And so the boy-king died in the sixteenth year of his age, after having founded this grand hospital for boys--poisoned, as the old chroniclers tell us, with a nosegay, which had been prepared purposely to hasten his death. And children played around those cloisters while the young king's favourite, Lady Jane Grey, was beheaded; and when, in Mary's reign, the fires in Smithfield reddened over the bodies of pious men. And probably in those days they could see the open space behind their play-ground beyond the ditch, and hear the shrieks of women carried to the fiery stake in that blood-stained and savage age; and in their dreams these "poor fatherless children" would see these sights and hear these sounds. But few very "poor fatherless children" are now inmates of Christ's Hospital; and if the spirits of the dead can look down upon the deeds of men on earth, the eyes of the good and gentle young king must have been dimmed with tears, or flashed with anger, at witnessing the carriages that sometimes draw up and take away such children as need not his charity. When the Commissioners have done examining the title-deeds of our Universities, let them come here; for we are widely misinformed if a Whiston is not needed at Christ's Hospital. From the _Illustrated London News_ of March, 1843, we have copied the following graphic description of a supper in the hall of Christ's Hospital: "One of the most interesting Lenten sights of the metropolis is the supping in public of the scholars of Christ's Hospital on the evenings of eight Sundays, terminating with Easter-day. On these occasions admission may be obtained by tickets, liberally granted by the president, governors, and other officers of the Hospital, 'the noblest institution in the world.' "These suppers are held in the magnificent hall, which, next to Westminster Hall, is the noblest room in the metropolis. It measures 187 feet in length, 51 wide, and 46-1/2 high. It was designed by the late Mr. Shaw, architect to the hospital, and is in the style of the last period of pointed architecture, before its Italian debasement.