Part 12

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.

The quarrels of Bentley’s mastership form a period by themselves in the 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.