480
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. ix. JUNE H, 1902,
somely got up, and has many interesting designs of
London in the period of the first Georges, is a mine
of delight to the antiquary.
Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. By John Venn, Sc.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., Senior Fellow of the College. 3 vols. (Cambridge, University Press.)
OUR warmest congratulations are due to Dr. Venn on his successful achievement of the unique task of compiling a biographical history of the third largest college in Cambridge. In the first two volumes (it will be remembered) he gave a wonder- fully ample account of all the members of the college from its foundation in 1349 to 1897. In the third and final volume he gives a biographical account of the successive masters of the college, with illus- trative extracts from the annals, gesta, bursars' books, &c., which forms practically a very interest- ing social and architectural history of the college from the earliest times to the present day. It is followed by a full description and history of the college buildings, the endowments, offices, schools, and almshouses, the college records, the commemo- ration of benefactors, a list of the antiquities still remaining in the college and of the portraits it pos- sesses, a description of the chief pieces of plate, a history of the boat club (by Mr. Roberts, senior tutor), and the livings in the gift of the college, with lists of incumbents, not to mention an appendix of transcripts of charters and other deeds.
Gonville and Caius College, founded by Edmund Gonville in 1347-8 as the Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, was originally located in Lurteburgh Lane (afterwards known as Free School Lane) ; but on the death of the founder in 1351 his executor, William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich (who was the founder of Trinity Hall), removed the Hall to its present position. The existing Gonville Court represents its condition at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the chapel walls being mainly original work of 1393 on the south side, the old hall of 1441 still existing on the west side, though cut up into chambers when the new hall was built in 1853 by Salvin. Probably the more reverent care of these later years would have kept the old hall in its original state to serve as a library, as has been wisely done at Balliol College, Oxford. The north wall of the court is also original, but the chambers were rebuilt in 1753. The second foundation by John Caius, who was President of the College of Physicians (at a festival dinner a few years ago, to commemorate the tercentenary of the admission of William Harvey to the college, the writer well remembers the then President, Sir Andrew Clarke, exhibiting the silver mace given by Caius to the College of Physicians side by side with the one which he had presented to his new foundation), and physician to Edward VI. and Queen Mary, took place in 1557, and the buildings of Caius Court are the actual ones erected by Caius after that date. The court is open to the south, a special and wise proviso of the founder, so as to admit sunlight and air. With the somewhat elaborate allegorical taste of the age, his entrance gateway in Trump- ington Street was called the Gate of Humility (it now adorns the Master's garden is this a latter-day allegory?); thence the student would proceed to the Gate of Virtue, and, turning to the left, through Caius Court, would leave the college by the Gate of Honour, leading to the Schools, and now to the Senate House thus typify-
ing the seemly and well-ordered progress of the
undergraduate in his time of residence in the
university. In the third, or Tree Court, several
groups of buildings known as the Perse and Legge
Buildings were pulled down when the present front
of the college, in the French Renaissance style, was
built in 1870 from the designs of Mr. Waterhouse.
This new building admirably designed, and a
splendid piece of architecture seems singularly
out of place in the main street of a mediaeval
English university. Caius himself, William Harvey,
Jeremy Taylor, John Hookham Frere, the late
Lord Esher, Lord Thurlow, and the late Sir George
Paget are only a few out of many distinguished
names of former members of the college.
Many interesting matters are dealt with in this volume. The first mention of bedmakers, for instance, occurs in the college chronicle of 14 April, 1702 ; that of " finding," the term applied to the waiters in hall, dates from 1724 ; while the rather handsome gown of blue faced with velvet was intro- duced in 1837. The history of the boat club brings out the fact that the light blue and white straw hat had been adopted by the college before the university ; when the latter did so the college changed the hat for a black straw one, as at present. The old notion was that the light blue was given to the college as a distinction for its having been chosen to represent the university, as the head boat of the river, in 1844 against a Cambridge town boat club crew, which it beat.
It need hardly be added that the three volumes are produced in excellent style, with good and satisfactory illustrations, by the Cambridge Univer- sity Press. An improvement would be possible in the shape of top edges gilt.
jjtotim 10
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