(WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. C. VAN NOORDEN.)

VERY intelligent passenger along the busy thoroughfare of Newgate Street must have been impressed,

at some time or other, by the curious spectacle of a large number of blue-gowned and yellow-hosen boys running, jumping and playing, with light hearts and active limbs, in the playground hard by the handsome dining-hall belonging to Christ's Hospital. Country people, and those who pass this way for the first time, or but rarely, never fail to display an interest in a sight so unexpected in the heart of the busy city of London.

quite clear that Londoners hold the school in no small veneration. Something of the distinction of being a royal foundation, perhaps, still clings to it, and something is doubtless due to the antiquity and magnitude of the institution; but the chief cause, we conceive, is to be found in the general appreciation of the permanent and widely extended good wrought by this great educational charity, and in the fact that within its walls, for the last three hundred years, a large number of children have been sheltered, educated, and in other ways cared for, without expense to their parents. It is generally recognised that the course of education imparted to the scholars of Christ's Hospital is of a sound and useful character, and well calculated to fit a boy for a successful commercial or professional career.

A portion of what is now the site of Christ's Hospital was occupied in former times by a priory of the Grey Friars or Franciscans-a house of great celebrity for the sanctity of its members and the beauty and magnificence of its buildings. The choir of a church for this brotherhood was commenced in 1306, and the mission rapidly grew in popularity. Gifts and legacies came in from various sources, and those who were about to die requested to be laid within the sacred precincts of this spiritual oasis. Weever relates that in this church (such was the notion of its superior sanctity) were interred the bodies of four queens, four duchesses, four countesses, one duke, two earls, eight barons, thirty-five knights, and many others, amounting in all to six hundred and sixty-three persons of rank and quality. In the choir there were nine tombs of alabaster and marble, and one hundred and forty marble gravestones in divers places. After the dissolution of the monasteries all