A. Hamilton Thompson

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 451⁄2 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 [98] Chapel at Ely, merely an interesting relic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ One may safely say that the boundary-line between the middle ages [106] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [278] town is full. They are, moreover, so incorporated in the Library as to form part of the building, and have no very distinctive mark. ”