From the Hall we can often obtain permission to ascend to the unique glory of St. John's College, the Combination Room, which is incomparably finer than any other apartment of the same kind, either at Oxford or Cambridge. It is a spacious panelled gallery, running east and west, nearly 100 feet in length, lighted by transomed windows[65] along the southern side, and with a richly decorated plaster ceiling, the work of the same Italian artists who erected the fountain in the Great Court of Trinity, just at the time when this room was in building. For here we have got beyond Lady Margaret's "First" Court. The Combination Room forms the north side of the "Second" Court, erected at the very end of the sixteenth century (simultaneously with the Great Court of Trinity) by another noble benefactress, Lady Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose coat of arms (Cavendish impaled with Talbot) stands over the western gate. [Footnote 65: In one of these windows should be noted a portrait of Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles the First, who was once entertained in this apartment.] This splendid benefaction was intended to be anonymous, as was also that which, in the "Third" Court, has given to St. John's yet another unique beauty, its exquisite Library, which (like the Combination Room) stands at the head, architecturally, of all College libraries, whether at Oxford or Cambridge. The benefactor in this case was Dr. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and Keeper of the Great Seal. His initials, as has been already mentioned, may be seen upon the outside of the western wall, beside the beautiful oriel window, overlooking the river, with which the room terminates, and his escutcheon hangs on the eastern wall, inside, over the door. For in his case, too, as in that of Lady Mary Cavendish, the secret leaked out before the work was finished, and in 1624 the letters I. L. C. S. (denoting Iohannes Lincolnensis Custos Sigilli) disclosed to passers-by the donor's identity.