college history. At the same time, it must be remembered that the quarrel
was confined to a section of the Society, and that the better members
kept aloof from it. It had nevertheless a marked effect on the college
throughout the eighteenth century, with the consequence that famous names
are comparatively scanty. Of Bentley’s opponents, the most distinguished
was Dr Conyers Middleton, whose life of Cicero was good enough to merit
a century of abuse. Lesser scholars of the same time were Roger Gale,*
the antiquary, who is often confounded with the learned Theophilus Gale
of Magdalen, Oxford, author of the once famous _Court of the Gentiles_;
and Beaupré Bell* of Outwell, Norfolk, who was an enthusiastic lover of
church architecture, and left his valuable manuscripts to the college
library. Bentley’s immediate successor, Dr Robert Smith,* master from
1742 to 1768, bequeathed his name to the Smith’s Prizes. He was succeeded
by John Hinchliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, a typical prelate of the last
century and a born pluralist. Lord Orford, in his _Tour of the Fens_,
describes his entertainment at the Palace of Peterborough; from which
we may divine that Hinchliffe was fond of a good dinner and liked the
vicinity of a nobleman. On one occasion, he put a man with no voice into
the Trinity choir, because he happened to have a vote for Peterborough.
A fellow of the college, named Mansel, who was more remarkable for his
ponderous wit than his piety, wrote the following epigram:—
A singing man, and yet not sing?
How justify your patron’s bounty?
Forgive me; you mistake the thing;
My voice is in another county.
This same Mansel* came, some years later, to great dignity as Bishop of
Bristol and Master of Trinity. His mastership, from 1798 to 1820, closes
the eighteenth century. The most distinguished member of the college at
this time was the great Professor of Greek, Richard Porson,* who died in
1808 at the age of forty-nine. His beautiful Greek handwriting may be
seen in one of the cases in the college library. Otherwise, the scholars
of the last century are few and far between. Trinity was, however, the
great nursing-place for noblemen; and among the number of her sons may be
mentioned the famous Marquess of Granby (* Reynolds) whose head serves
as the sign for so many inns; John Jefferies Pratt, Marquess Camden and
Chancellor of the University (* Lawrence), George Henry Fitzroy, Duke of
Grafton (* Lawrence), and, of royal blood, William Frederick, Duke of
Gloucester (* Gainsborough, Romney, Opie), Chancellor of the University,
and Frederick Augustus, Duke of Sussex (* Lonsdale). A great statesman
of the day was Spencer Perceval,* who was assassinated in the lobby of
the Houses of Parliament. But, if we turn to men of letters and poets, we
merely find such men as the parodist, Isaac Hawkins Browne.*
Lord Byron received his education under Mansel. His career at Cambridge
would be scarcely worth recording, were he not Byron; for it is the
record of a foolish series of silly exploits and eccentricities bordering
on madness. The place of honour which is given to his statue in the
library always seems a little better than his merits. He occupied rooms
in Nevile’s Court, and contrived, during his residence, to irritate the
college authorities. Mansel, as master, had a very exalted idea of the
virtues of his position, and, from the anecdotes which are told of him,
must have made himself peculiarly unpleasant. He was the last master of
Trinity who combined that office with episcopal dignity. His successor,
Christopher Wordsworth,* master from 1820 to 1841, was brother to the
poet, and father of the late saintly Bishop of Lincoln.
During Wordsworth’s time, the college was full of great men. Adam
Sedgwick* was Professor of Geology. Another member of the college was
Thomas Babington Macaulay, who was born with the century. As Fellow of
Trinity, the great historian was thoroughly identified with the college,
and, nine years after his death, his statue, by Woolner, was placed among
the distinguished society of the antechapel. Younger by nine years than
Macaulay was Alfred Tennyson (* Watts), who, in a few exquisite verses,
made himself peculiarly the poet of Trinity. The chief event of his
Cambridge life was, of course, his friendship for Arthur Henry Hallam,
who lived, as is well known, in the New Court. Tennyson himself was
otherwise not greatly attached to Cambridge. He lived at some distance
from Trinity, in Corpus Buildings, and went down without taking his
degree. In this respect, Thackeray (* Bogle), two years his junior, was
very different from him. Through all his life, Thackeray, although he was
so closely identified with London, kept his love for Cambridge, and was
at heart a don. While still in residence, he would walk reading along
one of the paths in the Great Court, and, in after life, he constantly
returned. His rooms were close to Newton’s, north of the Great Gate.
Probably no one has handled University life with more success—the subject
is proverbially difficult—than Thackeray in the early chapters of
_Pendennis_; and, in most of his novels, he sent his heroes to colleges
which, whether he placed them in Oxford or Cambridge, have all the
features of his beloved Trinity.
With Thackeray we are hard on the heels of our own age. The modern
period of Trinity’s history begins with the mastership of William
Whewell, whose name is inseparable from his college. The twenty-five
years of his mastership, from 1841 to 1866, form a very distinguished
epoch. As scholar, organiser, and benefactor to the foundation, he was
pre-eminent. The famous epigram which said of him that “Science was his
forte and omniscience his foible” was in the main true, but he carried
to everything he attempted an immense interest and a sound judgment.
His statue very worthily completes the group in the antechapel. It
was erected during the mastership of his successor, William Hepworth
Thompson (* Herkomer) the Platonist, famous for his erudition and his
_bons mots_. Before his elevation to the mastership, Dr Thompson had been
Regius Professor of Greek. The men of his generation who belonged to the
Society were men of the highest eminence; the best known are, perhaps,
Joseph Barber Lightfoot (* Richmond, Dickinson), the commentator on St
Paul’s Epistles and Bishop of Durham; James Clerk Maxwell,* Professor
of Experimental Physics in the University; the late Arthur Cayley (*
Dickinson), the greatest mathematician whom Trinity boasts since the
days of Newton; and the Public Orator, W. G. Clark (bust by Woolner),
Thompson’s life-long friend. When Thompson died in 1886, he was succeeded
by the present master, Dr Butler, who had been Head Master of Harrow and
Dean of Gloucester. Beneath these rulers, and with the highest prestige
in the world as her tradition, Trinity fully justifies her distinction
as a royal foundation and a nursing-mother of sound and religious
learning. To select from the present society is invidious; but the names
of Professor Henry Sidgwick, Professor Michael Foster (* Herkomer), Dr
Henry Jackson (* Furse), and Professor Jebb, are of European repute,
to say nothing of the present vice-master, Mr Aldis Wright, editor of
Shakspeare, and Mr John Willis Clark, the present Registrary, whose
investigations in Cambridge history and antiquities are well known
everywhere. In the Church one may point to the theologian Dr Westcott,
Bishop of Durham, to Dr Farrar, Dean of Canterbury, and to the late
Charles Alan Smythies, Bishop of Zanzibar; among politicians, to Mr
Arthur and Mr Gerald Balfour, and Sir William Harcourt; while of doctors,
lawyers and men of letters the crowd cannot be numbered.
XVII
EMMANUEL COLLEGE
When one hears of the destruction of the beautiful courts at Emmanuel
and Sidney, one is tempted to wonder what good genius of building spared
the second court of St John’s and Nevile’s Court at Trinity. Had Ralph
Symons’ work been allowed to remain here, we should have had a building
almost exactly parallel with the latter. Symons built courts, but he did
not attempt imposing street-fronts, and the ranges he erected between
1584 and 1586 turned their backs ungraciously to the road. The entrance
to the college was on the north side, where there is now a smaller court
in the Gothic style of 1840. What is now known as the Brick Building,
east of the entrance court and at right angles to the south side, belongs
to 1633, but is substantially in harmony with Symons’ earlier work.
It forms a very charming fragment. The classical transformation of
Emmanuel was begun during Dr Breton’s mastership. Sir Christopher Wren,
who was just completing his chapel at Pembroke, was invited to design
the east side of the court. It is interesting to observe how he followed
his uncle’s design for the chapel of Peterhouse, copying the lateral
galleries which connect the chapel with the main buildings. Wren built
these between 1665 and 1677, and it is probable that, when he began
working at Trinity in 1675, he left the completion of this beautiful
composition to his pupil, Nicholas Hawksmoor. The characteristic of
the whole is a very striking dignity. Internally, the chapel is less
interesting, but the stained glass, representing noteworthy members of
the college, such as Sancroft, William Law, and some of the Cambridge
Platonists, is thoroughly suited to the fine, plain windows. The
northern gallery is the picture-gallery of the Master’s Lodge as well
as an approach to the chapel, and contains a number of fine portraits,
including a Lely, two Gainsboroughs and two Romneys.
In the last century the revival which Wren had innocently inaugurated
swept away Symons’ building. In 1719 the south side of the court was
rebuilt; the gigantic pilasters in the centre are a proof of how bad
the Palladian work of that over-abused period could be. Sir James
Burrough of Caius, who for half a century was the architectural
dictator of Cambridge, designed new north and west buildings, obeying
the unconquerable desire of the day for an eloquent façade. Because
the design is Burrough’s, this addition is tolerable and more or less
appropriate to the chapel; but Burrough died before it was begun, and
this, like the Clare chapel, is a posthumous and probably slanderous
addition to his fame. At all events the work was entrusted to Essex, who
carried it out before 1770. It is perhaps significant that Essex was
chosen, a year or two later, to compare his work once more to Wren’s,
this time at Trinity. The western cloister, which recalls the similar but
earlier building at Pembroke, is heavy but not unsuccessful. Essex had
his own way with the Hall, which is probably the least agreeable hall in
Cambridge. It is cold and stiff, and the plaster roof brings bad taste
to a climax. In the Gothic court north of this is the Library, which
corresponds to the refectory of the old Dominican house—the Hall is on
the site of the chapel. It was, till the Restoration, the college chapel.
Sancroft, to whose initiative Wren’s work is due, gave it a valuable
collection of old books, chiefly Bibles, and its Oriental manuscripts
were carefully described by Sir William Jones. The chief modern addition
to Emmanuel is the large brick building at the east end of the college
garden. This, although not remarkable in itself, is interesting as the
pioneer of an attempt to revive the economical principle of the medieval
hostel. It also forms a not unfitting termination to the pretty lawn,
with its pond and tennis-courts.
* * * * *
“The pure house of Emmanuel” occupies the site of the house of Dominican
Friars outside Barnwell Gate. At the dissolution the buildings were left
untouched, and, when Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Treasurer of the Household, came into possession of the land, he had his
materials for a college all ready. Sir Walter was a strong Puritan, and
was on that account no great favourite with Queen Elizabeth. She met him
one day and said, “Sir Walter, I hear that you have erected a Puritan
foundation.” Sir Walter, however, disclaimed the insinuation, “No, Madam;
far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established
laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone
knows what will be the fruit thereof.” The acorn, nevertheless, grew into
a very Puritan oak. The buildings seem to have been erected in a curious
spirit; for, if not Sir Walter, at all events his executors, revelled
in the fact that the secular buildings of the foundation stood upon the
Friary church, and did all they could to obliterate the monastic plan
of the buildings. But, beyond this unnecessary manifestation of spite,
the college was admirably governed and its students were—and all through
its history have been—serious and law-abiding. Sir Walter founded it as
“a College of Theology, Science, Philosophy, and Literature, for the
extension of the pure Gospel of Christ our only Mediator, to the honour
and glory of Almighty God,” and appointed, as its first master, Dr
Laurence Chaderton, who ruled the college for thirty-eight years, and had
a great part in the Authorised Version of the Bible. Under Dr Chaderton,
the foundation increased in learning and godliness, and Fuller said of
it, “Sure I am, at this day it hath overshadowed all the Universities,
more than a moiety of the present masters of colleges being bred
therein.” Dr Branthwaite* of Caius, Dr Whichcot* of King’s, Dr Samuel
Ward* of Sidney, and the famous Ralph Cudworth* of Clare and Christ’s,
all held fellowships at Emmanuel.
As time went on, the Puritanism of Emmanuel became more and more
pronounced. The services in the chapel savoured of Congregationalism
and were altogether opposed to the Laudian revival of church life and
doctrine. Under the first Dr Sancroft, the college ritual was thus
reported to the Archbishop, “They receive that Holy Sacrament, sitting
upon forms about the Communion Table, and do pull the Loaf one from the
other, after the minister hath begun. And so the Cup, one drinking as it
were to another, like good fellows, without any particular application
of the said words, more than once for all.” This expression of shocked
piety has nothing in its wording which allows us to expect exaggeration.
The servers at the altar were also “Fellows’ subsizars,” and not in holy
orders. However, one fails to see any extravagant Protestantism in this
arrangement. Emmanuel chapel must have presented a strange contrast to
Wren’s and Cosin’s chapel at Peterhouse, or to the chapel at Queens’
which Dowsing ransacked so unceremoniously. The college, meanwhile, was
the nursery of American colonisers, and has therefore always been a goal
of American pilgrimage. Mr Everett’s bombastic passage on the subject has
been often quoted; its eloquence is scarcely of the finest type. But, in
company with a row of Pilgrim Fathers, Emmanuel produced John Harvard,
the founder of the greatest American University, and may therefore be
called the mother of American education.
But, in common with St John’s and other colleges, Emmanuel lost its
Puritanism with years. The Restoration brought in a better state of
feeling, and, under the second Dr Sancroft and his successors, Doctors
Breton* and Holbech,* the college devoted its energies to building.
William Sancroft became Archbishop of Canterbury, and kept up the
traditions of his college in refusing to acknowledge James II.’s
Declaration. He was the chief of the seven bishops who signed the famous
petition against that document. Afterwards, as a non-juror, he resigned
his archbishoprick. But the best of all the sons of Emmanuel was another
non-juror, William Law, who was for many years a fellow, and held the
living of King’s Cliffe in Northamptonshire. This great man has become
better known to the world since the publication of his biography by Canon
Overton, and the reprinting of his letters to Bishop Hoadly. He was a
staunch and able supporter of the Church’s principles, but his most
abiding monument is the half mystical but intensely practical treatise
called _A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life_. The book has had
an influence second only to that of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and its
wide application may be judged from the fact that it affected people so
widely different as Dr Johnson and Richard Hurrell Froude. Its simple
but vivid style and its picturesque quaintness, account very largely
for its popularity. In later years, Law, a solitary and meditative man,
took up the half-understood ideas of German mysticism, and became a blind
disciple of Jacob Behmen. These later aberrations have somewhat eclipsed
his legitimate fame. The college has commemorated him by a window in
the chapel. In connection with Law, it is interesting to remember that
another mystical writer, Joseph Hall, Bishop, first of Exeter and
afterwards of Norwich, was a fellow of Emmanuel. There is a portrait of
Hall in the splendid collection at the Lodge, in which he is represented
as wearing a gold medal. This medal was given him by the States General
as a recognition of his services at the Synod of Dort, and the original
is still in the possession of the college.
There is also, in the same collection, an admirable portrait of Sancroft,
who, beyond his contributions to the new chapel, was a great benefactor
to the library. This library is one of the most valuable in Cambridge.
Bishop Bedell of Kilmore, who pursued his studies at Emmanuel with great
success, and was a fellow of the college, left it a Hebrew Bible which he
had bought for its weight in silver. Among other treasures it contains
a MS. of Chrysostom and a copy of Wyclif’s Bible, with the inscription
“Ihū help us, for we ben feble.” To return to the portraits in the
Master’s Lodge. We find there an excellent portrait of that accomplished
diplomat and typical prig, Sir William Temple, by Lely. And, among
other seventeenth-century worthies, we are glad to see the portrait of
the greatest of Cambridge builders, Ralph Symons, “Effigies Radulphi
Simons,” the inscription goes, “Architecti sua aetate peritissimi qui
praeter plurima aedificia ab eo praeclare facta, duo collegia Emanuelis
hoc Sydneii illud exstruxit integre. Magnam etiam partem Trinitatis
reconcinnavit amplissime.”
After the time of Law and the non-jurors, the history of Emmanuel is
very quiet, and the stately ease for which its buildings are conspicuous
possessed the college. During the mastership of Dr William Richardson,*
in 1765, a member of the college published a book which had a tremendous
effect on English literature. This was the _Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry_, collected by Bishop Percy of Dromore. The labours of this
antiquarian are a lasting glory to his college. A similar taste was
apparent in Richardson’s successor, “rare” Richard Farmer (* Romney) who
was master from 1775 to 1797. The love of himself and his _coterie_ for
Shakspeare took him, night after night, to the theatre at Stourbridge
Fair, and his affection for the drama combined with his good-fellowship
made him something of a curiosity at the time when most college masters
were dry and pedantic. To the same period belongs Samuel Parr, whose
pipe, tobacco-box, and stopper are preserved by the College. He was
undoubtedly a wit and a good talker, but his jokes were lengthy and
pompous, and he scarcely deserves the praise of those admirers who have
likened him to Dr Johnson and Sydney Smith. For most of us, possibly, he
lives entirely by virtue of de Quincey’s essay upon him.
The two most famous scholars whom Emmanuel produced in the eighteenth
century were Joshua Barnes,* Professor of Greek at its beginning, and
Richard Hurd,* Bishop in succession of Lichfield and Worcester, who
died in 1808. Hurd was a theologian with a somewhat dull pen, and is
now chiefly remembered as the disciple, friend and biographer of Bishop
Warburton. At the beginning of this century Sir Busick Harwood, a
scientific man greatly in advance of his age, was Professor of Anatomy.
Gell, the antiquary and explorer of Pompeii, who died in 1836, was also
an Emmanuel man. But the present century, although the standard of work
and scholarship has been high, is not prolific in eminent names. Our
greatest living historian, Dr Creighton, held a fellowship at Emmanuel
according to the terms of the Dixie Professorship, but Cambridge cannot
count him as her own. At present, the college is rapidly increasing
in numbers and emulates the modern popularity of Pembroke; and it has
the distinction, rare at Cambridge, of success on the river and in the
schools alike.
XVIII
SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE
[Illustration: Sidney Sussex College]
Ralph Symons, the great Cambridge builder whose name deserves to be more
widely known than it is, was the architect chosen to superintend the
works at Sidney. He was employed on Nevile’s Court at Trinity, and was, a
year or two later, to begin operations in the second court of St John’s.
Sidney, which was ready at the beginning of 1599, was quite comparable
with those famous works of art. As usual, the architect did not attempt
to manage a street-front. Here, however, instead of turning the back of
his buildings to the street, as at Emmanuel, he constructed an oblong
three-sided court, whose eastern side directly fronted the street. In
1628 Sir Francis Clerke of Houghton Conquest completed a second court on
similar lines. The south side of one court thus became the north side of
the other. This common side, which exactly bisects the building, was
terminated by a gateway opening on the street and into either court. In
this original plan the entrance to the Hall was immediately in the centre
of the eastern range of the north court; the entrance to the Chapel
occupied a similar position in the south court. We are still able to
admire this graceful and simple plan. But of the original buildings the
only remaining traces are the oriels in the garden-front of the Master’s
Lodge. In 1776 Essex, who had for the last ten years been “improving”
Cambridge out of knowledge, built a new chapel; and in 1830, while Dr
Chafy was master—the names of these masters deserve to be handed down—it
was decided to thoroughly remodel the college in the new Gothic style.
This step was prompted simply by the admiration which Wilkins’ doings at
Corpus, Trinity, and King’s had excited. Each college glowed with pious
emulation, and Sidney chose for its destroyer Sir Jeffrey Wyattville,
who had Gothicised a great part of Windsor Castle. Wyattville overhauled
the college in the Vandal manner; removed all traces, save those I have
referred to, of Symons’ obsolete work, and replaced it by the present
pretentious and insipid structure which adorns the eastern side of
Sidney Street. It is a comfort to know that a later generation has made
amends for this criminal error of taste. A court, or rather two sides
of a court, with cloisters, have been added in recent years by the late
Mr John Loughborough Pearson. This range of buildings, not very obvious
owing to the high walls behind which it stands, is of red brick, and,
like many other new buildings in Cambridge, is in the style of the
French Renaissance with English modifications. It is certainly one of Mr
Pearson’s great successes, and is, moreover, a success in a line which
he seldom attempted. The court—which contains, by the way, a very fine
Combination Room—is one of the most retired spots in Cambridge, and in
its studious shades it is possible to forget Wyattville’s ravages.
* * * * *
In 1589 died an excellent lady, Frances Lady Sussex, widow of the second
Earl. She was the daughter of Sir William Sidney, and would in any case
have achieved a negative distinction as the wife of Thomas Radcliffe and
the aunt of Sir Philip Sidney. But in her will she left a legacy of
five thousand pounds, to be employed by her executors in the foundation
of a college at Cambridge, or, in case the bequest were insufficient,
in enlarging Clare Hall. Six years later, the executors bought a site
from Trinity College. When Henry VIII. founded Trinity, he made over to
it the lands of the Franciscan Friary which, until the dissolution, had
occupied the space between the modern Sidney Street and the King’s Ditch.
The buildings were apparently taken down and used as a quarry for Henry’s
new college. Thus the site was vacant, and the executors, after making
a preliminary payment of a hundred marks, took over the ground on a
perpetual lease, and engaged to pay a rent of £13. 6s. 8d. yearly. These
executors, the actual founders of Sidney, were the Earl of Kent and Sir
John Harrington, the translator of Ariosto. The college was called the
College of the Lady Frances Sidney Sussex, and took her arms, Radcliffe
impaling Sidney. The pheon, the heraldic symbol of the Sidneys, is the
badge of the college, and, like the eagle of St John’s and the silver
crescent of Trinity Hall, has given its title to the college magazine of
our own days.