education of forty boys, who are still designated as King's or Queen's scholars.

One of the earliest head-masters of Westminster School was the celebrated antiquary and historian, William Camden. Old Aubrey tells us, on the authority of William Bagshawe, who had been one of the under-masters of the school,-that Camden's lodgings were in "the gatehouse by the Queen's scholars' chambers in Dean's Yard;" and from hence he used to wander forth, when his pupils were at play, to copy the inscriptions on the ancient tombs of Westminster Abbey, in which occupation the gifted antiquary unquestionably took far more delight than in impressing on his pupils the necessity of learning hard words, or in flagellating the idle or the dull. Ben Jonson was one of his pupils, and the pupil loved and revered his master. How gratifying must it have been to Camden when the great dramatist, at the early age of twenty-four, dedicated to his old master, in a most affectionate address, the first, and perhaps the most admirable of his dramatic productions, "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

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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 states

* 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.

men 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 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 Dr. Busby, who was nearly fifty-five years head-master 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 Shakspeare.

1605. Thomas Randolf, the dramatic poet.

1606. Richard Busby, afterwards head-master.

1611. William Cartwright, the poet and divine.

1612. Sir Harry Vane, the Republican statesman, beheaded in

1662.

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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.

1633. Robert South, the divine.

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. Nicholas Rowe, the dramatic poet.

1675. Sir John Friend, the philosopher and physician.

1681. 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. Warren Hastings.

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.

OLD PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.

AND

ITS EARLY REGAL BUILDERS AND TENANTS.-EDWARD THE SECOND 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 afterwards, 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, and the latter the sleeping-apartment of the "meek Confessor," which, with the exception of internal adornment, remained in the same state in which they existed in the middle of