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
Passing beneath them we find ourselves again in that same ancient
street of Cambridge, here again now a wholly Academic byway, by which
we entered King's. But though we have left the College behind us we
have not yet quite got clear of its associations. The fine modern
Gothic pile to our right embeds, as we see, an ancient gateway. For
more than three and a half centuries this was the entrance to the one
small Court which alone represented the magnificent design of Henry
the Sixth for his Royal Foundation. Not till the nineteenth century
dawned were the students moved to the other side of the Chapel. The
old precincts were then mostly destroyed, and the site made over to
the University Library; for the growth of that magnificent institution
has long taxed to the utmost all the accommodation that can be
provided for it.
The mediaeval Library of the University was a collection of
manuscripts, requiring only one small room. Of its eighteen
book-cases, eight were devoted to Theology, four to Law, and one
apiece to Classics, Mathematics, Medicine, Logic, Moral Philosophy,
and Scholasticism. This original Library was utterly swept away at the
Reformation: Dr. Perne of Peterhouse, when Vice-Chancellor in the
reign of Edward the Sixth, thus signalising his new-born zeal for
Protestantism. A few years later, however, we find him amongst the
first founders of the present Library, which now ranks third amongst
the great Libraries of England; that of the British Museum standing
first, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford second. All three are
entitled to a free copy of every book published in the kingdom; so
that their growth is now-a-days portentously rapid. One of the most
striking features in this Library is the tableful of new books, scores
in number, which is cleared every Friday.
This rapid growth however is modern. The one ancient room sufficed
for the Library, till George the First rewarded the Whig loyalty of
the University by a gift of 30,000 volumes.[22] The expansion thus
begun has continued with accelerated speed. One by one the various
ancient "Schools" which, with the old Library room, formed a small
quadrangle, have been absorbed by its growth; until now the whole
block belongs to it, as well as the old site of King's College, the
main edifice on which, known as "Cockerell's Building," was erected
1837, where the College Hall once stood.
[Footnote 22: This gift called forth a satirical epigram from Oxford;
where the prevalent Toryism was made the pretext for quartering a
regiment of cavalry in the city to suppress Jacobite demonstrations:
"King George, observing with judicious eyes
The state of both his Universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse;--and why?
That Learned Body wanted Loyalty.
To Cambridge books he sent; as well discerning
How much that Loyal Body wanted Learning."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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