Entrance to Cambridge.--Railways.--Roman Catholic Church.--Street
runlets, Hobson, Perne.--Fitzwilliam Museum.--=Peterhouse=,
Chapel, Deer-park.--Little St. Mary's Church, Washington
Arms.--Gray's window.--=Pembroke College=, Large and Small
Colleges, "Querela Cantabrigiensis," Ridley's farewell.--St.
Botolph's Church.--The King's Ditch.--=Corpus Christi College=,
Cambridge Guilds, St. Benet's Church, Fire-hooks, Corpus Library,
Corpus Ghost.--=St. Catharine's College.=--King's Parade.--Pitt
Press.--Newnham Bridge, Hermits.--The Backs River, College
Bridges, Hithes.
Having thus given the reader a very meagre and sketchy outline of the
sort of knowledge needful for a due appreciation of Cambridge, and
leaving him to fill in such details as he pleases from the numberless
histories and guide books, large and small (and for the most part
excellent) which he will find quite readily accessible, we will now
suppose him to be entering the town.
Should he do this from the railway station he will have to face a mile
or so of "long unlovely street" to begin with. For when railroads were
first made--(the Great Eastern line from London to Cambridge being
constructed in 1845)--they were regarded with extreme suspicion and
dislike by the authorities of both Universities. The noise of the
trains, it was declared, would be fatal to their studies; the facility
of running up to London would hopelessly demoralise their
undergraduates; bad characters from the metropolis would come down in
shoals to prey upon them. Thus both Oxford and Cambridge strenuously
opposed any near approach of this new-fangled abomination to their
hallowed precincts. Oxford actually succeeded in keeping the main line
of the Great Western as far off from it as Didcot, ten miles away,
whence it did not penetrate to the city itself till a considerably
later date, when prejudice had been overcome by the patent advantages
of the new locomotion, and a station hard by was welcomed. At Oxford,
therefore, no such distance divides the railway and the Colleges as at
Cambridge, where from the first the station stood in its present
place. This, at the date of its construction, was far beyond even the
outermost buildings of the town, with which it is connected by the old
Roman road, the main artery of Cambridge, running straight, as Roman
roads do run, for miles on either side to the "Great Bridge." To
antiquarians this road is known as the Via Devana, because its
objective is supposed to have been the old Roman city of Deva
(Chester); during its passage through Cambridge it has no fewer than
seven official designations, to the frequent discomfiture of
strangers.
Where it conducts the visitor townwards from the railway station it
presents, as we have said, a somewhat dreary vista; dignified only by
the beautifully proportioned spire of the Roman Catholic Church, built
in 1885. The erection of this edifice was due to the generosity of a
single benefactor, Mrs. Lyne-Stephens, a French lady, who, early in
the reign of Queen Victoria, won fame and fortune as the most renowned
ballet dancer of the London stage. The Church is popularly called, in
Cambridge, a Cathedral; but this is a misnomer, for the Bishop's See
is not here but at Northampton.
The cross-roads at which the church is placed rejoice in the inane
designation of Hyde Park Corner. The best approach to Cambridge is by
the westward road of the four, which leads into the London Road (or
Trumpington Road, as it is here called), that umbrageous avenue of
leafage spoken of in our opening sentences. Keeping along this towards
the town, we find ourselves confronted with one of the prettiest and
most uncommon amongst the minor attractions of Cambridge, the runlets
of clear water which sparkle along the side of either pavement.
This pleasant feature is attributed to the benevolence of an ancient
Cambridge worthy, Thomas Hobson, who dwelt here from the reign of Henry
the Eighth to that of Charles the First. By trade he was a "carrier," a
profession which at that date included not merely the transport of goods
but the provision of locomotion for passengers--then almost wholly
equestrian. Thus Hobson not only himself travelled regularly to and
from London with his stage-waggon, but kept a large stable of horses,
not fewer than "forty good cattle," ready for hire--even supplying his
customers with boots and whips for their journey. But he was very
autocratic in the matter, and would never allow any steed to be chosen
except in accordance with his will. "This or none" he would say to any
hirer who dared to remonstrate. And his business was so prosperous that
he could afford to say it, and thus give rise to the still current
expression "Hobson's Choice." He rose to be Mayor of Cambridge, and his
portrait still hangs in the Guildhall.
Finally when he died, at the age of eighty-six, in 1630, he gained the
honour of a serio-comic epitaph from Milton, then a student of
Christ's College, "on the University Carrier who sickened in the time
of his Vacancy, on being forbid to go to London by reason of the
Plague."
"Here lieth one who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot.
* * * * *
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm
Too long Vacation hastened on his Term.
* * * * *
But had his doings lasted as they were
He had been an immortal carrier."
The popular tradition, (attested by an inscription on the fountain in
the Market Place,) which gives this hero the whole credit of the
street runlets, seems, however, to go too far, though they were
certainly first made during his life-time. Their source is in some
springs which issue from the chalk near Great Shelford, four miles
south-east of Cambridge, and which are called, as such sources are
commonly called hereabouts, "The Nine Wells"--nine being used as an
indefinite number. It is interesting to remember that this conception
evolved itself also amongst the ancient Greeks, who talked of the
"Nine Fountains" at Athens, and the "Nine Ways" at Amphipolis, with
exactly the same indefiniteness of numeration. The ancient outfall of
these springs seems to have been by what is now called "Vicar's
Brook," which is bridged by the London Road at the first milestone
from Cambridge. Till the eighteenth century the bridge was a ford,
known as Trumpington Ford. The earliest proposal to intercept the
stream near this spot and divert its course through the town, was due,
not to Hobson, but to another worthy (or unworthy) contemporary of
his, Dr. Andrew Perne, then Master of Peterhouse College, a divine of
such an accommodating breadth of view that he alone, amongst all the
higher authorities of the University, succeeded in retaining his post
and his emoluments throughout the horrible see-saw of the Reformation
period.
We first hear of him in the reign of Edward the Sixth, as a Protestant
of such stalwart calibre that he destroyed as "idolatrous" almost
every single book in the University Library. Under Mary he figures as
no less ardent a Catholic, even to the degree of digging up and
publicly burning (in default of living heretics) the corpses of the
celebrated Protestant teachers Bucer and Fagius. Finally the accession
of Elizabeth convinced him once more that Protestantism was the truest
form of Christianity; and she lived long enough to keep him from again
changing his principles. This amazing versatility naturally did not
pass without comment. The wits of the University coined from his name
the Latin verb _pernare_ "to be a turn-coat," and declared that the
A.P. which showed on a new weather-cock given by him to his College
stood for A Protestant or A Papist indifferently.
It was this man who, in 1574, started the idea of bringing the
Shelford water into Cambridge. The plan was carried out by
"Undertakers" (who hoped to make money by it), in 1610, and amongst
these Hobson would seem to have been the predominant partner.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse._]
Accompanied by the rippling of these runlets (which only represent a
very small amount of the water brought by "Hobson's Conduit" into
Cambridge) we shortly reach our first University edifice, the
Fitzwilliam Museum, fronted by a singularly fine facade of classical
architecture, and having in the Entrance Hall a really magnificent
staircase of coloured marbles. It should be noted that the four lions
which flank the facade are (unlike those in Trafalgar Square) all in
differing attitudes. The Museum (which is open to the public three
days in the week and to members of the University on all days)
contains a fine collection of pictures and antiques, the nucleus of
which is a bequest made in 1816 by Viscount Fitzwilliam. The Egyptian
section is specially noteworthy, and the water-colours by Turner. The
building was commenced in 1837, but was not finally completed till
1875, when the cost had run up to a hundred and fifteen thousand
pounds.
The long-fronted Hospital on the opposite side of the road is the
modern representative of an ancient institution which gave to this
region, then quite the extremity of Cambridge, the name (as appears in
our oldest maps) of Spittal End.
Adjoining the Museum we find ourselves arriving at our first College,
St. Peter's College, more commonly called Peterhouse, the same of
which the inevitable Dr. Perne was so long Master. (We may here note
that in Cambridge this name "Master" is the designation of the Head of
every College except King's, which has a "Provost," and Queens', with
its "President.") Peterhouse, as has been mentioned in our first
chapter, was the earliest College to be founded in Cambridge. Its
founder Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, derived his idea from Merton
College at Oxford, which had been in existence some twenty years when,
in 1281, he introduced its system into Cambridge, and even adopted its
very statutes. He first designed to incorporate his College with the
already existing quasi-monastic Brotherhood of the Hospital of St.
John (now St. John's College). The double Rule, however, bred so many
quarrels that he settled his "Scholars of Ely" on their present site;
their abode being dubbed Peterhouse from the adjoining church of St.
Peter (now St. Mary's the Less), which for three hundred and fifty
years served as the College Chapel, and is still connected by a
covered passage with the College buildings.
The existing Chapel was built by yet another Bishop of Ely closely
connected with the College, Dr. Matthew Wren, Master here 1625-1634.
He was uncle to the great Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St.
Paul's, and had enough architectural originality of his own to aim at
copying the beautiful tracery of the mediaeval church-builders. It was
the first time that any such attempt had been made in England; and
this going behind the Reformation roused the Protestant feeling of the
time to fury. Men declared it incredible that there could be "so much
Popery in so small a chapel"; and when the Civil War gave the
Puritans their opportunity Wren paid for being so far in advance of
his age by an imprisonment of not less than eighteen years, till
released, in 1660, by the Restoration. The Chapel windows are now
filled with some fine Munich glass, the only example of this work in
Cambridge.
Besides the Chapel, the Library here is remarkable, and the
"Combination Room" boasts itself as almost, if not quite, the finest
apartment of its kind in all Cambridge. This name, we may mention, is
given in every College to the parlour whither the M.A.'s retire, after
dining in Hall, for wine, dessert, and conversation.[6] That of
Peterhouse is a luxurious apartment, panelled with oak, and with
stained-glass windows.
[Footnote 6: The corresponding Oxford name is "Common Room."]
Another feature of the College is its little deer park, the only one
in Cambridge, and, with the exception of Magdalen College, Oxford, the
only one in either University. Access to this is obtained by passing
through the passage between the Hall and the Kitchen. Beyond the deer
park again an iron gate leads to the College Gardens, the only College
Gardens in Cambridge which visitors may freely enter. And they are
well worth entering.
There is, however, no way through this College, as there is through
many, and we must leave it through the same gate as we entered by,
thus returning to the street. Over the gate we observe the coat of
arms belonging to the College, the armorial bearings of the founder
surrounded by a border of crowns. This feature will be seen in every
College, for each has its own arms, and these are invariably
emblazoned above the entrance.
[Illustration: _St. Mary the Less, South side._]
Architecturally attached to Peterhouse is, as has been said, the
church of St. Mary "the less," so called in contradistinction to
"Great" St. Mary's, which here, as at Oxford, is the designation of
the "University Church." This is the only really beautiful church in
Cambridge, the tracery of the windows being exquisite flowing
Decorated. All date from the fourteenth century, when the present
structure displaced the earlier church dedicated to St. Peter. One
feature of interest here is a monument put up to Richard Washington,
who was minister of this church in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. He was of the same family as the great George Washington, and
in the coat of arms here displayed we may see the origin of the
American Stars and Stripes, while the crest has become the American
eagle.[7]
[Footnote 7: The Washington arms are, in heraldic language: Barry of
four, gules and argent. On a chief azure three mullets of the second.
Crest, a demi-eaglet sable rising from an earl's coronet.]
To the west of the church we get a view of the back of Peterhouse in
its untouched picturesqueness, abutting on the churchyard, at the end
of which comes another Museum, that of Classical Archaeology. This is
reached by a narrow lane, having the church on one side, and on the
other "Emmanuel," the leading Congregationalist place of worship in
Cambridge. As we return between these into the street we should look
up at the buildings of Peterhouse and notice, in front of the window
at the top corner of the ivy-clad wall, an erection of stout iron
bars. By these hangs a tale; for the window belongs to the rooms
traditionally occupied by the poet Gray when in residence here. It is
said that he caused these bars to be put up, from his constitutional
dread of fire, and that he kept a stout rope constantly affixed to
them as a means of escape in case of need. Awakened one night by
shouts of "Fire! Fire!" he slid down this rope in deshabille--to find
himself plunged at the bottom into a huge vat of water placed there by
his friends. So runs the tale; which adds that Gray migrated in
disgust from Peterhouse to Pembroke. That he did so migrate is quite
historical.
To reach his new College, Gray had only to cross the street; for
almost immediately opposite to Peterhouse are seen the more widely
extended buildings of Pembroke. Not so very many years ago they were
the less widely extended of the two; for while Peterhouse has remained
comparatively stationary, Pembroke, more than any other College, has
partaken in the wonderful expansion which the last half century has
wrought in the number of University students at Cambridge.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse, from St. Mary's Churchyard._]
From the Restoration onwards the Colleges of Cambridge were for two
hundred years, till the middle of the nineteenth century, divisible in
numerical strength between two strongly marked classes. At the top
came the two great Societies of Trinity and St. John's; of which the
former gradually drew ahead, and came to have some four hundred
students to St. John's two hundred. The remaining fifteen Foundations
were classed together as the "Small Colleges"; the largest of them
being well under a hundred strong, and the smallest (amongst them
Pembroke) small indeed. But with the great extension of the University
curriculum, by the addition of a host of literary and scientific
subjects to the Mathematics which had previously been the sole avenue
to a Degree, there has come as marked an increase in the number of
students, and the old College classification has broken down. Trinity,
indeed, remains at the top, even more than ever, having almost doubled
its overwhelming numbers; but St. John's has been caught up and
overpassed by several of the once "small" Colleges, amongst them by
Pembroke. And yet, in the year 1858, Pembroke had only one solitary
freshman; and he migrated to Caius, in dread, as the tale then ran, of
being divided into sections by the authorities, to satisfy the demands
of the Mathematical, Classical, and Philosophical lecturers provided
by the College.
The result is that Pembroke, even beyond most Colleges, is a medley of
architectural additions. When Gray migrated to it, and for a century
thereafter, the modest range of low white stone which still contains
the main entrance, formed the whole frontage; the College buildings
being a small quadrangle about half the size of the present First
Court. It was, in fact (except for a new Chapel, built by Wren in
1663, and still in use), no larger than it was at its first
foundation, in 1346, by Mary, widow of Amory de Valence, Earl of
Pembroke, and daughter of Guy, Count of Chatillon and St. Paul. Her
widowhood was brought about, according to tradition, by her husband
being accidentally slain, before her eyes, on their very wedding day,
at the tournament held to celebrate the nuptials. Modern criticism
disputes this tragic tale, but it was believed in Gray's day, and he
has referred, in his well-known list of the Founders of Cambridge
Colleges, to
"sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn
Who wept her bleeding love."
On her widowhood, however occasioned, she retired from the world, and
took the veil at Denny Abbey, between Cambridge and Ely. The College
was founded by her in her husband's memory, and has ever since
displayed her armorial bearings, the coats of Valence and St. Paul
dimidiated.
At the time of the Civil War, the "Querela Cantabrigiensis" (a
contemporary publication, written in the Royalist interest), in
denouncing the misdeeds of the Parliamentary forces, complains
bitterly that "fourscore ragged soldiers, who had been lowzing before
Crowland nigh a fortnight, were turned loose into Pembroke Hall, being
one of the least Halls of the University, to kennel there, and charged
by their officers to shift for themselves, who, without more ado,
broke open the Fellows' and Scholars' chambers, and took their beds
from under them."
A century before this we find Bishop Ridley, the famous Protestant
martyr, dwelling on this College (of which he had been Master) in his
touching farewell to Cambridge, composed shortly before his execution:
"Farewell, Pembroke Hall, of late my own College, my care and my
charge ... mine own dear College! In thy orchard--(the walls,
butts,[8] and trees, if they could speak, would bear me
witness)--I learnt without book almost all Paul's Epistles; yea,
and I ween all the Canonical Epistles also, save only the
Apocalypse--of which study, although in time a great part did
depart from me, yet the sweet smell thereof I trust I shall carry
with me into Heaven; for the profit thereof I think I have felt
in all my lifetime ever after. And, I ween, of late there was
that did the like. The Lord grant that this zeal and love toward
that part of God's Word, which is a key and true commentary to
all the Holy Scripture, may ever abide in that College so long as
the world shall endure."
[Footnote 8: This word reminds us that archery practice was, in
England, a regular feature of mediaeval College life.]
Besides Bishop Ridley, Pembroke can boast other well-known Protestant
divines of the Reformation era, Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Whitgift, his successor, and Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester.
The mitre and pastoral staff of the last named (both of brass, and the
former quite unwearable) are preserved amongst the College treasures.
So is also a magnificent silver-gilt cup, the gift of the Foundress,
which still goes round the High Table on special Feast Days. It bears
two inscriptions in old English characters. Round the bowl is an
exhortation to "drenk and mak gud cher" for love of St. Dennis--to
whom Marie de Valence, as a Frenchwoman, had a special devotion--while
round the stem are the words "M.V. God. help.at.ned."
This cup is the more valuable as being almost the only piece of
mediaeval plate still surviving in Cambridge. In ancient days the
College Halls and Chapels were abundantly supplied, but when the Civil
War broke out the loyal Gownsmen, with one accord, devoted all their
silver to the service of the King and sent it off to him at Oxford.
But it never got there; for Cromwell gained his first distinction by
pouncing upon the convoy "with a ragged rout of peasants," and then
compelled the surrender of what little was left in Cambridge. How this
cup escaped is not known.
Nor is Pembroke's lay list of distinguished alumni less notable than
its clerical. Besides Gray, it has another poet of the first rank in
Edmund Spenser, and no less a statesman than the younger Pitt. Amongst
men of science it counts the late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, whose
memory is still fresh, and the all too much forgotten seventeenth
century astronomer, Dr. Long. Of the latter a striking memorial long
remained in the College--a copper globe, eighteen feet in diameter,
pierced to represent the celestial sphere, and so arranged that thirty
observers at once could find place within it and see the sequence of
the constellations as the globe revolved. Unhappily this object of
unique interest has been improved off the face of the earth, amongst
the various innovations to which Pembroke has specially lent itself.
The original foundation of this College (which was for some time more
commonly called "Marie Valence Hall") consisted of a Master, fifteen
scholars, and four Bible clerks. It has now twelve Fellows,
thirty-three scholars, and upwards of two hundred students in
residence.
[Illustration: _St. Botolph's Church._]
A few yards from Pembroke stands the Parish Church of St. Botolph,
which, according to the original design of the Foundress, would have
been as closely connected with the College as is Little St. Mary's
with Peterhouse. In the first inception of the Collegiate system the
idea was that the Members of each College (which was only regarded as
a glorified dwelling house of the period, and the Society of which,
till their "Hall" was built, were, actually, to begin with, quartered
in already existing dwelling houses) should worship in the nearest
Parish Church, like other parishioners. Only by special licence from
the Pope could a private Chapel for a College, or any other mansion,
be erected. That granted by Pope Urban the Fifth (during the Papal
exile at Avignon) for the Chapel of Pembroke is still extant in the
Papal Register. It is dated July 1366, and runs as follows:
"To the Warden and College of Scholars of Valence Marie Hall,
Cambridge:
License, on the petition of their Foundress, Mary de Sancto
Paulo, Countess of Pembroke, to have a Chapel founded and built
by the said Countess within their walls, wherein Masses and other
Divine Offices may be celebrated by Priests of the said College;
saving the rights of the Parish Church."
The Parochial rights here spoken of mean the exclusive right of the
Parish Priest to celebrate marriages and to receive the dues known as
"Easter Offerings "and "Surplice Fees."
The dedication of St. Botolph's Church notifies us that we are now
entering Cambridge proper. For this Saint, who was historically an
abbot, the pioneer of the Benedictine Order in East Anglia, became
adopted by travellers as their special patron; and his churches were,
accordingly, placed for the most part at the gates of towns that his
benediction might speed the parting voyager. We thus find them at no
fewer than four of the London exits, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate,
and Billingsgate, and in more than sixty other places, mostly in East
Anglia. That which we are now considering was associated with the
entrance to Cambridge known as "Trumpington Gate," where the mediaeval
traveller from London made his way into the town by crossing the
ancient defensive work called "The King's Ditch."
The construction of this great trench was popularly ascribed to King
Henry the Third, who, in his struggle with the Barons, desired to keep
a firm hold on the important strategic centre of Cambridge. There is
some reason, however, to suppose that he did not actually initiate the
idea of thus insulating the town by running a ditch across the bend of
the river on which it stands, but merely deepened and widened an
earlier trench, originally made, perhaps, by the Danes during their
occupation of the place, and remade by King John. However this may
be, the ditch utterly failed of its purpose. Not only was it unequal
to keeping the Barons out, but it could not even preserve the town
from being pillaged by a local marauder, Geoffry de Magnaville or
Maundeville, who made his lair in the neighbouring fens.
The King's Ditch left the river at "the King's Mill" (now Newnham
Mill), and re-entered it opposite Magdalene College. It remained an
open watercourse (and a common sewer) till near the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when it was filled in, none too soon, for sanitary
reasons. Timber bridges spanned the stream at "Barnwell Gate," where
the "Via Devana" entered the town, as well as here at "Trumpington
Gate." These gates themselves, if they ever had any material
existence, were probably, at the most, little more than toll-bars.
St. Botolph's Church was intended, as we have seen, to be specially
connected with Pembroke College. Between them, however, there has
always existed a block of buildings, while immediately adjoining the
church on the other side there has arisen a College of later
foundation, that of St. Mary and Corpus Christi, familiarly known as
"Corpus." Unlike the other Colleges of Cambridge, this owes its
existence not to the generosity of any private benefactor, but to that
of two mediaeval Guilds, the Guild of St. Mary and the Guild of Corpus
Christi, which combined to leave future ages this splendid memorial of
their beneficence.
These Guilds were merely two out of many such bodies in the Cambridge
of that day; for the Guild was the Benefit Society of the mediaeval
period, and every respectable citizen was enrolled in one--often,
indeed, in more than one. The Guild, collectively, saw to the personal
interests of its members; aided them in distress, old age, and
sickness; contributed towards the expenses of their burial; and
finally provided Masses for their souls. This last item ultimately
proved fatal to the Guilds, which were suppressed wholesale at the
Reformation, as being thus tainted with Popish superstition, and their
property confiscated for the benefit of the Royal exchequer.
Guilds, like our Benefit Societies, were voluntary associations,
co-opting their members, and established on various bases. Earliest to
rise, in all English boroughs, was the Merchant Guild, which regulated
the entire trade of the town; fixing at its general meetings, called
"Morning Talks," the market price of each staple commodity, and the
hours and places at which it might be bought and sold, besides
punishing rigorously (by fine or expulsion from the Guild) any unfair
dealing, such as underselling, or "regrating,"--_i.e._, making a
"corner" in any article as we should now say. Somewhat later each
craft began to have its own Guild, supplanting to a large extent the
older and more general organisation, whose executive insensibly became
merged in the Town Council. To this day, however, the building in
which that Council meets for its "Morning Talks," is called the
Guildhall in most English towns.
Besides the trading Guilds, there arose others organised on a
definitely religious basis, the members of which were bound to special
devotion in some particular direction, from which the Guild took its
name. Amongst these were the two to whom we owe the existence of
"Corpus"--those of "Corpus Christi" and "Blessed Mary," the former
having been (in 1342) the original inceptors of the idea. The armorial
bearings of the College still testify to its double origin, being,
quarterly, three lilies, (the emblems of Our Lady,) and a pelican "in
her piety" (_i.e._, feeding her young with her own blood, as
contemporary legend imagined to be the case), as a reference to the
Holy Eucharist.
The College, which was founded 1352, was originally intended only for
the education of a small number of priests, and consisted only of one
small court, now known as the Old Court, which happily still exists in
almost its original condition. It is a venerable and secluded spot,
with ivy-grown walls and mullioned lattices, well worth a visit. From
its north-eastern corner extends a long gallery pierced by an archway,
connecting the College with the Church of St. Benedict, or "Benet," as
it is commonly vocalised.[9] From this connection the College became
popularly known as "Benet College," just as Peterhouse was so called
from its like connection with the ancient church of "St. Peter by
Trumpington Gate." But while Peterhouse retains its old designation,
that of "Benet" has now become wholly disused, though only within the
last century.
[Footnote 9: This is shown in our first wood-cut.]
[Illustration: _St. Benet's Church, Interior._]
This connecting gallery is of red brick, toned by age into delicious
mellowness, and is best seen from the back of the College, where a
quiet little lane ("Free School Lane"), one of the most charming
amongst the byways of Cambridge, gives access through the above
mentioned archway into the quiet little church yard of this quiet
little church, with its Saxon tower, the oldest monument of
ecclesiastical architecture in Cambridge, and one of the most
picturesque. The precise date of its erection, and how the church came
to exist at all, is, and will probably remain, an unsolved problem in
history. Some authorities imagine that it points to an East Anglian
settlement to the east of the Cam, distinct from the Mercian
"Grantabridge" on the western bank, where the old Roman town once
stood; others believe that it was built by the English inhabitants
expelled from that town by the Danes in the time of King Alfred.
Whatever may be the truth there is no small fascination in this
venerable relic of the old English days, with its "long and short"
stonework, the rudely-fashioned Romanesque pilasters in its windows,
and the nondescript "portal-guarding" lions of its interior archway.
The body of the church has been altered and re-altered time and again
during the ages: at the bases of the present chancel-arch those of two
earlier predecessors may be observed, and the south wall of the
chancel is honeycombed with disused openings once leading into the
Collegiate buildings of Corpus, while the existing stairway (also
disused) is seen in the eastern corner of the south aisle. The church
is thus of rare interest to the architectural student, and its history
has been exhaustively dealt with by Mr. Atkinson (_Cambridge
Illustrated_, p. 133). A glass case in the south aisle contains
various relics of antiquity belonging to it, and beside them an
ancient iron "fire-hook," used of old for tearing down blazing roofs
and buildings.[10]
[Footnote 10: The speediest possible destruction of such buildings was
the only way of dealing with fires before effective engines came in,
which was not until the nineteenth century. Rings to facilitate the
use of fire-hooks are to be found under the eaves of many old houses
hereabout. The hooks had 30 foot handles, mounted on a pair of
wheels.]
Out-taken the Old Court, Corpus has nothing in the way of buildings
that has either beauty or interest, the College having been
remorselessly remodelled about 1825. But the contents of its Library
surpass all else of the kind in Cambridge, containing, as it does,
what is probably the identical Gospel Book used by St. Augustine in
his conversion of the English, and what is probably the identical copy
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written for King Alfred, if not by his
own hand. These priceless treasures once formed part of the library
of Canterbury Abbey, which was sold by Henry the Eighth, at its
suppression, as waste paper. Such relics as survived twenty years of
this profanation were rescued by Archbishop Parker (the first
Protestant Archbishop), in Elizabeth's reign, and were presented by
him to the College, of which he had been Master.[11] To guard, so far
as possible, against their again coming "to such base uses," he
accompanied his gift with the condition that if a certain number of
the MSS. were ever missing, the whole should pass to Caius College,
and thence to Trinity Hall in case of a like loss. The authorities of
these Colleges have (and exercise) the right of annual inspection: so
far quite fruitlessly, as no single MS. has disappeared during the
last three centuries. But the result has been to render this Library
harder of access to visitors than any other, and it can only be seen
by special arrangement with the Librarian, who has to be present in
person, along with some other Fellow or Scholar of the College, before
strangers can be introduced.
[Footnote 11: Bishop Latimer, the Protestant martyr, also belonged to
Corpus.]
Corpus has the reputation of being haunted by a ghost, the existence
of which has been taken quite seriously even within the present
century. But the tale of its origin has a most suspicious number of
variants. Some hold it to be the spirit of a poor motherless girl of
seventeen, the daughter of Dr. Spenser (Master from 1667 to 1693), who
died of fright at being discovered by her father while enjoying a
clandestine interview with her undergraduate lover. (This tragedy is
fairly historical.) Others declare that it is the lover; who was
locked, or locked himself, into a cupboard, where he died of
suffocation! Others again have a tale of a student from King's, who
(in order not to haunt his own College) came hither to kill himself!
That strange noises, not yet accounted for, are heard in some of the
rooms, is, apparently, an established fact.
Opposite the Gate-tower of Corpus an open roadside esplanade, shaded
by lime trees, marks the still vacant space destined by St.
Catharine's College, in the seventeenth century, for a Library, to
complete its red-brick quadrangle, a design which has come to nothing.
The interior of the Court, which is not without dignity, still lies
open to view, shut in only by what was then meant to be a merely
temporary iron railing, with St. Catharine's wheel conspicuous above
the entrance. The College was founded as a kind of satellite to King's
College, by Robert Woodlark, the third Provost of that great
Foundation, in 1475. It has always remained a small and comparatively
poor Society.
If we pass through the Court, such as it is, of St. Catharine's,
(familiarly known as "Cat's,") the western gate will bring us out into
Queens' Lane. We shall, however, do better to reach this most
fascinating of all Cambridge byways not thus but through the College
from which it derives its name, Queens'. To do this we must turn
westwards down Silver Street, a few yards south of St. Catharine's,
and just opposite St. Botolph's Church. Before taking this turn we
should give a glance northward along Trumpington Street at the
splendid mass of Collegiate and University buildings which here come
into view. High above all rises the glorious fabric of King's College
Chapel, while, beyond it, the classical facades of the Senate House
and the University Library, the fine gateway of Caius College, and the
further off tower of St. John's College, fill the eye with a
delightful sense of aesthetic culture and harmony.
Entering Silver Street, a mean thoroughfare, all too narrow for its
volume of traffic, and demanding no small caution from all and sundry,
we have on our left a building for all the world like a College--so
frequently, indeed, mistaken for one by newcomers, as to have gained
the nickname of "the Freshman's College." In reality this is the
University Printing Press, or the Pitt Press, as it is commonly
called; the existing frontage opposite Pembroke having been erected in
1831, in memory of that statesman, who was a member of Pembroke
College.[12] All the official printing of the University is done here,
and the building also serves as the quarters of the University
Registrary, who keeps the record of Entrances, Degrees, etc.
[Footnote 12: The University had licensed printers from the time of
Henry the Eighth, but did not set up a Press of its own till the
eighteenth century, when influenced by the great scholar and critic
Richard Bentley.]
At the end of Silver Street, which is, happily, little over a hundred
yards in length, we reach an iron bridge over the Cam; its placid
stream "footing slow," as Milton says (in Lycidas), and only some
thirty feet in breadth. Above the bridge, however, it widens out into
a broad pool, enlivened by the rush of water from the "King's Mill,"
beyond which the eye ranges over the open levels of "Sheep's Green."
Both the mill and the bridge are amongst the oldest features of
Cambridge, and the tolls payable at both were in mediaeval times a
Royal monopoly. The King's agent in collecting them on this bridge
(known as "The Small Bridge" in contradistinction to the more
important structure beneath the Castle) was a hermit, for whose
accommodation a small bridge-house and chapel were built. This curious
use of hermits, as keepers of roads and bridges, was common in
Cambridgeshire before the Reformation.
At Silver Street bridge the river enters on its course through the
enchanted ground of the "Backs," and the visitor will do well to take
water at the adjoining boat-house; for the stream here forms for half
a mile a byway lovely beyond words, not to be matched elsewhere in all
the world; flowing, as it does, between venerable piles of academic
masonry, and "trim gardens," the haunts of "retired leisure";
umbrageous, as it is, with the shade of lime, and elm, and beech, and
chestnut, and weeping willow, and laburnum; spanned, as it is, by
bridge after bridge, each a new revelation of exquisite design.
First we find ourselves with the old red brick fabric of Queens'
College on the one bank and the thicket of "Queens' Grove" on the
other, joined together by a wooden bridge, attributed to Sir Isaac
Newton, the Great Natural Philosopher and discoverer of the Law of
Gravity. A miracle of ingenious construction is this bridge, formed of
a series of mutually supporting beams requiring not a single bolt to
hold them together. Such at least it was till a few years ago, when
the old timbers, after two hundred years' wear, fell into decay and
had to be replaced, as nearly in facsimile as modern skill could
compass.
A few yards further and the red brick of Queens' gives place to the
white stone of King's; the proximity reminding us that the Founders of
these two beautiful Colleges were husband and wife, "the Royal Saint,"
King Henry the Sixth, and his heroic Consort, Margaret of Anjou. Poor
young things! They were but twenty-two and fifteen respectively when
they began these monuments of their liberality and devotion--upon the
very eve of that miserable conflict, the wars of "the rival Roses,"
which brought about the downfall and death of both. But their work
survived them, to be completed by Royal successors; King's by Henry
the Seventh, Queens' by Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Henry's rival,
Edward the Fourth of York.
[Illustration: _Clare Bridge._]
King's Bridge, beneath which we now glide, is a single delicate rib of
stone, a marked contrast to the elaborate woodwork of Queens', and to
the three arches of grey stone and balustraded parapet of Clare, the
next in order. Between these the river widens, and the view opens out
on either side; a spacious meadow dotted and bounded with elms and
limes on the west, and on the east as spacious a lawn beyond which
rise the buildings of King's and of Clare College, and the west front
of that glory of Cambridge and of the world, King's College Chapel.
This reach of the river used, a few years ago, to be the scene of a
pretty annual merry-making, known as the "Boat Show," which formed
part of the attractions of the "May Week."[13] Hither the College
boats which had been contending for precedence in the May Races used
to row up in procession and draw up side by side in a mass occupying
the whole breadth of the stream. Each crew rose in turn with uplifted
oars to salute the victors who had attained (or retained) the Headship
of the River; after which the procession returned to the boat houses
two miles below. (The races were rowed two miles below again, where
the stream is wide enough for the due manipulation of an
eight-oar.)[14]
[Footnote 13: See page 17.]
[Footnote 14: See Chapter VI.]
Clare Bridge passed, the College gardens of Clare and Trinity Hall
(which last must not be confounded with the larger and later
foundation of Trinity College) flank our course on either side for a
short space, till the next bridge, Garret Hostel Bridge, which
proclaims its non-Collegiate origin by being (like Newnham Bridge) a
tasteless structure of iron. It is, in fact, a public thoroughfare;
the road leading to it, Garret Hostel Lane, being the solitary
survival of the dozen or so of little streets which gave access to the
River from mediaeval Cambridge, till the banks were usurped by the
Colleges. And in its name we have the last surviving reminder of those
"Hostels," or officially recognised lodging houses, which, before
Colleges came into being (and for some while after), provided
accommodation for the swarming students of the mediaeval University.
Garret Hostel itself, together with others, was swallowed up by the
gigantic College which we now reach, Trinity. Trinity Bridge, a
cycloidal curve carried on three arches, is led up to on either side
by the "long walk of limes" sung by Tennyson in "In Memoriam"; and the
splendid range of chestnuts which, as we pass beneath it, opens upon
us to the north-west, forms the boundary between the paddocks of
Trinity and St. John's. On the east rises the vast fabric of Trinity
Library built by Sir Christopher Wren, with its magnificent range of
arched windows and its warm yellow sandstone, an occasional violet
block adding to the effect, a veritable feast of quiet colour,
especially when glowing in the evening sun, and contrasting pleasingly
with the paler tint of the New Court of St. John's College, which,
with its plethora of crocketed pinnacles, here bounds our view to the
left front. To the right front rises the square tower of St. John's
Chapel, picturesquely reflected in the still waters.
A slight bend in the stream, overhung by great elms, brings us to St.
John's Bridge, a fine three arched structure of brick and stone built
in 1696.[15] Beyond it the College buildings rise, like those of
Queens', directly from the water--to the west the white stone
abutments of the New Court, to the east the red brick walls and oriel
window of the Library, the most beautiful building of its class in
either Cambridge or Oxford. On it we can read the date 1624, and the
letters I. L. C. S. standing for _Johannes Lincolnensis Custos
Sigilli_, which commemorate the benefactor John Williams, Bishop of
Lincoln, and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, to whose generosity we owe
this gem of architecture. In his day, and for long after, St. John's
was quite the largest College in Cambridge, rivalled only, for a
moment, by Emmanuel. The present supremacy of Trinity did not begin
till late in the eighteenth century.
[Footnote 15: Sculptures over the piers represent the bridge itself, a
very unusual feature.]
The river is here spanned by the latest of the College bridges, a
single arch of stone high in air, carrying a pathway vaulted over with
stone and lighted on either side by grated windows, after the fashion
of the "Bridge of Sighs" at Venice. It was built about 1830 to form a
communication between the older part of the College on the eastern
side of the river and the recently erected New Court on the western,
while giving no opportunity for illicit leaving of the College. As has
been already stated, students, while bound to be inside the College
gates all night, are not bound to keep to their rooms, but may wander
about the Courts at any hour.
[Illustration: _St. John's Bridge._]
With St. John's the Collegiate buildings cease and are succeeded by
the last remaining "Hithes," or quays, used for commercial traffic,
which of old lined the banks for the whole length of Cambridge. We
read of Corn Hithe, Pease Hithe, Flax Hithe, Garlic Hithe and others.
For the river was to old Cambridge all and more than all that the
railways are now, the great artery of traffic, by which goods were far
more easily and cheaply conveyed than along the roads of the period,
which were always rough and often mere "Sloughs of Despond." Most
especially was this the case with fuel, so that in the seventeenth
century it was a familiar local saying that "here water kindleth
fire." These ancient hithes, like the street-ways leading to them,
have been almost all absorbed by the various College precincts. The
last, as we have said, are to be seen yet, still in use, with barges
(still laden chiefly with firewood) lying at them, below St. John's,
by the side of the "Great Bridge," that famous passage of the river to
which Cambridge owes both its name and its very existence. Opposite
the lowest of them there is one more riverside College, Magdalene, an
old monastic educational establishment turned to its present purpose
at the time of the Reformation by Lord Thomas Audley of Saffron
Walden, a courtier of King Henry the Eighth, who had obtained a grant
of it from that rapacious monarch.
Our Cam byway here ends; for the river here passes out of the
populated area of Cambridge. It is noteworthy that this area abuts on
its banks to the same extent and no more than it did seven hundred
years ago. The King's Ditch, which then bounded it, left the stream at
the King's Mill, where our voyage started, and rejoined it just
opposite Magdalene, where that voyage closes. It is well worth while,
however, to retrace our course, for we shall find fresh loveliness in
the reverse views of the exquisite scenery through which we have
passed; and may note the many disused archways in the College walls,
which tell how, scarcely a generation ago, this unique gem of English
landscape was actually defiled by being used as a shamelessly open
sewer.