Smithfield, or Smoothfield as it was first called, was even in very early times a place of slaughter and execution; here the Scotch patriot, Sir William Wallace, was done to death in 1305, and here, in 1381, the rebel Wat Tyler was slain by Sir William Walworth. Originally a tournament and tilt ground, Smithfield was in those days a broad meadow-land fringed with elms, beyond the old London walls. Miracle-plays, public executions, tortures, fairs, and burnings appear to have taken place here in indiscriminate alternation, until Smithfield became, first, the great cattle-fair of London, and, finally, the modern meat-market. Its present charm, if any, must be all "in the eye of the seer;" for it is, in truth, a noisy, unattractive spot, with but little suggestion of ancient romance about it. [Illustration: _St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield._] St. Bartholomew's Hospital, of which the long front faces the market-place, forms part of Rahere's original foundation. Refounded by Henry VIII. after the dissolution of the monasteries, it is now almost the wealthiest, as well as the oldest, hospital in London. It admits over 100,000 patients annually, and its medical school is famous. Just within its Smithfield gateway, which dates from the year 1702, and is adorned by a statute of Henry VIII., is the church of St. Bartholomew the Less, originally built by Rahere just after his return from Rome, but re-erected in 1823. The spacious courtyards of the hospital, collegiate in size and cleanliness, and pleasantly shaded by trees, afford pretty and pathetic sights. Here, on fine days of spring and summer, a few convalescents, pale and bandaged, may be seen sitting out and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, talking, reading, or simply engrossed in watching a game of ball played by the students. Those boy- or girl-patients who are well on the road to recovery, often tend or supervise still younger patients, the pretty white-capped nurses occasionally lending a hand--it is a charming sight. The last time that I passed by the Smithfield front of the hospital, a poor tramp lay prone on the broad steps of the patients' entrance, and a porter was sympathetically and tenderly preparing to lift him inside; it was a picture of the Good Samaritan.