CRITIQUE ON GRAY

Summary

Of all the smaller Colleges, with the exception perhaps of Christ's, which stands preeminent through Milton's undying page, Pembroke College may be said to boast the longest and brightest list of names consecrated to fame. In the Hall is an extremely elegant and correct bust of the great Pitt, lately presented to the nursing mother of his genius by the munificence of the Earl of Farnborough. By the by, if Christ's College is really proud of being styled the College of Milton, should it not blush that two centuries have passed away while no more is done by them to his honour than if the copy right of Paradise Lost were still bandied about amongst the booksellers as a hazardous purchase at less than twenty pounds! It is true they show his mulberry tree in their garden, and have even gone so far as to case its time-worn trunk in lead, and prop its falling branches with posts of deal, ‘inutile lignum’;— but where is the statue emulative of Roubillac's Newton; where the bust which might be executed by a Chantrey after the original cast in plaster which they possess in the Library of his College? But to return to Pembroke College: passing through the Hall, the stranger enters the Combination Room, and is gratified by a collection of portraits of more than average execution as specimens of painting, and presenting him with the features of names endeared to every lover of the Muses.