the first court of st john’s is almost as composite as the great court of trinity, and the want of harmony between its parts is rather painfully evident. the chapel, however, is the only important extension of the original plan as carried out by the lady margaret’s executors, and the rest of the court survives with certain changes. the gateway of the college is one of the gate-towers so characteristic of cambridge, and is perhaps the most beautiful of all. one of the great advantages of st john’s is that it is built of red brick, which, with time, has assumed a mellow appearance; and thus it is, in certain respects, one of the most picturesque colleges in the university. the court and tower belong to 1520. above the doorway, on the street side, are the arms of lady margaret, supported[177] by the beaufort antelopes, on a ground in which the daisy, the foundress’ punning emblem, occurs very lavishly. although much obliterated by time, this is still a very good piece of heraldic sculpture. other familiar signs, which the least arch?ological undergraduate learns to recognise, are the tudor rose and beaufort portcullis. above this elaborate armorial display is a figure of st john the evangelist, added in 1662. lady margaret’s statue is to be found in an ugly niche over the entrance to the hall screens; it is in a pseudo-classical taste, and exaggerates her pious emaciation of feature.
the hall has been altered a good deal, but it is an interesting apartment, long, dark and narrow, like a conventual refectory. its darkness is due partly to the fine wainscoting, which is of the linen-pattern, partly to the deep colours of the heraldic windows, whose interest is historical rather than artistic. the fresco of the upper part is not very successful. at the end of the hall is a curious portrait of the foundress, in the manner of lucas van heere, which bears comparison with her picture in[178] christ’s. she is supported by full-length portraits of archbishop williams and ralph hare, benefactors to the college. one of the most interesting pictures is the well-known portrait of wordsworth by pickersgill; and the modern portrait of professor palmer in full arab attire (john collier) usually attracts comment. st john’s hall is not rich in portraits, a deficiency which is remedied by the collection at the lodge.
no other college unfolds its architectural history in so leisurely a way as st john’s. we pass from the first to the second court, from 1520 to 1598. in the latter year, ralph symons, who was supplying dr nevile at trinity with designs, began to build this beautiful quadrangle. mary cavendish, countess of shrewsbury, is the benefactress to whom the college is indebted, and her statue occupies the niche over the gate-tower between this and the third court. some will have it that this is the best piece of contemporary building in cambridge, and it certainly has a peculiar charm, due to its studious, sober air. the sole ornaments of this gabled enclosure are the two charming[181] oriels in the centre of the north and south side, and the gate-tower, which is not unlike the similar tower at hampton court. along the first floor of the north side of the court runs the long gallery, once a part of the master’s lodge, but now the combination room. it is the best combination room in oxford or cambridge. at present it is divided into two parts by a wainscoting, but this hinders the general effect very little. the plastered ceiling is very richly ornamented with pendants and formal arabesques, and has much in common with other splendid ceilings of the same date. when the doors of the inner room and of the library beyond are both open, an incomparable vista is obtained, and the two apartments are transformed into a single gallery.
as a matter of fact, a landing, approached from the second court by a picturesque oak staircase, separates the combination room from the library, which occupies the whole north side of the somewhat gloomy third court. over the door are the arms of lord keeper williams, impaled on the coat of his see of[182] lincoln. this famous prelate contributed entirely to its erection, and his initials and the date 1624 are lettered in white stone outside the western oriel. it was completed in 1628, and remains unaltered, a very charming specimen of italian gothic. its interior, with its high timber roof and fine bookcases, is the beau idéal of a library interior. there are two stories: the upper contains the valuable collection of ancient books and the bequests of various benefactors such as matthew prior, the lower is devoted to more modern books. the rest of the court was not built till 1669, and is therefore a little later than the buildings at clare, with which it has some affinity. its western gateway and cloister form an excellent termination to the long perspective of st john’s from the outer street. and the view of the court and library from the river is too well known to need remark.
beyond the third court we are on modern ground. mr rickman’s bridge of sighs is the beginning of the long cloister which forms one side of the new court. the view from the bridge, including ralph symons’ lovely[185] kitchen bridge and the sweep of the cam as it rounds the corner opposite trinity library, is more beautiful than the bridge itself; but the bridge, in its turn, is the most meritorious part of this immense court, in itself a college. it was built from mr rickman’s designs between 1827 and 1831, and is a proof of the common criticism that its architect’s theory was vastly superior to his practice. the extremely ornate cloister, with its traceried openings and vast central gateway, has no raison d’être, and the rest of the court is merely a huge barrack with a pretentious central staircase. from certain parts of the “backs,” when the shallow detail is sufficiently screened by trees, it forms an effective background to the prospect; but, near at hand, its effect is bare and ponderous.
all modern changes in the original buildings are to be found in the first court. in the original plan the master’s lodge adjoined the hall on the south, and the chapel on the north, and filled up an angle between them. the court existed thus till 1774, when essex came here, as to other colleges, and faced the south side with the present front, which might[186] be creditable in harley street or cavendish square, but is merely ugly in a college. further, in the early sixties, the college resolved to build a new chapel. the old one, whose site is marked by the slabs in the grass south of the existing chapel, was never a very remarkable building and was quite inadequate. so, in 1863, sir gilbert scott came, built the chapel, and remodelled the court. the master’s lodge was taken down, the hall was lengthened by two bays, one of which is a new oriel, the staircase and lobby leading to the combination room were made, and the new lodge was built on the ground north of the library. scott’s immense chapel is, no doubt, too large for its purpose, and the heavy tower is painfully out of proportion to the rest, especially when seen from the west end. the style is typical of the architect’s genius for imitation. he knew two buildings by heart, the sainte chapelle and the angel choir at lincoln, and he put them into all his designs with a fatal formality. the exterior of st john’s chapel is somewhat tedious, and every detail is just a little too prominent—the statues in the buttresses, for[187] example. on the whole, scott’s chapel at exeter college, oxford, is much better. but inside the building is very striking, especially the transeptal antechapel, which, in spite of the bad glass at the north end, recalls the antechapel of new college at oxford. the tower inside is open to the first storey, and in the higher window there are good fragments of old glass. the glass in the inner chapel and in the great west window is by clayton and bell. lord powis, high steward of the university at the time, gave the windows in the apse, and the rest are in memory of friends and benefactors of the college. the chapel was consecrated in 1869 by dr harold browne, then bishop of ely. some of the old stalls from the original chapel, with their miserere seats, have been kept; and the fine early english piscina which belonged to the chapel of st john’s hospital has been incorporated in the arcading of the chancel. it belongs to a local class which includes the piscina at jesus chapel and the piscinae in the transepts at histon, three miles away. another relic is the altar tomb of hugh ashton, archdeacon[188] of york, who was one of the foundress’ executors and died in 1522. the upper portion of the monument is canopied and richly coloured; the lower part is open and contains the “cadaver,” which was fashionable with ecclesiastics of the day. ashton’s rebus, an ash growing out of a tun, appears in various parts of the base and canopy. in the antechapel also are baily’s statue of dr wood, master of st john’s and dean of ely, and the old altar-piece by raphael mengs. other objects of interest are the paintings on the roof, a procession of illustrious churchmen and churchwomen of every age leading up to the figure of our lord in glory, which occupies the centre panel of the roof in the apse; the fine organ by messrs hill; and the marbles in the chancel. the chapel is 172 feet long and 63 feet high to the inner roof. the pitch of the outer roof is 80 feet, and the tower rises to 140 feet.
the master’s lodge is a comfortable building, and contains a number of pictures, including two portraits of charles i. and henrietta maria by vandyck, and a large portrait of matthew[189] prior (rigaud) in his official robes. since then, the only addition of structural importance to this interesting college has been the wing known as the chapel court, which runs at right angles to the main building opposite the west door of the chapel. this was added in 1884, by mr f. c. penrose, and is of red brick with white stone dressings and with a louvre in the centre. the college grounds have been laid out from time to time, and, with their winding walks and beautiful fellow’s garden, are the most interesting and romantic of all the gardens near the river.
in founding st john’s college, lady margaret beaufort followed the precedent of bishop alcock. it is curious to observe how the most fervent catholics of the renaissance era subordinated monasticism to the revived learning and disestablished religious houses on merely nominal pretexts. the close likeness between the document which explains the dissolution of st rhadegund’s nunnery and that which excused the abolition of st john’s hospital detracts from the value of the charges they contain and leads us to believe that they are merely repetitions of a recognised form. st john’s hospital was a small religious alms-house which had been founded in 1135 by one henry frost,[190] and was under the management of black canons. it had a certain importance as being the first site of hugh de balsham’s collegiate scheme. he grafted his scholars upon the monastic stock, but his plan was anything but a success, and he removed his protégés to peterhouse. the hospital was not a very flourishing affair, and, whether the charges of immorality were true or not, there was sufficient excuse for its dissolution in the fact that in 1509 it contained only two brethren. the lady margaret, in that same year, the year of her own and her son’s death, obtained leave to suppress it and found a college on its site. she had been prompted to this work by her confessor and faithful adviser, john fisher, bishop of rochester, himself a man of great distinction in the university, a friend of learned men and a patron of study. and, although the college is very justly proud of its royal foundress and shares her coat-of-arms with christ’s college, the active part of the work was carried out by fisher as her executor. the charter of foundation was granted by henry viii. in 1511, and fisher himself consecrated the chapel in 1516. it follows that, although fisher was a member of queens’ college, his name is connected almost entirely with st john’s. this close relation of one man to two colleges is clearly manifested by the likeness which those parts of st john’s built by fisher’s instrumentality bear to parts of queens’ college.
st john’s college was the last and greatest of the lady margaret’s works. when we think[191] of the benefits which she conferred on oxford and cambridge, her noble provisions for the theological schools of both universities, and her two foundations in cambridge, we can only echo the words of the funeral sermon preached by fisher in her honour, that the “students of both universities, to whom she was as a mother … for her death had cause of weeping.” very few colleges have so tender an attachment to a founder’s memory as that which st john’s has for lady margaret’s; there are very few colleges which are so haunted, as it were, by their founder’s spirit. and the history of st john’s is a record worthy of the lady margaret. although, in after years, it was a little overshadowed by the greater glory of trinity, it kept the second place against all competitors, and its roll of illustrious names is almost as crowded as that of trinity itself.
the first master was robert shorton, who continued in the college for five years, after which time he became master of pembroke. his portrait is to be found among the great collection in the master’s lodge. the early masters of the college followed one another very rapidly; in fact, between 1511 and 1612 we find no less than seventeen names, an almost unique instance of quick succession. under the tudors, too, the college history is not profoundly interesting. it is evident that, during the reign of edward vi., the fashionable genevan doctrines became popular in the college. thomas leaver, master in 1551, was a supporter of the new religion, and was,[192] of course, ejected by mary. however, with elizabeth’s reign the puritan spirit returned in double force. the two pilkingtons, who occupied the mastership in succession, introduced their genevan and german friends to the universities, and sought to model university life upon the system followed by the foreign calvinists. it is worthy of remark that while, during this period, trinity was producing bacon, st john’s had already produced the great burghley, the first of her illustrious sons, and perhaps the most illustrious of them all. st john’s became for many years the hereditary college of the cecil family. the connection between the college and both branches of that great house is still kept up in the prize exercise known as the “burghley verses,” one copy of which is sent annually to hatfield and another to burghley.[7]
the accession of noble families to the college and the consequent growth of court influence probably weaned the foundation from its puritanism. dr whitaker* was the last of the genevan school. he was a married man, and kept up an establishment for his wife in the town. the college prospered exceedingly in his time. these were the days of dr nevile of trinity, when cambridge received her most[193] beautiful buildings. whitaker’s successor, dr richard clayton, who ruled from 1595 to 1612, had the felicity of seeing the second court built under his auspices. among the fellows at this time were richard neile,* and thomas morton,* who, as archbishop of york and bishop of durham, were great benefactors to the college. and, with the reign of james i., the college began to distinguish itself, like st john the baptist’s college at oxford, as a royalist institution. thomas wentworth, earl of strafford,* the great lord lieutenant of ireland, and lucius cary, viscount falkland,* the blameless hero of the cavalier party, are the celebrities of the first half of the seventeenth century. in william beale,* master from 1633 to 1644, the king had an enthusiastic supporter. in his time the college plate was melted down, and many valuable pieces were sacrificed. the plate was sent across country to charles, who was then at york or nottingham, and the passage was so well contrived that the convoy escaped the ambush set by oliver cromwell. dr beale was less happy, for cromwell, in a fury, marched upon cambridge, and took him prisoner while he was at his prayers in chapel. in company with dr martin of queens’ and dr sterne of jesus, he was taken off to london and imprisoned in the tower. he died in 1646. during the commonwealth, the college was ruled by dr arrowsmith and dr tuckney, but at the restoration the famous divine, dr peter gunning,* became master, having been[194] previously master of corpus. he was made bishop of ely in 1670, when he was succeeded by francis turner.* in course of time, turner succeeded gunning at ely. with these prelates we may couple the name of edward stillingfleet,* the well-known bishop of worcester.
thomas baker,* the historian of st john’s college, deserves honourable mention. the treasure which oxford possesses in anthony wood, st john’s finds in baker, whose accurate history, quaintly and piously written, is a mine of information on the subject of cambridge life during the seventeenth century. baker was a royalist of considerable bias and a non-juror, in consequence of which he lost his fellowship. he was careful to describe himself on his title-page as socius ejectus, and gloried in the distinction. he died in 1740 at the age of eighty-four. his devotion to his college, not only to the foundation itself, but to its remotest benefactors, is a quality unique even in those days of fidelity to a principle. he set the college an example by which it has profited. to-day no college in cambridge is in possession of such an amount of printed historical matter. professor mayor’s monumental edition of baker and of the life of ambrose bonwicke stand at the head of the list. mr torry’s extremely full and interesting notes on the roll of founders and benefactors are invaluable, while mr scott’s “notes from the college records,” which are published from time to time in the college magazine, form a supplement and commentary[195] to baker’s history. ambrose bonwicke, whose life is at once an exhortation to the painful student and a faithful picture of social life at cambridge, entered st john’s in 1710, the last year of the mastership of turner’s successor, humphrey gower. bonwicke died early, so that the story of his labours and exertions, phenomenal in a mere boy and impossible in our own age, has a vivid pathos. from the light which he throws upon college life of his time, we are led to imagine that, however luxurious it may have been then, it would now be insupportable, if conducted in the same way. but then the prime object of university life was study, and athletics and dinner-parties were considered foreign to the main purpose.
matthew prior,* although a man of a different type from baker, felt something of the same attachment for st john’s. he was sent to cambridge by his patron, the earl of dorset, and in course of time obtained a fellowship. with considerable forethought, he refused to give up his fellowship when promoted to high offices of state, and consequently, after his imprisonment by the whigs in 1715 and the loss of all his fortune, he managed to keep body and soul together at cambridge. the enormous portrait of him by rigaud, which is now in the master’s lodge, displays him in his robes as an ambassador, and is one of the most striking pictures in the college. he left a very beautiful collection of books to the library, among which may be mentioned a splendid folio edition of ronsard’s[196] poems. his poetry is essentially of the outer world and not of cambridge, but its culture and the academic flavour which is apparent in the most frivolous pieces bear clear testimony to the influence of the university on this light-hearted scholar. a very opposite type of scholarship—the laborious and critical—is represented by richard bentley,* who was a member of the society at the same time with matthew prior, and rose to further fame as master of trinity. in this period, too, divinity was well represented. to say nothing of bishops gunning and turner, great names in the history of theology, three masters of the college held, with their mastership, the lady margaret professorship of divinity within a very short time of each other. these were dr humphrey gower,* master in 1679, dr robert jenkin,* in 1711, and dr newcome in 1735.
since the arrest of dr beale, st john’s has enjoyed a very quiet history. in the eighteenth century, it produced the regulation number of noblemen and paid its full contribution to the cabinets of the period. towards the end of the century, we remark the name of the eccentric samuel parr, whose portrait hangs in the combination room, and of herbert marsh (* ponsford), the controversialist and bishop of peterborough, to whom professor mayor has devoted a large space in his edition of baker’s history. at the same time, we notice with interest that william wilberforce (* g. richmond) and thomas clarkson (* room) were at st john’s together, and, while there, doubtless[197] cultivated the humanitarianism which is their common title to fame. clarkson was a native of cambridgeshire, having been born at wisbech, where his father was master of the grammar school, in 1760. but, in 1787, st john’s received her most distinguished poet, william wordsworth (* pickersgill). he himself, in lines which are at once oddly prosaic and incomparably sublime, has described his impressions during his residence at cambridge. these, however, are the sole tie which binds him to the place; for his retiring nature led him very little into society, and his emotions and impressions were all highly subjective. he has told us where his rooms were, but, owing to constant alterations, their exact position has been somewhat disputed. they are at present turned into one of the kitchen store-rooms. some people, by a curious misreading of the text, have imagined that he could look into trinity antechapel from his rooms and see newton’s statue. as a matter of fact, he merely says that he could see the antechapel, and this feat is easily performed from any back-window on the south side of the first court. like most highly imaginative poets, and unlike the materialistic matthew prior, wordsworth was a dilatory student, and he deserted cambridge in 1791 for the wilder excitement of the french revolution.
it is probable that no one has derived so much earthly benefit from an early death as henry kirke white, who entered the college in 1804, died in 1806, and has ever since been reckoned[198] as one of its chief ornaments. he is also the only member of the university who has a public monument in cambridge. at the age of nineteen he was a very promising mathematician, and was patronised by southey as a rising poet. the small collection of poems and letters which constitute his “remains” show great religious fervour and some metrical skill, but their imagination is defective and morbid. his death excited great compassion, and his name still lives, in england and america, as that of a precocious genius. it is not unlikely that the greater name of henry martyn* is less widely known. this distinguished scholar and orientalist became a fellow in 1802, but left cambridge three years later to become a missionary. his life, short although it is, is a splendid record of devoted piety and self-denial. he went through dangers and privations in parts of the east which were then totally unknown to europeans, and died in the prosecution of his labours. he may be regarded as the forerunner of a great band of cambridge missionaries, the earliest name in a kalendar which includes ragland, mackenzie, patteson and smythies.
during the napoleonic wars, cambridge was possessed with a great martial ardour, and among the most active promoters of the volunteer movement of those days was lord temple,* who occupied rooms in the first court, looking out on the street. later on, this nobleman was better known as lord palmerston. one of those who enrolled themselves under his guidance was[199] that eccentric gentleman, patrick bront?, subsequently vicar of haworth in yorkshire and father of a family whose tragic history is well known to every student of english literature. with the name of palmerston, we touch modern times and come to the days of the scientific and mathematical pre-eminence of the college. an extraordinary number of great men have come from st john’s during the present reign. among scholars, benjamin hall kennedy (* ouless) has the first place. he was, before his election to the greek professorship, head master of shrewsbury, a school which has always been closely connected with st john’s. the most distinguished historian was the late charles merivale, dean of ely, whose history of the romans under the empire is a monument of cambridge scholarship. the names of scientists are legion, but one must not fail to mention john couch adams,* who was a johnian and a fellow of the college. the late james joseph sylvester (* emslie), although his genius was devoted to oxford, is another man of world-wide fame whom st john’s owns. the college supplied another distinguished professor to oxford in the person of charles pritchard, the well-known savilian professor. it is also necessary to mention the name of edward henry palmer, lord almoner’s reader in arabic, who, with one possible exception, was the best oriental scholar of the century. more intimately related to the college were the two babingtons, churchill and charles cardale,* who spent their lives at[200] cambridge and filled university professorships. it would be invidious to select names of living members of the college, but professor mayor, (* herkomer) the editor of juvenal, and the present bishop of gloucester, dr ellicott, have their position securely assured. recently, too, the death of the hon. charles pelham villiers, the “father of the house of commons,” robbed the college of an old member and constant friend. the modern history of st john’s is essentially progressive, and, under dr bateson and the present master, dr taylor, the college has been worked on broad and liberal lines. its yearly position in the schools testifies that it has in no way declined from its original purpose, and is still that nursery of learning which its foundress intended it to be. and, in connection with the modern development of the college, it is impossible not to say something of the college mission. st john’s was the first cambridge college which thought of extending its energies for the benefit of the poor in large towns, and its mission in a crowded part of walworth was the example which moved other colleges and schools to do something of the same kind. the result is shown in the beautiful church and group of buildings which form the nucleus of the parish. no more effectual realisation than this could be found of the ideal of the foundress and bishop fisher, that their work should not merely be accomplished for its own benefit, but that in time to come, what they had done for their scholars, their scholars should do for others.
