The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
§ 4. The Granta
In the nineties, The Granta started as a light and bright commentator on Cambridge affairs, and absorbed some of the humour which would otherwise have found a place in the Review. The wayward genius of J. K. Stephen, already an accomplished rimer in his Eton days, shone in both periodicals. His verse is the more astonishing inasmuch as it was casually and rapidly produced. His best known lines (The Cambridge Review, 1891),
Of other Cambridge periodicals, the best are The Cambridge University Magazine, which came out under the title The Symposium in 1840, and contained some good work by George Brimley, and The Tatler in Cambridge (1871–2) which was illumined by the wit of A. W. Verrall. The Cambridge Observer was started in 1892 by a small group including G. W. Steevens, an Oxford man then in Cambridge, S. V. Makower and others. Largely ignoring the ancient classics, it set out épater le bourgeois, and was defiantly propagandist concerning foreign authors. It contested the claim of contemporary critics, and discovered the best of all art in the New English Art club. Such a paper could not last, but did something, in spite of its extravagancies, to enlarge the average mind of the university.