CORAM AND THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.

Captain Thomas Coram was born at Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, in 1668. He emigrated to Massachusetts, where, after working a while as a shipwright, he became master of a trading vessel, made some money, and at last settled in London. In 1720, when living at Rotherhithe, and walking to and from the city early in the morning and late at night, his feelings were often keenly tried in coming across infants exposed and deserted in the streets. His tender heart at once set his head devising some remedy. There were hospitals for foundlings in France and Holland, and why not in England? Coram was an honest mariner, without much learning or art of address; but he had energy and patience, and for seventeen years he spent the most of his time in writing letters and visiting in advocacy of a home for foundlings. After long striking, a spark caught

CAPTAIN CORAM, BY HOGARTH.

the tinder of the fashionable world; such an institution was voted a necessity of the age; and in 1739, the Foundling Hospital was established by Royal Charter. Subscriptions poured freely in, and in 1741 the Lamb's Conduit estate of 56 acres was bought as a site and grounds for £5,500. It was a fortunate investment. London rapidly girdled the Hospital, which now lies at its very centre, and from the leases of superfluous outskirts the Hospital draws an annual income equal to the original purchase-money. Hogarth was a great friend of the Hospital, and was one of its earliest Governors. For its walls he painted Coram's portrait, one of the first,' he writes, 'that I did the size of life, and with a particular desire to excel.' He and other painters displayed

CAPTAIN CORAM.

their works in the rooms of the Foundling, and out of the practice grew the first Exhibition of the Royal Academy in the Adelphi, in 1760. The show of pictures drew the town' to the Hospital, and its grounds became the morning lounge of the belles and beaux of London in the last years of George II. Handel also served the Foundling nobly. To its chapel he presented an organ, and for eleven years, from 1749 to his death in 1759, he conducted an oratorio for its benefit, from which sums varying from £300 to £900 were annually realized. The original score of his Messiah' is preserved among the curiosities of the Hospital.

The Governors commenced work in a house in Hatton Garden on 25th March 1741, having exhibited a notice the previous day, that 'Tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the evening this house will be opened for the reception of 20 children.' Any person bringing a child rang the bell at the inner door, and waited to hear if there were no objections to its reception on account of disease. No questions were asked as to whom the infant belonged to, or why it was brought. When the full number of babes had been received, a board was hung out over the door, The House is full. Sometimes a hundred children were brought when only twenty could be admitted, and in the crush for precedence riots ensued; in consequence, a ballot was instituted, and the women drew out of a bag, white, red, and black balls. Those who drew black had to go away, those who drew white were accepted, and those who drew red remained in case the child of any woman who had drawn white should be found ineligible from infectious disease. The fame of the charity spread far and wide, and the country began to consign foundlings to its care. A tinker was tried at Monmouth for drowning a child he had received to carry to London. Seven out of eight infants a waggoner undertook to bring to town were found dead at the end of the journey. One man with five in a basket got drunk on his way, fell asleep on a common, and when he awoke three of his charge were suffocated. A horseman from Yorkshire was asked on Highgate Hill what he carried in his panniers, and he shewed two infants, saying that he got eight guineas for the trip, but that others were offering to do it cheaper.

In 1754, the governors moved into the present Hospital, erected from the designs of architect Jacobson, with 600 children, whom they were supporting at an expense of five times the amount of their income! In their distress they applied to Parliament for aid, which voted them £10,000, but plunged them into new difficulties by ordering the reception of all infants that might be brought to them, and opening country branches. At one of these, Ackworth, near Pontefract, cloth was made, in suits of which some of the patrons of the Hospital appeared at the annual festivals. At another, Aylesbury, John Wilkes, M.P., was treasurer, and when he left the kingdom in 1764, it was found that he was in possession of some of the funds.

In compliance with the Act of Parliament a basket was hung at the gate of the Hospital, in which the foundling was deposited, and a bell rung to give notice to the officers in attendance.

From 1741 to 1756 the Governors had accepted the charge of 1384 children, but under the new parliamentary arrangement the traffic developed amazingly. On the 2d of June 1756, the first day of the basket, 117 infants were put into it. In 1757, bills were posted through the streets, apprising the public of their privilege. The workhouses got rid of all their infantile encumbrances in the convenient basket. Women stood at the gate, stripped their babies naked, popped them into the basket, and rang the bell. In the first year, 3,296 were put in; in the second, 4,025 ; in the third, 4,229; and in ten months of the fourth, 3,324. Out of the total of 14,874, it is scarcely surprising, however horrible, to learn that only 4,000 lived to be apprenticed, a mortality of 70 per cent. The expense of the charity thus far was nearly £500,000. Of course results like these alarmed the most Quixotic, and in 1760 Parliament revoked the order for indiscriminate admission, and agreed to bear the charge of the children who had flooded the charity at their invitation. Warned by this terrible experience, the Governors were content to work with much humbler aims. They still accepted any infant that might be brought, if a purse of £100 was given with it, but even this privilege they felt it wise to abolish in 1801.

The annual revenue of the Hospital at this day from its estate and funded property is nearly £11,000, and with this sum 460 boys and girls are maintained and educated, from infancy until their fifteenth year. The Queen is a donor of fifty guineas annually, following the precedent set by George II. The conditions of admission now are that the child be illegitimate, except that the father be a soldier or sailor killed in the service of his country, and that the mother shall have borne a good character previous to her misfortune, and that she be poor and have no relations able or willing to maintain her child.' The object of the Governors is to hide the shame of the mother, as well as to preserve the life of her child, and dismiss her with the charge, 'Sin no more.' The average admissions are thirty-seven annually. No infant is received older than twelve months. The treasurer gives each babe a name, and when christened it is sent into the country to nurse, and on the attainment of its third year is brought to the Hospital in London. There all receive a plain education in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The girls, taught sewing and household work, are put out to domestic service in respectable families. There is a constant demand, much in excess of the supply, for servants bred at the Foundling. The boys are apprenticed to various trades, and about fifty of them are instructed in music, and draughted into the bands of the army and navy. children on the whole turn out well in the world, and generally bear the home of their youth in kindly remembrance.

The

From Handel the Foundling has inherited a high musical reputation. Several blind children, received during the years of indiscriminate admission, were trained as a choir, and their sweet voices were a great attraction to the chapel. Mr. Grenville, the organist, Mr.

THE BERKSHIRE LADY'S GARLAND.

Printer, Jenny Freer, and Miss Thetford, noted singers, were all blind foundlings. On Sundays the chapel is usually filled in every corner by crowds who come to hear the excellent music, which is led by professionals, and supported by the voices of 500 children. The pew rents, and collections at the door, average from £600 to £900 a year, after paying all expenses. The altar-piece, Christ presenting a Child,' is by West, who retouched the picture in 1816. From the pulpit Sterne and Sidney Smith, not to run over other names, have pleaded for the charity.

The collection of pictures at the Foundling is worth seeing. They are nearly all gifts, and illustrate very fairly the state of British art in the third quarter of last century. There is Hogarth's portrait of Coram, of which he said that it had stood the test of twenty years' competition, notwithstanding the first painters in the kingdom exerting all their talents to vie with it; also his March to Finchley, and his Moses brought to Pharaoh's Daughter. There is a portrait of Lord Dartmouth, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; of George II., by Shackleton; of Handel, by Kneller; of Dr Mead, by Allan Ramsay; views of various London hospitals, by Gainsborough, Richard Wilson, Haytley, and Wale; three sacred subjects by Hayman, Highmore, and Wills; a bas-relief by Rysbrack, and a bust of Handel by Roubiliac.

Captain Coram's fortune appears never to have been large, and his credit in the institution of the Foundling lay, not in any pecuniary endowment, but in the undaunted pertinacity with which he fought down public apathy, and at last induced wealth and power to work out his philanthropic design. Two years before his death it was discovered that he had lost all his means. His friends thereon bestirred themselves to raise him to independence by subscription; and in order that the good old man might not be offended, Dr Brocklesby broke to him the project. His answer was, I have not wasted the little money I once had in self-indulgence or vanity, and am not ashamed to confess that in my old age I am poor.' In 1749 they secured him an annuity of £170. He happily did not live to see the charity he had founded, in the years of its frightful efflorescence. He died on the 29th of March 1751, aged eighty-four, when the Hospital which preserves his memory was in course of erection; and in the new stone catacombs of the chapel his body was the first to be laid. There, also, Lord Tenterden was buried in 1832 -the Canterbury barber's boy, who rose to be Lord Chief Justice of England. An excellent statue of Coram, by Calder Marshall, was set up at the gates of the Hospital in 1856; but the stone out of which it is cut has already proved so friable, that it has had to be painted over to save it from destruction.

to an only daughter, who is understood to have soon after disposed herself in marriage in a very extraordinary way. Tradition and a contemporary broadside ballad concur in representing this young gentlewoman as paid court to by many, but refusing all, and keeping her affections disengaged, until, attending a wedding at Reading, she met a young and handsome but poor attorney, named Benjamin Child, with whom she fell violently in love on the spot. For some days she reasoned with herself on the subject, trying to shake herself free of this sudden passion, but all in vain. Then, feeling that something must be done, but unable from confusion of mind to devise a proper course, she took the extraordinary step of sending the young man a letter, demanding satisfaction for injuries she alleged he had inflicted on her, and appointing time and place for a hostile meeting. Mr. Child was much surprised, and quite at a loss to conceive who the challenger could be. By the advice of a friend, however, he resolved to attend. The meeting may be described in the words of the ballad:

Early on a summer's morning,
When bright Phoebus was adorning
Every bower with his beams,
The fair lady came, it seems.

At the bottom of a mountain,
Near a pleasant crystal fountain,
There she left her gilded coach,
While the grove she did approach.
Covered with her mask, and walking,
There she met her lover, talking
With a friend that he had brought,
So she asked him whom he sought.

"I am challenged by a gallant
Who resolves to try my talent;
Who he is I cannot say,
But I hope to shew him play."

"It is I that did invite you;
You shall wed me, or I'll fight you
Underneath those spreading trees;
Therefore choose from which you please.
"You shall find I do not vapour,
I have sought my trusty rapier;
Therefore take your choice," said she :
"Either fight or marry me!"

Said he, "Madam, pray what mean you?
In my life I've never seen you;
Pray unmask, your visage shew
Then I'll tell you ay or no."

"I will not my face uncover
Till the marriage ties are over;
Therefore choose you which you will,
Wed me, sir, or try your skill.
"Step within that pleasant bower
With your friend one single hour;
Strive your thoughts to reconcile,
And I'll wander here the while."

While this beauteous lady waited,
The young bachelors debated
What was best for to be done.
Quoth his friend, "The hazard run ;

"If my judgment can be trusted,
Wed her first, you can't be worsted;
If she's rich you'll rise to fame,
If she's poor, why, you're the same.'
440

MRS FITZHERBERT.

He consented to be married;
All three in a coach were carried
To a church without delay,
Where he weds the lady gay.

Though sweet pretty Cupids hover'd
Round her eyes, her face was cover'd
With a mask,-he took her thus,
Just for better or for worse.'

The ballad goes on to state that the pair went in her coach to the lady's elegant mansion, where, leaving him in a parlour, she proceeded to dress herself in her finest attire, and by and by broke upon his vision as a young and handsome woman and his devoted wife:

'Now he's clothed in rich attire,
Not inferior to a squire;
Beauty, honour, riches' store,
What can man desire more?'

It appears that Mr Child took a position in society suitable to the fortune thus conferred upon him, and was high sheriff of the county in 1714.*

MRS FITZHERBERT.

29th March 1837, died at Brighton, Mrs Fitzherbert, at the age of eighty-one. Born Mary Anne Smythe (daughter of Walter Smythe, Esq., of Brambridge, in the county of Hants), she was first married to Edward Weld, Esq., of Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire; secondly to Thomas Fitzherbert, Esq., of Swinnerton, Staffordshire. She was a second time a widow, living on a handsome jointure, and greatly admired in society on account of her beauty and accomplishments, when, in 1785, being twenty-nine years of age, she became acquainted with the Prince of Wales, who was six years younger. He fell distractedly in love with her, and was eager to become her third husband; but she, well aware that the royal marriage-act made the possibility of anything more than an appearance of decent nuptials in this case extremely doubtful, resisted all his importunities. It has been stated, on good authority, that, to overcome her scruples, he caused himself one day to be bled, put on the appearance of having made a desperate attempt on his own life, and sent some friends to bring her to see him. She was thus induced to allow him to engage her with a ring in the presence of witnesses; but she afterwards broke off, went abroad, and for a long time resisted all the efforts he made to induce her to return. It is told, as a curious fact in this strange love history, that one of the chief instruments in bringing about the union of the ill-assorted pair, was the notorious Duke of Orleans (Philip Egalité.)

Towards the close of 1785, it became known that the heir-apparent of the British crown was about to marry a Catholic widow lady named Mrs Fitzherbert. Charles Fox, to whose party the prince had attached himself, wrote to his royal highness on the 10th of December, a long letter, pointing out the dangerous nature of the course he was following. 'Consider,' said he, 'the circumstances in which you stand; the King not feeling for you as a father ought; the Duke of York

* See the entire ballad, with notes, in Ancient Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry, edited by Robert Bell, 1857.

professedly his favourite, and likely to be married to the King's wishes; the nation full of its old prejudices against Catholics, and justly dreading all disputes about succession.' Then the marriage could not be a real one. 'I need not,' said he, 'point out to your good sense what a source of uneasiness it must be to you, to her, and above all, to the nation, to have it a matter of dispute and discussion whether the Prince of Wales is or is not married.' The whole letter, written in a tone of sincere regard for the prince, was highly creditable to the wisdom of the writer.

The prince answered on the instant, thanking Mr Fox for his advices and warnings, but assuring them they were needless. Make yourself easy, my dear friend; believe me, the world will now soon be convinced that there not only is [not], but never was, any ground for those reports which have of late been so malevolently circulated.'

Ten days after the date of this letter, namely, on the 21st of December, the Prince and Mrs Fitzherbert were married by an English clergyman, before two witnesses. Mr Fox, misled by the Prince, took it upon him to deny the fact of the marriage in the House of Commons; but society was never blinded on the subject. Mrs Fitzherbert lived for several years with great openness, as the wife of the Prince of Wales, and in the enjoyment of the entire respect of society, more especially of her husband's brothers. A separation only took place about 1795, when the prince was about to marry (for the payment of his debts) the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick. Mrs Fitzherbert survived this event forty-two years, and never during the whole time ceased to be visited.' The case is a very peculiar one, from its standing in so dubious a position both with respect to law and morality.

MARCH 30.

St John Climacus, the Scholastic, abbot of Mount Sinai, 605. St Zozimus, Bishop of Syracuse, 660. St Regulus (or Rieul), Bishop of Senlis.

Born.-Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton College, and poetical and prose writer, 1568, Boughton Hall, Kent; Archbishop Somner, antiquary, 1606, Canterbury; Francis Pilatre de Rozier, aëronaut, 1756, Metz; Field-Marshal Henry Viscount Hardinge (Peninsular war and Sutlej campaign), 1785, Wrotham, Kent.

Died.-Phocion, Athenian general and statesman, B. C. 317; Cardinal Bourchier, early promoter of printing in England, 1486, Knowle, Kent; Sir Ralph Sadler, diplomatist (Sadler Papers), 1587, Standon, Herts; Dr John King, Bishop of London, 1621; Archbishop Somner, 1669, Canterbury; Sebastian de Vauban, military engineer (fortification), 1707, Paris; Dr William Hunter, 1783, Windmill-street, St James's; James Morier, traveller and novelist, 1849.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Boughton Hall, in Kent, situated, as Izaak Walton tells us, on the brow of such a hill as gives the advantage of a large prospect, and of equal pleasure to all beholders,' was the birthplace of Sir Henry Wotton. After going through

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

the preliminary course at Winchester School, he proceeded to Oxford, where he studied until his twenty-second year; and then, laying aside his books, he betook himself to the useful library of travel. He passed one year in France, three in Germany, and five in Italy. Wherever he stayed, to quote Walton again, he became acquainted with the most eminent men for learning and all manner of arts, as picture, sculpture, chemistry, and architecture; of all which he was a most dear lover, and a most excellent judge. He returned out of Italy into England about the thirtieth year of his age, being noted by many, both for his person and comportment; for indeed he was of a choice shape, tall of stature, and of a most persuasive behaviour, which was so mixed with sweet discourse and civilities as gained him much love from all persons with whom he entered into an acquaintance.'

One of his acquaintances was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and there can be little doubt that Wotton was, some way or another, implicated in the rash plot of that unfortunate nobleman. For when Essex was sent to the Tower, as a step so far on his way to the scaffold, Wotton thought it prudent, very quickly and as privately, to glide through Kent unto Dover,' and, with the aid of a fishing-boat, to place himself on the shores of France. He soon after reached Florence, where he was taken notice of by Ferdinand de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who sent him, under the feigned name of Octavio Baldi, on a secret mission to James VI. of Scotland. The object of this mission had reference to James's succession to the English throne, and a plot to poison him, said to be entered into by some Jesuits. After remaining three months in Scotland, Wotton returned to Italy, but soon after, hearing of the death of Elizabeth, he waited on the King at London. Ha,' said James, when he observed him at Court, there is my old friend Signor Octavio Baldi.' The assembled courtiers, among whom was Wotton's brother, stared in confusion, none of them being aware of his mission to Scotland. Come forward and kneel, Signor Octavio Baldi,' said the king; who, on Wotton obeying, gave him the accolade, saying, Arise, Sir Henry Wotton.' James, as from his character may readily be supposed, highly enjoyed the state of mystification the courtiers were thrown into by the unexpected scene. Immediately after, Wotton received the appointment of ambassador to the city of Venice.

It was on this journey to Venice, that Sir Henry, when passing through Augsburg, wrote in the album of his friend Flecamore, the punning and often quoted definition of an ambassadoran honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. Certainly ambassadors had no good repute for veracity in those days, yet in all probability Wotton's diplomatic tactics were of a different description. On an occasion, his advice on this rather delicate question being asked, by a person setting out for a foreign embassy, he said, 'Ever speak the truth; for if you do so, you shall never be believed, and 'twill put your adversaries (who will still hunt counter) to a loss in all their disquisitions and undertakings.'

For twenty years Sir Henry represented the

English court at Venice, and during that time successfully sustained the Doge in his resistance to the aggression of the Papal power. And finally returning to his native country, he received what Thomas Fuller styles, one of the genteelest and entirest preferments in England,' the Provostship of Eton College.

To Wotton's many accomplishments was added a rich poetical taste, which he often exercised in compositions of a descriptive and elegiac character. He also delighted in angling, finding it, 'after tedious study, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness; and that it begat habits of peace and patience in those who professed and practised it.' So when settled down in life as Provost of Eton, he built himself a neat fishing-lodge on the banks of the Thames, where he was often visited by his friend and subsequent biographer, Walton. The site is still occupied by a fishing-lodge, though not the one that Wotton erected. It is on an island, a green lawn sloping gently down to the pleasant river. On one side, the turrets of Windsor Castle are seen, through a vista of grand old elm trees; on the other the spires and antique architecture of Eton Chapel and College. The property still belongs to the College, and it is said that it never has been untenanted by a worthy and expert brother of the angle since the time of Wotton. And there it was, with peace and patience cohabiting in his heart,' as Walton tells us, that Sir Henry, when beyond seventy years of age, made this description of a part of the present pleasure that possessed him, as he sat quietly, on a summer's evening, on a bank afishing. It is a description of the Spring; which, because it glided as softly and sweetly from his pen as that river does at this time, by which it was then made, I shall repeat it unto you:

"This day dame Nature seemed in love; The lusty sap began to move; Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines, And birds had drawn their valentines. The jealous trout, that low did lie, Rose at a well-dissembled fly; There stood my friend, with patient skill Attending on his trembling quill. Already were the eaves possest With the swift pilgrim's daubed nest; The groves already did rejoice In Philomel's triumphant voice; The showers were sport, the weather mild, The morning fresh, the evening smiled. Joan takes her neat-rubbed pail, and now She trips to milk the sand-red cow, Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain, Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. The fields and gardens were beset With tulips, crocus, violet: And now, though late, the modest rose Did more than half a blush disclose. Thus all looks gay, and full of cheer, To welcome the new-liveried year.' As Sir Henry, in the quiet shades of Eton, found himself drawing towards the end of life, he felt no terror; he was only inspired with hope for the future and kindly remembrances of the past. Among these last, was the wish to revisit the school where he had played and

442

THE SICILIAN VESPERS.

studied when a boy; so for this purpose he travelled to Winchester, and here is his commentary:-'How useful was that advice of a holy monk, who persuaded his friend to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, because in that place we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at our last being there. And I find it thus far experimentally true; that, at my now being in that school, and seeing that very place, where I sat when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me; sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my growing years numerous pleasures, without mixtures of cares; and those to be enjoyed when time (which I then thought slowpaced) had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience have taught me that those were but empty hopes. For I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Returning to Eton from this last visit to Winchester, he died in 1639, and was buried in the College chapel, according to his own direction, with no other inscription on his tomb than-

THE SICILIAN VESPERS.

On this day, five hundred and eighty years ago, the people of Sicily rescued themselves from the tyranny of a foreign dynasty by an insurrection which has become a celebrated event in history, and which presents some points of resemblance to the revolution in the same island which we have so recently witnessed. In our time the Neapolitan tyrant was a Prince of the French house of Bourbon; at the most distant period he was of the French house of Anjou. The secret prompter of it was in the both cases an Italian patriot,Garibaldi in 1860, and in 1282 John of Procida. It is difficult to say in which the tyranny had been most galling, but in the earlier period the revolt was directed with less skill, and was carried on with greater ferocity.

Sicily and Naples were at that time ruled by a conqueror and usurper, to whom they had been handed over by the will of a pope, and they were occupied by a French soldiery, of whose unbounded greediness and brutal licentiousness, the properties and persons of the inhabitants of all ranks were the prey. In Sicily, more even than in the continental provinces of Naples, the Italians were subjected, without any chance of redress, to the oppressions of their French rulers; and almost incredible anecdotes are told by the old chroniclers of the manner in which they were treated. They were attacked especially in that point on which all people feel sensitive, the honours of their wives and daughters. A French baron named Ludolph, who was governor of Menone, is said to have taken by force a young girl every week to satisfy his passions; and a knight of Artois