Profile of one of the vaulting-piers used in the Ante-chapel East end of the south side of the Chapel, reduced from Loggan's print, taken about 1688 Elevation of the fifth severy of the Chapel, shewing the sixth and seventh Vault of the easternmost Chapel on the north side, with details PAGE 376 488 493 493 493 496 Tower at the south-east angle of the Chapel 496 Diagram to shew the arrangement of the subjects in the windows To face 497 502 Ground-plan of the old Provost's Lodge, with the adjoining streets and buildings North-east view of the old Provost's Lodge, from a print by Malton, taken about 1798 Part of the south front of the Old Court, reduced from Loggan's view of the Ground-plan of part of the old Provost's Lodge, reduced from the plan of To face 518 . 533 541 544 548 Part of the east side of the great Court, shewing the "Clerks' Lodgings," the PREFACE. HE work now published originated in a lecture Cambridge, delivered by Professor Willis in the Senate-House, on Wednesday, 5 July, 1854, on the occasion of the visit of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland to Cambridge. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that he was then approaching the subject for the first time. When collecting materials for his Architectural Nomenclature of the Middle Ages, published by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in 1844, he found that the changes in detail and in general treatment observed in the collegiate structures could not be satisfactorily explained without an inquiry into the various dates at which those structures had been originally built, or additions made. to them. This inquiry he then determined to undertake. The lecture, therefore, was only one stage in the development of an original idea. The lecture itself, on a subject which could not fail to interest, especially when set forth with his rare power of exposition and admirable delivery, excited the greatest enthusiasm, and he was requested to publish it without delay. This he undertook to do, though, as was his habit, he had used neither manuscript nor notes, and had only the reports in local newspapers to assist him; for, strange to say, no London reporter took the trouble to do more than give the briefest notice of the lecture. Before long, however, he found that it would be impossible to do justice to the subject within the narrow limits of a pamphlet, and he announced his intention of developing his lecture into a detailed history. But in this extended labour he made but slow progress. I imagine that when he began to collect materials for the original lecture, he had not contemplated publication at all, and that the labour of going through the authorities a second time, though obviously indispensable, soon became irksome to him. He accomplished this task however, for several colleges, at least up to a certain point, as for instance, for Trinity College, where he was evidently fascinated by the interesting problem which the original arrangement of the site presented, and where the presence of his friend Dr Whewell no doubt stimulated him to special activity. The extent of his research there is shewn by the enormous mass of material which he had collected, and by the numerous plans of the site which he had made. and rejected, but which he evidently thought worth preserving for future reference. At King's College also, where the site is of nearly equal interest, he had made similar collections. I conceive that immediately after the delivery of the lecture, excited by the interest which he had aroused, and urged by the representations of friends, he set to work with great energy, and an intention to fulfil his promise of publication at an early date. In December, 1854, in a letter to Mr C. H. Cooper, the well-known Cambridge antiquary, he speaks of "the complete form of that paper which I am now preparing;" and in the same month the Master and Seniors of Trinity College agreed: "that Professor Willis have leave to publish such extracts from the Books and Documents of the College submitted to his inspection, as tend, in his opinion, to illustrate the Architectural History of the College and the University." Again, in 1856, he was at work on the records of Trinity Hall; and in 1860, when he gave a second lecture on The Architectural History of the University, on the occasion of the meeting of the Architectural Congress at Cambridge, he told his audience that "he purposed to bring out a book on the subject very shortly. He had hoped to have done so before this, but he had been under the necessity of deferring it. The work was now in the printer's hands, and he hoped ere long to throw it on their mercy." This second lecture shewed most conclusively the extent of his researches in the six years which had passed away since he had first approached the subject, and it was on that occasion that he first brought forward some of his most celebrated illustrations, as for instance, the comparison between the plans of Queens' College and Haddon Hall, the diagrams shewing the successive changes in the west front of Clare Hall, and the contrast between the aspect of Nevile's Court at Trinity College at the present day, and when it was first constructed. In the following year, as Sir Robert Rede's lecturer, he chose a portion of the subject for more minute illustration-lecturing in the Senate-House on The Architectural History of Trinity College. The promise of speedy publication, however, was, as we all know, never fulfilled, and I am surprised that he should ever have made it in such definite terms. It was retarded by many causes: his natural unwillingness to print before he felt himself thoroughly prepared; the steady increase in the bulk of his materials as he went on, which, as he told me more than once, grew so fast that he felt at a loss how to treat them; doubts as to the form of the work, and the means of defraying its cost; the pressure of his official duties in Cambridge and in London; the work which he undertook in connection with the exhibition held at Paris in 1855; and lastly, his continued devotion to the interests of the Archæological Institute, which carried him away to Gloucester (1860), Peterborough (1861), Worcester (1862), Rochester (1863), Lichfield (1864), Sherborne and Glastonbury (1865), and Eton (1866), for all of which meetings he prepared papers of considerable length, involving a corresponding amount of research. In 1869 when he had resigned his Professorship at the Royal School of Mines-his friends at Cambridge hoped to induce him to resume the work which appeared to have been definitely laid aside, and, through the combined influence of Dr Guest, Master of Gonville and Caius College, and Dr Atkinson, Master of Clare College, then Vice-Chancellor, he was induced to write the following letter: "Dear Mr Vice-Chancellor, I beg to inform you that having resigned my office of Lecturer on Mechanism at the School of Mines I am at leisure to complete a work, which I began many years since, on the Architectural and Social History of the University of Cambridge, |