When compiling his work on the antiquity of the University of
Cambridge, "thought he should be able to set abroad a _new matter_,
that was never heard of before, for the advancement of his own town
and University of Cambridge above Oxford;" but "hath done very little
or nothing else but renewed the old Crambe, and taken up Dr. Cay's
old song, running with him in his opinions and tenets, whom he
before condemning of dotage, makes himself by consequence a dotard."
According to Sir Simon, "Valence College (_i. e._ Pembroke Hall)
was the first endowed college in England;" "his avouching which,"
says Wood, "is of no force;" and he, as might be expected, puts in a
claim for his own college (Merton, of Oxford,) "which," he adds, "Sir
Simon might have easily known, had he been conversant with histories,
was the oldest foundation in either University." Therefore, "if the
antiquity of Cambridge depends upon Valence College (or rather, upon
Peter House,) and that house upon this distich, which stood for a
public inscription in the parlour window thereof, it signifies
nothing:--
"Qua præit Oxoniam Cancestria longa vetustas
Primatus a Petri dicitur orsa Domo."
He finally overwhelms his opponent by adding, that Oxford became a
public University in 1264, and that a bull for the purpose was
obtained the previous year, Cambridge then "_being but an obscure
place of learning, if any at all_." Thus I have cracked _Nut the
First_. Those who would add "sweets to the sweets" may find them in
abundance in the writers I have named already; and the subject is
treated of very learnedly by Dyer, in his _Dedication_ to his
"Privileges of the University of Cambridge."
* * * * *