KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
King's College, Cambridge. By C. R. Fay. (j. M. Dent and Co. 2s. net.)—Mr. Fay's pen and Mr. Edmund H. New's pencil combine to make a very pleasing volume. Perhaps the strongest point is the description of the architecture and the topographical details. As a whole, the College is overshadowed by its chapel, and the efforts of later generations to redress the balance, so to speak, have not been very happy. The outcome, too, of the foundation has fallen far short of its promise. Its resources put it but little behind the first of the Colleges, but it went through a long period of eclipse, when academically it was absolutely insignificant. Happily this has now been set right, and it has taken the place to which its capabilities entitle it. These things Mr. Fay explains with as much regard to filial piety as truth permitted. We must not forget to mention the interesting appendix on the College windows which the Provost has con- tributed. King's had the good fortune to save them when Puritan iconoclasm was busy with the destruction of such vanities. An official did come down to inspect ; he reported that there were "1,000 superstitious pictures to be destroyed," and received his fee of Os. 8d. Luckily nothing was done. Dr. James thinks that Cromwell interfered to save them. He was an East Anglian, and be may have felt that it would not serve his cause to destroy one of the great glories of the country ; anyhow, they escaped, and whatever damage they have suffered has come from time or from incompetent restorers.
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