silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form for the admiration of all who were able to understand it.-Cowper.

This custom [of sending from form to form] was not practised at Westminster in the days of Dr. Vincent. But "sweet remuneration" was still dispensed in silver pence; and those pence produced still "goodlier guerdon " by an established rate of exchange at which the mistress of the boarding-house received them, and returned current coin in the proportion of six to one. My first literary profits were thus obtained, and, like Cowper, I remember the pleasure with which I received them. But there was this difference, that his rewards were probably for Latin verse, in which he excelled, and mine were always for English composition.- Southey, Life of Cowper, vol. i. p. 17, note.

The boys on the foundation were formerly separated from the town boys when in school by a bar or curtain. The schoolroom was a dormitory belonging to the Abbey, and retained certain traces of its former ornaments. New buildings have been erected, in which the boys are now taught in distinct and separate classes, and the old schoolroom is no longer used. The College hall, originally the Abbot's refectory, was built by Abbot Litlington, in the reign of Edward III. The dormitory was built by the Earl of Burlington in 1722. The Dean and Chapter hold a house and estate at Chiswick, to which the boys are to be removed in case of the plague; the house (or hospital as it was called) cost £500 when first built, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It has long been let; and was for many years well known as the Chiswick Press of Charles Whittingham. It was pulled down a few years ago and applied to other uses.

In conformity with an old custom, the Queen's scholars perform a play of Terence or Plautus every year at Christmas, with a Latin prologue and epilogue new on each occasion. A school oration on Dr. South was pirated in 1716 by the notorious Edmund Curll, and printed with false Latin. The boys accordingly invited him to Westminster to get a corrected copy, and first whipped him and then tossed him in a blanket. There is a curious poem on the subject, with three representations, of the blanket, the scourge, and Curll upon his knees.

The Westminster Boys were long notorious for their rough behaviour in the Abbey, where visitors of all ranks stood very much in awe of them.

July 9, 1754.-Will you believe that I have not yet seen the Tomb [of his mother in Westminster Abbey]? None of my acquaintance were in town, and I literally had not courage to venture alone among the Westminster boys at the Abbey; they are as formidable to me as the ship carpenters at Portsmouth.-Walpole to Bentley, vol. ii. p. 394.

The privilege of Westminster Boys to be present at Coronations in Westminster Abbey is recognised by the authorities, who provide seats for them; and Dean Stanley observes in their presence a remarkable case of survival: "Even the assent of the people of England to the election of the Sovereign has found its voice in modern days, through the shouts of the Westminster scholars, from their recognised seats in the Abbey.2

1 Lansdowne MS., 4, art. 12.

2 Stanley, Hist. Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 46.

Weymouth Street, PORTLAND PLACE to HIGH STREET, MARYLEBONE. Prof. Faraday's father died at No. 18 in this street in 1810. The Rev. Sidney Smith was living here in 1810. From 1861 till his death, October 4, 1874, Bryan Waller Proctor (Barry Cornwall) lived at No. 32.

Wheeler Street, SPITALFIELDS, WHITE LION STREET and COMMERCIAL STREET. The principal meeting-house of the early Quakers— William Penn, George Whitehead, Thomas Ellwood, etc., was in this street.1 On June 23, 1657, an Act was passed of which one clause enabled "William Wheeler, Esq., who is by lease and contract engaged to build certain houses in and upon his lands in Spitalfields, in the parish of Stepney, at any time before October 1, 1660, to erect, new build and finish, upon eight acres of the said fields, on part whereof divers houses and edifices are already built, and streets and highways set out, several houses, buildings, and other appurtenances.” 2

Wheelwrights' Company (The), was incorporated February 3, 1670, under letters patent of Charles II., by the name of "The Master, Wardens, Assistants and Commonalty of the Art and Mistery of Wheelwrights of the City of London," but a livery was not granted till 1773. This Company possesses no hall, and its business is transacted at Guildhall.

Whetstone Park, a narrow roadway in the parish of St. Gilesin-the-Fields, formed between the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the south side of Holborn, and so called after William Whetstone, a tobacconist, and overseer of the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, in the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. There is a token of William Whetstone at the Black Boy in Holborn, dated 1653. It was long notorious, and was attacked, on account of its great immorality, by the London apprentices in 1682. Since 1708, however, it has chiefly consisted of stables and workshops.3 There is still, however, an alehouse, the Horse and Groom, in Whetstone Park. The west part of Whetstone Park was called Phillips' Rents from one Phillips, who built it, as what is now Feathers' Court, running north into Holborn, was called Pargiter's Court for a similar reason. Milton's garden, when in 1645 "he removed to a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields," must have been built over by these unhallowed houses.

And makes a brothel of a palace,

Where harlots ply, as many tell us,

Like brimstones in a Whetstone alehouse.-BUTLER.

Near Holborn lies a Park of great renown,

The place I do suppose is not unknown.

For brevity's sake the name I shall not tell,

Because most genteel readers know it well.

1 Ellwood, p. 187.

2 See note to Barton's Diary, vol. ii. p. 283. 3 Hatton's New View of London, 8vo, 1708, p. 88. 4 Dobie's St. Giles and St. George, p. 56.

(Since Middle Park near Charing Cross was made
They say there is a great decay of trade);
'Twas there a flock of Dukes, by fury brought,
With bloody mind a sickly damsel sought, etc.

On the three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, February 26, 1670-1671, (State Poems, 8vo, 1697, p. 147).

Lady Flippant. But why do you look as if you were jealous then?

Dapperwit. If I had met you in Whetstone's Park, with a drunken foot soldier, I should not have been jealous of you.-Wycherley, Love in a Wood, 4to, 1672.1 After I had gone a little way in a great broad street, I turned into a tavern hard by a place they call a Park; and just as one park is all trees, that park is all housesI asked if they had any deer in it, and they told me not half so many as they used to have; but that if I had a mind to a doe, they would put a doe to me.-The Country Wit, by J. Crowne, 4to, 1675.

Aldo. 'Tis very well, Sir; I find you have been searching for your relations then in Whetstone's Park.

Woodall. No, Sir; I made some scruple of going to the foresaid place, for fear of meeting my own father there.-Dryden's Kind Keeper, or Mr. Limberham, 4to, 1680.2

Bedlam-'tis a new Whetstone's Park, now the old one's plough'd up.-Ned Ward, The London Spy, pt. iii.

Whitcomb Street, PALL MALL EAST to COVENTRY STREET, originally Hedge Lane, is mentioned under its present designation in a Vestry Minute of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields of March 14, 1677, fixing the proposed boundaries of St. James's, Piccadilly, and St. Anne's, Soho. It is so named also in Strype's Map, 1710. A stone high up on the house No. 14 has the initials I. A. and the date 1692.

Luke

White Bear Inn, PICCADILLY, stood on the south side of Piccadilly, between the Haymarket and Regent Street. Sullivan, Hogarth's assistant in many of his plates, and J. B. Chatelain, engravers, died here.3

White's, a celebrated Club-house, Nos. 37 and 38 ST. JAMES'S STREET, originally White's Chocolate-house, under which name it was established circ. 1698, on the west side of the present street, five doors from the bottom, in the house that was previously the residence of the stately Countess of Northumberland-"the last who kept up the ceremonious state of the old peerage." Pope fixes the locality as being between the Chapel Royal and Mother Needham's in Park Place.

She ceased. Then swells the Chapel Royal throat
"God save King Cibber!" mounts in every note.
Familiar White's "God save King Colley !" cries;
"God save King Colley!" Drury Lane replies :
To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode
But pious Needham dropt the name of God.

Pope, Dunciad, vol. i. p. 308.

Very early in the 18th century it had become notorious as an aristocratic gaming-house. Swift says that "The late Earl of Oxford

1 See also Shadwell's Miser, 4to, 1672.

2 See also his Prologue to the Wild Gallant, when revised); also Nat Lee's Dedication of Princess of Cleve, 4to, 1689, etc., but the refer

ences might be endless and the result worthless

or worse.

3 Smith's Antiquarian Ramble, vol. i. p. 26.

[Robert Harley, who died 1724], in the time of his ministry, never passed by White's Chocolate - house (the common Rendezvous of infamous Sharpers and noble Cullies) without bestowing a curse upon that famous academy, as the bane of half the English nobility."1 And William Whitehead (who quotes this passage in a note) calls it in his Manners, a Satire (1739), "a Den of Thieves." The first White's was destroyed by fire, April 28, 1733, at which time the house was kept by a person of the name of Arthur.

On Saturday morning [April 28, 1733], about four o'clock, a fire broke out at Mr. Arthur's, at White's Chocolate House, in St. James's Street, which burnt with great violence, and in a short time entirely consumed that house, with two others, and much damaged several others adjoining.-The Daily Courant, April 30, 1733.

Young Mr. Arthur's wife leaped out of a window two pair of stairs upon a feather bed without much hurt. A fine collection of paintings belonging to Sir Andrew Fountaine, valued at £3000 at the least, was entirely destroyed. His Majesty and the Prince of Wales were present above an hour, and encouraged the Firemen and People to work at the Engines—a guard being ordered from St. James's to keep off the populace. His Majesty ordered 20 guineas among the Firemen and others that worked at the Engines and 5 guineas to the Guard; and the Prince ordered the Firemen 10 guineas.-Gent. Mag. for 1733.2

This is to acquaint all noblemen and gentlemen that Mr. Arthur, having had the misfortune to be burnt out of White's Chocolate House, is removed to Gaunt's Coffee House, next the St. James's Coffee House, in St. James's Street, where he humbly begs they will favour him with their company as usual.-The Daily Post, May 3, 1733.

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure and entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate House; poetry under that of Will's Coffee House; learning under the title of the Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. James's Coffee House.-The Tatler, No. 1.

To all his most frequented haunts resort,
Oft dog him to the Ring, and oft to Court;

As love of pleasure, or of place invites :
And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's.

Addison, Prologue to Steele's Tender Husband.

As a Club White's dates from 1736, when the house ceased to be an open Chocolate-house that any one might enter who was prepared to pay for what he had. It was made a private house for the convenience of the chief frequenters of the place, whose annual subscriptions towards its support were paid to Arthur, the proprietor of the house, by whom the Club was formed. Arthur died in June 1761, and was succeeded by Robert Mackreth, who married Mary Arthur, the only child of the former proprietor.

When Bob Mackreth served Arthur's crew,
"Rumbold," he cried, "come black my shoe!"
And Rumbold answer'd, "Yea, Bob!"

1 Swift's Essay on 2 The incident of the fire was made use of by Hogarth in Plate VI. of the Rake's Progress, representing a room at White's. The total abstraction of the gamblers is well expressed by their utter inattention to the alarm of fire given by watchmen who are bursting open the doors,

Modern Education.

Plate IV. of the same pictured moral represents a group of chimney-sweepers and shoe-blacks gambling on the ground over against White's. To indicate the Club more fully, Hogarth has inserted the name Black's, and it is irradiated by a flash of lightning pointed directly at it.

But now returned from India's land,

He scorns t' obey the proud command,

And boldly answers, "Na-bob."

Sir E. Brydges's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 194 (Lord Camden ?). For variations in the Epigram, see Walpole to Mason, November 1, 1780.

Mackreth retired in 1763 with an unenviable fame,1 transferring the property to his kinsman the Cherubim.

That puts me in mind to inform your Grace of a great event, which is that Bob retires from business at Lady Day, and the Cherubim is to keep the house.—Rigby to the Duke of Bedford.

April 5, 1763.—Sir-Having quitted business entirely and let my house to the Cherubim, who is my near relation, I humbly beg leave, after returning you my most grateful thanks for all favours, to recommend him to your patronage, not doubting by the long experience I have had of his fidelity but that he will strenuously endeavour to oblige.-Robert Mackreth to George Selwyn.

The property passed, in 1784, to John Martindale, who was bankrupt in 1797; and in 1812 to Mr. Ragget. From him it descended to his son. The Club was removed to the present house in 1755. The front alterations were made in 1850, and the four bas-reliefs of the seasons, from the designs of Mr. George Scharf, were added. The freehold of White's Club-house was sold at the auction mart, March 7, 1871, for £46,000, to H. W. Eaton, Esq., M.P.

The earliest record in the Club is a book of rules and list of members "of the old Club at White's," dated October 30, 1736. The principal members were the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Cholmondeley, Chesterfield, and Rockingham, Sir John Cope, MajorGeneral Churchill, Bubb Dodington, and Colley Cibber. The Rules

direct

That every member is to pay one guinea a year towards having a good Cook. The supper to be upon Table at 10 o'Clock and the Bill at 12.

That every member who is in the room after 7 o'Clock and plays is to pay Half a Crown.

From 1736 the records of the Club are nearly complete. Many of the rules are curiously characteristic of the state of society at the time.

Bill.

December 26, 1755.—That the Picket Cards be charged in the Dinner or Supper

March 22, 1755.-That the names of all Candidates are to be deposited with Mr. Arthur or Bob [Mackreth].

May 20, 1758.-To prevent those invidious conjectures which disappointed candidates are apt to make concerning the respective votes of their Electors, or to render at least such surmises more difficult and doubtful, it is ordered that Every Member present at the time of Balloting shall put in his Ball, and such person or persons who refuse to comply with it shall pay the supper reckoning of that night.

February 11, 1762.—It was this night ordered that the Quinze players shall pay for their own cards.

1 See two leading cases in Equity, Fox v. Mackreth; and Mackreth v. Symmons, 1 W. and Tudor, 92 and 235.