Lord Carlingford, to the Spanish Ambassador's, where I dined the first
time.... And here was an Oxford scholar, in a Doctor of Laws'
gowne.... And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merry
at my defending Cambridge against Oxford._"--PEPYS' _Diary_ (May 5,
1669).

In writing of Cambridge, comparison with the great sister university
seems almost inevitable, and, since it is so usual to find that Oxford
is regarded as pre-eminent on every count, we are tempted to make
certain claims for the slightly less ancient university. These claims
are an important matter if Cambridge is to hold its rightful position
in regard to its architecture, its setting, and its atmosphere.
Beginning with the last, we do not hesitate to say that there is a
more generally felt atmosphere of repose, such as the mind associates
with the best of our cathedral cities, in Cambridge than is to be
enjoyed in the bigger and busier university town. This is in part due
to Oxford's situation on a great artery leading from the Metropolis to
large centres of population in the west; while Cambridge, although it
grew up on a Roman road of some importance, is on the verge of the
wide fenlands of East Anglia, and, being thus situated off the
trade-ways of England, has managed to preserve more of that genial and
scholarly repose we would always wish to find in the centres of
learning, than has the other university.

Then this atmosphere is little disturbed by the modern accretions to
the town. On the east side, it is true, there are new streets of dull
and commonplace terraces, which one day an awakened England will wipe
out; there are other elements of ugly sordidness, which the lack of a
guiding and controlling authority, and the use of distressingly
hideous white bricks, has made possible, but it is quite conceivable