While Mr. Guy had primarily in mind the poor and incurable, and the insane as well, in his will he directed the trustees to use their judgment about the length of time patients should remain, either for life or for a short period. Mr. Guy at once procured a plan for his hospital, and in the spring of 1722 laid the foundations. He went to the work "with all the expedition of a youth of fortune erecting a house for his own residence." The original central building of stone cost £18,793. The eastern wing, begun in 1738, was completed at a cost of £9,300; the western wing, in 1780, at a cost of £14,537. Mr. Guy lived to see his treasured gift roofed in before his death, which occurred Dec. 27, 1724, in his eightieth year. In a little more than a week afterwards, Jan. 6, 1725, his hospital was opened, and sixty patients were admitted. After the death of Mr. Guy one thousand guineas were found in his iron chest; and as it was imagined that these were placed there to defray his funeral expenses, they were used for that purpose. His body lay in state at Mercer's Hall, Cheapside, and was taken with "great funeral pomp" to the Parish Church of St. Thomas, Southwark, to rest there till the chapel at the hospital should be completed. Two hundred blue-coat boys from Christ's Hospital walked in the procession, and sang before the hearse, which was followed by forty coaches, each drawn by six horses. Mr. Guy had not forgotten these "blue-coat boys" in his will, and left a perpetual annuity of £400 to educate four children yearly, with preference for his own relatives. The boys from Christ's Hospital always interest tourists in London. They wear long blue gowns, yellow stockings, and knee-breeches. No cover is worn on their heads, even in winter. This school was founded by the boy king, Edward VI., for poor boys, though his father, Henry VIII., gave the building, which belonged to the Grey Friars, to the city of London, but Edward caused the school to be established. It is a quaint and most interesting spot, where four queens and scores of lords and ladies are buried,--Margaret, second wife of Edward I.; Isabella, the infamous wife of Edward II.; Joan, daughter of Edward II., and wife of David Bruce, King of Scotland; and others. Twelve hundred boys study at the hospital. Lamb, Coleridge, and other famous men were among the blue-coats. The latter tells some interesting things about the school in his "Table-Talk." "The discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. 'Boy!' I remember Boyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays, 'boy! the school is your father; boy! the school is your mother; boy! the school is your brother; the school is your sister; the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relatives. Let's have no more crying!'