a certain beauty of its own, is not far behind the Great Court. Ralph
Symons was again his architect. This building consisted of two wings,
shorter than at present, at right angles to the Hall, and built above a
cloister. These splendid arcades are the very crown of Renaissance work
in Cambridge; their cloistered ground-floor recalls Bologna or Padua
rather than the court of an English university; but their upper stories
are thoroughly English work. Nevile’s Court did not assume its present
secluded, aristocratic appearance until considerably more than a hundred
years later. Isaac Barrow, one of the many great Masters of Trinity,
began the library in 1675, with Sir Christopher Wren as his architect.
The court was completed by the generous addition of two compartments to
the original arcades, which was paid for by some of the fellows. Wren’s
Library is so prominent that its incongruity with the rest of the court
is not at once obvious, but there can be no doubt that it is seen at its
best on the river side. Its front towards the court is adorned with a
bas-relief which represents the dedication of the Septuagint to Ptolemy
Philadelphus. On the roof are four statues of learned nymphs by Gabriel
Cibber, which are chiefly remarkable for the part they played in one of
Byron’s most senseless freaks. The interior of the Library is matchless
for its magnificent simplicity. It is a pity that the arbiters of taste
in the last century should have allowed Cipriani to design the window
at the south end, but this is the sole fault. The numerous busts (some
by Roubiliac), the carvings on the bookcases (Grinling Gibbons) and
Thorwaldsen’s statue of Byron are remarkable.
Wren is also supposed to have harmonised the side of the Hall which
stands opposite, with his Library. The present meaningless alcoves and
the balustrade which have superseded Nevile’s work on this side, are
probably by Essex, who was brought in to prop up the Hall and build the
Combination Room and Kitchen Offices in 1771. A little while before Wren
began working at Trinity, John Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry,
founded Bishop’s Hostel, the small building south of the Great Court,
and close to the Trinity Lane entrance. These buildings (1670) are now
somewhat overlapped by the modern buildings of Garret Hostel, which are
also of red brick. Garret Hostel is, however, a much older component of
Trinity, and the modern buildings are simply a revival.
During the eighteenth century Bentley effected his famous alterations in
the Lodge and Chapel, and Essex made the additional changes to which I
have referred. No actual addition was made to the college until, in 1823,
William Wilkins began his court in the revived Gothic taste, adjoining
Nevile’s Court on the south. George IV. proved a benefactor to the extent
of £1000, and the official name of the new building is for this reason
King’s Court. It was finished about six years later. Cambridge, as we
have seen, has a long tale to tell of Georgian Gothic, and the New Court
of Trinity is a very typical example of that period. It nevertheless is
a far more pleasant building than Wilkins’ court at Corpus or Rickman’s
at St John’s, although there is not much to praise in it. To a much
better period of modern Gothic belong Mr Beresford Hope’s improvements in
the Lodge and the Master’s Courts, usually known as Whewell’s Court (and
by more familiar names), which are opposite the great gate of Trinity,
and are one of the thoroughfares between Trinity Street and Sidney
Street. Dr Whewell built this court at his own expense, with Salvin
as his architect. Outside, it is gloomy but imposing. The darkness of
its interior was till quite recently almost to be felt; but now (1898)
they are being refaced, and the depressing rooms are being made into
comfortable and picturesque habitations.
The grounds of Trinity are spacious and pleasant, and the famous
lime-walk is one of the wonders of Cambridge. When Dr Nevile built his
court, he filled up a branch of the Cam which ran northwards from Garret
Hostel Bridge and rejoined the main stream at the north-west corner of
the present Library. The bridge which connects the lime-walk with the
new court was built by Essex, and is his best work in Cambridge, if that
is any praise.
* * * * *
The royal foundation of Trinity College is, as a matter of fact, one of
the youngest colleges in Cambridge. At the same time, it is to Cambridge
what Christ Church is to Oxford, and, more than that, its name, to a
great number of people, is almost synonymous with Cambridge. Henry VIII.,
the most learned of our English sovereigns, was naturally a great patron
of learning. In 1546, the year in which, with his characteristic want
of scruple, he took upon himself the credit of founding Wolsey’s great
college at Oxford, he also founded Trinity at Cambridge. His material was
ready to hand, for the small colleges and hostels which filled up the
space between the present Trinity Street and the river provided scanty
room for their members, and needed amalgamation. Trinity, in fact, as
it now exists, is composed of a number of separate foundations, the
principal of which were Michael House, founded in 1324, and King’s Hall,
founded by Edward III. in 1337. These two colleges had gradually absorbed
many of the smaller hostels. The founder of Michael House was Hervé de
Staunton, treasurer to King Edward II. In spite of its limited situation,
it had a certain amount of prestige, and one of its last masters was John
Fisher, afterwards President of Queens’ and Bishop of Rochester. It
used the church of St Michael as its chapel. King’s Hall, on the other
hand, had, by the time of Henry VIII., extended its boundaries and built
its own chapel. It had grown out of a corporation of scholars, which had
found a patron in Edward II., and had been presented by Edward III., in
1336, with a piece of ground belonging to one Robert of Crowland—which
may point to a connection between the foundation and Crowland Abbey, the
great centre of English learning. A regular charter was granted in 1337.
The accounts of the institution remain, and point to a style of living
which would not be very highly accounted of now, but was positively
luxurious for medieval Cambridge. The scholars attended chapel at St
Mary’s by the Market and All Saints’ in the Jewry, until, in Edward IV.’s
reign, they obtained leave to found a chapel for themselves. King’s Hall
naturally became the nucleus of Henry’s college, and the lesser buildings
found their centre in its court, enlarged and beautified. John Redman,
the last master of King’s Hall, became the first master of Trinity
College.
Under the charter of 1546, Henry VIII. founded Trinity College for a
master and sixty fellows and scholars. The full title was “Trinity
College within the Town and University of Cambridge of King Henry the
Eighth’s foundation.” Michael House, dedicated primarily to St Michael
the Archangel, had been founded under the secondary invocations of the
Holy and Undivided Trinity, St Mary, and All Saints; and it is probable
that the first of these suggested the name under which the college
has become so famous. Trinity College is the most distinguished fruit
of that revived learning which paved the way for and accompanied the
Reformation: from the very beginning its tendencies were liberal and
progressive; every genius which it nourished was eminently constructive.
The names of its three greatest _alumni_, Newton, Bacon, and Barrow,
form, so to speak, the three fountain-heads of organized philosophical
thought in England; and there are a hundred less monumental names which
are sufficient guarantee of the intellectual supremacy of Trinity over
her sisters. The history of the college divides itself naturally into
periods. The first is a period of consolidation, extending from 1546 to
1593. During this time, the college suffered the ordinary vicissitudes
of the Reformation. Its chapel, which had been projected by Henry
VIII., was begun by Mary and finished, probably out of a sense of duty,
by Elizabeth. In 1553, William Bill, the second master, who had been
appointed under Edward VI., had to retire in favour of a Catholic master,
John Christopherson, but was of course restored at the accession of
Elizabeth. He was succeeded in 1561 by Robert Beaumont, who presented to
the Master’s Lodge a portrait of the founder by Lucas van Heere, one of
the most excellent portrait-painters of the sixteenth century. Beaumont,
in his turn, was succeeded by John Whitgift, who was already well known
in Cambridge as Master of Peterhouse and Pembroke, and Fellow of Queens’.
Whitgift, with Matthew Parker and Matthew Hutton, is one of the three
divines who may be taken as typical of Elizabethan Cambridge—strongly
anti-papal in their sentiments, but keeping nevertheless a cautious eye
on the political balance. It is hardly necessary to add that Whitgift’s
long list of Cambridge preferments eventually led to the Archbishoprick
of Canterbury. And it was during his mastership that the greatest
intellect of the age was trained at his college. Under the yoke of
the Aristotelian system of philosophy, Francis Bacon, while still at
Cambridge, perceived the fallacies of the stereotyped methods of thought,
and laid the foundation of inductive science. Bacon’s life is connected
more intimately with affairs of state than with his University; but
Trinity regards him as one of the principal saints in her kalendar, and
his memory greets the visitor at every turn. His portrait is one of the
three at the end of the Hall; there is another in the Master’s Lodge;
his bust, by Roubiliac, is in the Library; and, in 1845, his statue was
placed, side by side with that of Newton, in the antechapel.
Bacon is the great figure of this early period. Nine years older than
he, the Lord Chief Justice Coke (* Whood: bust by Roubiliac) is the
first of the great lawyers connected with Trinity. Another celebrated
name is that of Dr Donne, Dean of St Paul’s, divine and poet. Sir Henry
Spelman (* Whood), the antiquary and translator of Xenophon, was a
contemporary of Bacon, and, some years after, Sir Robert Cotton (* bust
by Roubiliac) furnished Trinity with another archæologist. Whitgift,
after his translation to Canterbury, was succeeded by John Still, who
became Bishop of Bath and Wells. With Still’s successor, Dr Thomas
Nevile,* master from 1593 to 1615, the second period opens. Nevile held
the Deanery of Canterbury with his mastership, but his life was spent in
Cambridge, and his architectural work in Trinity, while it is the most
important in the University, stamps him as the chief benefactor of the
college. In that great age of building, Nevile’s work has an honourable
pre-eminence: it is the sign of a monumental perseverance and an artistic
taste which, even in that fine era of Renaissance culture, was never
surpassed. We may with justice echo the words of Fuller, who says that
Dr Nevile performed this work “answering his anagram _most heavenly_,
and practising his own allusive motto _ne vile velis_.” Higher praise
could not be given. Nevile’s buildings, if architecture may be considered
to reflect contemporary history, may be regarded as a turning-point in
Cambridge thought. When we look at the reactionary tendency to the Gothic
taste in Jacobean Oxford, and compare it with the distinct preference
shown in Cambridge for classical and Renaissance models, the radical
divergence of the two Universities is clear. Nevile’s courts at Trinity
were the beginning of a long series of collegiate buildings which, often
very defective, took the place of Gothic work and held it for the next
two centuries. The sole exception to this rule is Matthew Wren’s chapel
at Peterhouse. Besides his building energy, Nevile acquired land for the
college, so that, when the Society enlarged its buildings in after years,
it found itself in possession of the requisite site. The King’s Court
occupies part of this property. One can only say that Nevile’s memory
might be honoured with a better building.
One of the first scholars of Trinity who saw Nevile’s work in its
complete state was George Herbert. He was born in 1593, the first
year of Nevile’s mastership, and entered Trinity at a very early age.
Although it is more natural to think of him as a parish priest and the
writer of the most beautiful devotional poetry in English, his career
at Cambridge was not without distinction. His early Latinity was as
perfect as Milton’s, and he filled the office of Public Orator of the
University. He is unique among Trinity men as the only important member
of the college who belonged to the most illustrious school of English
churchmen—the school which, under Andrewes, Laud and Cosin, placed the
Church of England on a logical and independent footing. The honours of
this school are shared rather unequally between the two Universities, but
Cambridge contributed a substantial quota to the whole sum. There is no
portrait of Herbert in the college, but he is commemorated in one of the
chapel windows. He died at the early age of forty, before the troubles
of the Great Rebellion. John Hacket,* the Royalist Bishop of Lichfield
and Coventry, was probably at Trinity with Herbert. He is remembered,
not so much for his divinity as for his gallant defence of his cathedral
against the Puritan destroyers. He was born in 1592 and did not die
till 1670, ten years after the Restoration. In his seventieth year,
having been mercifully preserved throughout the troubles, he desired to
bestow some mark of his affection upon Trinity, “that Society,” as he
said with a noble pathos characteristic of the party to which he had
attached himself, “which is more precious to me, next to the Church of
Jesus Christ, than any place upon earth.” The result of his bequest was
the present Bishop’s Hostel, which occupied part of the site of the old
Garret’s or Gerrard’s Hostel.
The seventeenth century is fertile in great men. During the century,
however, none of the masters of the college were very conspicuous men,
and the mastership, between 1615 and 1683, changed hands no less than
twelve times. It is also worthy of remark that three successive masters
ended their lives as Bishops of Chester, thus uniting Henry VIII.’s
collegiate foundation with one of his bishopricks. These were John
Wilkins (* Whood), master in 1659, Henry Ferne, master in 1660, and
John Pearson (* Whood), master from 1662 to 1673. This last is the only
exception to the general insignificance of the masters at this time. He
was a distinguished scholar who had been connected with several colleges,
and had held the mastership of Jesus. His work on the Apostles’ Creed
is still one of the classics of English theology. About the middle of
the century, Dryden (* Hudson) came to Trinity from Westminster School.
Both he and Abraham Cowley (* Slaughton) were strongly attached to the
Royalist side during the Commonwealth disturbances, and Cowley, who
entered the college in 1637 and proceeded to his master’s degree, was
expelled in 1643 on account of his too strongly expressed loyalty. He
found more congenial soil at St John’s College, Oxford, the college of
Laud, Juxon, and others of the same party. If to these poets we add the
names of the naturalists Ray (* Hudson: bust by Roubiliac) and Willoughby
(bust by Roubiliac) we shall have enumerated the most illustrious Trinity
men of their time. Ray and Willoughby, who studied natural history with
special reference to its religious character, were, in fact, the founders
of the modern science, just as Dryden may be said to have struck the
first note of modern poetry.
Pearson became Bishop of Chester in 1672, and removed there in 1673.
Under his successor, Isaac Barrow, began the golden age of Trinity.
Barrow is, in many ways, the most extraordinary genius of whom Cambridge
can boast. He was one of that rare class whose knowledge is practically
universal. He was born in 1630, a year before his great contemporary,
John Locke, who went up to Oxford from Westminster about the time when
Barrow went up from Charterhouse to Cambridge. Barrow was a man of
surprising energy and, at Cambridge, he appears to have read deeply in
every subject which was then studied. He was classic, mathematician,
scientist, theologian, and orator; and in each of these branches he
excelled. He was appointed Regius Professor of Greek in 1655, and,
subsequently, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics—a feat which, to the
scholars of to-day, would seem next to impossible. Undoubtedly, however,
his promotion to the mastership of his college and his subsequent
celebrity were due to his fame as a divine. His sermons bear the same
relation to his age that those of Jeremy Taylor bear to the Stewart
period. He was in high favour as a preacher at court, and, on Pearson’s
retirement, his appointment was obvious. He did not hold the mastership
for more than four years, as in 1677 he died at the age of forty-seven.
His portrait by Hudson hangs in the college Hall; his bust, by Roubiliac,
is in the Library; and his statue, by Noble, was placed in the antechapel
during the mastership of his worthy successor, Whewell.
At this time, the mathematical attainments of the Society must have
been overpowering. Barrow’s fame in this department has perhaps been
obscured by that of Sir Isaac Newton; but, if we are to believe Newton’s
generous compliment, the early death of Roger Cotes robbed Trinity of an
even greater prodigy. The college may nevertheless be well content with
Newton, who was emphatically a Trinity man, spending very little of his
life away from Cambridge. He was twelve years younger than Barrow, and
entered Trinity in the year of the Restoration, when he was eighteen.
Nine years later, his studies proved so fruitful that Barrow gave up the
Lucasian professorship in his favour. For more than half a century, he
was the chief ornament of the University. His discoveries revolutionised
the whole theory of mathematics, and it was owing to his personality
that the subsequent energies of Cambridge were so largely mathematical.
He occupied rooms between the Great Gateway and the Chapel. Although he
made Cambridge his home, he had a large share in public business, sitting
as Member for the University and receiving the mastership of the Mint.
This office he probably owed to another member of the college, Charles
Montague, Earl of Halifax (* Kneller), whose recall of the specie is
among the most famous of English financial operations. In 1703, Newton
was elected President of the Royal Society, which, it is interesting to
note, had been founded, forty years before, mainly through the energy of
Dr Wilkins, Master of Trinity and one of the three Bishops of Chester
mentioned above. Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705, and died in
1727. His scientific studies were not his exclusive pursuits, for he
was, to a certain extent, one of the group of literary men who are the
glory of Anne’s reign, and was also much occupied with the elucidation
of prophecy, which probably attracted him from its mathematical side.
Trinity has very justly regarded him as her greatest son. His portrait,
by Ritz, occupies the place of honour in the Hall, and every visitor to
Cambridge knows—
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
The statue, which is by Roubiliac, and is that master’s most famous
work, bears the inscription from Lucretius “Qui genus humanum ingenio
superavit.” There is a bust of him in the Library, also by Roubiliac, and
several portraits are to be found throughout the college.
After Barrow’s death, the mastership was filled successively by the
Hon. John North* and the Hon. John Montague,* whose rule was calculated
to foster a comfortable laziness rather than industry. On the death
of the second of these, Dr Richard Bentley, fellow of St John’s, was
elected master. There was, in those days, a strong feeling of rivalry
between the two foundations—not only academical, but also in political
and social matters. Bentley was a rare genius, whose scholarship was
just then acknowledged as the finest in England, but he was utterly
devoid of good feeling and tact, and had a peculiar faculty for exciting
hatred. His fame, for the most of us, is due to his high place in
the _Dunciad_. He arrived in Trinity with the intention of managing
the college on his own lines. There was a party in the Society which
thoroughly enjoyed the comfort of a position it did not adorn, and in
this body Bentley found his most devoted enemies. Instead of conciliating
them, he treated them with undisguised contempt and arrogance; and his
conduct was so injudicious that he alienated all the better members
of the college from himself. Matters came to a head when Bentley made
radical alterations in the Master’s Lodge, and presented the fellows
with a bill considerably larger than the original estimate. Open war
broke out; the fellows refused to pay; and Bentley in consequence applied
methods of coercion, withholding privileges which were in his gift. The
fellows found themselves obliged to give in after some time, and Bentley
followed up this victory by altering the interior of the chapel to suit
the new organ. At this point, however, the Society revolted for good.
Bentley required a large subscription of each fellow. The fellowship
dividends had been much reduced during the previous years, and, with this
additional burden, poverty stared many of the dons in the face. In this
crisis, the fellows, who undoubtedly had justice on their side, called
in Serjeant Milne, a London lawyer and one of their number, and, under
his guidance, addressed a _gravamen_ against the Master to the Bishop of
Ely. Things would have gone hardly for Bentley, had not the Bishop died
opportunely. This Bishop, by the way, was John Moore, whose books George
I. gave to the University Library. However, Bentley’s tyranny was not
suffered to continue, for, in 1718, the Senate passed a grace degrading
him from his high positions in the University. After this, the quarrel
was less prominent. Bentley occupied the Lodge till 1742, but the bad
feeling which he had excited continued till the end of his life. His
judgment and taste may be estimated from the reply which he is said to
have given to some congratulatory address after his election. Referring
to his original college of St John’s, he said, “By the help of my God,
I have leaped over a wall.” His arrogance might have been excusable in
a young man whose promotion was early, but Bentley, in 1700, was past
middle life. His scholarship was sound, and there is no doubt that his
arguments against the Epistles of Phalaris crushed the position of his
adversary Boyle; but his lack of proper feeling always put him in the
wrong, and his memory lives in the satire of Pope and Swift rather than
in his own work. Hudson’s portrait of him is in the Hall, and his bust,
by Roubiliac, is in the Library.