Cambridge (England) -- Pictorial works; University of Cambridge -- Pictorial works
Shakespeare), Bacon, Milton, Dryden.[389] The first history of English
literature also comes from the hand of a Cantabrigian, John Bale. There
are two other classes of English literature to which reference must be
made. The novelists as we have already seen have not been _alumni_ of
our universities, partly because this is a field in which women have
attained the highest rank, partly because there seems to be that
something more of the artistic afflatus in the novelist’s craft and that
something less of the academic, as compared with the other forms of
literature, which we should à priori have certainly predicated of poetry
also. A list of the novelists, from Mrs. Afra Behn to George Meredith
would however show how different is the case of the novelists to that of
the poets.
The last branch of literature, the importance of which is much greater
than its literary merit, is journalism. Here, too, Cambridge led the
way, though here, as elsewhere, it has not maintained its position. It
was Roger Le Strange who as sole licenser and authorised printer and
publisher of news, printed the first number of the “London
Gazette”;[390] and Andrew
[Sidenote: A.D. 1658-78.]
Marvell’s newsletters to his constituents at Hull were among the
earliest attempts at parliamentary reporting.
[Sidenote: The learned professions.]
When we turn to philosophy, we find that Cambridge has been singularly
poor in metaphysicians, logicians, and political philosophers.
Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Oxford all precede her. Among eminent
representatives of the learned faculties Cambridge had, with the
exception of Segrave, Bateman, and Beaufort, no great churchmen in the
xiv century. In the xvth it can boast that it nurtured Thomas Langton,*
Fox,* Rotherham,* Alcock,* Tunstall, and Fisher.* In the next century
Cambridge has it all its own way, the succession of primates is hers,
and nearly every one of the prelates who took the leading parts in that
busy century were Cambridge _alumni_: Fox,* Gardiner,* Latimer,*
Ridley,* Cranmer,* Parker,* Grindal,* Whitgift,* Bancroft.[391] In the
xvii century Andrewes,* Cosin,* Williams* the opponent of Laud, Taylor,
Stillingfleet, and the primates Bancroft, Sancroft, Tillotson, Tenison,
represented the university.
Cambridge has also contributed her large share of the lawyers, lords
chancellors and chief justices of England, from Thorpe, Cavendish and
Beaufort in the reigns of Edward III. and his successors to Booth,
Rotherham, Alcock, Fox, Ruthall, Goodrich, Wriothesley, Gardiner, Heath,
Coke, the two Bacons, Williams, Guilford and Lyndhurst in later times.
The great physicians, Caius, “Butler of Cambridge,” Gilbert, Harvey,
Wharton, Sydenham,[392] Paris, Grew, Sir William Browne and Sir Samuel
Garth, were all Cambridge men, and illustrate the early history of
medicine from the xvi century to the xixth.
[Sidenote: Statesmen and diplomatists.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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