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of Trinity

this period.

the degree of that ungenial being, Gabriel Harvey, for his CHAP. VI. mastership of arts. From Pembroke, Neville was promoted to the mastership of Magdalene College, a post for which his ancient descent, in harmony with the traditions of the house, probably constituted an additional recommendation. From Condition Magdalene he passed on to be the head of Trinity, where he College at at once reaped the fruits of the judicious administration of Whitgift and Still. The society was free from domestic dissension. The finances were in a satisfactory condition. Theological contention was discouraged and kept in check. It was altogether a post of much dignity as well as one of high influence and importance. When king James was proclaimed King of England, Whitgift, in his capacity of primate, could think of no divine better fitted to bear to Scotland the united felicitations of the clergy of the realm than the master of Trinity College'. On succeeding to his Neville's new post, Neville very soon conceived, and lived to see carried its improveto successful completion, the grand design, on which he himself expended no less than £3000, whereby, for a mass of irregular and unsightly buildings, was substituted an erection which an Oxford contemporary somewhat hyperbolically describes as,

-the wonderment

Of Christendom and eke of Kent3.

'I think,' wrote Giles Fletcher, in dedicating one of his poems to Neville, (King Henrie the 8 being the uniter, Edward 3 the founder, and yourself the repairer of this college wherein I live) none will blame me, if I esteem the same, since your polishing of it, the fairest sight in Cambridge".

1 Neal, History of the Puritans, I 4.

2 Cum structurae deformitatem insignem et cubiculorum seriem male cohaerentem animadvertisset, huic (in primo fere suo introitu) collegii hujus amplitudinem ardenti desiderio concupiscenti, subiit animum tanto consilio haud indigna cogitatio,' etc. Liber Memorialis in Trinity College Library. The compiler of the text in this splendid volume tells us that

on Neville's entering upon the office
his arms were forthwith emblazoned
in its pages,-'qui honos ante Nevil-
lum habitus est nemini.' The same
honour was however paid to his suc-
cessor Richardson.

3 Verses by Corbet, afterwards
bishop Corbet, on the royal visit in
1615. Cooper, Annals, III 77.

Dedication prefixed to Christ's Victorie (2nd ed.). Cambridge: printed for Francis Green. 1632.

designs for

ment.

CHAP. VI.

administra

tion.

The more general effects of Neville's administration are Effects of his to be recognised in the great increase which took place in the numbers of the college. In 1617 they had risen to 340, while those of St John's were only 205, a disparity much beyond that which obtained towards the close of the century'. From this time, however, Trinity may be looked upon as taking up that leading position among the Cambridge societies which only one other college had ever been able even to contest. Neville, says one who was an undergraduate of the college during his mastership, 'never had his like in that orb for a splendid, courteous, and bountiful gentleman".'

RICHARD CLAYTON, master of St John's, 1595-1612.

OWEN GWYNNE, master of St John's, 1612-33.

His successor at Magdalene was Richard Clayton, and in 1595 Clayton was transferred from Magdalene to the mastership of St John's. Of the general character of his administration there, we have already noted some indications. Baker's sketch gives us the impression of one whose rather superficial qualifications gained for him an amount of popularity considerably in excess of his real merits. When it has been conceded that he was a man of energetic temperament, with considerable aptitude for business, and well fitted to shine in fashionable society, we shall probably have recoguised not inadequately his best qualities. On the other hand, while he himself died wealthy, the college declined alike in learning and in numbers under his rule. Nor did matters. improve under Owen Gwynne, who succeeded him in 16123; an easy indolent man, whose election has drawn from Baker his frank declaration in favour of crown nominations as pre

1 In 1672 the numbers were 400 and 372 respectively: see the useful conspectus given in Mr Wordsworth's University Life, pp. 641-3. In considering these earlier statistics it is to be borne in mind that college servants were then included in the enumeration.

2 Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, 1 24.

3 The three great men most in view (for he that was chosen was not great) were Dr Morton, dean of Winchester, Dr Carey, master of Christ's, and Dr Meriton, then or lately fellow of Queens'. They were all of them

originally of St John's (Dr Carey had been twice chosen fellow in an unusual manner) but being then no gremials, nor very solicitous for a preferment they did not want, they were easily supplanted by a man of less worth, but of more intrigue and greater ambition.' Baker - Mayor, p. 198. As Cary had been presented by Gwynne in March, 1610, to the rectory of Toft, in Cambridgeshire, the two were probably on friendly terms; and we may infer that the former, as Baker implies, did not exert himself to be elected in his benefactor's place.

of both as

admini

ments in the

college

guished

of the

ferable to the free choice of the fellows, and who, according CHAP. VI, to Hacket, was little more than a roi fainéant'. Something Remissness however must be placed to the credit of Clayton and Gwynne, strators. when we recall that under the former St John's built its Improvesecond court; while under the latter, its noble library was notwithconstructed and its excellent system of registration of ad- standing. missions first commenced2. If again its own Head seemed Distin- ̧ hardly worthy to rule the society over which Metcalfe and members Whitaker had once presided, St John's might find some society. cause for pride in the reflexion that its sons were ruling in other colleges, and that there were heads of Corpus, St Catherine's, Magdalene, Christ's, and Sidney, at this period, who had all been educated within its walls. A later generation, again, might scarcely fail to note how conspicuously in after years the names of some of the younger members became interwoven with the intense action of the time: the statesman, who typified all that was most heroic and disinterested in the devoted Royalist,-the general, who personified the dauntless resolve and the military genius of the Parliament,-the intrepid primate, who struggled on until all seemed lost, and at last succumbed only to old age and grief combined,-Thomas Wentworth, Fairfax, and archbishop Williams-such are the names to which St John's can point at this period as among those of its most illustrious and loyal sons3.

1- there was another in that college, whose name is best concealed, that was a robustious driver of canvasses, who took the whole rule from Mr Gwin (a soft man and given altogether to ease) into his own hand, and was like the Major Domo, by whom all suits passed and every student stooped to him for his preferment.' Life of Archbishop Williams, p. 23; see also Baker-Mayor, p. 199.

2 On the 21st of January 1629-30, the master and senior fellows of St John's College made the following order: That the register of the college should have a booke provided him, wherein he should from time to time write and register the names, parents, country, school, age and

tutor of every one to be admitted
into the college before their enrolling
into the buttery tables; and shall re-
ceive of each of them for his pains as
the head lecturers and deans do, for
their admission.' See Admissions to
the College of St John the Evangelist
in the University of Cambridge [edited
by Prof. John E. B. Mayor] 1882-

3 For Wentworth see Mozley (J. B.)
Essays, I 5; for Williams, Baker-
Mayor, pp. 208-9. Lucius Cary,
lord Falkland, appears to have been
entered on the books of the college
so early as 1621 when only 11 years
of age, but the period when he actu-
ally resided is uncertain. See Baker-
Mayor, pp. 531-2; Tulloch, Rational
Theology in England, 1 83-81.

CHAP, VI,

AND CHRIST'S

The college which came next to St John's in point of EMMANUEL numbers was Emmanuel. If indeed we allow for the great COLLEGES. difference in the number of fellowships on the two foundations, fifty-four on the former, and only twelve on the latter, Emmanuel appears, for a brief period, to have been able to reckon the larger number of undergraduates,--the total numbers being 205 and 200 respectively'. In order fully to understand the position of the chief centre of the Puritan party in the university, it will however be necessary first to pay some attention to the course of events at the neighbouring foundation of Christ's College, which together with Caius and Queens' stands next in numerical strength, each of these three societies appearing in John Scot's pages as possessing a total of 160. We have already seen in what energetic terms the fellows of Christ's, when anticipating in 1582 the intrusion of an uncongenial Head, appealed to Condition of Sir Walter Mildmay for protection. In obtaining the apsociety under pointment of Edmund Barwell, they probably held that their 1582-1609. agitation had proved successful, but the sequel can hardly have failed to suggest to their recollection the pregnant line which enforces the trite experience, that the too indulgent Gods have sometimes overthrown houses at the prayer of the possessors themselves. Barwell was sufficiently indifferent to discipline and ceremonial not to offend the prejudices of the most Puritanical member of the society, but his defects as an administrator were such as none could overlook. The morale and the financial condition of the college became alike deplorable. He himself set the example of neglect of the scholastic dress. The 'commonplaces' in chapel, discourses originally designed pithily to suggest some topic for profitable reflexion and of which brevity was regarded as an essential feature,-were lengthened out, so as resemble sermons, and filled with personalities, while the

the latter

Barwell,

Charges
brought
against
Dr Barwell
in 1582.

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college exercises and acts in the schools were neglected or CHAP. VI. performed in the most perfunctory manner. The fines and leases were appropriated by the fellows and their commons raised from 12d. to three shillings per week, while the scholars were defrauded of their rightful allowance. Barwell's special deficiencies may be inferred from the fact that although he held the mastership for twenty-seven years he was never elected to the office of vice-chancellor1.

PERKINS

b. 1558.

If indeed the fortunes of Christ's College had depended upon the master, it can hardly be doubted that the fate of the society would have been very much of the kind which the fellows so strongly deprecated on the eve of Barwell's election. They had prayed to be delivered from a king Stork and they received a king Log. From the year 1584 to 1602, the reputation of the house was however largely upheld by the name and teaching of one of its fellows, the WILLIAM celebrated William Perkins. Originally noted as a student of Christ's: for recklessness and profanity and his addiction to the d. 1602. prevalent vice of drunkenness, he had been driven by a trivial incident to reflexion and ultimately to the adoption of a better life. He gained a fellowship; and having taken orders received the appointment of lecturer at the church of Great St Andrew's, where his singular abilities as a preacher soon attracted large audiences and permanently established his fame. At first, he seemed likely to identify himself with His Puritan the extreme Puritan party, and in 1587 he had actually been summoned before Dr Copcot, the vice-chancellor, to answer interrogatories respecting sentiments to which he had given expression in a college 'commonplace.' But eventually wiser counsels prevailed. He consented to take the oath ex officio; and he also made full disclosure of all that he knew respecting the Puritan assemblies which about that time were being held at St John's'; while he subsequently systematically abstained from the expression of any opinion on disputed

Christ's College, Cambridge, by C. A. Swainson, M.A. and A. H. Wratislaw, M.A. London, 1848.' Of the sixteen discourses which it contains, few would occupy more than ten mi

nutes in delivery.

1 Cooper, Athenae, 11 522-3.
2 Cooper, Athenae, 11 335.
3 Supra, pp. 323, 339.

tendencies.

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