Guy's hospital was the benevolent work of a London bookseller, who, by perseverance, economy, and lucky speculation, amassed a very large fortune. Thomas Guy began life with a stock of about £200, as a stationery and bookseller in a little corner house between Cornhill and Lombard-st., taking out his freedom of the Stationers' Company in 1668. He was a thrifty tradesman, but he won his wealth rather by stock-jobbing than by the sale of books, although he made important sums by his contract with the University of Oxford for their privilege of printing bibles. Maitland informs us, "England being engaged in an expensive war against France, the poor seamen on board the royal navy, for many years, instead of money received tickets for their pay, which those necessitous but very useful men were obliged to dispose of at thirty, forty, and sometimes fifty in the hundred discount. Mr. Guy, discovering the sweets of this traffick, became an early dealer therein, as well as in other government securities, by which, and his trade, he acquired a very great estate." In the South-sea stock he was not less lucky. He bought largely at the outset, held on till the bubble reached its full size, and ere the final burst sold out. It may be questioned whether Guy's or Rahere's money was earned the more honourably,--whether to fawn, flatter, and jest at the table of princes was a meaner course of exertion than to drive a usurious trade with poor sailors, and fatten on a stupendous national calamity. But however basely it may have been gathered together, Guy's wealth was well expended, in alleviating the miseries of the same classes from whose sufferings it had been principally extracted. In his old age Guy set about building his hospital, and ere his death, in 1724, saw it completed. On its erection and endowment he expended £238,292 16_s._ 5_d._ To his honour it must be stated that, notwithstanding this expenditure and his munificent contributions to other charities, he had a considerable residue of property, which he distributed amongst his poor relations. Of the collegiate medical buildings of London, the one that belongs to the humblest department of the profession is the oldest, and for that reason--apart from its contents, which are comparatively of little value--the most interesting. Apothecaries' Hall, in Water Lane, Blackfriars, was built in 1670. Possibly the size and imposing aspect of their college stimulated the drug-vendors to new encroachments on the prescriptive and enacted rights of the physicians. The rancour of "The Dispensary" passes over the merits (graces it has none) of the structure, and designates it by mentioning its locality-- "Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams, To wash his sooty Naiads in the Thames, There stands a structure on a rising hill, Where tyros take their freedom out to kill."