"The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories own no argument but Force.
With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent;
For Whigs admit no force but Argument."
[23]: Atkinson and Clark, Cambridge Described.
[24]: Foster and Atkinson, Old Cambridge Plate.
[25]: Michaelhouse (like Peterhouse) derived its name from the neighbouring church which was used for worship by the Scholars till they got a chapel of their own.
[26]: The T.B.C. boat was one of the two first boats to appear on the river. The other was the "Lady Margaret" or St. John's boat, whose colours were (and are) bright red. These two boats used to row along, challenging each other, by sound of bugle, to extempore bursts of racing. This was in the Twenties. The first regular College races began in the year 1827; but only five Colleges rowed (Trinity, St. John's, Caius, Jesus and Emmanuel). Not till 1859 were all represented.
[27]: Hallam's rooms were on the southern side of the New Court, in the central staircase (letter G), and were the western set on the first floor. Tennyson himself never "kept" in College, but had lodgings, first in Rose Crescent, and afterwards opposite the Bull Hotel.
[28]: Its line was determined by the distant spire of Coton Church which for two centuries closed the vista. (It is now hidden by these trees.) A current witticism was that the view symbolised a Trinity Fellowship—a long, straight-forward prospect, closed by a village church. Till the year 1878 every Fellow had to become a Priest of the Established Church within seven years, on pain of forfeiting his Fellowship. After this he was a Fellow for life, unless he married. And each Fellow in turn had a right to any College living that fell vacant. All this is altered now. Fellows are elected unconditionally for a limited period (which may be renewed), and College livings are assigned to the best men to be had, whether of Trinity or not.
[29]: A cycloid is the curve described by any single point on the rim of a rolling wheel.
[30]: Nocturnal exploration of the College roofs has been so favourite an amusement amongst undergraduates that not long ago a book was actually published entitled The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity College. Every eminence in the College has been scaled, save only the Great Gate Tower. The Hon. C. S. Rolls, who was afterwards the first man to fly from England to France and back, and who fell a martyr to his zeal for aviation, was, in his day, the most daring and systematic of all Trinity roof-climbers.
[31]: Byron himself was morbidly sensitive on this point. Mr. Clark (Guide to Cambridge, p. 140) tells how he abused a friend who fell behind out of courtesy: "Ah! I see you wish to spy out my deformity." He was in residence 1805-8.