The suspension of a portrait is a mode of erecting a monument to a person in his life time, which has been long prevalent. In no single College will the expectation of finding a resemblance to the person of the Founder be disappointed: and such is the peculiar interest attaching to the idea, that in time past a collection of the portraits of the several Founders, engraved in mezzotint, was made and published under the title of Faber's Founders ;— a thin folio volume for Oxford in 1712, and one for Cambridge in 1714.

The eagerness to obtain a portrait of a Founder or Benefactor, might impede the exercise of due caution in receiving it: and hence in a few instances the authenticity of the portrait is not well established. But this is not the case with the instance now presented: every circumstance of warranty is clear on the face of it; except the name of the artist, which, in spite of the merely fashionable compliment to him in the last line of the inscription, has been kept back without any injury to his reputation.

The painting is, like many of its date, on panel, 2ft. 8in. by 2ft. 3in. It is the original of Faber's engraving in which the figure is reversed and the expression not well preserved. This may be said also of the latest copy, probably taken from Faber, in Pettigrew's Medical Portraits.

The first visitor to the Bay of New York, and the writer of the first description on record, was John de Verrazzano, a Florentine, in the service of Francis the First. This bold navigator had been for some time in command of four ships, cruising against the Spaniards. But his little fleet being separated in a storm, Verrazzano determined, with one of them, the Dauphin, to take a voyage in search of new countries. He arrived on the American coast, somewhere near North Carolina, and first proceeded south as far as “the region of palm-trees,” probably Florida. He then turned, and proceeded north till he entered a harbour, which he describes thus, in a passage of a letter addressed by him to his Royal master:—

“This land is situated in the paralele of Rome, in forty-one degrees and two terces; but somewhat more colde by accidentall causes. The mouth of the haven lieth open to the south, half a league broad; and being entred within it, between the east and the north, it stretcheth twelve leagues, where it wareth broader and broader, and maketh a gulfe about twenty leagues in compass, wherein are five small islands, very fruitfull and pleasant, full of hie and broad trees, among the which islands any great navie may ride safe without any feare of tempest or other danger.”

The position of ‘Great St. Mary's’ and the rank it holds among the buildings of the place, together with its character as the University Church, are amply sufficient to draw attention and excite enquiry.

The present edifice has succeeded to more than one bearing the same name and occupying the same ground. This church was begun A. D. 1478; and finished A. D. 1519. The first stone of the West Tower was laid in 1491; but the Tower itself remained a long time unfinished. Up to that date the whole cost had amounted to £795., a sum contributed by Members of the University exclusively. When Caius wrote in 1573, the work was incomplete in consequence of the low state of the University finances: the want of some generous benefactor to supply the defect is feelingly deplored by the Historian. In 1576, however, as if roused by this appeal, a subscription was commenced, by which a sum of £107. 10s. was raised. Still some years elapsed before the whole work was accomplished. Had the fabric eventually come forth from the hand of the architect vast and regular and stately, like the Temple that crowned the brow of Moriah, there had been some excuse for the delay. The Temple of Solomon was raised in thirteen years: the Temple of Herod in forty and six.

The Hudson at Hyde Park is a broad, tranquil, and noble river, of about the same character as the Bosphorus above Roumeli-bissar, or the Dardanelles at Abydos. The shores are cultivated to the water's edge, and lean up in graceful, rather than bold elevations; the eminences around are crested with the villas of the wealthy inhabitants of the metropolis at the river's mouth; summer-houses, belvideres, and water-steps, give an air of enjoyment and refreshment to the banks, and, without any thing like the degree of the picturesque which makes the river so remarkable thirty or forty miles below, it is, perhaps, a more tempting character of scenery to build and live among.

All along, in this part of the river, occur the “landings,” which are either considerable towns in themselves, or indicate a thickly settled country in the rear. The immense steamers that ply on the Hudson leave and receive passengers at all these points, and, to a person making the passage for the first time, the manner and expedition of this operation is rather startling. In the summer time, the principal steam boats average from five to seven hundred passengers, and there is usually a considerable number to go ashore and come off at each place.

The first feature of the celebrated banks of the Hudson, which arrests the eye of the traveller after leaving New York, is this singular wall of rock, extending as far onward as he can see, and forming a bold barricade against the river on the side of New Jersey. This singular precipice varies in height from fifty to two hundred feet, and presents a naked front of columnar strata, which gives it its descriptive name. The small sloops which lie along under the shore, loading with building stone from its base, and an occasional shed, diminished to the size of a dog-kennel, across the breadth of the river, are the only marks of life and habitation it presents to the traveller's eye.

With most persons, to mention the Palisades is to recall only the confusion of a steamer's deck, just off from the wharf, with a freight of seven or eight hundred souls hoping to “take tea” in Albany. The scene is one of inextricable confusion, and it is not till the twenty miles of the Palisades are well passed, that the bewildered passenger knows rightly whether his wife, child, or baggage, whichever may be his tender care, is not being left behind at the rate of fifteen miles in the hour.

Behold the mark is gained, which announces to the traveller that the measure of his journey is run out, and a peculiar train of feeling is kindled at the sight. Should the traveller be a son of the University, returning after a long absence from this home of his student's affections, with him anticipation is distinctly modified by experience and recollection. The bridge at Trumpington Ford is the critical scene of a well known legend; the pathway before him was the line for promenaders–of those who sought recreation in seeing others, and were pleased to purchase it at the price of being seen; of the student confined by a zeal impatient of cessation to limited time and space, and delicately desirous of dry footing. He remembers when first, with the deference of a freshman, he learnt that here was the Senior Wrangler's walk. Imagination peoples the scene with its proper characters. That stone is not the rude monument of barbarian calculation, standing on some wide void plain, such as doubtless once was here, a landmark to the way-worn and way-lost passenger; it bears traces of the hand of art and of the design of science, and declares the march of civilization.

On the right hand he recognises the common, ‘empty’ as ever, though once mentioned, in a proposal for supplying the town with water, for the site of a reservoir–one of the few remaining traces of the open field of Cambridge, and continually threatened by the conduit-stream above.