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 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 certain, but the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative.” Milton himself says enough to make the truth of this statement at least doubtful; for his language, ten years after his departure from Cambridge, is not merely the language of a man who had forgotten old grudges, but breathes a lively affection for his college. The flogging possibly took place; the University was then nothing but a large public school, and each college was a separate boarding-house. Milton, when he went up, was just sixteen, and boys of sixteen are not past flogging. If he went down without a fellowship, he was surely, in spite of that, a most promising student. His Latin verses, which we still read as we read Ovid and Propertius, are the finest poetry, and not mere