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 colleg............