[Illustration: Thomas Guy, founder of Guy’s Hospital. 1644-1724. (_From the statue by J. Bacon, R.A._)] [Illustration: Guy’s Hospital. (_Bird’s-eye view from a Print, 1738._)] Guy seems to have contracted in his early days very frugal and personally pernicious habits. According to Nichols, he is said to have dined every day at his counter, “with no other table-cloth than an old newspaper,” and if the “Intelligence” or the “Newes” of that period really served him for a cloth, the dish that contained his meat must have been uncommonly small. “He was also,” it is added, “as little nice in his apparel.” It was probably, too, in the commencement of his career, that, looking round for a tidy and inexpensive helpmate, he asked his servant-maid to become his wife. The girl, of course, was delighted, but, alas! presumed too much upon her influence over her careful lover; seeing that the paviours who were repairing the street, in front of the house (an order was issued, in 1671, to every householder to pave the street in front of his dwelling, “for the breadth of six feet at least from the foundation”) had neglected a broken place, she called their attention to it, but they told her that Guy had carefully marked a particular stone, beyond which they were not to go. “Well,” said the girl, “do you mend it; tell him I bade you, and I know he will not be angry.” When Guy saw the extra charge in the bill, however, he at once renounced his matrimonial scheme. The Bible trade proved prosperous, and Guy, ready for any lucrative and safe investment for his money, speculated in Government securities, and, according to Nichols and Maitland, acquired the “bulk of his fortune” by purchasing seaman’s tickets; but the practice of paying the royal sailors by ticket does not seem to have existed later than the year 1684; so that if he dealt in them at all it must have been a very early period in his career, when it appears unlikely that he would have had much spare cash to invest. Maitland adds “_as well as in Government securities_, and this was probably the manner in which the ‘bulk of his fortune’ was really acquired.” That his finances were in a healthy condition, is apparent, from his appearance in Parliament as member for Tamworth, from 1695 to 1707. According to Maitland, “as he was a man of unbounded charity, and universal benevolence, so he was likewise a good patron of liberty, and the rights of his fellow-subjects; which, to his great honour, he strenuously asserted in divers parliaments.” An honourable testimony to his character, supported also by Dunton: “Thomas Guy, of Lombard-street, makes an eminent figure in the Company of Stationers, having been chosen sheriff of London, and paid the fine.... He is a man of strong reason, and can talk very much to the purpose on any subject you can propose. He is truly charitable.”