=Sidney Sussex College=, Oliver Cromwell, Fellow Commoners.--Holy
Trinity, Simeon, Henry Martyn.--=Christ's College=, "God's
House," Lady Margaret, Flogging of Students, Bathing forbidden,
Milton, Lycidas, Gardens, Paley, Darwin.--Great St. Andrew's,
Bishop Perry.--=Emmanuel College=, Harvard, Sancroft, Chapel,
Ponds.--University Museums.--=Downing College.=--Coe Fen.--First
Mile Stone.--Barnwell, Priory, Abbey Church.--Lepers Chapel,
Stourbridge Fair, Vanity Fair.
Following Jesus Lane from the "Chimney" gate townwards, we once more
strike into the Via Devana, here called Sidney Street, from the
College filling the angle between the two roads. It is not a
pretentious institution, having always been amongst the smallest
colleges. But it has nurtured one man of colossal individuality, the
great Protector, Oliver Cromwell. For Sidney Sussex College (as its
full name runs, from its foundress, Lady Frances Sidney,[104] Countess
of Sussex) was instituted (in 1596) for the very purpose of fostering
such _alumni_. The earliest statutes of the College decree that its
members shall be taught, before all else, to "detest and abhor
Popery." Besides Cromwell, his right-hand man, Edward Montagu, Earl of
Manchester, who distinguished himself when in authority at Cambridge
during the Civil War by ejecting from their parishes so many recusant
High Church parsons and filling their places with Puritan divines, was
also a Sidney man. Both he and Cromwell were "Fellow Commoners," a
name given to privileged undergraduates who, on payment of extra fees,
were permitted to rank with the Fellows and to dine at the High Table.
They also wore a more ornate gown than the ordinary undergraduate. It
is only of late years that this plutocratic arrangement has been
discontinued in the University. The site of Sidney was formerly that
of the Franciscan Convent, with its splendid church, considered the
finest in Cambridge. At the dissolution of the convent the University
tried to secure this from King Henry the Eighth as the University
Church. But the King's price was too high, the negotiations fell
through, and the glorious building was remorselessly and utterly
demolished.
[Footnote 104: Her husband had been over the Royal Excise, and the
College shield bears the familiar Broad Arrow of that department.]
Passing by Sidney, which has nothing to detain us, we shortly note a
church on our right hand. This is Holy Trinity, the special home of
the Evangelical movement in Cambridge. In the early days of that
movement (and of the nineteenth century) the pulpit here was occupied
by its great leader, Charles Simeon, Fellow of King's College, who
through much persecution, through evil report and good report,
championed the cause till he saw it triumphant. And a series of
like-minded men has followed him.[105] The grey stone building just
beside the church is the Henry Martyn Hall, built in memory of that
great Evangelical pioneer and missionary. It is used for meetings
connected with the movement.
[Footnote 105: The church is architecturally naught, outside; but the
tower arches, within, form the loveliest gem in Cambridge.]
Leaving Holy Trinity to our right, a turn in the street brings us face
to face with the grey stone front of Christ's College, one of the most
ideal in Cambridge. We owe it, like St. John's, to the bounty of the
Lady Margaret Tudor, King Henry the Seventh's mother, whose beautiful
character has already been dwelt upon in our last chapter. And she
bestowed it upon us under the same inspiration as in the case of St.
John's, that of her friend and confessor, Bishop Fisher, and, in doing
so, adopted the same plan of transforming and expanding an earlier
Foundation. This was a very small "School of Grammar," which never
attained to the dignity of collegiate rank, founded in 1430 by John
Bingham, parson of St. John Zachary, just before he and his Church
were swept away to make room for King's College. It was then removed
to this site, just outside the "Barnwell Gate" of Cambridge, where it
maintained a microscopic existence for the rest of that century.
[Illustration: _Christ's College Chapel._]
At the beginning of the next it had the good fortune to be taken up by
Lady Margaret, who increased the number of residents maintained in it
from five to sixty, and changed the name from "God's House" to
"Christ's College." At the same time she planned out the principal
court, as it now exists. Unlike St. John's, it was at least partly
completed before her death, for the historian Fuller tells a pretty
story of how she here beheld from a window the dean administering to
one of the scholars the corporal chastisement which was at that day
the recognised means of discipline,[106] and called out to him
"_Lente! Lente!_" ("Gently! gently!") The College is appropriately
full of her memory: her portrait adorns the Hall; on the front of the
Gate Tower stands her statue, between the Plantagenet Rose and the
Tudor Portcullis, and beneath it are carved her armorial bearings, as
at St. John's, with the addition of the crest, a demi-eagle of gold
rising out of a crown.[107] On either side are the three feathers of
the Prince of Wales. These same arms, emblazoned, are over the inner
gateway that leads into the Gardens, with her own beautiful motto,
"_Souvent me souvient_" ("Oft I bethink me"). And in the Library under
a glass shade is a reproduction of the upper part of her person, with
the hands folded in prayer, from her monument in Westminster Abbey.
[Footnote 106: The rod retained its use in this connection till the
eighteenth century. In the seventeenth, during the period of Puritan
ascendancy, it was made a University enactment that if any
undergraduate should "by day or night enter any river, ditch, lake,
pond, mere, or any other water within the County of Cambridge, whether
for the sake of swimming or of washing," he should be flogged in his
College hall. It must be remembered that students then entered at
least five years earlier than now.]
[Footnote 107: This crest is absent from the Johnian gate-tower, but
is found above the iron gate leading into the Backs.]
But, to the ordinary visitor, the memory of even Lady Margaret is, at
Christ's, overshadowed by the mightier memory of John Milton, who was
in residence here for seven years, from 1625 till, in 1632, he became
a Master of Arts. In residence along with him was his "Lycidas," whose
real name was Edward King. In the gardens an ancient mulberry tree, so
old that its stem has to be encased in a pyramid of turf, and its
remaining arms jealously shored up, is called by his name. The
tradition that he himself planted it is probably unfounded, but it was
actually there in his day, one of the score of these trees which, by
the desire of King James the First, were placed in the gardens.
The gardens here are amongst the few College Gardens which at
Cambridge are open to the public. During certain hours visitors are
admitted, and no small privilege it is; for there are few lovelier
spots than this verdurous lawn, shut in on one side by the grey
"Garden Front" of the College,[108] with its balustraded cornice and
transomed windows, and everywhere else "bosomed high in tufted
trees";[109]--an ideal place for Milton's own
"retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure."[110]
[Footnote 108: This front belongs to an isolated block known as the
"Fellows' Buildings," erected shortly after Milton's time.]
[Footnote 109: "L'Allegro."]
[Footnote 110: "Il Penseroso."]
Hidden in a thicket at the north-eastern corner is a sequestered
swimming-bath, fed by a stream drawn off from Hobson's conduit. To
climb the statue beside this and dive off the head is a current feat
amongst Christ's men. Something of a feat it is; requiring
considerable sureness of foot and skill in balancing oneself.
To reach the Gardens we must cross the first court, a singularly
pleasant example of a College Court, rendered the more picturesque
by the central grass-plot being circular instead of the usual
rectangle, and pass on through the "Screens" at its north-eastern
corner. Here we are in another Court, only in part surrounded by
buildings; the "Fellows' Buildings" being immediately in front of
us. As Christ's, unlike most Colleges, has but one entrance,[111] we
shall have to retrace our steps. In passing the Hall we should, if
possible, look in to note the portraits of the College worthies.
Amongst these are to be found not only Lady Margaret, Bishop Fisher,
and Milton, but Quarles (the author of the "Emblems"), Paley, the
Evidencer of Christianity,[112] who was a Fellow here in the
eighteenth century, and the epoch-making name of Charles Darwin, the
Apostle of Evolution.
[Footnote 111: A small back door, however, leads from the kitchen into
"Christ's Lane" (on the south). On one famous occasion, when, at a
time of popular excitement, the students were confined to the College,
sympathisers from without burst this in (using the bar which closes
the lane to vehicles as a battering-ram) and set them free.]
[Footnote 112: Paley's _Evidences_ is still one of the set subjects in
the "Littlego" (or "Previous Examination") which every student must
pass before being allowed to proceed further.]
From Christ's we continue along the Via Devana, here called St.
Andrew's Street from the unlovely church of that name[113] which we
see opposite the College. Of old the name was Preachers' Street, from
the great preaching Order of the Dominican Friars, who from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century here found their home. The site
of their House is now occupied by our next College, Emmanuel, as that
of the Franciscans was by Sidney. It is remarkable that the ground of
both the great Orders which were called into existence specially to
preach the doctrines of Catholicism should have passed into the hands
of men whose main object was to contest those doctrines. But so it
was. Emmanuel, like Sidney, was founded (1584) expressly to combat the
errors of Popery; and the Founder, Sir Thomas Mildmay, a courtier of
Queen Elizabeth, has left on record his special wish that his College
should turn out a constant supply of able Puritan divines.
[Footnote 113: Unlovely as this church is, it is a monument of the
piety and generosity of one of the most pious and generous men
Cambridge has ever known, Dr. Perry, first Bishop of Australia, who,
while a Fellow of Trinity, devoted his private fortune to the
ecclesiastical needs of the town, and thus enabled no fewer than three
large churches to be built. Unhappily it was at a period of execrable
taste (the earliest Victorian), and the three are far from beautiful
or correct examples of ecclesiastical architecture. But when the then
newly formed Camden Society (for the revival of a purer style of
building) ventured to hint as much, a storm of Protestant indignation
arouse throughout Cambridge, and a public protest against such Romish
criticism was actually signed by every resident Fellow of Trinity!]
His hope was realised. Emmanuel at once sprang to the front as the
great power-house of the Puritan movement in Cambridge; and so strong
was that movement that for the moment it carried the College to the
very top of the list, so that it surpassed in numbers even Trinity and
St. John's. Many of the stalwarts who belonged to the Pilgrim Fathers
of New England were here educated; notably John Harvard, whose name is
borne by the Premier University of America. So also were many of the
preachers who kindled and sustained the ardour of the Roundheads
through the stress of the Civil War. Even after the Restoration the
College retained the impress of its Founder's hope. When, in 1664, the
Duke of Monmouth visited Cambridge, a satirical guide to the
University, written in doggerel Latin verse for his benefit, sneers at
the strict moral tone of Emmanuel: "You may well perceive that they
are all Puritans here." And Archbishop Sancroft, famous as the chief
of the Seven Bishops who made so staunch a stand against the
toleration of Roman Catholics under James the Second, was an Emmanuel
man.
[Illustration: _Emmanuel College._]
For the first century of its existence, the students of Emmanuel
worshipped in an unconsecrated building running north and south,[114]
where they received the Sacrament "sitting on forms about the
Communion Table, and pulling the loaf one after other when the
minister hath begun. And so the cup; ... without any application of
the sacred words." But in 1679 this room was turned into the College
Library, and the present chapel built on the usual Anglican lines.
[Footnote 114: This was on the site of the Dominican Refectory. Sir
Thomas Mildmay boasts that, in contempt of their religion, he has
turned their Refectory into a Chapel, and their Church into a
Refectory. The Hall and Combination Room still occupy the site of the
Church.]
Emmanuel has little architectural beauty; but there are pleasant
grounds, with a swimming-bath, as at Christ's, and two larger ponds,
in which swans and wild ducks are kept. The swimming-bath and the
smaller pond are accessible only by the favour of a Fellow; but the
large piece of water is in a great open court (beyond the first
court). All are fed from a branch of the Hobson's Conduit stream,
runlets from which run down St. Andrew's Street, even as they run down
Trumpington Street. Beyond the swan-pond lie the new buildings, lately
erected to meet the greater expansion of the College, for Emmanuel,
after over two centuries of depression, now ranks (along with Caius
and Pembroke) at the head of the list with regard to relative numbers,
except Trinity alone. In actual numbers she broke in 1890 her record
of 1628, and has gone on advancing steadily since. Her shield bears a
blue lion ramping on a white ground and holding a laurel wreath,
emblematic of the victory of the "Lion of the tribe of Judah."
Immediately opposite the front gate of Emmanuel there runs off, at
right angles, from the Via Devana, a thoroughfare known as Downing
Street. Till the present century it actually gave access to Downing,
the youngest of the Colleges to which the University officially
accords that title. In those days Downing consisted of a huge
parallelogram of prettily be-treed greensward, a furlong across and
three furlongs long,[115] thus covering far more space than any other
college. But in numbers it was the smallest of all, and also in
income, till finally agricultural depression reduced it to such
straits that it was forced to sell its northern frontage to the
University. Thus Downing Street now leads, not to Downing, but to the
great central huddle of University museums, laboratories, and
lecture-rooms, which have been incessantly rising during the last two
generations, and which are still continuing to rise. Here, cheek by
jowl (on the site of the old Austin Friary), are the magnificent
Geological Museum erected in memory of Professor Sedgwick, the Museum
of Botany, the Law Schools, the Museum of Archaeology, the Museum of
Anatomy,[116] the Museum of Mineralogy, the Chemical Laboratory, the
Medical Schools,[117] the Physical Laboratory,[118] the Engineering
Laboratory, the Optical Lecture-room, and, beside these, the
Philosophical Library, and the huge Examination Hall which is the
latest addition to the equipment of the University.
[Footnote 115: This occupied all but the whole space bounded by
Downing Street, Tennis Court Road, Lensfield Road, and Regent Street.]
[Footnote 116: The ethnological series of skulls here ranks (with
those at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Washington) as the most complete
in the world.]
[Footnote 117: On the wall here is engraved Pasteur's inspired saying:
"_Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les
esprits prepares._"]
[Footnote 118: This is called the Cavendish Laboratory, being the gift
of the late Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University. The word
laboratory we may note is, in student speech, invariably "Lab," which
is even used as a verb.]
To reach Downing to-day, one must turn to the left on leaving
Emmanuel, and continue along the Via Devana (here called Regent
Street) till large iron gates on the opposite side of the road invite
us to enter the College grounds. These give still an impressive sense
of space, though now curtailed at the southern as well as the northern
end, and form a pretty setting for the two parallel ranges of yellow
stone, which date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. For
though Downing was by that time keeping the centenary of its
foundation (by Sir George Downing, of Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire),
the funds had not hitherto admitted of the erection of college
buildings. When first set up, these classical frontages were
considered the _ne plus ultra_ of architectural perfection, and
strangers were taken to see them as the great glory of Cambridge.
Regent Street, after we leave Downing, will soon bring us again to the
Church of Our Lady, so that we have now completed our circuit of
Cambridge. There remain, however, a few outlying spots worth a visit
should time serve. Nearest and most picturesque of these is Coe Fen, a
long strip of common, lying along the eastern bank of the river,
before it enters on its course through the Backs. The best time to see
it is at sunset, and the best way to gain it is by following down the
narrow byway beside Little St. Mary's, and turning to the left at the
bottom. We shall then find ourselves on the Fen, beneath the old wall
of Peterhouse deerpark, a delicious, heavily-buttressed, mass of red
brick-work, leaning over and curved with age, patched and re-patched
all over with all kinds of fragments, giving colour effects that are
quite charming.[119] Passing beyond its shelter, and that of its
continuing hedge (which divides us from Peterhouse and other gardens),
we may take the first turn to the left, up a narrow (and often dirty)
byway, which will lead us past the Leys School, the great Wesleyan
educational outpost of Cambridge, into the Trumpington Road, where it
joins Lensfield Road at Hobson's Conduit. Or, instead of turning to
the left we may turn to the right, and, crossing the Cam by the iron
footbridge, make our way over "Sheep's Green," the Common east of the
river, to Newnham Mill and the Backs. Or we may hold straight on, by
the footpath that runs the whole length of the Fen, which will bring
us out on the Trumpington Road just by the first milestone, where that
road crosses "Vicar's Brook."
[Footnote 119: See p. 5.]
It is from this side that we notice how this is no ordinary milestone,
but a grand monolith twelve or fifteen feet in length, and feel that
it must have a story. And so indeed it has, for it is the very first
milestone ever set up in Britain since the days of the Roman dominion
here. In those days every great road in the country had its series of
milestones recording the distance from the central milestone in
London, which still exists, in its decay, as "London Stone." But after
the mighty organisation of the Roman Empire lost its hold upon the
land, roads went to ruin, and milestones were broken up or used for
Anglo-Saxon gate-posts. Not till 1729 was the idea of restoring the
system entertained; and it was a Cambridge College, Trinity Hall, that
first took it up, and carried it out on the road from Cambridge to
London. Hence it is that these milestones bear the Crescent of the
College shield. And for their inaugural milestone was chosen this
grand monolith, which was itself an old Roman milestone.
North-east of Cambridge stretch the mesh of dingy streets which make
up the great suburb of Barnwell. Hither and thither they run, in
soul-crushing monotony; yet even here there are gems of interest to be
found. The suburb came into existence, to begin with, through the
proximity of a great Abbey, the Augustinian Priory of Barnwell. This
House of Religion was founded in the first instance by Hugoline, the
pious wife of Picot, William the Conqueror's far from pious Sheriff of
Cambridgeshire. It was by her located close beneath his
dwelling-place in the Castle, and dedicated to St. Giles. Half a
century later, the Picot land was forfeited for treason, and granted
to Richard Peverel, who had been, in the First Crusade,
standard-bearer to Robert Curthose, the Conqueror's eldest son. He
transferred the House to the riverside, hard by a holy spring, the
Burn Well (or source of the Brook), where a hermit of special sanctity
had already reared an Oratory dedicated to St. Andrew. He also raised
the number of monks from six to thirty, to correspond with that of his
own years at the time.
The Abbey grew and flourished. Its inmates, as appears from their
"Custom Book" of 1296 (lately published by Mr. J. W. Clark), led a
very civilised life--cleanliness being specially insisted upon; and
its proximity to Cambridge placed it in touch with political life.
Royalty stayed in it now and again; in 1388 even Sessions of
Parliament were held in it; Papal Legates visited it.[120] And when
civil wars broke out, it was a prize worth plundering; a fate it more
than once suffered. When the final plunder came, under Henry the
Eighth, the whole was utterly swept away; the only thing left being a
small stone building, which was apparently the Muniment room of the
Abbey. Though utterly ruinous, this little block is by no means
without architectural merit, and may be found by following the
Newmarket Road (which enters Cambridge as "Jesus Lane") to its
junction with East Road (the eastward continuation of Lensfield Road).
Here Abbey Street runs down to the river, and just off it is our
building, commonly known as the "Priory Chapel." Hard by is an old
red-brick dwelling-house, bearing the date 1578, and called the "Abbey
Barn"; and in its grounds are several venerable fragments.
[Footnote 120: Here was held, in 1430, under the representatives of
Pope Martin the Fifth, the famous "Assize of Barnwell," which decided,
by Papal authority, that in the University alone was vested all
spiritual jurisdiction over its students, to the exclusion of the
ordinary Diocesan and Parochial claims.]
In close proximity to these ruins is an actually surviving relic of
Barnwell Priory. This is a tiny church of Early English Architecture,
known as the "Abbey Church," or "Little St. Andrew's."[121] Small as
it is, it is the Mother Church of a huge parish (now happily divided
into districts) containing more than half the entire population of
the Borough of Cambridge. It was built by the Canons of Barnwell, when
their Priory was a century old, for the use of the little knot of
hangers-on whom every great abbey attracted to its doors, and whose
secular (and, perhaps, far from cleanly) presence was unwelcome at the
fastidious worship of the Priory Church. And they made it the
representative of the old hermit's Oratory of St. Andrew. For long
ages it sufficed for the adjoining population; but when that
population increased by the hundred-fold, as it did at the opening of
the nineteenth century, things got to a desperate pass, and Barnwell
became practically heathen, with an only too well-deserved reputation
for vice of every kind.
[Footnote 121: So called to distinguish it from "Great St. Andrew's,"
opposite Christ's College.]
So matters stood when, in 1839, Dr. Perry, Fellow of Trinity College,
who was Senior Wrangler in 1828, and whom we have met with as the
devoutest attendant at the College Chapel, and as the builder of Great
St. Andrew's, came forward to stem the evil. Renouncing the comfort of
College life, he took upon himself the charge of this hopeless
district; for which he built, at his own expense, the commodious (if
ugly) red-brick church opposite the Abbey, and a like fabric (St.
Paul's) at the other end of the area, on the way to the railway
station. He laboured devotedly himself, he inspired others to work, he
invoked the help of a band of pious undergraduates who had already
begun a Sunday School on their own account,[122] and when he departed
to become the pioneer Bishop of Australia, he left a well-equipped
Parish organisation which is still in full activity.[123]
[Footnote 122: This School still flourishes, and is still staffed by
undergraduates. It is known as "Jesus Lane Sunday School," its first
quarters having been in that street.]
[Footnote 123: The parish has now been divided into half a dozen
districts. And its earliest houses, immediately round the Abbey
Church, remain (as they have been from the first) outlying fragments
of two small Town parishes, St. Benet's and St. Edward's.]
[Illustration: _The Lepers' Chapel, Barnwell._]
Pursuing the Newmarket Road, we find (at the point where it at last
ceases to be a Barnwell Street, and crosses the railway into the open
country beyond), yet another tiny ancient church, called traditionally
the "Lepers' Chapel." It is of Norman date, and probably served the
Lepers' Hospital, which we know to have existed hereabouts, as remote
as might be from the town. This hospital was endowed by King John
with the tolls of the great Fair held hard by on Stourbridge Common,
which even so late as the Eighteenth Century boasted itself the
largest and most important in all Europe, a position now claimed by
that of Nijni Novgorod in Russia. And, to judge by the accounts that
have come down to us, the boast was not unfounded. The Cambridgeshire
historian, Carter, writing in 1753, thus describes it:
"Stourbridge Fair ... is set out annually on St. Bartholomew by
the Mayor, Aldermen, and the rest of the Corporation of
Cambridge; who all ride thither in a grand procession, with music
playing before them, and most of the boys in the town on
horseback after them, who, as soon as the ceremony is read over,
ride races about the place; when returning to Cambridge each boy
has a cake and some ale at the Town Hall. On the 7th of September
they ride in the same manner to proclaim it; which being done,
the Fair begins, and continues three weeks; though the greatest
part is over in a fortnight.
"This Fair, which was thought some years ago to be the greatest
in Europe, is kept in a cornfield, about half a mile square,
having the River Cam running on the north side thereof, and the
rivulet called the Stour (from which and the bridge over it the
Fair received its name) on the east side, and it is about two
miles east of Cambridge market-place; where, during the Fair,
coaches, chaises, and chariots attend to carry persons to the
Fair. The chief diversions at Stourbridge are drolls,
rope-dancing, and sometimes a music-booth; but there is an Act of
Parliament which prohibits the acting of plays within fifteen
miles of Cambridge.
"If the field (on which the Fair is kept) is not cleared of the
corn by the 24th of August, the builders may trample it under
foot to build their booths; and, on the other hand, if the same
be not cleared of the booths and material belonging thereto by
Michaelmas Day at noon, the plough-men may enter the same with
their horses, ploughs, and carts, and destroy whatever they find
on the premises. The filth, dung, straw, etc., left behind by the
fair-keepers, make amends for their trampling and hardening of
the ground.
"The shops or booths are built in rows like streets, having each
their name, as Garlick Row, Booksellers'-row, Cook-row, etc. And
every commodity has its proper place, as the Cheese Fair, Hop
Fair, Wool Fair, etc.; and here, as in several other streets or
rows, are all sorts of traders, who sell by wholesale or retail,
as goldsmiths, toy-men, brasiers, turners, milliners,
haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewterers, china
warehouses, and, in a word, most trades that can be found in
London, from whence many of them come. Here are also taverns,
coffee-houses, and eating-houses in great plenty, and all kept in
booths, in any of which (except the coffee-booth) you may at any
time be accommodated with hot or cold roast goose, roast or
boiled pork, etc.
"Crossing the main road at the south end of Garlick Row, and a
little to the left hand, is a great Square, formed of the largest
booths, called the Duddery, the area of which Square is from 240
to 300 feet, chiefly taken up with woollen drapers, wholesale
tailors, and sellers of second-hand clothes; where the dealers
have room before their booths to take down and open their packs,
and bring in waggons to load and unload the same. In the centre
of this Square was (till within these three years) erected a tall
May-pole, with a vane at the top; and in this Square, on the two
chief Sundays during the fair, both forenoon and afternoon,
Divine Service is read, and a sermon preached from a pulpit
placed in the open air, by the Minister of Barnwell; who is very
well paid for the same by the contribution of the fair-keepers.
"In this Duddery only, it is said, there have been sold L100,000
worth of woollen manufactures in less than a week's time; besides
the prodigious trade carried on here, by the wholesale tailors
from London, and most other parts of England, who transact their
business wholly in their pocket-books, and meeting here their
chapmen from all parts, make up their accounts, receive money
chiefly in bills, and take further orders. These, they say,
exceed by far the sale of goods actually brought to the Fair, and
delivered in kind; it being frequent for the London wholesale men
to carry back orders from their dealers for L10,000 worth of
goods a man, and some much more. And once in this Duddery, it is
said, there was a booth consisting of six apartments, all
belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, who had there above
L20,000 worth of those goods.
"The trade for wool, hops, and leather here is prodigious; the
quantity of wool only sold at one fair is said to have amounted
to L50,000 or L60,000, and of hops very little less.
"September 14, being the Horse Fair day, is the day of the
greatest hurry, when it is almost incredible to conceive what
number of people there are, and the quantity of victuals that day
consumed by them.
"During the Fair, Colchester oysters and white herrings, just
coming into season, are in great request, at least by such as
live in the inland parts of the kingdom, where they are seldom to
be had fresh, especially the latter.
"The Fair is like a well-governed city; and less disorder and
confusion to be seen there than in any other place where there is
so great a concourse of people: here is a Court of Justice always
open from morning till night, where the Mayor of Cambridge, or
his Deputy, sits as Judge, determining all controversies in
matters arising from the business of the Fair, and seeing the
Peace thereof kept; for which purpose he hath eight servants,
called Red-coats, attending him during the time of the Fair and
other public occasions, one or other of which are constantly at
hand in most parts of the Fair; and if any dispute arise between
buyer and seller, on calling out 'Red-coat,' you have instantly
one or more come running to you; and if the dispute is not
quickly decided, the offender is carried to the said Court, where
the case is decided in a summary way, from which sentence there
lies no appeal.
"About two or three days after the Horse Fair day, when the hurry
of the wholesale business is over, the country gentry for about
ten or twelve miles round begin to come in with their sons and
daughters; and though diversion is what chiefly brings them, yet
it is not a little money they lay out among the tradesmen,
toy-shops, etc., besides what is flung away to see the puppet
shows, drolls, rope-dancing, live creatures, etc., of which there
is commonly plenty.
"The last observation I shall make concerning this Fair is, how
inconveniently a multitude of people are lodged there who keep
it; their bed (if I may so call it) is laid on two or three
boards, nailed to four pieces that bear it about a foot from the
ground, and four boards round it, to keep the persons and their
clothes from falling off, and is about five feet long, standing
abroad all day if it rains not. At night it is taken into their
booths, and put in to the best manner they can; at bed-time they
get into it, and lie neck and heels together until the morning,
if the wind and rain do not force them out sooner; for a high
wind often blows down their booths, as it did A.D. 1741, and a
heavy rain forces through the hair-cloth that covers it.
"Though the Corporation of Cambridge has the tolls of this Fair,
and the government as aforesaid, yet the body of the University
has the oversight of the weights and measures thereof (as well as
at Midsummer and Reach Fairs) and the licensing of all
show-booths, live creatures, etc.; and the Proctors of the
University keep a Court there also to hear complaints about
weights and measures, seek out and punish lewd women, and see
that their Gownsmen commit no disorders."
Fuller (in the seventeenth century) gives us the tradition that the
fair originated with some Westmorland cloth dealers, who were here
overtaken by a storm on their way to Norwich, and found so ready a
market for the goods which they spread out to dry on the grass of the
common that they went no further but returned hither the next year,
and again. Thus the special prominence given to the "Duddery" here is
accounted for. The tradition does not seem improbable, for Kendal has,
from time immemorial, been renowned for its cloth--the famous "Kendal
green" worn, in old ballads, by the English archers. To this day the
shield of that town bears cloth-making implements, with the motto
"_Pannus mihi panis_" ("Flock is my food"). And Norwich was
(throughout the Middle Ages) the great commercial centre of the cloth
trade. That there was some marked connection between Cambridgeshire
and Westmorland is proved by the constant occurrence here of family
names derived from Kendal place-names (Sizergh, Docwray, Strickland,
Sedgwick, etc.) which have been current amongst the peasantry of
Cambridgeshire since the fourteenth century at least.
Since Carter wrote, the great development of communication has made
fairs a mere survival, and Stourbridge Fair has fallen from its high
estate. It is now a very commonplace affair of a few days' duration,
mainly for the horse trade. But it still is declared open by the Mayor
of Cambridge or his delegate, and a dish of the white herrings which
Carter speaks of still forms part of the opening ceremony. And it has
an abiding interest for English readers, as the prototype of "Vanity
Fair" in the "Pilgrim's Progress." Bunyan, as a Bedford man, would be
familiar with the bustling scene, and, if we compare his pages with
those which we have transcribed from Carter's History, we see how
vividly he has allegorised it:
"At this Fair are all such Merchandize sold as Houses, Lands,
Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countreys,
Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores,
Bauds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives,
Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones, and
what not.
"And moreover at this Fair there is at all times to be seen
Juglings, Cheats, Games, Plays, Fools, Apes, Knaves, and Rogues,
and that of every kind.
"Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, Thefts, Murders,
Adulteries, False Swearings, and that of a blood-red colour.
"And as, in other Fairs of less moment, there are the several
Rows and Streets, under their proper Names, here such and such
Wares are vended, so here likewise you have the proper Places,
Rows, and Streets (namely Countries and Kingdoms) where the
Wares of this Fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain
Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German
Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But, as in
other Fairs some one Commodity is the Chief of all the Fair, so
the Wares of Rome and her Merchandize is greatly promoted in this
Fair."
We find also reference to the standing Court of summary jurisdiction
under "the Great One of the Fair," with "the trusty Friends" who
formed his police, that took cognisance of the "Hubbub and great Stir
in the Fair" caused by the demeanour of the pilgrims.
As an instance of how wide a range the commodities sold at this fair
covered, we may mention that Sir Isaac Newton there bought his famous
prisms--three of them for L3. They were probably of French or Italian
make; no glass of this character was as yet manufactured in England.