the most extraordinary figures
of his age at Cambridge, but his history and that of the band whose
leader he was, belong more properly to the annals of Christ’s. Almost a
contemporary of Cudworth’s was Archbishop Tillotson,* who, at this date
in his career, was a Puritan, like many of the youth at Cambridge. He
later found his true vocation in the Church of England, and his sermons
have achieved a greater fame than Cudworth’s abstract treatises, although
their merits are perhaps less.
Theophilus Dillingham succeeded Cudworth, and was Archdeacon of Bedford
as well as master. He continued the buildings, and a successful
completion was reached under the subsequent mastership of Samuel
Blythe. From this time forward the history of Clare was peaceful and
monotonous. It produced a very eccentric son in William Whiston, known
as the admirable translator of Josephus. Whiston was an astronomer and
a proficient mathematician. He preceded Sir Isaac Newton as Lucasian
Professor, resigning his chair in 1711. He was always open to the
influence of new and uncommon theories, and died a Baptist with a strong
tendency to Fifth-Monarchy principles.
Clare was the college of that famous statesman, Thomas Holles Pelham,*
Duke of Newcastle, whose personal peculiarities are ridiculed in
Smollett’s _Humphrey Clinker_. Pelham was Chancellor of the University
from 1748 to 1768, having previously filled the office of High Steward.
His Chancellorship is the last important event in the history of the
College. It has, since then, under the fortunate and prolonged rule of
four masters, extending over a century and a half, maintained its ancient
prestige, and now, although one of the smallest of the colleges in point
of buildings, the number of its undergraduates is exceptionally large
and shows no signs of decreasing. Among its present members it numbers
several men of great eminence, of whom, to Cambridge men, the most
familiar is the present Woodwardian Professor, Dr McKenny Hughes.
V
PEMBROKE COLLEGE
Modern architects have taken such delight in seeing what can be done
with Pembroke that we have scarcely any vestiges of the old building.
The long, low street front of the first court, a reminiscence of Oxford,
with its double oriel, was refaced in 1726. It was the era of Gibbs
and Burrough, and the treatment is therefore thoroughly conservative.
But since then, Archbishop Rotherham’s fine, monastic plan has been
ruthlessly spoiled. The oldest existing part is the Ivy Court, a pretty
double range of rooms at the back of the Hall. The north side dates
from 1633; the south, or Hitcham Building, from 1659, at which period
Rotherham’s Library still formed the upper storey of the Hall, and the
Chapel stood in the north-west corner of the first court. Bishop Wren’s
chapel superseded the latter building after the Restoration. It was
consecrated in 1667, and is in curious contrast with the same prelate’s
chapel of 1632 at Peterhouse. His nephew, the great Sir Christopher Wren,
was the architect of this building and the adjoining cloister, which is
so pleasant a feature of the western side of the court. Wren’s genius is
clearly visible in the stately unpretentious exterior; but inside, the
chapel is cold and ineffective. Stained glass of the type which has been
employed at the east end of St Paul’s Cathedral, is wanted to complete
the design.
[Illustration: Pembroke College]
Pembroke escaped Essex and Wilkins, but it can hardly be congratulated
on what it has acquired instead. The south side of the old court has
perished; the quaint two-storied building which contained the Hall and
Library, has disappeared, and, instead, we have the modern Hall, a very
insignificant Gothic apartment quite out of keeping with the traditions
of Pembroke. Mr Waterhouse’s street front, south of the chapel, is
quite the worst modern building in Cambridge so far as appearance goes;
his library and clock-tower are, fortunately, in a not very obtrusive
position. Of late years, Mr G. G. Scott has built a very pretty court
in a French Renaissance style at the back of the college, where Downing
Street meets Tennis Court Lane, but, in building the Laboratory opposite
in precisely the same style, he has committed an error which he would
have done well to avoid. This court belongs to 1883; the Master’s Lodge,
between it and the rest of the college, is by Waterhouse, and was
finished ten years earlier.
* * * * *
“O Domus antiqua et religiosa!” said Queen Elizabeth, as she passed
by the gates of Pembroke Hall. Very few colleges deserve the epithet
better, for Pembroke has been one of the most religious of all Cambridge
foundations, and its history is closely connected with the Church. Like
Clare, Pembroke owes its origin to a woman. Marie de St Paul, daughter
of Guy, Count of St Paul and Châtillon, married Aymer de Valence, Earl
of Pembroke. There is a legend that the Earl was killed at a tournament
on his wedding day, and Gray embodied the tradition in his noble
Installation Ode—
“Sad Châtillon, on her bridal morn,
That wept her princely love.”
History, however, has made short work with this story. At all events,
after her husband’s death, the Countess retired from the world, and,
among other charitable works, founded Pembroke Hall or, as she called
it, the Hall of Valence-Mary. This name did not continue long in use;
the college was very soon known, on the analogy of Clare, as Pembroke
Hall, and the title of College was given to it in the last century. The
foundation dates from 1347, when a Master, fifteen scholars and four
Bible-clerks were established on the present site. Robert de Thorpe was
first master.
Pembroke is intimately connected with the revival of learning in England.
Henry VI. contributed generously to the foundation, and practically
set it upon a new footing. Laurence Booth, who became master in 1450
and held the office until his death, was a man of great learning. His
ecclesiastical promotion was rapid; he became Bishop of Durham in
1457, and Archbishop of York in 1476. Thomas Rotherham* succeeded him
as Archbishop of York and Master of Pembroke. Rotherham, whose actual
surname was Scott, was one of the most active promoters of learning in
England. He had previously filled the sees of Rochester and Lincoln, and
was Archbishop of York for twenty-one years. While Bishop of Lincoln,
he had built the east side of the University Library, and he became
the second founder of Lincoln College at Oxford. As Lord Chancellor of
England, his political career was stormy. Fuller, in speaking of his
library at Pembroke, says “Many have mistaken this for the performance of
Richard the Third, merely because his Crest the _Boar_ is set up therein.
Whereas the truth is that _Rotheram_ having felt the sharp Tuskes of
that _Boar_ (when imprisoned by the aforesaid King for resigning the
Great Seal of England to Queen Elizabeth, the relict of King Edward the
Fourth) advanced his arms thereon that he might ingratiate himself.”
Rotherham fell on more peaceful days when Henry VII. came to the throne.
He resigned the mastership in 1488, and died of the plague at Cawood in
1501.
Curiously enough, the next master but two, Richard Foxe (* copy of Oxford
pictures) founded Corpus Christi College at Oxford, just as Rotherham
had re-founded Lincoln. He was at that time Master of Pembroke and
Bishop of Winchester. Foxe was one of the greatest prelates of that
great age. His benefactions to learning were innumerable and priceless;
three colleges at Oxford and three at Cambridge count him among their
benefactors; his splendid chantry at Winchester, one of the finest pieces
of Renaissance sculpture which we possess, is entirely characteristic
of this princely ecclesiastic. His enlightened religious views made him
the friend and patron of the great scholars who flourished during the
reign of Henry VII. He was also remarkable for his political activity;
he was the chief agent in the establishment of the Tudor dynasty,
and was one of the supporters of the throne against Perkin Warbeck’s
rebellion. Ford, in his historical drama of _Perkin Warbeck_, drew Foxe’s
character with admirable force. He died in 1528, old and almost blind,
but still retaining all his vigour and adhering to his bishoprick with
great tenacity. Foxe may be regarded as one of our earliest and wisest
Reformers: he died too early for the final quarrel with Rome, but there
can hardly be any doubt that he would have exerted his influence to
prevent a formal breach.
A reformer of a different kind was Nicholas Ridley,* master from 1540 to
1553, and Bishop of London during the last three of these thirteen years.
It is easy to see the tendencies which the enthusiasm of Rotherham and
Foxe for the New Learning had directed, in the fact that Bradford* and
Rogers, also martyrs for Protestantism, were members of this college.
After Elizabeth’s accession, Edmund Grindal,* a Protestant of a somewhat
extreme type, became master for three years, during which, like Ridley,
he held the see of London. He resigned the mastership in 1562. In 1570
he was translated from London to York, and in 1575 became Archbishop of
Canterbury. His successor at Pembroke was the equally famous Matthew
Hutton, a learned theologian. His life was closely connected with
Cambridge; he took his bachelor’s degree in 1551, and ten years later,
became Margaret Professor. Becoming head of Pembroke in the following
year, he obtained the Regius Professorship of Divinity. He also was
married twice to ladies of the neighbourhood. His first wife, Katherine
Fulmetby, was niece to Bishop Goodrich of Ely; his second, Beatrice
Fincham, also came from Ely. In 1567 he was made Dean of York and left
Pembroke. His preferment was almost entirely due to his scholastic
disputations before Elizabeth on her visit to Cambridge. While at York,
he married a third time, with the true zeal of a post-Reformation prelate
for the married state. He was made Bishop of Durham in 1589 and was
translated to York in 1594. His effigy, brilliantly painted and attired
in the costume of an Elizabethan prelate, stands upright against the
south wall of the choir at York Minster.
Whitgift’s mastership, lasting for a few months in 1567, gives another
Archbishop to Pembroke. But he soon left the college for Trinity.
Twenty-two years later, Lancelot Andrewes* became master. As Bishop
successively of Chichester, Ely and Winchester, his name is familiar to
students of the Laudian movement. He was one of those great men who, by
their spirituality rather than their energy, vindicated the Church of
England from Papal claims on one side and from Genevan doctrine on the
other. He is buried, as is well known, in the Collegiate Church of St
Saviour at Southwark. His influence is noticeable in the characters of
his immediate successors. Samuel Harsnet, master from 1605 to 1616, was
also Bishop of Chichester from 1609 to 1619 and of Norwich from 1619 to
1629; and distinguished himself in all these offices by his peaceful and
devout spirit. Nicholas Felton,* Bishop of Bristol, was master from 1616
to 1618, and Bishop of Ely from 1619 to 1628. His next successor but
one, Benjamin Laney,* was a stout Royalist, and was conspicuous for his
fidelity to the exiled King during the Commonwealth. At the Restoration,
he received much recompense. He was made Bishop of Peterborough in 1660,
Bishop of Lincoln in 1663, and Bishop of Ely in 1667. This unique example
of promotion in the Eastern sees closes the list of Pembroke bishops
for some time. Since then, the most famous prelate connected with the
college has been Edward Maltby,* Bishop of Chichester in 1831 and of
Durham from 1836 to 1856. He was the first of the Bishops of Durham
under the regulations by which at the death of Bishop Van Mildert, the
Prince-Bishoprick was finally disestablished.
While these “men of much motion and promotion” were occupying the
mastership of the college, the foundation was not without its famous
sons. They are not, however, very many, and the chief lustre of the
college seems to have found its centre in the master. Richard Crashaw
was in residence here for some time, doubtless attracted by the saintly
fame of the masters of the Stewart epoch. But undoubtedly the greatest
son of the college is Edmund Spenser,* who entered the house probably
during Hutton’s mastership. Of this splendid name Pembroke may well be
proud, although it has no very intimate relation with the life of the
University. Bishop Matthew Wren,* Master of Peterhouse, was a fellow
here. His benefactions are remarkable; they include the fine chapel. He
also bequeathed his silver mitre to the College; and this, although
somewhat ugly in itself, is one of the most valuable pieces of plate in
Cambridge.
Passing over the age of Anne and George I. we come to the long mastership
of Dr Roger Long (* Benj. Wilson) who ruled the college from 1733
to 1770. Long became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy in 1750. His
astronomical studies were commemorated at Pembroke by a hollow sphere of
metal, which had a diameter of eighteen feet and was a complete guide to
the solar system. It was contained in a building which terminated the
north side of the second court, but it was destroyed in 1871. Dr Long was
also much interested in the liberal arts; he was a musician and mechanic;
he was also a wit of a not very refined order. His “Musick Speech”
delivered in Great St Mary’s at the Commencement of 1714, is quoted in
Mr J. W. Clark’s book on Cambridge. He was then fellow of his college.
As master, he was a friend of Thomas Gray. When that sensitive poet left
Peterhouse, he met with a royal reception at Pembroke, which proves that
the college was progressive in the direction of culture. Gray joined the
society, and resided in the second court for fifteen years. His rooms
were famous for their comfort in a day when no one thought of furnishing
a room with more than a table and a few chairs, and the blue pots in
his window were the wonder of Cambridge. He was devoted to his adopted
college, and the influence of its structure may be traced in several
passages of his poems. From 1768 to 1771, he held the chair of Modern
History. There are one or two portraits of him in the college. That by
Benjamin Wilson, now in the Combination Room, was painted after his
death. Another poet, his close friend and personal admirer, William Mason
(* Reynolds) belonged to the society for many years, and died in 1797.
If among poets Pembroke claims Spenser, she can also claim William
Pitt among statesmen. There are two portraits of the illustrious Prime
Minister, one, by Harlow, in the Hall; the other, by Gainsborough, in
the Combination Room. Pitt is, however, the property not so much of a
single college as of the University, whose politics have been largely
directed by his memory. His name is preserved in the Pitt Club, which
was established soon after his death and took his coat of arms. It is
to-day the best social club in the University, and has rooms in Jesus
Lane. In later years, Pembroke elected John Couch Adams (* Herkomer), the
discoverer of Neptune, to a fellowship, thus adding to a list which, if
not long, is at least highly distinguished. Under the mastership of Dr
Searle (* Ouless), who was elected in 1880, it has become an exceedingly
popular college, and its numbers are very largely augmented. Dr Edward
Bickersteth, the late Bishop of the Church of England in Japan, was
among the most celebrated of its recent members, and held an Honorary
Fellowship. The present Bishop of Wakefield is the latest addition to its
roll of prelates.
VI
GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE
The arrangement of buildings at Caius is rather curious, and no Cambridge
college has been so transformed since its foundation. The chapel is
between the two lesser courts; the hall is at the back of everything,
and its position is far from obvious. Caius may be said to consist of
two halves: the first half, to the east, borders Trinity Street, and
is the New Court; the second and westerly half is an oblong bounded on
three sides by narrow lanes and on the other by the rest of the college.
This second half is again split into two halves, the northern of which,
nearest Trinity Lane, is Gonville Court, and represents the ancient
college removed here in 1353 from the other end of King’s Parade. Beneath
its somewhat modern front an immense quantity of the original work still
exists, and fourteenth-century windows have been discovered. The old
hall and chapel have disappeared, although part of the present chapel
may belong to the original buildings. Caius, however, in refounding the
college, altered everything. He built an additional court, south of the
ancient college. This, too, has been refaced, and is, for the most part,
a comfortable quadrangle of Queen Anne date. But the gates which Caius,
giving play to a strange fancy, built for his college, are still entire.
His Gate of Humility, a mere postern in the outer buildings, exists no
longer; but Mr Waterhouse preserved the idea in his new building, and
recently his gate has, in accordance with the founder’s design, been made
once again the principal entrance. The Gate of Virtue, leading from the
new court into Caius Court, is a tall Italian building, in which Gothic
and Renaissance forms are most curiously blended. The Italian appearance
of the design is due, no doubt, to the corner turret, which introduces a
very picturesque element into a simple plan.
While the Gate of Virtue subordinates its ornament to general effect,
the last gate, the Gate of Honour, leading appropriately to the Senate
House and schools, attracts by beauty of detail. It was finished in 1574,
the year after Caius’ death, and its design, the heavy architrave with
an Ionic order, and the hexagonal, domed structure at the top, is purely
classical. It is the most charming building of its date in England, and
is a good instance of that love of mere fancy which marks the builders
of the late Italian Renaissance. Caius’ architect was a certain Theodore
Have of Cleves in the Rhenish provinces, who also remodelled the chapel
between this and Gonville’s court, and probably designed the sarcophagus
in which Caius is buried. The bell-tower of the chapel, which agrees
very well with the two gateways, is comparatively new. It is worth while
to enter the chapel, which, although, after numerous alterations, it is
of no particular date or style, has a very pleasant interior, and, in
addition to Caius’ monument, contains that of Dr Perse, the founder of
the Perse Free School in Cambridge. This excellent gentleman, who died in
1617, built most of the original entrance court of the college, in which
Caius’ Gate of Humility was incorporated. In Loggan’s beautiful view of
Caius, these buildings seem to have been of the same style as those in
the second court of St John’s College, the style of which Ralph Symons
built so many delightful examples in Cambridge. They belong to 1617. The
portion of this court south of the Gate of Humility was built in 1619, in
accordance with the will of a late master, Dr Legge.
In 1719, the older courts were faced and the chapel was newly decorated.
This work was continued at intervals through the century. Mr (afterwards
Sir James) Burrough was a fellow in these days, and was the leading
spirit in the work. The college remained untouched until the mastership
of the late Dr Guest. Then, in 1854, Salvin built the Hall, whose
exterior is as hideous as the interior, with its fine open timber roof,
is imposing and beautiful. In 1867 Mr Waterhouse entirely rebuilt
Perse’s court, and, in the following year, added an apse to the chapel.
His court has given a new feature to Cambridge, certainly. But, where
colleges are concerned, Mr Waterhouse is not happy, and this huge pile,
with its square windows, its pyramidal tower, medallions, and rows of
waterspouts, would make a praiseworthy bank or hotel, but, in its
present position, is painfully incongruous.
* * * * *
Very shortly after Marie de Valence had founded Pembroke, Edmund
Gonville, rector of Terrington St Clement’s in Norfolk, founded Gonville
Hall for the instruction of twenty scholars in dialect and other
sciences. He found a site for his hall in what is now Free School Lane,
just behind St Botolph’s Church. The foundation took place in 1348, and,
during Gonville’s lifetime, the name given to the hall was “The Hall of
the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.” But Gonville died in 1351, when
his executor, the famous William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, removed
the buildings and placed them opposite his own college of Trinity Hall.
Henceforward, the college was known as Gonville Hall, and the old name
was retained when Caius re-founded it. The small society—for the college
was at first very poor—took possession of its new tenements in 1353,
when William de Rougham became master. The previous master of the house
in Free School Lane was John Colton, who became Primate of Ireland; and
among the masters of Gonville Hall we find the names of John Rickingale,
Bishop of Chichester in 1426, and John Skippe, Bishop of Hereford in 1539.
It was during the mastership of Skippe’s predecessor, William Bokenham,
that John Caius entered the college as an undergraduate. After he had
taken his degree he was for a few years Principal of Physwick Hostel,
a small house affiliated to Gonville Hall. He left Cambridge, however,
about 1540, and travelled to foreign universities, studying medicine
at Padua and other academies. He was a man of culture, and his taste
was doubtless stimulated by the splendid productions of the Italian
Renaissance. We may, in fact, regard him as one of the greatest English
humanists, and, like so many of them, as one of the greatest benefactors
to his university. On his return to England he practised as a physician,
and received the appointment of court physician to Edward VI. and,
afterwards, to Queen Mary. In 1555, he was elected President of the
College of Physicians. Having thus risen to considerable eminence, he
determined to do something for Gonville Hall. Philip and Mary granted
him letters patent in 1557, with which he refounded the college. In this
way he gave that impetus to medical study which has since made Caius
pre-eminently a doctor’s college. His beautiful buildings are sufficient
testimony to the elegant taste which he had matured in Italy. Thomas
Bacon, master of Gonville Hall and first master of the new foundation,
died in 1559, and the society elected Caius to the mastership. At first
he was reluctant to accept the dignity, and prevailed so far as to refuse
his income as master. His mastership lasted until his death in 1573. He
was one of the most disinterested of all Cambridge benefactors, and his
learning and talents are beyond praise. One odd feature of his career,
which is very characteristic of the uncritical spirit of the time, is
his dispute with Dr Key of Oxford as to the relative antiquity of the
two universities. To some astonishing legend of Key’s, he replied that
Cambridge was founded in the year 3538 B.C. by one Cantaber, a Spanish
prince, alleging many weighty statements on behalf of his accurate
chronology. His _History of Cambridge_ contains more trustworthy
information than this, but he was singularly prone to the acceptation
of spurious etymologies and vain traditions. His contemporaries held
him to be something of an atheist, and complained that he showed “a
perverse stomach to professors of the gospel.” This probably means little
more than that he was content with the old religion. He died away from
Cambridge, but his body was brought from London to be buried. It was met
at Trumpington Ford by the Vice-Chancellor and a procession, who escorted
it into Cambridge with almost royal honours.
Among other gifts to the college, Caius left the silver mace encircled
with serpents, which is called _Caduceus prudentis gubernatoris_. It was
directed to be carried in procession before the master with the _Liber
Cognitionis_ and the _Pulvinar reverentiae_. There are three portraits of
Caius in various parts of the college. That in the Hall, which represents
him holding a pink, is the best.
A notable son of Gonville Hall was Sir Thomas Gresham, well known as
the founder of the Royal Exchange. He died in 1579, so that he had
probably taken his degree before Caius’ time. Caius was succeeded in
the mastership by Dr Legge, a lawyer and Master in Chancery, who was
also Regius Professor of Civil Law. In his day came into residence
William Harvey of Folkestone, one of the great glories of the college.
His discovery of the circulation of the blood created a revolution in
medical science. There are three portraits of Harvey in Caius: one of
them, in the Master’s Lodge, is attributed to Rembrandt; another in the
Combination Room, is a replica of the picture at the Royal College of
Physicians. Another great doctor, John Gostlin,* Regius Professor of
Physic, became master in 1618. He is said to have objected to the wearing
of boots as “more fit for gallants than for civil students.” He also gave
the Bull Inn, which was his property, to Catharine Hall.
If Caius has its doctors, it has also its prelates. William Linwood, Lord
Keeper under Henry VI., and Bishop of St David’s in 1442, is commemorated
by one of the medallions on the west front. A famous name among others
is that of Nicholas Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury in 1535. The long
mastership of Thomas Batchcroft,* who was ejected by the Parliamentary
Commissioners and restored in 1660, was distinguished by the residence
of Jeremy Taylor. This great divine’s father was a barber in Cambridge,
and sent his son to Dr Perse’s new Free School. Naturally, as a scholar
brought up at a school which had been founded from Caius, Taylor became
an undergraduate at Caius. He was a precocious theologian, and early
attracted the notice of Laud, who transferred him to Oxford and procured
him a fellowship at All Souls’. He became Bishop of Down and Connor, and
died at Lisburn in 1667. Among theologians his name stands very high,
and, as a writer of English, he is in his own style unsurpassed. Cosin
also, a no less illustrious example of piety and devout Churchmanship,
was bred at Caius, before he became Master of Peterhouse. Both Taylor
and Cosin figure in the medallions of the façade. The portrait of Taylor
in the Hall is a copy of his picture at All Souls’. There is also a
portrait of Cosin painted in 1666. Other prelates of this period are
Francis Marsh, Bishop of Limerick and Archbishop of Dublin, Hartstrong,
Bishop of Ossory, and Francis White, Bishop, first of Norwich, and then
of Ely. To much the same date belongs Judge Jeffreys. A very disreputable
undergraduate was Titus Oates, of whom a vehement writer says that he was
“a liar from the beginning, cheated his tailor of a gown, which he denied
with horrid imprecations.” His career at Cambridge had a sudden end, but
he managed to obtain a doctor’s degree at Salamanca. Thomas Shadwell, who
is famous as one of Dryden’s _bêtes noires_, was also a member of Caius.
Robert Brady,* Keeper of the Records and Regius Professor of Physic, was
master for forty years after Batchcroft’s death. He was a supporter of
the royal prerogative in its most extreme form, and wrote a History of
England to prove his views. Two clergymen were educated at Caius in his
time; Prince, who wrote the Worthies of Devon, and Jeremy Collier, the
stout antagonist of Restoration drama. Another long mastership was that
of Sir Thomas Gooch,* from 1716 to 1754, who, during the same period,
was Bishop successively of Bristol, Norwich and Ely. He was succeeded in
1754 by Sir James Burrough, who, for many years before, had interested
himself in the architectural condition of Cambridge, and had had a hand
in altering almost every college. He was not an unsuccessful architect,
although an amateur, but his work is very unequal and it degenerated with
the taste of the epoch. Although one of the best known masters, as far
as Cambridge is concerned, there is no portrait of him in the college.
Another Cambridge architect, William Wilkins, was also a Caius man.
Burrough’s successor was Dr John Smith, afterwards Lowndean Professor of
Astronomy, who lived till 1795. There is a portrait of him by Reynolds in
the Master’s Lodge. Later masters have not been so famous. Mr Clark tells
us that Dr Benedict Chapman (* Philips) was the last head of a house who
rode out in top-boots. Perhaps the name on which Cambridge men will dwell
with most affection in connexion with Caius is that of John Hookham
Frere, whose translations of Aristophanes have a place in English
literature. The mastership of Dr Ferrers,* which began in 1880, has been
marked by great progress. The college is no longer exclusively medical,
but is winning yearly honours in all the schools, and it has created a
good precedent by granting fellowships as a reward of proficiency rather
than of mere academic distinction. It has, however, produced, all through
its history, great members of every profession. Among its lawyers have
been Lord Chancellor Thurlow* and Baron Alderson.* And of its divines,
while it reckons the late Dr Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle, among
the number, the last, but not the least, is the heroic Charles Frederick
Mackenzie,* first Bishop of the Universities Mission to Central Africa.
Its latest living bishop is Dr Wallis, who was consecrated Bishop of
Wellington in New Zealand a year or two ago.
VII
TRINITY HALL
Long the lawyers’ college, Trinity Hall maintains a staid legal
appearance. Its present arrangement is essentially modern, and the
earliest remaining portion is the ivy-covered range of chambers forming
the northern side of the Garden Court. This is not earlier than 1560,
but, as at Caius, much of the interior work of the main court is
original. In the upper storey of this range is the primitive Library,
fitted in the sixteenth century with low bookshelves, the tops of which
form a double reading desk. This very comfortable arrangement has been
followed in the small bookshelves of many of the other libraries.
The bulk of the College, including the entrance courts and the small
quadrangle, was entirely remodelled in the last century, during the
mastership of Sir Nathaniel Lloyd (1710-35) and Sir Edward Simpson
(1735-64). The Chapel, south of the large court (an unusual position)
belongs to 1729, and the Hall on the west side to 1743. Its interior is
very creditable to Georgian taste, although not positively faultless. In
1852, the façade of the college was burned down. The present front is
due to Salvin, who built the neighbouring hall of Caius much about the
same time. The old gate of the college, which opened into the smaller
court, is still commemorated by an opening in the wall, affording a
picturesque view of the ivy-covered interior. To a later period belong
the new buildings in the Garden Court. The Tutor’s House, of white stone,
by Mr W. M. Fawcett, is not exactly in harmony with Messrs Grayson &
Ould’s brick building on the north side, but the latter has been arranged
so as to slope obliquely northward, and front the garden; and a too
obvious discord has thus been avoided. In itself, this red-brick work,
of a Renaissance order, is one of the best things in modern Cambridge,
and fulfils, at least from an outside point of view, all the ideal
requirements of a collegiate building.
* * * * *
Canon Law, the typical study of the Middle Ages, is the _raison d’être_
of Trinity Hall. William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, founded the
College of the Scholars of the Holy Trinity of Norwich in 1350, in
order to furnish his diocese with secular priests. His college occupied
substantially the same ground as it does to-day. The founder, who also
has a claim to be one of the founders of Caius, did not live long to
enjoy his work. He was sent by Edward III. on an embassy to Innocent
VI., in one of the numerous attempts at arbitration which varied the
Hundred Years’ War. While engaged in these negotiations the Bishop died.
His death was due to the climate of Avignon, which, in that season of
plague, was more than ordinarily pestilent. “Avenio ventosa,” says the
doggrel rhyme, “cum vento fastidiosa, sine vento venenosa.” Englishmen,
with their usual mistrust of Papal honesty, said that Bateman had been
poisoned. He left his foundations of Trinity Hall and the new Gonville
Hall in a very incomplete state, and his executor, Archbishop Simon of
Sudbury, although he did what he could in the way of building, was too
much occupied with his fatal position in the state to attend closely
to the condition of the colleges. In fact, Trinity Hall, composed of a
master, twenty fellows and three scholars, was very badly off. Early
in the fifteenth century they complained to Archbishop Arundel of the
insufficiency of their commons, and obtained a dispensation by which
they were empowered to add twopence for each weekday and a groat on the
Lord’s day.
Meanwhile, two of the masters of Trinity Hall are found among the list of
bishops. These were the canonists Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield
from 1360 to 1386, and Marmaduke Lumley, Bishop of Lincoln from 1450 to
1452. In the year 1525, Stephen Gardiner* became master. He was a native
of Bury St Edmund’s and was a fellow of the college. In 1531, he was
made Bishop of Winchester, but retained the mastership till his death,
esteeming it a refuge to which, in those troublous times, he could always
retire. He was, nevertheless, a little out of his reckoning. Although a
reformer, he was of the conservative type and was not a _persona grata_
to Edward VI., who deprived him of both his mastership and bishoprick.
His supplanter at Winchester was John Poynet; at Trinity Hall he was
superseded by Walter Haddon, reputed to be the best Latinist of his
time. Haddon was Professor of Law and Rhetoric and Public Orator, and,
in addition to this, with the assistance of Sir John Cheke, compiled a
new code of ecclesiastical law. His reforming activities gained him the
Presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1552, from which he retired at
Queen Mary’s accession. He died some years later and is buried in Christ
Church, Newgate Street.
Mary’s reign brought back Gardiner to his college and diocese. Walter
Mowse, the second Protestant master, was ousted to make way for the
bishop. As Chancellor of England, Gardiner distinguished himself for
his reactionary policy, a natural course in one who, having done all he
could in the way of reform, knew what gratitude he had to expect from the
other side. He died in 1555. There is no doubt that he was an energetic,
pushing man who allowed little to stand in his way, and stories were
told of how he canvassed for the see of Winchester, doing his best to
embitter the last days of Bishop Foxe. He was the bishop who married
Philip of Spain to Mary in Winchester Cathedral; and this, with his acts
of persecution, have endeared him to the orthodox English historian. But
we must make allowance for Protestant hatred, and remember that if such
men as Gardiner, Pole, and Gaspar Contarini had lived a century before,
we should have been spared the irregularities of the Reformation, while
we reaped its advantages. Gardiner’s chantry-chapel is well known to
all visitors of Winchester Cathedral. There are two portraits of him in
Trinity Hall: one in the Combination Room, another in the Master’s Lodge.
A somewhat less single-minded ecclesiastic was Thomas Thirlby,* fellow of
the college, and first and only Bishop of Westminster. He was promoted
in 1550 to Norwich, and to Ely in 1554, when he, too, gained some
reputation as a persecutor of the new religion. Richard Sampson, Bishop
of Lichfield, belongs also to this period.
Henry Hervey, who followed Gardiner, was a great builder, and we owe
the Library to him. From his time onward the college was the legal
centre of Cambridge, and helped to raise English law to a position which
fully realised Bateman’s desire that England should not be “out-lawed”
by other countries. As Canon Law became superseded by Civil Law, the
original purpose of the college and its connexion with Norwich were
quite forgotten. John Cowell, master from 1598 to 1611, was a great foe,
however, to Sir Edward Coke and the common lawyers. His book on the
King’s Prerogative was burned by order of the House of Commons. Another
legal worthy of the time was Sir Robert Naunton, Public Orator, and
author of _Fragmenta Regalia_, who had also some connexion with Trinity
College. He is memorable for an insulting remark which he made to the
Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar, on account of which he was kept a close
prisoner in his own house, stoutly refusing to apologise.
The Regius Professorship of Civil Law became the practical monopoly of
Trinity Hall in 1666, when Dr John Clark was elected to the office.
It was only on the election of the present Professor Clark that the
succession was broken. Of these professors, one, Dr George Oxenden, held
the mastership and professorship together. Meanwhile, we find one or two
bishops, notably William Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln from 1608 to 1614,
whose name is familiar to controversialists on the subject of Anglican
Orders. The beginning of the eighteenth century produced two more, Adam
Otley, Bishop of St David’s and Richard Reynolds, Bishop of Lincoln.
About the same time, Trinity Hall had the honour of educating Philip
Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield (* W. Hoare). It would be
interesting to know more about the life of this celebrated gentleman at
Cambridge, but he doubtless employed his time in picking up miscellaneous
knowledge and laying the foundations of his delightful style. I forgot to
mention that another famous nobleman was a Trinity Hall man—Lord Howard
of Effingham, who commanded the English fleet against the Spanish Armada.
In Nathaniel, Lord Crewe,* Bishop of Durham, the college produced a
devout prelate and Jacobite. He died in his ninetieth year (1633).
Lawyers of the eighteenth century are absolutely innumerable. Sir
Nathaniel Lloyd,* master from 1710 to 1735, was King’s Advocate; his
successor, Sir Edward Simpson,* was Dean of Arches. Sir John Eardley
Wilmot,* Lord Chief Justice of England, was another noted member of the
college. His life nearly spans the last century. Dr John Andrews,* Master
of Faculties, dying in 1747, left the College £20,000, which was to be
paid after the death of his two sisters and expended in building new
wings to the river. Dr Samuel Halifax,* Professor of Law from 1770 to
1782, was clergyman as well as lawyer. Previously, he had held for two
years the two University Professorships of Arabic. His elevation to the
see of Gloucester in 1781 was a suitable reward of such versatility. He
was followed in his Professorship by Dr Joseph Jowett, who made a garden
out of the strip of ground at the angle formed by the outer walls of the
old court and of the principal quadrangle. It faced the lane east of the
cottage, and excited some ridicule. Archdeacon Wrangham’s epigram has
been often quoted:
A little garden little Jowett made
And fenced it with a little palisade;
But when this little garden made a little talk,
He changed it to a little gravel walk.
If you would know the mind of little Jowett,
This little garden don’t a little show it.
The list of legal celebrities in the last century is also adorned by the
name of Lord Mansfield, whose bust, by Nollekens, is in the Hall.
We now come to the present century. Sir Alexander Cockburn (* Watts),
Lord Chief Justice, was a member of the college during the earlier half,
and the name of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, master from 1843 to 1852, is
also well known. Sir Henry Maine’s reputation is European. This great
historian, lawyer and philosopher, occupied the chair of Civil Law from
1847 to 1854. When, in 1877, Dr Geldart died, he was elected Master, and
died in 1888. During the last year of his life, he was Whewell Professor
of International Law. There is a portrait of him in the Hall, by Lowes
Dickinson. Needless to say, Trinity Hall is represented on the Bench of
to-day, and the Lodge contains two portraits (by Dickinson) of Mr Justice
Romer.
Literature pure and simple has never been well represented at “the Hall.”
Thomas Tusser was educated here, but a great gap exists between the
old-fashioned bucolic poet and the next writer. The name of Sir Edward
Bulwer-Lytton (* copy from Maclise) is, however, not inconsiderable. His
part in nineteenth-century literature may be very largely ascribed to his
Cambridge associations and friendships. And the growth of an essentially
modern science has been stimulated by another Trinity Hall man, Henry
Fawcett (* Rathbone), Postmaster General and Professor of Political
Economy from 1863 to 1884. There is another portrait of him, by Professor
Herkomer, in the Fitzwilliam Museum. And, speaking of the Fitzwilliam
Museum, it must not be forgotten that the peer to whom that institution
owes its foundation came from Trinity Hall also.
To the modern undergraduate Trinity Hall is known chiefly as the head of
the river, a position which, until the present year, has been for some
time its monopoly. However, it is also well known in the schools, and not
only in the school of law. Under Dr Latham (* Holl and Dickinson) the
college has increased in popularity, and, both in size and importance,
has attained a place in the first rank of colleges.
VIII
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE
One of the prettiest spots in the whole University is the tiny medieval
court on the north side of Corpus. You have only to turn your back on the
ugly Hall, and look at three sides of a venerable, low quadrangle clothed
with ivy and stained with age, and you can imagine yourself back in the
days of the Edwards, when the pious members of the Cambridge benefit
societies founded the college. Times have changed, and the court has
been repaired fairly often; but the place retains its medieval flavour.
There is still the gallery which communicated between the college and
St Bene’t’s Church, while St Bene’t’s was the college chapel; with the
aid of a key, you may go straight from under the roof of Corpus into
church, without leaving cover. And, in one corner of the court, the
kitchen, with its great spit revolving in the draught, is a continual
source of interest to all visitors. However, medieval Corpus was never
very conspicuous, and, like most things medieval, it grew incommodious.
Mr William Wilkins, an architect of some knowledge, who had taken his
degree at Caius, was selected in 1823 to renew Corpus in the Gothic
taste, then becoming fashionable. His design, which he executed between
1823 and 1827, was highly praised, and during the next ten years he
left some notable marks of his hand in Cambridge. The great court of
Corpus is a singular instance of the fluctuation of taste. What was then
considered handsome—it was certainly audacious—is to-day an eye-sore. The
proportions of the great court are noble, and everything is conceived on
a grand scale. The Hall and Library are both fine apartments, and the
Chapel is commanding; but the whole building is shallow, and its detail
is flimsy and jejune. All Wilkins’ work, here, at King’s and at Trinity,
deserves careful study; for it shows how the architects of the first half
of the century, with the experience of past ages at their command, failed
even in the elementary matter of imitation.
* * * * *
Corpus has the singular distinction of having been founded by a Gild.
The Gild or Benefit Society was an important institution in medieval
Cambridge, and each church had one attached to it. Somewhere towards
the end of the thirteenth century, when the festival of Corpus Christi
was become a recognised feast of the Church, a society of this kind was
founded in the parish of St Bene’t, and took the title of Corpus Christi
in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. What induced the corporation to found
a college is unknown; its action is at all events a testimony to the love
of learning which was spreading at this time among the middle classes.
In 1352, it obtained a charter from Edward III. for the foundation of
a college. The alderman of the Gild at this date was Henry, Duke of
Lancaster, cousin to the King. One gild, however, was not sufficient to
carry out the work of itself, and the Gild of Corpus Christi achieved
its desire by uniting itself with the Gild of Our Lady, which was
connected with St Mary’s by the Market, the present University Church.
To this union the College owes its coat of arms. In two out of the four
quarters we see the “pelican in her piety,” the emblem of the Blessed
Sacrament; in the other two are the lilies emblematic of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. Another interesting person connected with the foundation
is John Goldcorne, an ex-alderman of the Gild of Corpus Christi. He
had generously given some of his property to Bishop Bateman when the
bishop removed Caius College to its present site. He gave Corpus the
fine drinking-horn which still is the chief piece of plate in the rich
collection belonging to the house. It was probably the horn used at
feasts of the Gild; it is one of the best specimens of the kind in
existence.
Thomas of Eltisley, a village between Cambridge and St Neots, was the
first master. Like most other colleges, its medieval history is not very
extraordinary. Like most other colleges, too, its scholars “kept” their
chapels in a parish church, the adjacent church of St Bene’t. College
and church have always been closely connected, and even to-day, when
the college has ceased to bear its familiar name of Bene’t College, the
advowson of St Bene’t’s is in its gift. In process of time, it built the
south chancel aisle, which it reserved for itself. This was divided into
two stories, an upper and an under, and was entered from the gallery
which still exists between the church and the old court. Finally, in the
sixteenth century, Sir Nicholas Bacon,* the famous Lord Keeper, who had
been educated at Corpus, gave the structure of a chapel. This was built
almost on the site of the present one. It is characteristic of the age
that, to build this chapel, stone was taken from the dissolved abbey of
Thorney and from Barnwell Priory.
Matthew Parker, master from 1544 to 1553, was the great ornament of the
college at this period. He is more famous as Archbishop of Canterbury
than as a don, but Corpus holds his name in great honour. His great
collection of manuscripts is preserved in the Library. The bequest was
accompanied by one of those odd provisions by which benefactors ensured
the jealous care of their possessions after their death. If twenty-five
manuscripts are lost, the collection is to go to Caius; if Caius is
guilty of neglect, it passes to Trinity Hall. The provision is rigidly
attended to, and the inspection of the manuscripts is an affair of great
circumstance, for which the presence of the librarian, a fellow and a
scholar is necessary. Perhaps the most historical document in the Library
is the original draft of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Parker also left some
very valuable plate to the college, cups and apostle-spoons. There is a
portrait of him in the Hall, and another in the Master’s Lodge.
Corpus has a distinguished roll of Elizabethan worthies. Besides
Sir Nicholas Bacon and Parker, we find the names of two dramatists,
Christopher Marlowe, one of the greatest of all, and Giles Fletcher, the
collaborator of Beaumont. The father of the latter was also a member
of the college, and became Bishop, first of Bristol, then of London.
George Wishart, the Scottish martyr, was here at some time early in the
sixteenth century. In 1590 John Jegon* became master. Afterwards, as
Bishop of Norwich, Jegon was not a great success: as Master of Corpus his
strictness made him unpopular. There is a story that he fined some of the
scholars for a breach of rules, and applied the proceeds to the repair of
the college. One of the delinquents afterwards wrote on a wall of the
college this couplet,
Dr Jegon, Bene’t College Master,
Broke the scholars’ heads and gave the wall a plaster.
Beneath this elegant conceit Jegon wrote a distich of his own.
Knew I but the wag that wrote this verse in bravery,
I’d commend him for his wit, but whip him for his knavery.
Jegon was Vice-Chancellor from 1596 to 1601, and his arms appear on
the plaster ceiling of the old Senate House, now incorporated in the
University Library. His brother Thomas succeeded him at Corpus and was
also Vice-Chancellor in 1609. Both brothers died in 1618.
During the Commonwealth Richard Love* was Master, and was also Dean of
Ely as long as deaneries were suffered to exist. At the Restoration,
Peter Gunning became master for a year, and then passed to St John’s.
Gunning’s part in Church History is well known, and his short residence
may be esteemed an honourable item in the history of the college. Seven
years after his time, another scholar of repute became master, John
Spencer (* Van der Myn), Dean of Ely, and author of a book _De Legibus
Hebraeorum_. Corpus has always been rich in ecclesiastics. It produced
a second Archbishop of Canterbury in Thomas Tenison* who is famous
for his interest in education and his benefactions to schools. In the
next generation another Primate, Thomas Herring,* came from Corpus.
An Archbishop of York belonging to the foundation was Richard Sterne,
afterwards Master of Jesus and grandfather of the great sentimentalist.
Matthias Mawson,* master from 1724 to 1744, was elevated in 1740 to the
Bishoprick of Chichester and translated in 1754 to Ely. On the other
hand, Samuel Wesley was also at Corpus, so that modern Methodism, the
creation of his famous sons, may look with reverence upon the college.
The Master’s Lodge contains a very complete series of portraits, but the
later masters are none of them very noticeable. It cannot be said that
the heads of houses during the early part of the present century were
interesting beings, although they themselves were not without positive
convictions on the point. Dr John Lamb (* Sir W. Beechey), was master
from 1822 to 1850, and supplemented his office with the Deanery of
Bristol. His mastership was signalised by the entire rebuilding of the
college under William Wilkins. Whether the copy of Raffaelle’s School
of Athens (attributed to Poussin) which this radical builder presented
to the college is sufficient compensation for the damage inflicted in
a matter of doubt. The present buildings have nourished some excellent
scholars. Of living celebrities the three brothers Perowne may be
mentioned—Bishop, Master, and Archdeacon. The portrait of Dr E. H.
Perowne in the Hall is by Rudolph Lehmann; that of his brother, the
Bishop of Worcester, is by the Hon. John Collier. The late librarian,
Samuel S. Lewis (* Brock) was a world-wide authority on gems. His
collection, containing many of the finest engraved gems existing, now
belongs to the college, forming a treasure little inferior to Archbishop
Parker’s manuscripts. And, turning to the religious memories of Corpus,
no one who appreciates a life of entire self-sacrifice and devotion will
fail to pay a tribute to the portrait of Thomas Ragland, Fellow of the
College, and missionary to Tinnevelly. It will be seen that the history
of Corpus is throughout almost entirely ecclesiastical, and it is still
a favourite college for undergraduates who wish to proceed to Holy
Orders. Among its latest honours has been the elevation of its librarian,
Dr Harmer, to the Bishoprick of Adelaide. Although one of the smaller
foundations, its priceless collections give Corpus an importance second
to that of very few colleges, while the unique history of its foundation
singles it out from the rest.
IX
KING’S COLLEGE
Henry VI. is the most famous of the founders of colleges in Cambridge,
but his plan has been adhered to least of all. King’s has gone through
several vicissitudes. The magnificent chapel stood south, not north, of
the original college. That college was to have consisted of four courts;
the fourth was to be on the other side of the river, and a covered
bridge was to lead to it, as to the present fourth court of St John’s.
As at Wykeham’s Oxford College, with which King’s has so many points
of resemblance, the west end of the chapel was to be supplemented with
cloisters and an ample tower. Only one court was built, which now is
part of the University Library. The college has been transferred to the
other side of the chapel, and consists of a scattered series of more or
less modern buildings. From some points of view, the change is to be
regretted, but, had it not been made, we should have lost the unique
view of King’s and Clare from the Backs, which disputes the honours of
Cambridge with the Trinity lime walk.
[Illustration: King’s College]
King’s Chapel was very nearly a century in building. Henry VI. laid its
foundation stone on July 25th, 1446, and the workmen continued at it till
1479 or thereabout. Edward IV. gave £1000 towards it, but the works lay
idle till 1508, when Henry VII. came forward with £5000. Another £5000
was paid over by his executors in 1513, and in 1515 the chapel stood for
the first time as it stands now. The stained glass was added under two
contracts, one bearing date 1516, the second 1526. In 1536 the screen and
most of the stalls were added, and in 1774 Essex spoiled the east end
with some inferior Gothic wood carving, which, fortunately, has lately
been removed.
This is the history of the main fabric. As a building, its faults are
shared in common by all its contemporaries. It is possible to accuse
King’s Chapel of monotony, and it must be confessed that its constant
repetition of the same ornaments all over its surface shows a lack of
invention. But it may be said without any doubt that no building raised
in Europe after 1500 is so pure a specimen of Gothic as this; and, with
all its faults, and especially its strong tendency to mere bigness,
it stands first in beauty among those of our churches which are not
cathedrals—that is, after Westminster Abbey. The exterior, with its
corner turrets, its row of tall windows, its flanking chantries and its
immense buttresses, is simple in design and gorgeous in execution. The
north and south porches, which are exceptionally good for their date,
afford a certain relief from the general sameness. Internally, the charm
of the general effect is extraordinary, and every Cambridge man must
have felt it at some time or other. Its length is 316 feet, its breadth
45½ feet, its height 78 feet; and this vast area is flooded with the
exquisite colours of the stained windows. Even the roof, an unbroken
expanse of that development of vaulting known as fan tracery, must give
the palm to the windows. Without its stained glass, King’s Chapel would
be, like the Lady Chapel at Ely, merely an interesting relic. As it is,
it is the rival of Fairford as the possessor of the most complete set
of windows of the Renaissance period in England. Indeed, it would be
difficult to find their parallel anywhere. Troyes is full of glass of
the period, and, intrinsically, the windows of one of its churches, St
Martin-ès-Vignes, are of equal interest, although much later. For depth
of colour and systematic treatment these cannot be matched. They form
a connected exposition of the Gospel History, proceeding by type and
antitype from the conception of the Blessed Virgin, through the life of
Our Lord and the apostolic history to the Virgin’s death. In each window
there is an isolated figure or “messenger” between the compartments,
who bears a scroll with an appropriate Latin text. Thus the windows
embodied the whole plan of salvation, showing the type, the prophecy and
the fulfilment. They culminate, in the east window, in the central fact
of the Crucifixion. The west window, representing, in accordance with
general custom, the Last Judgment, is modern (Clayton and Bell) and is in
very fair, although far from complete harmony with the older glass. The
merit of the latter is not sustained all through, and the windows on the
south side, nearest the altar, are coarsely treated in comparison with
the rest.[3] Mr C. E. Kempe is at present restoring the windows dealing
with the lives of Joachim, Anna, and the Blessed Virgin, which suffered
from the enemies of so-called popery.
[Illustration: King’s College Chapel]
There are a thousand things to notice other than the windows. I have
mentioned the roof. To understand its construction it is necessary to
pay a visit to the space between the roofs, where the whole skeleton of
the vaulting is to be seen and its wonderful engineering appreciated.
The woodwork of the chapel is good, especially the screen, a very fine
and graceful example of that Italian style which filtered into England
through the court of Francis I. It bears the love-knot and twisted
initials of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. The organ-case upon it belongs
to 1606; the organ itself was built eighty years later by Renatus
Harris, but has been almost entirely renewed since. The canopies of the
choir-stalls are only a little older than the organ, and look best at a
distance. Then there is the stone-carving in the antechapel, where the
great coats-of-arms and supporters, the rose and portcullis of Henry VII.
are repeated over and over again. Lastly, in the series of chantries
there are one or two interesting brasses. Provost Hacombleyn’s chantry,
on the south side, commemorates the provost who gave the beautiful
lectern. He died in 1528, and is buried here. The window contains some
good old glass; a portrait of Henry VI. and two pictures of Our Lady and
St Nicholas of Myra, who are the patrons of the chapel. In the centre of
the chantry is the altar tomb of Lord Blandford, only son of the great
Duke of Marlborough. He died here in 1703.
For two hundred years after the completion of the chapel, the old
northern court sufficed. To the south of the chapel was the Provost’s
Lodge, which stood against the last bay, and, with other college
buildings, bordered the western side of King’s Parade. In 1724 James
Gibbs began the present buildings with his beautiful classical pile,
which runs at right angles to the chapel from near its south-west corner.
Fellows’ Building is in Gibbs’ best manner. It is an extremely plain
building, with a rusticated basement and a great central opening, which
runs through the first two stories and cuts into the third. This may be
thought an unnecessary intrusion, but Gibbs had dispensed with an order
throughout the building, and some relief was imperative. At any rate, the
chief defect of this part of King’s is its hideous chimney-stacks, which
are only too visible from the street.
Just a century later William Wilkins, who was rearing marvellous edifices
in the Gothic mode, was let loose on King’s. He began with the space
opposite the chapel, and built the long row which includes the Hall,
Combination Room, Library, Provost’s Lodge, and several sets of rooms.
This row begins at King’s Parade and continues past the southern end of
Gibbs’ Building to within a short distance of the river—nearly 200 yards
of supremely bad imitation Gothic. In this range of buildings the Hall
is the only one which attracts much attention. It is large and gloomy,
with a gallery at each end, and an elaborate plaster roof copied from
Crosby Hall. Sir Robert Walpole has the place of honour above the high
table, but there are very few portraits, and the best is that of the late
Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian. Wilkins was not satisfied with his
undertaking. In 1828 he proceeded to lay King’s open to the road. The
old Lodge was taken down, and a Gothic screen thrown across from the New
Building to the south-east corner of the chapel. In the middle of this
is the gateway, famous under many nicknames. To say that this fanciful
structure is ugly is not strictly true: it has a very distinguished air
about it, but it belongs decidedly to the era of the Brighton Pavilion.
It would be appropriate in any country but England, and under any other
name but Gothic.
Sir Gilbert Scott added the small court known as Chetwynd Court some
forty years later. Its eastern side follows King’s Parade in a line with
the end of Wilkins’ Building, and the face opposite Free School Lane
is adorned with a statue of Henry VIII. Scott was too conservative and
kept to Wilkins’ style too much; the result is not very successful. It
was reserved for Mr G. F. Bodley to build the beautiful river court,
which was completed on two sides in 1893. Bodley’s Building is the
architectural success of Cambridge in the present century, and compares
very well with the same artist’s court at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Its style is late fifteenth century: it consists of a ground-floor,
two stories, and a gabled attic. The corner-staircase and the oriel of
the south side are the chief features, for the use of ornament is very
sparing. The rose and portcullis are introduced in places, and on the
western end, which drops into the river, are carved the arms of Eton,
King’s, and the tutelary see of Lincoln.
The only other buildings which remain to be mentioned are the
last-century bridge, crossing the river by a single span, and the
choir-school, a very handsome red-brick building in the meadows west of
the college. It deserves notice as one of the very few really pretty
dwelling-houses round Cambridge, and as an integral part of this noble
and unique foundation.
* * * * *
In examining the motives which led to the foundation of the various
colleges, it is interesting to observe how many of them were suggested by
similar and almost contemporary foundations at Oxford. One may safely say
that the boundary-line between the middle ages and the new learning of
the Renaissance was crossed when William of Wykeham founded his colleges
of St Mary at Winchester and Oxford. The political importance of William
of Wykeham and of his successors in the see of Winchester made their work
very conspicuous: two of them, William of Waynflete and Richard Foxe,
during their tenure of the see, proved no less munificent benefactors to
Oxford than Wykeham had been. The connection of the see of Winchester
with the Renaissance forced itself upon everybody’s attention. Henry VI.
was especially impressed with it. Two bishops, Cardinal Beaufort and
Waynflete, played a prominent part at his court; and it is to the latter
that we doubtless owe many hints for the foundation of King’s College.
However, at first, Henry VI. undertook the work without any idea of
uniting it with his school at Eton. The college which he incorporated in
1440 was a very humble affair. It was restricted to a master and twelve
scholars, and the space chosen for it was small and inconvenient. One
of the main arteries of Cambridge ran west of it; the whole site of the
present buildings was blocked up with houses; the form of the court had
to be adapted to its narrow and cramped position. But, two years later,
the king’s plans matured. His foundation of 1443 took a much larger
form. It converted King’s into a finishing-school, as it were, for his
Highness’ poor scholars of Eton. The dedication of the college was
changed. Hitherto, in reference to the saint who presided over Henry’s
birthday, it had been called the King’s College of St Nicholas. It now
added St Mary, the patroness of Eton, to its title. Thus it became an
exact counterpart of New College at Oxford. Although Henry projected his
buildings on a far more magnificent scale than anything of which Wykeham
had dreamed, they had nevertheless a certain resemblance to the Oxford
buildings. The plan includes a great tower and a cloister west of it,
such as were built at Oxford. On the whole, the Founder must have been
thinking very closely of the colleges at Winchester and Oxford, when he
set his hand to this splendid work. He made Waynflete, then Warden of
Winchester, Provost of Eton; and Waynflete was the guiding spirit of the
charter by which the two communities were regulated.[4]
The first provost of King’s came from the opposite side of the street.
His name was William Millington, a fellow of Clare. We are told that
he was “set back for factious favouring of Yorkshiremen.” At any
rate, Waynflete probably held the reins of both foundations until his
translation to Winchester, which took place in 1447. Among the earliest
members of the college are one or two famous names. Nicholas Close or
Cloose, Bishop, first of Carlisle and afterwards of Lichfield, was
certainly the overseer of the new chapel and perhaps its architect.
Thomas Rotherham, whose name is so closely connected with the history
of both universities, was fellow of King’s, and gave £140 to the chapel.
His portrait is in the Hall. Rather younger than these was Oliver King,
Bishop of Exeter, who afterwards distinguished himself as Bishop of Bath
and Wells. The immense Perpendicular building of Bath Abbey, which is due
to his energy, is clearly suggested by King’s Chapel, and reproduces many
of its details. John Chedworth, who is actually the first provost of the
new foundation, became Bishop of Lincoln. His successor, Robert Woodlark,
was the founder of St Catharine’s College. Another remarkable man of the
end of the fifteenth century was Nicholas West, whose conduct as fellow
was extremely indecorous. His temper was naturally hasty, and, when he
was defeated in his candidature for a proctorship, he made an attempt
to set the Provost’s Lodge on fire. Being baulked in this endeavour, he
ran off with the college spoons. What action the college took is not
recorded, but we are informed that, after this ebullition of temper, the
quarrelsome fellow “became a new man, D.D., and Bishop of Ely.” Not only
did he combine these three attributes, but, in penitence for his wild
design on the Provost’s Lodge, built part of it. This was, of course, the
old Provost’s Lodge, south-east of the chapel.
Penitence, too, moved Henry VII. to finish the chapel. As a member of
the House of Lancaster, his hereditary duty compelled him to complete
a work which even Edward IV. had found pleasure in favouring; while,
as one of the most extortionate and unjust kings who were establishing
their thrones about that time, his conscience invited him to do something
as an _amende honorable_ for his misdeeds. King’s College was already
looked upon as a royal legacy, and all the kings in their turn were well
disposed to it, but none promoted its welfare so much as Henry VII.,
although his benefits were chiefly posthumous. The provost to whom the
task fell of seeing that Henry’s bequests were rightly fulfilled was
Robert Hacombleyn, who also had a reputation in his time as a commentator
on Aristotle. He lies buried in one of the chantries south of the
antechapel. He was succeeded by Edward Fox, a native of Gloucestershire,
who was provost from 1528 to 1538. Fox was a reformer, but it is said of
him that he had “prudence to avoid persecution.” He was essentially a
diplomatist, and held the Bishoprick of Hereford during the last three
years of his provostship. He was busily engaged by Henry VIII. in the
matter of the divorce, and was sent to Clement VII., Stephen Gardiner
being his companion. Afterwards he was ambassador to France and Germany,
and finally to the Schmalkaldic League, when Henry, in his new-fangled
zeal for the Reformation, felt disposed to join that body. At King’s he
was followed by George Day, who filled the office till 1548, and held the
see of Chichester with it.
Henry VIII. was a benefactor to King’s as well as his father. He had
other foundations of his own to look after, however, and seems to
have regarded King’s as a good recruiting-ground for Christ Church at
Oxford—the college whose glory really belongs to Wolsey. Among those
students of Eton and King’s whom we find thus transferred is Robert
Aldrich. Aldrich has not much to do with King’s, but was Master, Fellow,
and finally Provost of Eton, and, after several promotions, became Bishop
of Carlisle, where he remained until 1556, having successfully weathered
all the religious storms of his age. Another very prominent member of the
college was Richard Cox, fellow in 1519. His strong Lutheran opinions
brought him into favour after the divorce. He had been a Canon of
Wolsey’s original Cardinal College; in 1546 he was made Dean of Christ
Church. He was also tutor to Edward VI. As a commissioner at Oxford, he
displayed great fury against the papists, and, at Mary’s accession, not
unnaturally fled to Strasburg, where he had the congenial society of
Peter Martyr Vermigli. As Bishop of Ely from 1559 to 1582, he had time to
modify his opinions, and it is recorded of him that he hated puritans as
much as papists. Queen Elizabeth is said to have disliked him; he must
certainly have been very far from her mind.
To the names of these ecclesiastics we may add that of Edward Hall,
fellow of King’s, who claimed direct descent from Albert II. of Austria,
and retired to Oxford. Richard Croke was a learned Grecian of King’s,
who went to Oxford in order to be near Grocyn. He found patrons in the
munificent Warham and Sir Thomas More, and was one of that _coterie_
which included Colet and Erasmus. After he had travelled abroad and
lectured in Greek at Leipsic and Louvain, he returned to England
and became Professor of Greek at Cambridge. This was in 1522. Later
on, he was engaged in the divorce, acting as Counsel to the Italian
Universities, and was made a Canon of Christ Church in 1532. He died in
1588 as Rector of Long Buckby. Yet another of his class was Dr Richard
Mulcaster, who, at a somewhat later period, transferred his talent and
vast learning to Oxford, and finally became famous as Master of Merchant
Taylors’ School.
Very seldom has royalty appeared at Cambridge with such magnificence as
on the occasion of Elizabeth’s visit in 1564. Although her actual abode
was at Queens’ College, she spent most of her time in King’s Chapel. The
provost at this time was Dr Philip Baker, who had succeeded Dr Brassie
in 1558. Elizabeth was in her element: she was in a seat of learning,
and wanted to show herself as profound as any of them. She rode to hear
Te Deum and evensong at King’s, dressed in the most gorgeous apparel
which even she could assume. At the door the public orator praised
her in long-winded Latin. When his compliments tended to the fulsome,
she said “_Non est veritas_,” when they passed probability, she said
“_Utinam!_” Next day was Sunday, and the politic Chancellor, Andrew Perne
of Peterhouse, who had burned corpses to please her sister, made a Latin
sermon before her on the text “Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers”—a command which he himself had obeyed to the letter. The Queen
was highly pleased. Indeed, most of her visit was occupied in hearing
Latin disputations, and nothing delighted her so much as the Latin of
Matthew Hutton, who laid the foundation of his fortune by this means. On
the Sunday, after Dr Perne’s sermon, she again attended King’s Chapel for
evensong; and, in the evening, having performed her religious duties so
well, the Virgin Queen once more returned to the antechapel and witnessed
the _Aulularia_ of Plautus. This must have vexed the good puritans of
the day! It is necessary to remark that the use of college chapels for
dramatic purposes was very common, and nothing was thought of it. The
Commencements in Great St Mary’s were infinitely more impious ceremonies.
Even now, when a mastership falls vacant, many college chapels are used
for the conclave of fellows, as the chapel ensures more privacy than any
other part of the buildings.
Dr Philip Baker, who took part in these solemn revels, was succeeded in
1569 by Dr Roger Goade, a very serious divine. His son was present at
the Synod of Dort, a fact indicative of the family’s opinions. King’s
produced, indeed, during the Tudor period, a large number of grave and
weighty persons. Sir John Cheke had been provost during the reign of
Edward VI., and, together with the violently Protestant Walter Haddon,
then fellow, and afterwards Master of Trinity Hall, had done important
work as an ecclesiastical lawyer. Then there was Giles Fletcher, brother
of the Bishop of London and uncle of the dramatist. This remarkable man
was Ambassador to the Court of Muscovy in 1588, and concluded a treaty of
commerce with Ivan the Terrible. His book “Of the Russe Commonwealthe”
has been an indispensable authority for all subsequent historians of
Russia. He was made Treasurer of St Paul’s in 1597. A more famous name
still is that of Sir Francis Walsingham, the great minister of Elizabeth.
He was a fellow commoner and left many valuable books to the library. Dr
Thomas Wylson, fellow of the college, was also a well-known politician of
the same reign. He was tutor to Elizabeth’s cousins, the young Brandons,
Dukes of Suffolk, and was ambassador to Holland in 1576. In 1577, he
became Secretary of State, and, in 1579 Dean of Durham. It is said of him
that he was “master of every subject.” His correspondence forms part of
the Harleian MSS.
At Dr Goade’s death, in 1610, we approach dangerous times. Dr Benjamin
Whichcot, a liberal puritan, became master in 1644. It is generally
supposed that his friendship with the Earl of Manchester, who occupied
Cambridge for the Parliament, was the salvation of the stained glass in
the chapel. He was far too learned a man to be bigoted, and was more of
the type of Milton than of the ordinary puritan divine. Dr Whichcot
was a classic, and advised young preachers to imitate Demosthenes and
Cicero. The gentle and metaphysical Cudworth was his friend, and he died
at Cudworth’s house in 1683, having been dispossessed of the provostship
since 1660. His memory was held long afterwards in great esteem, and a
selection from his discourses was edited by the third Lord Shaftesbury,
the pupil of John Locke and author of the _Characteristics_.
Of a very opposite type to Dr Whichcot was the mathematician William
Oughtred, author of a book called _Clavis Mathematica_, and an adept
in archery. One writer says of him that “Mathematics were not only
recreation to him, but Epicurism.” In spite of this devotion to abstract
sciences, he was an ardent royalist, and, on hearing of the Restoration,
died of joy. Edmund Waller, the poet, was also at King’s about the
same time. We may imagine that his ecstasy at the Restoration took a
more substantial form. Another type of don altogether is shown us in
Dr William Gage, who attended chapel without a break for nine years,
and read fifteen chapters of Holy Scripture every day of his life. This
exemplary gentleman received the living of St Anne, Blackfriars, where he
died in 1653.
After the Restoration, the list of provosts becomes uninteresting, and
the college history becomes a very ordinary record. The privileges of
the foundation were strengthened with age. It was very conservative and
adhered very closely to the Founder’s plan, while other colleges were
opening their doors more widely and competition was becoming a recognised
part of university life. It was autonomous: its members did not proceed
to public examinations in the schools, but gained their degree by an
examination of their own. An Eton Foundation Scholarship was the almost
inevitable prelude to a scholarship and finally a fellowship at King’s.
Under such circumstances the history of a college, however sound its
scholarship, is likely to be rather quiet. In other respects, too,
the existence of King’s has been isolated. Its visitor is the Bishop
of Lincoln, and the college is a peculiar in the diocese of Lincoln.
It also enjoyed the unique privilege of being exempt from proctorial
jurisdiction, and many a refugee from the proctor’s mild justice has
sought sanctuary in King’s without fear of extradition treaties.
It is not, however, to be supposed that this noble college was at any
time without its worthies. Sir William Temple was educated here. Although
his name is doubtless an ornament to the college, he must have been
an insufferable thorn in the side of his pastors and masters, for he
was the last man in the world to have an ill conceit of himself. Two
more genial names appear later. In the absence of a portrait of the
Founder, a painting of Sir Robert Walpole hangs at the end of the hall.
He was always a loving son of the college, and his son, the even more
famous Horace,* was here as well. Charles Pratt, Earl Camden* and Lord
Chancellor of England, is another name connected with the college; and
Townshend, a third statesman of the Georgian era, was likewise brought
up at Eton and King’s. To turn aside from politics to the path of pure
learning, we find a very prodigy in the person of Thomas Hyde, afterwards
Archdeacon of Gloucester. At the age of eighteen he performed the
almost incredible task, which till then had been deemed impossible, of
transcribing the Persian Pentateuch out of its Hebrew characters. It is
scarcely surprising to find that this precocious divine did not shine in
ordinary conversation. But his learning met its recompense in a Canonry
at Christ Church, and Hebraists of his own age did not scruple to reckon
him equal as an Orientalist to Bochert and Pococke.
The name of Sumner occurs twice in the list of provosts, once in 1756
and again in 1797, and, among others of the name, John Bird Sumner,*
the famous Archbishop of Canterbury, was a King’s man. Earlier in the
century lived the painfully erudite William Coxe,* who, as Archdeacon
of Wiltshire, devoted his attention to the Duke of Marlborough and the
Hapsburg family. His researches, although their method is antiquated and
their style is hopelessly dull, are yet invaluable to the student, and
his name is not by any means the least among those of the historians
whom Cambridge has produced. But to the majority of persons, the
ecclesiastical celebrities of King’s are overshadowed by the fame of
Charles Simeon, who was a fellow of the college for considerably more
than half a century and, during that time, was a parish priest of the
town. He was the chief of those men who roused the Church of England
from her last-century apathy and revived her ancient fervour. Although
his position was, owing to circumstances, somewhat more restricted, he
was to Cambridge of his day what Cosin and Andrewes had been to the
Cambridge of theirs, and the influence which he exercised from Cambridge
over the length and breadth of England was almost unbounded. He is buried
in the antechapel of King’s beneath a stone on which his initials are
engraved, and there is a bust of him in the University Library. The
traditions which he left to King’s have never been entirely lost. The
Church of England has had few more devoted sons than the late George
Williams, who, as fellow of King’s, advocated warmly the establishment of
friendly relations with the churches of the East. Older members of the
university still remember him as “Jerusalem” Williams. And, although his
life was very retired and he was seldom absent for any length of time
from Cambridge, the late William Ralph Churton, Canon of St Alban’s, was
for the last forty years of his life probably the most active of all the
English clergy in promoting missionary work and extending the Church in
the colonies.
In mentioning these names, there are others which have been necessarily
omitted. The episcopal list of the college is a long one, and includes,
among many more prelates, the famous names of Edmund Gheast, Bishop of
Rochester and Jewel’s successor at Salisbury; William Wickham, Bishop
of Lincoln and afterwards the second Bishop of that name at Winchester;
and John Pearson, Bishop of Chester, who, first a fellow here, was
subsequently Master of Trinity. Among noblemen, the great ambassador,
Stratford Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (* Herkomer),
occupies a conspicuous place. Among ordinary laymen, we find Roger
Lupton, a Jacobean worthy, founder of Sedbergh School; and, much later,
the poet, Thomas Lisle Bowles. In the antechapel, a plain stone covers
the remains of Dr Richard Okes, provost from 1850 to 1889. And close by,
under a similar stone, is buried Henry Bradshaw (* Herkomer), University
Librarian, one of the finest scholars of the century, who opened a new
epoch in the history of liturgical study. By the side of the south door
will be found a tablet in memory of the late James Kenneth Stephen,
an incomparable orator, whose little volumes of verse proved him the
successor of Calverley among Cambridge poets.
Within the last twenty years the college has undergone a complete change.
It is no longer the exclusively Etonian college which it was. Its
scholarships, with the exception of a very few, have been thrown open to
all competitors, and the large majority of undergraduates now at King’s
have never been at Eton. Although, from the standpoint of the lover of
antiquity, this departure from the Founder’s scheme is to be seriously
regretted, yet it cannot but be admitted that, in the present century,
the exclusive scheme is impracticable, and newer methods have to be
followed. At all events, the plan works very well, and in no generation
is King’s likely to lose its prestige, nor is that _esprit de corps_
which “Henry’s holy shade” seems to inspire, at all likely to diminish.
X
QUEENS’ COLLEGE
[Illustration: Queens’]
Queens’ disputes with Jesus the honour of being the most picturesque
college in Cambridge, and both are none the less picturesque because they
hide themselves away in a corner. Dates are here a little difficult to
determine, for the gate-tower and the two brick courts from King’s Lane
to the river are strongly marked with the stamp of medieval religion, and
part of the side towards Silver Street has an air of undiluted antiquity
which, in Cambridge, it is refreshing to recognise. Still, supposing the
present buildings to have been begun about 1475, the gate-tower cannot
have been finished long before 1500. This is clear if we compare it with
the towers at Jesus, Christ’s and St John’s, all of which were built
between 1497 and 1520, Jesus being the earliest of all. This is not the
most conspicuous of them, but it is the boldest, and the arrangement of
its corner turrets is especially admirable. The court on which it opens
is small and simple, and its features are very much the same as those
which appear in the oldest parts of St John’s. The Hall on the west side
is a restoration of the old Hall, which was brought into agreement with
last century taste. It has a pleasant interior, and the woodwork of the
doors is good. On the north side of the court is the curious sun-dial
constructed by Sir Isaac Newton; the turret on which it is displayed
is modern, but is an excellent ornament to the court. Beneath it is a
passage to the more modern part of the college, east of which is the old
chapel, a Perpendicular building much modernised by Essex in 1773.
Through the hall screens is the second court, surrounded by low,
tunnel-like cloisters with plain, wide openings in each bay. This
charming court owes a great deal of its beauty to the President’s Lodge,
which occupies the whole of the northern side. This quaint Elizabethan
building, with its high gables and bulging sides, appears to advantage
from every point, and the oriels of its picture-gallery, so arranged
that, none being opposite another, the light is equally distributed
throughout, go to make an exquisite picture which can hardly be excelled.
On the opposite side of the court, however, is the small enclosure which,
although known as Erasmus Court, has very little to remind us of Erasmus.
Essex, who did so much harm in Cambridge, rebuilt this corner of the
college in his formal manner about 1773. From the wooden bridge at the
end of the court, the damage done by this addition to the river façade
can be properly estimated. The bridge itself dates from 1746, and is said
to have been designed by Newton on a geometrical principle. It leads to
the small garden known as Erasmus’ Walk.
[Illustration: The Bridge
Queens’ College]
Returning to the eastern side of the college, we find, north of the first
court, a wing in line with the gateway-tower, continuing the front of
the college along King’s Lane. This, which was built about 1617, is not
very remarkable, and appears to have been intended for use rather than
ornament. Everything north of this is modern. The northernmost range of
chambers was built by Mr W. M. Fawcett in 1886. Although it is very good
in its way, its juxtaposition to the new court of King’s is fatal to its
beauty. Here, too, Mr Bodley has been at work. His new chapel, the most
recent addition to the buildings, is a pretty but not a very successful
piece of work. The interior is elaborately fitted with a very complete
set of stalls, and the organ-case and reredos are very fair reproductions
of medieval painting. Mr Kempe’s windows and the Flemish altar-piece
deserve admiration, but the south side of the building has been spoiled
by some very poor glass by Hardman, taken from the old chapel. Queens’,
on the whole, if we except the President’s Lodge, depends on its
delightful general effect rather than on any very special architectural
merit.
* * * * *
In 1446 Andrew Doket, rector of St Botolph’s Church, founded the College
of St Bernard for a president and four fellows. The site which he chose
for his foundation was east of the present college, and comprehended
an oblong strip of ground running from what was then Milne Street
eastwards to Trumpington Street—in fact, part of the site occupied by
St Catharine’s. Doket, who may be regarded as a second Edmund Gonville,
was first president of his college. However, his original idea was small
and its success was scarcely inevitable. Henry VI. had just founded his
splendid college at the other end of Milne Street, and Doket conceived
the happy idea of inducing his queen to perpetuate her name in the same
way. Margaret of Anjou, who was then, as Mr Atkinson points out, only
fifteen years old, showed great readiness in emulating her husband. She
consented in 1448 to refound the college under the name of the Queen’s
College of St Margaret and St Bernard, and petitioned Henry for a
charter, which was readily granted. The buildings were begun about this
time on the present site. The history of Queens’ College thus offers an
interesting parallel to that of the similarly named college at Oxford. In
both cases the first idea is due to a clerk in holy orders, who invites
the reigning queen to occupy his foundation. Margaret of Anjou has been
since looked upon as the chief foundress and benefactress of the college.
In gratitude, the society adopted her coat-of-arms, and, although this
was superseded no less than three times by other devices, it was adopted
again in 1575, and is now, with the addition of a bordure, the escutcheon
of the college. This magnificent piece of heraldry, which attracts all
eyes by its prominent situation in the first court, recalls the claims
of the House of Anjou to European sovereignty. The unfortunate history
of Margaret’s father, René of Provence, and her brother, the Duke of
Calabria, is the key to the shield. Its quarterings include the arms of
the kingdoms of Hungary, the two Sicilies and Jerusalem in the upper
half, and, in the lower, those of the county of Anjou and the Duchies of
Bar and Lorraine.
The thirty-six years of Doket’s presidency were interrupted by the Wars
of the Roses, which prevented the building from going on. Doket, however,
like so many heads of houses in subsequent years, had an affection for
his college which hindered him from displaying any political prejudice.
In 1465, when Edward IV. was firmly established on the English throne,
he applied for help to Queen Elizabeth Wydvil. This lady owed her
position at court to a situation in Queen Margaret’s retinue, and she
readily accepted his offer. Just as her husband helped on the building
of the chapel of King’s, she extended her aid to this other Lancastrian
foundation, and, under her protection, the work of building proceeded.
The only alterations due to Yorkist patronage were a new coat-of-arms
for the college, and the change of the title from Queen’s College in the
singular to Queens’ College in the plural. The invocation of St Margaret
and St Bernard was retained without alteration. The floriated cross of St
Margaret and St Bernard’s crosier are to be seen upon the groined roof of
the gateway, and, later on, when Richard III. gave a new coat-of-arms to
the college in place of that granted by Edward IV., these emblems appear
surmounted by the well-known boar’s head.
Doket died in 1484, and was succeeded by Thomas Wilkinson, whose rule
lasted till 1505. Then followed the three years during which John Fisher,
the celebrated Bishop of Rochester, was president. This great man was
one of that band of scholars and divines who reformed the state of
learning in England. Queens’ College probably owes to him the chief
episode in its history, the residence of Erasmus* within its walls. It
is improbable that Erasmus was at Queens’ during Fisher’s presidency,
as has been so generally supposed. He was invited to England by Henry
VIII. soon after 1509, and Fisher had given up the presidency in 1508.
No doubt, Fisher advised Erasmus, who, as Fuller says, “might have
_pickt_ and _chose_ what house he pleased,” to the cloistral seclusion
of Queens’; and this is more likely than the somewhat far-fetched
alternative that he was “allured with the situation of this Colledge
so near the River, as Rotterdam his native place to the Sea.” In fact,
Erasmus was simply allured to Cambridge by the prospect of work, and
does not seem to have enjoyed life there at all. Three of his letters
are dated from Queens’ by name, and they, as well as the rest written
from no particular address in Cambridge, prove that he regarded his work
there as a _pis aller_. He complained of his situation, his food and
drink. Cambridge beer encouraged the most painful ailments. He wrote to
a friend for a cask of Greek wine. This rare beverage was finished all
too soon; when it was done, he kept the empty cask by him, that he might
at least refresh himself with the smell. He was ill most of his time; he
was also continually in want of money. His professorships were merely
lectureships, and his pay was probably small. Had it not been for the
patronage of Archbishop Warham and other lovers of learning, he might
have fallen into serious straits. At no time did he realise the value of
money. Doubtless, he represented himself as more unpleasantly situated
than he actually was. Like most delicate men, he was very self-conscious,
and expected an inordinate amount of praise and flattery, which it is
hardly probable that he obtained at Cambridge. On a previous visit to
Oxford, he had been the centre of a group of scholars; at Cambridge,
he was isolated from his old friends. We can therefore hardly trust to
his vivacious narrative for an accurate account of his Cambridge life.
But, everything taken into consideration, he was seriously discontented,
and was glad to leave in 1514. His memory has been more than ordinarily
cherished in an University which perhaps caressed him very little in his
lifetime, and his prestige has had a salutary influence on Cambridge
scholarship. When he came to Cambridge, he found the old scholastic
learning, which he detested, still in vogue; when he left, it was with
the consciousness that he had inaugurated a new era.
The next point in the history of Queens’ is its acquisition under Dr
William Mey of the Carmelite house which lay between the college and
the present site of King’s. This house was surrendered to the society
in 1538, just before the dissolution; but the interference of the Crown
delayed the completion of this transaction till 1544. The ground which
thus came into the possession of the president and fellows was the
foundation of all their future building. Dr Mey was deprived at the
accession of Queen Mary, but was restored in 1559. He lived for only a
year afterwards. His next successor but one was Dr William Chaderton,
of whom Fuller has preserved some curious anecdotes. He is reported to
have said one day in a wedding sermon “That the choice of a wife is full
of hazard, not unlike as if one in a barrel full of serpents should
grope for one fish; if (saith he) he ’scape harm of the snakes, and
light on a fish, he may be thought fortunate, for perhaps it may be but
an eel.” The ingenuity of the comparison is very characteristic of our
Elizabethan universities, and is not a little in the manner of Fuller
himself. Fuller, indeed, received most of what he would have called
his “breeding” at Queens’, and, here and at Sidney, he picked up that
curiously miscellaneous knowledge which has made him one of our most
entertaining prose writers. He was essentially a Cambridge man, and in
all his books, however distant they are from the purpose, we trace a
certain appeal to his university. He was not less positive as to its
antiquity than Dr Caius, although he went less far back for its origin.
His _Church History_ records the foundation of Cambridge as an University
by Sigebert, King of the East Anglians, and in the sequel punctiliously
refers to the foundation of every college as an important event in the
history of the Church. He did for Cambridge, in a more limited area,
what Anthony Wood did for Oxford. His politics were of an undecided kind,
and he fell into disfavour with both Parliamentarians and Royalists, but
he was, in fact, a moderate partisan of the King. There is a story that
he was to have been made a bishop at the Restoration, but he died before
the offer was made.
John Davenant,* president from 1614 to 1622, was, as Bishop of Salisbury,
one of that galaxy of prelates which relieves the darkness of the Civil
Wars. He was the friend of George Herbert, whose parsonage of Bemerton
was within three miles of Salisbury. He died in 1641, before affairs had
come to their final climax. It is probable that he was guilty of some
of those numerous idolatries which Dowsing the iconoclast destroyed on
his visit to Cambridge. Dowsing visited the college on St Stephen’s Day,
1643, when he “beat down 110 superstitious pictures besides Cherubim and
Ingravings,” and “digged up the steps for three hours.” What Dowsing
would say to the internal fittings of the new chapel we have no idea!
After the storm had passed over and the Restoration had given back quiet
to the college, its history languished: and, although it has done well
in the schools, it cannot be said to have produced many men of great
distinction. In Isaac Milner (* Harlow), Dean of Carlisle and President
from 1788 to 1820, it had a Church historian of some reputation. Simon
Patrick,* Bishop of Ely during the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne,
was a fellow here, and was one of the latest survivors of the Laudian
school. His account of the opening of Edward the Confessor’s tomb is
preserved in the University Library in its original manuscript. He was a
great theologian and something of a controversialist. Quite recently the
familiar figure of Dr Campion,* Vicar of St Botolph’s and Honorary Canon
of Ely, and President of Queens’ for the last five years of his life, has
been removed from Cambridge. His successor is Dr Herbert Ryle of King’s,
who holds with the office the Hulsean Professorship of Divinity.
XI
ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE
It has been said that the decorous quadrangle of St Catharine’s gives
the stranger the impression of an old manor house rather than of a
college; and the trees which guard it on the side of Trumpington Street
are certainly a party to the illusion. The western front of the college,
which occupies one side of King’s Lane, has a more definitely scholastic
air. For the most part the buildings are uninteresting. The tiny court
at the north-west angle dates from 1626; the rest of the college is the
fruit of a rebuilding which went on slowly from 1680 to 1755. Loggan, who
published his illustrations soon after the work was begun, figures, with
some optimism, an eastern façade with a central cupola. This, however,
was never attempted. The chapel is an interesting piece of Queen Anne
architecture, dating from 1704; and lately a fine organ by Norman &
Beard of Norwich has been placed in it. In the present century, the
Hall has been restored in the Gothic style, but otherwise no radical
alteration has been made.
[Illustration: Sᵗ. Catharine’s College]
* * * * *
St Catharine’s is, in a certain sense, the daughter of King’s, for
its founder was Robert Woodlark,* provost of the latter college. The
reason for its foundation is not very obvious: it was probably merely
a pious act on the part of Woodlark, of whom we know very little
beyond this. The site on which it stood occupied the greater part of
that oblong space which still is bounded on the north by King’s Lane
and on the south by Silver (then Small Bridges) Street. Even now the
space is somewhat cramped by houses; then the college was thoroughly
“town-bound,” as Fuller puts it. However, although one of the smallest
colleges in Cambridge, it has given, in comparison with its size, more
famous men to England than any college in either University. These men
are all clergy, and their names are among the most reverend in Church
history. Seventy-four years after the foundation of the college, Edwin
Sandys* became master. He is chiefly known as Archbishop of York and as a
translator of the Bible, and, while in exile abroad during Mary’s reign,
he cultivated friendly relations with foreign Protestant churches. As
Master of St Catharine’s and Vice-Chancellor, he went through a critical
experience, which is narrated by Fuller. The Duke of Northumberland, who
was at Cambridge in the hope of intercepting Mary’s progress from the
Eastern Counties to London, ordered Sandys to preach before him at the
University Church. Sandys was a timid man and had very little faith in
Lady Jane Grey’s cause, so that the order caused him some perplexity. He
rose at a very early hour next morning, and took the _sortes Biblicae_
after the approved manner of the sixteenth century. The text at which
his Bible opened was the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the
first chapter of Joshua, “All that thou commandest us we will do, and
whithersoever thou sendest us we will go. According as we hearkened
unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee: only the Lord
thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses.” He preached from this text
in so politic a manner that no one could find a handle of accusation
against him. The exacting Northumberland came back to Cambridge after
a short tour in Suffolk, well aware that his enterprise was over, and
with the forlorn hope that, if he proclaimed Mary queen, he might win
his pardon. He invited Sandys to join in the proclamation with him, but
the Vice-Chancellor refused with an answer that must have been a very
cold comfort to Northumberland. The Duke, however, went through the
business mechanically at the old Market Cross, and was arrested very soon
afterwards at his lodgings in King’s. Sandys escaped to the Netherlands,
and returned when Elizabeth came to the throne. He is buried at
Southwell, where the archbishops of York had one of their palaces.
John Overall, Bishop of Lichfield, and afterwards of Norwich, another of
the translators of the Bible, was master from 1598 to 1607. The college
leaned throughout its history to the Puritanic side of the religious
question, and Richard Sibbes, master from 1626 to 1635, is one of
those strongly Puritan divines who had the advantage of an University
education. His evangelical theology, rich in quaint phrase and full of
ingenious learning, is still popular with serious readers, although his
fame has been somewhat overshadowed by the greater names of Bunyan,
Baxter, and John Owen. In spite of this spiritual activity, it appears
that the college was about this time in a very bad and ruinous state,
and, on the side of Trumpington Street, was excessively cramped for room.
During the mastership of John Hills, Sibbes’ predecessor, John Gostlin,
the eccentric master of Caius, gave the Bull Inn, which was his personal
property, to the college, and thus the society was enabled to enlarge
its frontiers. Nevertheless, the commotions of the Civil Wars delayed
operations until long after the Restoration, when Dr John Eachard, master
in 1675, carried out the longed-for improvements. There is no college
whose external appearance belies a medieval foundation more than St
Catharine’s.
Side by side with Sibbes we may reckon the famous Dissenting preacher,
Edmund Calamy, who was also a member of this college and was connected
with Sidney as well. But, after the Restoration and Eachard’s
improvements, St Catharine’s settled down again to its episcopal
traditions. Sir William Dawes, Eachard’s successor from 1697 to 1714, was
a worthy but in no way remarkable Archbishop of York. During his time,
however, the society received a famous member in the militant Benjamin
Hoadly,* Bishop first of Bangor, then of Hereford, then of Salisbury,
and lastly of Winchester. It is curious that Hoadly, the typical
Latitudinarian, as the ugly phrase goes, of his age, and his opponent,
the no less typical High Churchman, William Law, were members of the two
Cambridge colleges which had shown most activity on the Puritan side, St
Catharine’s and Emmanuel. Hoadly’s book, _On the Nature of the Kingdom
and Church of Christ_, is his chief claim to celebrity, as the doctrines
which it advocated gave rise to the Bangorian Controversy and were the
cause of many polemical treatises which have a distinct literary rank.
Other members of St Catharine’s about the end of the seventeenth century
were Dr John Lightfoot,* master from 1650 to 1675, illustrious as an
Orientalist; John Strype, the ecclesiastical antiquarian, who died in
1737 at the advanced age of ninety-four; and John Ray,* the naturalist,
who died in 1705. In 1704, during Dawes’ mastership, the chapel was
consecrated by Bishop Simon Patrick of Ely, who was a member of Queens’
College. In 1714, Dawes was succeeded by Thomas Sherlock,* whose
oratorical powers gained him the Bishoprick of London. His sermons,
which are specimens of a cold and stilted kind of eloquence, are read
no longer, but his name survives as that of one of the great preachers
of the last century. His successors down to the end of the century
have not much interest outside the college. The long mastership of Dr
Procter* covers almost the first half of the nineteenth century. During
his time, the versatile Dr Turton* was fellow of the college and held
various professorships. He became Dean of Westminster and eventually
Bishop of Ely, where he continued till within comparatively recent
years. He is perhaps best remembered as the composer of one of the most
beautiful hymn-tunes which we possess—the tune called by him “Ely.” The
college produced yet another bishop in Dr Procter’s successor, Henry
Philpott, who was made Bishop of Worcester in 1861. He was succeeded by
the present master, Dr Robinson. The mastership of St Catharine’s is
one of those pleasant posts, which, like Pembroke College at Oxford,
have a canonry attached to them. The canonry belonging to St Catharine’s
is at Norwich, the pleasantest of all English cathedral cities, and,
during the long vacation, the master fulfils his term of residence in
the Norwich close. Among recent distinguished members of St Catharine’s
we may mention Dr George Forrest Browne, late Disney Professor of
Archæology, who succeeded Dean Gregory as Canon of St Paul’s, and was, in
1897, translated from the suffragan Bishoprick of Stepney to the revived
Bishoprick of Bristol.
XII
JESUS COLLEGE
[Illustration: Jesus College]
Bishop Alcock’s gate-tower, a few years earlier than those of Christ’s
and St John’s, and almost contemporary with that of Queens’, forms a
charming prelude to this beautiful college. Its stepped battlements are
original, and its plan is more domestic than those of the other towers,
which have a very monastic appearance. The founder’s coat-of-arms, the
three cocks which the college has ever since borne as its cognisance,
appear on various parts of the tower and in the roof of the gateway;
but the statue of Bishop Alcock and a good deal of the decoration are
new.[5] The tower is the entrance to the outer court of the college,
whose ivy-grown buildings date from 1641. They are very fair late Gothic
work and carefully follow Alcock’s tower in their general lines; they are
due to Richard Sterne (master, 1633-1644 and again in 1660), but they
were not actually finished until the beginning of George the First’s
reign. They occupy three sides of the court; the western side is open,
affording a good view of the towers in the centre of the town. From the
opposite side a low postern gateway (part of the original work) leads
into the inner court of the college, round which the public buildings
are situated. The Hall is on the north side; opposite it is the Master’s
Lodge and the nave of the chapel. The Library occupies the west side, and
the northern transept of the chapel the east side. This was originally
the cloister of the nunnery which was superseded by the college. The
cloisters which exist are subsequent to the founding of the college,
and for some time were shut in, like those at Wilton House. In the last
century, however, they were opened to the court, and now they are simply
of the ordinary covered type, without any wall of partition. A few years
ago, while repairs were being carried on in the eastern wall of these
cloisters, just north of the transept-end of the chapel, a beautiful
triple arch of the Early English period was laid open, and may now be
examined. This was probably the entrance to the nuns’ chapter-house. It
is a very unique and delicate piece of work, dating probably from about
1240, and compares very well with the excellent work of that period to be
found in Cambridgeshire.
Part of the chapel dates from the foundation of the nunnery, but a great
deal of it is Early English, and the whole building was remodelled by
Alcock on the collegiate principle. He seems to have cut away the aisles
of the convent church, leaving only the north choir aisle; he left the
transepts unchanged, save for a set of Perpendicular windows with scanty
tracery, which are repeated in the nave and choir. His east window has
been taken away and the Early English triplet restored. He thus made an
ordinary monastic building into an aisleless cruciform church, differing
from a college chapel only in that it retains a nave, in which respect it
is unique. He also added the Perpendicular upper storey to the central
tower, the lower half of which is Early English, and corresponds in
its interior arcading with the arches in the cloister. The upper storey
of this earlier tower had fallen in 1297. On the whole, one can hardly
give unqualified praise to Alcock for his treatment of the building,
but he made it answer his purposes very well. Moreover, he gave it some
beautiful stalls and a screen. Unfortunately, these ornaments offended
Georgian taste. The restoration of the chapel in the last century was a
wonderful proceeding. The walls were daubed with yellow relieved by a
low black dado, the ceiling was plastered, the best part of the woodwork
was removed to Landbeach Church, five miles on the way to Ely, and the
central lantern was closed up, so that the fine arcade was completely
hidden. To-day, however, we are able to see the chapel without these
encumbrances, for the restoration, begun in 1845 and continued to our
own day, has made it the most historical interior in Cambridge. The
south transept with its eastern gallery is for the most part Norman of
a very simple order, coeval with the foundation of the monastery. The
central tower, the choir and chancel are Early English, save for Alcock’s
additions on the south side, and the remaining aisle, which contains
Decorated work. The arcaded lancets on the north side of the chancel
should be noticed: this singularly graceful arrangement is almost unique.
There is, however, an example, completer and perhaps finer, at Cherry
Hinton, within an hour’s walk of Cambridge. Another specimen of local
work is the double piscina, whose splendid mouldings, crossing each other
in the head of the arch, and reminding one of well-folded linen, are
only to be found in three or four churches in, or immediately round the
town. I have spoken of Alcock’s Perpendicular work, which is of a kind
more domestic than ecclesiastical. The stalls and screen are rather more
than forty years old, but they show a taste of a kind unusual at that
time, and are much improved by the dim light of the whole building. This
dimness is due to the stained glass, which is all modern. The glass in
the lancets is by Hardman; it is not very good, but it is unobtrusive.
That in Alcock’s two choir windows was put in rather earlier by the
restorers of 1845-9; it is the great defect in their work. But the eleven
perpendicular windows of the antechapel, including the enormous south
window, have been filled with glass by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr
William Morris; and their magnificent, if somewhat secular, work, serves
to hide the shallowness and unoriginality of the stonework. It is a pity
that, in one or two places, the colours already show signs of decaying;
but, on the whole, the two great artists seldom collaborated to such
purpose or found such excellent material for their work. The organ at the
west end is new, and there is perhaps too little space for it. The older
organ, a small instrument with a triptych front, is in the choir aisle,
and has an appearance strongly suggestive of the bygone monasticism of
the place.
The rest of the Court, Hall, Library and Master’s Lodge are much as the
founder left them, although their outer shell has been from time to time
considerably altered. The Hall, with its dark lobby on the ground floor
and its staircase, is a fine room, occupying the position of the convent
refectory. There are some good portraits here and in the Combination
Room, including one of Cranmer in the manner of Holbein. The Hall was
wainscoted early in the last century. Since then and since the completion
of the outer court, the college has received no structural additions to
its main body.[6] Within the last thirty years, however, the need for
accommodation has increased; and we owe to it, first, Messrs Carpenter
and Ingelow’s brick range of buildings north of the college and their
houses for married tutors; and, secondly, the great building, also of
brick, which Waterhouse built about 1869 at the end of the garden east of
the chapel. His work here is better than usual, and forms a picturesque
outpost to the colleges as one crosses the end of Midsummer Common by the
Newmarket Road. The Jesus close, with its great palisade of trees and its
view of the boathouses on one side and the venerable chapel tower on the
other, almost rivals the Backs in beauty.
* * * * *
John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, whose chantry chapel by Torregiano is one
of the chief glories of his diocesan cathedral, left a more important
monument to posterity in the shape of Jesus College. In 1497 he obtained
a charter for his foundation, which succeeded a house of Benedictine
nuns, existing under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and St
Rhadegund. This religious establishment had been founded in 1133 by
favour of Malcolm IV. of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon, and its chief
benefactress was Constance of France, daughter of Louis VI. and widow of
King Stephen’s son Eustace. Started under these auspices, it became one
of the most important conventual houses in Cambridge, and received in
its various vicissitudes help from divers quarters. In 1297, the chapel
tower fell; there were fires in 1343 and 1376; in 1390, the buildings
were seriously injured by a storm. It is possible that the morality of
the house, which enjoyed great popularity, grew lax, and that the change
was necessary. This was at all events the excuse for the disestablishment
of the convent. However, Mr Clark, in his chapter on the college, proves
with great likelihood that these complaints were merely superficial. The
fact is that the demand for education was increasing, and the supply was
furnished at the expense of the old monastic houses. At its dissolution
the revenue of the nunnery was considerable. Alcock kept up the
traditions of the site by dedicating his college to the Blessed Virgin,
St John the evangelist and St Rhadegund, but the title was soon exchanged
for the name of Jesus. By its foundation a precedent was set for other
colleges to follow. After Jesus, other foundations were erected on the
site of some monastery or hospital; even some of those existing, such as
Queens’, bought up monastic property and enriched themselves with it.
Jesus College took for its first shield the curious device of the five
wounds of Christ. But in 1575, it received its present coat-of-arms in
memory of its founder. The three cocks’ heads erased have always been
a feature of the college very much in evidence; they appear constantly
in the buildings, and, in the cloister court, may still be seen the
two cocks, one of whom says to the other from the library wall “ἐγὼ
εὶμὶ ἀλεκτὼρ” (I am a cock), while the other, from the hall, bears in
his mouth a similar scroll inscribed “οὓτως καί ἐγὼ” (And so am I).
Soon after Alcock’s time, the college brought forth a fruit of the new
learning in the shape of Thomas Cranmer,* who was a fellow here for
some time. He lost his fellowship by his marriage. He contracted an
alliance with the niece of the landlady of the Dolphin, an inn close to
what is now All Saints’ Passage, and, having resigned his fellowship
in consequence, lived at the inn for some time. Cambridge was a great
university for reformers, and at this time a number of men who afterwards
became distinguished for the novelty of their opinions were in residence.
The college has honoured Cranmer’s memory, and one of its most popular
social clubs is named after him. Readers of history know that Cranmer was
no less eminent as statesman and man of letters than as reformer, and his
college may be justly proud of him. His portraits are interesting. The
picture in the Hall is supposed to be a copy by Reynolds from an older
picture. In the Combination Room is the portrait dated 1548, similar to
the portrait of 1546 by Fliccius, now in the National Portrait Gallery.
And in the Master’s Lodge is another portrait which is probably a copy of
the last. Both these latter portraits have been attributed to Holbein.
The name of William Bancroft,* Archbishop of Canterbury, brings us to
the reign of James I. That wise monarch, on his visit to the University,
professed a wish the justice of which most of us have acknowledged, that,
were he at Cambridge, he would “pray at King’s, dine at Trinity and sleep
at Jesus.” The master at this date was Dr John Duport. Jesus was, of all
colleges, most loyal to the Stewarts. Dr William Beale, master in 1632,
and removed to St John’s in the next year, was a constant royalist. His
successor, Dr Richard Sterne,* was entirely of the same opinion. He,
with Dr Beale and Dr Martin of Queens’, formed a sort of syndicate for
melting college plate and sending it to the King; and was accordingly
arrested by Cromwell and imprisoned in the Tower. His friends shared the
same fate; but Sterne was probably especially marked out for this favour,
as he had been Laud’s chaplain and had attended him on the scaffold.
After the Restoration, he resumed his mastership, but he was removed in
the same year to higher honours. In 1664 he was made Archbishop of York,
and died in 1683. His portrait in the Hall was presented by his nephew
Laurence Sterne (* Alan Ramsay) who was later on a pensioner of Jesus.
Laurence Sterne, who also took holy orders, was a different type of man
from his uncle. The great sentimentalist is one of the most distinguished
_alumni_ of Jesus, although he did very little at college. As author of
_Tristram Shandy_ and _The Sentimental Journey_, as fashionable preacher
and as wit, the eccentric Vicar of Coxwold has achieved a reputation only
a little below that of Fielding, on the one hand, and of Swift, on the
other.
In the meantime, Dr Sterne was succeeded by Dr John Pearson, who, after
shedding his lustre on several colleges, became Master of Trinity and
finally Bishop of Chester. It is fortunate for his various colleges that
the honours of this great theologian have been so divided. About this
time we come to the revered name of Tobias Rustat (* Lely) Gentleman of
the Robes, who was a great benefactor to the college and founded the
Rustat scholarships. Even to-day the Rustat scholars of Jesus wear a
peculiar gown of their own, differing slightly from the gowns of the
rest of the college. Rustat is buried in the chapel, like Dr Ashton at
St John’s, and the college has reason to remember his name with the
gratitude which Ashton’s liberality excited in Thomas Baker. He may,
indeed, be regarded almost as a second founder of the college.
The masters of the eighteenth century were, for the most part, stately
and important men who received a great deal of promotion. Dr Charles
Ashton, of whom the college possesses two portraits, was master for
fifty-one years, from 1701 to 1752. In his time there was at Jesus a
whilom famous scholar, Dr John Jortin,* to whom we owe the very careful
but extremely dull life of Erasmus. He was a popular divine, and combined
the lucrative posts of Archdeacon of London, Rector of St Dunstan’s in
the East, and Vicar of Kensington. Dr Ashton was succeeded by Dr Philip
Yonge, who was master for six years, and was then made Bishop of Bristol,
being eventually translated to Norwich in 1761. His portrait in the
Master’s Lodge is said to be by Reynolds. His successor, Dr Lynford Caryl
(* from a portrait by Wright of Derby), is remarkable for little save his
picturesque name. He, in his turn, give place to Richard Beadon,* who was
removed to Gloucester in 1789 and died as Bishop of Bath and Wells in
1824.
When Dr William Pearce (* Beechey) was Master—he was also Master of
the Temple and Dean of Ely—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (* from Washington
Allston) came into residence. Coleridge was two years younger than
Wordsworth, and came up after the elder poet had gone abroad to watch the
French Revolution. Less fortunate than Wordsworth, he left Cambridge in
1794 without his degree, in this anticipating Tennyson. Like most poets,
he formed few friendships while at Cambridge, and took no considerable
part in the academic life of his day. Milton, whose genius was eminently
academic, is the exception to this rule. We find it difficult, on the
other hand, to look upon Coleridge as an University man, and the same
difficulty would occur with regard to Wordsworth, were it not for his
minute account of his life at St John’s. Shelley, also, who was twenty
years younger than Coleridge, took no degree at Oxford. Nevertheless,
the colleges of these unsatisfactory students have, since their death,
conspired to honour them, and doubtless to many Jesus men Coleridge is
their _genius loci_ very much as Shelley is to men at University College.
Dr Clarke, Professor of Mineralogy (* Opie) was a contemporary of
Coleridge who preferred to close his University life in the orthodox
way. He died in 1822, when Dr French* had succeeded Dr Pearce in the
mastership. The days of ecclesiastical preferment ceased with Dr Pearce,
and his successors were content to hold quiet country livings with
their mastership. This was the case with the late master, Dr Corrie,*
who divided his time between the college and his pleasant rectory of
Newton-in-the-Isle. The last ten years of his rule were remarkable for
the supremacy of Jesus as head of the river, when the college was full
of oarsmen like Mr Shafto and the late Mr Edward Prest. It is matter of
history how, when the boat “went down” for the first time in ten years,
the Jesus men appeared on the river and the towing-path in mourning.
In 1885 Dr Morgan (* Collier), the brother of a celebrated Oxford
man, the late Sir George Osborne Morgan, became master, and under him
the college, if less successful on the river, has preserved its old
reputation. Among the modern sons of the college we should remember Dr
Wilkinson,* the present Anglican Bishop in North and Central Europe,
originally Missionary Bishop in Zululand, and the Rev. Osmond Fisher,*
Honorary Fellow, to whose antiquarian zeal the college is indebted for
the excavation of its monastic remains.
XIII
CHRIST’S COLLEGE
[Illustration: Christ’s College]
Christ’s may be cited as a fair specimen of the normal Cambridge college.
Its court and gate-tower have suffered considerably since they were
first built, having been recased with stone in 1724. This pious work
was undertaken with funds supplied by Dr Thomas Lynford, fellow of
the college and Archdeacon of Barnstaple, and is as well done as one
can expect of anything so radical. Two years later, the west front of
Pembroke was treated in the same way, and the two may be cited together
as in some measure a vindication of the early Georgian restorer. All
that was done was to make the face of the college flat and remove all
superficial irregularities, while the general lines of the building were
scrupulously maintained. Dr Lynford is not responsible for the interior
of the court, which belongs to a later part of the century, and is due
to Essex or one of his kind. Originally, we may imagine a quadrangle
of dark red brick, very like the courts at St John’s and Queens’. The
gate-towers of all three colleges are very similar; in that of Christ’s
the foundress’ statue is a modern addition. The present chapel, north
of the court, is substantially the chapel of Lady Margaret Beaufort’s
foundation, and the small vestries are partly of that date. As for the
rest, it is very good work of the middle of the last century imposed
on Italian Gothic, and the antechapel, with its wooden columns, is
admirable. Above the altar is a good window by some German or Flemish
artist, not unlike the east window at Peterhouse, and of much the same
period. The organ, in a gallery north of the sanctuary, is by Father
Smith, and the case is an excellent piece of woodwork. At the west end
is a curious portrait of the foundress, and the chapel has a strong
historical interest as the burying-place of the Cambridge Platonists,
Cudworth, More, and Mede.
Between the Chapel and Hall stands the Master’s Lodge, placed so as to
communicate with both. The Hall has been very well restored, and is
now a good Gothic hall, with an oriel full of excellent portrait glass,
representing all the worthies of the college, from the Lady Margaret
down to Paley in his archdeacon’s apron and Darwin in his doctor’s gown.
Beyond the hall, and facing westwards, is the lovely building of 1642,
which is usually attributed to Inigo Jones. A range of older buildings,
constituting the south side of the court, used to impede the full view
of this beautiful structure; but these were moved back early in the
century, and rebuilt in the hideous taste of the time. However, we are
the gainers by it. Although the work at Clare is, as a whole, a better
specimen of the period, the Christ’s building has the advantage of
perfect uniformity, and is an excellent example of the transition from
Renaissance Gothic to the style of which Wren is the chief exponent. Its
base is pierced by a gateway leading into the famous garden, a classic
resort which is a very competent rival of any garden at Oxford. Of the
new buildings at the north-eastern extremity of the college, it is
unnecessary to say anything; they are moderate, but are hardly worth a
detailed inspection. Their architect was Mr J. J. Stevenson. Within the
last three years Messrs Bodley and Garner have been employed upon the
street front, and, needless to say, have restored it with their usual
conservative skill.
* * * * *
For the beginnings of Christ’s College we must go back to the year 1436.
William Bingham, Rector of St John Zachary in the city of London, founded
a small hostel or Grammar College in connection with Clare, and placed
it on a site which is now occupied by the western part of King’s College
Chapel and a portion of the great court of King’s. Four years later,
Henry VI.’s great experiment forced Bingham to seek other quarters,
which he eventually found in Preachers’ Street, the thoroughfare leading
from the Barnwell Gate to the Dominican Friary. Here he re-founded his
college under the picturesque name of God’s House, which it had already
borne in its former position. But, like so many similar institutions, its
revenues languished. Bingham’s society was to consist of a master with
the title of Proctor, and of twenty-four scholars. By the beginning of
the sixteenth century, the house maintained only four scholars besides
the Proctor. There is a story that the great John Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, was bred at this hostel; and that his affection for it was
the cause which moved him to bring its destitution to the notice of his
friend, Lady Margaret Beaufort. It is, at all events, more than certain
that Fisher, who guided his patroness in her pious resolves, called
her attention to the case, and so laid the foundation, as it were, of
Christ’s and St John’s. There is no satisfactory evidence as to the
time at which she conceived the idea of founding St John’s. Probably,
the notion of a college had taken her fancy long before, and it is not
unlikely that the opportunity of founding two colleges presented itself
at one time. At any rate, her first work was to re-establish God’s
House in 1505. The task of converting St John’s Hospital into St John’s
College required several years of preliminaries and formalities. But
in God’s House she had a college already to her hand. Henry VI. had
apparently promised Bingham some compensation for the removal of the
house, but the greater work of founding King’s and the civil troubles
which soon engrossed the crown had prevented him from fulfilling his
promise. The Lady Margaret, devoted to the memory of the “royal saint,”
endowed the society on the scale approved by him, and provided funds for
the maintenance of a master, twelve fellows and forty-seven scholars.
And “from her singular devotion to the name of Jesus Christ”—the same
motive which had prompted Alcock to call his foundation Jesus College—she
founded the college under the invocation of Christ. We have thus two
colleges at Cambridge which recall the popular devotion of the Name of
Jesus, then lately established and approved.
It may or may not be true that the foundress had rooms reserved for her
use in the Master’s Lodge. The story seems contrary to the spirit of
that age or of any other, but a point may have been stretched in her
favour. The testimony for this legend rests upon an anecdote told by
Fuller. “The Lady Margaret,” he says, “once … came to Christ’s College to
behold it when partly built, and looking out of a window, saw the dean
call a faulty scholar to correction, to whom she said ‘lente, lente,’
gently, gently, as accounting it better to mitigate his punishment than
to procure his pardon; mercy and justice making the best medley to
offenders.” This is scarcely sufficient authority for the tradition.
There are no less than four portraits of the Lady Margaret in the
college, the best of which is perhaps that at the west end of the chapel,
closely resembling the picture in the hall at St John’s. The Combination
Room also contains a portrait of Bishop Fisher, and both these pious
friends of learning are commemorated in the oriel of the Hall. From
the foundation of the college onwards, its history has been peaceful
and comparatively uneventful. In its early years, it seems to have
anticipated the lodging-house system, for we are told that some of the
scholars were lodged in the Brazen George, an inn opposite the college,
and that the doors of this hostelry were closed and opened at the same
time as the doors of the college.
Leland the antiquary and Hugh Latimer were among the earlier members of
the college. But the history of Christ’s is centred in one event, the
seven years’ residence of John Milton, who entered as a pensioner in
1625, and went down with his Master’s degree in 1632. “John Milton of
London,” the entry runs in English “son of John Milton, was initialed in
the elements of letters under Mr Gill, Master of St Paul’s School; was
admitted a lesser pensioner Feb. 12th, 1624 [O.S.] under Mr Chappell, and
paid entrance fee 10s.” Mr Chappell, on the authority of Dr Johnson, is
said to have flogged the poet. “There is reason to believe that Milton
was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no
fellowship is certain, but the unkindness with which he was treated was
not merely negative.” Milton himself says enough to make the truth of
this statement at least doubtful; for his language, ten years after his
departure from Cambridge, is not merely the language of a man who had
forgotten old grudges, but breathes a lively affection for his college.
The flogging possibly took place; the University was then nothing but
a large public school, and each college was a separate boarding-house.
Milton, when he went up, was just sixteen, and boys of sixteen are not
past flogging. If he went down without a fellowship, he was surely, in
spite of that, a most promising student. His Latin verses, which we still
read as we read Ovid and Propertius, are the finest poetry, and not mere
academical exercises; his skill in Italian marks a degree of culture
unknown even in that Italianised age. In addition to his scholarship,
he possessed extraordinary personal beauty, which gives him among poets
something of that eminence possessed by Raffaelle among painters. We
are told that he was called the “Lady of the College.” And, while at
Christ’s, he wrote some of his most lasting works, including the famous
Hymn on the Nativity, which was written in 1629. His verses on Hobson,
the University carrier, are well known, and _Lycidas_, the elegy on his
college friend, Edward King, appeared at Cambridge in 1637. His noble
_Verses at a Solemn Musick_, containing some of the finest and most
imaginative lines in English, belong to this early period. The master
under whom his residence took place was Dr Thomas Bainbrigge, master from
1620 to 1645. Cromwell had gone down from Sidney before Milton came up to
Christ’s, but he was still in the neighbourhood of Cambridge. Milton’s
mulberry-tree, the Palladium of the college, may or may not be Milton’s;
but to believe the tradition does no violence to our faith. The memory
of Milton had a more than usually potent influence on another poet,
Wordsworth.
Among the band of my compeers was one
Whom chance had stationed in the very room
Honoured by Milton’s name. O temperate Bard!
Be it confest that, for the first time, seated
Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,
One of a festive circle, I poured out
Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride
And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain
Never excited by the fumes of wine
Before that hour, or since.
And this, from internal evidence, must have been on a winter Sunday
afternoon before chapel! For the inebriated poet, always a sad idler at
Cambridge, had to run back “ostrich-like” to chapel, where he arrived
late and, full of wine and Milton, swaggered up to his place through
“the inferior throng of plain Burghers.” Here was a young gentleman who
deserved flogging!
But the presence of Milton must not allow us to forget the band of
contemplative scholars and philosophers who, in his time, were the
ruling influence in the college, and now lie beneath the chapel floor.
The course of the reformed and Puritan doctrines was largely determined
by the study of Platonic philosophy, just as the Aristotelian system
had allied itself to Catholic theology. Platonism in Cambridge is the
result of two opposing forces: on the positive side, the teaching of
Erasmus; on the negative side, the publication of Hobbes’ _Leviathan_
in 1651. This book received many reputations from Cambridge men; two of
the best known are the work of Dr Bramhall of Sidney, Bishop of Derry
and afterwards Primate of Ireland, and of Dr Cumberland of Magdalene,
the painful Bishop of Peterborough. But the most effective opposition
to Hobbes’ materialistic and mathematical science came from Christ’s.
The first of the Cambridge Platonists was the meditative Mede, who died
in 1638. He was a fellow of the college in Milton’s time, and spent
his days in wandering about the college backs and fields, absorbed in
mystical speculation, of which the eventual outcome was his work on the
Apocalypse. In the evening, members of the college would resort to his
rooms, and he would ask them “_Quid dubitas?_ What doubts have you met in
your studies to-day?” and, having heard their answers, would set their
minds at rest and dismiss them with prayer. But Mede was scarcely so
remarkable as Henry More, the author of the _Mystery of Godliness_ and
other books, who devoted his life at Cambridge to Platonic speculations,
and even extended his enquiries to the Neo-Platonic writers and the
Hebrew Cabala. Ralph Cudworth* was three years his junior, and survived
him one year. This man, the greatest of the company, was Master of
Clare for some time, and, in 1654, became Master of Christ’s, where he
remained, unmoved by the Restoration, till his death in 1688. He was the
most powerful of Hobbes’ adversaries, and his _True Intellectual System
of the Universe_, published in 1678, is a fairly convincing counterblast
to the _Leviathan_. However, Cudworth was rather a talented pedant than
a genius: he lessened the value of his work by recondite allusions, and
his critical capacity was impaired by prejudice. But, in that age of
laborious theology, Cudworth’s book deserves a position next to, although
far below, Leighton’s commentary on St Peter.
It is a somewhat melancholy fact that the only other poet of whom
Christ’s can boast besides Milton is that master of tortured conceits,
Francis Quarles. Curiously enough, the portrait, probably of Quarles, in
the Combination Room, which bears the motto “Nec ingratus nec inutilis
videar vixisse” was at one time supposed to be that of Milton. But the
college has had eminent students in other departments. Dr Seth Ward,*
a little younger than Milton, is known as the Bishop of Salisbury
during the time of James II. and the Revolution. In 1766, at the age
of twenty-three, William Paley* was elected a fellow, and remained at
Cambridge for ten years. Paley’s early life is said to have been careless
and riotous. One morning, however, when lying late in bed, a friend and
boon-companion came into his room, and treated him to what is sometimes
known as a “straight talk.” This admonition awakened Paley’s conscience,
and led in time to the publication of the famous _Evidences of
Christianity_ and to the Archdeaconry of Carlisle. In all probability, no
historical name is so often on the undergraduate’s lips—not always with
blessings—as the name of this reclaimed ne’er-do-weel. The _Evidences_,
as is well known, form part of the subjects for the Previous Examination
or Little-Go, and have in this capacity given birth to an especial
department of literature in the shape of “Paley Sheets” and other
_précis_ of the heavy work. A less logical but more human theologian was
John Kaye,* master from 1814 to 1830, and Bishop successively of Bristol
and Lincoln.
If, among statesmen, Christ’s can put forward Lord Liverpool, famous for
his interminable ministry of more than twenty years, she has had in
science, a son who is as famous in his branch of study as Milton is in
poetry. This was Charles Robert Darwin (* Ouless) who came up to Christ’s
in the twenties with the intention of taking holy orders. At Cambridge,
however, he found such opportunities for research that he abandoned his
design, and, at the recommendation of Professor Henslow, who then held
the botanical chair, went out as naturalist to the _Beagle_. This was the
beginning of his scientific career and of the revolution in biological
science which he effected. A tablet with his profile in relief has been
placed in the room occupied by him, which is at present occupied by the
Norrisian Professor of Divinity, Dr Armitage Robinson. To-day Christ’s
not only claims as its master Dr John Peile, the eminent classical
philologist, but the greatest of living scholars who have devoted
themselves to the study of their own language—the editor of Langland
and Chaucer, Professor Skeat. And Cambridge men will always remember
with pleasure that Christ’s was the college of the most pleasant of all
English versifiers, Charles Stuart Calverley (then Blayds) who not only,
by his light verses, added to the gaiety of the nation, but, by his
translation of Theocritus, increased the range of English poetry.
XIV
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE
[Illustration: Sᵗ. John’s]
The first court of St John’s is almost as composite as the Great Court of
Trinity, and the want of harmony between its parts is rather painfully
evident. The chapel, however, is the only important extension of the
original plan as carried out by the Lady Margaret’s executors, and
the rest of the court survives with certain changes. The gateway of
the college is one of the gate-towers so characteristic of Cambridge,
and is perhaps the most beautiful of all. One of the great advantages
of St John’s is that it is built of red brick, which, with time, has
assumed a mellow appearance; and thus it is, in certain respects, one
of the most picturesque colleges in the University. The court and tower
belong to 1520. Above the doorway, on the street side, are the arms of
Lady Margaret, supported by the Beaufort antelopes, on a ground in
which the daisy, the foundress’ punning emblem, occurs very lavishly.
Although much obliterated by time, this is still a very good piece of
heraldic sculpture. Other familiar signs, which the least archæological
undergraduate learns to recognise, are the Tudor rose and Beaufort
portcullis. Above this elaborate armorial display is a figure of St
John the Evangelist, added in 1662. Lady Margaret’s statue is to be
found in an ugly niche over the entrance to the Hall screens; it is in a
pseudo-classical taste, and exaggerates her pious emaciation of feature.
The Hall has been altered a good deal, but it is an interesting
apartment, long, dark and narrow, like a conventual refectory. Its
darkness is due partly to the fine wainscoting, which is of the
linen-pattern, partly to the deep colours of the heraldic windows, whose
interest is historical rather than artistic. The fresco of the upper part
is not very successful. At the end of the hall is a curious portrait of
the foundress, in the manner of Lucas van Heere, which bears comparison
with her picture in Christ’s. She is supported by full-length portraits
of Archbishop Williams and Ralph Hare, benefactors to the college. One of
the most interesting pictures is the well-known portrait of Wordsworth
by Pickersgill; and the modern portrait of Professor Palmer in full Arab
attire (John Collier) usually attracts comment. St John’s Hall is not
rich in portraits, a deficiency which is remedied by the collection at
the Lodge.
[Illustration: Sᵗ. John’s]
No other college unfolds its architectural history in so leisurely a
way as St John’s. We pass from the first to the second court, from 1520
to 1598. In the latter year, Ralph Symons, who was supplying Dr Nevile
at Trinity with designs, began to build this beautiful quadrangle.
Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, is the benefactress to whom
the college is indebted, and her statue occupies the niche over the
gate-tower between this and the third court. Some will have it that this
is the best piece of contemporary building in Cambridge, and it certainly
has a peculiar charm, due to its studious, sober air. The sole ornaments
of this gabled enclosure are the two charming oriels in the centre of
the north and south side, and the gate-tower, which is not unlike the
similar tower at Hampton Court. Along the first floor of the north side
of the court runs the long gallery, once a part of the Master’s Lodge,
but now the Combination Room. It is the best Combination Room in Oxford
or Cambridge. At present it is divided into two parts by a wainscoting,
but this hinders the general effect very little. The plastered ceiling
is very richly ornamented with pendants and formal arabesques, and has
much in common with other splendid ceilings of the same date. When the
doors of the inner room and of the library beyond are both open, an
incomparable vista is obtained, and the two apartments are transformed
into a single gallery.
As a matter of fact, a landing, approached from the second court by
a picturesque oak staircase, separates the Combination Room from the
Library, which occupies the whole north side of the somewhat gloomy third
court. Over the door are the arms of Lord Keeper Williams, impaled on the
coat of his see of Lincoln. This famous prelate contributed entirely to
its erection, and his initials and the date 1624 are lettered in white
stone outside the western oriel. It was completed in 1628, and remains
unaltered, a very charming specimen of Italian Gothic. Its interior,
with its high timber roof and fine bookcases, is the _beau idéal_ of a
library interior. There are two stories: the upper contains the valuable
collection of ancient books and the bequests of various benefactors
such as Matthew Prior, the lower is devoted to more modern books. The
rest of the court was not built till 1669, and is therefore a little
later than the buildings at Clare, with which it has some affinity. Its
western gateway and cloister form an excellent termination to the long
perspective of St John’s from the outer street. And the view of the court
and library from the river is too well known to need remark.
[Illustration: Bridges of Sᵗ. John’s]
Beyond the third court we are on modern ground. Mr Rickman’s Bridge of
Sighs is the beginning of the long cloister which forms one side of the
New Court. The view from the bridge, including Ralph Symons’ lovely
Kitchen Bridge and the sweep of the Cam as it rounds the corner opposite
Trinity Library, is more beautiful than the bridge itself; but the
bridge, in its turn, is the most meritorious part of this immense court,
in itself a college. It was built from Mr Rickman’s designs between 1827
and 1831, and is a proof of the common criticism that its architect’s
theory was vastly superior to his practice. The extremely ornate
cloister, with its traceried openings and vast central gateway, has no
_raison d’être_, and the rest of the court is merely a huge barrack with
a pretentious central staircase. From certain parts of the “Backs,”
when the shallow detail is sufficiently screened by trees, it forms an
effective background to the prospect; but, near at hand, its effect is
bare and ponderous.
All modern changes in the original buildings are to be found in the first
court. In the original plan the Master’s Lodge adjoined the Hall on the
south, and the Chapel on the north, and filled up an angle between them.
The court existed thus till 1774, when Essex came here, as to other
colleges, and faced the south side with the present front, which might
be creditable in Harley Street or Cavendish Square, but is merely ugly
in a college. Further, in the early sixties, the College resolved to
build a new chapel. The old one, whose site is marked by the slabs in the
grass south of the existing chapel, was never a very remarkable building
and was quite inadequate. So, in 1863, Sir Gilbert Scott came, built the
chapel, and remodelled the court. The Master’s Lodge was taken down,
the Hall was lengthened by two bays, one of which is a new oriel, the
staircase and lobby leading to the Combination Room were made, and the
new Lodge was built on the ground north of the Library. Scott’s immense
chapel is, no doubt, too large for its purpose, and the heavy tower is
painfully out of proportion to the rest, especially when seen from the
west end. The style is typical of the architect’s genius for imitation.
He knew two buildings by heart, the Sainte Chapelle and the Angel Choir
at Lincoln, and he put them into all his designs with a fatal formality.
The exterior of St John’s Chapel is somewhat tedious, and every detail is
just a little too prominent—the statues in the buttresses, for example.
On the whole, Scott’s chapel at Exeter College, Oxford, is much better.
But inside the building is very striking, especially the transeptal
antechapel, which, in spite of the bad glass at the north end, recalls
the antechapel of New College at Oxford. The tower inside is open to the
first storey, and in the higher window there are good fragments of old
glass. The glass in the inner chapel and in the great west window is
by Clayton and Bell. Lord Powis, High Steward of the University at the
time, gave the windows in the apse, and the rest are in memory of friends
and benefactors of the college. The chapel was consecrated in 1869 by
Dr Harold Browne, then Bishop of Ely. Some of the old stalls from the
original chapel, with their miserere seats, have been kept; and the fine
Early English piscina which belonged to the chapel of St John’s Hospital
has been incorporated in the arcading of the chancel. It belongs to a
local class which includes the piscina at Jesus Chapel and the piscinae
in the transepts at Histon, three miles away. Another relic is the altar
tomb of Hugh Ashton, Archdeacon of York, who was one of the foundress’
executors and died in 1522. The upper portion of the monument is canopied
and richly coloured; the lower part is open and contains the “cadaver,”
which was fashionable with ecclesiastics of the day. Ashton’s rebus,
an ash growing out of a tun, appears in various parts of the base and
canopy. In the antechapel also are Baily’s statue of Dr Wood, Master of
St John’s and Dean of Ely, and the old altar-piece by Raphael Mengs.
Other objects of interest are the paintings on the roof, a procession
of illustrious Churchmen and Churchwomen of every age leading up to the
figure of Our Lord in glory, which occupies the centre panel of the
roof in the apse; the fine organ by Messrs Hill; and the marbles in the
chancel. The chapel is 172 feet long and 63 feet high to the inner roof.
The pitch of the outer roof is 80 feet, and the tower rises to 140 feet.
The Master’s Lodge is a comfortable building, and contains a number of
pictures, including two portraits of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria by
Vandyck, and a large portrait of Matthew Prior (Rigaud) in his official
robes. Since then, the only addition of structural importance to this
interesting college has been the wing known as the Chapel Court, which
runs at right angles to the main building opposite the west door of
the chapel. This was added in 1884, by Mr F. C. Penrose, and is of red
brick with white stone dressings and with a louvre in the centre. The
college grounds have been laid out from time to time, and, with their
winding walks and beautiful Fellow’s Garden, are the most interesting and
romantic of all the gardens near the river.
* * * * *
In founding St John’s College, Lady Margaret Beaufort followed the
precedent of Bishop Alcock. It is curious to observe how the most fervent
Catholics of the Renaissance era subordinated monasticism to the revived
learning and disestablished religious houses on merely nominal pretexts.
The close likeness between the document which explains the dissolution
of St Rhadegund’s Nunnery and that which excused the abolition of St
John’s Hospital detracts from the value of the charges they contain and
leads us to believe that they are merely repetitions of a recognised
form. St John’s Hospital was a small religious alms-house which had
been founded in 1135 by one Henry Frost, and was under the management
of Black Canons. It had a certain importance as being the first site of
Hugh de Balsham’s collegiate scheme. He grafted his scholars upon the
monastic stock, but his plan was anything but a success, and he removed
his _protégés_ to Peterhouse. The hospital was not a very flourishing
affair, and, whether the charges of immorality were true or not, there
was sufficient excuse for its dissolution in the fact that in 1509 it
contained only two brethren. The Lady Margaret, in that same year, the
year of her own and her son’s death, obtained leave to suppress it and
found a college on its site. She had been prompted to this work by her
confessor and faithful adviser, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, himself
a man of great distinction in the University, a friend of learned men
and a patron of study. And, although the college is very justly proud of
its royal foundress and shares her coat-of-arms with Christ’s College,
the active part of the work was carried out by Fisher as her executor.
The Charter of foundation was granted by Henry VIII. in 1511, and Fisher
himself consecrated the Chapel in 1516. It follows that, although Fisher
was a member of Queens’ College, his name is connected almost entirely
with St John’s. This close relation of one man to two colleges is clearly
manifested by the likeness which those parts of St John’s built by
Fisher’s instrumentality bear to parts of Queens’ College.
St John’s College was the last and greatest of the Lady Margaret’s
works. When we think of the benefits which she conferred on Oxford and
Cambridge, her noble provisions for the theological schools of both
Universities, and her two foundations in Cambridge, we can only echo
the words of the funeral sermon preached by Fisher in her honour, that
the “students of both Universities, to whom she was as a mother … for
her death had cause of weeping.” Very few colleges have so tender an
attachment to a founder’s memory as that which St John’s has for Lady
Margaret’s; there are very few colleges which are so haunted, as it were,
by their founder’s spirit. And the history of St John’s is a record
worthy of the Lady Margaret. Although, in after years, it was a little
overshadowed by the greater glory of Trinity, it kept the second place
against all competitors, and its roll of illustrious names is almost as
crowded as that of Trinity itself.
The first master was Robert Shorton, who continued in the college for
five years, after which time he became Master of Pembroke. His portrait
is to be found among the great collection in the Master’s Lodge. The
early masters of the college followed one another very rapidly; in fact,
between 1511 and 1612 we find no less than seventeen names, an almost
unique instance of quick succession. Under the Tudors, too, the college
history is not profoundly interesting. It is evident that, during the
reign of Edward VI., the fashionable Genevan doctrines became popular in
the college. Thomas Leaver, master in 1551, was a supporter of the new
religion, and was, of course, ejected by Mary. However, with Elizabeth’s
reign the Puritan spirit returned in double force. The two Pilkingtons,
who occupied the mastership in succession, introduced their Genevan
and German friends to the Universities, and sought to model University
life upon the system followed by the foreign Calvinists. It is worthy
of remark that while, during this period, Trinity was producing Bacon,
St John’s had already produced the great Burghley, the first of her
illustrious sons, and perhaps the most illustrious of them all. St John’s
became for many years the hereditary college of the Cecil family. The
connection between the college and both branches of that great house is
still kept up in the prize exercise known as the “Burghley Verses,” one
copy of which is sent annually to Hatfield and another to Burghley.[7]
The accession of noble families to the college and the consequent growth
of court influence probably weaned the foundation from its Puritanism.
Dr Whitaker* was the last of the Genevan School. He was a married man,
and kept up an establishment for his wife in the town. The college
prospered exceedingly in his time. These were the days of Dr Nevile
of Trinity, when Cambridge received her most beautiful buildings.
Whitaker’s successor, Dr Richard Clayton, who ruled from 1595 to 1612,
had the felicity of seeing the second court built under his auspices.
Among the fellows at this time were Richard Neile,* and Thomas Morton,*
who, as Archbishop of York and Bishop of Durham, were great benefactors
to the college. And, with the reign of James I., the college began
to distinguish itself, like St John the Baptist’s College at Oxford,
as a Royalist institution. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford,* the
great Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland,*
the blameless hero of the Cavalier party, are the celebrities of the
first half of the seventeenth century. In William Beale,* master from
1633 to 1644, the King had an enthusiastic supporter. In his time the
college plate was melted down, and many valuable pieces were sacrificed.
The plate was sent across country to Charles, who was then at York or
Nottingham, and the passage was so well contrived that the convoy escaped
the ambush set by Oliver Cromwell. Dr Beale was less happy, for Cromwell,
in a fury, marched upon Cambridge, and took him prisoner while he was at
his prayers in chapel. In company with Dr Martin of Queens’ and Dr Sterne
of Jesus, he was taken off to London and imprisoned in the Tower. He died
in 1646. During the Commonwealth, the college was ruled by Dr Arrowsmith
and Dr Tuckney, but at the Restoration the famous divine, Dr Peter
Gunning,* became master, having been previously Master of Corpus. He was
made Bishop of Ely in 1670, when he was succeeded by Francis Turner.* In
course of time, Turner succeeded Gunning at Ely. With these prelates we
may couple the name of Edward Stillingfleet,* the well-known Bishop of
Worcester.
Thomas Baker,* the historian of St John’s College, deserves honourable
mention. The treasure which Oxford possesses in Anthony Wood, St John’s
finds in Baker, whose accurate history, quaintly and piously written,
is a mine of information on the subject of Cambridge life during the
seventeenth century. Baker was a Royalist of considerable bias and
a non-juror, in consequence of which he lost his fellowship. He was
careful to describe himself on his title-page as _Socius Ejectus_, and
gloried in the distinction. He died in 1740 at the age of eighty-four.
His devotion to his college, not only to the foundation itself, but
to its remotest benefactors, is a quality unique even in those days
of fidelity to a principle. He set the college an example by which it
has profited. To-day no college in Cambridge is in possession of such
an amount of printed historical matter. Professor Mayor’s monumental
edition of Baker and of the life of Ambrose Bonwicke stand at the head
of the list. Mr Torry’s extremely full and interesting notes on the roll
of Founders and Benefactors are invaluable, while Mr Scott’s “Notes
from the College Records,” which are published from time to time in the
college magazine, form a supplement and commentary to Baker’s history.
Ambrose Bonwicke, whose life is at once an exhortation to the painful
student and a faithful picture of social life at Cambridge, entered St
John’s in 1710, the last year of the mastership of Turner’s successor,
Humphrey Gower. Bonwicke died early, so that the story of his labours
and exertions, phenomenal in a mere boy and impossible in our own age,
has a vivid pathos. From the light which he throws upon college life of
his time, we are led to imagine that, however luxurious it may have been
then, it would now be insupportable, if conducted in the same way. But
then the prime object of university life was study, and athletics and
dinner-parties were considered foreign to the main purpose.
Matthew Prior,* although a man of a different type from Baker, felt
something of the same attachment for St John’s. He was sent to Cambridge
by his patron, the Earl of Dorset, and in course of time obtained a
fellowship. With considerable forethought, he refused to give up his
fellowship when promoted to high offices of state, and consequently,
after his imprisonment by the Whigs in 1715 and the loss of all his
fortune, he managed to keep body and soul together at Cambridge. The
enormous portrait of him by Rigaud, which is now in the Master’s Lodge,
displays him in his robes as an ambassador, and is one of the most
striking pictures in the college. He left a very beautiful collection
of books to the library, among which may be mentioned a splendid folio
edition of Ronsard’s poems. His poetry is essentially of the outer
world and not of Cambridge, but its culture and the academic flavour
which is apparent in the most frivolous pieces bear clear testimony to
the influence of the University on this light-hearted scholar. A very
opposite type of scholarship—the laborious and critical—is represented
by Richard Bentley,* who was a member of the society at the same time
with Matthew Prior, and rose to further fame as Master of Trinity. In
this period, too, Divinity was well represented. To say nothing of
Bishops Gunning and Turner, great names in the history of theology, three
masters of the college held, with their mastership, the Lady Margaret
Professorship of Divinity within a very short time of each other. These
were Dr Humphrey Gower,* master in 1679, Dr Robert Jenkin,* in 1711, and
Dr Newcome in 1735.
Since the arrest of Dr Beale, St John’s has enjoyed a very quiet
history. In the eighteenth century, it produced the regulation number
of noblemen and paid its full contribution to the cabinets of the
period. Towards the end of the century, we remark the name of the
eccentric Samuel Parr, whose portrait hangs in the Combination Room,
and of Herbert Marsh (* Ponsford), the controversialist and Bishop of
Peterborough, to whom Professor Mayor has devoted a large space in his
edition of Baker’s History. At the same time, we notice with interest
that William Wilberforce (* G. Richmond) and Thomas Clarkson (* Room)
were at St John’s together, and, while there, doubtless cultivated
the humanitarianism which is their common title to fame. Clarkson was
a native of Cambridgeshire, having been born at Wisbech, where his
father was master of the Grammar School, in 1760. But, in 1787, St
John’s received her most distinguished poet, William Wordsworth (*
Pickersgill). He himself, in lines which are at once oddly prosaic and
incomparably sublime, has described his impressions during his residence
at Cambridge. These, however, are the sole tie which binds him to the
place; for his retiring nature led him very little into society, and
his emotions and impressions were all highly subjective. He has told us
where his rooms were, but, owing to constant alterations, their exact
position has been somewhat disputed. They are at present turned into
one of the kitchen store-rooms. Some people, by a curious misreading of
the text, have imagined that he could look into Trinity antechapel from
his rooms and see Newton’s statue. As a matter of fact, he merely says
that he could see the antechapel, and this feat is easily performed from
any back-window on the south side of the first court. Like most highly
imaginative poets, and unlike the materialistic Matthew Prior, Wordsworth
was a dilatory student, and he deserted Cambridge in 1791 for the wilder
excitement of the French Revolution.
It is probable that no one has derived so much earthly benefit from an
early death as Henry Kirke White, who entered the college in 1804, died
in 1806, and has ever since been reckoned as one of its chief ornaments.
He is also the only member of the University who has a public monument in
Cambridge. At the age of nineteen he was a very promising mathematician,
and was patronised by Southey as a rising poet. The small collection of
poems and letters which constitute his “remains” show great religious
fervour and some metrical skill, but their imagination is defective and
morbid. His death excited great compassion, and his name still lives,
in England and America, as that of a precocious genius. It is not
unlikely that the greater name of Henry Martyn* is less widely known.
This distinguished scholar and Orientalist became a fellow in 1802, but
left Cambridge three years later to become a missionary. His life, short
although it is, is a splendid record of devoted piety and self-denial. He
went through dangers and privations in parts of the East which were then
totally unknown to Europeans, and died in the prosecution of his labours.
He may be regarded as the forerunner of a great band of Cambridge
missionaries, the earliest name in a kalendar which includes Ragland,
Mackenzie, Patteson and Smythies.
During the Napoleonic wars, Cambridge was possessed with a great martial
ardour, and among the most active promoters of the volunteer movement
of those days was Lord Temple,* who occupied rooms in the first court,
looking out on the street. Later on, this nobleman was better known as
Lord Palmerston. One of those who enrolled themselves under his guidance
was that eccentric gentleman, Patrick Brontë, subsequently Vicar of
Haworth in Yorkshire and father of a family whose tragic history is
well known to every student of English literature. With the name of
Palmerston, we touch modern times and come to the days of the scientific
and mathematical pre-eminence of the college. An extraordinary number
of great men have come from St John’s during the present reign. Among
scholars, Benjamin Hall Kennedy (* Ouless) has the first place. He
was, before his election to the Greek professorship, Head Master of
Shrewsbury, a school which has always been closely connected with St
John’s. The most distinguished historian was the late Charles Merivale,
Dean of Ely, whose _History of the Romans under the Empire_ is a monument
of Cambridge scholarship. The names of scientists are legion, but one
must not fail to mention John Couch Adams,* who was a Johnian and a
fellow of the college. The late James Joseph Sylvester (* Emslie),
although his genius was devoted to Oxford, is another man of world-wide
fame whom St John’s owns. The college supplied another distinguished
professor to Oxford in the person of Charles Pritchard, the well-known
Savilian professor. It is also necessary to mention the name of Edward
Henry Palmer, Lord Almoner’s Reader in Arabic, who, with one possible
exception, was the best Oriental scholar of the century. More intimately
related to the college were the two Babingtons, Churchill and Charles
Cardale,* who spent their lives at Cambridge and filled University
professorships. It would be invidious to select names of living members
of the college, but Professor Mayor, (* Herkomer) the editor of Juvenal,
and the present Bishop of Gloucester, Dr Ellicott, have their position
securely assured. Recently, too, the death of the Hon. Charles Pelham
Villiers, the “father of the House of Commons,” robbed the college of
an old member and constant friend. The modern history of St John’s is
essentially progressive, and, under Dr Bateson and the present master,
Dr Taylor, the college has been worked on broad and liberal lines. Its
yearly position in the schools testifies that it has in no way declined
from its original purpose, and is still that nursery of learning which
its foundress intended it to be. And, in connection with the modern
development of the college, it is impossible not to say something of the
College Mission. St John’s was the first Cambridge college which thought
of extending its energies for the benefit of the poor in large towns, and
its mission in a crowded part of Walworth was the example which moved
other colleges and schools to do something of the same kind. The result
is shown in the beautiful church and group of buildings which form the
nucleus of the parish. No more effectual realisation than this could be
found of the ideal of the foundress and Bishop Fisher, that their work
should not merely be accomplished for its own benefit, but that in time
to come, what they had done for their scholars, their scholars should do
for others.
XV
MAGDALENE COLLEGE
Magdalene is changed very little since the days of Samuel Pepys. Its
first court has been refaced with new-looking red brick, but the
interior, with its luxuriant covering of ivy, is time-worn and venerable.
There is, however, not much of any importance. The Hall is, perhaps,
the best which is to be found among the smaller colleges, and the
spacious double staircase which leads from it to the Combination Room,
is a feature of which any college might justly be proud. “Although
the staircase, as it exists, is the work of restorers, the detail of
the woodwork is excellent, and was doubtless suggested by the fine
Renaissance carving at Audley End.” The Chapel, north of the court, was
restored in 1847, and retains some of the ancient features, including
the roof. There is some modern stained glass, not very good. Beyond the
Hall, in the same position as the building at Christ’s (with which it
may be compared), is the famous Pepysian Library, a charming building
in the very latest style of Renaissance Gothic. Its general effect is
quite equal to the earlier work at Christ’s, and is very superior to that
of the river front at Clare, with which it is almost contemporary. The
spandrils of the arches in the basement are very profusely decorated with
fantastic patterns, and similar ornaments appear in the space between the
library windows and the heavy cornice below them. The Ionic pilasters
of the central compartment show traces of the Palladian influence which
just then found its way everywhere; and it is a fortunate circumstance
that the architect had enough feeling for his style not to multiply them.
As it is, they add to the charm of the building, and bring its central
division into a prominence which is demanded by the two very plain wings
with their chimneyed gables and rusticated angles. The Master’s Lodge
(1835) is north of the college, and is supposed to stand on one of the
escarpments of the ancient Camboritum—that is, if the Castle-Hill is
Camboritum. Otherwise, it is a simple Gothic building, rather better than
most houses of the time, but with no obtrusive features.
[Illustration: Magdalene College]
* * * * *
We have seen that Jesus and St John’s Colleges were founded by means
of the dissolution of monastic houses. Magdalene, founded thirty-one
years after St John’s, was merely the final step in the secularisation
of a religious house. In 1428 Henry VI. granted the site of the present
college to the monks of Crowland, who wished to found a hostel at
Cambridge for the use of their scholars at that University. The Abbeys of
Ely, Ramsey and Walden joined with Crowland in the work, and contributed
to the building. In the latter half of the century this theological
college, as we should call it, received substantial aid from Henry
Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose favours were continued in 1519 by
his son Edward. In recognition of the benefactions of Duke Henry, the
hostel took its title of Buckingham College. The foundation seems to have
departed gradually from its original purpose, for laymen were admitted
to it before the dissolution. However, it was only natural that, when
Crowland surrendered to the King, its dependent house should surrender
also. The crown resumed the property in December, 1539. Henry VIII.
granted the messuages of Buckingham College to Thomas, Lord Audley of
Walden, who also became possessed of Walden Abbey. In all probability,
the original connection between the abbey and the college induced him to
refound the institution on a new plan. He reconstituted it in 1542 under
the name of the College of St Mary Magdalene. Since his day, through all
the vicissitudes of his family, Magdalene College has remained under
the protection and patronage of the owner of Audley End, a stately and
beautiful appendage to the noblest country house in England. His work
was carried on by his successors. At his death he left a daughter, the
lady whose magnificent portrait by Lucas van Heere hangs in the great
hall at Audley End. She married the Duke of Norfolk, who, in 1564, being
at Cambridge with Queen Elizabeth, generously promised the college an
annuity of £40 until they had finished the “quadrant of their college,”
and further endowed the society, which was become much impoverished,
with landed property. Norfolk’s liberality was supplemented by the
contributions of the Lord Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray,* who had
been one of the lay students of Buckingham College.
The college was never large, and its history is scanty. Its first master
of any importance was Dr Thomas Nevile, who reigned from 1582 to 1593,
and then removed to Trinity. His fame belongs to the history of the
latter college. In the great concussion of the seventeenth century,
Magdalene adhered, as was natural, to the royalist side, and its master,
Dr Rainbow,* was rewarded after the Restoration with the Bishoprick
of Carlisle. Nicholas Ferrar,* the famous superior of the community at
Little Gidding, and the friend of Crashaw and Herbert, was a member
of this college as well as of Clare, and his portrait, with that of
his mother, is preserved in the Master’s Lodge. This saintly man, like
Herbert, was happy in dying before the troubles of his party began. But
one naturally connects Magdalene less with Ferrar than with an individual
of a very different order. Mr Samuel Pepys was entered at Trinity in
1650, but, for some reason, preferred Magdalene. By no means a scholar,
he enjoyed the social advantages of the University, and in after years
remembered the grateful flavour of Goody Mulliner’s stewed prunes, which
he used to buy “over against the college.” His eventual generosity to
Magdalene was something of an accident. During the closing years of his
life, the college was raising the exquisite eastern building. Pepys was
then casting about for a suitable destination for his library, and there
is no doubt that the singularly admirable qualities of the new building,
as well as his own prepossession for Magdalene, aided his decision. By
his will, he bequeathed his library to his nephew, Mr Jackson (another
Magdalene man), as his trustee, and provided that, at the death of this
gentleman, it should pass to Magdalene, and, by an express stipulation,
be housed in the New Building “and any part thereof, at my nephew’s
selection.” The document contained certain reservations in favour of
Trinity. Its whole wording shows an amusing caution. After a preamble,
in which he expresses his apprehension of the danger which might befall
the books at the hands of an incompetent heir, he proceeds to leave them,
at his nephew’s death, to one of the two Universities, but to Cambridge
rather than to Oxford. Then he states his preference for a private to
a public library, and confines the private libraries to Trinity and
Magdalene. Finally, he prefers Magdalene to Trinity, but provides that,
in case of specified losses, the books are forfeit to the latter college.
In this respect, he imitates Parker’s bequest to Corpus. “And that for a
yet further security herein, the sᵈ two colleges of Trinity and Magdalen
have a reciprocall check upon one another; and that college, wᶜʰ shall
be in present possession of the sᵈ Library, be subject to an annual
visitation from the other, and to the forfeiture thereof, to the like
possession and use of the other, upon conviction of any breach of their
sᵈ covenants.”
John Jackson died in 1724, and the precious legacy passed to Magdalene.
Its value is incontestable, and no treasure is to this day more jealously
guarded. The inscription “Bibliotheca Pepysiana,” and Pepys’ motto,
“Mens cujusque is est quisque,” were put up on the building after the
arrival of the books. The value of the bequest was more fully illustrated
when, in the present century, Lord Braybrooke, a Magdalene man himself
and visitor of the college, translated Pepys’ cypher diary and gave
that unvarnished picture of contemporary manners to the world, opening
thereby a most fruitful mine of research, as well as discovering a
hidden classic. Dr Peter Peckard,* master from 1781 to 1797, enriched
the library with his own collection. He was Dean of Peterborough. The
see of Peterborough, at the beginning of the same century, was held by a
Magdalene man, Dr Richard Cumberland, whose very exhaustive treatise on
Jewish Weights and Measures, as well as his polemical essay in answer to
Hobbes, are still remembered, although seldom read. The name of Daniel
Waterland,* master from 1713 to 1746, is of greater fame in the history
of controversial theology.
The present century, from 1813 to the present day, is covered by the long
masterships of an uncle and a nephew. The first of these was the Hon.
George Neville Grenville, Dean of Windsor (* Pickersgill); the second is
the present master, the Hon. Latimer Neville, who has ruled his college
for forty-five years. The Nevilles of Audley End are descendants of
the founder in the female line. The first Lord Braybrooke, the editor
of Pepys’ Diary, was a Neville of Billingsbear in Essex, and succeeded
the last Lord Howard de Walden, of the family of Griffin, on the death
of that nobleman without male issue. During the century, Magdalene has
had some reputation as a fashionable college; but the amusing American
critic, Mr Everett, spoke of it somewhat unjustly when he said that “it
is a favourite home for young men who are of the opinion, either from
conjecture or experience, that other colleges are too strict for them.”
It has, like other small colleges, produced an excellent percentage of
scholars and learned men. Our opinions as to the literary merits of
Charles Kingsley (* Lowes Dickinson) may be divided, but there can be no
question as to his abiding influence on English letters. He is equally
well known as parish priest, cathedral dignitary, novelist and poet, and
Professor of Modern History. The roll of living members includes the
name of Professor Alfred Newton (* Lowes Dickinson), and the genial and
kindly influence of the late Mr Frank Pattrick (* Dickinson), Tutor and
President of the college, is gratefully remembered by the latest and
youngest of those who have pursued their studies at Magdalene.
XVI
TRINITY COLLEGE
The Great Court of Trinity represents the earlier foundations of King’s
Hall and Michael House. Of these, the latter was the older, and its
buildings occupied a position nearly corresponding to the south-western
angle of the present court. It may safely be supposed that, up to the
last half of the eighteenth century, some remains of the original
building were allowed to exist, although Dr Nevile had probably faced
them in accordance with his general design. In 1771, however, James Essex
made a radical alteration in this corner, and the only part which was
thought worthy of preservation was the kitchen. This quaint room, entered
by a passage from the hall-screens, still survives, and may be regarded
as the nucleus of the modern Trinity. The next relic of importance is
the King’s Tower, which now blocks up the west end of the Chapel, and
occupies the centre of the north side of the court. It stood originally
a little south-east of its present site, and opened at the junction of
two lanes, one of which ran diagonally from the old church of All Saints’
to the Cam, while the other, coming from the present Trinity Lane, was
bounded on the west by the small court of Michael House. Now, of course,
the tower, removed and rebuilt, shows very little trace of antiquity,
and the oldest part of it is the statue of Edward III., which stands
above the gateway, and bears the inscription “Tertius Edwardus fama super
aethera notus.” This may be ascribed to the reign of Edward IV. Later on,
in the reign of Henry VII., the foundation of the great gateway was laid,
and a chapel for the scholars of King’s Hall was built.
[Illustration: Trinity College]
Not long after King’s Hall had received its new eastern gateway, which
implies a considerable extension of the college, Henry VIII. dissolved
the lesser foundations and founded Trinity as we know it. Henry’s chief
wish was to provide a sufficient chapel. It was not, however, until
Mary’s reign that any activity was shown in this work. Mary furthered
her father’s project, and allowed the builders to use the ruins of
Cambridge Castle as their quarry. The work was finished by Elizabeth.
Trinity Chapel is an excellent example of late Perpendicular work. As
Gothic work, it is stiff and debased, and forms a striking contrast to
the elegance of the Renaissance Hall. Its exterior has been very little
altered. Internally, however, it belongs to a much later period. The
west window was filled up by Nevile; the east window is obscured by a
huge baldachino of the last century. During Bentley’s mastership, Father
Smith built the present organ, one of the largest in England; and the
whole chapel was refitted to suit the capacities of this instrument.
Opinions may differ about the beauty of the heavy wooden screen in an
uncompromisingly classical taste which supports the organ and divides the
chapel from the antechapel; but it is unquestionably a very appropriate
addition to a stately, if ugly, interior. The carving of the stalls is
by Grinling Gibbons. Alterations did not stop here. The present century
has made the building what it is. Within the last thirty years the roof
and walls have been highly decorated in accordance with the rest of the
chapel, and the result is very imposing. Mr Henry Holiday’s stained
glass, which represents the saints and worthies of the Church from the
earliest period, is good, although its merits are a little various. The
western windows near the organ, devoted to members of Trinity, are the
best. In the antechapel the glass is very bad indeed. Otherwise, this
part of the building is not much altered, and its panelling of dark oak
makes it one of the most impressive sights in either university. This
is much increased by the fine statues. Of these, that of Newton, by
Roubiliac, was given in 1755 by the master, Dr Smith. The rest are more
modern. Bacon’s statue, by Weekes, was given by Dr Whewell; Barrow’s by
the late Lord Lansdowne. The statues of Macaulay and Whewell are both by
Woolner.
These various buildings and others which had grown about them were
gathered together in the reign of James I., and the result is the Great
Court, one of the largest and certainly without exception the most
beautiful of quadrangles in the world. Trinity owes a great debt to
Thomas Nevile, who was master from 1593 to 1615. To bring his buildings
into a systematic form, he took down King Edward III.’s tower and rebuilt
it west of the chapel. He added the upper storey to the great gateway,
and placed the statue of Henry VIII. in a niche outside, while on the
side towards the court he set up in corresponding niches statues of James
I., Prince Charles, and the Princess Elizabeth. On the south side he
built the Queen’s tower, which contains the figure of Queen Mary, and
is exactly opposite King Edward’s tower. Finally, to the west he built
the Hall, north of the old hall of Michael House, and, further north
still, the Master’s Lodge. His architect was that admirable genius, Ralph
Symons. Although the Great Court has been partly faced with stucco and,
in certain places, refronted, its beauty is indestructible. The sets of
rooms which join the towers and other buildings together, have their
height in very just proportion to the size of the quadrangle. What the
effect would be, were they higher than they are, may be seen by comparing
the Jacobean buildings with Essex’s classical addition near the kitchen,
and the modern Gothic buildings between the Chapel and Lodge. The beauty
of the court finds its central point, perhaps, in Nevile’s exquisite
fountain, built in 1602, which has all the best attributes of English
Renaissance work. It may be compared with the gateway just outside the
south-western corner of the court.
The Hall, with its light oriels and graceful louvre, was finished in
1604. Its interior is, perhaps, a little over-decorated, but possesses
a certain splendour which finds no parallel in England. The western
gallery, covered with rich carving and highly gilded, may be compared
with the similar galleries at Audley End and other contemporary houses.
The portraits are interesting, although of no great excellence as
a whole. Newton, Bacon, and Barrow occupy the north end, and other
celebrities, such as Dryden, Cowley and Pearson, are to be found on the
side walls above the panelling. Sir Joshua Reynolds’ charming portrait
of the little Duke of Gloucester hangs close to the western oriel, and
near it is Mr Watts’ portrait of Tennyson. Other modern portraits are
those of Thackeray (Lockhart Bogle), Dr Thompson (Herkomer), Dr Lightfoot
(Richmond), and, of living celebrities, Professor Michael Foster
(Herkomer) and Dr Henry Jackson (C. W. Furse).
[Illustration: The Fountain
Trinity College
E·H·N]
Beyond the Hall, Nevile built the court, which bears his name, and, for
a certain beauty of its own, is not far behind the Great Court. Ralph
Symons was again his architect. This building consisted of two wings,
shorter than at present, at right angles to the Hall, and built above a
cloister. These splendid arcades are the very crown of Renaissance work
in Cambridge; their cloistered ground-floor recalls Bologna or Padua
rather than the court of an English university; but their upper stories
are thoroughly English work. Nevile’s Court did not assume its present
secluded, aristocratic appearance until considerably more than a hundred
years later. Isaac Barrow, one of the many great Masters of Trinity,
began the library in 1675, with Sir Christopher Wren as his architect.
The court was completed by the generous addition of two compartments to
the original arcades, which was paid for by some of the fellows. Wren’s
Library is so prominent that its incongruity with the rest of the court
is not at once obvious, but there can be no doubt that it is seen at its
best on the river side. Its front towards the court is adorned with a
bas-relief which represents the dedication of the Septuagint to Ptolemy
Philadelphus. On the roof are four statues of learned nymphs by Gabriel
Cibber, which are chiefly remarkable for the part they played in one of
Byron’s most senseless freaks. The interior of the Library is matchless
for its magnificent simplicity. It is a pity that the arbiters of taste
in the last century should have allowed Cipriani to design the window
at the south end, but this is the sole fault. The numerous busts (some
by Roubiliac), the carvings on the bookcases (Grinling Gibbons) and
Thorwaldsen’s statue of Byron are remarkable.
Wren is also supposed to have harmonised the side of the Hall which
stands opposite, with his Library. The present meaningless alcoves and
the balustrade which have superseded Nevile’s work on this side, are
probably by Essex, who was brought in to prop up the Hall and build the
Combination Room and Kitchen Offices in 1771. A little while before Wren
began working at Trinity, John Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry,
founded Bishop’s Hostel, the small building south of the Great Court,
and close to the Trinity Lane entrance. These buildings (1670) are now
somewhat overlapped by the modern buildings of Garret Hostel, which are
also of red brick. Garret Hostel is, however, a much older component of
Trinity, and the modern buildings are simply a revival.
During the eighteenth century Bentley effected his famous alterations in
the Lodge and Chapel, and Essex made the additional changes to which I
have referred. No actual addition was made to the college until, in 1823,
William Wilkins began his court in the revived Gothic taste, adjoining
Nevile’s Court on the south. George IV. proved a benefactor to the extent
of £1000, and the official name of the new building is for this reason
King’s Court. It was finished about six years later. Cambridge, as we
have seen, has a long tale to tell of Georgian Gothic, and the New Court
of Trinity is a very typical example of that period. It nevertheless is
a far more pleasant building than Wilkins’ court at Corpus or Rickman’s
at St John’s, although there is not much to praise in it. To a much
better period of modern Gothic belong Mr Beresford Hope’s improvements in
the Lodge and the Master’s Courts, usually known as Whewell’s Court (and
by more familiar names), which are opposite the great gate of Trinity,
and are one of the thoroughfares between Trinity Street and Sidney
Street. Dr Whewell built this court at his own expense, with Salvin
as his architect. Outside, it is gloomy but imposing. The darkness of
its interior was till quite recently almost to be felt; but now (1898)
they are being refaced, and the depressing rooms are being made into
comfortable and picturesque habitations.
The grounds of Trinity are spacious and pleasant, and the famous
lime-walk is one of the wonders of Cambridge. When Dr Nevile built his
court, he filled up a branch of the Cam which ran northwards from Garret
Hostel Bridge and rejoined the main stream at the north-west corner of
the present Library. The bridge which connects the lime-walk with the
new court was built by Essex, and is his best work in Cambridge, if that
is any praise.
* * * * *
The royal foundation of Trinity College is, as a matter of fact, one of
the youngest colleges in Cambridge. At the same time, it is to Cambridge
what Christ Church is to Oxford, and, more than that, its name, to a
great number of people, is almost synonymous with Cambridge. Henry VIII.,
the most learned of our English sovereigns, was naturally a great patron
of learning. In 1546, the year in which, with his characteristic want
of scruple, he took upon himself the credit of founding Wolsey’s great
college at Oxford, he also founded Trinity at Cambridge. His material was
ready to hand, for the small colleges and hostels which filled up the
space between the present Trinity Street and the river provided scanty
room for their members, and needed amalgamation. Trinity, in fact, as
it now exists, is composed of a number of separate foundations, the
principal of which were Michael House, founded in 1324, and King’s Hall,
founded by Edward III. in 1337. These two colleges had gradually absorbed
many of the smaller hostels. The founder of Michael House was Hervé de
Staunton, treasurer to King Edward II. In spite of its limited situation,
it had a certain amount of prestige, and one of its last masters was John
Fisher, afterwards President of Queens’ and Bishop of Rochester. It
used the church of St Michael as its chapel. King’s Hall, on the other
hand, had, by the time of Henry VIII., extended its boundaries and built
its own chapel. It had grown out of a corporation of scholars, which had
found a patron in Edward II., and had been presented by Edward III., in
1336, with a piece of ground belonging to one Robert of Crowland—which
may point to a connection between the foundation and Crowland Abbey, the
great centre of English learning. A regular charter was granted in 1337.
The accounts of the institution remain, and point to a style of living
which would not be very highly accounted of now, but was positively
luxurious for medieval Cambridge. The scholars attended chapel at St
Mary’s by the Market and All Saints’ in the Jewry, until, in Edward IV.’s
reign, they obtained leave to found a chapel for themselves. King’s Hall
naturally became the nucleus of Henry’s college, and the lesser buildings
found their centre in its court, enlarged and beautified. John Redman,
the last master of King’s Hall, became the first master of Trinity
College.
Under the charter of 1546, Henry VIII. founded Trinity College for a
master and sixty fellows and scholars. The full title was “Trinity
College within the Town and University of Cambridge of King Henry the
Eighth’s foundation.” Michael House, dedicated primarily to St Michael
the Archangel, had been founded under the secondary invocations of the
Holy and Undivided Trinity, St Mary, and All Saints; and it is probable
that the first of these suggested the name under which the college
has become so famous. Trinity College is the most distinguished fruit
of that revived learning which paved the way for and accompanied the
Reformation: from the very beginning its tendencies were liberal and
progressive; every genius which it nourished was eminently constructive.
The names of its three greatest _alumni_, Newton, Bacon, and Barrow,
form, so to speak, the three fountain-heads of organized philosophical
thought in England; and there are a hundred less monumental names which
are sufficient guarantee of the intellectual supremacy of Trinity over
her sisters. The history of the college divides itself naturally into
periods. The first is a period of consolidation, extending from 1546 to
1593. During this time, the college suffered the ordinary vicissitudes
of the Reformation. Its chapel, which had been projected by Henry
VIII., was begun by Mary and finished, probably out of a sense of duty,
by Elizabeth. In 1553, William Bill, the second master, who had been
appointed under Edward VI., had to retire in favour of a Catholic master,
John Christopherson, but was of course restored at the accession of
Elizabeth. He was succeeded in 1561 by Robert Beaumont, who presented to
the Master’s Lodge a portrait of the founder by Lucas van Heere, one of
the most excellent portrait-painters of the sixteenth century. Beaumont,
in his turn, was succeeded by John Whitgift, who was already well known
in Cambridge as Master of Peterhouse and Pembroke, and Fellow of Queens’.
Whitgift, with Matthew Parker and Matthew Hutton, is one of the three
divines who may be taken as typical of Elizabethan Cambridge—strongly
anti-papal in their sentiments, but keeping nevertheless a cautious eye
on the political balance. It is hardly necessary to add that Whitgift’s
long list of Cambridge preferments eventually led to the Archbishoprick
of Canterbury. And it was during his mastership that the greatest
intellect of the age was trained at his college. Under the yoke of
the Aristotelian system of philosophy, Francis Bacon, while still at
Cambridge, perceived the fallacies of the stereotyped methods of thought,
and laid the foundation of inductive science. Bacon’s life is connected
more intimately with affairs of state than with his University; but
Trinity regards him as one of the principal saints in her kalendar, and
his memory greets the visitor at every turn. His portrait is one of the
three at the end of the Hall; there is another in the Master’s Lodge;
his bust, by Roubiliac, is in the Library; and, in 1845, his statue was
placed, side by side with that of Newton, in the antechapel.
Bacon is the great figure of this early period. Nine years older than
he, the Lord Chief Justice Coke (* Whood: bust by Roubiliac) is the
first of the great lawyers connected with Trinity. Another celebrated
name is that of Dr Donne, Dean of St Paul’s, divine and poet. Sir Henry
Spelman (* Whood), the antiquary and translator of Xenophon, was a
contemporary of Bacon, and, some years after, Sir Robert Cotton (* bust
by Roubiliac) furnished Trinity with another archæologist. Whitgift,
after his translation to Canterbury, was succeeded by John Still, who
became Bishop of Bath and Wells. With Still’s successor, Dr Thomas
Nevile,* master from 1593 to 1615, the second period opens. Nevile held
the Deanery of Canterbury with his mastership, but his life was spent in
Cambridge, and his architectural work in Trinity, while it is the most
important in the University, stamps him as the chief benefactor of the
college. In that great age of building, Nevile’s work has an honourable
pre-eminence: it is the sign of a monumental perseverance and an artistic
taste which, even in that fine era of Renaissance culture, was never
surpassed. We may with justice echo the words of Fuller, who says that
Dr Nevile performed this work “answering his anagram _most heavenly_,
and practising his own allusive motto _ne vile velis_.” Higher praise
could not be given. Nevile’s buildings, if architecture may be considered
to reflect contemporary history, may be regarded as a turning-point in
Cambridge thought. When we look at the reactionary tendency to the Gothic
taste in Jacobean Oxford, and compare it with the distinct preference
shown in Cambridge for classical and Renaissance models, the radical
divergence of the two Universities is clear. Nevile’s courts at Trinity
were the beginning of a long series of collegiate buildings which, often
very defective, took the place of Gothic work and held it for the next
two centuries. The sole exception to this rule is Matthew Wren’s chapel
at Peterhouse. Besides his building energy, Nevile acquired land for the
college, so that, when the Society enlarged its buildings in after years,
it found itself in possession of the requisite site. The King’s Court
occupies part of this property. One can only say that Nevile’s memory
might be honoured with a better building.
One of the first scholars of Trinity who saw Nevile’s work in its
complete state was George Herbert. He was born in 1593, the first
year of Nevile’s mastership, and entered Trinity at a very early age.
Although it is more natural to think of him as a parish priest and the
writer of the most beautiful devotional poetry in English, his career
at Cambridge was not without distinction. His early Latinity was as
perfect as Milton’s, and he filled the office of Public Orator of the
University. He is unique among Trinity men as the only important member
of the college who belonged to the most illustrious school of English
churchmen—the school which, under Andrewes, Laud and Cosin, placed the
Church of England on a logical and independent footing. The honours of
this school are shared rather unequally between the two Universities, but
Cambridge contributed a substantial quota to the whole sum. There is no
portrait of Herbert in the college, but he is commemorated in one of the
chapel windows. He died at the early age of forty, before the troubles
of the Great Rebellion. John Hacket,* the Royalist Bishop of Lichfield
and Coventry, was probably at Trinity with Herbert. He is remembered,
not so much for his divinity as for his gallant defence of his cathedral
against the Puritan destroyers. He was born in 1592 and did not die
till 1670, ten years after the Restoration. In his seventieth year,
having been mercifully preserved throughout the troubles, he desired to
bestow some mark of his affection upon Trinity, “that Society,” as he
said with a noble pathos characteristic of the party to which he had
attached himself, “which is more precious to me, next to the Church of
Jesus Christ, than any place upon earth.” The result of his bequest was
the present Bishop’s Hostel, which occupied part of the site of the old
Garret’s or Gerrard’s Hostel.
The seventeenth century is fertile in great men. During the century,
however, none of the masters of the college were very conspicuous men,
and the mastership, between 1615 and 1683, changed hands no less than
twelve times. It is also worthy of remark that three successive masters
ended their lives as Bishops of Chester, thus uniting Henry VIII.’s
collegiate foundation with one of his bishopricks. These were John
Wilkins (* Whood), master in 1659, Henry Ferne, master in 1660, and
John Pearson (* Whood), master from 1662 to 1673. This last is the only
exception to the general insignificance of the masters at this time. He
was a distinguished scholar who had been connected with several colleges,
and had held the mastership of Jesus. His work on the Apostles’ Creed
is still one of the classics of English theology. About the middle of
the century, Dryden (* Hudson) came to Trinity from Westminster School.
Both he and Abraham Cowley (* Slaughton) were strongly attached to the
Royalist side during the Commonwealth disturbances, and Cowley, who
entered the college in 1637 and proceeded to his master’s degree, was
expelled in 1643 on account of his too strongly expressed loyalty. He
found more congenial soil at St John’s College, Oxford, the college of
Laud, Juxon, and others of the same party. If to these poets we add the
names of the naturalists Ray (* Hudson: bust by Roubiliac) and Willoughby
(bust by Roubiliac) we shall have enumerated the most illustrious Trinity
men of their time. Ray and Willoughby, who studied natural history with
special reference to its religious character, were, in fact, the founders
of the modern science, just as Dryden may be said to have struck the
first note of modern poetry.
Pearson became Bishop of Chester in 1672, and removed there in 1673.
Under his successor, Isaac Barrow, began the golden age of Trinity.
Barrow is, in many ways, the most extraordinary genius of whom Cambridge
can boast. He was one of that rare class whose knowledge is practically
universal. He was born in 1630, a year before his great contemporary,
John Locke, who went up to Oxford from Westminster about the time when
Barrow went up from Charterhouse to Cambridge. Barrow was a man of
surprising energy and, at Cambridge, he appears to have read deeply in
every subject which was then studied. He was classic, mathematician,
scientist, theologian, and orator; and in each of these branches he
excelled. He was appointed Regius Professor of Greek in 1655, and,
subsequently, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics—a feat which, to the
scholars of to-day, would seem next to impossible. Undoubtedly, however,
his promotion to the mastership of his college and his subsequent
celebrity were due to his fame as a divine. His sermons bear the same
relation to his age that those of Jeremy Taylor bear to the Stewart
period. He was in high favour as a preacher at court, and, on Pearson’s
retirement, his appointment was obvious. He did not hold the mastership
for more than four years, as in 1677 he died at the age of forty-seven.
His portrait by Hudson hangs in the college Hall; his bust, by Roubiliac,
is in the Library; and his statue, by Noble, was placed in the antechapel
during the mastership of his worthy successor, Whewell.
At this time, the mathematical attainments of the Society must have
been overpowering. Barrow’s fame in this department has perhaps been
obscured by that of Sir Isaac Newton; but, if we are to believe Newton’s
generous compliment, the early death of Roger Cotes robbed Trinity of an
even greater prodigy. The college may nevertheless be well content with
Newton, who was emphatically a Trinity man, spending very little of his
life away from Cambridge. He was twelve years younger than Barrow, and
entered Trinity in the year of the Restoration, when he was eighteen.
Nine years later, his studies proved so fruitful that Barrow gave up the
Lucasian professorship in his favour. For more than half a century, he
was the chief ornament of the University. His discoveries revolutionised
the whole theory of mathematics, and it was owing to his personality
that the subsequent energies of Cambridge were so largely mathematical.
He occupied rooms between the Great Gateway and the Chapel. Although he
made Cambridge his home, he had a large share in public business, sitting
as Member for the University and receiving the mastership of the Mint.
This office he probably owed to another member of the college, Charles
Montague, Earl of Halifax (* Kneller), whose recall of the specie is
among the most famous of English financial operations. In 1703, Newton
was elected President of the Royal Society, which, it is interesting to
note, had been founded, forty years before, mainly through the energy of
Dr Wilkins, Master of Trinity and one of the three Bishops of Chester
mentioned above. Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705, and died in
1727. His scientific studies were not his exclusive pursuits, for he
was, to a certain extent, one of the group of literary men who are the
glory of Anne’s reign, and was also much occupied with the elucidation
of prophecy, which probably attracted him from its mathematical side.
Trinity has very justly regarded him as her greatest son. His portrait,
by Ritz, occupies the place of honour in the Hall, and every visitor to
Cambridge knows—
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
The statue, which is by Roubiliac, and is that master’s most famous
work, bears the inscription from Lucretius “Qui genus humanum ingenio
superavit.” There is a bust of him in the Library, also by Roubiliac, and
several portraits are to be found throughout the college.
After Barrow’s death, the mastership was filled successively by the
Hon. John North* and the Hon. John Montague,* whose rule was calculated
to foster a comfortable laziness rather than industry. On the death
of the second of these, Dr Richard Bentley, fellow of St John’s, was
elected master. There was, in those days, a strong feeling of rivalry
between the two foundations—not only academical, but also in political
and social matters. Bentley was a rare genius, whose scholarship was
just then acknowledged as the finest in England, but he was utterly
devoid of good feeling and tact, and had a peculiar faculty for exciting
hatred. His fame, for the most of us, is due to his high place in
the _Dunciad_. He arrived in Trinity with the intention of managing
the college on his own lines. There was a party in the Society which
thoroughly enjoyed the comfort of a position it did not adorn, and in
this body Bentley found his most devoted enemies. Instead of conciliating
them, he treated them with undisguised contempt and arrogance; and his
conduct was so injudicious that he alienated all the better members
of the college from himself. Matters came to a head when Bentley made
radical alterations in the Master’s Lodge, and presented the fellows
with a bill considerably larger than the original estimate. Open war
broke out; the fellows refused to pay; and Bentley in consequence applied
methods of coercion, withholding privileges which were in his gift. The
fellows found themselves obliged to give in after some time, and Bentley
followed up this victory by altering the interior of the chapel to suit
the new organ. At this point, however, the Society revolted for good.
Bentley required a large subscription of each fellow. The fellowship
dividends had been much reduced during the previous years, and, with this
additional burden, poverty stared many of the dons in the face. In this
crisis, the fellows, who undoubtedly had justice on their side, called
in Serjeant Milne, a London lawyer and one of their number, and, under
his guidance, addressed a _gravamen_ against the Master to the Bishop of
Ely. Things would have gone hardly for Bentley, had not the Bishop died
opportunely. This Bishop, by the way, was John Moore, whose books George
I. gave to the University Library. However, Bentley’s tyranny was not
suffered to continue, for, in 1718, the Senate passed a grace degrading
him from his high positions in the University. After this, the quarrel
was less prominent. Bentley occupied the Lodge till 1742, but the bad
feeling which he had excited continued till the end of his life. His
judgment and taste may be estimated from the reply which he is said to
have given to some congratulatory address after his election. Referring
to his original college of St John’s, he said, “By the help of my God,
I have leaped over a wall.” His arrogance might have been excusable in
a young man whose promotion was early, but Bentley, in 1700, was past
middle life. His scholarship was sound, and there is no doubt that his
arguments against the Epistles of Phalaris crushed the position of his
adversary Boyle; but his lack of proper feeling always put him in the
wrong, and his memory lives in the satire of Pope and Swift rather than
in his own work. Hudson’s portrait of him is in the Hall, and his bust,
by Roubiliac, is in the Library.
The quarrels of Bentley’s mastership form a period by themselves in the
college history. At the same time, it must be remembered that the quarrel
was confined to a section of the Society, and that the better members
kept aloof from it. It had nevertheless a marked effect on the college
throughout the eighteenth century, with the consequence that famous names
are comparatively scanty. Of Bentley’s opponents, the most distinguished
was Dr Conyers Middleton, whose life of Cicero was good enough to merit
a century of abuse. Lesser scholars of the same time were Roger Gale,*
the antiquary, who is often confounded with the learned Theophilus Gale
of Magdalen, Oxford, author of the once famous _Court of the Gentiles_;
and Beaupré Bell* of Outwell, Norfolk, who was an enthusiastic lover of
church architecture, and left his valuable manuscripts to the college
library. Bentley’s immediate successor, Dr Robert Smith,* master from
1742 to 1768, bequeathed his name to the Smith’s Prizes. He was succeeded
by John Hinchliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, a typical prelate of the last
century and a born pluralist. Lord Orford, in his _Tour of the Fens_,
describes his entertainment at the Palace of Peterborough; from which
we may divine that Hinchliffe was fond of a good dinner and liked the
vicinity of a nobleman. On one occasion, he put a man with no voice into
the Trinity choir, because he happened to have a vote for Peterborough.
A fellow of the college, named Mansel, who was more remarkable for his
ponderous wit than his piety, wrote the following epigram:—
A singing man, and yet not sing?
How justify your patron’s bounty?
Forgive me; you mistake the thing;
My voice is in another county.
This same Mansel* came, some years later, to great dignity as Bishop of
Bristol and Master of Trinity. His mastership, from 1798 to 1820, closes
the eighteenth century. The most distinguished member of the college at
this time was the great Professor of Greek, Richard Porson,* who died in
1808 at the age of forty-nine. His beautiful Greek handwriting may be
seen in one of the cases in the college library. Otherwise, the scholars
of the last century are few and far between. Trinity was, however, the
great nursing-place for noblemen; and among the number of her sons may be
mentioned the famous Marquess of Granby (* Reynolds) whose head serves
as the sign for so many inns; John Jefferies Pratt, Marquess Camden and
Chancellor of the University (* Lawrence), George Henry Fitzroy, Duke of
Grafton (* Lawrence), and, of royal blood, William Frederick, Duke of
Gloucester (* Gainsborough, Romney, Opie), Chancellor of the University,
and Frederick Augustus, Duke of Sussex (* Lonsdale). A great statesman
of the day was Spencer Perceval,* who was assassinated in the lobby of
the Houses of Parliament. But, if we turn to men of letters and poets, we
merely find such men as the parodist, Isaac Hawkins Browne.*
Lord Byron received his education under Mansel. His career at Cambridge
would be scarcely worth recording, were he not Byron; for it is the
record of a foolish series of silly exploits and eccentricities bordering
on madness. The place of honour which is given to his statue in the
library always seems a little better than his merits. He occupied rooms
in Nevile’s Court, and contrived, during his residence, to irritate the
college authorities. Mansel, as master, had a very exalted idea of the
virtues of his position, and, from the anecdotes which are told of him,
must have made himself peculiarly unpleasant. He was the last master of
Trinity who combined that office with episcopal dignity. His successor,
Christopher Wordsworth,* master from 1820 to 1841, was brother to the
poet, and father of the late saintly Bishop of Lincoln.
During Wordsworth’s time, the college was full of great men. Adam
Sedgwick* was Professor of Geology. Another member of the college was
Thomas Babington Macaulay, who was born with the century. As Fellow of
Trinity, the great historian was thoroughly identified with the college,
and, nine years after his death, his statue, by Woolner, was placed among
the distinguished society of the antechapel. Younger by nine years than
Macaulay was Alfred Tennyson (* Watts), who, in a few exquisite verses,
made himself peculiarly the poet of Trinity. The chief event of his
Cambridge life was, of course, his friendship for Arthur Henry Hallam,
who lived, as is well known, in the New Court. Tennyson himself was
otherwise not greatly attached to Cambridge. He lived at some distance
from Trinity, in Corpus Buildings, and went down without taking his
degree. In this respect, Thackeray (* Bogle), two years his junior, was
very different from him. Through all his life, Thackeray, although he was
so closely identified with London, kept his love for Cambridge, and was
at heart a don. While still in residence, he would walk reading along
one of the paths in the Great Court, and, in after life, he constantly
returned. His rooms were close to Newton’s, north of the Great Gate.
Probably no one has handled University life with more success—the subject
is proverbially difficult—than Thackeray in the early chapters of
_Pendennis_; and, in most of his novels, he sent his heroes to colleges
which, whether he placed them in Oxford or Cambridge, have all the
features of his beloved Trinity.
With Thackeray we are hard on the heels of our own age. The modern
period of Trinity’s history begins with the mastership of William
Whewell, whose name is inseparable from his college. The twenty-five
years of his mastership, from 1841 to 1866, form a very distinguished
epoch. As scholar, organiser, and benefactor to the foundation, he was
pre-eminent. The famous epigram which said of him that “Science was his
forte and omniscience his foible” was in the main true, but he carried
to everything he attempted an immense interest and a sound judgment.
His statue very worthily completes the group in the antechapel. It
was erected during the mastership of his successor, William Hepworth
Thompson (* Herkomer) the Platonist, famous for his erudition and his
_bons mots_. Before his elevation to the mastership, Dr Thompson had been
Regius Professor of Greek. The men of his generation who belonged to the
Society were men of the highest eminence; the best known are, perhaps,
Joseph Barber Lightfoot (* Richmond, Dickinson), the commentator on St
Paul’s Epistles and Bishop of Durham; James Clerk Maxwell,* Professor
of Experimental Physics in the University; the late Arthur Cayley (*
Dickinson), the greatest mathematician whom Trinity boasts since the
days of Newton; and the Public Orator, W. G. Clark (bust by Woolner),
Thompson’s life-long friend. When Thompson died in 1886, he was succeeded
by the present master, Dr Butler, who had been Head Master of Harrow and
Dean of Gloucester. Beneath these rulers, and with the highest prestige
in the world as her tradition, Trinity fully justifies her distinction
as a royal foundation and a nursing-mother of sound and religious
learning. To select from the present society is invidious; but the names
of Professor Henry Sidgwick, Professor Michael Foster (* Herkomer), Dr
Henry Jackson (* Furse), and Professor Jebb, are of European repute,
to say nothing of the present vice-master, Mr Aldis Wright, editor of
Shakspeare, and Mr John Willis Clark, the present Registrary, whose
investigations in Cambridge history and antiquities are well known
everywhere. In the Church one may point to the theologian Dr Westcott,
Bishop of Durham, to Dr Farrar, Dean of Canterbury, and to the late
Charles Alan Smythies, Bishop of Zanzibar; among politicians, to Mr
Arthur and Mr Gerald Balfour, and Sir William Harcourt; while of doctors,
lawyers and men of letters the crowd cannot be numbered.
XVII
EMMANUEL COLLEGE
When one hears of the destruction of the beautiful courts at Emmanuel
and Sidney, one is tempted to wonder what good genius of building spared
the second court of St John’s and Nevile’s Court at Trinity. Had Ralph
Symons’ work been allowed to remain here, we should have had a building
almost exactly parallel with the latter. Symons built courts, but he did
not attempt imposing street-fronts, and the ranges he erected between
1584 and 1586 turned their backs ungraciously to the road. The entrance
to the college was on the north side, where there is now a smaller court
in the Gothic style of 1840. What is now known as the Brick Building,
east of the entrance court and at right angles to the south side, belongs
to 1633, but is substantially in harmony with Symons’ earlier work.
It forms a very charming fragment. The classical transformation of
Emmanuel was begun during Dr Breton’s mastership. Sir Christopher Wren,
who was just completing his chapel at Pembroke, was invited to design
the east side of the court. It is interesting to observe how he followed
his uncle’s design for the chapel of Peterhouse, copying the lateral
galleries which connect the chapel with the main buildings. Wren built
these between 1665 and 1677, and it is probable that, when he began
working at Trinity in 1675, he left the completion of this beautiful
composition to his pupil, Nicholas Hawksmoor. The characteristic of
the whole is a very striking dignity. Internally, the chapel is less
interesting, but the stained glass, representing noteworthy members of
the college, such as Sancroft, William Law, and some of the Cambridge
Platonists, is thoroughly suited to the fine, plain windows. The
northern gallery is the picture-gallery of the Master’s Lodge as well
as an approach to the chapel, and contains a number of fine portraits,
including a Lely, two Gainsboroughs and two Romneys.
In the last century the revival which Wren had innocently inaugurated
swept away Symons’ building. In 1719 the south side of the court was
rebuilt; the gigantic pilasters in the centre are a proof of how bad
the Palladian work of that over-abused period could be. Sir James
Burrough of Caius, who for half a century was the architectural
dictator of Cambridge, designed new north and west buildings, obeying
the unconquerable desire of the day for an eloquent façade. Because
the design is Burrough’s, this addition is tolerable and more or less
appropriate to the chapel; but Burrough died before it was begun, and
this, like the Clare chapel, is a posthumous and probably slanderous
addition to his fame. At all events the work was entrusted to Essex, who
carried it out before 1770. It is perhaps significant that Essex was
chosen, a year or two later, to compare his work once more to Wren’s,
this time at Trinity. The western cloister, which recalls the similar but
earlier building at Pembroke, is heavy but not unsuccessful. Essex had
his own way with the Hall, which is probably the least agreeable hall in
Cambridge. It is cold and stiff, and the plaster roof brings bad taste
to a climax. In the Gothic court north of this is the Library, which
corresponds to the refectory of the old Dominican house—the Hall is on
the site of the chapel. It was, till the Restoration, the college chapel.
Sancroft, to whose initiative Wren’s work is due, gave it a valuable
collection of old books, chiefly Bibles, and its Oriental manuscripts
were carefully described by Sir William Jones. The chief modern addition
to Emmanuel is the large brick building at the east end of the college
garden. This, although not remarkable in itself, is interesting as the
pioneer of an attempt to revive the economical principle of the medieval
hostel. It also forms a not unfitting termination to the pretty lawn,
with its pond and tennis-courts.
* * * * *
“The pure house of Emmanuel” occupies the site of the house of Dominican
Friars outside Barnwell Gate. At the dissolution the buildings were left
untouched, and, when Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Treasurer of the Household, came into possession of the land, he had his
materials for a college all ready. Sir Walter was a strong Puritan, and
was on that account no great favourite with Queen Elizabeth. She met him
one day and said, “Sir Walter, I hear that you have erected a Puritan
foundation.” Sir Walter, however, disclaimed the insinuation, “No, Madam;
far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established
laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone
knows what will be the fruit thereof.” The acorn, nevertheless, grew into
a very Puritan oak. The buildings seem to have been erected in a curious
spirit; for, if not Sir Walter, at all events his executors, revelled
in the fact that the secular buildings of the foundation stood upon the
Friary church, and did all they could to obliterate the monastic plan
of the buildings. But, beyond this unnecessary manifestation of spite,
the college was admirably governed and its students were—and all through
its history have been—serious and law-abiding. Sir Walter founded it as
“a College of Theology, Science, Philosophy, and Literature, for the
extension of the pure Gospel of Christ our only Mediator, to the honour
and glory of Almighty God,” and appointed, as its first master, Dr
Laurence Chaderton, who ruled the college for thirty-eight years, and had
a great part in the Authorised Version of the Bible. Under Dr Chaderton,
the foundation increased in learning and godliness, and Fuller said of
it, “Sure I am, at this day it hath overshadowed all the Universities,
more than a moiety of the present masters of colleges being bred
therein.” Dr Branthwaite* of Caius, Dr Whichcot* of King’s, Dr Samuel
Ward* of Sidney, and the famous Ralph Cudworth* of Clare and Christ’s,
all held fellowships at Emmanuel.
As time went on, the Puritanism of Emmanuel became more and more
pronounced. The services in the chapel savoured of Congregationalism
and were altogether opposed to the Laudian revival of church life and
doctrine. Under the first Dr Sancroft, the college ritual was thus
reported to the Archbishop, “They receive that Holy Sacrament, sitting
upon forms about the Communion Table, and do pull the Loaf one from the
other, after the minister hath begun. And so the Cup, one drinking as it
were to another, like good fellows, without any particular application
of the said words, more than once for all.” This expression of shocked
piety has nothing in its wording which allows us to expect exaggeration.
The servers at the altar were also “Fellows’ subsizars,” and not in holy
orders. However, one fails to see any extravagant Protestantism in this
arrangement. Emmanuel chapel must have presented a strange contrast to
Wren’s and Cosin’s chapel at Peterhouse, or to the chapel at Queens’
which Dowsing ransacked so unceremoniously. The college, meanwhile, was
the nursery of American colonisers, and has therefore always been a goal
of American pilgrimage. Mr Everett’s bombastic passage on the subject has
been often quoted; its eloquence is scarcely of the finest type. But, in
company with a row of Pilgrim Fathers, Emmanuel produced John Harvard,
the founder of the greatest American University, and may therefore be
called the mother of American education.
But, in common with St John’s and other colleges, Emmanuel lost its
Puritanism with years. The Restoration brought in a better state of
feeling, and, under the second Dr Sancroft and his successors, Doctors
Breton* and Holbech,* the college devoted its energies to building.
William Sancroft became Archbishop of Canterbury, and kept up the
traditions of his college in refusing to acknowledge James II.’s
Declaration. He was the chief of the seven bishops who signed the famous
petition against that document. Afterwards, as a non-juror, he resigned
his archbishoprick. But the best of all the sons of Emmanuel was another
non-juror, William Law, who was for many years a fellow, and held the
living of King’s Cliffe in Northamptonshire. This great man has become
better known to the world since the publication of his biography by Canon
Overton, and the reprinting of his letters to Bishop Hoadly. He was a
staunch and able supporter of the Church’s principles, but his most
abiding monument is the half mystical but intensely practical treatise
called _A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life_. The book has had
an influence second only to that of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and its
wide application may be judged from the fact that it affected people so
widely different as Dr Johnson and Richard Hurrell Froude. Its simple
but vivid style and its picturesque quaintness, account very largely
for its popularity. In later years, Law, a solitary and meditative man,
took up the half-understood ideas of German mysticism, and became a blind
disciple of Jacob Behmen. These later aberrations have somewhat eclipsed
his legitimate fame. The college has commemorated him by a window in
the chapel. In connection with Law, it is interesting to remember that
another mystical writer, Joseph Hall, Bishop, first of Exeter and
afterwards of Norwich, was a fellow of Emmanuel. There is a portrait of
Hall in the splendid collection at the Lodge, in which he is represented
as wearing a gold medal. This medal was given him by the States General
as a recognition of his services at the Synod of Dort, and the original
is still in the possession of the college.
There is also, in the same collection, an admirable portrait of Sancroft,
who, beyond his contributions to the new chapel, was a great benefactor
to the library. This library is one of the most valuable in Cambridge.
Bishop Bedell of Kilmore, who pursued his studies at Emmanuel with great
success, and was a fellow of the college, left it a Hebrew Bible which he
had bought for its weight in silver. Among other treasures it contains
a MS. of Chrysostom and a copy of Wyclif’s Bible, with the inscription
“Ihū help us, for we ben feble.” To return to the portraits in the
Master’s Lodge. We find there an excellent portrait of that accomplished
diplomat and typical prig, Sir William Temple, by Lely. And, among
other seventeenth-century worthies, we are glad to see the portrait of
the greatest of Cambridge builders, Ralph Symons, “Effigies Radulphi
Simons,” the inscription goes, “Architecti sua aetate peritissimi qui
praeter plurima aedificia ab eo praeclare facta, duo collegia Emanuelis
hoc Sydneii illud exstruxit integre. Magnam etiam partem Trinitatis
reconcinnavit amplissime.”
After the time of Law and the non-jurors, the history of Emmanuel is
very quiet, and the stately ease for which its buildings are conspicuous
possessed the college. During the mastership of Dr William Richardson,*
in 1765, a member of the college published a book which had a tremendous
effect on English literature. This was the _Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry_, collected by Bishop Percy of Dromore. The labours of this
antiquarian are a lasting glory to his college. A similar taste was
apparent in Richardson’s successor, “rare” Richard Farmer (* Romney) who
was master from 1775 to 1797. The love of himself and his _coterie_ for
Shakspeare took him, night after night, to the theatre at Stourbridge
Fair, and his affection for the drama combined with his good-fellowship
made him something of a curiosity at the time when most college masters
were dry and pedantic. To the same period belongs Samuel Parr, whose
pipe, tobacco-box, and stopper are preserved by the College. He was
undoubtedly a wit and a good talker, but his jokes were lengthy and
pompous, and he scarcely deserves the praise of those admirers who have
likened him to Dr Johnson and Sydney Smith. For most of us, possibly, he
lives entirely by virtue of de Quincey’s essay upon him.
The two most famous scholars whom Emmanuel produced in the eighteenth
century were Joshua Barnes,* Professor of Greek at its beginning, and
Richard Hurd,* Bishop in succession of Lichfield and Worcester, who
died in 1808. Hurd was a theologian with a somewhat dull pen, and is
now chiefly remembered as the disciple, friend and biographer of Bishop
Warburton. At the beginning of this century Sir Busick Harwood, a
scientific man greatly in advance of his age, was Professor of Anatomy.
Gell, the antiquary and explorer of Pompeii, who died in 1836, was also
an Emmanuel man. But the present century, although the standard of work
and scholarship has been high, is not prolific in eminent names. Our
greatest living historian, Dr Creighton, held a fellowship at Emmanuel
according to the terms of the Dixie Professorship, but Cambridge cannot
count him as her own. At present, the college is rapidly increasing
in numbers and emulates the modern popularity of Pembroke; and it has
the distinction, rare at Cambridge, of success on the river and in the
schools alike.
XVIII
SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE
[Illustration: Sidney Sussex College]
Ralph Symons, the great Cambridge builder whose name deserves to be more
widely known than it is, was the architect chosen to superintend the
works at Sidney. He was employed on Nevile’s Court at Trinity, and was, a
year or two later, to begin operations in the second court of St John’s.
Sidney, which was ready at the beginning of 1599, was quite comparable
with those famous works of art. As usual, the architect did not attempt
to manage a street-front. Here, however, instead of turning the back of
his buildings to the street, as at Emmanuel, he constructed an oblong
three-sided court, whose eastern side directly fronted the street. In
1628 Sir Francis Clerke of Houghton Conquest completed a second court on
similar lines. The south side of one court thus became the north side of
the other. This common side, which exactly bisects the building, was
terminated by a gateway opening on the street and into either court. In
this original plan the entrance to the Hall was immediately in the centre
of the eastern range of the north court; the entrance to the Chapel
occupied a similar position in the south court. We are still able to
admire this graceful and simple plan. But of the original buildings the
only remaining traces are the oriels in the garden-front of the Master’s
Lodge. In 1776 Essex, who had for the last ten years been “improving”
Cambridge out of knowledge, built a new chapel; and in 1830, while Dr
Chafy was master—the names of these masters deserve to be handed down—it
was decided to thoroughly remodel the college in the new Gothic style.
This step was prompted simply by the admiration which Wilkins’ doings at
Corpus, Trinity, and King’s had excited. Each college glowed with pious
emulation, and Sidney chose for its destroyer Sir Jeffrey Wyattville,
who had Gothicised a great part of Windsor Castle. Wyattville overhauled
the college in the Vandal manner; removed all traces, save those I have
referred to, of Symons’ obsolete work, and replaced it by the present
pretentious and insipid structure which adorns the eastern side of
Sidney Street. It is a comfort to know that a later generation has made
amends for this criminal error of taste. A court, or rather two sides
of a court, with cloisters, have been added in recent years by the late
Mr John Loughborough Pearson. This range of buildings, not very obvious
owing to the high walls behind which it stands, is of red brick, and,
like many other new buildings in Cambridge, is in the style of the
French Renaissance with English modifications. It is certainly one of Mr
Pearson’s great successes, and is, moreover, a success in a line which
he seldom attempted. The court—which contains, by the way, a very fine
Combination Room—is one of the most retired spots in Cambridge, and in
its studious shades it is possible to forget Wyattville’s ravages.
* * * * *
In 1589 died an excellent lady, Frances Lady Sussex, widow of the second
Earl. She was the daughter of Sir William Sidney, and would in any case
have achieved a negative distinction as the wife of Thomas Radcliffe and
the aunt of Sir Philip Sidney. But in her will she left a legacy of
five thousand pounds, to be employed by her executors in the foundation
of a college at Cambridge, or, in case the bequest were insufficient,
in enlarging Clare Hall. Six years later, the executors bought a site
from Trinity College. When Henry VIII. founded Trinity, he made over to
it the lands of the Franciscan Friary which, until the dissolution, had
occupied the space between the modern Sidney Street and the King’s Ditch.
The buildings were apparently taken down and used as a quarry for Henry’s
new college. Thus the site was vacant, and the executors, after making
a preliminary payment of a hundred marks, took over the ground on a
perpetual lease, and engaged to pay a rent of £13. 6s. 8d. yearly. These
executors, the actual founders of Sidney, were the Earl of Kent and Sir
John Harrington, the translator of Ariosto. The college was called the
College of the Lady Frances Sidney Sussex, and took her arms, Radcliffe
impaling Sidney. The pheon, the heraldic symbol of the Sidneys, is the
badge of the college, and, like the eagle of St John’s and the silver
crescent of Trinity Hall, has given its title to the college magazine of
our own days.
The first master was appointed in 1598. He was Dr James Montagu,* and
became Bishop of Winchester, where he died in 1618. But, in spite of
this augury, the history of Sidney is the reverse of prelatical. Of
late years, the college has somewhat retrieved its past record, but,
on the whole, its distinction is Puritan. It is, however, a college
whose history finds its centre in one event, and that event is vague and
shadowy. In the college books, under the date April 23rd, 1616, is the
following inscription, “Oliverus Cromwell, Huntingdoniensis, admissus ad
commensum sociorum Aprilis vicesimo sexto; Tutore Magᵒ Ricardo Howlet.”
Few colleges boast such a fellow-commoner. The note which follows,
written in after years by a good Royalist, is worth transcribing: “Hic
fuit grandis ille impostor, carnifex perditissimus, qui, pientissimo
rege Carolo primo nefaria caede sublato, ipsum usurpavit thronum, et
tria regna per quinque ferme annorum spatium, sub protectoris nomine,
indomita tyrannide vexavit.” Vexavit, as Polonius would say, is good. No
language is more abusive than aptly handled Latin! This “big impostor
and most damn’d butcher” stayed at Cambridge till July, 1617, and then,
like many great men, left without taking his degree. His contribution to
the social life of his college has been stigmatised as discreditable,
but this is probably invidious rumour and nothing more. The window of
his room—which, by the way, dates from 1827 or thereabout—is still shown
to the credulous. There is an admirable portrait of him in the hall,
which was presented to the college, with a rather unnecessary parade of
anonymity, by Mr Holles of the Hyde in Essex.
The great name of Cromwell must not, however, suffer us to forget
the names of the good and pious men whom Sidney has nurtured. Dr
Edmund Calamy, the famous Nonconformist divine, was a member of the
college. So was Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man. So, too, were
Jones of Nayland, the revivalist and hymn-writer, and an even more
famous Evangelical preacher, Thomas Cecil. Sidney had, indeed, a very
conspicuous share in the revival of spiritual life at the end of the last
century. On the other hand, the college produced, by way of an anomaly,
Sir Roger l’Estrange, the Royalist pamphleteer, whose sympathies were
certainly apart from his education. The laborious antiquary, Thomas Rymer
of the _Fœdera_, was also a Sidney man. In our own century it has been
recorded that—
There was a young man of Sid. Sussex
Who stated that w + x
Was the same as xw!
So they said, “We will trouble you
To confine those ideas to Sid. Sussex.”
But any such misconception has been rectified by the present master, Mr
Charles Smith, whose mathematical text-books are classics in their own
branch of literature. And, among living members of the college, we may
notice the present Bishop of Bloemfontein, Dr John Wale Hicks, who is not
only celebrated for his equal skill in medicine and divinity, but, as
tutor of his college and vicar of Little St Mary’s, has had perhaps the
greatest spiritual influence on modern Cambridge life. Although Sidney is
a small college, there is none which is so remarkable for the patriotism
and good-fellowship existing among its undergraduates; and, within very
recent years, it has supplied the University with excellent athletes, and
one of its members has become president of the Union.
XIX
DOWNING COLLEGE
James Wilkins, the builder of Downing, must be distinguished from the
later William Wilkins, the gothic experimentalist. If the second Wilkins
had worked in the manner of the first, we should have missed some
valuable historical relics, but should have gained in other respects.
Downing, with its heavy angularities and immense porticoes, is not a
very great advance on the plans so cherished by Mr James Essex, but it
bears the marks of a good intention, and is an excellently proportioned
building. It was begun in 1807, but has never been finished, and now
simply consists of two parallel ranges running north and south, with a
wide space of lawn between them. Its situation is very remote, but to
this it owes its chief beauty, the lovely park with its fine avenues. The
view northwards from the park, embracing the fellows’ garden, and ending
in the towers of the new Roman Catholic Church, is worth seeing, although
the contrast of the classical college with one of the latest examples of
modern Gothic work is somewhat inharmonious.
* * * * *
Downing is almost the youngest of Cambridge colleges, and its history
is chiefly concerned with its foundation. At Gamlingay, in the only
part of Cambridgeshire that can be called picturesque, there lived from
about 1680 to 1749, a baronet named Sir George Downing. He had been the
victim of a compulsory marriage. At the early age of fifteen, he had
been married to his cousin Mary Forester, who herself was only thirteen.
They never lived together, and in 1717, Sir George made a will by which
he bequeathed his estates to some collateral relatives. This document
contained the provision that, if his heirs died out, the estates were
to be applied to the use of a college which his trustees should found
in Cambridge. He nevertheless outlived the trustees, and, dying in
1749, left his property to his collateral heir, Sir Jacob Downing. Sir
Jacob was married, but died without issue in 1764. His wife retained
the estates, but this gave rise to a long lawsuit, and, at her death,
Chancery pronounced the original will to be valid. The Charter was
granted in 1800, but the buildings were not begun till 1807, and the
college was not in working order till 1821.
Sir George Downing’s design had included a master and sixteen fellows.
In addition—presumably to confer some prestige upon a late foundation—he
had provided for two professorships in connection with the college, the
Downing Professorships of Medicine and of the Laws of England. Although
the influx of undergraduates was at first very small, the valuable law
scholarships attracted many students in course of time. The second
master, Mr Serjeant Frere,* was an eminent lawyer, and is still renowned
as the first of college masters who dispensed their hospitality without
too keen an eye to rigid selection. Dr Annesley, the first master, from
1805 to 1812, was the head of a college which had no corporate existence,
and Mr Frere, for nine years, was in a similar position. Downing has
the misfortune of being in a very remote, although charming situation,
and the number of her undergraduates has never been very large. But her
present society includes the Professor of Law, Dr Maitland; and her
master, Dr Alexander Hill, is a distinguished ornament of the medical
school. And, among the doctors who have been educated at Downing are the
late Sir George Humphrey, Professor Latham, and one of the best known of
living physicians, Professor Bradbury.
XX
SELWYN COLLEGE, ETC.
The memory of George Augustus Selwyn, the great Bishop, first of
Melanesia, afterwards of Lichfield, is honoured in Cambridge by the
latest of all the colleges. Selwyn, one of a famous Cambridge family,
died in 1877; and in 1882, Selwyn College was opened. The object of the
college is that which had, some time before, prompted the foundation
of Keble—the provision of University education at a more moderate rate
than had hitherto been the case. It is conducted on what is known as the
hostel system; that is to say, its members, while enjoying all University
privileges, have all their meals in common, and are supplied with most
necessaries at fixed rates from the college buttery. This is, we may
believe, the simple system out of which great foundations like Trinity
grew; and, since Selwyn began it, one or two other colleges have pursued
it with some success on a voluntary principle. At Selwyn, however, the
hostel life is compulsory; and the college is known officially as Selwyn
Hostel. It has not lived long enough to produce any great sons as yet,
but its record is honourable, and we may expect much from it in the
future.[8] Its buildings, forming two sides of a quadrangle, are of red
brick, and were designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, who also built the
Master’s Lodge at the east corner of the enclosure. As the essence of
the college’s existence is to provide accommodation for students, the
buildings are devoted to rooms, and the Hall and Chapel were left to
the last. For the first thirteen years of the history of the college,
these necessities of college life were supplied by the low range of
temporary buildings just inside the entrance gate. There, too, for some
time to come the Hall will have to remain, a very simple room, whose only
ornament is the portrait of Mr Arthur Lyttelton, late master and now
vicar of Eccles. This, by Mr C. W. Furse, is a striking example of the
New English school. In 1895, however, one of the wishes of the college
was fulfilled, and the present noble Chapel was erected from Sir Arthur
Blomfield’s design. It stands north of the Master’s Lodge, and is a
very large and lofty building of red brick, with freestone dressings.
The style is a free adaptation of English Perpendicular, the admirable
window tracery being a remarkable feature. The interior is very good,
and the very complete set of stalls, with their grotesque carvings and
modern misereres, would do honour to a medieval collegiate church. Its
consecration by the Bishop of Ely in October, 1895, was one of the most
imposing ceremonies which have been seen of late years in Cambridge. The
late Archbishop of Canterbury and several other prelates assisted at the
function, and the sermon at mid-day was preached by the Archbishop. If
the pious founders of the older colleges had been able to be present,
and had seen the whole college walk in procession round the quadrangle
in the early morning, singing the sixty-eighth psalm, and had assisted
at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist which followed, they would
assuredly have thanked God that the traditions of their Church and of the
University which was its daughter were preserved and cherished by more
modern foundations.
Ridley Hall represents a school of thought somewhat different from that
to which Selwyn owes its being, and is altogether a modern development in
University life. Like Selwyn, it has an Oxford counterpart in Wycliffe
Hall. It was founded in 1879 as a training college for those who, having
already graduated from some college, wish to proceed to Holy Orders.
Under the headship of Doctor Moule, it has already sent out several
distinguished members of the Evangelical party, and has also been of
great service to missionary societies. It has certainly proved itself a
power in modern Cambridge, chiefly through the influence of its eminent
principal; and has encouraged other religious bodies to attempt what is
an accomplished fact in Oxford. The Presbyterian body are now building
themselves a large theological college at the corner of the Madingley
Road. The buildings of Ridley are not unlike those of Selwyn, and the
Renaissance chapel with its picturesque iron turret is a pleasing
object from most points of view. The architect of the older portion was
Mr Charles Luck; the chapel and southern range were designed by Mr W.
Wallace.
After many vicissitudes, Ayerst Hall has at length disappeared. Some
years ago the Rev. W. Ayerst of Caius College established a small college
on the hostel principle, which occupied the buildings now known as Queen
Anne’s Terrace, between Parker’s Piece and the University Cricket Ground.
In 1894 his students vacated these buildings for a new range between
the Huntingdon and Madingley Roads, and their original home is now the
offices of the University Correspondence College. Rather less than three
years later, the venture was abandoned, and the new buildings were
purchased for a colony of Benedictines. Since the building of the great
church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, which is
so conspicuous a feature from the railway, the influx of Roman Catholic
students has been much greater. In 1896 a Roman Catholic chaplaincy was
founded in both Universities. The direct result of this measure was the
purchase of Ayerst Hall and the establishment of a theological school for
Roman Catholic undergraduates. This scheme is in its infancy, and its
future remains to be seen. The new hostel is known as Edmund House.
Another abortive attempt was Cavendish College, founded in 1882, which
took its name and coat-of-arms from the late Duke of Devonshire. By an
irony of fate, it is the only collegiate building which the passer-by
sees from the train—that is, unless he keeps a sharp lookout for King’s
Chapel. It was, however, a mile from the nearest college, on the furthest
outskirts of the town, and, after a precarious existence, it failed and
was closed in 1891. Between 1891 and 1895 the curious might roam through
its halls unchecked, inspect the deserted library and the singularly
comfortable buildings, and muse on the names of departed occupants
inscribed on the staircases. Some of its students went down; others
joined other colleges. In 1895 it was bought by Mr J. C. Horobin of
Homerton, who transferred to it his training-college for schoolmasters
and schoolmistresses. Its part in University life is not over yet,
but its proud title has been exchanged for the more suburban name of
Homerton, and now only old-fashioned people call it Cavendish.
Lastly, there is Fitzwilliam Hall. The same desire which led to the
foundation of Selwyn and Keble led to the passing of a grace by the
Senate of both Universities, by which students were allowed to become
members of the University without joining any particular college.
Unattached students now form a considerable element at both Oxford and
Cambridge. The necessity for a certain amount of combination goes,
nevertheless, without saying; and its result is Fitzwilliam Hall. A
house opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum has been purchased, and has been
turned into a club for non-collegiate students. There are a reading-room,
lecture rooms, and rooms for the tutors, who are, for the most part,
distinguished members of the older foundations. The non-collegiates
have their own gown, their boat on the river, and their own clubs and
societies; and, although some of their most promising members in time
join other colleges, they have a distinct corporate life and status of
their own. Thus, although Cambridge has in none of these respects been
in front of her traditionally conservative sister, she has at all events
followed not very far behind her in any.
XXI
GIRTON AND NEWNHAM
A few words must be devoted to these foundations, which, it cannot be
doubted, are destined to play so important a part in the future life of
the University. In the last chapter, I said that some of the founders
would have rejoiced to see a ceremony so much in keeping with traditional
usage as the consecration of Selwyn Chapel. It is at least doubtful
whether Henry VI. would have looked with approval on the lady students
who are so assiduous worshippers at his chapel; and even his imperious
consort, the foundress of Queens’, and the Lady Margaret herself, with
her rooms in Christ’s, would have probably hesitated to admit their own
sex to the privileges of University life. But “the old order changeth,”
and colleges for women are not only accomplished facts, but facts
which are very lively indeed. Till within the last half century, the
University’s estimate of the rights of women was very oriental: unmarried
fellows were the rule, and masters’ wives formed a very distinct social
clique. But the breaking-down of these barriers came in time, and,
with the ensuing civilisation, came the project for giving women the
privileges of University education. “You know what women’s minds are,”
wrote Erasmus scornfully of his patroness to a friend. The Professors
who to-day occupy Erasmus’ numerous chairs have plenty of opportunity of
seeing that women’s minds are not to be dismissed in a phrase. At any
rate, woman has stormed Cambridge, and made a considerable breach in the
fortifications, and the most doctrinaire of conservatives cannot keep her
from the closely guarded citadel of the degree.
Girton is the earlier of the two colleges. It was started at Hitchin
in 1869, and was removed to Cambridge in 1873. Even then it planted
itself outside the hallowed precinct, on the brow of a hill, beside
the straightest of all straight roads. Every Girton student knows,
to her cost, the long avenue of telegraph posts which separates her
from Cambridge; and although this approach, in fine weather, provides
excellent landscapes in Hobbéma’s best manner, in wet weather it is
exceptionally dismal. She has her compensation, however, in the beautiful
view which her college commands; and the buildings, although externally
of rather various merit, are inside as comfortable as any in modern
Cambridge. The style of the building is a mixed Gothic, and the older
parts have a very mellow, aged look, but the entrance tower and its wings
are built of a singularly disagreeable brick, which, one may hope, will
in time be concealed by ivy or some other creeper. The college takes its
name from the village of Girton, about half a mile to the north. The
church of Girton is worth seeing.
Newnham, which is in Cambridge itself, is a later foundation, but its
progress has been astonishing. It also takes its name from a suburban
village which has gradually become part of the town. The buildings of
Newnham form a very imposing array, and are a remarkable contrast, with
their Renaissance gables, to the Gothic buildings of Selwyn, just across
the road. Mr Basil Champneys has produced in them one of the best modern
imitations of French Renaissance; and their outline, seen at a favourable
distance, would not be unworthy of Chambord or Chenonceaux. The oldest
part is the Old Hall, forming the south-eastern angle of the college;
this belongs to 1875. Then came Clough Hall on the north side. Sidgwick
Hall followed it, and completed this side, and, in 1894, two sides of
a quadrangle were finished and the Old Hall joined to the rest by the
erection of the Pfeiffer Building. In this latest part of the college is
the principal gateway, now closed by a double gate of beautiful ironwork,
in memory of the first principal, Miss Clough. In the hall are portraits
of Miss Clough, Professor and Mrs Sidgwick, and Miss M. G. Kennedy, by
Mr J. J. Shannon, and one (by Richmond) of Miss Helen Gladstone, who
till lately was one of the leading Newnham dons. Young as they are, both
Girton and Newnham have their history, and are able to inspire their
students with a patriotism which is the natural result of extraordinary
perseverance and hardly-won victories.
[Illustration: Newnham College]
XXII
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS
Fond tradition would compel us to accept the so-called School of
Pythagoras as the _fons et origo_ of the medieval University. However,
the legend does not go for very much, and we may suppose that, until the
foundation of several colleges brought about the necessity of a common
centre, education was carried on in the numerous monastic houses or by
private teachers at their own lodgings. The present schools, within the
limits of the University Library, are probably in part of the fourteenth
century, but, for the most part, belong to the latter half of the next
century. They are not very conspicuous, and probably ninety-nine out of
a hundred Cambridge men have never been inside them, as the majority of
public examinations are held in the Senate House and the various large
halls of which the town is full. They are, moreover, so incorporated in
the Library as to form part of the building, and have no very distinctive
mark.
[Illustration: The Senate House]
The architectural history of the Library is singularly complex. It
occupies two quadrangles north of and running parallel with King’s
Chapel. The first of these is the quadrangle of the schools, and is
entered from the open space between the Senate House and King’s; the
second occupies the site of the original quadrangle of King’s, and is
entered from the opposite side. Mr G. G. Scott has restored the old
gateway with some success, and it forms a good contrast to the opposite
gateway at Clare. Round these courts are grouped the very various Library
buildings. The Library itself is entered from the eastern side, to
which it presents a very stiff classical front. Somewhere between 1470
and 1480, the great prelate, Thomas Rotherham, then fellow of King’s
and Bishop of Lincoln, built a Perpendicular façade on this side; and
this was the beginning of the buildings. Hitherto the few books which
the Library contained, mostly bequeathed by Dr Richard Holme in 1424,
had been placed in the present south gallery on the first floor of the
quadrangle. The opposite gallery was then the Senate House. The western
gallery, above the school of Canon Law, overlooked the Court of King’s.
Rotherham thus completed the first quadrangle, and, until the eighteenth
century, the Library was contained in the eastern, southern and western
rooms. Mr Clark, in his picturesque notes on Cambridge, assures us that
it must have been hopelessly neglected. The days of building prelates
were long past when, in 1715, George I., for some unknown reason,
purchased the library of Dr John Moore, Bishop in succession of Norwich
and Ely, and presented it to the University. Just about the same time,
he had sent a regiment to enforce loyalty on Oxford. The epigrams which
passed between the Tory and Whig Universities on this occasion have been
so often quoted as to need no repetition. The Oxford epigram takes the
palm for neatness, but the Cambridge retort was the last word on the
subject.
However, although King George’s gift cannot be valued too highly as a
benefaction to Cambridge, and was also an incentive to wit of a very
felicitous order, it was in one way rather unfortunate. The books were
many; accommodation was small. It was proposed to place the addition
in what was then the Senate House, and to build a new meeting-place
for the University. Mr Burrough of Caius submitted a plan for the new
Senate House, of which we can see the result to-day. The quadrangle
was thus entirely given over to the Library. It must have formed one
of the most beautiful in Cambridge; to-day the western room, running
between the two courts, has one of the best interiors in any library.
But the age was hostile to medieval buildings. With architects like
Burrough and Gibbs—excellent architects, both of them—carrying out their
classical designs on either side, the Library was not suffered to remain
unmolested. The University decided to harmonise it with these structures.
In 1754 Rotherham’s front was destroyed, and the present Georgian
façade was put up, which, after all, harmonises very badly with the
Senate House. Rotherham’s gateway was bought by the owner of Madingley
Hall, and is now the entrance to the stables there. It is much to be
regretted, for the present aspect of the Library is singularly ignoble.
The interior, however, offers a better contrast. From the classical
east room, which, with all its plastered ugliness, is certainly stately
and not inappropriate, we pass into the Catalogue Room, once the Senate
House. Somebody adorned this room with a plaster ceiling in the last
century, but the old timber roof is being restored. In the west room,
which contains some valuable woodwork, we go back further into antiquity,
and, when we have completed the circuit of the Library, we shall have
seen a series of buildings which, in their diversity, are thoroughly
characteristic of Cambridge.
The present century has added enormously to the Library. King’s
transferred itself finally to the other side of the chapel when Wilkins
finished his range of buildings—that is, approximately in 1830. Soon
after this the important _annexe_ which now constitutes the whole north
side of the Library was added. Its architect was Mr C. R. Cockerell.
It is a colossal building, and its external ugliness may be fully
appreciated from the old King’s quadrangle, where all the buildings in
front of it have been cleared away. Its interior, almost entirely devoted
to theology, is as fine and imposing as its exterior is hideous, and is,
moreover, a very agreeable room for students. Here the more remarkable
manuscripts are exhibited, among which the famous Codex Bezae has the
place of honour. Theodore Béza, whose name is in the first rank of
Biblical critics, saved it from the sack of the monastery of St Irénée
at Lyons in 1562, and presented it to the University—a gift worthy of
the academy in which Erasmus had laid the foundations of Scriptural
study. At the west end of the same building are the statues of George
I. (by Rysbrack) and George II. (by Wilton) which used to stand in the
Senate House. Cockerell’s work finds its antithesis in the opposite side
of the court, which was rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott on a thoroughly
medieval plan. Scott also added a second storey to this side, which,
like Cockerell’s building, was continued into the eastern court. He
also entirely refaced the front opposite King’s Chapel. The effect is
uniform, but gloomy. His son completed the existing Library by restoring
the western façade. The rooms on the ground floor are also appropriated
to books, principally modern and lighter literature, but contain nothing
worth seeing. Cockerell’s building is an exception, for its ground floor
is occupied by the Woodwardian Museum of Geology.
In spite of the misfortunes which it brought about, the Senate House is
one of those buildings which gave Cambridge its greatest dignity. One
may hesitate to compare it with the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, which
was finished about twenty-five years later, but it is largely due to
the same architect and is certainly an addition to his credit. Gibbs
had, however, only a small share in the work, for Burrough is its real
designer. It is an oblong building, with entrances on the east and on the
middle of the south sides. It has a double range of windows throughout,
save on the west side, where they are blank. Those in the upper storey
are round-headed, those in the lower are square-headed and are surmounted
by plain architraves, alternately round and pointed. The whole building
is surrounded by an order of composite pilasters, cut square save near
the doors, where they are round and fluted. Above the cornice is a
balustrade, broken judiciously by the pediments of the entrances, which
give the building its distinctive feature. The whole is one of the best
specimens of early Georgian architecture in England, and the interior
is perfectly consonant with the simple grandeur of the outside. The oak
galleries suit the building admirably. At the east end, near the door,
are the statues of the Duke of Somerset, Chancellor at the Revolution,
and of William Pitt: the first by Rysbrack, the second by Nollekens.
After the Senate House, geographically and in point of time, comes the
Pitt Press in Trumpington Street, a very glorious achievement of the
early Gothic revivalists. Mr Bowes’ list, published a year or two ago,
is the monumental record of Cambridge printing, but, when the Pitt Press
was founded, the traditions of John Siborch, who had set up a press
in the University about 1521, had been almost forgotten. Even since
then, the Pitt Press, although the parent of Professor Jebb’s edition
of Sophocles and other masterpieces of erudition, has scarcely proved
itself the rival of the Clarendon. Its origin is curious. After the Great
Commoner’s death, a subscription fund was started to commemorate him,
the immediate results of which were the statues in Westminster Abbey and
Hanover Square. The rest of the money was employed in building the Pitt
Press. In the chronological order of works of the date, it stands just
after Wilkins’ screen at King’s, and just before Rickman’s court at St
John’s. Its architect was Edward Blore, and it was finished in 1833. It
is not uglier than most buildings of the period, and the gateway tower
looks well at a sufficient distance. This tower, by the way, has often
given rise to the impression that it is an ecclesiastical building of
some kind, and it is known generally as the “freshman’s church.” The hoax
used at one time to be practised on unsuspecting young gentlemen during
their early days of residence, but the epithet is now too well known to
be misleading.
Further on, and on the same side of Trumpington Street, is the
Fitzwilliam Museum. In 1816 died Richard, Viscount Fitzwilliam, who
bequeathed his library and pictures to the University. He left also
£100,000 for the building of a museum to receive them. His princely
benefaction was, of course, accepted; and, pending the erection of
a building, the collections were deposited in the old Perse School,
now the Engineering Laboratory. Building was not begun till late in
the thirties, when Basevi was employed to execute the present design.
Basevi, however, fell from the great tower of Ely before the work was
finished, and what he had begun was continued by Mr Cockerell. This
architect had earned a dubiously just reputation for his proceedings
at the University Library; here he had an excellent plan to work on,
and did justice to it. The Fitzwilliam Museum, with the exception of
certain decorations, was completed in 1847; the collections, augmented
meanwhile by private bequests, were brought from the Perse School in
1848. Differences of opinion exist as to the merit of the building
and the collections, but there can be no doubt that the façade is,
after that of St Paul’s, one of the best of its kind anywhere. It is
astonishingly good for its period. The decoration of the entrance hall is
splendid but meretricious, and the lavish profusion of coloured marbles
is almost suspicious. A statue of the Prince Consort is the cynosure of
this brilliancy, and there is a portrait of him in the basement, dressed
in his Chancellor’s robes, with a red curtain and the great gate of
Trinity in the background. For the most part the basement is devoted to
the University Museum of Antiquities, the nucleus of which was bequeathed
by Samuel Disney of the Hyde, Essex. In memory of this gentleman has
been founded the Disney Professorship of Archæology. On the ground-floor
also is the valuable Fitzwilliam Library, and a very perfect library of
musical works. In one of the rooms part of the valuable collection of
engravings is exhibited. This comprises specimens of early Flemish and
German artists, Albert Dürer, the Little Masters of Germany, and most
of the best workers in wood-cut, steel-engraving, and mezzotint. Others
may be found upstairs among the pictures. The pictures are of various
merit, and many are copies. The fine Paul Veronese, “Mercury turning
Aglauros into stone,” which faces the principal door of the west gallery,
is undoubtedly genuine, and there are some good examples of the Venetian
school, especially two small pictures attributed to Palma the younger.
Lovers of early Italian art will find a small Madonna and Child by
Pinturicchio, while the disciples of the now unpopular Bolognese school
will admire the picture of St Roch and the Angel, by Annibale Caracci.
The room also contains a doubtful Rembrandt, two exquisitely finished
little pictures by Gerard Douw, some good Ruysdaels, a Teniers or two,
and a picture which, legend says, is the earliest Murillo in existence.
There are also portraits by Gainsborough and Hogarth.
The south room is even more miscellaneous. It is presided over by a vast
copy of a Veronese, probably by the artist’s brother, opposite which,
on either side of the entrance from the main gallery, are two portraits
of the school of Holbein, one of a bygone Fitzwilliam. The other was
given by the executors of the late Dean of Lincoln, and represents a
person unknown. Besides these, there are numerous small pictures of the
late Italian type, and views of Venice by Canaletto and Zuccarelli. A
very admirable Raeburn will appeal to all lovers of portrait art, and
deserves wider fame. But the gem of the whole collection, a series of
water-colours by Turner, is in this room. Mr Ruskin generously presented
the University with these, and they may be reckoned among its most
priceless treasures. In the eastern continuation of the room is the
collection of small pictures given by Mr Daniel Mesman in 1834. Some
of these, including a small landscape attributed to Ruysdael and some
delicate pictures by Adam Elzheimer, are of considerable value; but the
rest are somewhat devoid of interest. On the south wall is a set of small
pictures of the French school, mostly by Boucher, but two are attributed
to Watteau, and two to Greuze. They are, however, of no great worth. And
the rooms on the opposite side of the building are very uninteresting.
Sir John Millais’ famous “Bridesmaid” is in the western room of the two,
in company with some English landscapes, Mr Watts’ portrait of the late
Duke of Devonshire, and Mr Richmond’s portrait of the present Bishop
of Durham. The eastern room is occupied by an immense model of the Taj
Mehál, and by some very early Italian pictures, the most prominent of
which is by Cosimo Rosselli, the painter whose startling use of colour
was so acceptable to Pope Sixtus IV. Under the curatorship of Professor
Colvin and the late Professor Middleton, the interest of the Museum
was much increased; and the present curator, Dr James, the well-known
theologian and antiquarian, has followed in their footsteps.
Since the days of Lord Fitzwilliam’s bequest, the University’s ardour has
been turned in the direction of science. Most of the public buildings
since then, such as the huge laboratories and Anatomical Museum (a work
of Salvin’s) are devoted to that interest, and the visitor will find them
more utilitarian than anything else. In speaking of Pembroke, I have
already referred to Mr Scott’s façade to the Chemical Laboratory. The
archæologist, however, will be greatly relieved to find the beautiful
timber roof of the Perse school still existing where he least expects
it—namely, in the Engineering Laboratory. These buildings, however, and
others, such as the Observatory in the Madingley Road, and Sir Digby
Wyatt’s extraordinary façade at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, which, the famous
“Cambridge Freshman” was gravely informed, was the Vice-Chancellor’s
official residence, speak for themselves. Not the least important feature
of modern Cambridge is the unobtrusive red-brick building in Mill Lane,
occupied by the University Extension Syndicate. Not remarkable in itself,
it is the visible sign of the aim of the modern University not to keep
its cherished learning to itself, but to distribute its advantages to
others. Whether or no the idea expressed by a far-sighted don in the
last century, when he said that each town ought to have its university,
will be realised, is a possibility that rests on the knees of the gods;
but the means are certainly in use, and the wish is in a fair way of
fulfilment.
XXIII
THE CHURCHES OF CAMBRIDGE
Although the architectural interest of Cambridge, so far as churches are
concerned, is centred in the college chapels, there are nevertheless
several churches which are not devoid of interest, and one or two which
are quite unique. The visitor who takes the trouble to examine them will
be amply repaid, although his reminiscences of them will, after a cursory
inspection, be rather confused. Starting, then, from the western door
of the University Church, and proceeding along King’s Parade, he will
find, just opposite King’s gateway, the narrow passage which leads to
St Edward’s Church. St Edward’s occupies the centre of a flagged court,
and its east end faces Peas Hill, one of those Cambridge hills whose
slope is invisible. It is a fairly large church with broad aisles and a
short tower at the west end, and is mostly of the Decorated period, from
1340 to 1350; but it has been from time to time restored, and the tower
suffers from a hideous coating of stucco. The nave arcade is lofty but
rather meagre. The font is interesting, and was restored by the Cambridge
Camden Society in the first half of the century. There are also good
Decorated sedilia in the chancel. It was one of the centres of reforming
influence in Cambridge, and many of the Marian martyrs, including
Latimer, preached in it.
The next turning on the same side of King’s Parade is Bene’t Street, in
which, at the corner of Free School Lane, is the very interesting church
of St Benedict, long the chapel of Corpus Christi College. Although the
nave and chancel of this church were thoroughly restored in 1869 and are
very normal examples of later Gothic work, the tower and western arch
belong to a very early period, certainly anterior to the Norman Conquest.
The tower is rather thicker than most towers of its date, and rises to a
very respectable height, but it has the characteristic trait of growing
thinner as it reaches the top. The window-openings of the upper storey
are small and primitive; that in the centre of each face is double,
its two lights being separated by a small baluster-shaped column, as is
the case at Earl’s Barton in Northamptonshire and at other places. The
tower-arch, inside the church, is very curious. It is tall and narrow,
and is also thinner as it reaches the top; the pilasters which support
it on either side have roughly carved capitals. One may safely refer
the whole structure to the reign of Edward the Confessor, and possibly
earlier. There are two somewhat similar towers at Lincoln, and a ruder,
but later, tower at Oxford. A staircase still connects the south-west
corner of the chancel with the old court of Corpus.
On the other side of Corpus is the church of St Botolph, a picturesque
building, chiefly of Perpendicular date, which belonged for three
centuries to the priory at Barnwell. Like most churches in Cambridge, it
counted the undergraduates of one or two of the medieval colleges among
its congregation, and the advowson now belongs to Queens’ College. It is
a fine, spacious church, and its plain tower, with the strange crawling
beasts which serve as waterspouts, is one of the very various objects
which contribute to the academical perspective of Trumpington Street.
There is a good modern window by Mr C. E. Kempe at the east end of the
north aisle.
Not very far on, just opposite Pembroke, is the extremely beautiful
church of St Mary—known as Little St Mary’s to distinguish it from
the University Church. It is the most venerable object in a very
heterogeneous group of buildings. Dwarfing it on one side is Burrough’s
classical wing at Peterhouse, and, on the other, is the tower of the new
Congregational Chapel, a creditable imitation of the Belfry at Tournai.
These, however, show it to advantage, and add to its venerable aspect. It
is a very lovely example of the later Decorated style, and was built in
1352 on the site of the old church of St Peter. There is a tradition that
Alan de Walsingham, who designed the Octagon at Ely, had something to do
with it, and the very elaborate tracery of the east window is certainly
worthy of a master’s hand. It was for two hundred and eighty years the
chapel of Peterhouse, and, as at St Bene’t’s, the passage from college to
church is still preserved. Its shape is that of a college chapel; there
are no side-aisles; and, save in the two bays south of the sanctuary,
the church is lighted by a series of very large windows. There are two
good brasses, one of a doctor of medicine in his robes, the other of a
lady. It was restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, and, since then, a western
choir-vestry has been added. In 1891, the east window was thoroughly
restored and glass thoroughly worthy of it was added by the munificence
of Mr Hamblin Smith. This window, a conventional treatment of the
Annunciation, may be regarded as the best of Mr Kempe’s many excellent
windows. The small west window was also filled by Mr Kempe in 1894, but
in this he has been less successful. It is to be hoped that the rest of
the windows will be similarly treated.
Little St Mary’s is almost at the extremity of Cambridge, and is the last
church on the Trumpington Road. On the Hills Road, which may be reached
by turning to the left just opposite the Leys School, are the not very
beautiful St Paul’s Church, which is a district church in the large
parish of St Andrew the Less, and the great Roman Catholic church. This
fine modern building, by Messrs Hansom of Newcastle, was built at the
expense of Mrs Lyne Stevens, and was consecrated in 1890. The glass, by
Powell of Whitefriars, is interesting but might be better. There is no
church between this and Christ’s College, opposite which is St Andrew’s
the Great, rebuilt in 1843, and remarkable for nothing save a memorial
tablet in the chancel to Captain Cook the navigator. Holy Trinity, at the
next street-corner, is in the main a Perpendicular church, but has been
much added to in the present century. Charles Simeon was for sixty years
vicar of this parish, and its traditions have been constantly kept up by
a succession of noted Evangelical priests.
[Illustration: The Round Church]
From Holy Trinity we pass down Sidney Street and into Bridge Street.
Just opposite St John’s Chapel is the church of the Holy Sepulchre,
generally known as the Round Church. This is one of the four churches of
the Templars which remain in England, and is the earliest. The Temple
Church in London was built several years later; St Sepulchre’s at
Northampton is later again; and the round church at Little Maplestead
in Essex belongs to quite the last years of the Order. The round portion
of the Cambridge church belongs to the earliest Norman period, and was
begun in the reign of William Rufus—that is, before 1100. It consists of
eight divisions. The round-headed arches of the ground-floor rest upon
massive round piers; dwarf piers on the same principle support the arches
of the triforium, which include a double arch separated by a slender
central pillar and springing from pilasters attached to the main piers.
The clerestory above is lighted by eight round-headed openings, splayed
inwardly. The ribs of the conical roof continue into the clerestory
and triforium and finish in the spandrils of the triforium arches with
grotesque corbels. Although all this is on a miniature scale, the effect
is very grand and solemn. The good taste of the last century blocked up
the triforium and filled the ground-floor with pews. The exterior had
been adorned much earlier with an upper storey. This, to be in harmony
with the late Perpendicular chancel, was crowned by an ugly battlement.
In 1841, the Cambridge Camden Society took the church in hand. Their
architect was Salvin, who restored it very well, taking down the upper
storey, adding a conical slate roof in agreement with tradition, and
opening out the Norman doorway. Unfortunately, the Society’s taste
in stained glass was not very advanced, and the gaudy east window by
Willement is not at all appropriate. Wailes’ glass in the round part is
much better, but is not all that could be desired. The Society’s stone
altar was the subject of a _cause celèbre_, and was pronounced illegal
by Sir Herbert Jenner Fust in 1845. This unhappy incident was the result
of the dissolution of a society which had done literally everything
for the cause of Cambridge archæology, and was no small factor in the
great Church revival of the forties. St Sepulchre’s is one of those rare
livings which are in the gift of the parishioners; and the burgesses of
the parish are very tenacious of their privilege.
Lower down, on the same side of Bridge Street, a very ignominious spire
invites us to St Clement’s, a church in the gift of Jesus College. This
spire was built from a bequest of Cole, the well-known antiquary, early
in the century, and above the west door is inscribed the punning motto,
“Deum Cole.” The body of the church is Early English. St Clement’s is
the last church on the east side of the river. St Giles’, just beyond
Magdalene, is a large modern church with an unfinished west end, but its
history is not uninteresting. There is no doubt that the priory church
of St Giles stood on this site, under the shadow of the castle. A Norman
arch from the old church has been incorporated in the south aisle of
the present building; and, across the street, the interesting little
church of St Peter, whose detail is partially Norman, doubtless served
as an extra chapel. However, as the importance of the house increased,
it removed to the suburb of Barnwell. We know that the monastery was
founded by Hugolina Picot and her husband, somewhere about 1090. The
Barnwell removal took place in 1122, under the auspices of Pain Peverel,
standard-bearer to Robert of Normandy. In Barnwell, the squalid suburb
of Cambridge which lies between the Newmarket Road and Parker’s Piece,
no remains of the actual priory exist. It stood somewhere near the ugly
modern church, which, although it is the parish church of St Andrew the
Less, is called Christ Church. The little Early English building further
down the Newmarket Road was, we may presume, a parochial chapel served
by the Benedictines of the priory. It now bears the proud but doubly
erroneous title of the Abbey Church. And the beautiful Norman chapel at
Stourbridge, close to the modern Barnwell Junction, stood in a similar
relation to what must have been one of the principal of the lesser
Benedictine houses in England.
However, no one, unless he is a philanthropist or an impressionist
painter, will go out of his way to visit Barnwell; and very few casual
visitors get as far as St Giles’, unless they lose their way. The church
of St Luke at New Chesterton, not far beyond, is a good modern building,
and its spire forms a prominent feature in the view of Cambridge from
the Ely Road. Returning to the Round Church, where the two main arteries
of Cambridge meet, we turn to the right past St John’s Chapel and the
Divinity Schools.[9] Between the latter building and Whewell’s Court of
Trinity is a triangular space which is the site of All Saints’ Church.
All Saints’ formed, rather more than thirty years ago, a somewhat
interesting feature in the streets of Cambridge, for its tower projected
into the street, and the pavement ran through an archway beneath it.
It was removed when Whewell’s Court was built, and Mr G. F. Bodley
erected a handsome new church just opposite Jesus College. All Saints’
is, like St Clement’s, a Jesus living. This later building is the best
of modern Cambridge churches. Its spire is very good, and the east
window is a curious experiment by the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones and
Mr William Morris. The present Dean of Lichfield, who is a Jesus man,
has also enriched the church with a charming little window by Mr Kempe.
However, old All Saints’ has gone the way of one or two other Cambridge
churches—as, for instance, the older St Peter’s, which was taken down
to make way for Little St Mary’s, and St John the Baptist’s, which was
near Clare. This open space and disused churchyard are its only memorial.
The column in the centre was the gift of one Mr Boott, an American, who
wished to erect some memorial to Kirke White in Cambridge.
Before we return to Great St Mary’s, we pass the Decorated church of St
Michael, which was built by Hervé de Staunton in 1337, and served as a
chapel to his foundation of Michael House. It is a fine church, a good
deal modernised, but containing sedilia in the chancel, which are not
unlike those at St Edward’s. The stalls in the choir are very complete,
and are very excellent examples of fifteenth-century woodwork. At the
end of the south aisle is a picture of Charles I. which bears a very
close resemblance to the famous frontispiece of the _Eikon Basilike_.
When Henry VIII. amalgamated the numerous foundations in this quarter
of the town, and founded Trinity College, this church, like Great St
Mary’s, became college property, and the living is still in the gift of
Trinity. In St Michael’s was buried Paul Fagius, the Lutheran Hebraist,
who lectured in Cambridge and died there during the reign of Edward VI.
His bones, however, were exhumed to gratify Queen Mary’s Commissioners
in 1557, and were burned with those of Bucer in the Market Place. This
is one of the few historical facts which we can connect with Cambridge
churches. They are, architecturally speaking, much more interesting than
the churches of many old towns, and people who are weary of the sameness
of the churches crowded together in places like Norwich or Colchester
will turn to these with relief. But their records are barren, and,
although we know a certain amount about Barnwell Priory, we should like
to know more. While of the Templars’ church absolutely no record remains,
and the building merely informs us with a baffling reticence that
Cambridge must at one time, among its religious houses, have numbered a
rich and important Commandery of that glorious but unfortunate Order.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _E.g._ Brancepeth and Sedgefield, Co. Durham.
[2] Merton College was founded in 1264, but its corporate existence does
not actually begin till 1274. Similarly, Peterhouse, founded in 1281, did
not possess buildings or enjoy a common life till 1284, the year of Hugh
de Balsham’s death.
[3] Much of the glass was re-touched in the last century, and some was
added about 1845.
[4] Waynflete had, no doubt, something to say about the building of the
College. He was a great architect, as his work at Tattershall Castle
shows.
[5] The tower may be compared with the palace which Alcock built at Ely.
Both are admirable examples of their style.
[6] With the exception of the range of buildings (1822) forming an
extension of the east side of Cloister Court.
[7] There is a somewhat untrustworthy tradition that Ben Jonson was a
member of the college for a very short time. His means, although aided by
the generosity of a friend, did not allow him to stay at Cambridge. Barry
Cornwall supposed him to have been here or at Trinity.
[8] Professor W. E. Collins, of King’s College, London, the historian,
should, however, be mentioned as an undergraduate and late tutor of
Selwyn.
[9] These Schools were designed by the late Mr J. L. Pearson, R.A.
INDEX
A
Adams, J. C., 16, 64, 199.
Addenbrooke’s Hospital, 11, 293.
Alcock, John, 12, 144, 148, 152, 189.
Aldrich, Robert, 110.
Andrewes, Lancelot, 61.
Andrews, John, 82.
Annesley, Francis, 265.
Arrowsmith, John, 193.
Ashton, Charles, 157.
⸺, Hugh, 187.
Atkinson, Mr T. D., referred to, 2, 9.
Audley End, 201, 206, 218.
⸺, Thomas, Lord, 205.
Ayerst Hostel, 269.
B
Babington, Churchill, and Cardale, 199.
Bacon, Francis, Lord Verulam, 227, 228.
⸺, Sir Nicholas, 88.
⸺, Thomas, 70.
Badew, Richard de, 49.
Bainbrigge, Thomas, 169.
Baker, Philip, 111.
⸺, Thomas, 194.
Balfour, Mr A. J. and Mr G. W., 243.
Balsham, Hugh de, 34, 190.
Bancroft, William, 155.
Barlow, William, 81.
Barnard’s Castle, Thomas of, 35.
Barnes, Francis, 41.
⸺, Joshua, 253.
Barnwell Priory, 7, 88, 296, 304.
Barrow, Isaac, 221, 227, 232.
Basevi, work by, 288.
Batchcroft, Thomas, 72.
Bateman, William, 69, 78, 87.
Bateson, W. H., 200.
Beadon, Richard, 157.
Beale, William, 155, 193.
Beaumont, Robert, 227.
Bedell, William, 251.
Beechey, portraits by, 91, 157.
Bell, Beaupré, 238.
Benedictine Nunnery, 153.
Bentley, Richard, 15, 196, 215, 223, 235.
Béza, Theodore, 284.
Bickersteth, Edward, 64.
Bill, William, 227.
Bingham, William, 165.
Blandford, Marquess of, 102.
Blomfield, work by Sir Arthur, 267.
Blore, work by, 287.
Blythe, Samuel, 42, 52.
Bodley, work by Mr G. F., 104, 127, 165, 306.
Bokenham, William, 69.
Bonwicke, Ambrose, 195.
Booth, Laurence, 58.
Bottisham, John of, 35.
Bowes, Mr, on Cambridge Books, 286.
Bowles, Thomas Lisle, 118.
Bradbury, Professor J. B., 265.
Bradford, John, 60.
Bradshaw, Henry, 104, 118.
Brady, Robert, 73.
Bramhall, John, 170.
Branthwaite, William, 248.
Brassie, Robert, 111.
Braybrooke, Lord, 208.
Brazen George Inn, 167.
Breton, John, 245, 250.
Brontë, Patrick, 199.
Browne, E. H., 187.
⸺, Dr G. F., 142.
⸺, Isaac H., 239.
Bucer, Martin, 307.
Buckingham, Henry and Edward Stafford, Dukes of, 205.
Burghley, Lord, 192.
Burne-Jones, Sir E., see Morris, W.
Burrough, Sir James, 74;
work by, 25, 26, 33, 45, 68, 246, 282, 285.
Butler, Dr H. M., 242.
Byron, Lord, 15, 239.
C
Caius, John, 1, 66, 69.
Calamy, Edmund, 141, 261.
Calverley, C. S., 173.
Camboritum, 2.
Camden Society, 27, 295, 303.
⸺, Charles, Earl, 115.
⸺, John, Marquess, 239.
Campion, W. M., 134.
Carmelites in Cambridge, 8, 131.
Carpenter and Ingelow, work by Messrs, 152.
Caryl, Lynford, 157.
Castle Hill, 2.
Cavendish College, 269.
Cayley, Arthur, 242.
Cecil, Thomas, 261.
Chaderton, William, 132.
⸺, Laurence, 248.
Chafy, William, 257.
Champneys, work by Mr Basil, 274.
Chapman, Benedict, 74.
Chappell (Milton’s tutor), 168.
Chaucer and Clare, 49.
Chedworth, John, 108.
Cheke, Sir John, 112.
Cherry Hinton Church, 150.
Chesterfield, Philip, Earl of, 82.
Christopherson, John, 227.
Churton, W. R., 117.
Cibber, Gabriel, 222.
Cipriani, designs by, 222.
Clare, Elizabeth, Countess of, 49.
Clark, Professor E. C., 81.
Clark, Mr J. W., 242;
referred to, 15, 63, 74, 153, 281.
Clark, John, 81.
Clark, W. G., 242.
Clarke, E. D., 158.
Clarkson, Thomas, 196.
Clayton, Richard, 193.
Clayton and Bell, windows by Messrs, 98, 187.
Clerke, Sir Francis, 254.
Close, Nicholas, 107.
Clough, Miss A. J., 274.
Cockburn, Sir Alexander, 83.
Cockerell, work by C. R., 283, 288.
“Cock-Pit” at Great St Mary’s, 25.
Coke, Lord Chief Justice, 228.
Cole, the antiquary, 26, 303.
Coleridge, S. T., 15, 157.
Collier, Jeremy, 74.
⸺, portraits by Hon. John, 92, 158, 178.
Colton, John, 69.
Colvin, Professor Sidney, 293.
Constance of France, 153.
Cookson, H. W., 41.
Corrie, G. E., 158.
Cosin, John, 39, 73.
Cotes, Roger, 234.
Cotton, Sir Robert, 229.
Cowell, John, 82.
Cowley, Abraham, 232.
Cox, Richard, 110.
Coxe, William, 116.
Cranmer, Thomas, 13, 154.
Crashaw, Richard, 38, 62.
Creighton, Dr Mandell, 253.
Crewe, Nathaniel, Lord, 82.
Croke, Richard, 110.
Cromwell, Oliver, 155, 193, 209, 260.
Crowland Abbey, 3, 205, 226.
Cudworth, Ralph, 51, 114, 171, 249.
Cumberland, Richard, 170.
Cunningham, Dr W., 28.
D
Darwin, C. R., 173.
Davenant, John, 133.
Dawes, Sir William, 141.
Day, George, 109.
Defoe at Stourbridge Fair, 9.
Dewar, Professor James, 41.
Dickinson, portraits by Mr Lowes, 83, 84, 210, 242.
Dillingham, Theophilus, 51.
Disney, Samuel, 289.
Doket, Andrew, 127.
Dominicans in Cambridge, 8, 165, 247.
Donne, John, 228.
Downing, Sir George, 42, 264.
Dowsing the “iconoclast,” 24, 39, 133.
Drinking-horn at Corpus, 88.
Dryden, John, 232.
E
Eachard, John, 140.
Eden, Dr G. R., 64.
Edmund House, 269.
Edward II., 225, 226;
III., 225, 226;
IV., 94, 129, 226;
VI., 79.
Effingham, Lord Howard of, 82.
Elizabeth, Queen, 57, 111, 215, 227, 248.
Ellicott, Dr C. J., 200.
Eltisley, Thomas of, 88.
Ely, Monastery of, 3, 205.
Erasmus, 3, 124, 130, 170, 273.
Essex, James, work of, 29, 33, 94, 123, 124, 163, 185, 211, 222,
223, 225, 246, 257.
Eton College, 106.
Everett’s “On the Cam” referred to, 209, 249.
Extension Movement, 293.
F
Fagius, Paul, 307.
Fairford, windows at, 98.
Falkland, Lucius, Viscount, 193.
Farmer, Richard, 10, 212.
Farrar, Dr F. W., 243.
Fawcett, Mr W. M., work by, 77, 124, 152.
Felton, Nicholas, 61.
Ferrar, Nicholas, 50, 51, 206.
Ferrers, Dr N. M., 75.
Fisher, John, Cardinal, 13, 129, 130, 165, 167, 190, 225.
⸺, Rev. Osmond, 159.
Fitzwilliam Hall, 270.
Fletcher, Giles, sen., 113.
⸺, ⸺, jun., 89.
⸺, Richard, 89.
Foster, Professor Michael, 242.
Fox, Edward, 109.
Foxe, Richard, 12, 59, 60, 80, 106.
Franciscans in Cambridge, 8, 259.
French, William, 158.
Frere, J. H., 74.
⸺, Serjeant, 265.
⸺, Mrs Serjeant, 10.
Frost, Henry, 189.
Fuller, Thomas, 132;
quoted, 58, 130, 132, 136, 167, 229, 248.
Furse, portraits by Mr C. W., 221, 267.
Fust, Sir H. J., 83, 303.
G
Gage, William, 114.
Gainsborough, portraits by, 64, 239, 245.
Gale, Roger, 238.
Gardiner, Stephen, 79, 80, 109.
Garret Hostel, 223.
Geldart, T. C., 83.
Gell, the antiquary, 253.
George I., 281, 284;
II., 284;
IV., 223.
Gheast, Edmund, 118.
Gibbons, Grinling, carving by 215, 222.
Gibbs, work by James, 102, 282, 285.
Gilds in Cambridge, 2, 21, 87.
Girton Church, 273.
Gisborne, Francis, 33.
Gladstone, Miss Helen, 274.
Gloucester, Prince W. F., Duke of, 239.
Goade, Roger, 112.
Goldcorne, John, 87.
“Golgotha,” 26.
Gonville, Edmund, 69.
Gooch, Sir Thomas, 74.
Goodwin, Harvey, 75.
Gostlin, John, 72, 140.
Gower, Humphrey, 195.
Grafton, G. H., Duke of, 239.
Granby, Charles, Marquess of, 239.
Grantchester, 2.
Gray, Thomas, 40, 63.
Grayson and Ould, work by Messrs, 77.
Grenville, Hon. G. N., 209.
Gresham, Sir Thomas, 72.
Grindal, Edmund, 60.
Grumbold, Robert, 23, 46.
Gunning, Peter, 51, 90, 193.
H
Hacket, John, 223, 231.
Haddon, Walter, 79, 113.
Halifax, Charles, Earl of, 234.
⸺, Samuel, 82.
Hall, Edward, 110.
⸺, Joseph, 251.
Hallam, A. H., 241.
Hansom, work by Messrs, 301.
Harcourt, Sir William, 243.
Hardman, glass by Messrs, 127, 150.
Hare, Ralph, 178.
Harlow, portraits by, 64, 133.
Harmer, Dr J. R., 92.
Harrington, Sir John, 259.
Harris, organ by Renatus, 101.
Harsnet, Samuel, 61.
Hartstrong, John, 73.
Harvard, John, 249.
Harvey, William, 72.
Harwood, Sir Busick, 253.
Have, work by Theodore, 67.
Hawksmoor, work by Nicholas, 245.
Heere, Lucas van, portraits attributed to, 177, 206, 227.
Henry VI., 58, 93, 166, 205;
VII., 94, 108;
VIII., 109, 130, 190, 205, 212, 225, 259, 307.
Henslow, Professor, 173.
Herbert, George, 133, 230.
Herkomer, portraits by Professor, 64, 84, 118, 199, 218, 221, 242.
Herring, Thomas, 91.
Hervey, Henry, 80.
Hicks, Dr J. W., 261.
Hill, organ by, 188.
⸺, Dr Alexander, 265.
Hills, John, 140.
Hinchliffe, John, 238.
Histon Church, 187.
Hoadly, Benjamin, 141, 250.
Hobson the carrier, 169.
Hodgson, William, 41.
Holbech, Ralph of, 35.
⸺, Thomas, 250.
Holbrook, John, 36.
Holiday, windows by Mr Henry, 216.
Holles of the Hyde, 260.
Holme, Richard, 279.
Hope, A. J. B., 224.
Horobin, Mr J. C., 270.
Hospital of St John, 5, 189.
Hudson, portraits by, 232, 237.
Hughes, Professor M’Kenny, 52.
Humphry, Sir George, 265.
Hurd, Richard, 253.
Hutton, Matthew, 60, 61, 112, 228.
Hyde, Thomas, 116.
J
Jackson, Dr Henry, 242.
⸺, John, 207.
James I., 50, 155.
⸺, Dr M. R., 292.
Jebb, Prof. R. C., 242, 287.
Jeffreys, Judge, 73.
Jegon, John, 89.
⸺, Thomas, 90.
Jenkin, Robert, 196.
Jones, Inigo, 164.
⸺, William, 261.
Jortin, John, 156.
Jowett, John, 28, 83.
K
Kaye, John, 172.
Kelvin, Lord, 16, 41.
Kempe, windows by Mr C. E., 101, 127, 297, 298, 306.
Kennedy, B. H., 199.
⸺, Miss M. G., 274.
Kent, Henry, Earl of, 259.
Key, Dr, of Oxford, 71.
King, Edward, 169.
⸺, Oliver, 108.
Kingsley, Charles, 16, 210.
Kneller, portrait by, 234.
L
Lamb, John, 91.
Lancaster, Henry, Duke of, 87.
Landbeach Church, 149.
Laney, Benjamin, 62.
Latham, Dr H., 84.
⸺, P. W., 265.
Latimer, Hugh, 49, 167.
Law, Edmund, 40.
⸺, William, 141, 245, 250.
Lawrence, portraits by, 239.
Leaver, Thomas, 191.
Legge, Thomas, 68, 72.
Leland, John, 167.
Lely, portraits by, 156, 245, 252.
L’Estrange, Sir Roger, 261.
Lightfoot, John, 141.
⸺, Joseph B., 242.
Linwood, William, 72.
Liverpool, Robert, Earl of, 172.
Lloyd, Sir Nathaniel, 76, 82.
Locke, John, 233.
Loggan’s _Cantabrigia Illustrata_, 42, 67, 68, 135.
Long, Roger, 63.
Lonsdale, portrait by, 239.
Love, Richard, 90.
Luard, Dr H. R., 27.
Luck, work by Mr C. S., 269.
Luckock, Dr H. M., 306.
Lumley, Marmaduke, 79.
Lupton, Roger, 118.
Lynford, Thomas, 160.
Lyttelton, Hon. Arthur, 267.
Lytton, Edward, Lord, 84.
M
Mackenzie, C. F., 75.
Maclagan, Dr W. D., 41.
Madingley Hall, 282.
Maine, Sir Henry, 83.
Maitland, Professor F. W., 265.
Malcolm IV. of Scotland, 153.
Maltby, Edward, 62.
Mansel, W. L., 238.
Mansfield, William, Earl, 83.
Margaret, the Lady, 12, 166, 177, 189.
Margaret of Anjou, 128.
Marlowe, Christopher, 89.
Marsh, Francis, 73.
⸺, Herbert, 196.
Martyn, Henry, 198.
Mary, Queen, 70, 80, 212, 215, 227, 307.
Mason, William, 64.
Maurice, F. D., 16.
Maw, Leonard, 40.
Mawson, Matthias, 91.
Maxwell, J. C., 242.
Mayor, J. E. B., 194, 196, 200.
Mede, Henry, 170.
Mengs, picture by Raphael, 188.
Merivale, Charles, 199.
Merton, Walter de, 34, 35.
Mesman, Daniel, 291.
Mey, William, 131.
Middleton, Conyers, 238.
⸺, J. H., 292.
Mildenhall, Roger of, 35.
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 22, 247.
Millington, William, 107.
Milne, Serjeant, 236.
Milner, Isaac, 133.
Milton, 13, 157, 168.
Montagu, James, 259.
Montague, Hon. John, 235.
Moore, John, 237, 281.
More, Henry, 171.
Morgan, Dr H. A., 158.
Morris, windows by William, 34, 150, 306.
Morton, Thomas, 193.
Moule, Dr H. C. G., 268.
Mowse, Walter, 79.
Mulcaster, Richard, 111.
Museums, Fitzwilliam, 287;
Woodwardian, 285.
N
Name of Jesus, devotion of, 166.
Naunton, Sir Robert, 81.
Neile, Richard, 193.
Nevile, Thomas, 178, 192, 206, 211, 215, etc.
Neville, Hon. Latimer, 209.
Newcastle, Thomas Holles, Duke of, 52.
Newcome, John, 196.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 15, 123, 226, 233.
⸺, Professor A., 210.
Nollekens, sculpture by, 83, 286.
Norfolk, Thomas, Duke of, 206.
Norman and Beard, organ by Messrs, 136.
North, Hon. John, 235.
Northumberland, John, Duke of, 139.
O
Oates, Titus, 73.
Okes, Richard, 118.
Opie, portraits by, 158, 239.
Orchardson, portrait by Mr W. Q., 41.
Otley, Adam, 81.
Oughtred, William, 114.
Ouless, portraits by Mr W. W., 64, 173, 199.
Overall, John, 140.
Oxenden, George, 81.
P
Paley, William, 172.
Palmer, E. H., 178, 199.
Palmerston, Henry John, Viscount, 198.
Parker, Matthew, 24, 88, 228.
Parr, Samuel, 196, 252.
Patrick, Simon, 133, 142.
Pattrick, Francis, 210.
Pearce, William, 157.
Pearson, John, 118, 156, 231;
work by J. L., 258, 305.
Peckard, Peter, 209.
Peile, Dr John, 173.
Pembroke, Marie, Countess of, 57.
Penrose, work by Mr F. C., 189.
Pepys, Samuel, 207.
Perceval, Spencer, 239.
Percy, Thomas, 252.
Perne, Andrew, 29, 36, 111.
Perowne family, 91.
Perse, Stephen, 67.
⸺ School, 11, 72, 288, 292.
Peterborough, monastery of, 3.
Petty Cury, 7.
Philpott, Henry, 142.
Pickersgill, portraits by, 178, 197, 209.
Pilkington, James and Leonard, 172.
Pitt, William, 64, 286.
⸺ Press, 286.
Platonists, Cambridge, 13, 163, 170, 245.
Porson, Richard, 239.
Powell, windows by, 28, 301.
Powis, Lord, 188.
Prest, Edward, 158.
“Prevaricator,” 25.
Prince, John, 74.
⸺ Consort, 289.
Prior, Matthew, 182, 189, 195.
Pritchard, Charles, 199.
Procter, Joseph, 142.
Pythagoras, school of, 277.
Q
Quarles, Francis, 171.
R
Radwinter, William of, 49.
Ragland, Thomas, 92.
Rainbow, Edward, 206.
Ramsey Abbey, 3, 205.
Ray, John, 141, 238.
Redman, John, 227.
Reynolds, portraits by Sir Joshua, 64, 74, 157, 239.
Reynolds, Richard, 81.
Richard III., 129.
Richardson, John, 38.
⸺, William, 252.
Richmond, portraits by Sir W. B., 242, 272, 291.
Rickingale, John, 69.
Rickman, work by, 182, 185.
Ridley Hall, 268.
⸺, Nicholas, 60.
Ritz, portraits by Valentine, 235.
Robinson, Dr C. K., 142.
⸺, Prof. J. A., 173.
Rogers, the martyr, 60.
Roman roads, 1.
Romer, Mr Justice, 83.
Romney, portraits by, 239, 245, 262.
Rotherham, Thomas, 53, 58, 107, 278.
Roubiliac, sculpture by, see Chapter XVI., _passim_.
Rougham, William de, 69.
Routh, Dr E. J., 41.
Ruggle, George, 10, 50.
Rustat, Tobias, 156.
Ryle, Dr H. E., 134.
Rymer, Thomas, 26.
Rysbrack, work by, 286.
S
Salvin, work by, 68, 77, 224, 292, 303.
Sampson, Richard, 80.
Sancroft, William, 245, 247, 249, 251.
Sandars, Samuel, 28.
Sandys, Edwin, 136.
Scott, work by Sir Gilbert, 27, 104, 186, 284, 298;
by Mr G. G., 33, 57, 278, 285, 292.
⸺, Mr R. F., 194.
Seaman, Lazarus, 40.
Searle, Dr C. E., 64.
Sedgwick, Adam, 240.
Selwyn College, 266.
Senate House, 285.
Shadwell, Thomas, 73.
Shafto, Mr J. D., 158.
Shannon, portraits by Mr J. J., 274.
Shaxton, Nicholas, 72.
Sherlock, Thomas, 142.
Shorton, Robert, 191.
Shrewsbury, Mary, Countess of, 178.
Sibbes, Richard, 140.
Siborch, John, 286.
Sidgwick, Professor H., 242, 272.
⸺, Mrs, 274.
Simeon, Charles, 16, 117, 301.
Simpson, Sir E., 77, 82.
Skeat, Professor W. W., 173.
Skippe, John, 69.
Smith, Mr Charles, 261.
⸺, John, 74.
⸺, Mr J. Hamblin, 298.
⸺, Robert, 238.
⸺, organs by Father, 27, 163, 215.
Smythies, C. A., 243.
Somerset, Charles, Duke of, 286.
Spelman, Sir Henry, 229.
Spencer, John, 90.
Spenser, Edmund, 62.
Staunton, Hervé de, 225, 307.
Stephen, J. K., 118.
Sterne, Laurence, 155.
⸺, Richard, 91, 144, 155.
Stevenson, work by Mr J. J., 165.
Still, John, 229.
Stillingfleet, Edward, 194.
Stourbridge, 9, 10.
Strafford, Thomas, Earl of, 193.
Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 118.
Stretton, Robert de, 79.
Strype, John, 141.
Sumner, J. B., 116.
Sussex, Frances, Lady, 258.
⸺, Prince Frederick, Duke of, 239.
Sylvester, J. J., 199.
Symons, work by Ralph, 178, 185, 217, 221, 244, 252, 254.
T
Taylor, Dr Charles, 200.
⸺, Jeremy, 72.
Templars in Cambridge, 301, 308.
Temple, Sir William, 115, 252.
Tenison, Thomas, 90.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 16, 240.
Thackeray, W. M., 241.
Thaxted, Walter of, 49.
Thirlby, Thomas, 80.
Thompson, W. H., 242.
Thorney Abbey, 88.
Thorwaldsen, statue by, 222.
Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, 75.
Tillotson, John, 51.
Torry, Rev. A. F., 194.
Townshend, Charles, Viscount, 116.
Troyes, windows at, 98.
Tuckney, Anthony, 193.
Turner, Francis, 194.
⸺, Thomas, 38.
Turton, Thomas, 142.
Tusser, Thomas, 84.
V
Vandlebury Camp, 1.
Vandyck, portraits by, 188.
Villiers, Hon. C. P., 200.
W
Wailes, glass by, 303.
Walden Abbey, 205.
Wallace, work by Mr W., 269.
Waller, Edmund, 114.
Wallis, Dr F., 75.
Walpole, Sir Robert, 103.
⸺, Horace, 115.
Walsingham, Alan de, 297.
⸺, Sir Francis, 113.
Ward, Samuel, 249.
⸺, Seth, 172.
Warham, William, 130.
Water-supply of Cambridge, 37.
Waterhouse, work by Mr, 54, 59, 66, 68, 152.
Waterland, Daniel, 209.
Watts, portraits by Mr G. F., 83, 218, 240, 291.
Waynflete, William of, 12, 106.
Wesley, Samuel, 91.
West, Nicholas, 108.
Westcott, Dr B. F., 242.
Whewell, William, 224, 241.
Whichcot, Benjamin, 113, 248.
Whiston, William, 52.
Whitaker, William, 192.
White, Francis, 39, 73.
⸺, H. Kirke, 197, 306.
Whitgift, John, 38, 61, 228.
Whittlesea, William of, 35.
Whood, portraits by Isaac, 228, 229, 231.
Wickham, William, 118.
Wilberforce, William, 196.
Wilkins, James, 263.
⸺, John, 231, 234.
⸺, work of William, 74, 86, 91, 103, 104, 223.
Wilkinson, Thomas, 129.
⸺, Dr T. E., 158.
Willement, glass by, 303.
Williams, George, 117.
⸺, John, 178, 181.
Willoughby the naturalist, 232.
Wilmot, Sir J. Eardley, 82.
Wilson, portraits by Benjamin, 63, 64.
⸺, Thomas, 261.
Wisbech, Richard of, 35.
Wishart, George, 89.
Wood, James, 188.
Woodlark, Robert, 108, 136.
Woolner, statues by Thomas, 216, 240, 242.
Wordsworth, Christopher, 240.
⸺, William, 15, 157, 169, 178, 197.
Wrangham, Archdeacon, 83.
Wray, Sir Christopher, 206.
Wren, Sir Christopher, 54, 221, 245.
⸺, Matthew, 30, 39, 53, 62.
Wright, Mr W. A., 242.
Wyatt, Sir M. Digby, 293.
Wyattville, work by Sir Jeffrey, 257.
Wydvil, Queen Elizabeth, 129.
Wylson, Thomas, 113.
Y
Yonge, Philip, 157.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
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