Читать книгу Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely - John William Edward Conybeare - Страница 10

Old Gate of King's College.

Those who have the good hap to be thus inducted, will, besides the new books, probably be most impressed by the long range of volumes forming the catalogue, and by the densely packed shelves of long-forgotten fiction in the "Novel Room." But the real treasures of the Library are to be found in Cockerell's Building. Here, in a range of cases, are to be seen our best Manuscripts, including a Thirteenth Century life of Edward the Confessor, the illustrations in which were found useful as a precedent even at the coronation of his latest namesake on the British Throne. At the extreme end, in a separate case, is the crown of all, one of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospels, dating from the Fifth Century. Only four others of equal authority are known, one in the British Museum, one in the Vatican Library, one at Paris, and one at St. Petersburg. Ours is known as "D" or "Codex Bezæ," from being the gift of the celebrated Calvinist divine Theodore Beza, who procured it from a soldier after the sack of its early home, the Monastery of St. Irenaeus at Lyons, in the Sixteenth Century. It is noteworthy for containing passages not found in any other Codex, one of which may be read (in Greek and Latin) on the single leaf here exposed to view. It narrates how our Lord, "seeing a certain man working on the Sabbath, said unto him: Man, if thou art doing this with Knowledge thou art blessed, but if without Knowledge thou art cursed."

Space does not permit us to enlarge further on the Library; and we return to our station at the old gate of King's College. As we look along the lane our view is bounded by the College whose name it now bears, Trinity Hall. This must not be confounded with the larger and later Foundation of Trinity College, next door to it beyond. Trinity Hall was founded in 1350, by Bishop Bateman of Norwich, specially for the education of Clergy. It has, however, actually, become especially given to the study of Law, and is yet more widely known by its prowess in aquatics. Its boat, for the last half century, has never been far from the Headship of the River, and has oftener attained that coveted position than any other. The colours of the College, white and black, are thus of wide renown. They are derived from the College Shield, which in heraldic language is sable a crescent ermines with a bordure ermines. Visitors who approach Cambridge by the London road see this device upon the milestones near the town, which were set up by the College in the eighteenth century, and were the first milestones erected in Britain since the days of the Roman occupation.

The Library here (which is open to visitors from noon to 1 P.M. in Full Term) is the best example left us of what libraries were of old in Cambridge. It was built about 1560, and still retains its original book-cases, the tops of which form desks for reading the folios in the shelves beneath. These were in old days chained to rings sliding on a locked bar which ran the whole length of each desk. Some of the books are so chained still, but not in the ancient fashion; for of old books were shelved with the backs inward, the title being written across the closed leaves of the front.

Otherwise the College has little to show us; and, instead of seeking it, we shall do better if we turn westwards through the specially beautiful iron gate which leads us into Clare College. The coat of arms beneath which we pass as we enter has its tale to tell concerning the foundation of the College. They are those of the noble lady who, in 1338, thus commemorated her widowhood, an example followed, as we have seen, in the next decade, by Marie de Valence at Pembroke. But Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Gilbert de Clare (the "Red Earl" mentioned in Marmion), had gone through no fewer than three of these lamentable experiences. She therefore not only charged her College Shield with the golden chevronels of Clare impaled with the golden cross of De Burgh (her latest husband), but surrounded the whole with a sable bordure besprinkled with golden heraldic tears, bearing perennial witness to her repeated sorrows. Hence it comes that the Clare "colours" are to this day black and gold.

Few College edifices convey such a sense of unity as these of Clare. "Their uniform and harmonious character gives them, at first sight, the appearance of having been built from one design, and carried out at one time."[23] As a matter of fact, however, the existing buildings are of no fewer than five separate dates, each separated by decades, and extending altogether over nearly a century and a half (1638–1768); while of the original fourteenth century structure no trace whatever is left. The eastern and northern sides of the Court are the earliest, built between 1638 and 1643, when the work was stopped, five years after its commencement, by the outbreak of the Civil War; while the stones and beams made ready for its continuance were commandeered by the Roundheads for the new works which they were then throwing up to strengthen the defences of Cambridge Castle. Not till 1669 did the College finances so far recover from this blow as to permit the resumption of the building. The western side was then built, followed by the northern (1683–93), while the Chapel was not added till 1768. But the result of all this patchwork is an exquisite little gem of a Court, its balustraded walls overshadowed by the towering pinnacles of King's College, and giving, as we have said, a wonderful sense of unity, which is partly owing to older work having been altered to harmonise with the newer.

The College treasury contains some most interesting and beautiful specimens of sixteenth-century plate. One tankard is known as the "Poison Cup," because, mounted in the cover, it has a conical fragment of crystal, such as was supposed, in the pharmacy of the day, to change colour if poison were poured into the vessel. This cup is of glass enclosed in exquisitely wrought filigree work. The thumb-piece is an angel with outspread wings. Another tankard is the "Serpentine Cup," the bowl being of that stone. This too is enclosed in most beautiful silver-gilt work, adorned with flowers and fruit and birds and arabesques. Yet another is the "Falcon Cup," a receptacle in the shape of that bird, originally intended, it would seem, for holding sweetmeats. All these were presented to the College by Dr. Butler, Court Physician to King James the First, of whom Fuller says that "he was better pleased with presents than money, and ever preferred rarities before riches."[24]

Passing through the court, we come to the beautiful bridge, already familiar to us from the river. Its balustraded parapet is surmounted by fourteen large balls of stone, thirteen of them whole, and one out of which a cantle of nearly a quarter of its bulk has, for some unknown reason and at some unknown date, been cut. A cheap laugh may thus be obtained by challenging a stranger to count these balls accurately; for the missing cantle, being turned towards the river, is quite invisible from the bridge itself. Another feature in connection with these balls is that one of them is visibly much newer than the rest (which, like the bridge, date from the middle of the seventeenth century). This is due to a not very far off feud between Clare and St. John's, when a piratical Johnian crew came up the river after dark and stormed the bridge. Before the enraged Clare men could open the iron gate under the College archway and pour out to the rescue, the enemy had begun throwing the balls into the water, where one sank so deep into the muddy bottom that it could never be recovered.

From the bridge we get a lovely view of the College "Backs." To the south the single slender arch of King's Bridge flings itself over the river in the graceful curve which is all its own; to the north we see the iron span of Garret Hostel Bridge, hiding from us the beauties of Trinity Bridge beyond. But, if there be no ripple upon the water, the three graceful arches of this invisible bridge are seen reflected upon the glassy surface with a specially charming effect. The whole view is amongst the world's loveliest, especially in the May term, when the Master's little garden to our right glows with bright colour, answered across the stream by that of the Fellows; when the water is alive with gay little craft, gigs, punts, and canoes; and when the "ambrosial dark" of the Avenue before us beckons us on to explore the delights of its umbrageous depths. It was planted in 1691, and is carried for 150 yards on a wide embankment, dense with shrubs and closed with jealously-spiked gates at either end, across what was once an island in the river (known as Butts Close), till it debouches on to the elm-shaded length of greensward described in our opening page, and named, in old maps of Cambridge, "King's College Back-sides." The whole does, in fact, belong to King's, but the many rights of way which traverse it make it practically an open park.

Not so long ago oaken railings (still to be seen in places) ran between it and the road, till a visit from Lord Kitchener (then Sirdar of Egypt, fresh from his Ethiopian victories) was made the occasion of a gigantic bonfire in the Market Place, to feed which the whole were torn up and carried away by gangs of enthusiastic undergraduates. A like fate befell the wooden palings and gates of the College gardens across the road, now replaced by iron, and altogether the damage done ran into hundreds of pounds; while the town police and the University proctors waited for each other to act until too late. There are three of these College gardens on end—King's, Clare, and Trinity; and rarely lovely they are, with their wide "smooth-shaven" lawns, broken into glades by clumps of ornamental trees. But each can only be entered under the ægis of a Fellow of its own respective College, and they are so carefully planted out from the road that scarcely even a glimpse can be gained of the delights within, "where no profaner eye may look."

Leaving these on our left we proceed along the northward-leading path till we reach the fine iron gate which bears the escutcheon of Cambridge's mightiest College, Trinity, a College more than twice as large as any other, numbering something like 700 residents, students and teachers together. Like London, which an Indian visitor once described as "not a city, but a herd of cities," Trinity may be described as a conjoined herd of colleges, for it was created by the amalgamation of no fewer than nine earlier institutions. Two of these, Michaelhouse[25] and King's Hall, were amongst the most noteworthy colleges in Cambridge. The former was founded by Henry de Stanton, Chancellor to King Edward the Second, in 1323, and was thus, next to Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge. And King's Hall was but a few years younger, being founded by King Edward the Third in 1336. Indeed, it may claim to be actually the elder in embryonic existence, for Edward the Second, in 1317, was already maintaining scholars—"children of our Chapel" as his writ calls them—in Cambridge. And that these "children" (who were required to be at least fourteen years of age on coming into residence) were quartered hereabouts is evident from King's Hall having been built across the line of an ancient street running down to the river and known as "King's Childer Lane." The town agreed to the expropriation of this lane in consideration of one red rose annually to be paid by the College to the Corporation on Midsummer Day. The remaining seven foundations incorporated in Trinity College were hostels (institutions for lodging students, more or less organised in college fashion, but not recognised by the University as colleges). These were St. Catharine's Hostel, Physwick Hostel, Crutched Hostel, Gregory's Hostel, Tyled Hostel, Oving's Inn, and St. Gerard's or "Garret" Hostel; which last, as we have seen, is still kept in memory by the name of the public bridge crossing the river between Trinity and Clare.

Old Schools' Quadrangle.

All these, Colleges and Hostels alike, were seized upon by Henry the Eighth, when that rapacious and unprincipled monarch desired to pose (in 1546, a year before his death) as a Pious Founder, and go down to posterity as a benefactor. He gained this credit cheaply; for not only did he thus get his edifices ready made, but their endowments also; while such additional endowments as he bestowed on his new College were almost wholly derived from the spoil of the Abbeys suppressed by him. Nor did he fail to take toll of each transfer of this stolen property for the benefit of his exchequer. His professed object, meanwhile, was "to educate Youth in piety, virtue, self-restraint, charity towards the poor, and relief of the distressed." His alumni, in short, were to be made as opposite to himself in character as possible.

From the very first, Trinity thus became almost the largest and wealthiest College in Cambridge. For a century it disputed the headship of the University with its neighbour, St. John's College, and for another century and more sang second to that great rival. But in 1785 it drew ahead, and since that date has improved its lead without a check, till now it stands not only first but without a second. So large is it that it cannot, for very sportsmanship, row as a whole in the bumping races, but has to be divided for that purpose into two boat clubs, denominated respectively "First Trinity" and "Third Trinity,"—or, in common speech, "First" and "Third" simply. The former is the original "Trinity Boat Club" and this is still its official name, whence it is also known as the "T.B.C." It wears the original Trinity colours—dark blue,[26] with the badge of a golden lion and three crowns, the device of King Edward the Third. The latter consists of Trinity men from the two great rowing schools, Eton and Westminster. It is, of course, a very much smaller body than "First," but, as its members come up ready-made oarsmen, it has been almost as frequently Head of the River. Both boats are always in the first flight. Once there existed a "Second Trinity" club, which has long since ceased to maintain its existence.

We enter the precincts of this great College by "that long walk of limes," up which Tennyson passed, as he tells us in "In Memoriam," when he re-visited Cambridge, "to view the rooms" once inhabited by his friend and hero, Arthur Hallam.[27] This avenue was planted in 1672,[28] and leads us to the fine cycloidal[29] bridge, built at the same period. After crossing this, we should not keep straight, which would bring us into the "New Court" where Hallam dwelt (a poor bit of architecture erected 1825), but rather turn to the left, by the path that sweeps along the bank of the river, with its fine weeping willows. Looking back, as we leave the bridge behind us, we may admire the climbing agility which frequently enables undergraduates to descend to the projecting piers just above the water, and find their way back again, without a ducking.

We have here in front of us the New Court of St. John's College, seen across its lawn-tennis grounds; while to our left is the magnificent range of horse-chestnuts along the boundary of the two Colleges. Splendid at all times, these are seen at their very best when duly touched by frost. To our right rises the fine mass of Trinity Library, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1675; whose walls of warm-coloured stone have been already dwelt upon. The lower portion of the building forms an open cloister, with grated windows and gates barring it from the Backs where we stand.

Through one of these gates our path leads us, and we find ourselves within the College, and at the door of the Library. At certain hours, usually between three and four in the afternoon, this is open to visitors; at others the escort of a Member of the College is needed. Of all the College Libraries in Cambridge this is the most interesting in its miscellaneous contents. Mounting the wide stone stair-way, we enter the long, wide, lofty, vaulted gallery, with a series of wooden book-cases projecting from either wall all along its course. The carved wreaths of flowers and leaves and fruitage which adorn these cases deserve careful notice. They are by Grinling Gibbons, probably the most wonderful wood carver who ever lived, and their intricacies bear striking testimony to his almost superhuman skill. In the recesses between the cases are to be seen sundry curios, from the College estates and other sources, while more are to be found in the long ranges of glass-covered tables topping the smaller book-shelves which line either side of the central passage way. Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities, and a splendid series of coins and medals, are here exhibited. Amongst the miscellaneous curios are a model of Cæsar's famous bridge across the Rhine and a globe of the planet Mars.

What will, however, first catch our eye on entering, will be the window at the southern end of the room, with its painted glass so unlike anything to be seen elsewhere. It is, in fact, unique, having been made in the middle of the eighteenth century by the discoverer of this particular method of staining glass, who kept the process secret—a secret which died with him and has never been recovered. The window cannot be called artistically beautiful, and the subject is weird. The University of Cambridge, represented as a lady in a somewhat scanty robe of yellow, is presenting Sir Isaac Newton to King George the Third (who did not come to the Throne till 1760, many years after the great philosopher died), while the transaction is being recorded by Francis Bacon Lord Verulam of Elizabethan fame!

Beneath this window is Thorwaldsen's fine marble statue of Lord Byron, one of Trinity's greatest poets. This was originally intended for Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, but the Dean and Chapter of the period so strongly disapproved of Byron's morality that they refused it a place there. Apart from his poetical genius, he as little deserved to be honoured in Trinity library; for, as an undergraduate, he not only accomplished the apparently impossible feat of climbing by night to the roof (which others have more than once done since)[30] but abominably disfigured the statues upon it, in which he has had, happily, no imitators. Other relics of him are preserved hard by, which are supposed to bear upon the thrilling question as to how far he had or had not a club foot.[31]

For these few will care; but this end of the library contains things which few can fail to care about. Here is the death-mask of Sir Isaac Newton, and a reflecting telescope, on the model invented by him. Here is Thackeray's manuscript of "Esmond," and Tennyson's manuscript of "In Memoriam." Here is Milton's manuscript of "Lycidas," and his first design for "Paradise Lost," all cut and scored about with alterations and corrections, showing that he originally designed his great poem to be a drama, the characters of which (headed by Moses) are here listed. Here, too, is a copy of the "Solemn League and Covenant" imposed on all men by the Puritans at the time of the Great Rebellion.[32] This was found hidden amongst the rafters of a village church near Cambridge.

And here is a copy of the famous Indulgence sold by Tetzel, Luther's denunciation of which gave the signal for the earliest outburst of Protestantism at the Reformation. When the crabbed old printing is deciphered it proves to be a startlingly mild document, no licence to commit sin, as is generally supposed, but merely granting to the purchaser the privilege of confessing, once in his life, to a priest of his own choice instead of to the parson in whose parish he dwelt. The priest so chosen is given authority to absolve from nearly all sins, but not from the heinous offence of buying alum from anyone except the Pope, in whose territory it had, at that date (1515), been recently discovered. Alum was in those days a most valuable substance, and had hitherto been attainable only at the Turkish town of Roc, in Syria, whence the name of "rock alum" still surviving in use amongst pharmacopœists. To buy it there was not only to take money out of the pocket of the Pope, but to put it into those of the enemies of Christendom. Hence the heinousness of the offence.

Trinity library forms the western side of one of the Courts of the College, known as "Nevile's Court" (from Dr. Thomas Nevile, Master at the close of the sixteenth century, who planned and began it in 1610), and also as "Cloister Court," from the wide cloisters which surround it on the north, south, and west. The eastern side is formed by the Hall, raised four feet above the ground level, and reached by a beautiful balustraded and terraced staircase of stone. It is the finest college hall in either university, and was also the work of Nevile.

In the northern cloister which leads us to it, there are sundry points not to be overlooked. As we look along it from the library entrance we perceive at the far end a door with a stalwart iron knocker. Now there is a fine echo in this cloister, and a stamp of the foot at our end will evoke a sound from the door precisely like that of a knocker. So great a part does illusion play in human impressions, that five people out of six, when they hear this sound, are ready to declare that they have seen the knocker actually move. It was by timing this echo, we may mention, that Sir Isaac Newton first measured the velocity of sound. The echoing properties of these cloisters are referred to by Tennyson in the "Princess":

"our cloisters echoed frosty feet."

The massive block which pillars the angle of the cloister is known as the "Freshman's Pillar"; a favourite old-time amusement of the junior students (not yet wholly disremembered) having been to traverse the very narrow base-top right round, without setting foot to the ground. In old times, indeed until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, these cloisters played a notable part in undergraduate life. Athletic pursuits were far less general than now, and exercise was largely pedestrian. On a wet day, accordingly, when the roads were uninviting, the cloisters used to be crowded with a veritable swarm of trampers, doing "quarter-deck" from end to end of the three covered sides of the court.

Clare College from Bridge.

The stair-case entrances here lead to specially delightsome sets of rooms, with oak panels and beautiful plaster ceilings. One of these was occupied by the late Duke of Clarence, when, as "Prince Edward," he was an undergraduate of Trinity, mingling freely with the college life around him, and making himself generally beloved by his simple unaffected pleasantness.[33] His royal father, when Prince of Wales, was also an undergraduate of Trinity; but Court etiquette was stricter in those days, and, instead of being in College, he was quartered at Madingley Hall, four miles away. A few months after his wedding, in June, 1864, he brought his beautiful bride to visit Cambridge and take all hearts by storm. In their honour the whole area of Nevile's Court was tented in and floored over and made into one vast ball-room, which included the cloisters and the hall stairway. The former were used for promenading, all the best settees and arm-chairs to be found in College being commandeered to be placed in them; the Hall served for supper; while the band was housed beneath the Library. All was beautifully decorated and lighted (though it was before the days even of paraffin lamps), and the whole scene was one of unforgettable brilliance.[34] The cost was, naturally, something portentous; but those were the times of academic prosperity, before the great agricultural depression of the following decade brought down rents, and with them college incomes, almost (sometimes altogether) from pounds to shillings.[35]

The beautiful rooms of Nevile's Court are mostly held by Fellows of the College whose names may be known in the doorway lists by the "Mr." prefixed to them. Over one doorway we see a small bronze bust, set up as a memorial to Mr. Goodhart who once "kept" there and was an object of special admiration to all who knew him. He was, in fact, a kind of Admirable Crichton; not only a man of great intellectual power (as Fellows of Trinity must needs be, for these fellowships are the "blue riband" of the University), but excellent at all athletic pursuits, and able to do successfully whatever thing he set his hand to. It is recorded that on one occasion a bet was laid that he could not make himself an entire suit of clothes, and wear them for a month without their amateur origin being detected. Goodhart won the bet.

Beautiful as Nevile's Court is, it was originally yet more beautiful, with transomed windows, and gabled dormers instead of the present eighteenth century parapet. These are shown in a view "after Logan," given by Atkinson,[36] from the terrace before the Hall, by which we leave the court, passing through a low and massive wicket gate of black oak. This admits us into the "screens," a short and narrow passage having the Hall on one side, and, on the other, the kitchen and the Buttery. This last word has no connection with butter (though butter is here issued), but is derived from butler, as being the place where the ale for the hall dinners is served out. Its door, as is universal in such places, is a "hatch," the upper and lower halves of the door opening independently, and a broad sill on the top of the latter forming a sort of counter across which the business of the place is transacted. Of old the buttery served as an office, where much of the clerical work of the College was done; but this branch of its usefulness is now transferred to a special department.

When each College brewed its own ale and baked its own bread, as was the case till some half-century ago, the Buttery was a really important place. Even now the daily ration of bread and butter to which each Collegian in residence has a right, is here booked to him. This ration is called his "Commons." If for any approved reason he does not desire to draw it in any given week he is said to be "out of Commons"; and if, as sometimes happens, he is deprived of the right for misconduct, he is said to be "discommonsed" for such or such a period. (The equivalent phrase at Oxford is "to be crossed at the Buttery.") The Buttery officials also have charge of the adjoining strong-room in which the magnificent store of the College plate is secured; mighty salvers and bowls and "grace-cups,"[37] besides dishes, and the hundreds of spoons and forks, all the gifts of benefactor after benefactor since the College was first founded. A visitor may sometimes be fortunate enough to get a sight of these resplendent piles.

A sight of the kitchen, which adjoins the Buttery, can almost always be had, and is worth having; though the glory of the place has largely departed with the substitution of gas stoves for the old open ranges, six feet high and twelve feet long, before which scores of joints and fowls might be seen simultaneously twisting on huge spits. If less picturesque, the cooking is now more scientific, and the kitchen is a splendid chamber, the finest of all College kitchens, with an open pitched roof, and an oriel window, having been traditionally the ancient Hall of Michaelhouse. The walls are adorned with the shells of turtles, emblazoned with the dates of the great occasions on which they were immolated for soup. It is not only the dinners in Hall which are here cooked. Members of the College may order dishes to be sent to their own rooms, in reason; though any very extra expenditure in this respect would need to be authorised by your Tutor. This extraneous fare may constantly be seen being carried about the Courts, in large flat blue boxes, on the heads of the kitchen servants.

The doors of the Hall may usually be found open, or a request at the Buttery may open them; though there is a certain amount of luck in the matter, as the Hall is not only used for meals but for College examinations also, which, of course, must not be disturbed by intruders. A common lunch is served during Full Term, from 12 till 2, at which such as list sit where they will, Dons and undergraduates, cheek by jowl. The three daily dinners which the size of the College makes necessary are more formal affairs, especially the latest at 7.45, which the authorities of the College attend, sitting at the two High Tables on the dais, and faring more sumptuously than the students in the body of the Hall. Of these only the "Senior Sophs"[38] may be present, the "Junior Sophs" and Freshmen being relegated to the earlier hours. The westernmost range of tables is sacred to Bachelors of Arts and to the Scholars of the College. The rest may sit where they please at the remaining tables, and diners may enter and leave at their pleasure during the meal, but any course missed by lateness is missed for good. Ordinary morning dress is worn, except on special Feasts. Conversation may be freely indulged in, though it hardly, nowadays, rises to the height of Tennyson's heroic phrase in "In Memoriam," "the thunder of the Halls." The Master of the College himself does not dine in Hall except at great Feasts, but in his own adjacent Lodge, to the north, which communicates directly with the Hall by a door in the panelling between, and also by a sliding panel above, whence he (and his ladies) can, unobserved, overlook, and more or less overhear, what passes.

The high-pitched roof with its elaborate beams is copied, as are the other features (and the dimensions) of the Hall, from the Hall of the Middle Temple in London. Its ridge is broken in the centre by a "Lantern," or small openwork spire of wood (the openings being now glazed). This once served as a ventilating shaft, through which might escape the fumes of the great brazier (a yard in depth and two yards across) standing beneath it, and, till this generation, the only means used to warm the Hall. Over the doors is a "Music Gallery," usually closed in by quaintly carved shutters, whence, on Feast days, the College Choristers still discourse melody. The armorial bearings in the windows are those of eminent members of the College; while pictures of its more prominent Worthies (or Unworthies) hang on the walls. Conspicuous amongst these is Holbein's great portrait of Henry the Eighth, who stands "straddled over the whole breadth of the way," above the centre of the High Table, in all his underbred self-assertion, looking indeed "all our fancy painted him." His unhappy daughter Mary (who built the College Chapel) hangs near him, her full dourness and wretchedness in her face. Thackeray (a singularly powerful presentation) is also here, so is Clerk-Maxwell, so is Bishop Lightfoot, and many another light of literature, science, and theology; for the great size of Trinity has given it as great a proportion in the rolls of Fame.

On the other side of the Screens, in the "Combination Room," whither the High Table adjourns for dessert, may be seen other famous Trinity men, the most conspicuous being the celebrated Marquis of Granby, standing by his war-horse, with the bare bald head which won him his renown. He was in the act of charging the enemy[39] at the head of his regiment when the wind of a cannon ball carried away his hat and wig; and he did not halt his soldiery that they might be picked up. This unexampled pitch of heroism awoke the wildest enthusiasm throughout the length and breadth of England and made "The Marquis of Granby," as readers of Pickwick will remember, a favourite sign for inns throughout many years. Entrance to the Combination Room is only obtained through favour. There is little else to notice in it except the beautiful polish of the mahogany tables.

In the Screens are posted up the current College Notices—the hours and subjects of the lectures, the dates and results of the College examinations,[40] and the various tutorial admonishments of the Term. There is usually only one Tutor in a College, but the great size of Trinity requires the services of four; each being responsible for his own "Side," as it is called, consisting of some 150 students, to whom he is supposed (and the supposition is no unfounded one) to be "guide, philosopher, and friend," keeping a wise eye to their progress, moral, social, and intellectual.

Trinity Bridge.

Passing through the eastern doorway of the Screens we meet what is perhaps the most ideal academic view in the world. From our feet descends a semicircular stairway with steps of worn stone leading down to a vast enclosure of greensward, surrounded and traversed by broad walks of flags and pebbles, and enclosed on all sides by venerable Collegiate buildings with battlemented parapets. These buildings are not very lofty; which makes the court look even larger than it is, and gives the greater effect to the three grand gate towers, one of which adorns each of the three sides before us. In the midst of the Court (which is not far from square but delightfully irregular in shape) rises the inspired gracefulness of the fountain—with its octagonal base of broad steps (surrounded by bright flowerbeds) and its crocketed canopy upborne upon slender pillars with beautifully proportioned arches.[41] The whole is a veritable miracle of design, and would hold its own with any fountain even in Italy. It is, indeed, the work of Italian craftsmen of the best period,[42] brought over specially by Dr. Nevile, to whose genius we owe this most splendid of all College quadrangles, the "Old Court" (sometimes called the "Great Court") of Trinity.

To appreciate the greatness of this debt, we must bear in mind that, when he became Master of the College, Nevile found the ground occupied by heterogeneous ranges of old buildings, the remains of the suppressed Colleges and Hostels, running chaotically in all sorts of directions. These are shown in the earliest map of Cambridge,[43] made in 1592, just before he began his great work of pulling down, setting back, building and rebuilding. He thus remodelled almost the whole; the Chapel alone (built fifty years earlier) and the great eastern gate-tower remaining as they were before his reconstructions. In reality this Court, far more than the Cloister Court, deserves to be called by his name, and to remind us of his motto Ne vile velis ("Nothing cheap and nasty").

Since his day, indeed, surprisingly little alteration has been made. Plaster has been put on (and stripped off) here and there, stonework has been touched up, the Master's Lodge has been altered and re-altered, but the only radical change has been in the south-west corner beyond the Hall, which was rebuilt in 1775, with results as artistically deplorable as may well be, especially in comparison with the older work. Nevile had left in this corner a beautiful oriel window, still to be seen in Logan's view of the College (1680).

Of the three gate towers only one is of Nevile's own building, that on the southern side of the Court, known as the Queen's Gate from the statue of Anne of Denmark, the Queen Consort of James the First, which stands above its inner archway. The gate of this tower is used only on occasions. The other two both belonged to King's Hall; the eastern being still in its original place, the northern, which formerly aligned with it, having been moved back by Nevile to align with the Chapel. Both set forth the glories of Edward the Third; the former displaying over its entrance gate the armorial bearings of his seven sons, while over the archway of the latter he stands himself, with his three crowns (of England, France and Scotland) spitted on the long naked sword which he holds erect in front of him, and the proud motto "Fama super æthera notus" ("Known by Fame beyond the skies"). From his like niche in the eastern tower he has been displaced by Henry the Eighth. The statues on the inside of this tower are James the First, with his wife and son (afterwards Charles the First).

The northern tower is commonly known as the Clock Tower; being the dwelling place of the famous timepiece referred to by Wordsworth in the "Prelude" as breaking the silence of his rooms at St. John's College, which were not many yards away:

"Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock,

Who never let the quarters, night or day,

Slip by him unproclaimed, and told the hours

Twice over, with a male and female voice."

The clock actually does repeat the hour, striking it first on the biggest of the three bells in the tower, whose note is A flat, and then on the second, E flat, a fifth above. The quarters are notified by two, four, six and eight strokes respectively on the first and second bells, F and E flat, a tone apart.[44]

To complete the round of the Court outside the grass-plots while midnight strikes is a favourite test of running powers amongst the Undergraduates. It is a fairly severe one; for the distance is 383 yards, with four sharp corners to negotiate, on somewhat pronounced pebbling, and the time occupied by the 32 strokes (8 for the 4 quarters and a double 12 for the hour) is only 43 seconds. An easier performance is to make a standing jump from top to bottom of the steps before the Hall; this is chiefly a trial of nerve. There are 8 steps, each 6 inches high and 15 wide, so that the drop is only 4 feet and the distance under 10; but it is a fearsome thought, looking down, to contemplate the result should one's heel catch on a step. To jump clear up the flight is a real feat, which only two men are known to have accomplished: even with the preliminary run which is possible below though not above the stairway.

On our way through the Court towards the Chapel, we have on our left hand the Master's Lodge, the front of which is an exceptionally happy piece of early Victorian restoration. A poor classical façade had (under Bentley) replaced Nevile's original front. But this front was still to be seen in Logan's print, and was thus (in 1842) reconstructed with little alteration. The Lodge contains splendid reception rooms, worthy of a palace. The Chapel, though by no means of the first rank as regards artistic beauty, is well worth seeing, for it contains what high authorities consider the very finest statue ever made since the palmy days of Greek art, Roubillac's wonderful presentation of Sir Isaac Newton.[45] There he stands at the west end of the Chapel, prism in hand, the king of all scientists, gazing with rapt eyes into Infinity, and a smile full of hope and illumination upon his lips.[46] The story goes that the expression on these lips did not wholly satisfy the sculptor at his first sight of his creation on its pedestal, and that he climbed up, then and there, chisel in hand, to give the effect he desired with a few exquisitely directed blows.

Other heroic figures are grouped around, Francis Bacon, (Tennyson's

"Large-browed Verulam

The first of those that know,")

The Fountain, Trinity College.

Tennyson himself, Macaulay, Dr. Barrow, the Master to whom the College owes its Library,[47] and the massive virility of his omniscient successor, Dr. Whewell.[48] Brasses affixed to the walls commemorate many another great inmate of the College, who, "having served his own generation according to the will of God," is here laid to rest:

"Trinity's full tide of life flooding o'er him

Morning and evening as he lies dead."

These lines were written to commemorate Dr. Thompson, the late Master (renowned for his sarcastic humour), and refer to the fact that undergraduates are expected to put in every week a certain number of attendances at the morning and evening Services held daily in the Chapel.[49] This obligation is now very leniently construed by the Senior and Junior "Deans," under whose cognisance offences against it come; but not so very long ago it was exceedingly strict, and the Chapel Lists, on which the attendances were recorded, were objects of real dread to the slothful. In 1838 the Senior Fellows (then the Governing Body of the College),[50] decreed that every student must be present twice on Sunday and once on every other day of the week. This ukase brought about something like a rebellion. A secret "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Undergraduates" was formed, and avenged their wrongs by publishing every week regular lists exposing the far from adequate attendance of the Senior Fellows themselves (Thompson being one), to the intense annoyance of these dignitaries. Finally, they actually had the assurance to give a prize to the Fellow who had been most regular, Mr. Perry, who afterwards became the first Bishop of Melbourne, and who cherished the Bible thus won to the end of his life. The Society kept their secret for a whole Term, and, when finally discovered, were able to escape punishment by promising that the publication of their Lists, which made the Seniors the weekly laughing-stock of the University, should be brought to an end.

All these statues and memorials are in the Ante-Chapel, which is separated from the Chapel proper, as at King's, by the screen on which stands the great organ. This organ is the largest and best-toned in Cambridge,[51] but it is far from being as effective as the King's organ, to which the magnificent acoustic properties of its Chapel lend so wondrous a power. In Trinity there is always the sensation that the harmonies are boxed in; indeed the shape of the Chapel does very much suggest a box. In justice, however, to its designers, it must be remembered that the box-like effect would be very much lessened by the east and west windows with which it was originally provided. The latter was closed by Nevile's putting back the clock tower to abut upon it; the former still exists, as may be seen from the outside, but is utterly shut off from the interior by a huge and far from beautiful baldachino erected (not at his own cost but at that of the impoverished Fellows) by Dr. Bentley. This famous scholar was one of the few unpleasant Masters with whom the Crown (in which is here vested the right, usually belonging to the Fellows, of appointing the Head of the College) ever saddled Trinity. He passed his whole time as Head in one long unceasing quarrel with his College. To begin with, he was unpopular as being a member of the adjoining Foundation of St. John's, between which and Trinity there existed an age-long rivalry. Not many years before something like open war had been levied between the Colleges on the occasion of a Trinity merry-making, the Johnian onlookers being attacked with burning torches and using swords in their defence; while an attempt which they made to rush the great gates was beaten off by showers of stones and brickbats which had been stored to that end on the roof of the Gate Tower.

St. John's was at this time the largest College, and despised Trinity; a sentiment which Bentley, who was a born bully,[52] expressed with the utmost frankness, publicly calling the Fellows "asses," "dogs," "fools," "sots," and other scurrilous names, as they piteously set forth in their complaints to their Visitor,[53] the Bishop of Ely. Finally he was degraded by the Senate,[54] and reduced to the status of "a bare Harry-Soph," as a contemporary diarist (quoted by Mr. Clark)[55] puts it. But no Master, except Nevile and Barrow, has left so enduring a mark upon the College; for the ruinous expenditure into which he dragooned the unhappy Fellows has given the Chapel not only the baldachino, but the stalls, the panelling, and the organ; to say nothing of the clock, and the splendid oak staircase in the Lodge.

The profuse gilding and painting which enriches walls and roof in the Chapel is due to a restoration some forty years ago, when the outside was also faced with stone, and the windows filled with stained glass, commemorating ecclesiastical and other celebrities throughout all the Christian centuries. The Apostles appear in the most easterly windows on either side; whence the series progresses in chronological order westwards. The figures are for the most part powerfully drawn, and should be examined through an opera glass to appreciate their wealth of detail. We can thus see that Hildebrand has driven his crosier through the eagles of the Imperial Crown, that Dante, Matthew Paris, and Roger Bacon, hold in their hands copies of their own greatest works, that Giotto is studying an elevation of his Campanile; while noted church-builders, like St. Hugh of Lincoln and William of Wykeham, carry models of their edifices. The hapless Mary Tudor holds one of this very Chapel, of which she was the Foundress. It is appropriate that the beautiful silver cross over the Altar should be Spanish work of her date, though only placed there a few years ago by the generosity of some members of the College who met with it while travelling in Spain. It was originally a processional cross, and has been adapted for its new purpose with artistic skill of the first order.

When we leave the Chapel, and proceed towards the Great Gate, we are treading on classic ground. For it was along this flagged path that Macaulay, while at Trinity, used to take his daily exercise, pacing assiduously up and down, always the while devouring some author, whose pages he turned over with incredible rapidity, and at the same pace whether they were filled with the weightiest thought or the lightest fancy. Yet whether the book were profound philosophy or exquisite poetry or the trashiest of rhyme and fiction, he was ever afterwards able to recall its whole scheme and even to quote lengthy portions of it verbatim. His rooms were in the staircase facing us—the set on the ground-floor to the left of the entrance. This particular staircase has been the home of more great men than any other in the University. The ground-floor rooms opposite Macaulay's were those of Thackeray,[56] and the set above Thackeray's are hallowed as the habitation of Sir Isaac Newton: for whom the College built an observatory on the roof of the Gate Tower, and who also had the use of a small bit of ground which we see outside the gate, now a railed-in lawn, but then a pretty little garden, as Logan's view shows, with trees and flower-beds, surrounded by a high wall.