boys usually prefer water); for supper, bread and cheese, except on Sundays, when butter is given instead of cheese. The dinners for each day are-Sunday, roast beef; Monday, milk porridge, with bread and butter; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, rice milk, with bread and butter; Thursday, boiled beef; Friday, boiled mutton; Saturday, pea-soup, with bread and butter. The boys take their meals in a very primitive manner. They eat their meat off wooden trenchers, and take their soup from wooden bowls with wooden spoons. The beer is served in leather jacks, and is poured into small piggins for use. The boys are much given to joking on their standing bill of fare, as thus: Sunday-All Saints; Monday-All Souls; Tuesday-All trenchers; Wednesday-All bowls; Thursday-Tough jack; Saturday-Pea-soup, with bread and butter. Of course the sons of thriving parents manage to improve their dietary, and obtain from without supplies of more tempting viands, and especially of the materials for our now national meal-tea. The nurses are quite accessible to fees, and become exceedingly attentive to their favourite boys. When a Blue visits his home he delights in a dinner of hot or cold veal, while sweets and pastry are in great request. If it is beyond three miles, the boys may sleep at home during holidays; but if it is less than that distance, they are strictly required to sleep within the hospital. The writing school (begun in 1694), was erected by Sir John Moore, Alderman, at his sole charge. A lavatory was built in 1819. The new grammar school was completed in 1795, partly from money bequeathed by Mr. John Smith. The infirmary was erected in 1822, and has all proper conveniences for invalid scholars. Christ's Hospital will now accommodate 1,000 pupils. From 130 to 150 boys are admitted annually, exclusive of ninety children received under conditions attached to the bequests of deceased patrons. A fixed routine regulates the distribution of presentations, which are often purchased or exchanged. The boys are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, the classics, and Hebrew; a few, mathematics and drawing. Every boy now proceeds as far as possible in the dead languages. All leave at fifteen, except those destined for the university or for the sea service. About 200 have classical instruction at Hertford, and are transferred to London as vacancies occur. There are seven exhibitions for Cambridge, and one for Oxford; those at Cambridge have each £60 per annum (that at Pembroke Hall has been raised to £100), and the fees for degrees are defrayed by the Governors. The Oxford Exhibition is £70 a year; all fees at entrance, £20 for furnishing a room, £10 for books, and £10 for clothes-making £50 for the outfit-are paid from the hospital funds. The government of the school is vested in the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and twelve of the Common Council.. Governors who have subscribed upwards of £400 assist in the general management. The treasurer, with a working committee, conducts all ordinary business. A prince of the blood royal has been for many years President of the Hospital Court. There are some interesting portraits. Edward VI., half-length, by Holbein; Charles II., by Sir Peter Lely; James II.; Sir Richard Dobbs; and a Mr. St. Armand, grandfather of James St. Armand, Esq., who, in 1749, gave it to the charity, with the residue of his property, on condition that it should never be alienated; but if that trust was violated, the legacy was to pass to the University of Oxford. Strype cites the subjoined inscription, as written under the portrait of the first President: Sir Richard Dobbs, Knight, MAIOR, ANNO 1552. Christ's Hospital erected was, a passing deed of pity, What time Sir Richard Dobbs was Maior of this most famous City: Who careful was in government, and furthered much the same; Also a benefactor good, and joyed to see enframe. Whose picture here his friends have put, to put each wight in mind, To imitate his virtuous deeds, as God hath us assigned. Up to the last election for President, the Lord Mayor invariably filled that office; and when the change took place it was thought by many steady-going citizens an unwarrantable departure from ancient usage. Yet to have royalty in the chair was no mean distinction. Among the notabilities of Christ's Hospital, Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb are conspicuous. Both have left us many racy recollections of their school days, and both concur in gratefully acknowledging the benefits they received. We may, perhaps, desire that the presentations should always be given to the really deserving, still the advantages of such a noble institution in the centre of London are obvious; and not a few of the blue-tuniced pupils, when they pass through the gates for the last time, to enter the sterner academy where experience is the head master, will surely feel deep regret as they sigh forth a final adieu; or should the proud hopes of youth stifle such a feeling, and the future appear too bright for a single cloud, the time will certainly come when the weary combatants in life's perilous warfare, drooping in the heat of the day under a growing burden of cares, will look back with tearful eyes on the hall where they gathered to their simple meals, the schools, the arcade, the playground-happy scenes of useful study and innocent recreation, which can "know them no more,” where their seats are filled by others, and where their carved names have grown strange to Blues who, in their turn, will treasure similar recollections and regrets. 118 LOMBARD STREET. A LONDONER of our day, hastily traversing Lombard-street, finds little or nothing to remind him of its great antiquity. Few of the old stones remain to connect it with the Middle Ages. The churches were Wren's work after the Great Fire, and they stand at present smoke-blackened patriarchs amidst a district of puzzling lanes, courts, and alleys, where few or none of the houses still preserved date further back than the middle of the seventeenth century. This narrow street, where the tall temples of commerce almost meet at the top, and shut out the daylight, is a most important portion of the wealthiest of all the City districts. This will be readily admitted, but few are aware that it is also the site of the earliest portion of old London-of a flourishing Roman colony-of Lud's half mythical town-and, not improbably, of a settlement of bold British aborigines, whose inexpensive dwellings were framed of mud and branches of trees cut in the forests of Middlesex. I should be in danger of losing my readers, and perhaps myself, were I to speak of the British period, for, even with the aid of William of Malmesbury, it would be groping in a fog which the genius of Milton failed to irradiate. Our beginning, therefore, shall be with the Roman period. As, in ancient times, the dead of one age is found covering another and thus the mass of human bones gradually |