"Every Man in His Humour." "It is a frail memory," he says, "that remembers but present things.

.. Now I pray you to accept this; such wherein neither the confession of my manners shall make you blush, nor of my studies repent you to have been the instructor; and for the profession of my thankfulness, I am sure it will, with good men, find either praise or excuse. Your true lover, BEN JONSON." This affectionate and interesting dedication is addressed "To the most learned, and my honoured friend, Master Camden." What pedagogue of the present day has ever had such a tribute offered to him by such a man?

Glancing at the two great schools of Eton and Westminster, one would have imagined that Eton, from its rural and romantic situation, its vicinity to Windsor, its interesting associations, and its picturesque playing-fields,

"Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among,
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way,"

possessed all the qualities usually thought requisite to engender or to stimulate poetical genius; while, on the other hand, Westminster, from its confined situation and dingy atmosphere, would almost seem to be an antidote to poetical fire. Eton, moreover, would seem to possess no particular advantages for nursing orators or statesmen; while Westminster, from its vicinity to the Houses of

Parliament, and the liberty allowed the students of attending the debates, holds out every incitement to young ambition, if gifted with oratorical talent. In both cases, however, the result is exactly the opposite to what we should naturally have imagined. Eton has produced only three poets of any note, Waller, Gray, and Shelley,' for Lord Littleton and West are beings of an inferior order, while she has made up for the deficiency in poetical talent by rearing no fewer statesmen of celebrity than Harley, Earl of Oxford, Lord Bolingbroke, Sir Robert Walpole, the great Lord Chatham, Fox, Canning, the Duke of Wellington, and the late Marquis Wellesley. On the other hand, Westminster has produced not a single illustrious statesman, while we find that more than half of our greatest poets were educated within her classical walls.

In the course of some acquaintance with works of biography, the author has noted down, as they occurred to him, the names of different remarkable persons who have been educated at Westminster School. The list must necessarily be an imperfect one, but, such as it is, it may not be unacceptable to those who take an interest in this celebrated institution. The date of birth is given

'When the above was written, the author had forgotten the name of Alfred Tennyson, who was his schoolfellow at Eton, and to whose genius he is glad to have this opportunity of paying homage.

against the name of each, as it will enable us to form a tolerable conjecture as to who were contemporaries. Those from Adam Littleton, the celebrated scholar, to the Duke of Newcastle, inclusive, were brought up under the celebrated Doctor Busby, who was nearly fifty-five years headmaster of the school, and at one time boasted that of the bench of bishops as many as sixteen had been educated by him.

1574. Ben Jonson.

1602.

William Heminge, the dramatic writer and fellow actor of Shakespeare.

1605. Thomas Randolf, the dramatic poet.

1606. Richard Busby, afterward head-master.

1611. William Cartwright, the poet and divine.

1612. Sir Harry Vane, the republican statesman, beheaded in 1662.

1612.

Sir Arthur Haselrigge, the republican statesman and regicide.

1618. Abraham Cowley, the poet.

1627. Adam Littleton, the celebrated scholar.

1630. The Marquis of Halifax, the statesman and author.

1631. John Dryden, the poet.

1632. John Locke, the philosopher.

1632. Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect.

1648. Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, the historian and divine. 1648. Elkanah Settle, the poet.

1652. Nathaniel Lee, the dramatic poet.

1660. Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, the historian.

1662. Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. 1663. George Smaldridge, the scholar and divine.

1664. Matthew Prior, the poet and statesman.

1665. Richard Duke, the poet.

1668. Sir Richard Blackmore, the poet and physician. 1668. Edmund Smith, the poet.

1673.

1675.

1681.

Nicholas Rowe, the dramatic poet.

Sir John Friend, the philosopher and physician.

Barton Booth, the celebrated actor.

1693. Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, minister to George the Second.

1700. John Dyer, the poet.

1703. Bishop Newton, author of the "Dissertation on

the Prophecies."

1706. Isaac Hawkins Browne, the poet.

1721. Thomas Sheridan, the author and actor.

1730. Thomas King, the comedian.

1731. William Cowper, the poet.

1731. Charles Churchill, the poet.

1732. Richard Cumberland, the dramatic writer. 1733. Robert Lloyd, the poet.

1733. George Colman, the dramatic writer and scholar.

1774. Robert Southey, the poet, historian, and biographer.

CHAPTER XII.

OLD PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.

Its Early Regal Builders and Tenants - Edward the Second and Gaveston - Death Scene of Henry the Fourth - Henry the Eighth the Last Resident — Court of Requests — Painted Chamber Gunpowder Plot - St. Stephen's Chapel - Old

and New Palace Yard.

THE earliest notice which we discover of a royal residence at Westminster is in the reign of Canute, who is mentioned as holding his court here in 1035; and it seems to have been from one of the windows of this palace that the perfidious Saxon traitor, Duke Edric, was thrown, by order of Canute, into the Thames. The palace of the Dane was burnt down a few years afterward, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, who, on its site, erected a far more magnificent structure. Every trace of Canute's palace has ceased to exist, but the foundations and a considerable part of the Confessor's structure still remain; and, but for the fatal fire which took place on the 16th of October, 1834, we should still be able to wander into the Court of Requests and the Painted Chamber, the former, it is said, the banqueting-room,