Babylonians and Chaldees to take away that he afore gave." Such reasoning and such illustration on the part of the men whose homes he was breaking up for his own especial benefit must have been very agreeable to Henry, and have somewhat sweetened the mortification he could not but have felt at the heroie conduct that characterised some of these establishments,-the Charter House, for instance, described in a former Number.

A few years after, the King's brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, died; and Fuller says, "such was the sympathy of tempers, intimacy of converse, and no great disparity of age betwixt them, that he (Henry) thought it high time to bethink himself of his end, and to do some good work in order thereunto." So remembering the representations of Sir Richard Gresham, father to the Royal Merchant, the King made over the Grey Friars to the City of London, in trust for "the relief of the poor." The King's death, however, prevented any further proceedings in the matter. Such was the place chosen by the young Edward for the purposes of the new Hospital.

The work was commenced by a repair of the old conventual buildings, which had become greatly dilapidated, and the natural effects of time had been assisted by the carelessness of the tenants who occupied them after the dissolution. The church, for instance, was then converted into a store-house for the reception of prizes taken from the French, the consecrated utensils having been previously sold for the benefit of the crown, and the beautiful and costly monuments torn away, comprising nine of alabaster and marble, with some seven rare marble grave-stones, "all sold for fifty pounds or thereabouts, by Sir Martin Bowes, goldsmith and alderman of London." It was a bold thing of "Sir Martin Bowes, goldsmith and alderman," after this to cause himself to be buried where he had set so bad a precedent, but perhaps he had as little respect for his own remains as he had previously exhibited for the remains of others. As it happened, all this wilful and barbarous destruction proved of little ultimate consequence: had they been preserved then, they must have afterwards perished with the building in the Great Fire. To return: the citizens, animated by Edward's zeal, soon restored the place to a fit state, and in six months' time three hundred and forty children were admitted into the old monastic walls. They were then clothed in a livery of russet cotton, which was soon changed for the garb that, with some trifling alterations, they still wear. In June, 1553, the children, with the Corporation at their head, were received in that same palace wherein but a few months before Edward and Ridley had held their memorable conversation, and the charter of incorporation of the different hospitals before mentioned was delivered by the gratified King. An admirable 'description of that scene has been preserved by one who was no doubt an eye-witness-the great painter, Holbein, whose work, commemorative of the event, yet hangs in the Hospital hall. The young monarch, in an easy, natural, and dignified posi tion, sits on an elevated throne, in a scarlet and ermined robe, holding the sceptre in his left hand, and presenting with the other the charter to the kneeling Lord Mayor. By his side stands the Chancellor, holding the seals, and other officers of state. Bishop Ridley, deservedly a prominent figure, kneels before him, with uplifted hands, as if supplicating a blessing on the event: whilst the aldermen, &c., with the Lord Mayor, kneel on both sides, occupying the middle ground of

the picture; citizens stand behind them; and lastly, in front, are a double row of boys on one side, and of girls on the other,

"Small by degrees, and beautifully less,"

:

from the master and matron down to the boy and the girl who have stepped forward from their respective rows, and kneel with raised hands before the King. The old-fashioned square windows, with rude niches between (two having statues), and the chequered floor, bear every mark of being real representations of the chief features of the old palace at Westminster. Stow describes, in his usually graphic manner, a scene which appears to have been a kind of supplement to that just referred to. He says, "And, for a further relief, a petition being made to the King's Majesty for a licence to take in mortmain, or otherwise without licence, lands to a certain yearly value, and a space left in the patent for his Grace to put in what sum would please him, he, looking on the void place, called for pen and ink, and with his own hand wrote this sum in these words :'four thousand marks by the year;' and then said, in the hearing of his council, 'Lord, I yield thee most hearty thanks that thou hast given me life thus long to finish this work, to the glory of thy name.' After which foundation established, he lived not above two days, whose life would have been wished equal to the patriarchs, if it had pleased God so to have prolonged it." And thus died, in his sixteenth year, the King of whom one who was about his person speaks in a tone of deep and touching affection that of itself bespeaks the extraordinary qualities and attainments so early lost to the nation and to the world :—“ If ye knew the towardness of that young prince, your hearts would melt to hear him named: the beautifullest creature that liveth under the sun-the wittiest, the most amiable, and the gentlest thing of all the world."

Benefactions flowed in from different quarters to the support of the infant establishment; one of these in particular deserves especial mention :-" There was one Richard Castell, alias Casteller, shoemaker, dwelling in Westminster, a man great travail and labour in his faculty with his own hands, and such a one as was named the Cock of Westminster; because, both winter and summer, he was at his work before four o'clock in the morning. This man, thus truly and painfully labouring for his living, God blessed and increased his labour so abundantly, that he purchased lands and tenements in Westminster, to the yearly value of forty and four pounds. And having no child, with the consent of his wife (who survived him, and was a virtuous good woman), gave the same lands wholly to Christ's Hospital aforesaid, to the relief of the innocent and fatherless children, and for the succour of the miserable sore and sick, harboured in the other hospitals about London."* The benevolent shoemaker's estate is now of considerable value. Another great benefactor was Sir Richard Dobbs, the first President, and the man who had so praiseworthily exerted himself, in the year of his mayoralty, in carrying out the King's wishes, and whose memory is preserved in the Hospital by a portrait, with an inscription beneath, which says much for the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, if it does not show their poetical tastes in a very flattering light

"Christ's Hospital erected was a passing deed of pity,

What time Sir Richard Dobbs was Mayor of this most famous city,

* Stow.

Who careful was in government, and furthered much the same,

Also a benefactor good, and joyed to see it frame;

Whose portraiture here his friends have set, to put each wight in mind

To imitate his virtuous deeds, as God hath us assign'd."

Since the period of the foundation, the income of the institution has known much fluctuation, and consequently also the number of the inmates. The three hundred and forty children, with which the Hospital opened, had dwindled down, in 1580, to one hundred and fifty; at the present time there are above twelve hundred boys on the foundation in London and Hertford, and seventy girls. The object of the institution has also, in the lapse of time, become materially changed; which may, in a great measure, be attributed to the influence of the Governors or Benefactors, who have now long been the chief supporters of Christ's Hospital.

There are few places in London where visitors may be more frequently observed to stand and enjoy the scene before them than by those large gates which span the opening in Newgate Street, revealing the magnificent Hall to every passer by; with the countless throngs of hatless, blue-gowned, and yellow-stockinged boys, who are making the area before it resound again with their boisterous mirth. Such a scene, indeed, in the very heart of London, may well excite notice; but there is something about a blue-coat boy, or his school, that makes him always an object of interest, whether you meet him in some remote street of London, with his little ticket of leave attached to his button-hole, showing he has a few hours' holiday only, or on the top of a stage-coach during Christmas time, looking as blooming, and uncovered, and apparently as unconcerned as ever at the severities of the season, whilst every one else is shivering beneath the completest panoply of caps, shawls, and great coats,-or, lastly, in some remote country village, hundreds of miles from the school, where the annual visit of the blue-coat boy, in his strange costume, makes as much sensation among the more youthful inhabitants of the place, as the novel appearance of the conjurer from the neighbouring fair, and no doubt the attainments of the boy are supposed to be scarcely less wonderful. Many circumstances combine to create this interest: the dress, the history of the foundation already narrated, associations connected with the eminent men who have been there educated, and remembrances of our boyhood, when some dim vision perhaps long floated before our eyes, beguiling us with the notion of ourselves becoming, in technical language, Blue," or the hopes of mature age, to obtain admittance for our own children ;— these are all influences common enough to some or other of the individuals in every knot of spectators that may be found gazing upon the cheerful sights and sounds of the playground of Christ's Hospital. Among those persons too, no doubt, often mingles some old inmate of the place, a genuine "Blue." He is old now, perhaps, and the changes visible in all he sees make him unwilling to go beyond the threshold. He knows not that Hall: it is very splendid, but it is not the one in which he ate, and drank, and prayed, and sang; and beheld, on days of high festival, magnificent processions wind along-furred and chained Lord Mayors, starred and gartered nobles, beautiful and magnificently arrayed ladies. He has heard that it is the same with the school in which he was educated, with the Dormitory in which he slept, with the Infirmary in which he was so carefully tended when ill-all are changed. He asks a question or two at the

a

handsome lodge, but cannot learn that a single name familiar to him yet remains connected with the Hospital. Why should he go in? Another wistful look, as if still unconsciously expecting to see some well-known face of a playmate among the boys, and he hurries on. Lastly, there is a more general feeling of interest aroused by that striking and picturesque scene; one, indeed, in which few spectators can avoid occasionally participating. Its position must frequently cause it to bring suddenly, and therefore with all the greater force, before the eyes of men, whom the occupations of life have so completely absorbed that they have almost forgot that such a thing as simple, innocent enjoyment exists, the living evidences of what they themselves were; and thus sometimes perhaps arouse trains of thought or emotion, of a more than ordinarily refreshing and beneficial nature. Let us enter the gates and pass through the play-ground. We find to the right an entrance (beneath a new building containing dormitories) to the cloisters, forming a large square, enclosing a space called the Garden, where the monks are said to have been once accustomed to solace themselves, and which was at no very distant period covered with grass, and had a fine large tree in the centre. All this part is consecrated, and many burials have taken place both in the cloisters and the quadrangle within. The general burial-ground of the hospital is between the south cloister and the houses in Newgate Street which conceal it from public view. This place used to possess a kind of melancholy attraction, from the exceedingly interesting character of its funeral ceremonies. Here is a picture of one of them :-"On the evening appointed for the funeral, the boys of the ward to which the deceased belonged assembled in the quadrangle of the infirmary, for the purpose of attending the remains of their departed school-fellow to the grave. When the melancholy procession began to move, six of the choir, at a short distance in advance, commenced the first notes of the burial anthem selected from the 39th Psalm, the whole train gradually joining in the solemn chaunt as they entered, two by two, the narrow vaulted passage or creek, which terminated in the cloisters. The appearance of the youthful mourners, moving with measured steps by torchlight, and pealing their sepulchral dirge along the sombre cloisters of the ancient priory, was irresistibly affecting; and the impressive burial service succeeding to the notes of the anthem, as it sunk sorrowfully upon the lips of the children, riveted the spectators insensibly into a mood of serious and edifying reflection. There was something of a mournful grandeur in these observances, peculiarly adapted to the monastic territory in which they were conducted*." We are sorry to add that the impressive features of the ceremonial have, like the cloisters of the old priory here referred to, disappeared. Burials now take place by daylight.

From the burial-ground we step into the well-known Christ Church Passage, which forms the entrance to the church and the east cloister, over which is the statue of the youthful founder, shown in our first page. This, with the adjoining south front of the hospital, was erected soon after the destruction of the old front, with the church, &c., in the great fire, by Sir Robert Clayton, alderman, and sometime Lord Mayor; one of those men who

"Did good by stealth, and blush'd to find it fame."

It was not known till the whole was finished to whom the public were indebted History of Christ's Hospital, p. 162.

拿

for the work; and then the name appears to have been only promulgated by a friend, in consequence of the worthy Knight's having been ejected from the government of the very institution for which he had done so much, during the political excitement of the reign of the second James. The church was built by Sir Christopher Wren, on the site of the choir of the conventual edifice, and is a large and handsome structure. But the Blue-coat boys are here also the chief feature, filling the gallery on both sides of the organ with an almost interminable expanse of faces, and where the order and silence prevailing among so dense a multitude are equally noticeable. Behind the church, and parallel with the East Cloister, is a kind of street opening from Butcher-hall Lane, in which are various houses for the Masters, and the Counting House with the Court Room above, where the financial and other business of the institution is carried on, including the nomination of Governors, and the admittance of children to the benefits of the Hospital. A brief outline of the general management of the Hospital may be here fitly introduced. The Governors consist, first, of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and twelve Common Council men, chosen by the other members of the Council; and, secondly, of noblemen and gentlemen of all ranks, who become benefactors to the amount of not less than 400/.--these elect, for life, an Alderman as President, in whom is vested the chief direction of affairs. The rights of presentation are thus exercised-the Lord Mayor annually nominates two children, and the President three (which includes their rights as Aldermen), each Alderman one, the Treasurer two, besides his occasional one as Governor; lastly, the Governors fill up the remaining vacancies by rotation. The principal qualifications required on the part of the children are,-that they be not less than seven, nor more than ten years of age; that they be neither foundlings nor maintained at the parish charge; that they have been born in wedlock; that they are free from any infectious distemper or incurable disease; and that their parents have no adequate means of maintaining and educating them. The other officers