t was finished in 1847 by
Cockerell, who added the unhappy north side to the University Library,
but the original architect was Basevi, who was prevented from
finishing the building he had begun by his untimely death through
falling from one of the towers of Ely Cathedral. The magnificence of
the great portico, with its ceiling of encrusted ornament, is vastly
impressive, but the marble staircase in the entrance lobby, with its
rich crimson reds, is rather overpowering in conjunction with the
archaeological exhibits. Plainer, cooler and less aggressive marble
such as that employed in the lobby of the Victoria and Albert Museum
would have been more suitable. A very considerable proportion of the
museum's space is devoted to the collection of pictures--some of them
copies--which the University has gathered. The interesting Turner
water-colours presented by John Ruskin are here, with a Murillo,
reputed to be his earliest known work, and a good many other examples
of the work of famous men of the Italian and Dutch Schools.

Besides the Museum of Archaeology, between Peterhouse and the river,
the vigorous growth of the scientific side of the University is shown
in the vast buildings newly erected on both sides of Downing Street,
which has now become a street of laboratories and museums. Now that
the outworks of the hoary citadel of Classicism have been stormed, and
the undermining of the great walls has already begun, the development
of modern science at Cambridge will be accelerated, and in the face of
the urgency of the demands of worldwide competition it would appear
that the University on the Cam is more fitted to survive than her
sister on the Isis.

[Illustration: THE CIRCULAR NORMAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. This
splendid survival of the Norman age is one of the four churches in
England planned to imitate the form of the Holy Sepulchre of
Jerusalem.]

CHAPTER VI

THE CHURCHES IN THE TOWN

Almost everyone who goes to Cambridge as a visitor bent on sightseeing
naturally wishes to see the colleges before anything else, but it
should not be forgotten that there are at least two churches, apart
from the college chapels, whose importance is so great that to fail to
see them would be a criminal omission. There are other churches of
considerable interest, but for a description of them it is
unfortunately impossible to find space.

Foremost in point of antiquity comes St. Benedict's, or St Benet's,
possessin