Highways and Byways in Cambridge and ElyConybeare, John William Edward
History
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Conybeare, John William Edward
Cambridgeshire (England) -- Description and travel; Isle of Ely (England) -- Description and travel
In this the windows are filled with fine Morris glass, the rich hues
of which are, unfortunately, much faded from their pristine
brilliance. That at the end of the south transept, which first meets
the eye, is occupied, above, by a magnificent group of the Celestial
Hierarchy, in all its nine Orders--Angels, Archangels, Virtues,
Principalities, Dominions, Powers, Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim, with
the addition, in the tenth place, of Man, as the image of God; and,
below, by nine Saints, including St. Radegund, with the addition of
Bishop Alcock. The four other windows of the transept show the four
Evangelists, each attending a pair of Sibyls,[102] and, in the tower
lights, Gospel scenes illustrating the Incarnation, Passion,
Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ respectively. The nave windows,
on the south, have Patriarchs and Prophets, with scenes beneath from
the life or writings of each; and, on the north, emblematic figures
representing the Cardinal and Theological Virtues, each trampling
under her feet the contrary Vice.
[Footnote 102: Some words put by Virgil into the mouth of the Sibyl
(or prophetess) of Cumae were supposed by the early Christians of Rome
(to whom the idea of Sibylline books being prophetic was familiar from
Roman History) to foretell the Incarnation. Hence she, and her sister
Sibyls of other fictions as well, came to be considered inspired, and
before long a whole literature of imaginary Sibylline predictions was
in circulation.]
The most notable of the alumni of Jesus College was also one of the
earliest--Archbishop Cranmer. It is from his having been here that he
is so often and so ridiculously said to have been brought up in a
_Jesuit_ seminary![103] Another notability was the poet Coleridge, who
was here from 1790 to 1792. He was not an academic success, for, like
his contemporaries, Wordsworth at St. John's, and Southey at Christ
Church, he was carried away by the revolutionary spirit then rampant,
and, being more audacious than they, got into more scrapes. One of his
freaks was to trace out in gunpowder on the college lawns the words
LIBERTY AND EQUALITY, which not only produced a sensation when the
train was fired, but left the obnoxious sentiment permanently branded
on the sacred grass. Finally he ran away. But he was taken back, and
did not lose his love for his old college; for, long afterwards, we
find him writing of "the friendly Cloisters and happy Grove of quiet,
ever-honoured Jesus College, Cambridge." The Grove is the name given
to the grassy field, begirt with trees, which is bordered by the ditch
separating the College grounds from Midsummer Common.
[Footnote 103: The Jesuits, of course, did not come into being for
years after Cranmer's academic day.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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