Neville's Court is the most beautiful specimen of the collegiate quadrangle in Cambridge. The noble façade of the Library on one side—the Hall opposite to it, and the fair ranges of building which connect them—with the smooth grass plot in the midst unencroached on by gravel path, form a picture which gladdens the heart of every son of Trinity as he looks upon it, and is stored up in the memory amongst his recollections of the loveliest scenes it has been his lot to behold.

In Neville's Court there is nothing garish; there is no gay display of pinnacle and turret; its magnificence is sober and majestic. He therefore who would see it aright, should choose such time as the uneasy throng of students has ceased to pour through its cloisters, and the noise of mirth and revelry to sound from its chambers; when the moon softly beams on its grey walls, spangling the broad windows of the Library and throwing the cloisters into the deepest shade;—and the yellow light here and there shining from a casement tells of the midnight toils of those who still outwatch the Bear

The echoing steps of a solitary student are heard as he paces slowly along the gloomy pavement, to cool the blood burning in his temples after a long and arduous struggle with some occult problem.

Most of the College Chapels have not an organ; in Emmanuel College the instrument is silent, as well as in Pembroke College. The following notices respecting the organs that are in use will be considered valuable for their authority and technical character.

The organ in the Chapel of Trinity College, which is justly considered the finest in Cambridge, and ranks among the first in England, was built originally by Father Schmidt in the year 1706 when Bentley was Master of the College, at a cost of £1500. It has since that time received many additions and improvements; the most considerable of which was made three years ago by Gray and Son of London. The compass of the great organ is from CCC the 16 feet pipe to F in alt. throughout all the stops. The swell, which is exceedingly fine, extends from gamut G to F in alt., and contains the following stops: open Diapason, stopped Diapason, double stopped Diapason, Principal, three rank Sesquialtra, Hautboy, Trumpet and Clarion. The choir organ is much admired for its sweetness of tone, and possesses a remarkably fine Cremona. There are two octaves of pedal pipes and many coupling stops, by means of which the power of the organ is much increased and great variety is obtained.

It must be allowed that the site which our ancestors adopted for the foundation of an University was not chosen with any reference to its adaptation to nautical exercises. Originally a scanty streamlet choked with mud and sedge and almost dry four months in the year, the Cam has been formed into an artificial canal by the hand of man and has been economically adapted to the wants of the coal-barges, to which it now affords a means of transit. Its width therefore is pretty uniformly from twenty to twenty-five yards; a channel about seven feet in depth is scooped in the centre, the water being often very shallow at some distance from the banks. The nearest lock is a quarter of a mile below the town, and the various boat-houses are ranged along the river side beyond it. It is now only twelve years since the naval armaments of Cambridge consisted almost entirely of funnies and canoes, large fleets of which were wont, on a calm summer evening, to glide down the stream and disport themselves on the bosom of the broad reach opposite Chesterton. In those days there was a lock immediately below that village, only one mile from Cambridge, which has lately been removed. The spirit of adventure seldom prompted the solitary mariners of those frail vessels to burst its frowning barriers.

COLLEGE BOOKS

The Books of the Colleges present several forms, each having its own object,–“in conservationem omnium rationum annalium evidentiarum et pandectarum, quæ commentarium rerum gestarum latino nomine dicimus, præter librum matriculationis”;–most of them are the registers of proceedings in the several branches of the corporate economy: each College Officer has one or more of them under his charge and for his regulation in the department to which he is appointed. The Bursar's department presents a collection truly voluminous, but very uninviting to the general reader. The assertion of rights, description of titles and boundaries, negotiations in bargains and suits, account of receipt and expenditure, hold out small promise except to those closely connected with the system. Their contents have little charm for the philosophical historian, though they may before now have engaged the interest of a curious and indefatigable arithmetician. But the department of the Registrar (Secretarius Registri) is more promising; albeit to ensure regularity and certainty, dry form has been prescribed and adhered to, yet the scribe has occasionally caught the spirit of his office, and under the influence of ‘pia memoria’, personal admiration, or esprit de corps, or even a sense of the humourous, has infringed an official formality by annotating a singular coincidence, recording a feeling of the time, or marking a valuable historical fact.