from the bishop to build a college. To this day St. Clement's, which formerly belonged to these nuns, many lands near Cambridge, and elsewhere, called now Nuns Land, being derived from them, belong to Jesus College. Many other of the public works were, no doubt, done at the church's, or the king's expense; for, according to Parker and Bentham, Alcock was made comptroller of the royal works and buildings under Henry VII.

I

In allusion to his name, his coat of arms was three cock's heads, and could we suppose the cocks that appear in the library window of Jesus College, and the window of the chapel, and formerly in other windows, were placed there by his direction, some might suppose he was fond of a conceit, or small wit. There is a sermon of Alcock's, (printed in his life time,) on the Crowing of the Cock, when Peter denied Christ, and, upon an old window in a closet, in Jesus College, there were two bold cocks; from the mouth of one issued, Eyw eμi Adintguwv• am a cock; from the mouth of the other, ourws naι Eyw, SO am I. There were also other cocks that had something to say. The head of the cock, (three of which, with a mitre over them, made, as observed before, Bishop Alcock's arms,) has been, I apprehend, mistaken by Wharton, for goats heads. I cannot otherwise account for the motto placed beside his account of Bishop Alcocka: sometimes the conceit, or rebus, was al, in old English, and the figure of a cock, at others, an owl and a cock, as, according to Blomefield, it was formerly decyphered in the windows of the hall. But this kind of conceit, or rebusing of a name, let us think as lightly of it as we may,

• Mitra super tria caprarum capita, Ang. Sacra.

b Collectanea, p. 141.

r

was not peculiar to Alcock: it was commonly practised in that age, and was in some sort the very foundation of heraldry long before.

Alcock was a considerable writer, though the only printed work of his I have heard of,—I have never seen it-is the sermon just alluded to. He also wrote poetry: among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, 1704, imperfect, is a comment upon the Seven Penitential Psalms, in English verse. In the University library of Cambridge is a MS. of his, entitled, Abbey of the Holy Ghost. What Mr. Wharton says of him is more to his credit: omnibus animi dotibus amabilis. He died at Wisbeach, October 1, 1500, and was buried in his own chapel within the cathedral church of Ely. His effigies placed over his tomb is much defaced, and his favorite device of a cock is stuck about the front of the monument: so that being dead, he croweth still: and his cock was perched over Jesus College gate, till, not a great many years ago, it met, I suppose, with the fate of some other unfortunate cocks on a Shrove Tuesday. There is an original portrait of Bishop Alcock in the Combination Room of Jesus College: and so much for the founder of this college.

The original establishment (according to its charter) provided for a master, six fellows, and a certain number of scholars. By subsequent benefactions the fellows are now sixteena, being reduced to that number, from eigh

a I follow the charter of foundation. Archbishop Parker (Catalogus, &c.) has it, ex magistro, sex sociis, atq. sex pueris constare ordinavit. (Sociis, Bishop West's Statutes.) Yet Sherman, the author of the MS. History often referred to in these notes, says, magistrum sive custodem, et quinq. socios, et sex pueros, et reditibus ad monasterium S. Radegundis elim pertinentibus alendos induxit, p. 28; and quotes Bishop Stanley's

teen, by Queen Elizabeth, of whom eight must be from the northern counties, and eight from the southern: only six out of the sixteen, are required to be in priest's orders.

Stanley, third son of the Earl of Derby, promoted to the bishopric of Ely, in 1506, must be reckoned a benefactor to this college, for though described by a prior of those times as, "armis quam libris peritior,” more skilled in arms than books, for it seems he was a jolly bishop, still he gave the appropriation of great Shelford, near Cambridge, to this college, and so, in the language of those times, must be considered a benefactor. The profits were applied to the foundation of one of the above-mentioned fellowships, and the patronage reserved to the bishops of this diocese.

It may not be improper, just to notice of these fellowships, that one of them was appropriated, according to Sherman, from the foundation, to the Welsh: all those of Jesus College, Oxford, are appropriated to the same people.

In like manner, Dr. Thirlby, a native of Cambridge, and Bishop of Ely in 1554, was a benefactor. He gave

Statutes, In collegio per nos erecto pusillam gregem constituimus ex sex personis, magistro uno, & quinq sociis. He observes, too, that the Catalogue of Benefactors in Jesus College is incorrect, and inconsistent with itself in mentioning only sixteen, fellows, and yet, from what follows, there were seventeen.

He concludes, Ex supradictis firmiter concludimus septemdecim socios fundatos fuisse, quod autem hodie non nisi sedecim numeramus, id statuto per visitatores reginæ Eliz. facto tribuendum est.

a The Statutes, altered by Nicholas, Bishop of Ely, has, quod singuli eorum si ad sacræ theologiæ studium divertant, &c. uno tantum ex integro numero sociorum excepto, qui juris civilis studio operam impendet.

b Traditum etiam reperi, sacerdotiorum sex jus patronatus Colleg. Jesu, Cantab. contulisse. Godwin de Præs. Ang. p. 273. Dr. Richardson adds, viz. Fordham, Gilden-Merden, Wichford, Hiuton, Swaverey,