When we consider that, at the period to which most of the Colleges owe their foundation, all the learning of the day, as well general as professional, was centered in the clergy, it will not appear strange that in so few of them has the admission of laymen been contemplated by the Founders. The present instance however forms a remarkable exception to this rule. For although the original Founder Edmund Gonville was himself an ecclesiastic, he allowed the Master and three Fellows of Gonville Hall, founded in 1349, to be laymen. This foundation was enriched at various times by later benefactors, but in 1557 the College was still more liberally endowed and enlarged by John Caius Doctor in Physic. His object in this application of his fortune seems to have been especially the furtherance and encouragement of Medical science; and we expect by a reference to the works and lives of the various physicians, who have been members of this learned society, to show most decisively that the intentions and expectations of its founder have been fully realised.

Dr. Caius was himself at once one of the most eminent physicians and learned scholars of his day, as his written works and the general estimation of his contemporaries most clearly testify. It cannot therefore be improper to commence the account of the medical worthies of this College by a slight sketch of its principal Founder and Benefactor, himself amongst the most famous of them.