Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

Note the human head and hands of the Serpent, and the brilliant ruddiness of the apple. Also the ruby flames of the bush, and the representation of God the Father at its summit. Moses is in the act of putting off his shoes from his feet. In the Nativity scene the Babe can only be discovered by following the gaze of the child Angels who are clustering round in adoration. Contrary to the usual convention, which shows Him sitting on His Mother's knee as if a couple of years old, He is here represented realistically as an actual new-born baby. Above both lower lights in this window is a renaissance arcading.

In the fourth window we have:

The face of Abraham and that of the officiating priest below are both good, and so is that of the Queen. The Epiphany Star is a fine object, and the effect of its light irradiating the thatch of the manger-shed is most powerfully rendered.

The fifth window gives us

In the Purification scene the faces of Simeon, who is the main figure, Mary, and Joseph (carrying the dove-cage), are all worth looking at. So is Joseph in the Flight episode; which, however, is chiefly remarkable for introducing in the back-ground a legend from a late carol, which tells how Herod's soldiers pursued the Holy Family, and how the pursuit was miraculously checked. The fugitives met a husbandman, and instructed him to answer any inquiry for them by saying, "They passed whilst I was sowing this corn"; which was actually the case. But, lo! when the pursuers shortly came up the corn had sprung up, and was ripe already to harvest. It takes some little trouble to decipher this scene. The Purification is seen through an arcade of the Temple, on the frieze of which is a group of classical horsemen like those of the Parthenon.

The next window is that over the great organ screen dividing the ante-chapel from the choir. It is arranged thus:

The Golden Calf is set high on a magnificent ruby pillar. Before it Moses is breaking the Tables of the Law; one fragment of which shows a Flemish inscription. Below, an idol is falling headlong from a precisely similar pillar. The kneeling figure in this scene is the Governor Aphrodisius, who was converted by the miracle; as is recorded in the apocryphal "Gospel of the Infancy." In the Massacre scene Queen Athaliah is represented by a conventional figure of the Virgo Coronata (with her Babe in her arms). The artist evidently had this figure in stock, and used it rather than take the trouble of producing something less incorrect. Near her there is a minutely depicted mediæval thatched house worthy of notice. So is the business-like callousness in the expression on the leading soldier's countenance. This window bears, as has been said, the date 1517, written 15017.

We are now in the choir, where our first window gives:

All three Temptations are given, the first being in the foreground. The countenance of the Devil (as a respectable old man) is a marvellous study.

The second window in the choir is:

The Shunamite's house is another bit of minute detail. Note the dishes on the shelf in front. Note also the magnificently gigantic head of Goliath borne by David on the point of the Philistine's own huge sword.

The third window:

The manna is shown as falling in the shape of Communion Breads. Below, Christ gives the sop to the red-haired Judas, while Peter, who thus becomes aware of the traitor's identity, clenches his fist with a gesture of menace extraordinarily forcible.

The connection between the right-hand subjects is not obvious. Dr. James suggests that it refers to Christ's speaking of the casting out of Satan as a result of His Passion (John xii. 31). The smaller scale of this scene, and the nimbi given to Christ and the Apostles point to its having been the work of a special artist.

The fourth choir window:

Cain is killing Abel with a large bone. Note the ruby fires of their respective altars in the back-ground, Abel's spiring upwards in full flame, while Cain's is blown down to the earth. In the betrayal scene the face of Malchus, as he lies upon the ground with his broken lantern under him, should be observed. It is highly expressive.

The fifth window:

We have now reached the last window of the northern range, that in the north-east corner of the Chapel. It shows us:

In the scourging scene we may note the singularly unpleasing features and expression of the Saviour's face; which Dr. James holds to be purposely so delineated, in reference to the words of Isaiah: "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him." We do not, indeed, find in the entire series of windows one single attempt to represent Him worthily. The conventional face, familiar throughout the ages to Christian Art, even from the first century, and probably a real recollection of Him, is consistently departed from (as is characteristic of the Renaissance period), and with it has gone every divine and exalted association. Where even the genius of Michael Angelo failed, we cannot look to find the glassworkers of London succeeding.

The great east window has no central messengers, and thus contains six scenes, each occupying three lights, arranged thus:

There is little to call for special notice in this window. Structural conditions necessitate the Cross being of abnormal height. In the background of the Way of Sorrows is a vivid ruby patch, which may be meant for the Field of Blood.

Turning to the south-east window, we are confronted with an entirely exceptional development. The whole of the upper half is occupied with a single subject (the Brazen Serpent), and that in Early Victorian glass inconceivably poor and crude. The lower half is ancient and typical, the type and antitype being placed side by side:

The history of this marked departure from the norm is that the buildings of the Great Court were planned to abut upon the Chapel here, so as to block the lower half of the window, for which, accordingly, no glass was provided. That which is there now was originally in the upper half and was moved down in 1841, the Brazen Serpent being substituted for it. The remaining windows on this side of the choir also underwent a sad amount of "restoration" at the same period.

The next window (the fifteenth in the entire sequence) is of the normal arrangement.

The last scene is a most forcible representation of Christ's victorious "Harrying of Hell," as conceived by mediæval imagination and referred to by Dante in his Inferno. The Conqueror of Death has forced His resistless way through the shattered gates of Hell, on which He stands, treading under His feet the gigantic leaden-coloured bulk of their demon warder. Before Him kneels Adam, at last rescued from his age-long captivity, and other Holy Souls. In the back-ground a blue devil gazes in dismay from the red mouth of Hell (represented after the usual mediæval fashion, as an actual mouth, with teeth, etc.), while another, in livid green, is dancing with demoniac rage above, and yet another, white and gold, is scudding away in terror as fast as his wings will carry him.

The remaining windows of the choir on this side deal with the Resurrection. In the first of these (the third from the east) the subjects are:

The Fish is represented as a long green sea-serpent with a black, cavernous mouth, out of which Jonah is stepping. In the background is a ship, and, beyond, Nineveh. The Sepulchre is in the frequent unscriptural shape of a table monument.

In the right-hand type, Tobias has his dog with him, and also his angel guardian Raphael. That Christ appeared to His Mother is first found in St. Ambrose, who mentions it as undoubted. She is here shown kneeling at a prayer-desk.

In the next window we find:

In the last scene Christ is represented with a spade, inasmuch as Mary Magdalene supposed Him to be the gardener. Her very pronounced costume, with its astonishing golden ear-covers, is probably a German fashion of the early sixteenth century.

The fifth window gives the story of Christ's appearance to the disciples who went to Emmaus:

Observe that the bread in Our Lord's hand appears to be, not broken, but cut clean as with a knife. There was a mediæval legend to the effect that He showed His divine power by thus breaking it. Note, too, Raphael's brilliant green and crimson wings, put in to denote his angelic nature, though the story postulates their absence.

The following window (that next to the screen) deals with the story of St. Thomas (John xx.), and has been wrongly arranged: what are now the right-hand scenes should be the left so as to come first. It now stands thus:

We find in the first scene here what is perhaps the most ably drawn figure in the entire series of windows, that of the Elder Brother. Observe the utter contempt and disgust written on his face and in his whole attitude. He wears a pair of most aggressively red leggings.

The window over the organ loft shows us the Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost.

Elijah is deliberately turning round in his golden chariot of fire to cast down his ample ruby mantle upon Elisha. Moses is taking the Tables of the Law from the hand of God.

The subjects of the three windows between the screen and the south door are all from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, and nearly all from the Acts of the Apostles, from which also all the texts are taken. Accordingly the place of the usual prophetic Messengers is, in these windows, taken by figures of St. Luke (all identical), habited in the costume worn by a Doctor of Medicine in the sixteenth century. The series of type and antitype is dropped in these windows, and no strict chronological order is observed in the sequence of the subjects. Probably some have been misplaced, either originally or at one of the various releadings to which they have necessarily been subjected. Every century brings fresh need for this operation.

The subjects in the first window are:

The design of the last scene is directly copied from Raphael's well-known cartoon.

The second window gives:

The third window is also Pauline:

The first of these scenes is interesting. The text (Acts, xvi. 2) connects it with St. Paul's departure from Troas on his first voyage to Europe. But the subject seems to be the touching scene at Miletus (Acts, xx) on his final departure for Jerusalem. The ship here, whence the boat is rowing to fetch him, should be noticed, as it is a fine and accurate specimen of sixteenth century naval architecture. Observe the lateen yard on the mizen mast. The man who drew that ship, unlike most artists, knew his ropes, they are all in their right places. In the last scene note the startled and awed expression on Nero's almost obliterated face, also his Imperial crown.

We have now almost completed our round of the Chapel, and are again at the south door by which we entered. Only two more windows remain, and in these we return to the typical treatment of Our Lady's life. That over the south door has, by accident (as it appears), been more shattered and defaced than any other in the Chapel. It is arranged thus:

Mary is dying with the full rites of the Church. St. Peter sprinkles her with holy water, while St. John places in her hand a lighted "trindall" (three candles twisted together). The prayer book and cross are borne by other Apostles. Her bier is covered by a white pall with gold cross, and two severed hands may (with difficulty) be seen clinging to it. This refers to the legend that a certain Jew who sought to overthrow the bier was thus miraculously dismembered, and did not recover his hands till he penitently besought her to restore them.

Finally the south-west window completes the wondrous series:

The west window remained unglazed, for some unknown reason, till as late as 1879, when there arose a benefactor, Mr. Francis Stacey, a Fellow of the College, who has left this noble memorial of his generosity. The glass is by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and the subject, as is usual in west windows, is the Last Judgment. The heraldic devices in the tracery are not those found in the older windows, but comprise (in order) the Tudor Portcullis,[20] the Plantagenet Rose, and the shields of King's College, Eton College, Cambridge University, King Henry VI., King Henry VII., King Henry VIII., Queen Victoria, and Stacey. There are also the shields of the See of Lincoln, whose Bishop is ex officio Visitor of the College, impaling Wordsworth (then Bishop), and of Okes (then Provost of the College).

The glass of King's College Chapel by no means exhausts the interest of the building. The next point to be observed is the great organ screen, erected during the brief ascendancy of the miserable Ann Boleyn, whose initials are carved upon it. On either side of the door-way, within, are emblazoned the twin shields of King's and Eton; differing only in that the former bears three red roses, the latter three white lilies (not fleurs-de-lys) on the sable ground beneath the chief, with its lion of England and fleur-de-lys of France on their respective red and blue. The organ itself was not put up till 1606, but the nondescript Renaissance dragons supporting it show that the case must have been in hand more than half a century earlier. They are for all the world like Raphael's wonderful creations in the Vatican. The great trumpeting angels on the top of the organ are eighteenth century work. Originally much smaller angels stood there, which in the seventeenth century were replaced by pinnacles. The doors of the screen belong to the Laudian revival, and bear the arms of Charles the First. The west door of the Chapel is of the same period, but the north and south doors are the original ones.

The Choir stalls date from Henry the Eighth, but the elaborate coats of arms carved over each were not added till 1633, and the canopies not till 1675. The magnificent brass lectern was given by Provost Hacombleyn, at the opening of the chapel; but the present altar is a very modern addition, having been only put up in the twentieth century. It stands, as directed by the Founder, no fewer than 16 feet from the eastern wall. The wood-work of the sanctuary walls is not even yet (1910) fully completed. It is of Renaissance character, as is also the altar. The lighting of the Chapel, it should be said, is still, happily, done only with candles; and, on a winter afternoon, their twinkling points of fire, in endless range, amid the vasty gloom, give an impression of mysterious solemnity to be obtained nowhere else.

Beautiful as the Chapel is, it would, had the designs of the Founder been carried out, have been yet more beautiful. His Will expressly deprecates that "superfluitie of too gret curious werkes of entaille and besy moulding" which the ante-chapel now exhibits in the elaborate series of Royal coats of arms beneath every window. They are beautifully carved, it is true, and we may note that the attitudes of the supporters (the Tudor dragon and greyhound) are in no two cases identical. But the whole effect is somewhat to weary the eye. So also do the perpetual roses and portcullises with which the walls are bestudded. One of the former, however, deserves special notice, as in it is framed one of the very few mediæval images of Our Lady which has weathered the storm of the Reformation. It is to be found at the southern corner of the west wall, and is what is known as a Rosa Solis. The inner petals are sun-rays, and in the midst is the "Woman clothed with the sun." (The White Rose of York is also sometimes represented in the windows as a sun-rose, the sun being also a Yorkist badge, but in this the rays are external to the flower.)

The walls, then, would have been less ornate, and more truly beautiful for the absence of profuse ornament, had the Founder's design been carried out. And we can see that even the exquisite roof was meant to be yet more lovely than as it now enraptures the eye. If we look at one of the soaring pilasters and follow up its lines, we shall see that each of the flutings is prolonged in a rib of the fan vaulting. No, not quite each. There is one member which has no such prolongation, but ends meaninglessly at the capital. And this tells us that the pilasters were designed to carry not a fan but a liern vaulting; so called because it appears to be a mesh of intertwined ivy (lierre) binding the fabric together. And beautiful as a fan roof is, a liern roof is capable of expressing harmonies of proportion yet more delicate and soul-satisfying. How subtle and exalted these harmonies would have been here we shall best learn if we have the good fortune to gain admission to the range of small side-chapels which flank the fane on either hand, nestling between the mighty buttresses. For in these, while the more western have the fan roof, the eastern and earlier built show liern vaulting of the most delicious character.

These side-chapels were intended each to have an altar, at which the Priest to whom it was assigned should say his own Mass daily, while all should meet later before the High Altar to assist at the Collegiate Mass. They are now used for various subsidiary purposes connected with the services. One contains the heating apparatus, another the hydraulic bellows of the organ, while many are mere lumber-rooms. These last are those abutting on the Choir, which have no opening into the Nave, such as those adjoining the ante-chapel possess. Through the gratings we may note some stained glass of an entirely different character from that in the Chapel windows. It is, in fact, of the previous (Fifteenth) Century, and thus older than the Chapel itself. From what earlier building it has been transferred is uncertain. Tradition, for some unknown reason, assigns it to Ramsey Abbey; but it seems more reasonable to suppose that it came from the old church of St. John Zachary hard by, when that was pulled down to make room for the College, and its fragments, as excavation has shown, utilised for levelling the site.

In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel. This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret. Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista being lighted by a small grated window at either end.

Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and, beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the crow flies.

CHAPTER IV

Spiked gates.—Old King's.—University Library, Origin, Growth, Codex Bezæ.—Trinity Hall, Colours, Library.—Clare College, "Poison Cup," Court, Bridge, Avenue.—The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire, College Gardens.—Trinity College, Michaelhouse, King's Hall, Henry the Eighth, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge, Library, Byron, Nevile's Court, Cloisters, Echo, "Freshman's Pillar," Prince Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College Plate, Grace-cup, Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of Granby, Tutors, Old Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge, Chapel, Newton, Organ, Bentley, Windows, Macaulay.

On leaving King's Chapel we should give a glance to the marked line of demarcation between the whitish stone of which the lower courses are built and that employed in the upper.[21] It is of historical interest as showing how far the work had progressed before the long break caused by the Founder's death. Then, passing round the West Front, and noting the exquisitely delicate tracery of the canopies over the empty niches on either side of the door (wherein the two saints Mary and Nicolas to whom the building is dedicated were destined to stand) we leave the College by the iron gate on the North.

The formidable chevaux-de-frise which crown this gate are supposed at once to figure and to emphasise the danger run by such presumptuous students as dare to contemplate illicit exit from or entrance into the College during prohibited hours. It has already been said that between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. no undergraduate resident in College may leave its precincts, and no outsider may enter, under divers pains and penalties. Every College supplements this moral pressure by more or less effectual and awe-inspiring physical barriers. None however are more fearsome to see, and less effective in fact, than these. For not only can the College be entered or left with comparative ease by way of the Backs, but even this ghastly array of spikes is not unscalable to those who know the trick of it. Tennyson, as will be remembered, has referred to this exploit in his "Princess."

Passing beneath them we find ourselves again in that same ancient street of Cambridge, here again now a wholly Academic byway, by which we entered King's. But though we have left the College behind us we have not yet quite got clear of its associations. The fine modern Gothic pile to our right embeds, as we see, an ancient gateway. For more than three and a half centuries this was the entrance to the one small Court which alone represented the magnificent design of Henry the Sixth for his Royal Foundation. Not till the nineteenth century dawned were the students moved to the other side of the Chapel. The old precincts were then mostly destroyed, and the site made over to the University Library; for the growth of that magnificent institution has long taxed to the utmost all the accommodation that can be provided for it.

The mediæval Library of the University was a collection of manuscripts, requiring only one small room. Of its eighteen book-cases, eight were devoted to Theology, four to Law, and one apiece to Classics, Mathematics, Medicine, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Scholasticism. This original Library was utterly swept away at the Reformation: Dr. Perne of Peterhouse, when Vice-Chancellor in the reign of Edward the Sixth, thus signalising his new-born zeal for Protestantism. A few years later, however, we find him amongst the first founders of the present Library, which now ranks third amongst the great Libraries of England; that of the British Museum standing first, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford second. All three are entitled to a free copy of every book published in the kingdom; so that their growth is now-a-days portentously rapid. One of the most striking features in this Library is the tableful of new books, scores in number, which is cleared every Friday.

This rapid growth however is modern. The one ancient room sufficed for the Library, till George the First rewarded the Whig loyalty of the University by a gift of 30,000 volumes.[22] The expansion thus begun has continued with accelerated speed. One by one the various ancient "Schools" which, with the old Library room, formed a small quadrangle, have been absorbed by its growth; until now the whole block belongs to it, as well as the old site of King's College, the main edifice on which, known as "Cockerell's Building," was erected 1837, where the College Hall once stood.

The Library is open only to Members of the University (Masters of Arts having the privilege of taking out not more than ten books at a time) and such ladies as are fortunate enough to find a place on the admission list. For this it is needful that two Masters of Arts should certify that the lady is, to their personal knowledge, seriously engaged in some branch of study or research. And even when admitted, she finds herself under disabilities, being forbidden to occupy any seat except in one room (the oriel window of which is visible from our standpoint at the gate of King's). Ordinary visitors may only enter under the escort of an M.A., who may take in six at a time.

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.