NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 605

NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. THE foundation of Trinity College is thus given by Fuller in brief and concise language : ‘ There was a general decay of students, no college having more scholars therein than barely those of the foundation, no volunteers at all, and only persons, in a manner, by their places, to reside. Indeed, on the fall of Abbeys, fell the hearts of all scholars, fearing the ruin of learning. And these their jealousies they humbly represented in a bemoaning letter to King Henry VIII. He comforted them with his generous return, and to confute their resolution of the decay of Colleges, acquainted them with his resolution to erect a most magnificent one with all speedy conveniency. Whereupon he seized Michael House into his hands, and King’s Hall, the best landed foundation in the University. Also he took Phiswick’s hostel, a house unendowed, and allowed the Gonvillians (still grumbling thereat at not sufficient compensation) a year in lieu thereof, till he should give them better satisfaction. Of these three he compounded one fair college, dedicating it to the holy and undivided Trinity, and endowing it with plentiful revenues.’ Queen Mary added greatly to her father’s foundation, in her desire to do something to that father's memory ; and Queen Elizabeth gave a body of statutes and placed the foundation on a firm footing. These college statutes have been revised during the present reign and ‘ the affairs of the college are now administered under the Victorian Statutes.’ We will now describe more particularly our illustrations—and the first in point of interest is the King’s Gateway. ‘Trinity,’ says the Reverend Frederick Arnold, ‘ has expanded across the street, as St. John’s Las expanded across the river.’ On the one side is the Master’s Court, * the latest additions to the Cambridge Collegiate buildings.’ Opposite is the vast portal of Trinity, that noble

gateway tower called the King’s Gateway. The great canopied statue that fronts you in the niche between the windows, and which first seizes the eye, is the statue of Henry VIII. This tower was built by the scholars of Trinity in the time of King Henry, and still preserves its original appearance.

Passing beneath the portal of this gateway we enter the Great Court, ‘ perhaps the most spacious quadrangle in the world.’ On the north side is the chapel, with its tall windows and pinnacled buttresses. On the west is the Master’s Lodge, and on the same side is the lofty Gothic Hall, with its high-peaked Flemish roof; the other spaces of the sides of the quadrangle are filled up with unpretending ranges of rooms. The lofty stone conduit, Neville’s fountain, named after Trinity’s most munificent benefactor, always abounding with clear cold water, greatly helps the picturesqueness of the court. The great gateway immediately adjoining the chapel is adorned with a large dial, beneath which is a statue of Edward HI., with the motto —Pugna pro patriA. On the south is a third gateway with four lofty towers at the corners and with a statue of Queen Elizabeth in her robes of state, hence called the Queen’s Gateway.

The library was begun by the famous Barrow. The design being given by Wren gratuitously, it is built in his favourite style of the old Italian. One side looks on the river and the other on the court. Below the large room of the library itself is the colonade or piazza, supported by a row of Doric columns. The frontage toward the Court is protusely ornamented ; that facing the river is much simpler. ‘To enter the library we ascend a staircase of black marble, wainscoted with cedar. The coup d'rr.il on the first entrance into the library is extremely striking. Up the central avenue of that noble room, 190 feet by 40 feet, are book-cases one either side, adorned with exquisite carvings, and surrounded with busts.’ The number of books in the library is over 100,000.

New Court was built in the time of Dr. Wordsworth, a relative of the poet, and fath-r of the present Bishop of Lincoln, at a total cost of /'40,000.

The grounds of Trinity College —which subject brings us to our engravings of the ‘ Back Gate ’ and ‘ The Bridge’—are especially beautiful. The river, after laving the wall of the master's garden, makes a graceful curve that interposes a lawn between the stream and the library. The western gateway of the New Court leads over a cycloidal stone bridge to the beautiful avenue of lime trees, whose high leafy arches form a natural cloister such as suggested Gothic art. It is closed by a noble gate, which was bought by a fellow commoner of Trinity, and presented to his college after the demolition of the ancestral halls of the Montforts.

It now remains for us to describe the hall, and perhaps we cannot do better that take Mr Frederick Arnold, to whom we have already referred, as our guide : ‘ Long as it is, the number of undergraduates makes it necessary to have three dinners daily during term time. As we go in, we notice the passage outside. There is a screen on which is posted a great variety of notices. Now we look into the hall—which recalls what an old baronial hall must have been. In the winter months a charcoal fire is lit in the middle of the hall, on a pan or brazier, beneath the louvre or lantern ; and on high festival days when the tables are groaning with good cheer, and the tankard of the famous audit ale is passing along, you see Trinity with modern refinement superadded to its ancient glory. . . At the top of the hall is the high table or dais, where the fellowseat their dinner. Tbe walls ere wainscoted with carved oak. The roof is supported bycarved oak ornamented rafters. Of oak are the fine ranges of tables through the hall, and of oak the benches. The lofty Tudor windows are stained with armorial bearings, and at the upper end the hall was a kind of transept, formed by five gorgeous oriels illuminated with the coats of arms of peers and prelates who have belonged to Trinity.’