tiful Banqueting House at Whitehall.* Although Sir Thomas had taken every precaution to ensure the appropriation of his estates to the purposes he had pointed out (he had nine witnesses for instance to the principal document), yet scarcely was he in his grave before Simon Baxter, his nephew and heir-atlaw, who had been chief mourner at the funeral, laid claim to all the property settled upon the Hospital, and attempted to gain possession of the Charter House, but was foiled by the vigilance of the porter. He was equally unsuccessful in the courts of law: from the Privy Council, to whom Baxter had presented a petition, the case was referred to the King's Bench and Chancery courts, and lastly to the Exchequer Court, where it was argued before the twelve judges, and a final verdict given in favour of the Hospital. Doubtless this was a just verdict, but, to show how difficult it was to obtain justice even at the period in question, we may observe that the result was in some covert way connected with a gift of ten thousand pounds from the governors to King James, under the assigned reason of appropriating it towards the repairs of Berwick Bridge. The Governors held their first meeting on the 30th of June, 1613, when the necessary arrangements for the commencement of the practical purposes of the institution were devised. Of these governors there are sixteen in number including the master, and they exercise the entire direction; they form a body corporate. Vacancies are filled up by the other governors. They present to the hospital and school in rotation. The principal officers are the Master, Preacher, Master of the School, Registrar (who is also the Receiver and Steward of the Courts), Reader (who is also the Librarian), Writing Master, Resident Medical Officer, * The bill sent in on the completion of the work is a curious, and we think not uninteresting, document. We therefore here transcribe it :

For the story over the cornice (a preacher addressing a numerous congregation)

For carrying the work, and setting with cramps of iron, lime, and bricks
For working of the masonry in alabaster

For working and polishing five rance pilasters
For working and polishing the lover of rance
For working, rubbing, and polishing all the tables, both of rance and touch
For sixty feet of rance, at 10s. a foot

10 0 0

Organist, Manciple or House Steward, and Surveyor. The pensioners are eighty in number, the scholars forty-four. No one can be admitted to the former class under the age of fifty years unless maimed in war, and only those who have been housekeepers are eligible. They are amply dieted, they have each a separate apartment with proper attendance, and are allowed about twenty-five pounds a year for clothes, &c. Boys are admitted into the school between the ages of ten and fourteen years, receive an excellent education, as the numerous excellent scholars it has sent forth may testify, and when properly qualified are sent to the University, where twenty-nine exhibitions of the value of eighty pounds per annum are provided. In other cases an apprentice fee is given; one instance is curious: Henry Siddons was apprenticed by the Charter House to his uncle Mr. J. P. Kemble, " to learn the histrionic art and mystery."

The principal buildings of the existing Charter House are the Hall, the Chapel, the School-room in the centre of the extensive play-ground, the Evidence-room, the Old and the New Governors' rooms, the Old Court-room, and the numerous buildings required for the accommodation of the pensioners and boys, which are disposed round three quadrangles or courts of varying size. Of these, the School-room requires no particular notice, and the Evidence-room we could not obtain admittance to, all the valuable documents of the establishment being there preserved. Passing through the outer gate in Charter House Square, the pediment of which is supported by two lions with scrolls, the Duke of Norfolk's badge, we have on the right the view seen at the head of this paper, and before us the way to the quadrangles before mentioned where the pensioners and the boys are lodged. Beyond the inner gateway shown in our engraving, to which we have referred, is the great Hall, on the opposite side of a court, and near it, to the right, the Chapel. The Hall is connected with the old Refectory, which is still used for a similar purpose, though with somewhat more genial fare, by the pensioners, and with the cloisters, where the poor Carthusians were confined during the short period preceding their torture and death. It is supposed to have been built during the reign of Henry VIII., no doubt by Sir Edward North, and to have been afterwards fitted up by the Duke of Norfolk as a banqueting-room. The centre of the ceiling is a lofty semicircular vaulted roof, the sides are flat and supported by massy oaken brackets or timbers. A gallery runs along one side, and across the northern end, where it is supported on caryatides resting on a handsome screen. In the oriel windows are some pieces of stained glass with various arms. The chimney-piece in the centre is curious-above it are Sutton's arms, very gay with paint and gilding, and flanked on each side by a mounted piece of cannon, allusion most probably to Sutton's office and services at the siege of Edinburgh, of which perhaps the afterwards peaceful citizen was not a little proud. From the hall we pass into a kind of vestibule, with a very wide and most elaborately decorated staircase leading up to the Governors' rooms on the right, and a passage in front, lined on the pavement with tombstones, which leads to the chapel. This is of irregular shape and very heterogeneous composition. The entrance is of the miserable style of James's reign, whilst the porch, projecting into the chapel, to which it opens, has a very fine vaulted and groined roof, nearly if not quite coeval

an

with the first foundation of the monastery. The intersections of the groins are carved to represent an angel, and instruments of penance now happily unknown. Above this, forming the basement of the chapel turret, is a part of the old tower of the Carthusian Chapel, still supported in the exterior by a strong buttress. Sutton's monument is in a very dark corner, nearly facing us, but at once strikes attention by the colours and the gilded spikes of the railings in front.* Near his monument is a tablet to the memory of Dr. John Pepusch, the celebrated musician, who was organist here. The organ gallery is a most elaborate affair, being almost entirely covered with helmets, armour, flags, drums, guns, masks, cherubims, coats of arms, heads, harps, guitars, and composite capitals without shafts, on a kind of termini. We need scarcely add that we owe this brilliant design also to the geniuses of the reign of the British Solomon. "On the north side of the building without is a door leading to a well-staircase, that by giddy turns introduces us to the (Evidence) room now used to keep the archives of the hospital; the ceiling is beautifully ribbed, and the centre stone represents a large rose enclosing I. H. S."+ The master's house includes a handsome suite of apartments, among which is the Governors' room, so called from its being used as their place of meeting. Here are portraits of Charles II.; Archbishop Sheldon; William Earl of Craven (the lover of the Empress Palatine) in complete armour, a romantic-looking portrait of a romantic-minded man; George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, as perfect an opposite in appearance as in character to the last; Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury; the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth; Lord Shaftesbury (the author of The Characteristics'); Dr. Burnet; and Sutton himself, a venerable-looking man. The portrait of the author of the 'Theory of the Earth' is a very fine one, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Burnet was Master of the Charter House, and distinguished himself whilst in office by his successful resistance to James II., when the latter strove to intrude a Roman Catholic into the establishment. The old Court Room is perhaps the most interesting part of the Charter House, and has just been entirely restored to its pristine magnificence. A single glance at this beautiful room is enough to recall the memory of the time when the stately Virgin Queen trod its floor, attended by her magnificent throng of courtiers, warriors, and statesmen ;-for, visitor though she was, she had not the slightest notion of abating one jot of her regal dignity under any circumstances. The ceiling is very rich with its gilded pendants and fine stucco-work and painting. Its walls are hung with tapestry, which is however very much faded. The most interesting feature of the room is the lofty architectural chimney-piece, with paintings in different-shaped panels, of which the three called Faith, Hope, and Charity are positively extraordinary works of art. They are designed in a very pure style, and correctly drawn. Who was their author it is impossible to say; but they are worthy of Holbein, and not unlike his style. In this room the anniversary of the foundation has long been accustomed to be held, on the 12th of December, when, among other

* We need add but little to the description contained in the sculptor's bill before transcribed. The monument is twenty-five feet high and thirteen broad. The effigy is painted in imitation of life, with grey hair and beard, and in a black furred gown.

† Malcolm's 'Londonium Redivivum,' vol. i.

old ditties proper to the occasion, is sung one terminating with the pertinent, if not very poetical, verses

"Then blessed be the memory

Of good old Thomas Sutton,
Who gave us lodging-learning-
And he gave us beef and mutton."

From the beef and mutton the transition is easy to the kitchen, with its two enormous chimneys; which is as genuine a piece of the old monastery as the I. H. S. on the walls of the little court behind, or as the announcement that still greets the eye in the same place, and delights every lover of Chaucer by the use of a word they had never again expected to see familiarised among us, except in his pages," To the Manciple's Offices."

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WHEN Samuel Johnson first saw St. John's Gate he "beheld it with reverence," as he subsequently told his amusing biographer, Boswell. But Boswell gives his own interpretation of the cause of this reverence. St. John's Gate, he says, was the place where the Gentleman's Magazine' was originally printed: and he adds, "I suppose, indeed, that every young author has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him." He continues, with happy naïveté, "I myself recollect such impressions from the Scot's Magazine.' Mr. Croker, in his valuable notes to Boswell's 'Johnson,' has a very rational doubt of the correctness of this explanation: "If, as Mr. Boswell supposes, Johnson looked at St. John's Gate as the printingoffice of Cave, surely a less emphatical term than reverence would have been more just. The Gentleman's Magazine' had been, at this time, but six years before the public, and its contents were, until Johnson himself contributed to improve it, entitled to anything rather than reverence; but it is more probable that Johnson's reverence was excited by the recollections connected with the ancient gate itself, the last relic of the once extensive and magnificent priory of the

VOL. II.

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