[291] Letter of Vice-Chancellor Byng to Burleigh then chancellor of the university, 14 Dec. 1572, in which he advises him of a “greate oversighte of Dr. Caius” who had long kept “superstitious monuments in his college.” “I could hardly have been perswadid,” he continues, “that suche things by him had been reservid.”
“Some since have sought to blast his memory by reporting him a papist; no great crime to such who consider the time when he was born, and foreign places wherein he was bred: however this I dare say in his just defence, he never mentioneth protestants, but with due respect, and sometimes, occasionally, doth condemn the superstitious credulity of popish miracles.... We leave the heat of his faith to God’s sole judgment, and the light of his good works to men’s imitation,” writes old Fuller.
[292] Chairs of anatomy, botany, geology, and astronomy had been created in the first quarter of that century. See also Peterhouse p. 153.
[293] For the natural sciences professorships, see pp. 190-92, and n. p. 192.
[294] “In barb’rous Latin doom’d to wrangle” writes Byron of the Cambridge of his time.
[295] The year is counted from the beginning of the academic year, i.e. Oct. 1747—the first degrees were taken in 1748.
[296] A classified list of civil law graduates exists from the year 1815. There used to be a university title S.C.L. (Student of Civil Law) in relation to the civil law classes. The Act of 20-21 Vict., disestablishing civil law in the courts, led to a revolution of law studies at Cambridge. From then dates the abolition of the old quaint ceremonies and disputations connected with this faculty.
[297] From 1870, before the creation of the history tripos, examinations were conducted in a mixed law and history tripos.
[298] Among educational reformers in the second half of the xviii c. Dr. John Jebb must not be omitted. To him is due the annual test examinations of tripos students called ‘the Mays,’ and perhaps also the “Little-Go.” He was a distinguished scientist, and member of Peterhouse.
[299] Cf. chap. ii. p. 61 and chap. iv. p. 241.