called a yellow, in the winter only, but in former times, previous to their having breeches, it was worn throughout the year*.

The first private benefactor upon record is Sir William Chester, knight, Sheriff of London 1554, Lord Mayor 1561; who built the walls adjoining St. Bartholomew's Hospital at his own expence. He

* I know not where I can with more propriety notice a controversy which took place last winter respecting the dress of the boys than in this place. It appears that the delicate feelings of some gentlemen were shocked by seeing the boys with their heads uncovered in bad weather; and a correspondent of a daily Journal, in noticing the circumstance, made an appeal to the humane feelings of the Governors on the subject of an alteration in the dress-at least, for covering the head. This appeal called forth a reply from one who appears to have been a Blue; and a controversy of some length followed. The Governors do not appear, however, to have entertained the question; or, if they did, it met the fate it justly deserves. To think of changing the original dress upwards of two centuries and a half after the foundation upon slight grounds, would be absurdity in the extreme; and what the Governors (from their known attachment to every thing relating to the Founder) are not likely to do. Could they shew that the health of the children is injured by the present dress; or that, acting upon a rigid system of economy, they could extend the benefits of the foundation by adopting the proposed or any other alteration; in either case they would, I conceive, be justified. But the Governors are, no doubt, aware of the difficulties they would have to encounter, for they would satisfy that party only whose suggestion was adopted, and having once begun the work of innovation, they would be insensibly led on from one alteration to another till there was scarcely a vestige of the original dress left.

D

was followed by John Calthrop, citizen and draper, who bore the whole expence of arching and vaulting the town ditch from Aldersgate to Newgate, which had been found very offensive to the Hospital.

The foundation appears to have attracted so much of the notice of the publick, that it was shortly after destined to receive the hard earnings

As to the health of the boys: — When I state that the average of invalids of all sorts in London is about twenty (or rather more than two in every hundred), I think that will be sufficient to shew the impracticability of adopting any system more beneficial than the present. Economy, in this instance, is, of course, out of the question; we all know that it would be cheaper to leave off hats than to continue wearing them, were the health not effected by the circumstance.

To go a little further, and imagine the subject referred to the decision of the boys themselves-those who were educated there, and well remember the pride that was taken in a small cap, will bear me out in the assertion, that nothing short of coercive measures would make the boys adopt the alteration. Such being the case, would it not be folly in the Governors to place themselves in this awkward situation, merely for the purpose of meeting the wishes of gentlemen whose tender feelings imagine that to be a hardship which none of those brought up in the Hospital ever felt to be one?

I do sincerely hope that when the Governors are induced to make any alteration in the dress, they will at the same time change the name of the Hospital, for I have the greatest objection to the idea of a Blue-coat-boy in any other dress than that of the pious young Founder, which carries with it a degree of veneration that we shall look for in vain in a Blue-coat-boy of the modern school.

of an industrious member of society of the name of Castell, or Casteller, a shoemaker, residing in Westminster; who, from his early rising (being both winter and summer at his work before four o'clock in the morning) was called "The Cock of Westminster." This man, by dint of hard labour, became possessed of lands and tenements to the amount of forty-four pounds per year, which (having no children) he left to Christ's Hospital.

To the above might be added a long list of private benefactors; but, as the repetition of so many names with only a sum of money to each would occupy more space than they would excite interest, the list has been omitted, and those only noticed who have made an addition to the original foundation.

Amidst all the convulsions of the State in the interval between the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Charles the Second, Christ's Hospital not only maintained its pre-eminent station, but continued increasing in public utility. The period had arrived, however, at which (through the munificence of another Royal endowment) it was to make rapid advances towards the state in which we now find it.

In 1672 King Charles the Second, at the suggestion of the Lord Treasurer Clifford, by a Royal charter, founded a Mathematical School, for the instruction of forty boys in navigation; and appointed Sir Jonas Moore, Samuel Pepys, esq. and