When we consider that, at the period to which most of the Colleges owe their foundation, all the learning of the day, as well general as professional, was centered in the clergy, it will not appear strange that in so few of them has the admission of laymen been contemplated by the Founders. The present instance however forms a remarkable exception to this rule. For although the original Founder Edmund Gonville was himself an ecclesiastic, he allowed the Master and three Fellows of Gonville Hall, founded in 1349, to be laymen. This foundation was enriched at various times by later benefactors, but in 1557 the College was still more liberally endowed and enlarged by John Caius Doctor in Physic. His object in this application of his fortune seems to have been especially the furtherance and encouragement of Medical science; and we expect by a reference to the works and lives of the various physicians, who have been members of this learned society, to show most decisively that the intentions and expectations of its founder have been fully realised.

Dr. Caius was himself at once one of the most eminent physicians and learned scholars of his day, as his written works and the general estimation of his contemporaries most clearly testify. It cannot therefore be improper to commence the account of the medical worthies of this College by a slight sketch of its principal Founder and Benefactor, himself amongst the most famous of them.

The complaint has sometimes been made, and not without reason, against the situation of our University, that it is placed in the most open and desolate part of one of our least interesting counties. Whether this circumstance is accidental, or whether it is to be accounted as one of the standing monuments of the “wisdom of our forefathers,” we are not prepared to determine; but certain it is, that the desolate appearance of the surrounding country has a marvellous influence in chaining the flighty spirits of our students to the spot intended for their study; and they become more than ordinarily attached to the “brown o'er arching groves” of the Colleges, for lack of other and greater attractions in the neighbourhood.

The same argument is equally applicable, in the case of our University, to its position and appearance in regard to the Town of Cambridge. For if the vicinity to a lately uninclosed dull and unplanted champaign give additional beauty to the walks and wood at the backs of our Colleges, most assuredly their fronts are not less indebted to the foil afforded them by one of the most irregular ill-arranged and ill-built towns in the land.

The first Stadt Huys in this city was constructed of stone, and stood originally at the head of Coenties Slip, facing on Pearl Street, towards the East river. It was built as early in the Dutch dynasty as 1642, and became so weakened and impaired in half a century afterwards, that the court sitting there recommended it to be sold, and another to be constructed. In 1699, they sold the old building for nine hundred and twenty pounds, “reserving only the bell, the king's arms, and iron works (fetters) belonging to the prison.” By the agreement, leave was granted “that the cage, pillory, and stocks, before the same, be removed any time within one year, and the prisoners in the city hall to remain one month.” “In front of all these, on the river, was placed the Rondeal, or Half-Moon Fort, where it probably assisted the party sheltered in the City Hall, while the civil war prevailed.”

The new building must have been finished in 1700. It stood at the head of Broad Street, fronting on Wall Street; and its lower story formed an open arcade over the foot pavement. It was also the proper prison of the city, and had before it, on Broad Street, a whipping-post, pillory, &c.

The view over this immense forest was taken in the Tuscarora reservation, from an Indian cabin, which serves as a sort of halting-place for travellers to Niagara. We arrived here about noon, emerging from a tract of deep woods which had darkened the road for several miles, and glancing off to the right, discovered that we were following a high ridge, from which extended, with a radius of forty miles, one unbroken sea of foliage. A thin silver line on the very rim of the horizon looked brighter than the sky, and we found on inquiry that it was Lake Ontario, which, with its thread of bright light, forms a limit to what, else, were an object as boundless as the sea.

An Indian woman of about forty, dressed very neatly, came out to offer for sale specimens of Indian workmanship, such as moccosins, pouches, &c.; and, among other things, a beautiful little model of a bark canoe. De Kalm, who travelled in this country in 1749, gives a very detailed account of the making of a canoe. He was going to Canada under the escort of a party of Indians, who, on coming to a portage of forty miles, between the Hudson and Lake Champlain, (now superseded by a canal,) were compelled to leave their canoe and build another.

The pretty peninsula of Dorchester Heights, which seems to throw its arm protectingly around the southern bay of Boston, was settled by a company of pilgrims who came out to New England during the administration of Governor Winthrop, in Massachusetts. The party consisted of two Puritan clergymen, “with many godly families and people” from Devonshire and Somersetshire, who embarked in the “Mary John” in the spring of 1630. The historian states that they had some difficulty in the passage with the master of the vessel, Captain Squibb, “who, like a merciless man. put them and their goods ashore on Nantasket Point, notwithstanding his engagement was to bring them up Charles river.” They obtained a boat, however, and, having laden her with goods, and manned her with able men (“not more than ten, well armed, under Captain Southcot, a brave Lowcountry soldier,”) they followed the river for about ten miles. After landing their goods on a steep bank, they were alarmed by the information that there was encamped near them a body of three hundred savages. Fortunately they had been joined by an old planter, who knew enough of the Indian tongue and disposition to persuade the chiefs not to attack the party till morning. At day-break, some of the savages made their appearance, but stood awhile at a distance.

Newburgh stands upon a pretty acclivity, rising with a sharp ascent from the west bank of the Hudson; and, in point of trade and consequence, it is one of the first towns on the river. In point of scenery, Newburgh is as felicitously placed, perhaps, as any other spot in the world, having in its immediate neighbourhood every element of natural loveliness; and, just below, the sublime and promising Pass of the Highlands. From the summit of the acclivity, the view over Wateaman and Fishkill is full of beauty; the deep flow of the Hudson lying between, and the pretty villages just named, sparkling with their white buildings and cheerful steeples, beyond.

Newburgh has a considerable trade with the back country, and supports two or three steam-boats, running daily and exclusively between its pier and New York. If there were wanting an index of the wondrous advance of enterprise and invention in our country, we need not seek farther than this simple fact—a small intermediate town, on one river, supporting such an amount of expensive navigation. Only thirty years ago Fulton made his first experiment in steam on the Hudson, amid the unbelief and derision of the whole country.

All spots, it has been often observed, intended for monastic purposes have been selected with remarkable taste. To the eyes of the writer, perhaps partial, the site of St. Rhadegund's nunnery is no exception to the rule, and he hopes for the concession that, as far as the neighbourhood of the Cam will allow, Jesus College is very prettily situated.

The College has two great advantages; one in the possession of a massive square tower rising from the midst of the buildings, and the other in its being isolated and detached from other buildings so that it may be looked on as a whole.

Jesus College appears to have taken the fancy of that pleasant and facetious monarch, James I., who, whatever his failings may have been in other respects, had a great taste for learning and its haunts. His remark is well known–“that if he lived at the University he would pray at King's, dine at Trinity, and study and sleep at Jesus.” There is another remark recorded by Fuller,–“King James in his way from Newmarket greatly commended Jesus College for the situation thereof as most collegiate, retired from the town, and in a meditating posture alone by itself.” Sherman says that he used to call it “Musarum Cantabrigiensium Musæum”. Nor was his admiration confined to words: for the same writer adds that “etiam atque etiam Collegium invisere dignatus est.”

Before the completion of the Rail-road, when travellers to the West were contented with the philosophic pace of the canal-boat, one might take up a novel at Little Falls, and come fairly to the sequel by the time the steersman cried out “Bridge!” at Utica. There were fifteen miles between them in those days; but now (to a man of indistinct ideas of geography, at least, and a traveller on the Rail-road) they are as nearly run together as two drops on the window-pane. The intermediate distance is, by all the usual measurements of wear and time, annihilated.

All this is very pleasant to people in a hurry; and as most people in our busy country come under that category, it is a very pleasant thing for the white man altogether. There is a class of inhabitants of the long valley of the Mohawk, however, of whose sufferings, by the advance of the white man's enterprise, this is not the first, though it may be the least, and last. The poor half-naked Oneida, who ran by the side of the once crowded canal-boat for charity, has not time, while the rail-car passes, even to hold out his hand!

The Oneidas have not long been beggars by the road side.

The cliff and staircase at this Landing would be considered highly picturesque any where but at the side of Niagara. The hundred stairs clinging to the rock, the wild vines overgrowing the temporary shed under which travellers take shelter from the spray, the descending and ascending figures, and the athletic boatmen, whose occupation of pulling across this troubled ferry requires herculean strength and proportions, all form a subject for the painter, which could only be disregarded amid the engrossing scenes of Niagara.

There is another staircase extending down the precipitous front of Goat Island, between the two cataracts, which is less picturesque in itself, but much more daring in its position. One marvels at first how it ever was constructed; but a story told in an old book of travels, published in London in 1750, shows that human feet have stood on the isolated and quaking cliff below, and returned again to the summit without the aid of mechanical science. The narrator is a Mr. Peter Kalm, a Swedish gentleman, then on his travels in America:—

“It was formerly thought impossible for any body living to come at the island that is in the middle of the Fall; but an accident that happened twelve years ago made it appear otherwise.[…]

The Cambridge Philosophical Society has been employed from the period of its first establishment in 1819, in gradually forming a Museum of Natural History. With a view to this end, it has from time to time effected several purchases, as well as received the contributions of various donors. The Museum however is not large; partly owing to the limited funds which can be appropriated to its support, and partly to the necessarily restricted space allotted for its reception in the Society's house. It is principally, though not exclusively, devoted to the illustration of the British Fauna. The foundation of the Museum may be attributed to Professor Henslow, who presented to the Society at its first institution his entire collection of British Insects and Shells, arranged respectively in two cabinets. Several smaller donations quickly followed, leading the Society to take an increased interest in this part of its establishment. In 1828, a spirited subscription was commenced amongst its members to assist in purchasing a most valuable collection of British Birds, for obtaining which an opportunity then offered itself. This collection had belonged formerly to Mr. John Morgan of London. It was extremely rich, especially in the rarer species. Many additions however have been since made to it; and the whole forms now a range of thirty large cases, which are placed round the principal room in the Museum.