The HOSPITALS of the Middle Ages deserve a more extended notice than we can afford them here. Some were founded at places of pilgrimage and along the high roads, for the entertainment of poor pilgrims and travellers. Thus at St. Edmund's Bury there was St. John's Hospital, or God's House, without the south gate; and St. Nicholas Hospital, without the east gate; and St. Peter's Hospital, without the Risley gate; and St. Saviour's Hospital, without the north gate--all founded and endowed by abbots of St. Edmund. At Reading there was the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, for twelve leprous persons and chaplains; and the Hospital of St. Lawrence, for twenty-six poor people and for the entertainment of strangers and pilgrims--both founded by abbots of Reading; one at the gate of Fountains Abbey, for poor persons and travellers; one at Glastonbury, under the care of the almoner, for poor and infirm persons; &c., &c. Indeed, they were scattered so profusely up and down the country that the last edition of the "Monasticon" enumerates no less than three hundred and seventy of them. Those for the poor had usually a little chamber for each person, a common hall in which they took their meals, a chapel in which they attended daily service. They usually were under the care and government of one or more clergymen; sometimes in large hospitals of a prior and bretheren, who were Augustinian canons. The canons of some of these hospitals had special statutes in addition to the general rules, and were distinguished by some peculiarity of habit; for example, the canons of the Hospital of St. John Baptist at Coventry wore a cross on the breast of their black cassock, and a similar one on the shoulder of their cloak. The poor people were also under a simple rule, and were regarded as part of the community. The accompanying woodcut enables us to place a group of them before the eye of the reader. It is from one of the initial letters of the deed (Harl. 1,498) by which Henry VII. founded a fraternity of thirteen poor men (thirteen was a favourite number for such hospitals) in Westminster Abbey, who were to be under the governance of the monks, and to repay the king's bounty by their prayers. The group represents the abbot and some of the monks, and behind them some of the bedesmen, each of whom has the royal badge--the rose and crown--on the shoulder of his habit, and holds in his hand his rosary, the symbol of his prayers. Happily some of these ancient foundations have continued to the present day, and the brethren may be seen yet in coats of antique fashion, with a cross or other badge on the sleeve. Examples of the architecture of the buildings may be seen in the Bede Houses in Higham Ferrers Churchyard, built by Archbishop Chechele in 1422; St. Thomas's Hospital, Northampton; Wyston's Hospital, Leicester; Ford's Hospital, Coventry; the Alms Houses at Sherborne; the Leicester Hospital at Warwick, &c. Mr. Turner, in the