The second period began in 1441 with King’s, and ended with St. John’s in 1509.  After an interval of thirty-three years the third period commenced with Magdalene, and concluded with Sidney Sussex in 1595.  A fourth group is composed of the half-dozen colleges belonging to last century.

CHAPTER III

THE GREATER COLLEGES

St. John’s.—­With its three successive courts and their beautiful gateways of mellowed red brick, St. John’s is very reminiscent of Hampton Court.  Both belong to the Tudor period, and both have undergone restorations and have buildings of stone added in a much later and entirely different style.  Across the river stands the fourth court linked with the earlier buildings by the exceedingly beautiful “Bridge of Sighs.”

To learn the story of the building of St. John’s is a simple matter, for the first court we enter is the earliest, and those that succeed stand in chronological order,—­eliminating, of course, Sir Gilbert Scott’s chapel and the alterations of an obviously later period than the courts as a whole.

To Lady Margaret Beaufort, the foundress of the college, or, more accurately, to her executor, adviser and confessor, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who carried out her wishes, we owe the first court, with its stately gateway of red brick and stone.  It was built between 1511 and 1520 on the site of St. John’s Hospital of Black Canons, suppressed as early as 1509.

[Illustration:  The library window st. John’s college from the bridge of sighs.  From this spot beautiful views are obtained up and down the river.]

The second court, also possessing a beautiful gate tower, was added between 1595 and 1620, the expense being mainly borne by Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose statue adorns the gateway.  Filling the space between the second court and the river comes the third, begun in 1623, when John Williams, then Lord Keeper and Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards Archbishop of York, gave money for erecting the library whose bay window, projecting into the silent waters of the Cam, takes a high place among the architectural treasures of Cambridge.  If anyone carries a solitary date in his head after a visit to the University it is almost sure to be 1624, the year of the building of this library, for the figures stand out boldly above the Gothic window just mentioned.  The remaining sides of the third court were built through the generosity of various benefactors, and then came a long pause, for it was not until after the first quarter of the nineteenth century had elapsed that the college was extended to the other side of the river.  This new court came into existence, together with the delightful “Bridge of Sighs,” between the years 1826 and 1831, when Thomas Rickman, an architect whose lectures and published treatises had given him a wide