of the house comprise four classical masters, two writing-masters, and two ushers, mathematical, drawing, and singing masters, in the schools; chief and assistant clerks, steward and matron, nurses, beadles, &c. &c. The admission of children and the ordinary routine of the affairs of the Hospital are managed by a numerous Committee of Governors, meeting once a month in the Court Room before mentioned, or in the Treasurer's room adjoining. Here also the Governors and Officers dine together on certain days in every year. It is a handsome, stately-looking place, with a vaulted ceiling, crossed near each end by a carved oak beam supported on a pillar. At the farther end, behind the President's chair, is the famous picture of Edward VI. by Holbein, one of the most masterly of the great artist's works. Two other portraits of the King, one on each side, testify the grateful remembrance in which he is here held. One of these is a comparatively recent acquisition, and was presented by T. Nixson, Esq. It belonged, it appears, to Sir Anthony Mildmay, Queen Elizabeth's Chancellor,—is looked upon as a genuine Holbein, and, says its former owner, "The late Sir Thomas Lawrence told me that he thought it was an admirable painting, and the best portrait of the King he had ever scen." A portrait of Charles II., by Lely, also graces the Court Room. There are various other portraits hung around the walls of this room, and that of the chief clerk's below; among the rest one of Dame Mary Ramsey, who made a most magnificent bequest to the Hospital, now producing above 4000l. yearly. A curious anecdote is told of this lady. She intended to have bequeathed some 500l. a-year to St. Peter's College, Cambridge, on the condition of the College taking the name of " Peter and Mary." Dr. Soames, the master, drily remarked that "Peter, who so long lived single, was now too old to have a feminine partner;" and so refused the offer. Fuller may well call this " a dear jest."

At the termination of Counting House Yard we find the old play-ground nearly facing Little Britain. This extensive area is called the Ditch, from the circumstance that the great water-course which environed the ancient city wall ran through it, as, indeed, in the form of a drain, it still does. On the northern side of the ditch are the Grammar and Mathematical Schools, on the western the Writing School, and on the southern the beautiful architectural gateway over the cloister, which at once, as it were, divides and connects the two quadrangles of the Ditch and the Garden. The Writing School was built by one of the Presidents of the Hospital, Sir John Moore, the architect being Wren. The founder's statue very appropriately stands in front of the building. The elegant structure comprising the Grammar and Mathematical Schools was built in 1832, from the designs of the architect of the Hospital, the late Mr. Shaw. The statues are those of Charles II., the original founder of the Mathematical School, and Edward VI. The interior consists chiefly of two large apartments, with studies, &c., for the masters. Though the buildings have disappeared with which most of the interesting school-memories of the Hospital are connected, yet even the site has a certain interest. One still seems to breathe the same air with the master-minds whose first weak and aimless attempts were here guided and strengthened. Coleridge was here; and a memorable record of his presence, and of the benefits he owed to the Hospital, and its then master, the Rev. James Boyer, has been left to us in the poet's own words:" He (the master)," writes Coleridge, "early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and

Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated me to compare Lucretius, Terence, and, above all, the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the (so-called) silver and brazen ages, but with even those of the Augustan era; and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the superiority of the former, in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets, he made us read Shakspere and Milton as lessons; and they were the lessons, too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learned from him that poetry, even that of the loftiest, and seemingly that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science, and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent upon more fugitive causes. In our English compositions (at least for the last three years of our school education) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre -muse, muses, and inspirations-Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene, were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming,—' Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy? Muse! Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh! ay! the cloister-pump, I suppose!'” It is only right to observe, that Mr. Leigh Hunt has given, in his Recollections of his Life,' and from his own experience,' a terrible reverse to the picture. There is no doubt that Mr. Boyer carried his severity, if not worse qualities, to an undue length. Coleridge himself observed, when he heard of his death, "It was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way." Here also was educated Charles Lamb, who has left us two pleasant papers on the Hospital; but, with that love of subtle mystification common to him, has made them of so precisely opposite a character, that one might almost suppose the Hospital to be the best or the worst managed institution in the world, just as we happened to read the one or the other only. Lamb would, however, be read to little purpose by those who should look upon the mystification we have spoken of as any thing more than the superficial medium in which the writer chose to work. In these very papers, for instance, he has given us one of the great essentials of all philosophical inquiry-he has shown us both sides of the question. Going regularly back from the present period into the history of the School, we find among its names, Barnes, the late Editor of the Times,' "than whom," says Mr. Leigh Hunt, "no man, if he had cared for it, could have been more certain of attaining celebrity for wit and literature;" Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes ;' Lamb, Coleridge, Bishop Middleton, Jeremiah Markland, esteemed the best scholar and critic of the last century, Richardson, the great novelist, Joshua Barnes, another famous scholiast, whose pretensions, however, have been thought at least equal to his qualifications, Bishop Stillingfleet, Camden, the most illustrious of British antiquarians, and Campion the Jesuit, whose talents, learning, and melancholy fate excited so much notice during the reign of Elizabeth, and, with a portion at least of society, so much sympathy. This is the unfortunate man who was so atrociously racked in the Tower, that a hand-breadth was added to his stature. Such were some of the men of whom, with a slight alteration of the lines of Bishop Middleton, written whilst he was a boy in the school,

and still preserved with other school exercises in the Hospital, it might be said:

Within this cloistered calm retreat,

Where sacred Science loves to fix her seat,

How did their moments tranquil wing their flight
In elegant delight!

Here now they smil'd o'er Terence' comic page,

Or held high converse with th' Athenian sage,
Now listen'd to the buskin'd hero's strain,

With tender Ovid loved, or wept o'er Hector slain."

With notices of the infirmary, the dormitory, and the hall we shall conclude. Although there is little general need of the large building, erected in 1822, for the purposes of the infirmary, the average number of patients being about twenty only, yet it was wisely anticipated that some prevailing epidemic might suddenly appear in the hospital, and, without such provision, might be attended with alarming consequences. It stands behind the hall. The principal dormitories are erected one on each of the east and west sides of the cloister; and present, of course, very similar interior arrangements. The one through which we passed had a row of pillars down the centre, with a range of beds projecting from the line of their base, on each side, and similar ranges from each wall; and very convenient, comfortable-looking little beds they are-each numbered, and each having at the extremity the little box for the books, playthings, &c., of the young owner. Dim lamps, having a very cloistral sort of appearance, are suspended from the ceiling. At the end are the nurse's apartments, with their curtained windows, looking like a little interior house. But the most noticeable feature of the spot was the corner against the nurse's apartments, where stood a bed of a more distinguished-looking character than the rest, and by its side a glazed door with the light shining through :-the lamp of the solitary student, one of the intellectual aristocracy of the Hospital, a Deputy Grecian. We may know what he is thinking and what he is doing, as well as if both mind and place were opened to us. He has mastered the difficulties attending the attainment of the first honour, why should he not do the same with the second, and become one of the awful triumvirate of Grecians ?-And then what a vista opens! University, its honours; the church, its wealth, leisure, and influence!—Before we quit the dormitory, let us in few words trace the history of a Blue-coat boy's day. A bell rings at seven (six in summer), that is the signal to rise; at a quarter past, the boys proceed to the lavatory (a model of convenient arrangement), to wash ; at eight, they breakfast in the hall. School begins at nine, and lasts till twelve; the boys again wash, play for half an hour, when they hurry into the hall to dinner. From half-past one to four the schools are again open; another half hour's play, then supper at five in the hall, washing at six; prayers read by the monitor in the dormitory afterwards complete the day's proceedings. Several small intervals of spare time of course occur, which the boys find no difficulty in disposing of.

The first stone of the new Hall was laid in 1825, by the Duke of York, in the presence of an imposing array of distinguished persons, and was opened in 1829, with ceremonials of a still more important character. The exterior of this beautiful building is too well known to need description: we merely therefore observe that it is built in the purest style of Gothic architecture, with embattled and

pinnacled summit, octagonal towers at the ends, very lofty pointed windows, and low arches in the basement, opening upon an arcade, where the boys find shelter during their sports in bad weather. A bust of Edward decorates the space over the centre arch. The Hall stands on an interesting spot; being erected partly over the foundations of the Refectory of the Grey Friars, and partly on the site of the old City wall. The interior forms, next to Westminster Hall, the noblest room in the metropolis. It measures one hundred and eighty-seven feet in length, fiftyone wide, and forty-six and a half high, and it is in every respect as architecturally beautiful as it is gigantic in dimensions.

The shades of twilight were beginning to gather as we passed up the broad staircase, and entered into the solemn-looking Hall, and we could scarcely believe that we looked upon an erection of the present century. All is in harmony with the associations of the place; the stately range of beautiful windows, with their stained glass arms and devices, the flat ribbed ceiling, the galleries, the great pictures extending midway between the floor and the roof along the wall, the deep-toned organ, and the two small casements, one on each side of it, with their gorgeous-looking figures of Faith, Hope, Truth, and Justice. In the gallery at the opposite end is Holbein's great picture which we have already described, hanging, we regret to say, where there is seldom or ever a sufficiency of light to allow of its careful inspection: we have been told too that the damp is making sad ravages with it. Surely something will be done in time to remedy the one evil, if not the other. On the long line of wall facing the windows is another portrait of Charles II. by Lely; also an interesting painting, well known from engravings, descriptive of Brooke Watson's escape from a shark with the loss of a leg, whilst bathing, and who, afterwards becoming Lord Mayor of London, presented this memorial of the incident to the Hospital. Lastly, there is the great picture (great in size, whatever it be in quality) by Verrio, whom Walpole has characterised as “an excellent painter for the sort of subject on which he was employed; that is, without much invention, and with less taste, his exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out Gods, Goddesses, Kings, Emperors, and Triumphs, over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where we should be sorry to see placed the works of a better master,-I mean ceilings and staircases. The New Testament and the Roman History cost him nothing but ultra-marine; that and marble columns and marble steps he never spared." In the picture before us, Charles II. is giving audience to a deputation from the Hospital, including the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, Governors and children. The King sits on a throne of crimson damask, beneath a canopy of figured white cloth of gold: he holds a scroll in his hand. The Lord Mayor is pointing to an extended map and a globe, as if exulting in the progress of the boys in Charles's own school-the mathematical. A great number of youthful figures are present, boys and girls: the faces of the latter generally handsome, and their figures graceful. Verrio very characteristically has placed himself in one corner, and appears, as Malcolm has observed, to be inquiring the spectator's opinion of his performance. The "public suppers" of Christ's Hospital have long been celebrated, and deservedly, for their interesting character. In this magnificent Hall they derive new attractions. They are held on every Sunday evening, from the commencement of February until Easter. At the appointed time the double row of chandeliers are lighted, and shed their brilliant illumination through the extensive

space; the “trade boys," whose turn it is to officiate (a party to each table), bring in their baskets of bread, knives, &c., leathern piggins, into which the beer is poured from a leathern "Jack," and among the rest one brings variegated. candles, which are lighted and scattered about the tables. Now come the boys, who seat themselves at their respective tables, each of which has its separate nurse. All thus far prepared, precisely at seven o'clock the procession enters, consisting of the Lord Mayor, President, Treasurer, and Governors, walking two by two; the organ swells out its mighty welcome, the vast youthful assemblage stands up and joins in the psalm, which is led by the singing boys in the organ gallery, and as it proceeds the great personages take their seat on the raised dais stretching across the Hall at the farther end. A splendidly carved chair, framed from the oak of old St. Katherine's church, invites the Lord Mayor to the chief direction of the feast. Behind him, and the long row of personages who accompany him, sit the more distinguished visitors, including a brilliant galaxy of bright jewels, and brighter eyes, enough to dazzle the vision of the more romantic among those young gazers. Strangers are admitted into the gallery where Holbein's picture is placed, and also into the body of the hall. The last are also allowed the further indulgence of walking to and fro between the tables as soon as the supper is commenced, on the close of the singing, reading, and prayers. After supper the organ again reverberates through the Hall, and the lovers of music find in the anthem which is now sung not the least interesting of the features of the evening. The singing boys now join their fellows, and the nurse of the first table leads the way, followed by the boys two and two, towards the Lord Mayor, where she curtseys, and they bow, trade boys and all with their baskets (there is a smile sometimes at their expense); then along the whole length of the room towards the door, where they disappear. And thus, till the whole eight hundred and odd boys have passed in review before the high civic dignitary, continues the long procession to glide on, the organ pealing again as grandly as ever.

We must make a brief visit to the kitchen beneath the Hall, which is truly of Cyclopean architecture, with its tall and massy granite pillars, if it be only to allude to the great ameliorations that have been made of late years both in the quality and quantity of the boys' food, and for the purpose of introducing an incident, having no remote connection with the subject, which is too honourable to all parties to be overlooked. Charles Lamb is the recorder. It appears that, in spite of the small amount of food allowed, much of what was given could not be eaten, more particularly the fat of the fresh boiled beef, which was called gag. And, says Charles Lamb, "A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a goule, and held in equal detestation." Notwithstanding this universality of feeling, it appears there was one memorable exception. This boy" was observed after dinner carefully to gather up the remnants left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may credit me), and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his bedside. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported that, on leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check handkerchief, full of something. This, then, must be the accursed thing. Conjecture next