glorious work of fine intelligence,” as Wordsworth calls it, remains one of the very finest monuments of Perpendicular architecture; and that beautiful English feature the fan-vaulting, which is to be seen in the Tudor chapel at the Guildhall, in Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster, and at S. David’s (now ruinous), is here carried out over a larger area than anywhere else.[182]
That branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die—
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
So writes Wordsworth; and the stained glass windows, the most ‘complete and magnificent series’ in the country says Carter, probably inspired Milton’s
—storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic’d quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.
On the death of the Lancastrian monarch, Edward IV. sequestrated the building funds, but returned a thousand pounds later, and Richard III. contributed £700; but it is Henry VII. who brought the work to completion.
King’s is the only college in the university which receives only those students who intend to read for honours, and until 1857 its members could claim the B.A. degree without presenting themselves for examination.[183] The college was, almost immediately upon its foundation, exempted not only from archiepiscopal and episcopal control but also from the general jurisdiction