Cambridge and Its CollegesThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
Cambridge and Its Colleges
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
University of Cambridge
One of the first scholars of Trinity who saw Nevile’s work in its
complete state was George Herbert. He was born in 1593, the first
year of Nevile’s mastership, and entered Trinity at a very early age.
Although it is more natural to think of him as a parish priest and the
writer of the most beautiful devotional poetry in English, his career
at Cambridge was not without distinction. His early Latinity was as
perfect as Milton’s, and he filled the office of Public Orator of the
University. He is unique among Trinity men as the only important member
of the college who belonged to the most illustrious school of English
churchmen—the school which, under Andrewes, Laud and Cosin, placed the
Church of England on a logical and independent footing. The honours of
this school are shared rather unequally between the two Universities, but
Cambridge contributed a substantial quota to the whole sum. There is no
portrait of Herbert in the college, but he is commemorated in one of the
chapel windows. He died at the early age of forty, before the troubles
of the Great Rebellion. John Hacket,* the Royalist Bishop of Lichfield
and Coventry, was probably at Trinity with Herbert. He is remembered,
not so much for his divinity as for his gallant defence of his cathedral
against the Puritan destroyers. He was born in 1592 and did not die
till 1670, ten years after the Restoration. In his seventieth year,
having been mercifully preserved throughout the troubles, he desired to
bestow some mark of his affection upon Trinity, “that Society,” as he
said with a noble pathos characteristic of the party to which he had
attached himself, “which is more precious to me, next to the Church of
Jesus Christ, than any place upon earth.” The result of his bequest was
the present Bishop’s Hostel, which occupied part of the site of the old
Garret’s or Gerrard’s Hostel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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