attributes one of these to Grinling Gibbons, but which one is uncertain. Sir Stephen Fox had been faithful to King Charles II. during his exile, and at the Restoration he received the reward of his services. He sat in the House of Commons from then until his death, twice representing Westminster. He was made Paymaster-General of the Forces and one of the Lords of the Treasury. He seems to have been an active-minded man, with considerable business propensity. He devised a scheme for paying the troops out of his private purse, and levying a certain percentage on them for the convenience. As the pay of the army was much in arrears, and at all times irregular, this arrangement was thankfully accepted. The King saw in it the germ of an idea by which he might raise money for the Hospital. Accordingly, in 1683 he directed by letters of Privy Seal that one third of the money raised by imposing a poundage on the troops should go to the Hospital. He also added a clause to the effect that this was to be retrospective, to take effect from 1681. Hence the first haul amounted to over L20,000. Emboldened by success, Charles in the following year added to his demands one day's pay from every man in the army. But the building of the Hospital was more expensive than he had anticipated. It cost altogether L150,000, and when finished it would need an endowment. Charles had, therefore, recourse to the Stuart device of stirring up the people to give, by means of letters to the clergy, but without result, and in 1686 he directed that two-thirds of the army poundage should go to the continuance of the building, and finally that the whole should be devoted to this purpose after deductions for necessary expenses. James II. carried on the design of his predecessor during his short reign, but the building was not completed until 1694, under William and Mary. Sir Stephen Fox became chairman of the first Board of Commissioners, an office which has been ever since attached to the Paymaster-Generalship. Some legacies have been bequeathed to the Hospital since the foundation, and various sums of unclaimed prize-money were also applied to this object, amounting in the aggregate to nearly L600,000. The income at present drawn from the above sources is a mere trifle in comparison with the expenditure, only amounting to little over L3,000 yearly.