Not less instructive would it be for many who now know of them only through begging circulars and charity dinners, to inspect the well-ventilated, cleanly--and it may be added, _cheerful_--dwellings of the impoverished sick of London. The principal hospitals of the capital, those, namely, to which medical schools are attached, are eleven in number--St. George's, the London (at Mile End), University College, King's, St. Mary's, Westminster, Middlesex, and Charing-cross, are for the most part dependent on voluntary contributions for support, the Westminster Hospital (instituted 1719) being the first hospital established in this kingdom on the voluntary system. The three other hospitals of the eleven have large endowments, Bartholomew's and Guy's being amongst the wealthiest benevolent foundations of the country. Like Bethlehem, St. Thomas's Hospital was originally a religious house. At the dissolution of the monasteries it was purchased by the citizens of London, and, in the year 1552, was opened as an hospital for the sick. At the commencement of the last century it was rebuilt by public subscription, three wards being erected at the cost of Thomas Frederick, and three by Guy, the founder of Guy's Hospital. The first place of precedency amongst the London Hospitals is contended for by St. Bartholomew's and Guy's. They are both alike important by their wealth, the number of patients entertained within their walls, and the celebrity of the surgeons and physicians with whom their schools have enriched the medical profession; but the former, in respect of antiquity, has superior claims to respect. Readers require no introduction to the founder of Bartholomew's, for only lately Dr. Doran, in his "Court Fools," gave a sketch of Rahere--the minstrel and jester, who spent his prime in the follies and vices of courts, and his riper years in the sacred offices of the religious vocation. He began life a buffoon, and ended it a prior--presiding over the establishment to the creation of which he devoted the wealth earned by his abused wit. The monk chronicler says of him: "When he attained the flower of youth he began to haunt the households of noblemen and the palaces of princes; where, under every elbow of them, he spread their cushions with apeings and flatterings, delectably anointing their eyes--by this manner to draw to him their friendships. And yet he was not content with this, but often haunted the king's palace; and, among the press of that tumultuous court, enforced himself with jollity and carnal suavity, by the which he might draw to him the hearts of many one." But the gay adventurer found that the ways of mirth were far from those of true gladness; and, forsaking quips, and jeers, and wanton ditties for deeds of mercy, and prayer, and songs of praise, he long was an ensample unto men of holy living; and "after the years of his prelacy (twenty-two years and six months), the 20th day of September (A. D. 1143), the