Within a few hundred yards of Smithfield will be found the Charterhouse, a visit to which “soothes” the mind with all manner of antiquarian associations. The old square in which it stands--Charterhouse Square--has quite an antique flavour; and here is to be seen many a quaint old house devoted to “boarding,” or to unpretending hotel life, and which looks snug and comfortable. We can fancy simple folk from the rural districts coming to town and putting up there. These places seem to belong to a mode of society now antiquated or gone by, or to the manners and customs such as are described in “Pickwick” and “Nickleby.” It must be pleasant for the stranger to look across at the old, quaint lantern of the Charterhouse and hear the recurring chimes. Unhappily, the old square, which is so suitable an introduction, has been already nibbled at by the builders and “jobbers.” A visitor, writing to the _World_, touches “the key” of the place: “Anyone going any day to Grey Friars will always find the monastery gates swing wide, a courteous guide at his post in the lodge, and a delightful treat in store in the shape of sundry shadowy grey quadrangles, some beautiful panelled tapestried rooms where Princess Elizabeth, journeying from Hatfield _en route_ for her coronation, tarried five days, and a preserved Jacobean chapel full of interesting monuments. The bell rings at six, just as it did when Lovelace jotted rhyme on the covers of his exercise books; and as the tolling ceases the stray visitor sees creeping in old gentlemen (with _chapeaux bras_ of spreckled straw, slouched cavalier, or decorous chimney-pot), so like Codd Ajax, Codd Soldier, and true Codd Gentlemen--so like that surely they must be the same! In Wash-house Court, the last remnant of the monastery, the porter shows the windows of the rooms supposed to be occupied by Colonel Newcome, and he declares that dozens of questions are asked referring to Thackeray’s creations.” There has been a prodigious deal of building and restoration in the Charterhouse, with much of what is styled Churchwardens’ Gothic. The old church has been so well panelled and painted in this sense, that it offers little that is ancient--though the porter throws open a cupboard to show the stones of the venerable old wall. The old dining-hall, with its gallery and scutcheons, is more potent. After all, the most effective portion is the old, quiet, deserted courtyard, all rusted, with its two mullioned windows and moss-grown pavements. It seems like one of the old colleges at Cambridge. This institution is in the balance, as it were. There are schemes in the air for removal to the country, for reforms, and pensioning off.