the boy, who was of a meek temper, was terrified to death at the thoughts of his appearance, when his friend who sate next to him bade him be of good cheer, for that he would take the fault on himself. He kept his word accordingly. As soon as they were grown up to be men, the civil war broke out, in which our two friends took the opposite sides; one of them followed the parliament, the other the royal party.

"As their tempers were different, the youth who had torn the curtain endeavoured to raise himself on the civil list, and the other, who had borne the blame of it, on the military. The first succeeded so well that he was in a short time made a judge under the protector. The other was engaged in the unhappy enterprise of Penruddock and Groves in the West. Every one knows that the royal party was routed, and all the heads of them, among whom was the curtain champion, imprisoned at Exeter. It happened to be his friend's lot at that time to go the western circuit. The trial of the rebels, as they were then called, was very short, and nothing now remained but to pass sentence on them; when the judge hearing the name of his old friend, and observing his face more attentively, asked him if he was not formerly a Westminster scholar? By the answer, he was soon convinced that it was his former generous friend; and without saying anything more at that time, made the best of his way to London, where employing all his power and interest with the protector, he saved his friend from the fate of his unhappy associates."-Spectator, No. 313.

There is a bust of Dr. Busby in the School Library which adjoins the schoolroom; and a bust of Sir Francis Burdett, given by the Baroness Burdett Coutts, with a relief representing his leaving the Traitors' Gate of the Tower on the pedestal. There are about two hundred and forty boys at Westminster School, but of these only forty are on the foundation; they sleep in (partitions of the) Dormitory which was built along one side of the College Garden in 1722 from designs of Boyle, Earl of Burlington. In this Dormitory the "Westminster Plays "-Latin Plays of Plautus or Terence superseding the Catholic Mysteriesare acted by the boys on the second Thursday in December,

and the preceding and following Monday. The scenery was designed by Garrick since 1839 the actors have worn Greek costume.

The most eminent Masters of Westminster have been Camden and Dr. Busby. Among Foundation Scholars have been Bishop Overall, translator of the Bible; Hakluyt (Canon of Westminster), the collector of voyages; the poets Herbert, Cowley (who published a volume of poems while he was at school here), Dryden, Prior, Stepney, Rowe, Churchill, and " Vinny Bourne"; South the preacher; Locke the philosopher; Bishops Atterbury, Sprat, and Pearce; and Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal. Scholars, not on the foundation, include-Lord Burghley; Ben Jonson; Sir Christopher Wren; Barton Booth the actor; Blackmore, Browne, Dyer, Hammond, Aaron Hill, Cowper, and Southey, poets; Horne Tooke; Cumberland the dramatist; Montagu, Earl of Halifax; Gibbon the historian; Murray, Earl of Mansfield; Sir Francis Burdett; Earl Russell; Archbishop Longley; and Bishop Cotton.

On the north of Little Dean's Yard, occupying the site of part of the monastic building known as "the Misericorde," is Ashburnham House (now the residence of the Sub-Dean), built by Inigo Jones, which derives its name from having been the residence of Lord Ashburnham in 1708. Here the Cottonian Library of MSS. was kept from 1712 to 1731, when part of the house was destroyed by fire, and Dr. Freind saw Dr. Bentley, the King's Librarian, in his dressing-gown and flowing wig, carrying off the Alexandrian MS. of the New Testament under his arm. The house has a broad noble staircase, with a quaint circular gallery above, and the ceiling and decorations of the drawing

room are beautiful specimens of Inigo Jones's work a small temple-summer-house in the garden is also, but without much probability, attributed to him. Dean Milman resided in this house as Canon of Westminster.

The precincts of the Monastery extended far beyond those of the College and were entered (where the Royal Aquarium now stands) by a double Gatehouse of the time of Edward III., which served also as a gaol. One of its chambers was used as an ecclesiastical prison, the other was the common prison of Westminster, the prisoners being brought by way of Thieving Lane and Union Street, to prevent their escaping by entering the liberties of sanctuary. Nicholas Vaux died here of cold and starvation in 1571, a martyr in the cause of Roman Catholicism. Hence Lady Purbeck, imprisoned for adultery in 1622, escaped France in a man's dress. It was here that Sir Walter Raleigh passed the night before his execution and wrote on the blank leaf of his Bible the lines

"Ev'n such is Time, that takes on trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,

Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wander'd all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

The Lord shall raise me up I trust."

to

Here Richard Lovelace, imprisoned for his devotion to

Charles I., wrote—

"Stone walls doe not a prison make

Nor iron barres a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such libertie."

Hampden, Sir John Eliot, and Lilly the astrologer were also imprisoned at different times in the Gatehouse. The dwarf, Sir Jeffry Hudson, died here, being accused of having a share in the Popish Plot. Being eighteen inches high, he was first brought into notice at court by being served up in a cold pie at Burleigh to Henrietta Maria, who took him into her service.* Here Savage the poet lay under condemnation of death for the murder of Mr. Sinclair during a riot in a public-house at Charing Cross.t Here Captain Bell was imprisoned for ten years by an order of Privy Council, but, as he believed, in order to give him time for the translation of Luther's Table Talk, to which he had been bidden by a supernatural visitant. The Gatehouse was pulled down in 1776 in consequence of the absurdity of Dr. Johnson, who declared that it was a disgrace to the present magnificence of the capital, and a continual nuisance to neighbours and passengers. One arch remained till 1839, walled up in a house which had once been inhabited by Edmund Burke.

Within the Gatehouse, on the left, where the Westminster Hospital now stands, stood "the Sanctuary"—a strong square Norman tower, containing two cruciform chapels, one above the other. Here hung the bells of the Sanctuary, which, it was said, "sowered all the drink in the town." The privilege of giving protection from arrest to criminals

He was painted by Vandyck, and is described by Scott in "Peveril of the Peak."

and debtors was shared by many of the great English monasteries, but few had greater opportunities of extending their shelter than Westminster, just on the outskirts of the capital: "Thieving Lane" preserved its evil memory even to our own time.

The family of Edward IV. twice sought a refuge here, once in 1470, when the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, with her mother, and her three daughters Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely, were here as the guests of Abbot Milling, till her son Edward was born on Nov. 1, 1470-" commonly called Edward V., though his hand was asked but never married to the English crown." * The Abbot, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Scrope stood sponsors to the prince in the Sanctuary chapel. The second time was in 1483, after the king's death, when the queen fled hither from the Duke of Gloucester with all her daughters, her brother Dorset, and her younger son Richard. Here, sorely against her will, she was persuaded by the Archbishop of Canterbury to give up her son.

son,

"And therewithal she said unto the child, 'Farewell, my own sweet God send you good keeping, let me kiss you once yet ere you go, for God knoweth when we shall kiss together again,' and therewith she kissed him and blessed him, and turned her back and went her way, leaving the child weeping as fast."-Sir T. More's Life of Richard III.

Here, while still in sanctuary, the unhappy mother heard of the murder of her two sons in the Tower.

"It struck to her heart like the dart of death; she was so suddenly amazed that she swooned and fell to the ground, and lay there in great agony like to a dead corpse. And after she was revived, and came to her memory again, she wept and sobbed, and with pitiful screeches

*Fuller's "Worthies."