The announcement that " At Trinity Hall Mr. Robert Anthony
Eden, P.C., LL.D., has been elected into an honorary Fellowship " prompts a question. Why has Mr. Eden—or shall we say Dr. Eden? —who-attained distinction (a first in Oriental Languages) at Oxford, been thus honoured by a Cambridge college, and the Hall in par- ticular? The reason is that the name of Eden is famous in Trinity Hall annals. In 1626, in the reign of King James I (before whom he had held a disputation for the degree of LL.D. with great applause), Dr. Thomas Eden was elected Master of the college. He was a notable character and sat (like a variety of lesser persons) in several Parliaments, including the Long Parliament, as burgess for the University; as a good Parliament man he took the solemn league and covenant in 1644. He was a generous benefactor of the college and lies buried in its chapel. The late Foreign Secretary is not, I believe, in direct descent from the venerable Master, who seems not to have been married, but the kinship can be traced clearly enough to justify the college abundantly in taking a step which, if I am informed rightly, it has been thinking about for an unneces- sarily long time.
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