Christ’s may be cited as a fair specimen of the normal Cambridge college. Its court and gate-tower have suffered considerably since they were first built, having been recased with stone in 1724. This pious work was undertaken with funds supplied by Dr Thomas Lynford, fellow of the college and Archdeacon of Barnstaple, and is as well done as one can expect of anything so radical. Two years later, the west front of Pembroke was treated in the same way, and the two may be cited together as in some measure a vindication of the early Georgian restorer. All that was done was to make the face of the college flat and remove all superficial irregularities, while the general lines of the building were scrupulously maintained. Dr Lynford is not responsible for the interior of the court, which belongs to a later part of the[163] century, and is due to Essex or one of his kind. Originally, we may imagine a quadrangle of dark red brick, very like the courts at St John’s and Queens’. The gate-towers of all three colleges are very similar; in that of Christ’s the foundress’ statue is a modern addition. The present chapel, north of the court, is substantially the chapel of Lady Margaret Beaufort’s foundation, and the small vestries are partly of that date. As for the rest, it is very good work of the middle of the last century imposed on Italian Gothic, and the antechapel, with its wooden columns, is admirable. Above the altar is a good window by some German or Flemish artist, not unlike the east window at Peterhouse, and of much the same period. The organ, in a gallery north of the sanctuary, is by Father Smith, and the case is an excellent piece of woodwork. At the west end is a curious portrait of the foundress, and the chapel has a strong historical interest as the burying-place of the Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth, More, and Mede.

Between the Chapel and Hall stands the Master’s Lodge, placed so as to communicate with both. The Hall has been very well[164] restored, and is now a good Gothic hall, with an oriel full of excellent portrait glass, representing all the worthies of the college, from the Lady Margaret down to Paley in his archdeacon’s apron and Darwin in his doctor’s gown. Beyond the hall, and facing westwards, is the lovely building of 1642, which is usually attributed to Inigo Jones. A range of older buildings, constituting the south side of the court, used to impede the full view of this beautiful structure; but these were moved back early in the century, and rebuilt in the hideous taste of the time. However, we are the gainers by it. Although the work at Clare is, as a whole, a better specimen of the period, the Christ’s building has the advantage of perfect uniformity, and is an excellent example of the transition from Renaissance Gothic to the style of which Wren is the chief exponent. Its base is pierced by a gateway leading into the famous garden, a classic resort which is a very competent rival of any garden at Oxford. Of the new buildings at the north-eastern extremity of the college, it is unnecessary to say anything; they are moderate, but are hardly worth a detailed[165] inspection. Their architect was Mr J. J. Stevenson. Within the last three years Messrs Bodley and Garner have been employed upon the street front, and, needless to say, have restored it with their usual conservative skill.

For the beginnings of Christ’s College we must go back to the year 1436. William Bingham, Rector of St John Zachary in the city of London, founded a small hostel or Grammar College in connection with Clare, and placed it on a site which is now occupied by the western part of King’s College Chapel and a portion of the great court of King’s. Four years later, Henry VI.’s great experiment forced Bingham to seek other quarters, which he eventually found in Preachers’ Street, the thoroughfare leading from the Barnwell Gate to the Dominican Friary. Here he re-founded his college under the picturesque name of God’s House, which it had already borne in its former position. But, like so many similar institutions, its revenues languished. Bingham’s society was to consist of a master with the title of Proctor, and of twenty-four scholars. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the house maintained only four scholars besides the Proctor. There is a story that the great John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was bred at this hostel; and that his affection for it was the cause which moved him to bring its destitution to the notice of his friend, Lady[166] Margaret Beaufort. It is, at all events, more than certain that Fisher, who guided his patroness in her pious resolves, called her attention to the case, and so laid the foundation, as it were, of Christ’s and St John’s. There is no satisfactory evidence as to the time at which she conceived the idea of founding St John’s. Probably, the notion of a college had taken her fancy long before, and it is not unlikely that the opportunity of founding two colleges presented itself at one time. At any rate, her first work was to re-establish God’s House in 1505. The task of converting St John’s Hospital into St John’s College required several years of preliminaries and formalities. But in God’s House she had a college already to her hand. Henry VI. had apparently promised Bingham some compensation for the removal of the house, but the greater work of founding King’s and the civil troubles which soon engrossed the crown had prevented him from fulfilling his promise. The Lady Margaret, devoted to the memory of the “royal saint,” endowed the society on the scale approved by him, and provided funds for the maintenance of a master, twelve fellows and forty-seven scholars. And “from her singular devotion to the name of Jesus Christ”—the same motive which had prompted Alcock to call his foundation Jesus College—she founded the college under the invocation of Christ. We have thus two colleges at Cambridge which recall the popular devotion of the Name of Jesus, then lately established and approved.

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It may or may not be true that the foundress had rooms reserved for her use in the Master’s Lodge. The story seems contrary to the spirit of that age or of any other, but a point may have been stretched in her favour. The testimony for this legend rests upon an anecdote told by Fuller. “The Lady Margaret,” he says, “once … came to Christ’s College to behold it when partly built, and looking out of a window, saw the dean call a faulty scholar to correction, to whom she said ‘lente, lente,’ gently, gently, as accounting it better to mitigate his punishment than to procure his pardon; mercy and justice making the best medley to offenders.” This is scarcely sufficient authority for the tradition. There are no less than four portraits of the Lady Margaret in the college, the best of which is perhaps that at the west end of the chapel, closely resembling the picture in the hall at St John’s. The Combination Room also contains a portrait of Bishop Fisher, and both these pious friends of learning are commemorated in the oriel of the Hall. From the foundation of the college onwards, its history has been peaceful and comparatively uneventful. In its early years, it seems to have anticipated the lodging-house system, for we are told that some of the scholars were lodged in the Brazen George, an inn opposite the college, and that the doors of this hostelry were closed and opened at the same time as the doors of the college.

Leland the antiquary and Hugh Latimer were among the earlier members of the college. But the history of Christ’s is centred in one[168] event, the seven years’ residence of John Milton, who entered as a pensioner in 1625, and went down with his Master’s degree in 1632. “John Milton of London,” the entry runs in English “son of John Milton, was initialed in the elements of letters under Mr Gill, Master of St Paul’s School; was admitted a lesser pensioner Feb. 12th, 1624 [O.S.] under Mr Chappell, and paid entrance fee 10s.” Mr Chappell, on the authority of Dr Johnson, is said to have flogged the poet. “There is reason to believe that Milton was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is cer............