E-text prepared by Ted Garner, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
By Gordon Home
[Illustration: THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE
This is now the Entrance to the University Library. At the end of theshort street is part of the north side of King's College Chapel.]
Frontispiece 1. THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE17 2. THE LIBRARY WINDOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE24 3. IN THE CHOIR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL33 4. THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE40 5. THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE49 6. THE OLD COURT IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE56 7. THE CIRCULAR NORMAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHREOn the cover 8. THE "BRIDGE OF SIGHS," ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE
"…and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir Edward Scott andLord Carlingford, to the Spanish Ambassador's, where I dined the firsttime…. And here was an Oxford scholar, in a Doctor of Laws'gowne…. And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merryat my defending Cambridge against Oxford."—PEPYS' Diary (May 5,1669).
In writing of Cambridge, comparison with the great sister universityseems almost inevitable, and, since it is so usual to find that Oxfordis regarded as pre-eminent on every count, we are tempted to makecertain claims for the slightly less ancient university. These claimsare an important matter if Cambridge is to hold its rightful positionin regard to its architecture, its setting, and its atmosphere.Beginning with the last, we do not hesitate to say that there is amore generally felt atmosphere of repose, such as the mind associateswith the best of our cathedral cities, in Cambridge than is to beenjoyed in the bigger and busier university town. This is in part dueto Oxford's situation on a great artery leading from the Metropolis tolarge centres of population in the west; while Cambridge, although itgrew up on a Roman road of some importance, is on the verge of thewide fenlands of East Anglia, and, being thus situated off thetrade-ways of England, has managed to preserve more of that genial andscholarly repose we would always wish to find in the centres oflearning, than has the other university.
Then this atmosphere is little disturbed by the modern accretions tothe town. On the east side, it is true, there are new streets of dulland commonplace terraces, which one day an awakened England will wipeout; there are other elements of ugly sordidness, which the lack of aguiding and controlling authority, and the use of distressinglyhideous white bricks, has made possible, but it is quite conceivablethat a visitor to the town might spend a week of sight-seeing in theplace without being aware of these sho