mentioned the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, with museum; the Royal Colleges of Organists, and of Veterinary Surgeons, the College of Preceptors, the Jews' College, and the Metropolitan School of Shorthand. Among hospitals are the Italian, the Homoeopathic, the National for the paralysed and epileptic, the Alexandra for children with hip disease, and the Hospital for sick children. The Foundling Hospital, Guilford Street, was founded by Thomas Coram in 1739. HOLCROFT, THOMAS (1745-1809), English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 10th of December 1745 (old style) in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London. His father, besides having a shoemaker's shop, kept riding horses for hire; but having fallen into difficulties was reduced ultimately to the necessity of hawking pedlary. The son accompanied his parents in their tramps, and succeeded in procuring the situation of stable boy at Newmarket, where he spent his evenings chiefly in miscellaneous reading and the study of music. Gradually he obtained a knowledge of French, German and Italian. At the end of his term of engagement as stable boy he returned to assist his father, who had again resumed his trade of shoemaker in London; but after marrying in 1765, he became a teacher in a small school in Liverpool. He failed in an attempt to set up a private school, and became prompter in a Dublin theatre. He acted in various strolling companies until 1778, when he produced _The Crisis; or, Love and Famine_, at Drury Lane. _Duplicity_ followed in 1781. Two years later he went to Paris as correspondent of the _Morning Herald_. Here he attended the performances of Beaumarchais's _Mariage de Figaro_ until he had memorized the whole. The translation of it, with the title _The Follies of the Day_, was produced at Drury Lane in 1784. _The Road to Ruin_, his most successful melodrama, was produced in 1792. A revival in 1873 ran for 118 nights. Holcroft died on the 23rd of March 1809. He was a member of the Society for Constitutional Information, and on that account was, in 1794, indicted of high treason, but was discharged without a trial. Among his novels may be mentioned _Alwyn_ (1780), an account, largely autobiographical, of a strolling comedian, and _Hugh Trevor_ (1794-1797). He also was the author of _Travels from Hamburg through Westphalia, Holland and the Netherlands to Paris_, of some volumes of verse and of translations from the French and German. His _Memoirs written by Himself and continued down to the Time of his Death, from his Diary, Notes and other Papers_, by William Hazlitt, appeared in 1816, and was reprinted, in a slightly abridged form, in 1852.