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 THE HISTORY AND OBJECTS 
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE FOUNDER. 
 
 JOHN BROWNLOW, 
 
 SECRKTARY OF THE HOSPITAL 
 
 edition. 
 
 LONDON 
 PR1NTRI) BY C. JAQUES, SO, KKNTON STREET, HRUN8WICK SQUARE.
 
 GOVERNORS AND GUARDIANS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 CORPORATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS v 
 
 RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 THBIR DBVOTBD HUMBLE SERVANT, 
 
 THE SECRETARY. 
 
 2065461
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HISTORY AND OBJECTS OP THE CHARITY 1 
 
 EARLY ADMISSION OF CHILDREN 6 
 
 TOKENS 18 
 
 CHILDREN RECEIVED WITH MONEY 22 
 
 THE PRESENT PRACTICE 24 
 
 REASONS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE CHARITY .... 27 
 
 THE PRIVILEGES OF THE GOVERNORS 40 
 
 NAMING AND BAPTIZING OF THE CHILDREN 42 
 
 THE NURSING OF THE CHILDREN 44 
 
 THE DISPOSAL OF THE CHILDREN 48 
 
 THE REVENUE OF THE HOSPITAL 48 
 
 THE BENEVOLENT FUND FOR ADULTS 52 
 
 THE EARLY ASSOCIATION OF THE HOSPITAL WITH ARTISTS . 54 
 
 HOGARTH - . . 56 
 
 THE CHAPEL . . . ; 71 
 
 HANDEL , : -. 76 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST, R.A 79 
 
 THE CATACOMBS . . . 81 
 
 PROPOSAL FOR MAKING THE HOSPITAL AVAILABLE AS A 
 
 PUBLIC Music SCHOOL 84 
 
 THE JUVENILE BAND 93 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE FOUNDER 97 
 
 CATALOGUE OF PICTURES, &c. . . . . . . . . . . 129 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 155 
 
 LIST OF GOVERNORS 161 
 
 DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. 
 CAPTAIN CORAM TO FACE THE TITLE. 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THE OBJECTS OF THE HOSPITAL .... 28 
 
 THE FOUNDLING* 57
 
 THE HISTORY AND OBJECTS 
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 
 
 IT is related, that when Captain Thomas Coram, the 
 Founder of this Hospital, resided at Eotherhithe, about 
 the year 1720, his avocations obliging him to go early 
 into the city, and return late, he frequently saw infants 
 exposed and deserted in the public streets ; and as 
 there was but one step in his active mind from the 
 knowledge of an evil to a desire for remedying it, he 
 immediately set about inquiring into the probable 
 causes for so outrageous a departure from humanity 
 and natural affection. 
 
 He knew, what every man who studies the human 
 heart must know that the motive to such a dereliction 
 of maternal duty must be beyond the ordinary casualties 
 of indigence. He was not long in discovering the true 
 source of the evil. He found that it arose out of 
 a morbid morality, then possessing the public mind, 
 by which an unhappy female, who fell a victim to the 
 seductions and false promises of a designing man, was 
 left to hopeless contumely, and irretrievable disgrace. 
 Neither she nor the offspring of her guilt appear to 
 have been admitted within the pale of human com- 
 passion : her first false step was her final doom, without 
 
 B
 
 even the chance, however desirous, of returning to the 
 road of rectitude. All the consideration which was 
 given to her condition, was the enactment of laws to 
 bring her to punishment, after she had been driven to 
 the commission of the worst of crimes : for the error 
 of a day, she was punished with the infamy of years ; 
 and although her departure from the path of virtue, 
 so far from being the consequence of a previous vicious 
 disposition, might have been brought about by an 
 artful scheme of treachery, she was branded for ever 
 as a woman habitually lewd. These evils necessarily 
 increased the quantum of crime in society, according 
 to the manner in which they operated upon the 
 unfortunate individuals under their influence ; still 
 no one stepped forward to provide a remedy. The 
 legislature, from time to time, condemned the unhappy 
 wretch to capital punishment who should, in the 
 madness of despair, lift her arm against the child of 
 her guilt ; but it never once considered the means by 
 which both parent and child might be saved from 
 destruction : yet, by a strange perversity, those very 
 laws bore on the face of them evidence of the necessity 
 and justice of some more Christian proceeding. In 
 all of them, the crime for which the punishment was 
 awarded, is stated to have been committed from a 
 desire in the mother to "avoid her shame." Surely 
 the woman who would make so great a struggle to 
 preserve her reputation, as to break the natural ties 
 which bind parent to offspring, who is willing to forego 
 the endearments which are the fruits of her situation, 
 by either sacrificing or deserting her child, cannot
 
 with justice, be charged as habitually lewd ! a lewd 
 woman has no shame to hide she makes a show of 
 her guilt, and claims, in open day, the protection which 
 she knows has been provided for her by the poor-laws. 
 But when a woman, with a sense of honour, finds 
 herself the unsuspecting victim of treachery, with 
 the witness of her disgrace hanging about her 
 neck, in the person of her child, left to the reproach 
 of the world and her own conscience, and seeing no 
 other means of saving her character, she becomes 
 delirious in her despair, and vents her fury on the 
 consequence of her seduction the child of her 
 seducer ! Hence the murder and desertion of children 
 became alarming evils evils which were produced and 
 perpetuated "for want" (to use the words of Captain 
 Coram) " of proper means jor preventing the disgrace 
 and succouring the necessities of their parents." He 
 therefore proposed to erect a sanctuary, to which these 
 wretched mothers might fly, and there deposit the 
 offspring and the secret of an unhallowed intercourse, 
 and be thus enabled to return to that path from which 
 they had unguardedly strayed. 
 
 This was doubtless the object of Captain Coram. 
 In all his memorials to persons of distinction, soliciting 
 their support, he ascribes to the parent, as the motive 
 of her cruel conduct towards her offspring, a desire to 
 preserve her reputation, to " hide her shame ;" and in 
 Hogarth's design, illustrating the views of the Founder, 
 it will be seen that he makes him hold personal com- 
 munion with the penitential mother, pouring into her 
 heart the oil of gladness, whilst he relieves her of the
 
 child of her sorrow. To accomplish his purpose of 
 founding an Hospital for the objects described, Captain 
 Corarn, with his usual zeal, endeavoured to enlist the 
 sympathies of the humane and charitable. He soon 
 found, however, that there were obstacles in the way. 
 They who admitted the evil, questioned the remedy, 
 and doubted whether it might not prove greater than 
 the disease. He was for seventeen years combating 
 public opinion on this head, and though he at last 
 prevailed, it was after many contests between himself 
 and others as to the probable issue. Can it be 
 wondered at, therefore, that in addressing the President 
 at the first meeting of the Governors after the charter 
 had been granted, he should throw out a suggestion, 
 that its success could only be secured "provided due and 
 proper care be taken for setting on foot so necessary an 
 establishment." This, besides being dictated by his own 
 good sense, was also forced upon him by those who 
 aided in his scheme, and was the condition upon which 
 they gave him their support. " This due and proper 
 care " could only refer to the selection of the objects, 
 and it will be seen in succeeding pages with what 
 absence of forethought the Hospital was "set on foot/' 
 and the evil consequences which arose therefrom. 
 
 At the very outset an error was committed. Captain 
 Coram, and those who assisted him, petitioned for two 
 objects :- first, "to prevent the frequent murders of poor 
 miserable infants at their birth ;" secondly "to suppress 
 the inhuman custom of exposing new-born infants to 
 perish in the streets." Now to accomplish these 
 objects, the Charter incorporated an " Hospital for the
 
 maintenance and education of exposed and deserted 
 young children,"* thus giving a license to that which 
 was contrary to law, and which the memorialists were 
 desirous to suppress. It was clear, therefore, that such 
 a charter, though beneficial as regards the rights and 
 privileges which it gave to the Governors, as a corpora- 
 tion, was useless as respected the main object, namely, 
 the admission of children, and so it proved. In the 
 next session of Parliament, after the charter was 
 granted, the Governors found it necessary to frame a 
 bill to explain and enlarge the powers granted to them. 
 This bill passed into a law ; and the preamble affords 
 the explanation required, by stating that the Hospital 
 is for infants who are liable to be exposed in the streets, 
 or to be murdered by their parents. Now there are 
 two causes which may suggest themselves to the reader, 
 as likely to lead to the exposition or destruction of 
 infants : namely, inability of parents to maintain them, 
 or a wanton inhumanity. With respect to the first, 
 though this miserable plea has been sanctioned in 
 countries where humanity and morality have made but 
 
 * " It seems to have been a general mistake in establishing the Hospital, 
 that we founded our arguments for it, and the great principle of the plan, 
 upon the practice of other nations drawing our conclusions with too little 
 attention to the genius of our own. Where the arm of arbitrary power wrings 
 from the hands of peasants the poor remains of the produce of their daily 
 labour, and makes no provision to supply their wants, but such as the charity 
 of Religious Houses furnishes, as was the case with us, before the days of 
 Queen Elizabeth, the comparison cannot hold. Where property is not sacred, 
 industry cannot flourish ; and where commerce does not furnish employment, 
 misery cannot be so well kept at arms length. In countries where the soil is 
 less fertile, and showers from Heaven do not create plenty, want will more 
 generally abound." Jonas Hanway, an active Governor, 1756 to 1787.
 
 little progress, yet in England it is altogether without 
 foundation, for the wise and systematic provision which 
 has been made for the relief of indigence, by the 
 institution of poor-laws, takes from poverty the 
 desperate alternative to which it might otherwise be 
 exposed. As to the second cause, wanton inhumanity, 
 it may be said, that however the barbarous policy of 
 eastern countries may render callous the human heart 
 to the calls of parental affection, in this country, 
 where the mild influences of Christianity strengthen 
 and support the natural ties which bind parent to 
 offspring, the wanton sacrifice of infant life is happily 
 of rare occurrence. It will then be asked, "what 
 children are liable to be exposed and destroyed by their 
 parents 1 It is answered, the children of those 
 wretched mothers, before described, whose combination 
 of mental and bodily distress admits of no partial 
 relief, no relief which the poor-law can effectually 
 bestow. These were the objects which fell under 
 the compassionate consideration of Captain Coram, 
 and the non-attention of the early Governors to his 
 cautionary suggestion, produced as might have been 
 expected, most lamentable consequences, and caused 
 the Founder himself to secede from the Council 
 Board of the Institution. 
 
 EARLY ADMISSION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 The first admission of Children took place in 1741, 
 under the following advertisement :
 
 "To-morrow, at eight o'clock in the evening, this 
 house will be opened for the reception of twenty 
 children, under the following regulations : 
 
 " No child exceeding the age of two months will be 
 taken in, nor such as have the evil, leprosy, or disease 
 of the like nature, whereby the health of the other 
 children may be endangered ; for the discovery whereof 
 every child is to be inspected as soon as it is brought, 
 and the person who brings it is to come in at the 
 outward door and ring a bell at the inward door, 
 and not go away until the child is returned or 
 notice given of its reception ; but no questions 
 whatever will be asked of any person who brings a 
 child, nor shall any servant of the house presume to 
 endeavour to discover who such person is, on pain 
 of being discharged. 
 
 "All persons who bring children are requested to 
 affix on each child some particular writing, or other 
 distinguishing mark or token, so that the children may 
 be known hereafter if necessary." 
 
 These receptions of children took place occasionally 
 in the same manner, and were necessarily regulated 
 by the funds of the Hospital, which being derived 
 from private subscriptions and legacies of benevolent 
 individuals only, were of course limited. 
 
 As the Hospital became more generally known, it 
 will readily be supposed that the applications for 
 admission greatly increased, so that there were 
 frequently one hundred women at the door when 
 twenty children only could be received. This gave 
 rise to the disgraceful scene of women scrambling and
 
 fighting to get to the door, that they might be of the 
 fortunate few to reap the benefit of the Asylum. 
 
 To obviate this evil a new method was adopted, by 
 which all women bringing children were admitted into 
 the court-room, and there sat on benches, with strict 
 orders not to stir from their seats. Then, as many 
 white balls as there were children to be taken in, with 
 five red balls for every twenty children to be received, 
 and so in proportion for any greater or less number ; 
 and as many black balls, as with the white and red, 
 were equal to the number of women present, were put 
 into a bag or box, which was handed round to the 
 women ; each woman who drew a white ball was sent, 
 with her child, to the inspecting-room, that it might 
 undergo the usual examination. Every woman who 
 drew a black ball was immediately turned out of the 
 house with her infant ; and every woman who drew a 
 red ball was taken, with her child, into another room, 
 there to remain until the examination of the children 
 for whom white balls were drawn was ended, and if, on 
 such examination, any of those children were rejected, 
 for reasons stated in the public notice, ballots were 
 taken, after a similar manner for filling up the vacancies, 
 till the whole number was completed. This plan, it is 
 true, prevented the disgraceful scenes described ; but a 
 charity so unguardedly dispensed as to the selection of 
 its objects, could not but open the door to fraud and 
 abuse of the worst description. We know that no 
 human institution, however cautiously managed, can be 
 wholly free from abuse ; some daring Clodius will 
 always be found to pollute the mysteries, let the house
 
 be ever so carefully watched. If this be true in 
 ordinary cases, surely it must have required more than 
 common caution in setting on foot an asylum, the 
 opening of which, if not carefully effected, would let 
 loose as many evils as ever issued from Pandora's box. 
 This was evidently felt by Captain Coram himself, who, 
 in the memorial which he presented to George the 
 Second, as a recommendation of his design, throws out 
 the cautionary suggestion, that its success could only 
 be insured, "''provided due and proper care be taken for 
 setting on foot so necessary an establishment" He no 
 sooner found, therefore, that the managers were acting 
 upon a principle which furnished no guarantee for 
 the effectual operation of the charity, namely, 
 receiving children without establishing any test by 
 which the merits of each case could be ascertained, 
 than he opposed their proceedings ; but after repeated 
 admonition, finding his advice disregarded by the 
 majority of the Committee, he left the management of 
 the institution altogether in their hands.* 
 
 The system above referred to continued for a period 
 of fifteen years, viz. : from 1741 to 1756, during 
 which, 1384 children were received, or, upon an average, 
 ninety-two annually. 
 
 The managers, however, looked forward all along 
 
 * Of the particular cause of disagreement between Captain Coram and 
 the managing Committee there is no record. The following extract from 
 the will of Anthony Allen, Esq., dated 1753, shows, however, that the 
 Founder was supported in his objections to their proceedings by one, at 
 least, of his friends : 
 
 " And whereas many years before the obtaining the royal charter for the
 
 10 
 
 to the time when they should be able to open their 
 Hospital upon the most unrestricted plan, and many 
 were the abortive schemes suggested for the acquirement 
 of wealth to enable them to do so ; but it was obvious, 
 that no power or means, except Parliamentary, could 
 be devised for effectually meeting the object. To 
 Parliament, therefore, the Governors appealed, having 
 previously ascertained that George the Second had a 
 good feeling towards their design. The following 
 resolutions of the House of Commons, of the 6th 
 April, 1756, sufficiently prove the success with which 
 the application was attended : 
 
 " That the enabling the Hospital for the maintenance 
 and education of exposed and deserted young children 
 to receive all the children that shall be offered, is the 
 only method to render that charitable institution of 
 lasting and general utility. 
 
 " That to render the said Hospital of lasting and 
 general utility, the assistance of Parliament is 
 necessary. 
 
 Hospital for exposed and deserted young children, I did, at the instance 
 of that indefatigable schemist, Captain Thomas Coram, really intend some 
 considerable benefaction towards carrying on so good a project, and did 
 encourage the concurrence of other liberal benefactors, till some of the 
 acting Governors and Guardians of the said Hospital went counter to our 
 judgments and proposal pressed upon them by the said Coram, on several 
 occasions, which made me withhold my hand, saving the sum of sixteen 
 guineas I advanced as necessity urged, from time to time, towards the 
 immediate subsistence of the said Mr. Coram, who bad exhausted his whole 
 substance in soliciting that charter during about seventeen years, never 
 meeting any relief from the said Hospital, I now will that 200, besides 
 the said 16 6s. so paid, be given to the use of the said Hospital, within two 
 years after my decease, in lieu of all claims and pretensions the said 
 Hospital may make on that score."
 
 11 
 
 " That to render the said Hospital of general utility 
 and effect, it should be enabled to appoint proper 
 places in all counties, ridings, or divisions of this 
 kingdom, for the reception of all exposed and deserted 
 young children." 
 
 Added to these resolutions, a guarantee was given 
 by Parliament that it would provide the means, by 
 liberal grants of money, to enable the Governors to 
 carry out this extensive scheme of charity. 
 
 A basket was accordingly hung outside of the 
 gates of the Hospital, and an advertisement publicly 
 announced, that all children under the age of two 
 months, tendered for admission, would be received. 
 
 In pursuance of which, on the 2nd June, 1756, 
 being the first day of general reception, 117 children 
 were given up to the fostering care of the state !* 
 
 Though the Governors of the charity, in anticipation 
 of parochial interference, had armed themselves with 
 the special power of the law for their protection, yet 
 
 * " I well remember the transaction of the first general taking-in-day, the 
 2nd of June, when we received 117 children. The whole month produced 
 425, all of them supposed not to be above two months old ; for that was the 
 age limited. The next year (1757) 30,000 was voted, and we set out by 
 extending the age to six months. From this period the age was extended to 
 twelve months, not with a desire to receive more children than before, but in 
 order to let people understand, that, if they would take care of their children 
 in the most dangerous part of life, they might be received afterwards, hereby 
 acknowledging what indeed is very obvious, that there was much less danger 
 at the mother's own breast, than at any other woman's. This demonstrated 
 the zeal of the Governors for the cause of humanity and the welfare of the 
 public j and it seemed to be very right, except that the common people in the 
 country seeing us add four months to the two, and then six months to make 
 up twelve, might conceive, that we meant to take all their children off their 
 hands." Jonas Hanivay.
 
 12 
 
 they discovered that no authority, however great, 
 could prevent parish officers from emptying their 
 workhouses of the infant poor, and transferring them 
 to this general sanctuary provided by government. Had 
 they stopped here, the morality of their conduct would 
 not, perhaps, have been questioned ; but it was the 
 frequent practice of these daring authorities, sometimes 
 in conjunction with the brutal father, to rob the poor 
 mother of her new-born infant, whilst she was in a 
 state of helplessness from the effects of her recent 
 confinement, and to convey it to the Hospital, that they 
 might be rid of the burden of 'maintaining it. The 
 scenes which daily occurred at the asylum from this 
 circumstance, would have moved the stoutest heart. 
 
 The managers did all they could to prevent this 
 infamous practice, by prosecuting the delinquents, 
 but the motive was too strong to be put down ; it 
 continued in spite of their efforts. 
 
 When a Foundling Hospital was established in 
 Paris, in the year 1640, its objects were limited to 
 the children found exposed in that city, and its suburbs ; 
 and it was understood by those who furthered a similar 
 design in this country, that its operations would, in the 
 same manner, be confined to London and its environs. 
 But benefits so tempting being irresistible to persons 
 in country towns, they were determined to share with 
 the good people of London, a privilege which they 
 considered common to all. " There is set up in our 
 Corporation" (writes a correspondent from a town 
 three hundred miles distant, in one of the chronicles 
 of the day), " a new and uncommon trade, namely, the
 
 13 
 
 conveying children to the Foundling Hospital. The 
 person employed in this trade is a woman of notoriously 
 bad character. She undertakes the carrying of these 
 children at so much per head. She has, I am told, 
 made one trip already ; and is now set upon her journey 
 with two of her daughters, each with a child on her 
 back. " The writer then very properly suggests, that it 
 ought to be ascertained " whether or not these poor 
 infants do really arrive at their destination, or what 
 becomes of them/' That such an inquiry was necessary, 
 there is no doubt ; the sequel will prove it. 
 
 At Monmouth, a person was tried for the murder 
 of his child, which was found drowned with a stone 
 about its neck ! when the prisoner proved that he 
 delivered it to a travelling tinker, who received a 
 guinea from him to carry it to the Hospital. Nay, 
 it was publicly asserted in the House of Commons, 
 that one man who had the charge of five infants in 
 baskets, happened in his journey to get intoxicated, 
 and lay all night asleep on a common ; and in the 
 morning he found three of the five children he had 
 in charge actually dead ! Also, that of eight infants 
 brought out of the country at one time in a waggon, 
 seven died before it reached London : the surviving 
 child owing its life to the solicitude of its mother ; 
 who rather than commit it alone to the carrier, followed 
 the waggon on foot, occasionally affording her infant 
 the nourishment it required. 
 
 It was further stated that a man on horseback, 
 going to London with luggage in two panniers, was 
 overtaken at Highgate, and being asked what he had
 
 14 
 
 in his panniers, answered, "I have two children 
 in each : i brought them from Yorkshire for the 
 Foundling Hospital, and used to have eight guineas 
 a trip ; but lately another man has set up against 
 me, which has lowered my price. " 
 
 This practice of transporting children from remote 
 towns was condemned by a distinct resolution of the 
 House of Commons, and a Bill was ordered to be 
 brought in to prevent it ; but this Bill was never 
 presented, so that parish officers and others still 
 continued to carry on their illicit trade, by delivering 
 children to vagrants, who, for a small sum of money, 
 undertook the task of conveying them to the Hospital, 
 although they were in no condition to take care of 
 them, whereby numbers perished for want, or were 
 otherwise destroyed ; and even in cases where children 
 were really left at the Hospital, the barbarous wretches 
 who had the conveying of them, not content with 
 the gratuity they received, stript the poor infants of 
 their clothing into the bargain, leaving them naked 
 in the basket at the Hospital gate.* 
 
 A system so void of all order and discretion, must 
 necessarily have occasioned many difficulties : for 
 instance, it frequently happened, that persons who sent 
 their children to the Hospital, having nothing to prove 
 their reception, were suspected, or, if not suspected, 
 
 * The following is a strong instance of the vicissitudes of life : Some years 
 since, an aged Banker in the north of England, received into the Hospital at 
 the above period, was desirous of becoming acquainted with his origin, when, 
 all the information afforded by the books of the establishment was, that he was 
 put into a basket at the gate naked.
 
 15 
 
 were charged by their malevolent neighbours with 
 destroying them, and were consequently cited before a 
 magistrate of the district to shew to the contrary. This 
 they could only do by procuring an examination of the 
 Hospital registers ; and the Governors were frequently 
 called upon for certificates of the fact, before the party 
 could be released. This inconvenience was, however, 
 afterwards obviated, by the practice of giving a billet 
 to each person who brought a child, acknowledging 
 its reception. 
 
 But the difficulty which presented itself paramount 
 to all others, related to the manner in which so great a 
 number of children was to be reared. In the first year 
 of this indiscriminate admission, the number received 
 was 3,296 ; in the second year, 4,085 ; in the third, 
 4,229 ; and during less than ten months of the fourth 
 year (after which the system of indiscriminate reception 
 was abolished), 3,324. Thus, in this short period, no 
 less than 14,934 infants were cast on the compassionate 
 protection of the public ! It necessarily became a 
 question how the lives of this army of infants could be 
 best preserved ; and the Governors not being able to 
 settle this point among themselves, addressed certain 
 queries to the College of Physicians, which were 
 promptly answered, by recommending a course of 
 treatment consonant to nature and common sense ! 
 Children, deprived as these were of their natural 
 aliment, required more than usual watchfulness ; and 
 although, on a small scale, the providing a number of 
 healthy wet-nurses as substitutes for the mothers of 
 infants would have been an easy task, yet, when they
 
 16 
 
 arrived in numbers so considerable, the Governors 
 found that the object they had in view must necessarily 
 fail from its very magnitude. 
 
 It has been truly said, that the frail tenure by which 
 an infant holds its life, will not allow of a remitted 
 attention even for a few hours : who, therefore, will be 
 supprised, after hearing under what circumstances most 
 of these poor children were left at the Hospital gate, 
 that, instead of being a protection to the living, the 
 institution became, as it were, a charnel-house for the 
 dead ! It is a notorious fact, that many of the infants 
 received at the gate, did not live to be carried into the 
 wards of the building ; and from the impossibility of 
 procuring a sufficient number of proper nurses, the 
 emaciated and diseased state in which many of these 
 children were brought to the Hospital, and the 
 malconduct of some of those to whose care they were 
 committed (notwithsaanding these nurses were under 
 the superintendence of certain ladies sisters of charity), 
 the deaths amongst them were so frequent, that of the 
 14,934 received, only 4,400 lived to be apprenticed 
 out, being a mortality of more than seventy per cent ! 
 Thus was the institution (conducted on a plan so wild 
 and chimerical, and so widely differing from its original 
 design), found to be diseased in its very vitals. The 
 avowed object of saving life was frustrated by a variety 
 oi contingent circumstances ; and the permanent and 
 two -fold benefit of which it was intended to have been 
 the instrument, under the regulations contemplated by 
 the Founder, was set aside by a system of fraud and 
 abuse which entailed on the public an immense
 
 17 
 
 annual expenditure,* without even one good result. To 
 establish a market for vice to carry on her profligate 
 trade without let or hindrance ; to arrest the first 
 step towards repentance of one yet in the infancy of 
 crime, by pointing out the way in which she might 
 perpetuate her guilt with impunity ; to break the 
 beautiful chain of the affections which characterizes 
 mankind as social beings, by giving general license to 
 parents to desert their offspring, upon the barbarous 
 plea that they cannot easily maintain them ; to 
 wink as it were, at fraud, by showing how designing 
 persons might dispose of children entrusted to their 
 guardianship/ and prevent a discovery of their guilty 
 acts : these were some of the evils which were realised 
 in the early proceedings of the Governors, for want 
 of attention to the cautionary suggestion of the 
 Founder, to "take due and proper care in setting 
 on foot so necessary an establishment." 
 
 But the state of things described could not possibly 
 last long, except in a community lost to all decency 
 and order. No sooner, therefore, did those who had 
 promoted a system fraught with so much mischief, 
 
 * The total expense was about 500,000 ! Several propositions were made 
 for ridding the country of the burthen, and amongst them the following. " His 
 Majesty having recommended the case of the Foundling Hospital to the House 
 of Commons, which cheerfully granted 40,000, for the support of that charity, 
 the growing annual expense of it appeared worthy of further consideration, and 
 leave was granted to bring in a bill for obliging all the parishes of England and 
 Wales to keep registers of all their deaths, births, and marriages, that from 
 these a fund might be raised towards the support of the said Hospital. The 
 bill was accordingly prepared by a committee appointed for the purpose, but 
 before the House could take the report into consideration, the Parliament was 
 prorogued. " Smollett. 
 
 C
 
 18 
 
 discover the error they had committed, than they 
 wished to retrace their steps : the moralist enlisted 
 his pen in a cause which he found was endangered 
 by its continuance ; and mercy stepped forward to 
 arrest the destroying hand of death, to whose ven- 
 geance so many infants had been doomed, under the 
 sanction of this unwise administration of the charity ; 
 and at length Parliament, which, by its inadvertence, 
 had promoted the evil, annulled its sanction thereto, by 
 declaring That the indiscriminate admission of all 
 children under a certain age in the Hospital, had been 
 attended with many evil consequences, and that it be 
 discontinued. 
 
 After the House of Commons had passed the 
 resolution which annulled the practice of receiving 
 children in such an unguarded and indiscriminate 
 manner, the Governors were left to adopt what they 
 conceived to be the views of the Founder, and to 
 place the institution upon that basis of prudential 
 charity on which it now stands. 
 
 Tokens. It will be seen, that one of the regulations 
 at the outset was, that persons leaving children should 
 " affix on them some particular writing, or other 
 distinguishing mark or token." These tokens are of 
 different classes : 
 
 1st. Coins of various periods of English history, and 
 many foreign, almost invariably of silver or copper. 
 On some of them the name and date of the birth of 
 the child is engraved, and there are besides several 
 metal devices.
 
 19 
 
 2nd. Trinkets, &c., of various kinds. 
 
 3rd. Pieces of printed cotton, and specimens of ribbon. 
 This class of token is the most common of the whole. 
 
 The miscellaneous tokens consists of monograms, 
 children's caps, and here and there a child's caul. 
 
 In 1757, a lottery ticket was given in with a child, 
 but whether it turned up a prize or a blank is not 
 recorded. 
 
 In some instances the means of identity are in the 
 form of scraps, such as the following. They are copied 
 literally. 
 
 " Beatus est qui intelligit super Egenum et pauperem ; 
 tempore mali liberabit eum Jehova. 
 Nam pater meus et mater mea derelinquunt me, 
 sed Jehova recipiet me." 
 
 " Vale, forte in aeternum vale, O chara 
 Soboles inter suspiria lachrymasque Parentum, 
 Pauperie non indecora urgente, brachiis, curae, 
 humanitati hujus Hospitii nunc dedita." 
 
 "Marcus Brutus Cromwell, 
 
 natus erat premio die Decembris A.D., 1757, il est 
 marque avec un peu de rouge dans le coin de son 
 oiel gauche." 
 
 " Necessitas non habet Leges." 
 
 ; Nee amicus, nee inimicus." 
 
 "D" Sapientia Veni Lumen Cordium." 
 " Successus attendre tuet." 
 
 " Si tibi cura mei, Sit tibi cura tui." 
 
 "Si splacit, nomen esto hujus puellulse " 
 
 " Publica Cura prodis."
 
 20 
 
 In other cases the token is in the character of verse 
 or rhyme, for instance : 
 
 " Go gentle babe, thy future life be spent 
 In virtuous purity, and calm content ; 
 Life's sunshine bless thee, and no anxious care 
 Sit on thy brow, and draw the falling tear ; 
 Thy country's grateful servant may'st thou prove 
 And all thy life be happiness and love." 
 
 " Pray use me well, and you shall find 
 My father will not prove unkind 
 Unto that nurse who's my protector, 
 Because he is a benefactor." 
 
 "Pity the offspring of a Youthful pair, 
 Whom folly taught, and pleasure did Ensnare ; 
 Let the poor Babe, its parents fault atone 
 Stand you its friend, or else it is undone !" 
 
 "Hard is my lot in deep distress 
 To have no help where most should find. 
 Sure nature meant her sacred laws 
 Should men as strong as women bind. 
 Regardless he, unable I, 
 To keep this image of my heart, 
 'Tis Vile to Murder ! hard to Starve 
 And death almost to me to part ! 
 If Fortune should her favours give 
 That I in better plight might live 
 I'd try to have my Boy again 
 And train him up the best of men." 
 
 Joseph , in London, Born April 28th, 1759. 
 
 " Va ! mon Enfant prend la Fortune." 
 
 " Vast blessings lucky Child attend 
 Thy fate as well as mine. 
 A gracious Saint has been my friend. 
 A Conquest shall now be thine. 
 Great God supported me 
 Tho' I no learning knew, 
 But Heaven's bounty gives to thee, 
 Support and learning too."
 
 21 
 
 ' I'm sent to find. 
 If Fortune's kind ; 
 And should it now prove true, 
 My parent fond, 
 Will not Despond, 
 Of Sarah Montague." 
 
 " Not either Parent wants a Parent's Mind, 
 But Friends and Fortune are not always kind. 
 The helpless Infant by its tender Cries 
 Bleeseth the hand from whom it meets supplies.'' 
 
 " By any means we cannot her relieve ; 
 So gracious God, we beg thou wilt forgive 
 This fault of ours, and pity on her take ; 
 And this we beg for Jesus Christ his sake." 
 
 At this period, the station in life of the parties 
 availing themselves of the charity, could only be 
 surmised by the quality of the garments in which the 
 children were dressed, the particulars of which were 
 faithfully recorded ; the following being a sample 
 viz : 
 
 "1741, A male child, about two months old, with 
 white dimity sleeves, lined with white, and tied with 
 red ribbon." 
 
 " A female child, aged about six weeks, with a blue 
 figured ribbon, and purple and white printed linen 
 sleeves, turned up with red and white." 
 
 " A male child, about a fortnight old, very neatly 
 dressed ; a fine holland cap, with a cambric border, 
 white corded dimity sleeves, the shirt ruffled with 
 cambric." 
 
 "A male child, a week old ; a holland cap, .with a 
 plain border, edged biggin and forehead-cloth, diaper
 
 22 
 
 bib, striped and flowered dimity mantle, and another 
 Holland one; India dimity sleeves, turned up with 
 stitched holland, damask waistcoat, holland ruffled 
 shirt." 
 
 Some of the children were avowed by the parties 
 leaving them to be legitimate, and many are so by 
 inference, being born in Lying-in Charities intended 
 for married women only. 
 
 Sometimes the recording clerk was rather laconic 
 and quaint in his descriptions : for instance, of one of 
 the children he says, it had 
 
 "A paper on the breast 
 Clout on the head." 
 
 Children received with Money. After Parliament 
 (frightened by the spirit of evil itself had raised) 
 had deserted the Charity, the Governors were left to 
 pursue, once more, their own course, and to adapt, if 
 they thought fit, its administration to the more imme- 
 diate objects of the Founder. This they were evidently 
 desirous of doing, but the extravagancies caused by the 
 " nationality" of their Institution for the period alluded 
 to had emptied the Exchequer of the Hospital, and the 
 evils of the system had so offended the public, that 
 much of the individual support which it previously 
 received from charitable persons was withdrawn. 
 
 The "poverty," perhaps, not the "will" of the 
 acting Governors, led them into an error of another 
 kind, namely a resolution to receive children with 
 money, in addition to such other objects as the funds of
 
 23 
 
 the Hospital might enable them to maintain. It is a 
 fact much to be regretted, that for many years children 
 were mysteriously received on payment of 100, with- 
 out a knowledge of, or any clue being given to the 
 parents from whom they sprang ! The abuses which 
 might, and no doubt did, arise from this system, are so 
 obvious as to need no comment. It is due, however, 
 to the Governors to say, that immediately after the 
 funds of the charity had assumed a healthier state, 
 they abolished altogether this more than questionable 
 practice. At a court of Governors, held on the 21st 
 January, 1801, there being present several eminent 
 lawyers, including Mr. (afterwards Baron) Garrow, and 
 Sir Thomas Plumer (subsequently Master of the Rolls), 
 it was resolved to rescind the obnoxious bye-law which 
 originated so objectionable a system. The truth is, the 
 matter was about to be brought to a legal issue, from 
 the following circumstance : The mother of a child 
 which had been received under this rule, although a 
 consenting party to the separation, afterwards repented, 
 and, having discovered the residence of the nurse with 
 whom it was placed in the country, practised upon her 
 an artifice by which she obtained possession of the 
 child, and refused to relinquish her right. The 
 Governors, feeling themselves under an obligation to 
 reclaim the child by exercising the powers which they 
 conceived to be vested in them, took a high legal 
 opinion, when they were advised that, owing to their 
 departure in this respect from the spirit and letter of 
 their charter, and the Act of Parliament confirming it, 
 they had no chance of being protected in a court of
 
 24 
 
 law. From this time, therefore, namely January 1801, 
 no child has been received into the Hospital, either 
 directly or indirectly, with any sum of money, large 
 or small. 
 
 The present practice. The present mode of admit- 
 ting children has prevailed for more than sixty years, 
 without those variations of principle and practice which 
 characterized previous periods of the history of the 
 Hospital. It cannot be better set forth than in the 
 language of a report made to Parliament in 1836, by 
 a commission appointed to enquire into the larger 
 charities of London : 
 
 " The present practice of the Governors is to decide 
 each application for the admission of children on its 
 own merits. There are, however, certain preliminary 
 conditions required, the absence of any one of which is 
 fatal to the petitioner's application, and subjects it to 
 instant rejection, except in very peculiar cases. Thus 
 it is required, 
 
 " 1. That the child shall be illegitimate, except the 
 father be a soldier or sailor killed in the service of his 
 country.* 
 
 " 2. That the child be born, and its age under 
 twelve months. 
 
 " 3. That the petitioner shall not have made an 
 
 * No body of men could have been influenced by more noble and patriotic 
 feelings on different occasions than the Governors of the Foundling Hospital. 
 In 1761, during the War in Germany, also during the Continental war in 1794, 
 and on the occasion of the battle of Waterloo, they freely opened their gates to 
 the necessitous children of those who had fallen in the service of their country. 
 Illegitimate children are now the sole objects of the Charity.
 
 25 
 
 application to any parish respecting its maintenance, 
 or have been delivered in any parish workhouse. * 
 
 " 4. That the petitioner shall have borne a good 
 character previous to her misfortune or delivery. 
 
 " 5. That the father shall have deserted his offspring, 
 and be not forthcoming, that is, not to be found, or 
 compellable to maintain his child. 
 
 "Supposing, therefore, that it appears by the 
 petition, and the petitioner's examination,! that the 
 claim for admission is advanced in respect of an illegi- 
 timate child, of a hitherto respectable parent, not 
 twelve months old, whose father has deserted it and is 
 not forthcoming, and whose birth has not been taken 
 cognizance of by any parish authorities, the petitioner 
 is considered to have established a case for inquiry ; 
 and the " Enquirer" is directed to obtain information, 
 both as to these and as to other circumstances in the 
 case now to be stated, which differ from those above- 
 mentioned in this respect, that none are absolutely 
 required, and that they are all taken into consideration 
 by the Governors, and influence their estimate of the 
 merits of each application, according to the degree only 
 in which they prevail in the individual one under 
 consideration. 
 
 " Thus the petitioner's child acquires a stronger 
 claim to admission, according to the degree in which it 
 appears 
 
 * A petitioner who goes into a workhouse merely for her confinement, is 
 not now rejected. 
 
 t " No one can blame the total change of the plan, which for the last sixty
 
 26 
 
 " 1. That the petitioner is poor, and has no relations 
 able or willing to maintain her child. 
 
 " 2. That her delivery and shame are known to 
 few persons, being either her relations or inmates of the 
 house in which the circumstances occurred. 
 
 " 3. That in the event of the child being received, 
 the petitioner has a prospect of preserving her station 
 in society, and obtaining by her own exertions an 
 honest livelihood. 
 
 " The most meritorious case, therefore, would be one 
 in which a young woman, having no means of 
 subsistence, except those derived from her own labour, 
 and having no opulent relations, previously to com- 
 mitting the offence bore an irreproachable character, 
 but yielded to artful and long-continued seduction, and 
 an express promise of marriage : whose delivery took 
 place in secret, and whose shame was known to only 
 one or two persons, as, for example, the medical 
 attendant and a single relation ; and lastly, whose 
 employers or other persons were able and desirous to 
 take her into their service, if enabled again to earn her 
 livelihood by the reception of her child. 
 
 " This is considered the most eligible case, and others 
 are deemed by the Governors as more or less so, in 
 proportion as they approach nearer to or recede further 
 from that above stated ; their great object being, as 
 they allege, to fulfil to the utmost the benevolent views 
 
 yeirs has been made, with whatever view, by adopting the rule to admit no 
 child whose mother does not appear to be examined." Lord Brougham's 
 Loiter, to Sir SarmteJ Romilly on Charities.
 
 -27 
 
 of the principal Founder of the Hospital, who, as 
 appears by his petition for the charter, was chiefly 
 solicitous that the mothers of illegitimate children 
 should have other means within their reach of hiding 
 their shame than the destruction of their miserable off- 
 spring, and thus they say they seek ' to hide the shame 
 of the mother as well as to preserve the life of the 
 child/" 
 
 REASONS FOR 
 
 THE EXISTENCE OF THE CHARITY. 
 
 The first sympathies of the human heart are doubt- 
 less excited by the presence of misery, originating in 
 what may be termed the accidents of life, unassisted 
 either by the transgression or omission of the individual. 
 Distress thus obtained, has at all times received, though 
 not systematically, the compassionate alleviation which 
 it requires. But there is misery of another class, which 
 has its origin in the moral weaknesses of our nature : 
 this, though more poignant than the former, inasmuch 
 as it is followed by the bitterness of acknowledged 
 transgression, did not in darker ages receive, because to 
 human wisdom it did not seem to deserve, the com- 
 miseration of mankind. But the Christian religion, by 
 its admirable precepts and influences, has imbued the 
 social system of nations with a policy, which is founded 
 on a compassionate estimate of the weaknesses of 
 humanity, and a just measure of relief to voluntary 
 repentance. This lesson of mercy was eminently taught 
 by the Founder of Cliristianity himself, when he bade
 
 28 
 
 the Jew who was without sin cast the first stone at the 
 repentant adulteress, and then calmly dismissed her with 
 the charge to sin no more /* It was not that her crime 
 was venial, but that He who desired not the death of a 
 sinner, but rather that she should repent and live, saw 
 in this wretched criminal, sufficient of remorse to be 
 the object of a lesson to mankind, that the rigour of 
 human law should not be exercised without a humane 
 regard to the circumstances under which crime may 
 have been committed, and to the sincerity of the 
 repentance which may have followed. 
 
 It may be asked, then, where is the man, imbued 
 with Christian charity, who is prepared to take up the 
 stone, and fling it at the poor victim of unprincipled 
 seduction and brutal desertion 1 Is he ready to bear 
 in like manner the consequences of his own guilt, and 
 to go down the stream of life with her in her shattered 
 bark I No : and yet there are pseudo-moralists, afflicted 
 with an unfortunate obliquity of the mind's eye, who, 
 
 * Moore's poetical paraphase of this subject naturally recurs to the 
 mind : 
 
 "Oh, woman ! if by simple wile 
 
 Thy soul has stray'd from honour's track, 
 Tis mercy only can beguile, 
 
 By gentle ways, the wand'rer back. 
 
 " The stain that on thy virtue lies, 
 
 Wash'd by thy tears, may yet decay ; 
 As clouds that sully morning skies, 
 
 May all be wept in show'rs away. 
 
 "Go, go be innocent and live 
 
 The tongues of men may wound thee sore j 
 
 But heav'n in pity can forgive, 
 
 And bids thee ' Go, and sin no more !' "
 
 29 
 
 rather than succour the necessities of one whose mis- 
 fortune originated in evil, would hurl the offender 
 headlong into perdition. Alas ! the descent from virtue 
 to vice is so easy, that but one step intervenes between 
 them : and often, when we think we are secure, our 
 foot slips, and we are involved in all the misery and 
 degradation of sin ! This is the fate of us all : 'tis the 
 fate of him who proudly glories in his own rectitude ; 
 for what is the moral history of a man's life 1 Tis 
 but a succession from virtue to vice, from vice to 
 repentance. Shall man, then, who is so weak as not to 
 be able to sustain his own virtue, withhold from 
 a wretched woman, who by wily arts has been deceived, 
 that compassion for her error which he requires for 
 himself ? And yet, those who oppose an institution 
 founded on such principles and practice as the Found- 
 ling Hospital is now conducted, answer by their conduct 
 the very affirmative of this question. We ask in the 
 language of an eminent writer," 5 '" " Have faults no 
 extenuations ? Is there no difference betwixt one 
 propensely going out of the road, and continuing there 
 through depravity of will, and a hapless wanderer 
 straying by delusion, and warily treading back her 
 steps V The latter are the peculiar objects of the 
 Foundling Hospital ; and what Christian what man 
 is there who will gainsay the humanity of such an 
 institution "? 
 
 But there are certain individuals who endeavour 
 
 * Sterne, who preached a sermon for the charity, in the chapel of the 
 Hospital, in 1761.
 
 30 
 
 to smother their humanity under the plea, that 
 the policy the good of society as they term it is 
 against the existence of any institution which shall 
 relieve distress arising out of an evil action. * Now 
 it may be well to answer these rigid interpreters by 
 enquiring, how far the good of society is injured by 
 the institution of an asylum for the protection of 
 infants, whose wretched parents, first straying by 
 delusion, warily tread back their steps 1 
 
 We know that shame is sometimes so powerful a 
 monitor in the female breast, that it is impossible to 
 resist its influence. Suppose then, the victim of 
 seduction, deceived, deserted, without even the 
 shadow of hope in the distance to point to her relief : 
 suppose we say, this wretched creature overtaken by 
 despair, and, in a fit of madness, to become the 
 murderess of her infant ! we ask, how is the good of 
 society answered by driving her to this desperate act 1 
 Would it not have been better secured by an opposite 
 course 1 In the first place, by rescuing the infant from 
 destruction, through the medium of some public asylum, 
 it might be enabled hereafter to give its modicum of 
 strength for the benefit of that public, through whose 
 compassion it might have been saved. And secondly, 
 by preserving the wretched parent from so desperate a 
 crime, she might, by her penitence and future rectitude, 
 
 * If this doctrine were generally acted upon, what would become of the 
 numerous medical and surgical charities of the kingdom, which are half filled 
 with cases originating in the weaknesses or vices of humanity ? How many 
 beds of such noble establishments as St. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, Guy's, 
 &c., &c., would become vacant ?
 
 31 
 
 have maintained the cause of virtue, and once more 
 enjoyed the value of reputation after having tasted 
 the ill consequences of losing it. 
 
 But we will suppose that the delirium of her despair 
 does not reach to so great a height : we will take it for 
 granted, that nature asserts so powerfully her claims, 
 that this victim of seduction is ready to brave all con- 
 sequences for the preservation of her offspring. How 
 can she do this 1 she dare not apply to her relations : 
 they would reject and despise her. Her seducer has 
 placed himself out of the reach of the law, she has no 
 means within herself no hope ! Being therefore 
 unable to afford protection to her offspring in an honest 
 way, she throws off for ever her remaining mantle of 
 virtue and abandons herself to a prostituted life \ Is 
 the good of society promoted by her swelling the awful 
 lists of public prostitutes "? Is it promoted by her 
 bringing up her child in the path of vice instead of 
 virtue 1 No. And yet we are told by these spurious 
 moralists, that it is unwise to step in between a hap- 
 less female and the punishment of lasting infamy which 
 they would allot to her offence. 
 
 " Curse on the savage and unbending law 
 
 Of stern society, that turns a speck 
 In woman to an everlasting flaw ! 
 
 And far from whisp'ring us to save or check 
 Her course in wantonness, bids us draw 
 
 Round her, like wretches hov'ring round a wreck, 
 All that the wave hath spar'd, to spoil and plunder, 
 
 And sink the noble vessel farther under." 
 
 Many are the indirect testimonies given by men of 
 talent in favour both of the policy and the humanity
 
 32 
 
 towards which the objects of the Foundling Hospital are 
 directed. Fielding, who had a profound knowledge of 
 human nature and human action, puts into the mouth 
 of Mr. Allworthy, in his inimitable novel of "Tom Jones," 
 the most benevolent and, at the same time, the most 
 sensible reasons for sheltering and befriending the 
 supposed mother of the little foundling ; and in his 
 parting admonition to her, makes the good man say, 
 " I have talked thus to you, child, not to insult you for 
 what is past and irrecoverable, but to caution and 
 strengthen you for the future. Nor should I have 
 taken this trouble, but from some opinion of your 
 good sense, notwithstanding the dreadful slip you 
 have made, and from some hopes of your hearty 
 repentance, which are founded on the openness and 
 sincerity of your confession." And when her enemies 
 
 The following verses from the pen of H. W. Freeland, Esq., may not 
 inappropriately be here inserted : 
 
 O spurn her not ! a mother's care 
 
 Her childhood never knew, 
 And she was once like angels fair, 
 
 And innocent, and true. 
 
 O spurn her not ! for she had none 
 
 A warning word to say ; 
 Of all the flock there was but one 
 
 That e'er was known to stray. 
 
 When proud man errs, a world that's blind 
 
 To justice and to truth 
 Too quickly frames excuses kind 
 
 For thoughtlessness and youth ; 
 
 When woman falls, her infamy 
 
 A thousand lips proclaim, 
 And busy tongues seem pleas'd to be 
 
 The heralds of her shame.
 
 33 
 
 would have sacrificed her to ruin and infamy, by a 
 shameful correction in a bridewell, "so far" (says the 
 author) "from complying with this their inclination, 
 by which all hopes of reformation would have been 
 abolished, and even the gate shut against her, if her 
 own inclination should ever hereafter lead her to 
 choose the road of virtue, Mr. AUworthy rather chose 
 to encourage the girl to return thither by the only 
 possible means ; for (he adds) too true I am afraid 
 it is, that many women have become abandoned, and 
 have sunk to the last degree of vice, by being unable to 
 retrieve thejirst slip" 
 
 In the same strain the celebrated Dr. Burn * la- 
 ments the abandonment of erring females, by which 
 (he says) "they become desperate and profligate, and 
 are induced to make a trade of that vice, which at 
 
 Then pause, lest One that cannot en- 
 Should crush usurping pride, 
 
 And mercy, now withheld from her, 
 Should be to you denied. 
 
 Goad not to acts of last despair, 
 
 But kindly bid her live ; 
 Most human 'tis to err most fair 
 
 And heayenly to forgive. 
 
 Pity her too confiding youth 
 
 That early learn'd to stray, 
 And lead her back to holy truth 
 
 And virtue's sacred way. 
 
 Though fall'u she looks from guilt and sin 
 
 To mercy's throne above ; 
 And lost on earth, is still within 
 
 The pale of heavenly love. 
 
 * Author of " Burn's Justice." 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 first was a pitiable weakness." Surely the testimony 
 of such men in favour of the preservation of God's 
 creatures from destruction, is of infinitely greater 
 value than all the theories of political economists! 
 
 The late Eev. Sydney Smith, who, from the office 
 he held, as one of the preachers of the Chapel of the 
 Hospital, was well acquainted with the " working " 
 of it, thus writes : 
 
 " A very unfounded idea exists in the minds of 
 some men little acquainted with the principles on 
 which we proceed, that the doors of this Hospital 
 are flung open to the promiscuous reception of 
 infants, and that every mother can here find an 
 asylum for her offspring, whatever be her pretensions 
 as a virtuous mother, an indigent mother, or a 
 mother striving by every exertion of industry to 
 give to her children creditable support. If this 
 were so, this institution would aim directly, and in 
 the most unqualified manner, at the destruction 
 of two virtues on which the happiness of society 
 principally depends the affection of parents, and 
 
 the virtue of women. We should be counteracting, 
 
 &' 
 
 under the name of charity, all those omnipotent 
 principles of exertion founded on the love of offspring ; 
 we should be weakening that sacred resolution to 
 watch, to toil, and to meet all dangers, to suffer all 
 pains, rather than children should know the shadow 
 of a grief, or endure but an instant of sorrow ; 
 we should be whispering into the ear of poverty 
 the most pernicious of all precepts ; we should 
 be inviting them to relax from the noblest efforts,
 
 35 
 
 to blunt the finest feelings, and to disobey the 
 highest commandments of Almighty God. My 
 brethren, these things are not so : our zeal is 
 combined with greater knowledge ; and experience 
 has taught us, that the designs of the pious 
 demand a circumspection not inferior to that with 
 which the machinations of the wicked are pursued. 
 No child drinks of our cup or eats of our bread 
 whose reception, upon the whole, we are not certain 
 to be more conducive than pernicious to the 
 interests of religion and good morals. We hear no 
 mother whom it would not be merciless and 
 shocking to turn away ; we exercise the trust 
 reposed in us with a trembling and sensitive 
 conscience ; we do not think it enough to say, This 
 woman is wretched, and betrayed, and forsaken ; 
 but we calmly reflect if it be expedient that her 
 tears should be dried up, her loneliness sheltered, 
 and all her wants receive the ministration of charity. 
 The object has uniformly been to distinguish 
 between hardened guilt and the first taint of vice. 
 By sheltering and protecting once, reclaim for 
 ever after, and not to doom to eternal infamy for 
 one single stain of guilt. 
 
 " The fair and just way to estimate degrees of 
 guilt is to oppose them to degrees of temptation ; 
 and no one can know more perfectly than the 
 conductors of this charity, the abominable artifices 
 by which the poor women who come to them for 
 relief have been ruined, and the cruelty with which 
 they have been abandoned. My brethren, do not
 
 36 
 
 believe that these are the mere casualties of vice, 
 and the irregularities of passion, which, though 
 well governed in the main, degenerate into occa- 
 sional excess. The mothers whom we relieve have 
 been too often ruined by systematic profligacy by 
 men, the only object and occupation of whose life it 
 is to discover innocence, and to betray it. There 
 are men in this great city who live only for such a 
 purpose, who are the greatest and most dreadful 
 curses that the earth carries upon its surface. My 
 dear brethren, if I were to show you in this church 
 the figure of a wretched woman, a brutal, shameless 
 creature, clothed in rags, and mouldering with disease ; 
 if I were to tell you she had once been good and 
 happy, that she once had that chance of salvation 
 which we all have this day ; if I were to show you 
 the man who had doomed her to misery in this world, 
 and to hell in the world to come, what would your 
 feelings be \ If I were to bring you another as sick 
 and as wretched as her, and were to point out the same 
 man as the cause of her ruin, how would your indigna- 
 tion rise ? But if I were to tell you that the constant 
 occupations of this man were to search for innocence 
 and to ruin it ; that he was a seducer by profession ; 
 that the only object for which he existed was to 
 gratify his infamous passions at every expense of 
 human happiness, would you not say that his life was 
 too bad for the mercy of God ? If the earth were to 
 yawn for him as it yawned for Dathan and Abiram, 
 is there one eye would be lifted up to ask for mercy 
 for his soul 1 It is from such wretches as these that
 
 37 
 
 we strive to rescue unhappy women, to bring them 
 back to God, to secure them from the scorn of the 
 world that would break their hearts, and drive them 
 into the deepest gulf of sin. But this is not all : to 
 tho cruelty of seduction is generally added the base- 
 ness of abandoning its object, of leaving to perish 
 in rags and in hunger a miserable woman, bribed by 
 promises and oaths of eternal protection and regard. 
 Now, my brethren, let us be just even to sinners ; let 
 us be merciful even to seducers in the midst of horror 
 for their crimes ; let us fix before our eyes every 
 circumstance that can extenuate them ; let us place 
 by the side of the guilt the temptation, and judge 
 them as we hope to be judged at a perilous season by 
 the great Judge of us all. Let us call seduction the 
 effect of youth and passion, still we have a right to 
 expect all that compensation of good which youth and 
 passion commonly afford, if we allow to them all the 
 indulgence they usually require ; but what of youth 
 or passion is there in forgetting the unprotected weak- 
 ness of women in starving a creature whom you 
 have ruined in flying from her for fear she should 
 ask you for bread \ Does youth thus unite fervour 
 with meanness "? Does it, without a single compen- 
 satory virtue, combine its own vices and the vices of 
 every other period of life \ Is it violent and sordid, 
 avaricious and impassioned, the slave of ever other 
 feeling, and the master of generous compassion alone 1 
 This is not youth ; this has nothing to do with the 
 origin of life ; it is cold and callous profligacy begun 
 in brutal sensuality, fostered by irreligion, strengthened
 
 38 
 
 by association with bad men, and become so hardened, 
 that it laughs at the very misery it creates, These 
 are the feelings, and these the men, whose cruelty we 
 are obliged to alleviate, and whose victims we are 
 destined to save. Is there any friend to virtue, how- 
 ever rigid, who can say that such an application of 
 charity, so scrupulous and so discriminating, is not a 
 solid augmentation of human happiness ? that it does 
 not extend the dominion of the Gospel, and narrow 
 the boundaries of sin ? But let those who conceive 
 that the claims even of such unhappy woman should 
 be rejected, consider what it is they do reject : they 
 reject the weakness of sex ; they are deaf to the voice 
 of ruined innocence ; they refuse assistance to youth, 
 shuddering at the gulf of infamy ; they would turn out 
 an indigent mother to the merciless world, at a period 
 when she demands all that charity can afford, or com- 
 passion feel ! But whatever be the crimes of the 
 parents, and whatever views different individuals may 
 take of the relief extended to them, there is no man 
 who thinks that the children should perish for their 
 crimes, or that those shall be doomed to suffer any 
 misery who can have committed no fault. Therefore 
 this part of the institution is as free from the shadow 
 of blame as every other part is free from the reality." 
 
 Sir Thomas Bernard, Baronet, who was for some 
 years Treasurer of the Hospital, writes as follows in 
 1803* : 
 
 ' The preserving and educating so many children, 
 
 * Vide Report of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor.
 
 39 
 
 which without the Foundling Hospital, would have 
 been lost to that society of which they are calculated 
 to become useful members, is certainly a great and 
 public benefit. The adoption of a helpless, unprotected 
 infant, the watching over its progress to maturity, and 
 fitting it to be useful to itself and others here, and to 
 attain eternal happiness hereafter, these are no common 
 or ordinary acts of beneficence ; but their value and their 
 importance are lost, when compared with the benefits 
 which (without any prejudice to the original objects 
 of the Charity) the mothers derive from this Insti- 
 tution, as it is at presented conducted. The preserving 
 the mere vital functions of an infant cannot be put 
 in competition with saving from vice, misery, and 
 infamy, a young woman, in the bloom of life, whose 
 crime may have been a single and solitary act of 
 indiscretion. Many extraordinary cases of repentance, 
 followed by restoration to peace, comfort, and repu- 
 tation, have come within the knowledge of the writer 
 of this note. Some cases have occurred, within his 
 own observation, of wives happily placed, the mothers 
 of thriving families, who, but for the saving aid of this 
 Institution, might have become the most noxious and 
 abandoned prostitutes. Very rare are the instances, 
 none has come within notice, of a woman relieved by 
 the Foundling Hospital, and not thereby preserved 
 from a course of prostitution." 
 
 There are at present 500 children supported by the 
 Hospital, from extreme infancy up to the age of 
 fifteen. This is the maximum number for the main- 
 tenance of which the present funds can be made
 
 40 
 
 available. It is only therefore as vacancies occur by 
 apprenticeship or death, reducing this number, that 
 other children can be received. The average admis- 
 sions per annum for the last three years was forty-one. 
 The average number of applications for the admission 
 of children was 236. Independently, therefore, of a 
 principle of action which governs the Committee in the 
 selection of cases, the limited means at their disposal, 
 as compared with the claims upon them, furnishes of 
 itself a safe-guard or guarantee against a too free 
 administration of this, the most important branch of 
 the establishment. 
 
 It has been said (and gravely, though ridiculously, 
 charged against the Hospital) that the Governors are 
 liable to be deceived, and that in some cases they have 
 been imposed upon by designing persons. This may 
 be so, it being the fate of all human institutions to be 
 imperfect. Judges and juries are very often betrayed 
 into error by false witnesses, but does any one pretend 
 to assert that, therefore, courts of justice are useless ? 
 If the duration of institutions, of whatever nature, was 
 to depend upon the perfect integrity of their admi- 
 nistration, it is to be feared that their existence would 
 be short-lived indeed ! 
 
 THE PEIVILEGES OF THE GOVERNORS. 
 
 There is a class of men with so little charity in 
 their hearts, as to make it an incomprehensible matter
 
 41 
 
 to them how any individual can be found, in this 
 mercenary world, to contribute either his time or 
 money to benevolent purposes without some com- 
 mensurate benefit to himself; but it is a fact, not- 
 withstanding, that there is a large body of individuals 
 (and miserable indeed would society be without such 
 persons), who from the purest motives of Christian 
 charity, are to be found dispensing the good with 
 which God has blest them, for the benefit of their 
 poorer sojourners in this world of sin and misery, 
 divested entirely of self-intrest. Of that number are 
 the Governors of the Foundling Hospital ! It is as- 
 serted without fear of contradiction, by one who has 
 had for many years ample opportunity of ascertaining 
 it, that there is not a charity in or out of the metro- 
 polis, more disinterestedly administered in the selection 
 of its objects than this institution. It has become a 
 principle (fully supported in practice), that no Go- 
 vernor shall interfere, either directly or indirectly, by 
 recommendation or otherwise, in obtaining the ad- 
 mission of a child. No interest is exercised except 
 what the abstract misery of the case on its presenta- 
 tion excites, and all extraneous support is set aside. 
 The truth is, that the persons relieved are of that class 
 who are unable to command patronage, or who dare 
 not seek it lest their error and their misery should be 
 betrayed ! 
 
 This administration of an important branch of such 
 an institution is thus asserted, because there is a 
 " vulgar error " on the subject, namely that the 
 Governors have the privilege of presenting children,
 
 42 
 
 after the manner of other establishments ; but a more 
 unfounded statement never was erroneously conceived 
 or ignorantly disseminated ! 
 
 The pecuniary qualification of a Governor is a do- 
 nation of fifty pounds. There are pews in the Chapel 
 set apart for the accommodation of Governors and 
 their families free of charge. 
 
 NAMING AND BAPTIZING OF THE 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 It has been the practice of the Governors, from the 
 earliest period of the Hospital to the present time, to 
 name the children at their own will and pleasure, 
 whether their parents should have been known or 
 not. 
 
 At the baptism of the children first taken into the 
 Hospital, which was on the 29th of March, 1741, it is 
 recorded, that " there was at the ceremony a fine ap- 
 pearance of persons of quality and distinction ; his 
 Grace the Duke of Bedford, our President, their Graces 
 the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, the Countess of 
 Pembroke, and several others, honouring the children 
 with then: names, and being their sponsors." 
 
 Thus the register of this period presents the courtly 
 names of Abercorn, Bedford, Bentinck, Montague, 
 Marlborough, Newcastle, Norfolk, Pomfret, Pembroke, 
 Richmond, Vernon, &c., &c., as well as those of nu- 
 merous other living individuals, great and small, who
 
 43 
 
 at that time took an interest in the establishment. 
 When these names were exhausted, the authorities 
 stole those of eminent deceased personages, their first 
 attack being upon the church. Hence we have a 
 Wickliffe, Huss, Ridley, Latimer, Laud, Bancroft, 
 Tillotson, Tennison, Sherlock, &c., &c. Then come 
 the mighty dead of the poetical race, viz. Geoffrey 
 Chaucer, William Shakspeare, John Milton, &c. Of 
 the philosophers, Francis Bacon stands pre-eminently 
 conspicuous. As they proceeded, the Governors were 
 more warlike in their notions, and brought from their 
 graves Philip Sidney, Francis Drake, Oliver Cromwell, 
 John Hampden, Admiral Benbow, and Cloudesley 
 Shovel. A more peaceful list followed this, viz. 
 Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Vandyke, Michael Angelo, 
 and Godfrey Kneller ; William Hogarth, and Jane, 
 his wife, of course not being forgotten. Another class 
 of names was borrowed from popular novels of the 
 day, which accounts for Charles Allworthy, Tom Jones, 
 Sophia Western, and Clarissa Harlowe. The gentle 
 Isaac Walton stands alone. The last child received 
 under the parliamentary system was named Kitty 
 Finis. 
 
 So long as the admission of children was confined 
 within reasonable bounds, it was an easy matter to 
 find names for them ; but during the " parliamentary 
 era" of the Hospital, when its gates were thrown open 
 to all comers, and each day brought its regiment of in- 
 fantry to the establishment, the Governors were some- 
 times in difficulties ; and when this was the case, they 
 took a zoological view of the subject, and named them
 
 44 
 
 after the creeping things and beasts of the earth, or 
 created a nomenclature from various handicrafts or 
 trades. 
 
 In 1801, the hero of the Nile and some of his friends 
 honoured the establishment with a visit, and stood 
 sponsors to several of the children. The names given 
 on this occasion were Baltic Nelson, William and 
 Emma Hamilton, Hyde Parker, &c. 
 
 Up to a very late period the Governors were some- 
 times in the habit of naming the children after them- 
 selves or their friends ; but it was found to be an 
 inconvenient and objectionable course, inasmuch as 
 when they grew to man or womanhood, they were apt 
 to lay claim to some affinity of blood with their no- 
 menclators. The present practice therefore is, for the 
 Treasurer to prepare a list, from which the children 
 are named. 
 
 THE NURSING OF THE CHILDREN. 
 
 There can be no doubt that as the object of an 
 institution of this nature is to save life, its managers 
 should take all reasonable means for effecting such 
 a desideratum. It is with this intention that the 
 present Governors invariably obtain for the infants 
 falling under their charitable care, wet nurses, unless 
 it happens (which is rarely the case) that the age of 
 a child renders such assistance unnecessary. The 
 result, therefore, of this course is much more favour-
 
 45 
 
 able than that adopted at the outset of the esta- 
 blishment. 
 
 In considering the question of mortality, the 
 children of the Hospital should be classed under two 
 heads, namely : 1st, those under the age of three 
 years in the country, and 2ndly, those from three to 
 fifteen in London. 
 
 With respect to the former, the chances against 
 rearing many of them are very great, and for these 
 reasons. The mothers of the infants (who for the 
 most part are very young) being desirous of " hiding 
 their shame" from their relatives, or those with whom 
 they may happen to be placed, manage by contri- 
 vances and artifices to prevent a knowledge of their 
 imprudence until it can no longer be concealed. The 
 writer has known many instances where girls (for 
 their youth justifies the designation) have been living 
 with their mothers, with whom they have been in 
 constant intercourse, and even sleeping in the same 
 bed, and yet have contrived to hide from their parents 
 the fact of their unfortunate condition till the moment 
 of confinement. In the same manner servants manage 
 to undergo the labours of their office, and contrive 
 to elude the observation of their mistresses, till the 
 instant of giving birth to a child. The unnatural dis- 
 tortions of body by which their secret is preserved, 
 are accompanied by anxieties of mind which do not 
 arise only from the dread of discovery. The prospect 
 before her is dreary enough, but the retrospect is 
 perhaps worse. " She finds herself " (says the late 
 Kev. John Hewlett), " the victim of treachery and vo-
 
 46 
 
 luptuousness, where she fondly hoped to be the object 
 of pure and individual love; and at a time when the 
 languor of the body and the growing anxiety of the 
 mind powerfully claim, and in general receive, addi- 
 tional tenderness, she is obliged to endure the severest 
 affliction that fear could imagine, or unkindness pro- 
 duce." Can it be wondered at therefore, that an 
 infant born under such circumstances should be de- 
 ficient in those physical developments which otherwise 
 it might have possessed \ But this is not all. The 
 same powerful motive which prompted her first desire 
 to conceal her disgrace, leads her to seek the only 
 other opportunity she has of ensuring such conceal- 
 ment, namely by putting her infant away from her, 
 as soon after its birth as possible, to some nurse, who 
 under a promise of payment, which the mother is 
 unable to fulfil, engages to take upon herself the 
 duties of the parent, duties which in nine cases out of 
 ten she neglects to perform in a satisfactory manner. 
 Beginning life with such opposing contingencies, and 
 thus neglected, the infant is admitted into the Found- 
 ling Hospital. " At least one-fifth of those admitted 
 during the last nine years " (says the examining me- 
 dical officer) " have been in such a miserable state of 
 emaciation, as to make it doubtful if they could be 
 reared at all, and of those presented in tolerable health, 
 many receive a serious check from the change of nurse, 
 condition, and other circumstances attending their ad- 
 mission. These infants are presented at all ages, from 
 one to twelve months, and have been mostly exposed 
 to all the injurious consequences arising from insuffi-
 
 47 
 
 cient nursing and improper diet ; the greater number 
 have not had the breast at all, and I have generally 
 found on enquiry, that those who have had the ad- 
 vantage of a wet nurse, have been fed at the same 
 time with spoon food." 
 
 The general health of the children within the walls 
 of the Hospital is remarkably good ; and with the 
 exception of occasional epidemic visitations, they have 
 been singularly free from the acute forms of disease to 
 which children in general are so liable. 
 
 Perhaps the healthiness of the locality could not be 
 better exemplified than by this fact that several 
 adult foundlings, who, from some organic defect, have 
 from time to time become chargeable to the Hospital 
 for life, and have scarcely ever quitted the walls of 
 the building, have lived to a very advanced period 
 some dying between the ages of seventy and eighty 
 years, and others between eighty and ninety.* 
 
 * " Now that there seems to be so great a desire to move to the west-end of 
 the metropolis, either to Belgravia or Tyburnia, it may be advisable to inform 
 Her Majesty's subjects, that there is no healthier part of this great town than 
 the space contained within the following boundaries, viz. : Holborn and New 
 Oxford Street, on the south ; the New Road, on the north ; Gray's Inn, on the 
 east ; and Tottenham Court Road, on the west ; which space contains within 
 it the twenty -two squares or open spaces, following : 
 
 " 1. Gray's Inn, 2. its Squares, 3. its Gardens ; 4. Foundling Hospital, 
 5. its Gardens ; 6. Burial Ground ; 7. Mecklenburgh Square ; 8. Regent 
 Square ; 9. Argyle Square; 10. Red Lion Square; 11. Queen Square; 
 12. Bloomsbury Square; 13. Bedford Square; 14. Russell Square; 15. 
 Torrington Square ; 16. Woburn Square ; 17. Gordon Square ; 18. Tavistock 
 Square ; 19. Euston Square ; 20. Burton Crescent ; 21. University College 
 Grounds ; 22. Brunswick Square. 
 
 " If this were in Paris, it would be called " Le Quartier des Carres." 
 The streets generally run at right angles to each other. It is a gravelly soil, 
 and the spring water excellent." The Builder.
 
 48 
 
 THE DISPOSAL OF THE CHILDKEN. 
 
 The children are generally disposed of by appren- 
 ticeship : the girls at the age of sixteen to domestic 
 service, for a term of four years, and the boys at the 
 age of fourteen as mechanics, for a term of seven 
 years many of the boys, however, having a know- 
 ledge of music, volunteer into the bands of the army 
 or navy. 
 
 THE KEVENUE OF THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 There is much misconception and misunderstanding 
 on the part of the public on this head. 
 
 In the memoir of Captain Coram, it is clearly shown 
 that what property he had acquired, was consumed in 
 the pursuit of his philanthropic projects, and that he 
 had no wealth by which to endow, even in a limited 
 degree, an institution of this nature, being himself a 
 recipient of charity for the last two years of his life. 
 The Hospital had nothing, therefore, to depend upon 
 at its commencement, but the eleemosynary aid of the 
 public, either in the form of donations or legacies ; 
 and what permanent revenue it now has, may be 
 ascribed to the fortuitous policy of the early Govenors 
 and the provident care of their successors. Thus the 
 Governors in 1741, being in pursuit of a salubrious 
 site for erecting an Hospital, fixed upon certain fields
 
 49 
 
 in the neighbourhood of London, deriving their name 
 from " Lamb's Conduit,""* (in extent fifty-six acres,) 
 belonging to the Earl of Salisbury, who agreed to sell 
 them to the charity for 5,500. The whole tract of 
 land was purchased out of casual benefactions and 
 legacies, not because the charity required it for its 
 then purposes, but because the Earl would not sell 
 any fractional part of it. As London increased, it 
 approached this property, and the Governors were in- 
 duced seventy years afterwards to turn that to the 
 pecuniary advantage of the charity, which its early 
 managers had not the remotest idea would have ever 
 become otherwise beneficial than as guaranteeing the 
 healthy condition of the children. From this ac- 
 cidental circumstance, the Governors derive, from 
 ground rents alone, an annual income equal to the 
 purchase-money ! This income is secured by leases 
 of ninety-nine years' duration, of which there is an 
 average unexpired term of thirty years, so that until 
 that period, the income from this source must remain 
 stationary. 
 
 Some imaginative persons have invested the Hos- 
 pital already with the property in which it has only 
 a remote reversionary interest, and they unwisely 
 withhold their charitable hands, not because they dis- 
 approve of the institution, but because it is already 
 so rich ! No charity can be rich unless it has a 
 
 * The lands of the Hospital in the parish of St. Pancras belonged to the 
 Prior of the House of The Salvation of the Mother of God, of the order of 
 the Carthusians : the same was granted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1532, to 
 Vaughan and Ellis. 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 surplus revenue after every reasonable opportunity 
 has offered for disposing of it upon the objects for 
 whose benefit it was created. This is not the case 
 with the Foundling Hospital. "It confines itself" 
 (says Bishop Thirlwall) " to a particular class of cases 
 one, however, which is unhappily so large, that it 
 constantly overgrows the means of relief." It should 
 be understood therefore, that to these ground-rents, 
 and the interest of certain stock, which has been 
 nursed by the great care of the Guardians of the 
 charity, to the Pew Eents and contributions at the 
 chapel doors and other such casualties, the Hospital 
 is wholly dependent for support, and will be so for 
 about thirty years to come. 
 
 The walls of the building present, it is true, a 
 goodly array of tablets, noting considerable bene- 
 factions and legacies, but it should be recollected that 
 the greater part of this money was swallowed up in 
 the vortex caused by Parliamentary interference, and 
 that only during the last sixty years have the Go- 
 vernors been able to lay up for the Hospital a pecu- 
 niary foundation. 
 
 Of those who were early benefactors, the name of 
 Omychund, a black merchant of Calcutta, should be 
 specially mentioned. He bequeathed to the Foundling 
 and Magdalen Hospitals, 37,500 current rupees, to be 
 equally divided ; but unfortunately a portion only of 
 this munificent legacy could be extracted from the 
 grasp of Huzzorimal, his executor, notwithstanding 
 the zealous interference of Warren Hastings, Esq., the 
 Governor-General, and other eminent functionaries.
 
 51 
 
 The following is a legacy of another kind. The 
 testator was one Shirley, of Stratford, in Essex. 
 
 " The whole of my Dramatic Works, consisting 
 of nine Tragedies, one Comedy, and five smaller 
 productions, I bequeath to the Governors of the 
 Foundling Hospital, in trust for that greatly useful 
 Institution, hoping their being enabled to get them 
 performed, unaltered or mutilated, in one of the 
 London Theatres, they being certainly not inferior to 
 any set of such performances produced at the present 
 age ; and should they be acted, I request the repay- 
 ment out of the profits to all subscribers to me, which 
 can amount to but a small sum of money." The 
 reader will be able to estimate the value of this 
 bequest ! 
 
 In 1759, William Williams, Esq., who possessed 
 property in Jamaica, bequeathed the same to certain 
 persons "in trust to sell the same, together with all and 
 every the Negro, Mulatto, and other slaves whatsoever 
 to me belonging, with their future offspring, issue, or 
 increase, and to pay the net proceed* to the Treasurer 
 of the Foundling Hospital. His next bequest is as 
 follows : " Item, I give and bequeath to that most 
 dbandonedly wicked, vile, detestable rogue and im- 
 postor, who hath assumed, and now does, or lately did 
 go by the name of Gersham Williams, pretending to 
 be a son of mine, one shilling only, to buy him an 
 halter, wherewith to hang himself, being what he hath 
 for a long, long, very long while past meritted and
 
 52 
 
 deserved from the law of the hands of the hangman, 
 for his great and manifold villanies." 
 
 At the demise of his reputed father, this " Gersham 
 Williams," made many attempts to compromise matters 
 with the Governors of the Hospital regarding the le- 
 gacy, but he proved a slippery character, and failed in 
 his object. The legacy yielded to the charity 5563. 
 
 THE BENEVOLENT FUND FOR ADULTS. 
 
 . ;.;!-.'> evHlo'Kf 0/LJ ' ' 'H;- ':;-.. ; 
 
 This Fund has no connection with the Funds of the 
 Hospital, and is the result of private subscriptions, 
 donations and legacies, which are found very inade- 
 quate to the objects contemplated. 
 
 In stating what these objects are, it is necessary to 
 offer some explanation. 
 
 The Hospital was incorporated for the maintenance 
 of " deserted Young Children" and it is expressly pro- 
 vided by the Act of Parliament confirming the Charter, 
 that none of the children shall obtain a parochial 
 settlement by reason of their residence within its 
 walls. 
 
 If, therefore, they do not acquire a settlement by 
 apprenticeship, they are without any legal provision 
 whatever in their after-life, except the Governors 
 adopt one of two alternatives, namely, to abandon 
 them in their utmost need to the casualties of the 
 world, or (what is worse still) to seek out the parish
 
 53 
 
 settlement of the mother an act which, besides being 
 impossible in nine cases out of ten, would defeat the 
 very principle and purpose of the Hospital, and the 
 benign object it has in view as regards the repentant 
 and well-doing mother. 
 
 - Now, at other institutions, the reception of children 
 is determined finally by their mental or physical de- 
 velopments ; but at the Foundling Hospital they are 
 received at so early an age, as to prevent the possi- 
 bility of their state, in either case, being ascertained ; 
 consequently, as they grow up some of them are found, 
 from time to time, incapable of being placed out in the 
 world, being either idiotic, blind, deformed, or consti- 
 tutionally incapable of earning their living. 
 
 The Governors of the Hospital have hitherto taken 
 a paternal and comprehensive view of their duty in 
 such cases, by maintaining them out of the general 
 Funds, although it had often been questioned whether 
 the means at their disposal were applicable to such 
 purposes. 
 
 To test this, the opinion of Counsel has recently 
 been taken, by whom it is declared that the main- 
 tenance of Adult Foundlings " does not properly fall 
 within the scope of the objects for which the Found- 
 ling Hospital was established." 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is proposed to enlarge 
 the boundary of this " Benevolent Fund," so as to 
 embrace the objects above stated, along with the other 
 objects contemplated at its formation, namely : 
 
 Granting Annual Pensions or Weekly Allowances to 
 aged or infirm Foundlings, who have been out in the
 
 54 
 
 world, and whose laborious lives have been without 
 reproach, or whose sickness has been unprovoked by 
 intemperance or other misconduct. 
 
 A special appeal is therefore made on behalf of this 
 truly Samaritan Fund. 
 
 Donations and Subscriptions will be thankfully re* 
 ceived by Mr. Brownlow, the Honorary Secretary. 
 
 Bequests made payable to the Trustees of the Fund 
 would be secured. 
 
 THE EAELY ASSOCIATION OF THE 
 HOSPITAL WITH ARTISTS. 
 
 Sir Robert Strange, in his " Enquiry into the Rise 
 and Establishment of the Royal Academy of Arts," 
 makes the following remark : 
 
 " The donations in painting, which several artists 
 presented to the Foundling Hospital, were among the 
 first objects of this nature which had engaged the at- 
 tention of the public. The artists observing the effect 
 that these paintings produced, came, in the year 1760, 
 to a resolution to try the fate of an Exhibition of their 
 works. This effort had its desired effect : the public 
 were entertained, and the artists were excited to emu- 
 lation." 
 
 And, again, in his " Conduct of the Royal Acade- 
 micians," he says 
 
 " Accident has often been observed to produce what
 
 55 
 
 the utmost efforts of industry have failed to accom- 
 plish ; and something of this kind seems to have 
 happened here. As liberty has ever been considered 
 the Friend and parent of the Fine Arts, it is natural 
 for their professors to revere the memory of all those 
 who were the champions and assertors of that inva- 
 luable blessing, particularly those of our own country : 
 on this principle it was, that the artists we are now 
 speaking of, had an Annual Meeting at the Foundling 
 Hospital, to commemorate the landing of King Wil- 
 liam. To this charity, several of their body had made 
 donations in Painting, Sculpture, &c., which, being 
 accessible to the public, made those artists more gene- 
 rally known than others, and this circumstance it was 
 that first suggested an Exhibition which was no 
 sooner proposed than approved. The Committee, con- 
 quently, who were the proposers, received directions 
 to issue proper notices of the intention. The per- 
 formances of many ingenious men, hitherto unknown, 
 were received, and on the 21st day of April, 1760, an 
 Exhibition was opened in the great room belonging to 
 the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, in 
 the Strand ; on which it will be sufficient to observe, 
 that the success was equal to the most sanguine ex- 
 pectations ; the public were pleased and the artists 
 applauded ; those already known received additional 
 reputation, and such as were not, became the imme- 
 diate acquaintance of the public." 
 
 Edwards, also, in his "Anecdotes of Painters," speak- 
 ing of the unsuccessful attempts made to form an 
 Academy, says
 
 56 
 
 "Although these endeavours of the artists had not 
 
 o 
 
 succeeded, they were far from being so discouraged as 
 not to continue their meetings, as well as their studies ; 
 and the next effort they made towards acquiring the 
 attention of the public, was connected with the Found- 
 ling Hospital. 
 
 " This institution, so humane in its primitive in- 
 tention, whatever may be thought of its effects, was 
 incorporated by charter, dated 1739. A few years 
 after that period, the present building was erected ; 
 but as the income of the charity could with no pro- 
 priety be expended on decorations, many of the prin- 
 cipal artists of that day voluntarily exerted their 
 talents for the purpose of ornamenting several of the 
 apartments of the Hospital, which otherwise must 
 have remained without decoration. The pictures thus 
 produced, and generously given, were permitted to be 
 seen by any visitor, upon proper application. The 
 spectacle was so new that it made a considerable im- 
 pression on the public, and the favorable reception 
 these works experienced, impressed the artists with 
 an idea of forming a public exhibition." 
 
 A more recent writer has said, " that it is within 
 the walls of the Foundling the curious may contem- 
 plate the state of British Art, previously to the epoch 
 when George the Third first countenanced the histo- 
 rical talent of West." 
 
 William Hogarth, the celebrated painter, was fore- 
 most amongst those who first cordially co-operated in 
 forwarding the views of the Founder of the Hospital. 
 In the charter for its incorporation, he appears as one
 
 57 
 
 of its constituent members, under the denomination of 
 "a Governor and Guardian," along with a host of 
 other "trusty and well-beloved subjects" of his Ma- 
 jesty George the Second. 
 
 Nor did Hogarth hold this appointment to be 
 merely nominal, for we find him subscribing his 
 money, and attending the courts or general meetings 
 at the Hospital, as one of its active members, and 
 joining heartily in carrying out the designs of his 
 friend, the venerable Founder. 
 
 The charter of the Hospital authorized the Gover- 
 nors to appoint persons to ask alms on behalf of the 
 charity and to receive subscriptions ; and the first 
 artistical work of Hogarth in aid of this object, was 
 to prepare a "head piece" to a power of attorney 
 drawn up for the purpose : a copy of which head 
 piece is annexed, taken from the original plate in the 
 possession of the Hospital. 
 
 The principal figure is that of Captain Coram him- 
 self, with the Charter under his arm. Before him the 
 beadle carries an infant, whose mother having dropped 
 a dagger with which she might have been momentarily 
 tempted to destroy her child, kneels at his feet, while 
 he, with that benevolence with which his countenance 
 is so eminently marked, bids her be comforted, for her 
 babe will be nursed and protected. On the dexter 
 side of the print, is a new born infant left close to a 
 stream of water which runs under the arch of a bridge. 
 Near a gate on a little eminence in the pathway above, 
 a woman leaves another child to the casual care of the 
 next person who passes by. In the distance is a
 
 58 
 
 village with a church. In the other corner are three 
 boys coming out of a door, with the king's arms over 
 it, with emblems of their future employment ; one of 
 them poises a plummet, a second holds a trowel, and 
 a third, whose mother is fondly pressing him to her 
 bosom, has in his hand a card for combing wool. The 
 next group, headed by a lad elevating a mathematical 
 instrument, are in sailors' jackets and trousers. Those 
 on their right hand, one of whom has a rake, are in 
 the uniform of the school. The attributes of the three 
 little girls in the foreground a spinning wheel, a 
 sampler and broom indicate female industry and 
 ingenuity. 
 
 It should be remarked that the designs of the Hos- 
 pital, foreshadowed by this interesting engraving, did 
 not come into actual operation till two years after- 
 wards. 
 
 In May, 1740, that is, seven months after the grant- 
 ing of the Charter, at the Annual Court, " Mr. Folkes 
 acquainted the Governors, that Mr. Hogarth had pre- 
 sented a whole length picture of Mr. Coram, for this 
 Corporation to keep in memory of the said Mr. Coram's 
 having solicited, and obtained His Majesty's Eoyal 
 Charter for this Charity." Writing of himself some 
 years afterwards, Hogarth says : 
 
 '* The portrait which I painted with most pleasure, 
 and in which I particularly wished to excel, was that 
 of Captain Coram for the Foundling Hospital ; and" 
 (he adds, in allusion to his detractors as a portrait 
 painter,) "if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies 
 assert, it is somewhat strange that this, which was one
 
 59 
 
 of the first I painted the size of life, should stand the 
 test of twenty years' competition, and be generally 
 thought the best portrait in the place, notwithstanding 
 the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their 
 talents to vie with it."* 
 
 Hogarth is said to have displayed no little vanity 
 regarding his pretensions as a portrait painter. In 
 proof of this, it is related of him, that being at dinner 
 with Dr. Cheselden, and some other company, he was 
 informed that John Freke, Surgeon of St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Hospital, had asserted in Dick's Coffee House, 
 that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. 
 " That fellow, Freke," cried Hogarth, " is always shoot- 
 ing his bolt absurdly one way or another. Handel is 
 a giant in music, Greene only a light Florimel kind 
 of composer." "Aye, but" said the other, "Freke 
 declared you were as good a portrait painter as Van- 
 dyck." " There he was in the right," quoth Hogarth, 
 " and so I am, give me but my time, and let me 
 choose my subject." 
 
 In March, 1741, the Governors resolved to com- 
 mence upon the good purposes of their Charter, but 
 not being able to obtain a suitable building, they took 
 houses in Hatton Garden, near the Charity School, 
 and opened them as receptacles and nurseries for In- 
 
 * The rival portraits here alluded to are, George the Second, Patron of the 
 Foundation, by Shackleton ; Lord Dartmouth, one of the Vice-Presidents, by 
 Mr. Reynolds (afterwards Sir Joshua) ; Taylor White, Treasurer of the 
 Hospital, in crayons, by Cotes ; Mr. Milner and Mr. Jacobson, by Hudson ; 
 Dr. Mead, by Ramsay ; Mr. Emerson, by Highmore ; and Francia Fauquier, 
 Esq., by Wilson.
 
 60 
 
 fants. In the minutes of that month is the following 
 entry : 
 
 " Mr. Taylor White acquainted the Committee that 
 Mr. Hogarth had painted a Shield, which was put up 
 over the door of this Hospital, and presented the same 
 to this Hospital." 
 
 This shield, or sign, has not been preserved, nor is 
 there any record of its design, but it is not improbable 
 that it was an emblematical sketch similar in character, 
 if not actually the same, as the Arms of the Hospital 
 presented to the Court of Governors, by the Authorities 
 of the Heralds' College, in 1747, and which is said by 
 Nichols, in his Biographical Anecdotes, to have been 
 designed by Hogarth. The technical description of 
 these Arms is as follows, viz. : 
 
 " Party per fesse, Azure & Vert, a young child lying 
 naked and exposed, extending its right hand proper. 
 In chief a Crescent Argent between two Mullets of six 
 points Or ; and for a Crest on a Wreath of the Colours, 
 a Lamb Argent, holding in its mouth a Sprig of Thyme 
 proper, supported on the dexter side by a terminal 
 figure of a Woman full of Nipples proper, with a Mantle 
 Vert, the term Argent being the emblem of Liberty, 
 represented by Britannia holding in her right hand 
 upon a staff" proper, a Cap Argent, and habited in a 
 Vest Azure, girt with belt Or, the under garment 
 Gules." Motto " Help." 
 
 In 1740, the Governors of the Charity commenced 
 erecting on the land they had purchased the present 
 Building, the western wing of which was finished and 
 inhabited in 1745. It was at this period that Hogarth
 
 61 
 
 contemplated the adornment of its walls with works 
 of Art, with which view he solicited and obtained the 
 co-operation of some of his professional brethren. At 
 a Court of Governors, held on the 31st December, 
 1746, Hogarth and Rysbrach, the sculptor, being 
 present as Governors of the Hospital, " The Treasurer 
 acquainted this General Meeting that the following 
 Gentlemen, Artists, had severally presented, and agreed 
 to present, performances in their different professions, 
 for ornamenting this Hospital, viz. : Mr. Francis Hay- 
 man, Mr. James Wills, Mr. Joseph Highmore, Mr. 
 Thomas Hudson, Mr. Allan Ramsay, Mr. George Lam- 
 bert, Mr. Samuel Scott, Mr. Peter Monamy, Mr. Richard 
 Wilson, Mr. Samuel Whale, Mr. Edward Hately, Mr. 
 Thomas Carter, Mr. George Moser, Mr. Robert Taylor, 
 and Mr. George Pyne. Whereupon this General Meet- 
 ing elected, by ballot, the said Mr. Francis Hayman, 
 Mr. James Wills, Mr. Joseph Highmore, Mr. Thomas 
 Hudson, Mr. Allan Ramsay, Mr. George Lambert, Mr. 
 Samuel Scott, Mr. Peter Monamy, Mr. Richard Wilson, 
 Mr. Samuel Whale, Mr. Edward Hately, Mr. Thomas 
 Carter, Mr. George Moser, Mr. Robert Taylor, and 
 Mr. John Pyne, Governors and Guardians of this Hos- 
 pital. 
 
 " Resolved, 
 
 " That the said Artists, and Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Zinke, 
 Mr. Rysbrach, and Mr. Jacobson, or any three or more 
 of them, be a Committee to meet annually on the 5th 
 of November, to consider of what further ornaments 
 may be added to this Hospital, without any expense 
 to the charity."
 
 62 
 
 Whether these artists were previously associated as 
 a Society elsewhere for the promotion of the Arts, 
 or for conviviality, does not appear, or whether they 
 began to form themselves from this time and out of 
 this occasion, cannot be determined, but it seems 
 probable that they were part of a Society alluded to 
 by Edwards, who says " Of the Dilettante Society, 
 the author is not sufficiently informed to give a perfect 
 account, and therefore can only relate the following 
 circumstances. Its original institution was prior to 
 either of those already mentioned. It commenced 
 upon political principles, and, as far as it was then 
 known to the public, was not approved, being con- 
 sidered as rather a disaffected assembly. But they 
 soon changed the object of their meetings, and turned 
 their attention to the encouragement of the Arts, and 
 made some attempts to assist in the establishment of 
 a public Academy." 
 
 Assuming that the artists who thus proposed to 
 hold an annual meeting at the Hospital, belonged to 
 the Dilettante Society, it may be said that whatever 
 their previous objects or bias might have been, their 
 present purpose, notwithstanding the ominousness of 
 the day fixed on for their meetings (viz. : the 5th of 
 November), originated in as harmless a conspiracy as 
 could be devised, that of plotting for the advancement 
 of the Arts, and of a public charity. 
 
 It seems that these meetings, which commenced 
 with the modest suggestion " that any three or more 
 of them be a Committee," grew so mightily, that that 
 which was intended to be a mere matter of business,
 
 63 
 
 ended (as most associations of Englishmen do)' in an 
 occasion of conviviality, and that on the 5th of No- 
 vember of each succeeding year, and for many years, 
 the artists of the day, and the patronizers of the Arts, 
 dined at the Hospital.* 
 
 In the meantime, the donations in Painting, &c., 
 the result of these meetings, increased, and " being ex- 
 hibited to the public, drew a daily crowd of spectators 
 in their splendid equipages ; and a visit to the Found- 
 ling became the most fashionable morning lounge in 
 the Eeign of George II. The eclat thus excited in 
 favour of the Arts, suggested the annual exhibition of 
 the united artists, which institution was the precursor 
 of the Koyal Academy ."t 
 
 Hogarth was not only the principal contributor, but 
 the leader of his brethren in all that related to orna- 
 menting the Hospital, and therefore, it is as much due 
 to his benevolence and generosity, as to his distin- 
 guished talents, that his further connexion with the 
 institution should receive special notice in this com- 
 pilation. 
 
 At a Court of Governors on the 9th of May, 1750, 
 (Hogarth being present), 
 
 " The Treasurer acquainted the General Court, that 
 Mr. Hogarth had presented the Hospital with the 
 remainder of the tickets Mr. Hogarth had left, for the 
 
 * It appears by a document headed " Delettante, Virtuosi, Feast," that no 
 less than 154 persons, more or less distinguished, dined at the Hospital on 
 the 5th November, 1757. 
 
 t Vide Catalogue Raisonnee of West's pictures.
 
 64 
 
 chance of the picture he had painted, of The March 
 to Finchley, in the time of the late Rebellion ; and 
 that the fortunate number for the said picture being 
 among those tickets, the Hospital had received the 
 said picture. 
 
 " Resolved, 
 
 " That the thanks of this General Court be given to 
 Mr. Hogarth, for the said benefaction ; which the Vice- 
 President accordingly did." 
 
 In the "General Advertiser" of the 1st of May> 
 1750, the same circumstance is thus related : 
 
 " Yesterday, Mr. Hogarth's subscription was closed, 
 1843 chances being subscribed for, Mr. Hogarth gave 
 the remaining 167 chances to the Foundling Hospital, 
 and the same night delivered the picture to the Go- 
 vernors." 
 
 Ireland, in his Illustrations of Hogarth, remarks as 
 follows on this subject : 
 
 " By the fortunate number being among those pre- 
 sented to a charity, which he so much wished to serve, 
 the artist was highly gratified. In a private house, it 
 would have been in a degree secluded from the public, 
 and, by the lapse of time, have been transferred to 
 those who could not appreciate its merit, and from 
 either negligence or ignorance, might have been de- 
 stroyed by damp walls, or effaced from the canvass by 
 picture cleaners. Here, it was likely to remain a per- 
 manent and honourable testimony of his talents and 
 liberality. Notwithstanding all this, Hogarth soon 
 after waited upon the Treasurer of the Hospital, and 
 acquainted him that if the Trustees thought proper,
 
 65 
 
 they were at liberty to dispose of the picture by 
 auction. His motive for giving this permission it is 
 not easy to assign : it might have originated in a 
 desire to enrich a foundation, which had his warmest 
 wishes, or a natural, though ill-judged ambition to 
 have his greatest work in the possession of some who 
 had a collection of the old masters, with whom he in 
 no degree dreaded a competition. Whether his mind 
 was actuated by these, or other causes, it is not im- 
 portant ; certain it is, that his opinion changed : he 
 requested the Trustees would not dispose of it, and 
 never afterwards consented to the measure he himself 
 had originally proposed, The late Duke of Ancaster's 
 father wished to become a purchaser, and once offered 
 the Trustees three hundred pounds for it. I have 
 been told, that a much larger sum was since proffered 
 by another gentleman." 
 
 It is related in the Gentleman's Magazine, on the 
 authority of an anonymous writer, " that a Lady was 
 the possessor of the fortunate number, and intended 
 to present it to the Foundling Hospital ; but that 
 some person having suggested what a door would be 
 open to scandal, were any of her sex to make such a 
 present, it was given to Hogarth, on the express con- 
 dition that it should be presented in his own name." 
 
 The next work which Hogarth presented, was 
 " Moses before Pharaoh's Daughter." This was 
 painted expressly for the Hospital, and appears to 
 have originated in a conjoint agreement, between 
 Hayman, Highmore, Wills, and himself, that they 
 should each fill up one of the compartments of the
 
 66 
 
 Court Room with pictures, uniform in size, -and of 
 suitable subjects taken from Scripture. 
 
 The Hospital had thus obtained from Hogarth, a 
 picture in each of the styles of painting which he had 
 attempted, and it may be said, without fear of con- 
 tradiction, that the best specimens of those styles are 
 within its w T alls. 
 
 It is a somewhat singular circumstance, that as 
 Hogarth throughout his life had uniformly opposed 
 the establishment of a Public Academy of Arts, he 
 should, by the very course he pursued in encouraging 
 and concentrating at the Foundling Hospital an ex- 
 hibition of the talents of British artists, have himself 
 promoted a consummation of the object which he had 
 all along deprecated. " In consequence," says Nichols, 
 " of the public attention bestowed upon the paintings 
 presented to the Foundling Hospital by Hogarth, the 
 academy in St. Martin's Lane, began to form them- 
 selves into a more important body, and to teach the 
 arts under regular professors. But, extraordinary as 
 it may appear, this scheme was so far from being wel- 
 comed by Hogarth, as indicative of a brighter era in 
 the Fine Arts, that he absolutely discouraged it, as 
 tending to allure many young men into a profession 
 in which they would not be able to support them- 
 selves, and at the same time to degrade what ought to 
 be a liberal profession, into a merely mechanical one." 
 
 In the year 1760 the Hospital had grown to such 
 an extent as to embrace within its arms several thou- 
 sands of Children, so that the Governors were obliged 
 to open Branch Establishments in the Country to
 
 67 
 
 receive them. One of these establishments was at 
 Ackworth, in Yorkshire. At this place the children 
 were usefully employed in the manufacture of cloth.* 
 This led some of the artists to the benevolent and 
 enthusiastic idea of promoting the good of the charity 
 by appearing at their Festival in 1761, in clothing 
 made by these children. 
 
 * One of the schemes for employing the children was the erection of a cotton 
 machine invented by Lewis Paul, for whom Dr. Johnson framed a letter to 
 the Duke of Bedford, President of the Hospital, on the subject, of which the 
 following is a copy : 
 
 " MY LORD, 
 
 "As beneficence is never exercised but at some expense of ease and 
 leisure, your Grace will not be surprised that you are subjected, as the general 
 Guardian of deserted infants, and protector of their Hospital, to intrusion and 
 importunity, and you will pardon those who intend, though perhaps unskilfully, 
 the promotion of the charity, the impropriety of their address for the goodness of 
 their intention. I therefore take the liberty of proposing to your Grace's notice 
 a machine for spinning cotton, of which I am the inventor and proprietor, as 
 proper to be erected in the Foundling Hospital, its structure and operation 
 being such that a mixed number of the children, from five to fourteen years, may 
 be enabled by it to earn their food and clothing. In this machine, thus useful, 
 and thus appropriated to the public, I hope to obtain from Parliament, by your 
 Grace's recommendation, such a right as shall be thought due to the inventor. 
 
 " I know, my Lord, that every project must encounter opposition, 
 and I would not encounter it, but that I think myself able to surmount it. 
 Mankind has prejudices against every new undertaking, which are not always 
 prejudices of ignorance. He that only doubts what he does not know, may be 
 satisfied by testimony, at least, by that of his own eyes ; but a projector, my 
 Lord, has more dangerous enemies the envious and the interested, who will 
 neither hear reasons nor see facts, and whose animosity is more vehement as 
 their conviction is more strong. 
 
 " I do not implore your Grace's patronage for a work existing only 
 in possibility ; I have a machine erected, which I am ready to exhibit to the 
 view of your Grace, or of any proper judge of mechanical performances when- 
 ever you shall be pleased to nominate. I shall decline no trial ; I shall seek
 
 68 
 
 The following document is confirmatory of this in- 
 teresting circumstance, and as evidence of the earnest- 
 ness of the artists in this step, there is extant a letter 
 dated 15th December, 1760, from the Rev. Dr. Lee, the 
 indefatigable Governor of the Hospital at Ackworth, in 
 which he says to the Treasurer in London, " Mr. Paine 
 has wrote about clothing for the artists of the Turk's 
 Head Club, and I should be glad to know if the 
 twenty you speak of are not the same he writes about, 
 and says will be in number sixty in a little time. He 
 writes in the name of those gentlemen who will honour 
 us with an uniform against their next Annual Meeting. 
 I am to send him patterns of colours, but hope he'll 
 choose that of your coat or something near it, because 
 the deep coppers, from the nature of the dye, render 
 the wool too tender for the spinning of our young 
 artists to make any moderate profit. Of this you'll 
 please to give a hint, as it may not be so proper to 
 insert it in my letter to him, which probably he will 
 show to his brethren." 
 
 no subterfuge ; but shall shew, not by argument, but practical experience, that 
 what I have here promised will be easily performed. 
 
 " I am an old man, oppressed with many infirmities, and therefore 
 cannot pay that attendance which your Grace's high quality demands, and my 
 respect would dictate ; but whenever you shall be pleased to assign me an 
 audience, I shall explain my design with the openness of a man who desires to 
 hide nothing, and receive your Grace's commands with the submission which 
 becomes, 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Your Grace's most obedient 
 
 and most humble servant."
 
 69 
 
 "Turk's Head's Tavern, December 7, 1760. 
 
 " We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do agree 
 to appear next 5th November, at the Artists' Feast,""" 
 at the Foundling Hospital, in Lamb's Conduit Fields, 
 in a suit of clothes manufactured by the children of 
 the Hospital, at Ackworth, in Yorkshire, to be all of 
 one colour, and that they be made in Yorkshire. 
 
 Chrisr. Seaton, John Seaton, Jerh. Meyer, John 
 Gwynn, Wm. Chambery, Edwd. Rooker, Richd. Dalton, 
 W. Tyler, Jas. Paine, Js. McArdell, K. Coase, W. H. 
 Spang, Saml.Wale, Fra. Milner Newton, Nath. Honey, 
 G. M. Moser, J. Reynolds, T. Hayman, T. White, G. 
 Whatley, P. Sandby, T. Major, Thos. Brand, C. Hollis, 
 R. Hayward, Josh. Wilton, John Lockman, Richd. Yeo, 
 R. Wilson, Thos. Chambers, Wm. Ryland, Henry Mor- 
 land, Richd. Francklin, George Evans, L. D. Roubiliac, 
 John Lockman (for Mr. William Deard, at his request), 
 Mr. Dubiggan, Wm. Fletcher, S. Ravenet, Frs. Reiben- 
 stein, W. Thomson." 
 
 At what precise period these meetings of the artists 
 at the Hospital ceased is not known, but there is no 
 doubt that as the Royal Academy, which was founded 
 in 1768, became established and consolidated, the con- 
 vivial presence of its members was transferred to a 
 more appropriate arena. The '"Gentleman's Magazine," 
 of the 5th November, 1763, thus testifies that up to 
 that period the meetings were still continued. 
 
 " The Artists of London and Westminster held their 
 
 * There is a Punch-Bowl preserved at the Hospital, used on these occasions.
 
 70 
 
 Anniversary at the Foundling Hospital in commemo- 
 ration of the day, and were entertained by the children 
 with an anthem. A blind boy performed on the organ, 
 and a little girl of five years of age the solo part of the 
 vocal music." 
 
 Charles Lamb, in one of his critical essays, remarks 
 that Hogarth seemed to take particular delight in in- 
 troducing Children into his works. 
 
 As evidence that this characteristic was not the 
 mere ideality of a painter, but emanated from that 
 generous heart which guided his actions, the following 
 anecdote of this extraordinary man is recorded. 
 
 It was the practice at this period of the Hospital, 
 (as indeed it is at the present time) to nurse the 
 Children of the establishment in the country till about 
 three years of age, by distributing them amongst cot- 
 tagers in certain districts, superintended by competent 
 authorities in the neighbourhood. 
 
 These authorities formerly performed their interest- 
 ing office gratuitously, and they consisted of resident 
 gentry or ladies. In or about the year 1760, the Go- 
 vernors, at the request of Hogarth, sent several of 
 these infants to Chiswick, where the painter resided, 
 he engaging, along with Mrs. Hogarth, to see them 
 properly taken care of. It is impossible to revert to 
 the life of Hogarth, so full of labour in his art, and 
 at the latter period of his existence, so charged 
 with vexation and controversy, by reason of the de- 
 fection and abuse of his quondam friends, Wilkes and 
 Churchill, without feeling some degree of admiration 
 for one, who amidst all this, should be found engaged
 
 71 
 
 in so humble a charity as that of watching over the 
 destiny of parentless and helpless foundlings. 
 
 Charity has the peculiar charm of engaging for her 
 attendants, men of all kinds of political sentiments, 
 but even she is not free from the consequences of 
 private enmity or animosity. This was evidenced by 
 the quarrel between Wilkes and Hogarth. They were 
 both associated in the same work of benevolence at 
 the Foundling Hospital, meeting at the same board as 
 Governors, but no sooner did a personal quarrel arise 
 between them, than they ceased to attend in their 
 places, as if each was afraid of meeting the other, even 
 within the walls of Charity herself. 
 
 " Before the birth of Hogarth," says Cunningham, 
 " there are many centuries in which we relied wholly 
 on foreign skill. With him and after him arose a 
 succession of eminent painters, who have spread the 
 fame of British Art far and wide." The works of 
 some of those who arose with him will be found in 
 the catalogue of pictures belonging to the Hospital 
 at the end of this book. Though dazzled by the lumi- 
 naries in art of these modern days, we must not 
 forget that their fires have been kindled by the lesser 
 lights of the past. 
 
 THE CHAPEL. 
 
 The Chapel was erected, by subscription, in the year 
 1747, on the original plan of Mr. Jacobsen, forming
 
 72 
 
 the central feature of the north and south fronts of the 
 Hospital building. 
 
 Its frontage was then limited in extent to the five 
 middle divisions of the open arcades, and the elevation 
 of the superstructure being detached from the main 
 buildings on each side, presented more distinctness of 
 character in itself, and was advantageous in its effect 
 to the general design of the building. The lower part, 
 or ground plan of the Chapel, was thus isolated by a 
 continued arched corridor, forming a sub-structure for 
 the extension of the upper part, which, on the north 
 and south sides, became a portion of the original 
 building, and was subsequently extended over the east 
 and west ends. 
 
 The lower area of the building continues of the 
 original extent, its enclosure forming the appropriate 
 basement of a regular colonnade and entablature of 
 the Ionic order, raised on pedestals, with intermediate 
 continued balustrade, enclosing the front of the sittings 
 in the upper part of the building throughout. 
 
 A coved ceiling, of handsome design, springing from 
 the entablature of the colonnade, extends over the 
 central area, or main division of building, with en- 
 riched bands and pendants on its soffite, and the ceil- 
 ings of the side and east-end divisions are enriched by 
 soffites and arched bands, of appropriate unity of 
 design with the architecture of the colonnade. 
 
 The west end is entirely appropriated to the occu- 
 pation of the children, and for the organ and choir. 
 
 The design and effect of the interior of this building 
 are admitted to be striking and impressive ; and as
 
 73 
 
 an instance of the mode of distribution of so large a 
 portion of the congregation, at an upper level, with 
 pleasing uniformity and picturesque architectural 
 effect, without the disfigurement generally attendant 
 upon galleries, under the most favourable circum- 
 stances ; it may be considered a specimen of some 
 originality, and worthy of observation. Some alter- 
 ation and improvement of the details of the style and 
 decoration of the interior, was probably made at the 
 period of the extension of this building, and the win- 
 dows at the eastern end filled with stained glass. 
 This enrichment has lately been extended also to the 
 windows on the south front. 
 
 The paneling on the sides of the lower area, forming 
 the basement of the colonnade, being of regular design 
 and suitable proportions for pictures, would, at this 
 favourable period for the advancement of fresco paint- 
 ing, become peculiarly appropriate for a partial, if not 
 entire application of them for sacred subjects, after 
 the great masters, and congenial to the spirit and 
 advancement of the British art, and the distinguished 
 artists that fostered the original establishment of the 
 charity. 
 
 The simple and appropriate distinction given to the 
 divisions of paneling immediately connected with the 
 altar-table, on the east side, could always be continued 
 to be maintained. The cost of the erection of the 
 Chapel was 6,490. 
 
 Some of the windows of the Chapel are ornamented 
 by the armorial bearings of the Governors and Bene- 
 factors, in stained glass, and there is a fine represent-
 
 74 
 
 ation of " Faith, Hope, and Charity," by Wilmshurst, 
 which forms the centre window of the eastern gallery. 
 
 The advertisement inviting subscribers set forth, 
 " that the Governors being earnestly desirous that the 
 children under their care should be early instructed in 
 the principles of religion and morality, and having no 
 place of public worship to which the children and 
 servants of the Hospital could conveniently resort, 
 have resolved to erect a Chapel adjoining to their Hos- 
 pital ; but that no part of the revenue of the said 
 Hospital which is or shall be given for the support of 
 the children, may be diverted from that use ; and in 
 order to defray the expense of erecting the said 
 Chapel, they have opened a subscription for that pur- 
 pose." 
 
 His Majesty George II. subscribed 2,000 towards 
 the erection, and afterwards 1,000 towards supplying 
 a preacher in the Chapel, to instruct the children in 
 the Christian religion, and for other incidental ex- 
 penses. The communion plate was presented by a 
 Governor who desired to be " unknown ; " and the 
 King's upholsterer gave the velvets for the pulpit, &c. 
 
 The Governors had been early taught that their 
 Chapel was capable of being converted into a source 
 of pecuniary means for increasing the usefulness of the 
 work they had in hand. What Handel began, other 
 eminent musicians continued, and the Governors having 
 received several blind children into the establishment 
 (during the general and indiscriminate admission), 
 they were instructed in music, and became a fruitful 
 source of advantage to the funds of the charity. For
 
 75 
 
 upwards of one hundred years the Chapel has been 
 established, and if the taste of the public for sacred 
 music has increased, and that taste has any beneficial 
 influence on the minds of the people, it has been one 
 of the humble instruments for effecting it.* 
 
 * The class of music used in the Chapel has, during the last sixty years 
 undergone a great change, doubtless in favour of the more refined taste of modern 
 times. The original Choir of the Chapel, consisting of Blind Foundlings, the 
 music was necessarily adapted to their powers and capacities. In fact, most 
 of the popular Hymns sung in the Chapel at the time, were written and com- 
 posed for them. The Poet of the Chapel was the Resident Apothecary, Mr. 
 McLellan. The words of two of his Hymns appear to me to be worth 
 noticing here. The music of the first was by Dr. Cook ; the second, by John 
 Printer, a Blind Foundling. 
 
 CHRISTMAS HYMN. 
 
 REJOICE, the promis'd Saviour's come ; 
 
 Him shall the blind behold, 
 The deaf shall hear ; and by the dumb 
 
 His wond'rous works be told. 
 
 The weary nations shall have rest, 
 
 The rage of war shall cease ; 
 The earth with innocence be blest, 
 
 And plenty dwell with peace. 
 
 Light from its sacred source shall spread 
 
 O'er all its saving beams ; 
 In pastures fair shall all be fed, 
 
 All drink of comfort's streams. 
 
 Sweet as the breeze on Carmel's brow, 
 
 The waste shall shed perfume ; 
 There lilies spring, and violets grow, 
 
 And Sharon's rose shall bloom. 
 
 Rejoice, the promis'd Saviour's come ; 
 
 Him shall the blind behold, 
 The deaf shall hear ; and by the dumb 
 
 His wond'rous works be told.
 
 76 
 
 The expenses in supporting the Chapel are very 
 considerable, and the only return is from the pew 
 rents and contributions of the public at the Chapel 
 doors. 
 
 Should these diminish so as to reduce the income 
 below the expenditure, the Governors would have no 
 alternative but to lessen the attractiveness of the 
 service by dispensing with the choir. 
 
 Handel. Handel, as if influenced by a kindred 
 feeling with Hogarth (for genius is ever noble and 
 generous), very soon engaged in the work of charity 
 at this popular institution. On the 4th of May, 1749, 
 he attended the Committee at the Hospital, and offered 
 a performance of vocal and instrumental music, the 
 
 THANKSGIVING HYMN. 
 
 ALMIGHTY Lord ! dispose each mind 
 To seek the good of human kind ; 
 Teach us with others' joys to glow ; 
 Teach us to feel for others' woe. 
 
 Behold in misery's dreary shade, 
 The widow with her children laid ; 
 Hear them, with piteous moans, deplore 
 Husband and father now no more. 
 
 The helpless babe, by hunger prest, 
 Clings to the famish'd mother's breast : 
 In vain it ev'ry effort tries ; 
 Life's fountains yield it no supplies. 
 
 Thanks be to God, who heard our cry 
 When not one earthly friend was nigh ! 
 To Him our voices let us raise 
 In song's of gratitude and praise.
 
 77 
 
 money arising therefrom to be applied towards finish- 
 ing of the Chapel. 
 
 This performance is thus alluded to in the "Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine " of that month : 
 
 " The Prince and Princess of Wales, with a great 
 number of persons of quality and distinction, were at 
 the Chapel of the Foundling Hospital, to hear several 
 pieces of vocal and instrumental music composed by 
 George Frederick Handel, Esq., for the benefit of the 
 foundation. 1st. The music of the late Fire Works, 
 and the anthem on the Peace ; 2nd. Select pieces from 
 the oratorio of Solomon, relating to the dedication of 
 the temple ; and 3rd. Several pieces composed for the 
 occasion, the words taken from Scripture, applicable to 
 the charity and its benefactors. There was no col- 
 lection, but the tickets were at half-a-guinea, and the 
 audience above a thousand." 
 
 For this act of benevolence on the part of Handel, 
 he was immediately enrolled as one of the Governors 
 and Guardians of the Hospital. 
 
 During every year after this, until his infirmity 
 obliged him to relinquish his profession, he superin- 
 tended personally the performance of his matchless 
 Oratorio of the Messiah, in the Chapel, which netted to 
 the Treasury of the Charity no less a sum than 7,000. 
 
 The Governors of the Hospital seeing the profitable- 
 ness of this performance, and being (as it appeared) 
 misinformed of Handel's intention regarding the copy- 
 right, prepared a petition to Parliament to secure it 
 for themselves. The latter part of this petition is as 
 follows :
 
 78 
 
 " That in order to raise a further sum for the benefit 
 of the said Charity, George Frederick Handel, Esq., 
 hath been charitably pleased to give to this corpo- 
 ration a composition of musick, called 'The Oratorio 
 of the Messiah/ composed by him the said George 
 Frederick Handel, reserving to himself the liberty only 
 of performing the same for his own benefit during his 
 life ; and whereas the said benefaction cannot be 
 secured to the sole use of your petitioners, therefore 
 humbly pray, that leave may be given to bring in a 
 bill for the purposes aforesaid." 
 
 Upon one of the Governors waiting upon the mu- 
 sician with this form of petition, he soon discovered 
 that the Committee of the Hospital had built upon a 
 wrong foundation ; for Handel, bursting into a rage, 
 exclaimed " Te Deivel ! for vat sal de Foundling put 
 inein oratorio in de Parlement \ Te Deivel ! mein 
 music sal not go to de Parlement ! " 
 
 Here the matter dropped, never to be revived. At 
 the completion of the Chapel, Handel presented the 
 Governors with an organ, which he opened on the 1st 
 May, 1750, when the concourse of persons was so 
 great that the performance was repeated fifteen days 
 afterwards. Upon one of these occasions the audience 
 was conveyed in no less than 800 coaches and chairs. 
 
 The Governors of the Hospital felt, naturally enough, 
 a deep affection and veneration for Handel; and there- 
 fore, when, in April 1753, a foolish paragraph appeared 
 in the daily papers, stating that he was preparing a 
 funeral anthem, to be performed in the Chapel of the 
 Hospital after his death, the Committee desired their
 
 79 
 
 Secretary to acquaint him, "That the said paragraph 
 has given this Committee great concern, they being 
 highly sensible that all well-wishers to this charity 
 must be desirous for the continuance of his life, who 
 has been and is so great and generous a benefactor 
 thereto." 
 
 With the full concurrence of Handel, the Governors 
 appointed his amanuensis and assistant, Mr. John Chris- 
 topher Smith, the first organist of the Chapel. 
 
 At the death of the great musician, it was found he 
 had made the following bequest : " I give a fair copy 
 of the score, and all the parts of my oratorio, called 
 ' The Messiah,' to the Foundling Hospital." The Go- 
 vernors resolved, in grateful memory of their friend 
 and benefactor, to have a dirge and funeral anthem 
 performed in the Chapel, on the 26th May, 1759, on 
 the occasion of his demise, which performance took 
 place under the direction of the organist of the Chapel, 
 Mr. John Christopher Smith. 
 
 Benjamin West, R.A. On the finishing of the 
 Chapel, Chevalier Casali presented the Governors with 
 an altar-piece, the subject being " The Offering of the 
 Wise Men." This picture occupied its appropriate 
 place till 1801, when two of the Vice-Presidents, John 
 Wilmot, Esq., and Thomas Everett, Esq., M.P., together 
 with Sir Thomas Bernard, Bart., (the Treasurer,) and 
 John Puget, Esq., agreed to purchase and present to 
 the Hospital a picture by West, namely Christ pre-
 
 80 
 
 senting a little Child* This picture had been in the 
 hands of a party, by whose mismanagement it had 
 suffered some injury, and therefore "West, in his 
 determination to make it fully acceptable to the 
 Governors, almost entirely repainted it. " The care " 
 (he says) "with which I have passed that picture, I 
 flatter myself has now placed it in the first class of 
 pictures from my pencil ; at least, I have the satis- 
 faction to find that to be the sentiment of the judges 
 of painting who have seen it." 
 
 For this act of generosity, the Governors resolved to 
 elect West one of their corporate body. 
 
 He appears to have been highly flattered by this 
 compliment, and in acknowledging it, states that his 
 professional duties will not permit him to become an 
 active member of the Corporation, but to show his 
 respect and good wishes for the establishment in the 
 only way he could make a return, he intended to add 
 to the embellishment of the Chapel as follows : 
 
 " There are " (he says) " on each side the place of 
 Communion in the Chapel, opposite the Governors' 
 and Governors' Ladies' seats, two panels, well calcu- 
 lated to receive paintings. If the Governors will 
 concur, at my leisure I propose to paint two pictures 
 from sacred history to fill those panels, which I shall 
 beg the Corporation to accept of. as a mark of my 
 
 * "And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of 
 them, 
 
 "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as 
 little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 " And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me."
 
 81 
 
 respect for the Institution, at the same time, to ask of 
 them the exclusive right of having prints taken from 
 those pictures/' 
 
 It need not be added that the Governors imme- 
 diately accepted this munificent and charitable offer, 
 but it is to be lamented that the leisure of the artist 
 never arrived, and that the work remains undone. If, 
 perchance, any modern artist should read this, and 
 have a laudable desire to establish his fame, he cannot 
 do better than carry out the intention of West. 
 
 In 1816, the Chapel being then under repair, West 
 had the Altar-Piece taken to his house and again 
 re-touched it, returning it to its place with strong 
 expressions towards this favourite work of his hand. 
 
 THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 Beneath the Chapel are capacious Vaults, in which 
 were deposited, in 1751, the remains of the Founder, 
 at his own request ; since which many of the Gover- 
 nors have also been buried there. The coffins, which 
 are of lead, are enclosed in stone catacombs. Amongst 
 the departed, who were distinguished for their zeal in 
 the cause of the Charity, within whose walls they now 
 rest, the following may be specially noticed, viz. : 
 
 1803. The Rev. Samuel Harper, M.A. 
 1807. William George SiUey, Esq. 
 1808. Anthony Van Dam, Esq. 
 1810. Thomas Everett, Esq., M.P. 
 1813. Michael Heathcote, Esq. 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 1818. William Watson, Esq., F.R.S. 
 
 1818. Sir Thomas Bernard, Baronet. 
 
 1819. John Owen Parr, Esq. 
 
 1820. William Nanson, Esq. 
 
 1822. John Stephenson, Esq. 
 
 1823. Robert Raynsford, Esq. 
 
 1827. Philip Jackson, Esq. 
 
 1830. John Heath, Esq. 
 
 1831. Thomas Smith, Esq. 
 
 1831. Richard Smith, Esq. 
 
 1832. The Right Honourable Lord Tenterden* 
 
 1832. William Holden, Esq. 
 
 1834. William Hammond, Esq. 
 
 1834. Christopher Stanger, M.D. 
 
 1838. Charles James Johnstone, M.D. 
 
 1839. Arthur Brown Blakiston, Esq. 
 
 * Lord Tenterden, before the labours of his judicial functions engrossed the 
 whole of his time, took an active part in the administration of the affairs of the 
 Foundling Hospital, and wrote the following verses, to be set to music, and 
 sung at the commemorative festivals of the Governors : 
 
 " The ship sail'd smoothly o'er the sea, 
 
 By gentle breezes fann'd, 
 When Coram, musing at the helm, 
 
 This happy fabric plann'd : 
 Not in the schools by sages taught 
 
 To woo fair virtue's form ; 
 But nursed on danger's flinty lap, 
 
 And tutor'd by the storm. 
 
 " When threat'ning tempests round him rag'd, 
 
 And swelling billows heav'd, 
 His bark a wretched orphan seem'd, 
 
 Of aid and hope bereav'd. 
 If through the clouds a golden gleam 
 
 Broke sweetly from above, 
 He bless'd the smiling emblem there 
 
 Of charity and love.
 
 83 
 
 1839. Samuel Compton Cox, Esq. 
 
 183 9. Sir Stephen Gaselee, Knight. 
 
 1839. Hugh Edwards, Esq. 
 
 1840. Anthony V. D. Searle Van Dam, Esq. 
 
 1842. Peregrine Dealtry, Esq. 
 
 1844. The Rev. John Hewlett, B.D. 
 
 1847. Joseph Kay, Esq. 
 
 1849. Robert Rainy Pennington, Esq. 
 
 1849. John Thomas, Esq. 
 
 1850. George Pardoe, M.D. 
 
 1852. John Mackenzie, Esq. 
 
 1854. James Kendle Browne, Esq. 
 
 1855. William Hammond, Esq. 
 
 1857. Henry Denton, Esq. 
 
 1859. Daniel Rmvland Esq. 
 
 1860. Charles Plumley, Esq. 
 
 1861. Dr. Clement Hue. 
 
 1863. Rev. Josiah For shall, M.A. 
 
 1864. Charles Pott, Esq. 
 
 " Around the glowing land he spread 
 
 Warm pity's magic spell, 
 And tender bosoms learn'd/from him 
 
 With softer sighs to swell. 
 Beauty and wealth, and wit and power, 
 
 The various aid combin'd ; 
 And angels smil'd upon the work 
 
 That Coram had design'd. 
 
 " Virtue and meekness mark'd his face 
 
 With characters benign, 
 And Hogarth's colours yet display 
 
 The lineaments divine ; 
 Our ground his ashes sanctify, 
 
 Our songs his praise employs ; 
 His spirit with the bless'd above 
 
 His full reward enjoys."
 
 84 
 
 PKOPOSAL FOE MAKING THE HOSPITAL 
 AVAILABLE AS A PUBLIC MUSIC SCHOOL. 
 
 In July, 1774, Dr. Burney and Mr. Giardini, at- 
 tended the Court of Governors, and proposed a plan 
 for forming a Public Music School, by means of the 
 children of the Hospital, which, having been taken into 
 consideration, was unanimously accepted as "likely 
 to be of considerable advantage to this Corporation, 
 and of national utility. 
 
 The Court immediately set about opening a sub- 
 scription roll (which received the support of the 
 Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland), and appointed 
 a special Committee to " digest and form the properest 
 method for carrying the said plan into execution," the 
 Committee to consist of all the members of the Court 
 present, and the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Ash- 
 burnham, the Earl of Dartmouth, Lord Le Despencer, 
 and Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Bart. 
 
 But it was the fate of tins scheme to be nipped in 
 the bud. Its opponents proposed and carried a reso- 
 lution at the next Court, which completely set it aside. 
 The resolution was this " It appeared to this Court 
 that the plan of a public music school, by way of em- 
 ployment of the children, is not warranted by the Act 
 of Parliament." 
 
 Madame d'Arblay,* in her Memoirs of Dr. Burney 
 
 * The celebrated Miss Burney, ajith^jof "Evelina," &c.
 
 85 
 
 (her father), gives the following graphical account of 
 this transaction : 
 
 " But neither the pain of his illness, nor the pleasure 
 of his recovery, nor even the loved labours of his 
 history, offered sufficient occupation for the insatiate 
 activity of his mind. No sooner did he breathe again 
 the breath of health, resume his daily business, and 
 return to his nocturnal studies, than a project occurred 
 to him of a new undertaking, which would have seemed 
 to demand the whole time and undivided attention 
 of almost any other man. 
 
 " This was nothing less than to establish, in England, 
 a seminary for the education of musical pupils of both 
 sexes, upon a plan of which the idea should be bor- 
 rowed, though the execution should almost wholly 
 be new modeled, from the Conservatories of Naples 
 and Vienna. 
 
 "As disappointment blighted this scheme, just as 
 it seemed maturing to fruition, it would be to little 
 purpose to enter minutely into its details ; and yet, 
 as it is a striking feature of the fervour of Dr. JBurney 
 for the advancement of his art, it is not its failure 
 through the secret workings of undermining prejudice, 
 that ought to induce his biographer to omit recount- 
 ing so interesting an intention and attempt ; and the 
 less, as a plan, in many respects similar, has recently 
 been put into execution, without any reference to the 
 original projector. 
 
 " The motives that suggested this undertaking to 
 Dr. Burney, with the reasons by which they were in- 
 fluenced and supported, were to this effect
 
 86 
 
 " In England, where more splendid rewards await 
 the favourite votaries of musical excellence than in 
 any other spot on the globe, there was no establishment 
 of any sort for forming such artists as might satisfy 
 the real connoisseur in music ; and save English talent 
 from the mortification, and the British purse from the 
 depredations of seeking a constant annual supply of 
 genius and merit from foreign shores. 
 
 " An institution, therefore, of this character, seemed 
 wanting to the state for national economy, and to the 
 people for national encouragement. 
 
 " Such was the enlarged view which Dr. Burney, 
 while yet in Italy, had taken of such a plan for his 
 own country. 
 
 " The difficulty of collecting proper subjects to 
 form its members, caused great diversity of opinion 
 and of proposition amongst the advisers with whom 
 Dr. Burney consulted. 
 
 " It was peculiarly necessary that these young dis- 
 ciples should be free from every sort of contamination, 
 mental or corporal, upon entering this musical asylum, 
 that they might spread no dangerous contagion of 
 either sort, but be brought up to the practice of the 
 art, with all its delightful powers of pleasing, chastened 
 from their abuse. 
 
 ' With such a perspective, to take promiscuously 
 the children of the poor, merely where they had an 
 ear for music, or a voice for song, would be running 
 the risk of gathering together a mixed little multitude, 
 which, from intermingling inherent vulgarity, hereditary 
 diseases, or vicious propensities, with the finer qualities
 
 87 
 
 requisite for admission, might render the cultivation 
 of their youthful talents, a danger, if not a curse, to 
 the country. 
 
 " Yet, the length of time that might be required 
 for selecting little subjects of this unadulterated 
 description from different quarters, with the next to 
 impossibility of tracing, with any certainty, what 
 might have been their real conduct in times past, or 
 what might be their principles to give any basis of 
 security for the time to come, caused a perplexity 
 of the most serious species ; for should a single one of 
 the tribe go astray, the popular cry against teaching 
 the arts to the poor would stamp the whole little 
 community with a stain indelible, and the institution 
 itself might be branded with infamy. 
 
 " What abstractedly was desirable, was, to try this 
 experiment upon youthful beings to whom the world 
 was utterly unknown, and who, not only in innocence 
 had breathed their infantine lives, but in complete 
 and unsuspicious ignorance of evil. 
 
 " Requisites so hard to obtain, and a dilemma so 
 intricate to unravel, led the Doctor to think of the 
 Foundling Hospital, in the neighbourhood of which, 
 in Queen Square, stood his present dwelling. 
 
 " He communicated, therefore, his project to Sir 
 Charles Whitworth, the Governor of the Hospital. 
 Sir Charles thought it proper, feasible, desirable, and 
 patriotic. 
 
 " The Doctor, thus seconded, drew up a plan foi 
 forming a musical conservatorio in the metropolis of 
 England, and in the bosom of the Foundling Hospital.
 
 88 
 
 " The intention was to collect from the whole little 
 corps all who had musical ears or tuneful voices, to be 
 brought up scientifically as instrumental or vocal per- 
 formers. Those of the group who gave no decided 
 promise of such qualifications, were to go on with their 
 ordinary education, and to abide by its ordinary result, 
 according to the original regulations of the charity. 
 
 "A meeting of the Governors and Directors was 
 convened by their chief, Sir Charles AVhitworth, for 
 announcing this scheme. The plan was heard with 
 general approbation, but the discussions to which it 
 gave rise were discursive and perplexing. 
 
 " It was objected, that music was an art of luxury, 
 by no means requisite to life, or accessary to morality. 
 These children were all meant to be educated as plain 
 but essential members of the general community. 
 They were to be trained up to useful purposes, with 
 a singleness that would ward off all ambition for what 
 was higher, and teach them to repay the benefit of 
 their support by cheerful labour. To stimulate them 
 to superior views might mar the religious object of the 
 charity, which was to nullify rather than extinguish 
 all disposition to pride, vice, or voluptuousness, such 
 as, probably, had demoralized their culpable parents, 
 and thrown these deserted outcasts upon the mercy of 
 the Foundling Hospital. 
 
 " This representation, the Doctor acknowledged, 
 would be unanswerable, if it were decided to be right, 
 and if it were judged to be possible, wholly to ex- 
 tirpate the art of music in the British empire, or, if 
 the Foundling Hospital were to be considered as a
 
 89 
 
 seminary, predestined to menial servitude, and as the 
 only institution of the country where the .members 
 were to form a caste, from whose rules and plodden 
 ways no genius could ever emerge. 
 
 "But such a fiat could never be issued by John 
 Bull, nor so flat a stamp be struck upon any portion 
 of his countrymen. John Bull was at once too liberal 
 and too proud to seek to adopt the tame ordinances of 
 the immutable Hindoos, with whom ages passed un- 
 marked, generations unchanged, the poor never richer, 
 the simple never wiser, and with whom, family by 
 family, and trade by trade, begin, continue, and 
 terminate their monotonous existence by the same 
 predetermined course, and to the same invariable 
 destiny. 
 
 " These children, the Doctor answered, are all 
 orphans ; they are taken from no family, for by none 
 are they owned ; they are drawn from no calling, for 
 to none are they specifically bred. They are all 
 brought up to menial offices, though they are all 
 instructed in reading and writing, and the females 
 in needlework ; but they are all systematically and 
 indiscriminately destined to be servants or apprentices 
 at the age of fifteen ; from which period, all their hold 
 upon the benevolent institution to which they are 
 .indebted for their infantine rescue from perishing cold 
 and starving want, with their subsequent mainten- 
 ance and tuition, is rotarily transferred to new-born 
 claimants ; for the Hospital then has fulfilled its en- 
 gagements, and the children must go forth to the 
 world, whether to their benefit or their disgrace.
 
 90 
 
 "Were it not better, then, when there are subjects 
 who are success inviting, to bestow upon them pro- 
 fessional improvement, with virtuous education 1 
 since, as long as operas, concerts, and theatres are 
 licensed by government, musical performers, vocal and 
 instrumental, will inevitably be wanted, employed, and 
 remunerated : and every state is surely best served, 
 and the people of every country are surely the most 
 encouraged, when the nation suffices for itself, and no 
 foreign aid is necessarily called in, to share either the 
 fame or emoluments of public performances ? 
 
 " Stop, then ; prohibit, proscribe if it be possible 
 all taste for foreign refinements, and for the exquisite 
 finishing of foreign melody and harmony, or establish 
 a school on our own soil, in which, as in painting and 
 in sculpture, the foreign perfection of arts may be 
 taught, transplanted, and culled, till they become 
 indigenous. 
 
 " And where, if not here, may subjects be found on 
 whom such a national trial may be made with the 
 least danger of injury? Subjects who have been 
 brought up with the strictness of regular habits that 
 has warded them from all previous mischief, yet who 
 are too helpless and ignorant, as well as poor, to be 
 able to develope whether or not nature, in her secret 
 workings, has kindled within their unconscious bosoms, 
 a spark a single spark of harmonic fire, that might 
 light them from being hewers of wood and brushers 
 of spiders, to those regions of vocal and instrumental 
 excellence, that might propitiate the project of drawing 
 from our own culture a school for music, of which
 
 91 
 
 the students, under proper moral and religious tutelage, 
 might, in time, supersede the foreign auxiliaries by 
 whom they are now utterly extinguished. 
 
 " The objectors were charged, also, to weigh well 
 that there was no law or regulation, and no means 
 whatsoever that could prevent any of this little asso- 
 ciation from becoming singers and players, if they had 
 musical powers, and such should be their wish ; 
 though, if self-thrown into that walk, singers and 
 players only at the lowest theatres, or at the tea 
 and public gardens, or even in the streets, as fiddlers 
 of country dances, or as ballad squallers, in which 
 degraded exercise of their untaught endowments not 
 only decent life must necessarily be abandoned, but 
 immorality, licentiousness, and riot, must assimilate 
 with, or rather form a prominent part of their exhi- 
 bitions and performances. 
 
 " Here the discussion closed. The opponents were 
 silenced, if not convinced, and the trial of the project 
 was decreed. The hardly-fought battle over, victory, 
 waving her gay banners, that wafted to the Doctor 
 hopes of future renown with present benediction, 
 determined him, for the moment, to relinquish even 
 his history, that he might devote every voluntary 
 thought to consolidating this scheme. 
 
 " The primary object of his consideration, because 
 the most conscientious, was the preservation of the 
 morals and fair conduct of the pupils. And here, 
 the exemplary character and the purity of the 
 principles of Dr. Burney would have shone forth to 
 national advantage, had the expected prosperity of
 
 92 
 
 his design brought his meditated regulations into 
 practice. 
 
 " Vain would it be to attempt, and useless, if not 
 vain, to describe his indignant consternation, when, 
 while in the full occupation of these arrangements, a 
 letter arrived to him from Sir Charles Whitworth, to 
 make known, with great regret, that the undertaking 
 was suddenly overthrown. The enemies to the at- 
 tempt, who had seemed quashed, had merely lurked 
 in ambush, to watch for an unsuspected moment to 
 convene a partial Committee, in which they voted out 
 the scheme as an innovation upon the original purpose 
 of the Institution ; and pleading, also, an old Act of 
 Parliament against its adoption, they solemnly pro- 
 scribed it for ever.* 
 
 " Yet a repeal of that Act had been fully intended, 
 before the plan, which, hitherto had only been 
 agitating and negotiating, should have been put into 
 execution. 
 
 " All of choice, however, and all of respect that 
 remained for Dr. Burney, consisted in a personal offer 
 from Sir Charles Whitworth, to re-assemble an op- 
 posing meeting amongst those friends who, previously, 
 had carried the day. 
 
 * This apparent want of liberality on the part of the Governors in the mental 
 culture of the children, reminds one of a darker period of the history of this 
 small community. Dr. Johnson writes, in 1756 : "When, a few months ago, 
 I wandered through the Hospital, I found not a child that seemed to have 
 heard of his creed or the commandments. To breed up children in this manner, 
 ia to rescue them from an early grave, that they may find employment for the 
 gibbet : from dying in innocence, that they may perish by their crimes."
 
 93 
 
 " But happy as the Doctor would have been to have 
 gained, with the honour of general approbation, a 
 point he had elaborately studied to clear from mys- 
 tifying objections, and to render desirable even to 
 patriotism, his pride was justly hurt by so abrupt a 
 defalcation ; and he would neither with open hostility, 
 nor under any versatile contest, become the founder or 
 chief of so important an enterprise. 
 
 "He gave up, therefore, the attempt, without 
 further struggle ; simply recommending to the mature 
 reflections of the members of the last Committee, 
 whether it were not more pious, as well as more 
 rational to endeavour to ameliorate the character 
 and lives of practical musical novitiates, than to 
 behold the nation, in its highest classes, cherish 
 the art, follow it, embellish it with riches, and make 
 it fashion and pleasure ; while, to train to that art, 
 with whatever precautions, its appropriate votaries 
 from the bosom of our own country, seemed to call for 
 opposition, and to deserve condemnation. 
 
 " Thus died, in its birth, this interesting project, 
 which, but for this brief sketch, might never have been 
 known to have brightened the mind, as one of the 
 projects, or to have mortified it, as one of the failures, 
 of the active and useful life of Dr. Burney." 
 
 THE BAND. 
 
 Happily, the prejudices so fatal to Dr. Burney's 
 scheme, at the period alluded to, do not prevail with
 
 94 
 
 the Governors of the present day ; whose proceedings, 
 with reference to the same subject, stand out in bold 
 relief, when contrasted with that of their predecessors 
 of 1774, for when, in 1847, it was demonstrated to 
 them, by the present Secretary, that the establishment 
 of a Juvenile Band of musicians, from amongst the 
 boys, would be attended with advantages to them in 
 life, they did not hesitate readily to adopt the 
 suggestion. The proposal was immediately put into 
 practice, and the results are highly satisfactory, 
 proving (if indeed proof were necessary) that the 
 cultivation of instrumental music amongst the children 
 of the Hospital is not attended with that degradation 
 of moral character so much apprehended in Dr. 
 Burney's time. For not only has the general moral 
 character of those instructed in music been improved, 
 their physical capacities enlarged, by the influence of 
 music during their stay in the Hospital ; but as far as 
 has been manifested during the time in which music 
 has been taught amongst them, considerable social 
 advantages have been derived by many of them from 
 this source when they have quitted the establishment, 
 fully demonstrated the practicability of Dr. Burney's 
 scheme, and that there is nothing to fear from the 
 "popular cultivation of music," provided due regard 
 be had to the scientific treatment of the art. 
 
 It is now some years since the band was formed, 
 numbering about thirty boys from nine to fourteen 
 years. This number has, ever since, been maintained, 
 sometimes exceeded. The boys are selected from 
 amongst those who possess a musical ear, due regard
 
 95 
 
 being paid to their physical development. As the 
 musical instruments, to which they are placed, are 
 essentially men's instruments, considerable physical 
 exertion is required in playing upon them. Great 
 care is, therefore, bestowed in watching the effects this 
 early application produces upon the health of the 
 children ; and no instance has ever occurred of injury 
 being done by blowing. On the contrary, boys of 
 delicate constitution have greatly improved in health 
 from the exercise of a wind instrument. 
 
 As a considerable portion of the time allotted to the 
 practice of music is drawn from the ordinary school 
 hours, great care has, also, been taken to ascertain how 
 far the band-boys are when brought in competition 
 at the annual school examination with other boys not 
 in the band affected by this arrangement, and the 
 results have shown that a full proportion of the prizes, 
 awarded for scholastic pursuits has been constantly 
 carried off by band-boys. This success at school may 
 fairly be attributed to the salutary effects of music 
 upon the character of those boys receiving instruction 
 in the art, which imparts a vivacity to their tempers, 
 and by its enlivening influence, renders the mental 
 capacities more energetic and susceptible of receiving 
 general instruction, than the faculties of the other 
 boys attain, who do not enjoy the advantage of 
 musical tuition. 
 
 During the period the band has been formed, a 
 large number of the boys have received instruction, of 
 whom, many, at their own desire, have been placed as 
 musicians in the bands of Her Majesty's Household
 
 96 
 
 Troops, and other regiments, and also in the Royal 
 Navy. Thus, while securing an eligible position in life 
 for the boys, has the formation of the band proved, 
 by saving the expenses of premium and outfit allowed 
 for each boy ordinarily apprenticed, "of considerable 
 advantage to this corporation, and of national utility." 
 Nor should it be lost sight of, that very many of the 
 boys who have passed through the band, and are now 
 occupied in various trades to which they have been 
 apprenticed, have followed up their music as a 
 recreation with satisfaction to themselves, and to those 
 with whom it is their lot to be placed. 
 
 The great success which has attended the establish- 
 ment of the juvenile band, and the want of proper 
 accommodation for the practice of it, have induced the 
 Governors lately to erect a "Band Koom," and this has 
 been followed by several gifts in connection with it, 
 both useful and ornamental. 
 
 Liet-Colonel James C. Hyde has presented a set of 
 brass instruments for the use of the boys, and a series 
 of valuable and unique drawings, by Native Artists of 
 India, for the adornment of the walls. 
 
 John Benjamin Heath, Esq. has given portraits of 
 Carl Von Weber, and Sir George Smart. 
 
 William Foster White, Esq. has presented fourteen 
 busts of Eminent Composers, on appropriate pedestals ; 
 and the record of these liberal acts, in relation to 
 the musical advancement of the children, would be 
 incomplete if the donation of J. P. Gassiot, Junr., Esq. 
 of a grand pianoforte, for the use of the musical 
 Instructors generally, was not here acknowledged.
 
 97 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE FOUNDER 
 
 Captain Coram was born at Lyme Regis, in 
 Dorsetshire, in the year 1668. He was a descendant 
 of the Corhams, of Devonshire ; and Kinterbury, in 
 that county, was for several generations, the property 
 and residence of the family/"" Of his baptism, there 
 does not appear to be any record at Lyme Regis ; and 
 all that can be found in the registers relating to the 
 family is the following : 
 
 " William, son of John Coram, Captain, was baptized 
 at Lyrne, April 29th, 1671."t 
 
 There seems to be no doubt, therefore, that this 
 "William" was a younger brother of "Thomas," the 
 subject of this memoir, and consequently, that the 
 latter, in devoting himself to the sea service, followed 
 the occupation of his father, At Lyme Regis, which 
 is a sea-port, there was carried on, at the period in 
 question, a considerable coasting and Newfoundland 
 trade ; and hence we may venture to account for the 
 first direction of his course in maritime concerns. 
 
 Of his early years there is no biographical notice 
 extant ; but it appears probable that the ardent tem- 
 perament which he exhibited through life, was too 
 strong for the restraints of home and domestic ties, 
 and that this, and his love of enterprise, caused him 
 to be, even at the outset of his career, an independent 
 member of his father's family. 
 
 * Vide Risdon's Chorographical Description of the County of Devon, 
 t For this information the writer is indebted to Dr. Hodges, the present 
 Vicar of Lyme Regis. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 About the year 1694 (he being then twenty-six 
 years old), we find him at Taunton, Massachusetts, 
 in the United States, exercising the humble trade of 
 a shipwright. To this new country, he had, doubtless, 
 gone in the spirit of adventure ; and here he gave 
 the first instance on record of that public devotedness 
 for which he was so remarkable. Whilst in this 
 comparative wilderness, he perceived, with regret, 
 the uncivilized condition of the inhabitants, by reason 
 of the absence of systematic religion, as exercised by 
 the Church of England, of which he was a member. 
 By a deed, therefore, dated 8th December, 1703, he 
 conveyed to the Governor and other authorities of 
 Taunton, fifty-nine acres of land. The condition of 
 the gift was this, that whenever, in the progress of 
 civilization and the increase of population, the people 
 of the place should desire the Church of England to 
 be established there, that then, on their application 
 to the vestrymen, or their successors in office, the 
 land, or a suitable part of it, was to be granted for 
 that purpose, or for a school-house, as they might 
 desire. This gift, the deed alleges, was made "in 
 consideration of the love and respect which the donor 
 had and did bear unto the said church, as also for 
 divers other good causes and considerations him 
 especially at that present moving." In this deed he 
 is described as "of Boston, in New England, some- 
 times residing in Taunton, in the County of Bristol, 
 Shipwright." At a subsequent period of his life he 
 presented to the parish of Taunton a valuable library, 
 part of which remains to this day. Some of the
 
 99 
 
 books appear to have been solicited by Coram from 
 others. Thus, in the copy of Common Prayer now 
 preserved in the church, the entry in the title page 
 is as follows : " This Book of Common Prayer is 
 given by the Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, 
 Speaker of the Honourable House of Commons of 
 Great Britain, one of His Majesty's Most Honourable 
 Privy Council, and Treasurer of His Majesty's Navy, 
 &c., to Thomas Coram, of London, Gentleman, for the 
 use of a Church, lately built at Taunton, in New 
 England." Coram appears to have obtained the warm 
 friendship of Mr. Speaker Onslow, of the evidence of 
 which this is not the only instance. 
 
 From Taunton Captain Coram removed to Boston, 
 about the close of the seventeenth century, and 
 engaged in commerce. He became a ship-master, 
 and acquired some property in following seas, 
 especially in the then newly-discovered fisheries. By 
 his intercourse with the colonies, at their different 
 ports, he became well acquainted with their wants, 
 and deeply concerned for their welfare ; and though 
 in a comparatively humble station, originated many 
 noble plans for their benefit. 
 
 In 1704 he was very instrumental in planning and 
 procuring an Act of Parliamant, for encouraging the 
 making of Tar in the Northern Colonies of British 
 America, by a bounty to be paid on the importation 
 thereof, whereby not only a livelihood was afforded 
 to thousands of families employed in that branch of 
 trade in North America, but above a million sterling 
 was saved to the nation, which was heretofore obliged
 
 100 
 
 to buy all its Tar from Sweden, at a most exorbitant 
 price, besides being imported in Swedish vessels. 
 
 In the year 1719, he was on board the ship "Sea 
 Flower/' on her passage to Hamburgh, when she 
 was stranded off" Cuxhaven and plundered by the 
 inhabitants of the district of her cargo. Coram, in 
 endeavouring to preserve the property on board, was 
 grossly ill-used by the pirates, who managed to 
 overpower him and the rest of the authorities. In 
 the affidavit relating to this outrage, he is described 
 as "of London, Mariner and Shipwright," and the 
 affidavit further sets forth, " That he (Coram) having 
 usually sold to his Majesty in the year past and at 
 other times, quantities of naval stores from America, 
 for the supply of his Majesty's navy, did about 
 February last, design to visit his Majesty's German 
 dominions to see what supplies of timber and other 
 naval stores could be had from thence, fit for the navy 
 royal." By this incident in the life of Coram, we learn 
 the nature of his transactions at this period, but it 
 would seem that soon afterwards, having accumulated 
 as much wealth as suited his moderate views, he 
 retired from the sea service, and devoted himself for 
 the remainder of his life to projects having for their 
 object the public good. It was soon after this, that 
 he turned his attention to the destitute state of the 
 infant poor of the metropolis, and engaged in 
 his laudable design of establishing an Hospital for 
 Foundlings. 
 
 Captain Coram was not a mere theorist. All his 
 schemes were of a practical nature. He first made
 
 101 
 
 himself thoroughly master of his subject, and then 
 set about convincing those whose assistance he 
 deemed necessary for their accomplishment. The 
 difficulty he had to encounter was the want of that 
 energy of character in others, which was so remark- 
 able in himself. This retarded the progress of many 
 of the projects he had set on foot for the benefit of 
 mankind. The good, however, that he effected, is 
 sufficiently substantial to hand his name down to the 
 latest posterity, as the lover of his country and of her 
 people. The celebrated Horace Walpole said of him 
 that he was "the honestest, the most disinterested, 
 and the most knowing person about the plantations" 
 he ever talked with. The Colonial concerns of the 
 country certainly had his special care. 
 
 It was at the solicitation of Captain Coram, that 
 an Act of Parliament was obtained for taking off the 
 prohibition on importing deal boards and fir timber 
 from the Netherlands and Germany, on account of 
 the King of Denmark having enhanced the prices of 
 those commodities, by which means they immediately 
 fell twenty per cent. 
 
 In the year 1732 he was appointed one of the 
 trustees, by a charter from George II. for the settle- 
 ment of Georgia, in the colonization of which province 
 he took deep interest. 
 
 His next project related to Nova Scotia, and about 
 the year 1735 he addressed the following Memorial 
 to George II."" 
 
 * There is an honourable testimonial in favour of Captain Coram *s
 
 102 
 
 " To the King's Most Excellent Majesty in Council 
 
 "The Memorial of Thomas Coram, Gentleman, 
 most humbly showeth, 
 
 "That your memorialist having, through long ex- 
 perience in naval affairs, and by residing many years 
 in your Majesty's plantations in America, observed, 
 with attention, several matters and things which he 
 conceives might be greatly improved, for the honour 
 and service of the Crown, and the increase of the 
 trade, navigation, and wealth of this kingdom ; he, 
 therefore, most humbly begs leave to represent to 
 your Majesty, 
 
 'That the coasts of your Majesty's province of 
 Nova Scotia afford the best cod-fishing of any in 
 the known parts of the world, and the land is well 
 adapted for raising hemp, and other naval stores, for 
 the better supplying this kingdom with the same : 
 but the discouragements have hitherto been such as 
 have deterred people from settling there, whereby the 
 said province, for want of good inhabitants, is not so 
 beneficial to this kingdom, nor so well secured to the 
 Crown as it might be ; because it cannot be presumed 
 the French inhabitants, who remain there by virtue of 
 
 character, in a letter from Mr. Horace Walpole, then ambassador at the 
 Hague, to his brother, Sir Robert Walpole, dated the 18th April, 1735 ; 
 where, in a colonial matter of considerable importance, which is the subject 
 of the letter, Mr. Walpole closes with these words : " Lose no time in 
 talking with Sir Charles Wager, Mr. Blanden, and one Coram, the honestest, 
 the most disinterested, and the most knowing person about the plantations 
 I ever talked with." 
 
 Coxe's Life of Sir Robert Walpole, vol. III., page 243.
 
 103 
 
 the treaty, whereby Nova Scotia was- surrendered to 
 Great Britain, anno, 1710, being all papist, would be 
 faithful to your Majesty's interest, in case of a war 
 between Great Britain and France. 
 
 "Your memorialist, therefore, most humbly con- 
 ceives that it would be highly conducive to the 
 interests of this kingdom, to settle, without loss of 
 time, a competent number of industrious protestant 
 families in the said province, which is the northern 
 frontier of your Majesty's dominions in America, 
 under a civil government to be established by your 
 Majesty, conformable in all its branches, as near as 
 may be to the constitution of England, which seems 
 the most probable, if not the only means of peopleing 
 this province, which experience shows could not be 
 effected under the military government that hath been 
 exercised there upward of twenty-four years past, and 
 of giving effectual encouragement to the cod-fishery, 
 that valuable branch of British commerce, which hath 
 declined very much of late years, in proportion as 
 the French have advanced therein. 
 
 "Your memorialist further begs leave to observe 
 that the French are masters of the best salt in the 
 world for curing fish, whereas the English are obliged 
 to have what salt they use from foreign dominions, 
 which make it highly necessary to secure a perpetual 
 supply of salt in your Majesty's dominions in America, 
 that we may not depend on a precarious supply of 
 that commodity from the dominions of other princes. 
 And your memorialist humbly conceives that the 
 Island of Exuma, which is one of the Bahamas, would
 
 104 
 
 afford sufficient quantities of salt for all your Majesty's 
 subjects in North America, provided Cat Island, 
 another of the Bahamas, lying to windward of Exuma, 
 was well settled and put in such a posture, as to be 
 able to cover Exuma and protect the salt rakers from 
 the depredations of the Spaniards of Baracoa (the 
 settling of Cat Island would be otherwise vastly 
 advantageous to the Crown), and provided the 
 unreasonable demand of the tenth of all salt raked 
 there be abolished, for want of which encouragements, 
 the salt ponds of Exuma have hitherto been useless to 
 to the public. 
 
 "To these purposes your memorialist humbly lays 
 the annexed petition to your Majesty's feet, and begs 
 leave to add that there are several honourable and 
 worthy persons ready to accept and act in the trust 
 therein described, if your Majesty shall be pleased to 
 grant your Royal Letters Patent for that purpose. 
 
 " Wherefore he most humbly prays your Majesty 
 to order that this memorial, together with the petition 
 hereunto annexed, and whatever your memorialist 
 shall have occasion further to offer, concerning the 
 same, may be taken into consideration, and that your 
 Majesty will be graciously pleased to do therein as 
 your Majesty in your great wisdom and goodness shall 
 seem proper. 
 
 " And he will ever pray, &c., &c. 
 
 "THOMAS CORAM." 
 
 Accompanying this memorial, was a petition from 
 more than one hundred "labouring handicraftsmen,
 
 105 
 
 whose respective trades and callings were overstocked 
 by great numbers of artizans and workmen who 
 resort from all parts of the metropolis, whereby the 
 petitioners were unable to procure sufficient to main- 
 tain themselves and families." They further set forth 
 " that to avoid extreme want, and escape the tempta- 
 tions which alway attend poverty, they were desirous 
 of being settled securely in some of the plantations of 
 America." The petitioners then state the advantages 
 of the uncultivated tracts of land in the province of 
 Nova Scotia, and pray that they may have the grant 
 of a free passage thither, and when there be protected, 
 their persons and properties by a civil government as 
 near as may be to the constitution of England. 
 
 Captain Coram's memorial was referred to the 
 Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 
 before whom he appeared on several occasions between 
 the years 1735 and 1737, and both verbally and in 
 writing submitted the most satisfactory and elaborate 
 evidence of the propriety and expediency of his pro- 
 posal, and the laws by which the colony should be 
 maintained and governed, so as to draw the following 
 approval from the Lords Commissioners, addressed to 
 to the Privy Council, dated 22nd April, 1737. 
 
 "The settlement of Nova Scotia with English 
 inhabitants is of very great consequence to his 
 Majesty's interest in America, and to the interest of 
 this kingdom, from its situation with regard to the 
 French, and from the fishery now carried on at Conso, 
 and the several branches of naval stores that province 
 is capable of producing, when once it shall be settled,
 
 106 
 
 as we have several times represented to his Majesty 
 and to your lordships, particularly in our report of the 
 7th June, 1727; and therefore, we think it very much 
 for his Majesty's service, to give all possible encourage- 
 ment to any undertaking for this purpose, especially 
 when attended with so great an appearance and 
 probability of success as that of Mr. Coram's now 
 under our consideration." 
 
 Although the object which Captain Coram had in 
 this matter was postponed for several years owing 
 to political changes and hindrances, yet, before he 
 died, he had the satisfaction of seeing the full 
 development of his plans, in regard to this now 
 valuable colony. 
 
 What further relates to this great and good man, 
 and of the different measures which were the objects 
 of his laborious and useful life, cannot be communi- 
 cated more appropriately than in the language of 
 Dr. Brocklesby, his most intimate friend, who, 
 soon after the death of Coram, thus delineated his 
 character. 
 
 " The tribute of praise is due to every virtue due 
 in proportion to the excellence and extent of that 
 virtue to which it is paid ; and consequently, public 
 spirit, which is of all virtues the most conducive to 
 the good of society, deserves as high returns of 
 public gratitude and respect as can possibly be given. 
 This is the rather incumbent on every community 
 where conspicuous instances of this kind appear, 
 because it is indeed the only reward adequate to 
 their merit, and the best method of propagating the
 
 107 
 
 example ; for what can so properly, or so potently 
 excite public spirit, as the sense of its begetting 
 public love 1 The most illustrious of all good 
 qualities ought certainly to be honoured with the 
 noblest testimony of affection and esteem. 
 
 " There may, indeed, be some kind of restraint, 
 some check upon our zeal during the life of the 
 party, from an apprehension that praise might be 
 mistaken for flattery, and that instead of promoting 
 a general sense of the good man's virtue, it might 
 be the means of exposing him to envy. But when 
 a man is dead, praise is less suspected ; and those 
 who would have listened very unwillingly to his 
 commendations when living, will be the first to ap- 
 plaud and support it when he is no more. Whatever 
 prejudices he had to combat, whatever opposition 
 was v formed to his designs, while he was busy in 
 the pursuit, the man of public spirit is no sooner at 
 rest from his labours and his life (which always 
 end together), than the sentiments of the public are 
 united on his behalf, and all attend with pleasure to 
 the recital of those actions of the dead, which the 
 living will find difficult to imitate. 
 
 " The late Captain Thomas Coram, now gone to his 
 grave in a good old age, with the universal regret 
 of the knowing and upright part of mankind, was a 
 person whose merit and virtues were so extraordinary, 
 exerted with such vigour, and with so great constancy 
 for the benefit of society, that an attempt to raise 
 some little monument to his memory cannot fail of 
 being well received by the public, whose servant he
 
 108 
 
 was for upwards of forty years before his death, 
 without any other wages than the honest satisfaction 
 he felt in doing good and discharging his duty ; and 
 will, at the same time, furnish a pleasing employment 
 to one who loved him from the contemplation of his 
 singular character, and for that rugged integrity 
 which distinguished him exceedingly in the present 
 age, and which would have done him no small honour 
 even in better times. An abler hand might have 
 easily undertaken the task, but none could perform it 
 with a better will. 
 
 "He was born about the year 1668, bred in the 
 sea-service, and spent the first part of his life in the 
 station of master of a vessel trading to our colonies, 
 by which he gained a perfect acquaintance with that 
 commerce which is of so great consequence, and 
 produces so great profit to this nation. He acquired 
 very early, a sincere and warm attachment to the 
 true interests of his country had a real concern for 
 them, and did not affect public spirit to cover any 
 private views. His experience was his principal 
 guide and from thence he learned to consider rational 
 liberty, active industry, and unblemished probity, as 
 the only principles upon which national prosperity 
 could be built ; and to these, therefore, he gave his 
 loudest voice and his most earnest endeavours. Free 
 from all hypocrisy, he spoke what he thought with 
 vehemence. But his zeal did not rest in words ; it 
 was no less visible in his actions : so that not 
 contented with wishing well to his country, and serving 
 it faithfully in his private and particular capacity, he
 
 109 
 
 ventured to step out of the common road, and 
 exerted himself in favour of many projects, from no 
 other motive than their being of general utility. 
 
 " It may create some wonder, that without any 
 other qualifications than these, Captain Coram should 
 undertake to form schemes considerable for their 
 extent, and very important in their intentions ; and 
 still more wonderful that he should procure, from 
 men of great abilities and long acquaintance with 
 business, an approbation of these schemes, and carry 
 them at length into execution, by dint of unwearied 
 application, and a perseverance that nothing could 
 delay, disturb, or destroy. But this he certainly did, 
 and that without any act but that of disclaiming it 
 without any address beyond that of showing the 
 advantages which the public would reap from his 
 projects he actually brought them, sooner or later, 
 to bear, is a position so well supported by facts, that, 
 though it is a little improbable, it must be believed. 
 
 " But if he wanted certain accomplishments if he 
 was deficient in some things which are thought 
 necessary to form a successful solicitor, he had certain 
 talents that supplied these defects. He had an honesty 
 that, though it was a little rough, carried such apparent 
 marks of its being genuine, that those who conversed 
 with him but a little, lost all apprehensions of being 
 deceived ; and if this did not give him an easier 
 entrance, it certainly procured him an earlier confidence 
 than would have resulted from a more polished 
 behaviour. His arguments were nervous, though 
 not nice founded commonly upon facts, and the
 
 110 
 
 consequences that he drew, so closely connected 
 with them, as to need no further proof than a fair 
 explanation. When once he made an impression, he 
 took care it should not wear out ; for he enforced it 
 continually by the most pathetic remonstrances. In 
 short, his logic was plain sense ; his eloquence, the 
 natural language of the heart. 
 
 " When the possession of Nova Scotia was first 
 recovered to the crown of Great Britain by force of 
 arms, and secured afterwards by a treaty of peace, 
 Captain Coram very early saw the consequence that 
 this province was of to the natural interest of this 
 nation and her colonies. He was, therefore, very 
 eager and very earnest to have it thoroughly settled, 
 which, if once done, he very well knew, that the 
 advantages arising from agriculture, fishing, and trade, 
 for which, from the richness of its soil, the convenience 
 of its coasts, and the multiplicity of its harbours, it was 
 admirably adapted, would make the value of it quickly 
 known. In this, if he had not the good fortune which 
 he expected and deserved, he was totaUy disappointed ; 
 and, at the same time, had the pleasure to perceive 
 that the more his notions were attended to, and the 
 closer they were examined, the plainer and more 
 probable they appeared ; so that the utility of his 
 scheme was acknowledged in a much greater degree 
 than was, at that time of day, held expedient to carry 
 it into execution. 
 
 " But as plans for the public service, well laid, 
 though they sleep for a long time, seldom fail of 
 waking at last, when, through a train of unlooked-for
 
 Ill 
 
 accidents and unexpected events, administrations are 
 roused to attention, so, before his death, he had the 
 satisfaction of seeing his old scheme revived, and this 
 province, which had been so long neglected, owned 
 and considered in that light in which he had long 
 before placed it. This must certainly have given him 
 great consolation, more especially when he perceived 
 that it was carried on under the auspice of a noble 
 person nearly allied to him in sentiment, and who had 
 no other motive to that care and concern which he 
 has shown for this rising colony but his affection 
 to his country, and to whatever may contribute to 
 strengthen her extensive empire, and secure the con- 
 tinuance of that prosperity which she derives from 
 naval power, and settlements well placed and worthily 
 directed. 
 
 " May such noble attempts meet with that success 
 they deserve ! May this country, so well situated, be 
 thoroughly peopled and effectually cultivated ! May 
 protestants from every climate meet therein with a 
 happy retreat from all kinds of oppression, and, by 
 the help of their own industry, under the protection 
 of the British Government, acquire a comfortable 
 assistance, which they will never want spirit to 
 defend ! 
 
 " He was highly instrumental in promoting another 
 good design a design equally beneficial to Britain at 
 home, and British subjects abroad, which coalition of 
 interests is a thing always to be wished, and may, as 
 in this case actually it was, be without much difficulty 
 accomplished. The design here intended was the
 
 112 
 
 procuring a bounty upon naval stores imported from 
 the colonies a matter of vast advantage to the 
 mother country, as it freed her from the necessity 
 of dependence upon foreigners for commodities of 
 essential consequence to her strength, and even to her 
 safety, as it prevented the purchasing them with ready 
 money, which was, in effect, saving so much treasure, 
 and, as it exempted her from many difficulties which 
 she had often felt, and from the apprehension of 
 which she could not otherwise be delivered points, 
 one would imagine, of so serious a nature, as, if once 
 proposed, to command the strictest attention, and the 
 truth of which, once known, from a close examination, 
 never to be let slip out of memory. The design was 
 likewise of infinite benefit to the colonies, because it 
 afforded the means of enriching them by return from 
 Britain, which, though nature furnished them with 
 the commodities, they could not otherwise have had. 
 It removed impediments that had long subsisted it 
 opened a way for improvement, that, though often 
 wished for, could not but with the assistance of this 
 method be attempted ; and it converted into value 
 and use, lands and timber that would otherwise have 
 produced nothing. To the inhabitants of the colonies, 
 therefore, there could be nothing more satisfactory 
 hardly anything so advantageous. But though this is 
 saying a great deal, yet it is not all. 
 
 "As salutary and as profitable as this measure 
 might be, considered in these distinct lights, yet its 
 worth was heightened, its importance raised, and its 
 utility demonstrated from another consideration, which
 
 113 
 
 was, its uniting the mother country and her daughters 
 in those points of interest which ought to be emi- 
 nently dear to both. At the same time that it freed 
 Great Britain from depending upon foreigners, it 
 made her sensibly feel the support she received from 
 her plantations ; and while the colonies reaped a just 
 return of profit from this assistance, they were, at the 
 same time more closely connected, and taught to 
 discover the strong and inseparable ties by which 
 they were bound to the mother country. These 
 were the undeniable consequences of Captain Coram's 
 project, and which will do eternal honour to his 
 memory : they were the true and only motives to 
 that ardour with which he pursued it. Enthusiasm 
 was natural to his constitution ; but it was a political 
 enthusiasm of the most noble kind it was that of 
 laying out all his faculties for the public good. 
 
 " But we must not imagine that this gentleman's 
 knowledge of and love for the colonies carried him, 
 in any degree, out of that path which a true Briton 
 ought to tread. He loved the daughters dearly ; but 
 he loved them as daughters, and therefore could not 
 brook the least disrespect or disobedience in them 
 towards their parent. The hatters, a very industrious 
 and a very useful body of our manufacturers, thought 
 themselves, with reason, aggrieved by the method 
 taken, in some of the plantations, to interfere with 
 their trade at foreign markets. Captain Coram no 
 sooner heard of this complaint, than he examined it 
 attentively and impartially, and when he perceived 
 that it was founded in right, he espoused it with 
 
 i
 
 114 
 
 spirit, he prosecuted it with diligence, and he obtained 
 for that laborious and indefatigable people all the 
 redress they could expect. They would have acknow- 
 ledged this service by a grateful and handsome return ; 
 but Captain Coram had a notion, that if a man's hands 
 were not empty, they could not long be clean : he had 
 a just sense of their gratitude, but did not care to 
 have it expressed by any other present than that of 
 a hat, which he received as often as he had occasion, 
 and, which, in its size, spoke the good wishes of the 
 makers in a very legible charater. 
 
 "In his private life, this gentleman showed the 
 same probity, the same cheerfulness, the same frank- 
 ness, the same warmth, and the same affection that 
 he discovered in matters which respected the public ; 
 so that, as a master and as a husband, he acted 
 upon the same principles that he would have certainly 
 shown if he had been raised to any conspicuous station 
 of life. It is necessary to mention this, that the 
 uniformity of his conduct may appear, which is the 
 truest method of judging of men's real characters, so 
 as to leave no scruple or doubt upon the minds even 
 of the most cautious enquirers. Beheld in this light, 
 there could not well be conceived a man of greater 
 simplicity of manners. What he thought, he spoke ; 
 what he wished, he declared without hesitation, 
 pursued without relaxation or disguise, and never 
 considered obstacles any farther than to discover 
 means to surmount them. 
 
 "While he lived in that part of this metropolis 
 which is the common residence of seafaring people,
 
 115 
 
 he used to come early into the city, and return late, 
 according as his business required his presence ; 
 and both these circumstances afforded him frequent 
 occasions of seeing young children exposed, sometimes 
 alive, sometimes dead, and sometimes dying, which 
 affected him extremely. The reader cannot wonder at 
 this ; for a public-spirited man is always humane : and 
 he who is inclined to wear out his life in rendering 
 services to his fellow-subjects, will naturally have the 
 most tender feeling for the sufferings of his fellow- 
 creatures. This was precisely Mr. Coram's case : he 
 saw this calamity in its proper light, and, like an 
 honest and worthy man, thought it would do honour 
 to the nation to show a public spirit of compassion 
 for children thus deserted, through the indigence or 
 cruelty of their parents, and the rather because this 
 was already done in other countries. 
 
 "He began, in respect to this design, as he did 
 in all others, with making it the topic of his conver- 
 sation, that he might learn the sentiments of other 
 men, and from thence form some notion whether 
 what he had in view was practicable. It was not 
 long before he concluded in the affirmative, and, upon 
 frequent trials, he found that there were numbers of 
 all ranks of his sentiments, and not a few who thought 
 it a shame, that a charity so obvious, so useful, and so 
 necessary, should have been so long neglected. This 
 pleased him extremely, and he undertook, with the 
 greatest alacrity possible, to bring so noble, so benefi- 
 cent, so charitable, so national, and so Christian an 
 undertaking to bear, by procuring for it the sanction
 
 116 
 
 of public authority. But, alas ! he found his expecta- 
 tions strangely disappointed by an infinity of cross 
 accidents that would certainly have wearied out the 
 patience of a man whose resolution had not been equal 
 to the vehemence of his temper. To this circumstance 
 Mr. Coram opposed an unrelenting perseverance, aris- 
 ing from a well-founded persuasion, that if the design 
 was not carried into execution by him, it might for a 
 long time, perhaps for ever, remain abortive. 
 
 "This laudable, this invincible obstinacy, carried 
 him through seventeen years of labour, which scarce 
 any other man would have supported for seventeen 
 months, if his own private fortune had been the basis 
 of his pursuit. In this space, the opinion of the 
 public had been frequently declared on his side ; and 
 several persons of sound sense and enlarged minds 
 actually bequeathed considerable sums to this charity, 
 when it should have a legal authority, which was the 
 highest testimony they could possibly bear of their 
 sense of its utility. Our advocate for the helpless and 
 the unborn left no stone unturned, let no opportunity 
 slip, but continued to solicit where he had no interest, 
 with as much ardour and anxiety as if every deserted 
 child had been his own, and the cause of the un- 
 founded Hospital that of his family. His arguments 
 moved some the natural humanity of their own 
 temper more his firm and generous example most 
 of all ; and even people of rank began to be ashamed 
 to see a man's hair become grey in the course of a 
 solicitation by which he was to get nothing. Those 
 who did not enter far enough into the case to com-
 
 117 
 
 passionate the unhappy infants for whom he was a 
 suitor, could not help pitying him, or indeed forbear 
 admiring a virtue so much more worthy of respect, 
 considering the age in which it was exerted a virtue 
 which would have done honour to the most virtuous 
 nations in the most virtuous periods a virtue that 
 made an impression even on such as thought it in- 
 comprehensible. But however it was, an impression 
 it made, and a general disposition appeared in favour 
 of this charity. It is, however, doubtful what effect 
 this would have had, or how soon that effect might 
 have been produced, if it had any. 
 
 " But this good man, whose head was fertile in 
 expedients, bethought himself at last of applying to 
 the ladies. He knew their nature, he knew their in- 
 fluence, and soon found that he was in the right road. 
 They did not listen much to his arguments, for the 
 sweetness of their own tempers supplied a tenderness 
 that rendered arguments unnecessary. They con- 
 curred with Mr. Coram in his design, and they con- 
 curred in his own way. They were earnest, assiduous, 
 and sincere, and manifested a greater eagerness to 
 do good than the most self-interested dare avow in 
 pursuits upon their own account. This answered its 
 end ; and, by the help of these auxiliaries, Mr. Coram 
 was enabled to procure a charter, to prevent the most 
 infamous of all murders, because the most unnatural, 
 and which will supply thousands of useful subjects to 
 the crown of Great Britain a charter which did 
 honour to the great seal, and spoke, in a literal sense, 
 that prince whose stamp it bore the father of his
 
 118 
 
 people, as he was before confessed in every other sense 
 whatever. 
 
 "On Tuesday, November 20th, 1739, was held at 
 Somerset House, the first general meeting of the 
 nobility and gentry, appointed by his Majesty's Eoyal 
 charter to be Governors and Guardians of the Hospital 
 for the maintenance and education of exposed and 
 deserted young children, to hear their charter read, 
 and to appoint their Secretary and a Committee. 
 Previous to the reading of the charter, Captain 
 Coram, the petitioner for the charter, addressed his 
 Grace the Duke of Bedford, the President, in the 
 following manner :-- 
 
 " 'My Lord Duke of Bedford, 
 
 'It is with inexpressible pleasure I now present 
 your Grace, at the head of this noble and honourable 
 corporation, with his Majesty's royal charter, for 
 establishing an Hospital for exposed children, free 
 of all expense, through the assistance of some com- 
 passionate great ladies, and other good persons. 
 
 ' I can, my lord, sincerely aver, that nothing would 
 have induced me to embark in a design so full of 
 difficulties and discouragements, but a zeal for the 
 service of his Majesty, in preserving the lives of 
 great numbers of his innocent subjects. 
 
 ' The long and melancholy experience of this nation 
 has too demonstrably shewn, with what barbarity 
 tender infants have been exposed and destroyed, for 
 want of proper means of preventing the disgrace, and 
 succouring the necessities of their parents.
 
 119 
 
 ' The charter will disclose the extensive nature and 
 end of this Charity, in much stronger terms than I 
 can possibly pretend to describe them, so that I have 
 only to thank your Grace and many other noble 
 personages, for all that favourable protection which 
 hath given life and spirit to my endeavours. 
 
 'My Lord, although my declining years will not 
 permit me to hope seeing the full accomplishment of 
 my wishes, yet I can now rest satisfied, and it is what 
 I esteem an ample reward of more than seventeen 
 years expensive labour and steady application, that I 
 see your Grace at the head of this charitable trust, 
 assisted by so many noble and honourable Governors. 
 
 'Under such powerful influences and directions, I 
 am confident of the final success of my endeavours, 
 and that the public will one day reap the happy and 
 lasting fruits of your Grace's and this Corporation's 
 measures, and as long as my life and poor abilities 
 endure, I shall not abate of my zealous wishes and 
 most active services for the good and prosperity of 
 this truly noble and honourable Corporation.' 
 
 " After the charter was read, Dr. Mead, in the most 
 pathetic manner, set forth the necessity of such an 
 Hospital, and the vast advantages that must accrue 
 to the nation by this useful establishment, which 
 was received with universal approbation, because 
 nobody could entertain the least doubt of the truth 
 or certainty of what the Doctor said. 
 
 "At a subsequent Court, the same learned person 
 moved, that the thanks of the Corporation might be 
 given to Mr. Thomas Coram, for his indefatigable
 
 120 
 
 and successful applications in favour of this charity, 
 which otherwise would have wanted a legal founda- 
 tion. It may be easily supposed, that the good old 
 man was not insensible on receiving the only reward 
 of which his labours were capable. But he was just, as 
 well as generous, and would not take more to himself 
 
 O ' 
 
 than he deserved. He therefore desired that the 
 thanks of the Corporation might be likewise given 
 to the ladies,"* through whose assistance his own 
 endeavours became effectual, and he was accordingly 
 empowered to return them the thanks of that honour- 
 able body, which was an additional pleasure to a mind 
 sincere and grateful like his. 
 
 " Time and accidents could make but little altera- 
 tion in his temper. The motives from which he first 
 espoused this charity, kept him always attached to 
 its interests ; he often visited the Hospital, and saw 
 the children rescued from misery by his care and 
 compassion, with as much pleasure and tenderness as 
 if they had been his own, as indeed in some sense they 
 were. He beheld the lists of benefactors with more 
 pleasure than a miser regards those of his securities. 
 He had the same delight in perceiving the quick 
 progress of this excellent establishment, as a man 
 
 * Even in the case of the " ladies" he had sometimes to encounter difficulties. 
 Attached to a memorial addressed "To H. R. H. the Princess Amelia," now 
 lodged at the Hospital, is the following note : 
 
 "On Innocents' Day, the 28th of December, 1737, I went to St. James's 
 Palace to present this petition, having been advised first to address the lady 
 of the bed- chamber in waiting to introduce it. But the Lady Isabella Finch, 
 who was the lady in waiting, gave me very rough words, and bid me gone 
 with my petition, which I did, without opportunity of presenting it."
 
 121 
 
 of another turn would have felt from the improvement 
 of his own estate. This was peculiar to his character 
 this was the ruling passion of his mind this was 
 the elixir that kept him from feeling the frowns of 
 fortune in the winter of his age. Wrapt in that cloak 
 of public spirit, which, though worn for so many 
 years, never grew threadbare, he heard those storms 
 whistle around him, unmoved, which would have 
 frighted a person of ordinary courage out of his wits. 
 "For the truth is, honest reader, and I must not 
 conceal it, that this worthy man, who could feel so 
 much for others, felt but little for himself. After he 
 lost his wife, the only loss for which he ever showed 
 much regret, he was so attentive to public affairs, as 
 to be a little too careless of his own, insomuch, that he 
 might have known even this evil, which no man could 
 have known, while it was in his power to relieve. 
 But his friend Mr. Gideon, who loved him for loving 
 the public, interposed, and obtained a subscription for 
 his comfortable support, towards which, His Royal 
 Highness the late Prince of Wales subscribed twenty 1 
 guineas per annum, and paid it with as much punctu- 1 A*.. 
 ality as any of the rest of the subscribers, who were 
 most of them merchants ; and upon this friendly 
 assistance which he lived to want, but not to ask, he 
 subsisted for some time, which gave him an opportunity 
 to form new schemes of the same kind with those he 
 had executed already ; schemes full of goodness, and 
 which had a tendency to spread the influence of 
 Britain, and to expand the nation's glory in a like 
 degree.
 
 122 
 
 "The reader may be surprised and indeed his 
 surprise will be very excusable that a person whose 
 worth and services were so well known should be 
 left to such distress, and that in a country where the 
 public pays so much to place-men, no notice should 
 be taken of a man who deserved a place so weU as 
 Mr. Coram did. But first of all it must be considered, 
 that though the public discharge the expense of many, 
 yet their choice is asked in filling very few places. 
 Our hero had, indeed, very great qualities, but they 
 were far from being well turned for anything of this 
 kind. He who had spent his life in soliciting for 
 others, could not speak a word for himself. It is, 
 therefore, no wonder that he was not provided for. 
 Dumb men are not fit for places. But if the reader 
 enquires why he did not speak, the answer may not 
 be difficult. Men of true public spirit are, of all 
 others, the most ashamed to ask private favours. In 
 others it would be pride, in them it is the effect of 
 principle. It may be said, then, a place should have 
 been given him. To this there can be no reply ; yet, 
 perhaps, it may be some excuse to say, that, while a 
 multitude of claims are put in for every place, we 
 have no reason to be amazed, that a man who would 
 never ask should always be forgot. 
 
 "But Providence provided for him, and he had a 
 comfortable subsistence to the last, by a method that 
 he did not, nor indeed could take amiss. He was 
 maintained by the voluntary subscription"' 5 ' of men of 
 
 * On Dr. Brocklesby applying to Captain Coram, to know whether a
 
 123 
 
 public spirit : this was an honour to them, and an 
 honour to him. Had his distress been generally 
 known, he might, no doubt, have been more amply 
 provided for ; but this was what he did not want, 
 and what he would never seek. He was content 
 with a little pleased with being his own master, 
 and with having the liberty to employ his thoughts, 
 to the end of his life, in the same manner that they 
 had been employed from the beginning in contriving 
 for the public benefit ; for whatever his circumstances 
 were, his heart could never be narrow. 
 
 " His last design, now left an orphan to the public 
 care, which it well deserves, was a scheme for uniting 
 the Indians in North America more closely to the 
 British interest, by an establishment for the education 
 of Indian girls. This is, indeed, a very political 
 contrivance ; for if the girls be brought up in Christian 
 principles, we have just grounds to hope indeed, we 
 have no reason to doubt that the Indian children, of 
 both sexes, in the next generation, will be brought up 
 Christians. This would be a refined stroke of policy; 
 for he is the wisest and ablest of all politicians who, 
 by promoting the glory of God, interests the Divine 
 
 subscription being opened for his benefit would not offend him, he received 
 this noble answer : " I have not wasted the little wealth of which I was 
 formerly possessed in self-indulgence and vain expenses, and am not ashamed 
 to confess that, in this my old age, I am poor." 
 
 Upon the death of Coram, this pension was continued to poor old Leveridge, 
 for whose volume of songs Hogarth had, in 1727, engraved a title-page and 
 frontispiece, and who, at the age of ninety, had scarcely any other prospect 
 than that of a parish subsistence. John Ireland.
 
 124 
 
 Providence in extending the power of any nation. 
 We know in how wonderful a manner the gospel 
 was propagated ; and we may confidently expect, that 
 when this is sincerely the aim of any government, the 
 same assistance will not be wanting : for whatever 
 men may do, the great Author of all things never 
 alters his maxims, and to follow them is the most 
 infallible method of securing, might we not say 
 commanding, success. May this charitable and pious 
 purpose, in which he lived long enough to make some 
 progress, be completed in virtue of his proposal ; and 
 let the benighted Indians in America join with the 
 deserted Foundlings in Britain in blessing the memory 
 of this worthy man, by which a provision was made 
 that they should come to the knowledge of truth, and 
 of the means of making themselves happy here by 
 their industry, and by their piety, hereafter. 
 
 " If it had been in our power to have taken notice 
 of all the other instances he gave of beneficence, 
 fortitude, and love for society, which are the true 
 virtues of a patriot, this little work would swell to 
 a volume. What is here said, therefore, must be 
 regarded as an imperfect and hasty sketch of his 
 character, which however may, from its intention, 
 rather than performance, be agreeable to his friends, 
 and may perhaps serve, in some measure, to excite 
 in others a desire of imitating so amiable an example ; 
 for who that has any respect for virtue, any appetite 
 to laudable and spotless fame the noblest purchase 
 that human industry can make can be insensible to 
 that just and general concern which the best and
 
 125 
 
 worthiest men in this metropolis have shown for the 
 loss of Captain Coram, or that readiness with which 
 they have expressed their approbation of his conduct, 
 and the voluntary testimonies they have given to his 
 merit and services. These are things that will affect 
 those who are above the common pursuits of the 
 world, who seek not either tinsel grandeur or the 
 embarrassment of riches, but yet are far from leading 
 a life of indolence, or disclaiming all pretensions to 
 that glory which is so properly the reward of virtue, 
 that it can attend to nothing else. 
 
 " This singular and memorable man exchanged this 
 life for a better, and passed from doing to enjoying 
 good, on Friday, March 29th, 1751, in the four-score 
 and fourth year of his age, making it his last request, 
 that his corpse might be interred in the Chapel of the 
 Foundling Hospital, which shows he had that excellent 
 foundation at his heart, when all things that regarded 
 this world besides were out of his thoughts a 
 circumstance that demonstrates the steadiness of his 
 affection, and the happiness he had of what he had 
 done for this place, when he was on the point of going 
 where pious and charitable actions afford the highest 
 recommendations- -where his merit in that and other 
 respects will be fully known and fully rewarded. 
 
 " Accordingly, on Wednesday, the 3rd of April, 
 agreeable to his request, his remains were interred 
 in the Chapel of this Hospital, his pall supported by 
 six, and his funeral attended by a great number of 
 the honourable and worthy persons who are Governors 
 of this useful charity, and who manifested, upon this
 
 126 
 
 melancholy occasion, that sincere regard for the 
 deceased, and the pleasure they took in paying this 
 deserved respect to his memory a ceremony which, 
 joined to the high reputation and numerous ac- 
 quaintance of the deceased, could not have failed 
 of attracting abundance of public-spirited persons, 
 desirous of giving this last mark of their esteem 
 for a man of Mr. Coram's worth, and who, through 
 the progress of a long life, had shown himself a 
 laudable as well as active member of society. 
 
 "But the concourse was much increased, and the 
 solemnity of the funeral greatly heightened, by the 
 voluntary appearance of the choir of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, who were at the Hospital, ready in their 
 surplices to receive the body, and who performed, 
 with the universal approbation of a crowded and 
 distinguished audience, a grave and noble piece of 
 music, suitable to the sad occasion, and which, with 
 the genuine testimonies of sorrow, not to be sup- 
 pressed, did all the honour to this good man that 
 even the piety and affection of his friends could 
 expect. The Governors of the Hospital have it also 
 in their intention to raise a suitable monument, 
 though, indeed, the Hospital itself may be so styled, 
 that posterity may be the better acquainted with 
 his virtues, and their gratitude. 
 
 " Let me be permitted to conclude, with what 
 may add some degree of merit to this little piece, 
 deficient enough in other respects, the words made 
 use of by a friend of his, in the paragraph which 
 gave the first hint to this performance, and which
 
 127 
 
 is, indeed, a true character of Mr. Thomas Coram 
 in a very few words : 
 
 " ' That when others are remembered by titles and 
 adulations, his shall be nobler fame to have lived 
 above the fear of everything but an unworthy action' " 
 
 The following Inscription, cut in stone, is placed 
 in the southern arcade of the Chapel. 
 
 "CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM. 
 
 whose name will never want a monument 
 so long as this Hospital shall subsist, 
 
 was born in the year 1668 ; 
 a man eminent in the most eminent virtue, 
 
 the love of mankind ; 
 
 little attentive to his private fortune, 
 
 and refusing many opportunities of increasing it, 
 
 his time and thoughts were continually employed 
 
 in endeavours to promote the public happiness, 
 
 both in this kingdom and elsewhere ; 
 particularly in the Colonies of North America ; 
 and his endeavours were many times crowned 
 
 with the desired success. 
 
 His unwearied solicitation, for above seventeen years together 
 (which would have baffled the patience and industry 
 
 of any man less zealous in doing good), 
 
 and his application to persons of distinction, of both sexes, 
 
 obtained at length the Charter of the Incorporation 
 
 (bearing date the 17th of October, 1739), 
 
 for the maintenance and education 
 of exposed and deserted young children, 
 
 by which many thousands of lives 
 
 may be preserved to the public, and employed in a frugal 
 and honest course of industry.
 
 128 
 
 He died the 29th March, 1751, in the 84th of his age ; 
 
 poor in worldly estate, rich in good works : 
 
 and was buried at his own desire, in the Vault underneath this 
 
 Chapel (the first there deposited) at the east end thereof, 
 
 many of the Governors and other gentlemen 
 attending the funeral to do honour to his memory, 
 
 Reader, 
 
 Thy actions will show whether thou art sincere 
 
 in the praises thou may'st bestow on him ; 
 
 and if thou hast virtue enough to commend his virtues, 
 
 forget not to add also the intimation of them." 
 
 There is in front of the Hospital a fine Statue 
 of the Founder, 
 
 BY WILLIAM CALDER MARSHALL, R.A.
 
 129 
 
 CATALOGUE OF PICTUKES, Ac. 
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 
 
 HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 
 
 "And the angel of the Lord called to Hagar out 
 of heaven, and said to her, What aileth thee, Hagar ? 
 Fear not ; for God hath heard the voice of the lad 
 where he is." 
 
 BY HIGHMORE. 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN BROUGHT TO CHRIST. 
 
 " Jesus said, Suffer little children to come unto me, 
 and forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 BY JAMES WILLS. 
 
 THE FINDING OF THE INFANT MOSES IN THE 
 BULL-RUSHES. 
 
 "And the maid went and . called the child's mother. 
 And Pharodh's daughter said unto her, Take this 
 child and nurse it up for me, and I will give thee thy 
 wages" 
 
 BY FRANCIS H ATM AN, R.A. 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 MOSES BROUGHT TO PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " And the child grew, and she brought him unto 
 Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she 
 called his name Moses" 
 
 BY HOGARTH. 
 
 "The subject of this picture," says Nichols, "is 
 taken at the point of time when the child's mother, 
 whom the princess considers as merely its nurse, has 
 brought him to his patroness, and is receiving from 
 the treasurer the wages of her services. 
 
 " The little foundling naturally clings to his nurse 
 though invited to leave her by the daughter of a 
 monarch ; and the eyes of an attendant and a 
 whispering Ethiopian, convey an oblique suspicion 
 that the child has a nearer affinity to their mistress 
 than she chooses to acknowledge." 
 
 On each side of these large pictures are smaller 
 ones, of a circular form, representing the principal 
 Hospitals of the day, viz. : 
 
 GREENWICH HOSPITAL. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 
 ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL. 
 
 BY SAMUEL WALE, R.A. 
 
 CHELSEA AND BETHLEHEM HOSPITALS. 
 BY HAYTLEY,
 
 131 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE CHARTERHOUSE. 
 BY THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S HOSPITAL, AND FOUNDLING .HOSPITAL. 
 BY RICHARD WILSON, R.A. 
 
 Over the Mantle-piece of the Court Room is a 
 beautiful basso-relievo, 
 
 BY RYSBRACK, 
 
 representing children engaged in navigation and hus- 
 bandry, being the employments to which the children 
 of the Hospital were supposed to be destined. 
 
 The side table, of Grecian marble, is supported 
 by carved figures in wood, representing children 
 playing with a goat, and was presented by Mr. John 
 Sanderson (architect), who was employed with others 
 in the erection of the Hospital. 
 
 There are also two fine busts, in the Court Room, 
 casts from the Antique, one of Caracalla and the 
 other of Marcus Aurelius. They were given by 
 Mr. Richard Dalton, who held several important 
 offices connected with the arts, and was sent to Italy 
 by George III. to collect articles of vertu to enrich 
 His Majesty's collection. 
 
 The ornamented ceiling was done by Mr. Wilton, 
 the father of the eminent sculptor.
 
 132 
 
 THE MARCH TO FINCHLEY. 
 BY HOGARTH. 
 
 The following is considered the most authentic 
 account of this celebrated picture, and is .from the 
 pen of Mr. Justice Welsh, the intimate friend and 
 companion of Hogarth, 
 
 ''The scene of this representation is laid at Tot- 
 tenham Court Turnpike ; the King's Head, Adam 
 and Eve, and the turnpike house, in full view ; beyond 
 which are discovered, parties of the guards, baggage, 
 &c., marching towards Highgate, and a beautiful 
 distant prospect of the country ; the sky finely 
 painted. The picture, considered together, affords 
 a view of a military march, and the humours and 
 disorders consequent thereon. Near the centre of 
 the picture, the painter has exhibited his principal 
 figure, which is a handsome young grenadier, in 
 whose face is strongly depicted repentance mixed 
 with pity and concern ; the occasion of whicbs, is 
 disclosed by two females putting in their claim for 
 his person, one of whom has hold of his right arm, 
 and the other has seized his left. The figure upon 
 his right hand, and perhaps placed there by the 
 painter by way of preference, as the object of love 
 is more desirable than that of duty, is a fine young 
 girl in her person, debauched, with child, and reduced 
 to the miserable employ of selling ballads, and who, 
 with a look full of love, tenderness, and distress,
 
 133 
 
 casts up her eyes upon her undoer, and with tears 
 descending down her cheeks, seems to say, ' sure 
 you cannot will not leave me!' The person and 
 deportment of this figure well justifies the painter's 
 turning the body of the youth towards her. The 
 woman upon the left is a strong contrast to this 
 girl ; for rage and jealousy have thrown the human 
 countenance into no amiable or desirable form. This 
 is the wife of the youth, who, finding him engaged 
 with such an ugly slut, assaults him with a violence 
 natural to a woman whose person and beauty are 
 neglected. Added to the fury of her countenance, 
 and the dreadful weapon her tongue, another terror 
 appears in her hand, equally formidable, which is a roll 
 of papers, whereon is written 'The Eemembrancer ;' 
 a word of dire and tripple import ; for while it shows 
 the occupation the amiable bearer is engaged in, it 
 reminds the youth of an unfortunate circumstance he 
 would gladly forget ; and the same word is also a 
 cant expression to signify the blow she is meditating. 
 And here, I value myself upon hitting the true 
 meaning, and entering into the spirit of the great 
 aiithor of that celebrated Journal, called ' The 
 Remembrancer.' 
 
 " It is easily discernible that the two females are of 
 different parties. The ballad of ' God save our noble 
 King,' and a print of 'the Duke of Cumberland,' 
 in the basket of the girl, and the cross upon the back 
 of the wife, with the implements of her occupation, 
 sufficiently denote the painter's intention; and what 
 is truly beautiful, these incidents are applicable to
 
 134 
 
 the march. The hard-favoured sergeant directly 
 behind, who enjoys the foregoing scene, is not only a 
 good contrast to the youth, but also, with other helps, 
 throws forward the principal figure. Upon the right 
 of the grenadier is a drummer, who also has his two 
 remembrancers, a woman and a boy, the produce of 
 their kinder hours ; and who have laid their claim 
 by a violent seizure upon his person. The figure of 
 the woman is that of a complainant, who reminds 
 him of her great application, as well in sending him 
 clean to guard, as other kind offices done, and his 
 promises to make her an honest woman, which he, 
 base and ungrateful, has forgot, and pays her affection 
 with neglect. The craning of her neck shows her 
 remonstrances to be of the shrill kind, in which she 
 is aided by the howling of her boy. The drummer, 
 who has a mixture of fun and wickedness in his face, 
 having heard as many reproaches as suit his present 
 inclination, with a bite of his lip and a leering eye, 
 applies to the instrument of noise in his profession, 
 and endeavours to drown the united clamour, in which 
 he is luckily aided by the ear-piercing fife, near him. 
 
 "Between the figures before described, but more 
 back in the picture, appears the important but meagre 
 phiz of a Frenchman, in close whisper with an Inde- 
 pendent. The first, I suppose a spy upon the motion 
 of the army ; the other probably drawn into the 
 crowd, in order to give intelligence to his brethren, 
 at their next meeting, to commemorate their noble 
 struggle in support of independence. The Frenchman 
 exhibits a letter, which he assures him contains
 
 135 
 
 positive intelligence that ten thousand of his 
 countrymen are landed in England in support of 
 liberty and independence. The joy with which his 
 friend receives these glorious tidings, causes him to 
 forget the wounds upon his head, which he has 
 unluckily received by a too free and premature 
 declaration of his principles. There is a fine contrast 
 in a smile of innocence in the child at the woman's 
 back, compared with the grim joy of a gentleman by 
 it ; while the hard countenance of its mother gives a 
 delicacy to the grenadier's girl. Directly behind the 
 drummer's quondam spouse, a soldier is reclining 
 against a shed, near which is posted a quack-bill 
 of Dr. Rock ; and directly over him a wench at a 
 wicket is archly taking a view, both of the soldier 
 and of the march. Behind the drummer, under the 
 sign of the Adam and Eve, are a group of figures, 
 two of which are engaged in the fashionable art of 
 bruising ; their equal dexterity is shown by sewed-up 
 peepers on one side, and a pate well sconced on the 
 other. And here the painter has shown his impar- 
 tiality to the merit of our youths, (who, their minds 
 inflamed with a love of glory, appear, not only 
 encouragers of this truly laudable science, but many 
 of them are also great proficients in the art itself,) 
 by introducing a youth of quality, whose face is 
 expressive of those boisterous passions necessary to 
 form a hero of this kind ; and who, entering deep 
 into the scene, endeavours to inspire the combatants 
 with a noble contempt of bruises and broken bones. 
 An old woman, moved by a foolish compassion,
 
 136 
 
 endeavours to force through the crowd, aud part 
 the fray, in which design she is stopped by a fellow 
 who prefers fun and mischief to humanity. Above 
 their heads appears Jackey James, a cobbler, a little 
 man of meagre frame, but full of spirits, who enjoys, 
 the combat, and with fists clenched, in imagination 
 deals' blow for blow with the heroes. This figure is 
 finely contrasted by a heavy, sluggish fellow just 
 behind. The painter, with a stroke of humour 
 peculiar to himself, has exhibited a figure shrinking 
 under the load of a heavy box upon his back, who, 
 preferring curiosity to ease, is a spectator, and waits, 
 in this uneasy state, the issue of the combat. Upon 
 a board next the sign, where roots, flowers, &c., 
 were said to be sold, the painter has humourously 
 altered the words Tottenham Court Nursery, alluding 
 to a bruising booth then in that place, and the 
 group of figures underneath. 
 
 " Passing through the turnpike, appears a carriage 
 laden with the implements of war, as drums, halberds, 
 tent-poles and hoop-petticoats. Upon the carriage are 
 two old women-campaigners, funking their pipes, and 
 holding a conversation, as iisual, in fire and smoke. 
 The grotesque figures afford a fine contrast to a 
 delicate woman upon the same carriage, who is 
 suckling a child. This excellent figure evidently 
 proves, that the painter is as capable of succeeding 
 in the graceful style as in the humourous. A little 
 boy lies at the feet of this figure ; and the painter, 
 to show him of martial breed, has placed a small 
 trumpet in his mouth.
 
 137 
 
 "The serious group of the principal figures in the 
 centre is finely relieved by a scene of humour on the 
 left. Here an officer has seized a milk wench, and 
 is rudely kissing her. While the officer's ruffles 
 suffer in this action, the girl pays her price, by an 
 arch soldier, who, in her absence of attention to her 
 pails, is filling his hat with milk, and, by his 
 waggish eye, seems also to partake in the kissing 
 scene. A chimney-sweeper's boy, with glee, puts in 
 a request to the soldier, to supply him with a cap 
 full when his own turn is served ; while another 
 soldier points out the fun to a fellow selling pies, 
 who, with an inimitable face of simple joy, neglects 
 the care of his goods, which the soldier dexterously 
 removes with his other hand. In the figure of the 
 pieman the pencil has exceeded all power of descrip- 
 tion. The old soldier, divested of one spatterdash, 
 and near losing the other, is knocked down by all- 
 potent gin : upon calling for t'other cogue, his waggish 
 comrade, supporting him with one hand, endeavours 
 to pour water into his mouth with the other, which 
 the experienced old one rejects with disdain, puts 
 up his hand to his wife, who bears the arms and 
 gin-bottle, and who, well acquainted with his taste, 
 is filling a quartern. Here the painter exhibits a 
 sermon upon the excessive use of spirituous liquors, 
 and the destructive consequences attending it ; for 
 the soldier is not only rendered incapable of his 
 duty, but (what is shocking to behold) a child, with 
 an emaciated countenance, extends its little arms 
 with great earnestness, and wishes for that liquor
 
 138 
 
 of which it seems well acquainted with the taste. 
 And here, not to dwell wholly upon the beauties 
 of this painting, I must mention an absurdity 
 discovered by a professed connoisseur in painting. 
 ' Can there/ says he, ' be a greater absurdity than the 
 introducing a couple of chickens so near a crowd ? 
 And not only so ; but see ! their direction is to go 
 to objects it is natural for them to shun. Is this 
 knowledge of nature ? Absurd to the last degree!' 
 And here, with an air of triumph, ended our judicious 
 critic. But how great was his surprise, when it was 
 discovered to him, that the said chickens were in 
 pursuit of the hen which had made her escape into 
 the pocket of a soldier ! 
 
 "Next the sign-post is an honest tar throwing up 
 his hat, crying, 'God bless King George!' Before 
 him is an image of drunken loyalty, who, with his 
 shirt out of his breeches, and bayonet in his hand, 
 vows destruction on the heads of the rebels. A fine 
 figure of a speaking old woman, with a basket upon 
 her head, will upon view tell you what she sells. A 
 humane soldier, perceiving a fellow hard loaded with 
 a barrel of gin upon his back, and stopped by the 
 crowd, with a gimlet bores a hole in the head of 
 the cask, and is kindly easing him of a part of his 
 burthen. Near him is the figure of a fine gentleman 
 in the army. As I suppose the painter designed him 
 without character, I shall therefore only observe, 
 that he is a very pretty fellow; and happily the 
 contemplation of his own dear person guards him 
 from the attempts of the wicked woman on his
 
 139 
 
 right hand. Upon the right of this petit-maitre, a 
 licentious soldier is rude with a girl, who screams 
 and wreaks her little vengeance upon his face, whilst 
 his comrade is removing some linen that hangs in 
 his way. 
 
 " You will pardon the invention of a new term 
 I shall include the whole King's Head in the word 
 Cattery, the principal figure of which is the famous 
 Mother Douglas, who, with pious eyes cast up to 
 heaven, prays for the army's success, and the safe 
 return of many of her babes of grace. An officer 
 offers a letter to one of this lady's children, who 
 rejects it ; possibly not liking the cause her spark 
 is engaged in, or, what is more probable, his not 
 having paid for her last favour. Above her, a 
 charitable girl is throwing a shilling to a cripple, 
 while another kindly administers a cordial to her 
 companion, as a sure relief against reflection. The 
 rest of the windows are full of the like cattle ; and 
 upon the house-top appear three cats, just emblems 
 of the creatures below, but more harmless in their 
 amorous encounter." 
 
 King George the Second was told that Hogarth 
 had painted this picture, and wished to have the 
 honour of dedicating to his Majesty the print engraved 
 from it ; and a proof-print was accordingly presented 
 for his approbation. The king probably expected to 
 see an allegorical representation of an army of heroes, 
 devoting their lives to the service of their country 
 and their sovereign ; we may, therefore, readily 
 conceive his disappointment on viewing their deline-
 
 140 
 
 ation. ' Does the fellow mean to laugh at my guards V 
 exclaimed the indignant monarch to a nobleman in 
 waiting. 'The picture, please your Majesty, must 
 be considered as a burlesque.' ' What ! a painter 
 burlesque a soldier 1 ? he deserves to be picketed for 
 his insolence/ The print was returned to the artist, 
 who, completely mortified at such a reception of what 
 he properly considered to be his greatest work, imme- 
 diately altered the inscription, inserting, instead of the 
 King of England, "the King of Prusia (so spelt in 
 the earliest impressions,) an encourager of the Arts/' 
 
 A LARGE SEA-PIECE. 
 
 Representing Ships employed in the British Navy, in 
 various positions. 
 
 BY BROOKING. 
 
 A LANDSCAPE. 
 BY GEORGE LAMBERT, R.A. 
 
 ELIJAH RAISING THE SON OF THE WIDOW OF 
 ZAREPHATH. 
 
 "And he stretched himself upon the child three times, 
 and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, 
 I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. 
 
 "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah ; and 
 the soul of the child came into him again, and he 
 revived" 
 
 BY LANFRANCO.
 
 141 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE II. 
 
 Painted on copper. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF HANDEL. 
 
 BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 
 Presented by Charles Pott, Esq. 
 
 PORTRAIT IN CRAYONS OF TAYLOR WHITE, ESQ. 
 
 (Treasurer of the Hospital from 1746 to 1771J 
 
 BY FRANCIS COTES, R.A. 
 
 PORTRAIT IN CRAYONS OF GEORGE WHATLEY, ESQ. 
 
 (Treasurer of the Hospital from 1779 to 1791J 
 BY A PERSON UNKNOWN. 
 
 HEROD1US WITH THE HEAD OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 
 
 In tapestry, presented by Henry Laver, Esq. 
 
 SUPPOSED PORTRAITS OF SHAKESPERE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 Presented by Frederick Wm. Pott, Esq. 
 
 There is also a statuette of the First Sir William 
 Curtis, from a picture by Lawrence.
 
 142 
 
 f he 
 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES POTT, ESQ. 
 
 (Treasurer from, 1839 to 1852, and afterwards a 
 Vice-President) 
 
 BY THOMAS PHILLIPS, R.A. 
 
 Painted at the request of numerous friends, 
 Governors of the Institution, and presented by them 
 as a testimony of their esteem. 
 
 CLEMENT HUE, M.D. 
 
 (A Vice-President.) 
 
 Painted by R Buckner for several of the Governors, 
 and by them presented to the Hospital as a mark 
 of respect. 
 
 THE OFFERING OF THE WISE MEN. 
 
 "And when they were come into the house, they saw 
 the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, 
 and worshipped him : and when they had opened 
 their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, 
 and frankincense, and myrrh" 
 
 BY ANDREW CASALI. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF BENJAMIN HAWES, ESQ. 
 BY BRIGGS, R.A.
 
 143 
 
 PORTRAIT OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE WILMOT. 
 BY DANCE. 
 
 LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES. 
 
 This excellent picture (by whom painted is not 
 known) was presented to the Hospital by Lieut.- 
 Colonel James C. Hyde. 
 
 A VIEW IN VENICE. 
 
 After the manner of Canaletti. Also presented by 
 Lieut.-Colonel Hyde. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE REV. DR. HEATHCOTE, D.D. 
 
 (Chaplain of the Hospital from 1S02 to 1820J 
 
 Presented by his Family. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE THE SECOND 
 
 (First Patron of the Hospital.) 
 
 BY SHACKLETON. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH. 
 
 (A Vice-President of the Hospital.) 
 
 BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
 
 144 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE EARL OF MACCLESFIELD 
 
 (A Vice-President.) 
 
 BY WILSON. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF DR. MEAD. 
 
 (A very active Governor.) 
 
 BY ALLAN RAMSAY. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THEODORE JACOBSEN, ESQ. 
 (The Architect of the Hospital). 
 
 AND JOHN MILNER, ESQ. 
 (A Governor). 
 
 BY THOMAS HUDSON. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS EMMERSON, ESQ. 
 
 (A Governor and most liberal Contributor.) 
 
 BY HIGHMORE. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE LATE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 (Formerly President of the Hospital.) 
 
 BY C. P. GREEK 
 
 THE CARTOON OF THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 
 BY RAFFAEL. 
 
 This cartoon came into the possession of the 
 Hospital under the will of Prince Hoare, Esq.
 
 145 
 
 The late lamented painter, B. R Haydon, in a letter 
 to the Secretary of the Hospital, dated 3rd October, 
 1837, has given the following graphical account of 
 this picture : 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 "I was extremely gratified yesterday at having 
 ocular demonstration by your kindness, that one of 
 the finest instances in the world of variety of expres- 
 sion and beauty of composition, as a work of 'high 
 art/ was out of danger and secure : I allude to the 
 centre part of one of the last cartoons which be- 
 longed to the set executed by Raffael, at the order 
 of Leo X., and sent afterwards to Flanders, to be 
 executed in tapestry, for the purpose of increasing the 
 splendour of those exhibitions, so well known in Rome 
 during Lent, at the Vatican. 
 
 " The original number was thirteen ; but, in conse- 
 quence of the Flemish weavers cutting them into slips 
 for their working machinery, after the tapestry was 
 executed and sent to Rome, the original cartoons were 
 left mingled together, without care or interest, in boxes. 
 
 " When Rubens was in England, he told Charles I. 
 the condition they were in ; and the king, who had 
 the finest taste, desired him to procure them. Seven 
 perfect ones were purchased, all, it may be inferred, 
 w r hich remained, and sent to his Majesty : what be- 
 came, or had become of the remainder, nobody knows ; 
 but here and there, all over Europe, fragments have 
 appeared. At Oxford there are two or three heads ; 
 and, I believe, the Duke of Hamilton or Buccleuch 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 have others. But this sublime fragment, possessed by 
 the Governors, is certainly the largest portion of those 
 which are last remaining. I am quite sure, on this 
 explanation, the Governors will perceive, on every 
 point of view, the value, both as property and as a 
 work of art, of this invaluable composition. After 
 the king's misfortunes, the cartoons now at Hampton 
 Court were sold, with the rest of his Majesty's fine 
 collection ; but by Cromwell's express order, they were 
 bought in for three hundred pounds. 
 
 " During the reign of Charles II., they were offered 
 to France for fourteen thousand francs, but Charles 
 was dissuaded from selling them. I cannot give you 
 my authority at the moment. 
 
 " This portion of the Murder of the Innocents was 
 sold at Westminster as disputed property. Prince 
 Hoare's father, before the sale, explained to. an opulent 
 friend the great treasure about to be disposed of, and 
 persuaded him to advance the money requisite, on 
 condition of sharing the property. To his great 
 wonder, he bought it for twenty-six pounds, and his 
 friend, having no taste, told Mr. Hoare, if he would 
 paint him and his family, he would relinquish his 
 right. 
 
 "I had these particulars from Prince Hoare, (his 
 son,) who repeatedly told me. I took Canova to see 
 it (1815), who was enthusiastic in admiration; and 
 I was allowed, in my early studies (1804), thirty- 
 three years ago, to copy all the heads, and I am quite 
 sure there is hardly a day passes in which I do not 
 feel the great advantage of so sublime a model for
 
 147 
 
 expression and composition. Look at the villain in 
 front, grappling the leg of a victim child, and rolling 
 on like a mountain fragment, which nothing can 
 arrest ! while the fiery and passionate mother throttles 
 the monster to save her child, though you can per- 
 ceive the mere physical weight of the iron-faced 
 murderer will render her feminine resistance useless 
 and in vain ! 
 
 "As an instance of preserving beauty in violent 
 expression, this head is unequalled in any of the great 
 works of art in the world. It is a model of study, 
 and I remember nothing to be compared to it. 
 
 "Above this group is a woman of phlegmatic 
 nature, as a contrast to the violent temperament of 
 the one below ; she is pale, blank, and utterly un- 
 nerved ; she stares at the murderer, who is pressing 
 down the innocent face of her infant, and dashing the 
 dagger into its throat, quite paralyzed and unable 
 to resist. Above her is a young mother, with long 
 hair, tenderly protecting her child, while the group 
 is finished by a scoundrel, who, holding the hair of 
 one that is trying to escape, stabs the infant of the 
 opposite woman, who has her hand in his eyes. 
 
 "For all the intricate beauties of composition, for 
 various modications of the same feeling, according to 
 the character chosen, there is no finer example any 
 where, and such a work ought not to be in a back 
 room badly lighted and scarcely seen, but in a room 
 by itself, well lighted, the walls coloured on purpose, 
 and in fact, such a production for the sake of the art, 
 should be shewn off to every advantage. It would be
 
 148 
 
 justice to Kaffael, an honor to the Hospital and its 
 Governors, and a kind compliment to my late friend : 
 it would do the English school great good, and ad- 
 vance the taste of all classes. 
 
 " One day in the week an advanced student, under 
 proper introduction, might be admitted to finish his 
 studies from it, and it might always be regularly 
 shewn and explained to the visitors. 
 
 "Pray, my dear Sir, lay my letter before the 
 Governors, if you think it would not be a liberty, at 
 their next meeting, and be assured I have no other 
 object but the good of the art, the tenderest respect 
 for my late friend, and an earnest desire to see so 
 valuable a prize preserved as long as the materials 
 will hold together. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " With every apology, 
 " Truly yours, 
 
 "B. R. HAYDON." 
 
 PORTRAIT OF PRINCE HOARE, ESQ. 
 
 Presented by his friend and executor, Newbold 
 Kinton, Esq., a Governor. 
 
 THE WORTHIES OP ENGLAND. 
 
 BY JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A. 
 
 Presented by Newbold Kinton, Esq.
 
 149 
 
 ACTION OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE, 
 
 May 13th, 1779 
 BY LUNY. 
 
 The particulars of this Picture are as follows, viz. : 
 " Sir James Wallace, commander of H.M. Ship 
 Experiment, with the Pallas, Unicorn, Fortunes, and 
 Cabot, Brigs, attacking the Dance, Valeur, Reduce, 
 three French Frigates, and a Cutter, in Concale Bay. 
 TJie Dance he brought off. The other three being 
 aground, lie burnt, amidst a smart jire from a battery 
 of six twelve-pounders, and several cannon from the 
 sJwre. The battery he silenced in half-an-hour" 
 
 BUST OF HANDEL, 
 BY LOUIS FKANCIS ROUBILIAC. 
 
 The above bust was taken by the artist from 
 sittings to him by Handel, and is the original 
 work from which the celebrated statue in Vauxhall 
 Gardens and that in Westminster Abbey were made. 
 At the sale of Mr. Barrett, the proprietor of Vauxhall 
 Gardens, the bust was purchased by Mr. Bartleman, 
 and was, for many years, esteemed by him as his 
 greatest treasure. Upon his death, it passed, by sale, 
 into the hands of the trade ; and lastly, upon the 
 recommendation of Mr. William Behnes, sculptor, 
 was purchased and presented to the Hospital by 
 Sir Frederick Pollock, Lord Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer, a Vice-President of the Hospital.
 
 150 
 
 THE CHILD RESTORED TO ITS MOTHER. 
 BY EMMA BROWNLOW. 
 
 This picture was presented to the Hospital by 
 E. W. Wadeson, Esq., one of the Vice-Presidents. 
 
 The following interesting account of it is copied from 
 Tait's Edinburgh Magazine of November, 1858 : 
 
 " Standing on an easel, in one corner of the relic 
 room, is a picture* beautifully imagined and executed. 
 It represents a little simple-looking child, neatly 
 clad in the foundling dress. The little brown frock, 
 the tidy white apron, and the high-crowned muslin 
 cap looking so quaint and so demure on the little 
 creature are faithfully depicted. A girl of about 
 fourteen years of age leads the child with one 
 hand, while with the other she points to a young 
 and respectably-dressed woman who invites the 
 hesitating child to come to her. There are tears 
 in the eyes of this young woman, and a loving 
 look of tenderness dwells in those tearful eyes as 
 she looks at the little child, which betrays the 
 relationship between them. A child's hat which she 
 has brought with her, and which lies on a chair near, 
 together with an open band-box containing childish 
 apparel, tells the tale of a mother's thought, care, 
 and love. An elderly female is in the back-ground ; 
 we may suppose her another relative of the little 
 foundling, or a friend of the poor, sorrowful mother. 
 
 * Now hung upon the wall.
 
 151 
 
 " This picture was painted some months since, 
 and the little girl who was taken as the model of 
 the reclaimed child, was the one restored about a 
 fortnight ago. At the time the picture was painted 
 no idea was entertained that this child would be 
 reclaimed. 
 
 "But a few more words about this picture. As 
 we have before stated, it is beautifully painted, and 
 there is a depth of truthful and poetic feeling in it, 
 which does as much credit to the heart and mind 
 of the artist as the mere manipulation conveys 
 to her artistic skill. It contains a portrait of Mr. 
 Brownlow (the Secretary), who is introduced in the 
 back-ground. We recognized this portrait at once, 
 and were surprised to hear that the picture we so 
 much admired was the work and production of his 
 daughter." 
 
 THE SICK ROOM. 
 BY EMMA BROWNLOW. 
 
 This Picture was painted for Lieutenant-Colonel 
 James C. Hyde, (a Governor), and by him presented 
 to the Hospital as a memorial of Eobert Rainy 
 Pennington, Esq., an eminent Surgeon, and a Gover- 
 nor of the Institution. 
 
 It represent the Hospital-Infirmary.
 
 152 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WM. BECKWITH, ESQ. 
 
 BY HONE. 
 Presented by Charles Devon, Esq., a Governor. 
 
 There is also a marble bust of Mr. Beckwith, pre- 
 sented by Mr. Devon. 
 
 Besides this model, there are two busts, namely, 
 one by Behnes of the late Henry Earle, Esq., the 
 eminent Surgeon, who gratuitously gave his pro- 
 fessional services to the Children of the Hospital 
 for many years. 
 
 .The other of the present Morning Preacher, the 
 Eev. J. W. Gleadall, M.A., by S. J. B. Haydon. 
 
 There is also a valuable vase of Chelsea porcelain, 
 presented by Dr. Gamier, in 1763. 
 
 In this room there are several Cases. 
 
 The First contains Manuscript Music of Handel, 
 given or bequeathed by him to the Hospital. 
 
 The Second Coins or Tokens deposited with 
 Infants, between the years 1741 and 1760 
 
 The Third Miscellaneous Tokens in like manner, 
 and of the same period. 
 
 The Fourth Autographs of Kings and Queens of 
 England, &c., commencing with Henry VII., presented
 
 153 
 
 to the Hospital by J. B. Heath, Esq., one of the 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 The Fifth Medals of Foundlings who have served 
 in the Army and Navy. 
 
 The Sixth Autographs of Hogarth and other 
 eminent persons. 
 
 There are also three cases containing MSS. of Capt. 
 Coram, and others. 
 
 flrtnt 
 
 This Room contains Portraits of departed Pre- 
 sidents, Vice-Presidents, Treasurers, and Governors 
 of the Hospital, as well as Engravings after eminent 
 Artists. The principal donors were J. B. Heath, Esq., 
 E W. Wadeson, Esq., and Wm. Foster White, Esq. 
 
 There is also an Original Drawing, by Guilio 
 Romano.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 There has been much talk of late about the ne- 
 cessity of establishing in this country Foundling 
 Hospitals, in their extensive signification that is 
 Asylums where everybody's children may be re- 
 ceived and maintained at the Public Expense and 
 this proposal is deliberately made, notwithstanding 
 the total failure of such a scheme fornlerly, as is 
 detailed in this book. To carry such a proposition 
 into effect in these days, would be falsifying the 
 adage which couples experience with wisdom, and 
 putting out the beacon-light which our forefathers 
 have left us as a warning on this subject. We are 
 told that this step is necessary to prevent Infanticide. 
 This is about as foolish a notion as that of the 
 framers of the present poor law, who proposed to 
 prevent bastardy, by enacting a law the direct 
 tendency of which was to increase it ! There are 
 evils with which society is afflicted, beyond the 
 reach of human remedy, and to talk of preventing 
 infanticide is simply to utter that which is opposed 
 to common sense and experience.
 
 156 
 
 * 
 
 That sensible old philanthropist, Jonas Hanway* 
 who, as a zealous Governor of the Foundling 
 Hospital in 1756, and subsequently, was an actor 
 in the scenes of its early administration, writes, in 
 
 * This excellent man was constantly engaged in works of benevolence, 
 having for their object the amelioration of the condition of poor children. In 
 furtherance of this, he founded the Marine Society, and worked strenuously 
 to improve the state of the Chimney Sweeping Boys, whose treatment at that 
 time was of the most brutal kind. At the Foundling he was no less zealous 
 in advancing the interests of the children. With what loving-kindness he 
 writes, in 1759 : "As I lamented my own loss so very early in life, I feel the 
 more for the children who are already cut off from all connections with 
 parents ; I cannot help wishing it were possible for me to become a father to 
 all of them, by every act of paternal care." He prepared for them a paper of 
 farewell advice on quitting the HospitaJ, which is in use to this day, and a 
 "Hymn of Praise," which, as it has never been published, I here insert : 
 
 To Thee, Great Author of my life, 
 
 My humble vows I raise ! 
 0, deign from Thy celestial throne, 
 
 To hear my artless praise ! 
 
 Each op'ning day, each closing night, 
 
 To Thy blest realms above, 
 My pious hymn shall duly rise 
 
 Of pure and filial love. 
 
 Without Thy aid my vital frame 
 
 In cheerless want had pined ! 
 Nor had one ray of saving truth 
 
 Shone on my darken'd mind. 
 
 In all my labours, all my works, 
 
 May I Thy mercy share ; 
 That mercy softens every toil, 
 
 And sweetens every care. 
 
 Still may increasing heav'nly gifts 
 
 My rising years attend ; 
 That I may ever find in Thee 
 
 A Father and a Friend !
 
 157 
 
 1759, on reviewing the follies which had been 
 committed, thus : 
 
 "To make a law, or provide an Hospital, which 
 supposes, that, without it, women will murder their 
 children, however we may be induced to argue from 
 some few known facts, supposes too much, and 
 familiarizes our thoughts to a crime the most ab- 
 horrent to nature. Nor can any law, or any Hospital, 
 restrain those, whose cruelty or shame carries them 
 such desperate lengths. We find some women have 
 been executed for the murder of their infants, and 
 some infants have been found murdered, notwith- 
 standing the indulgence shewn by the Hospital" 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 " I believe, to one infant secretly strangled, or put 
 to death, by the hands of the mother, five thousand 
 die in the face of the sun by the ignorance or neglect 
 of the mother or nurse, and five thousand more by 
 being taken from the breast of the mother." 
 
 But we are told that as Hospitals for the indis- 
 criminate admission of children flourish in foreign 
 countries, they ought to exist here. I have already 
 shewn that this was the rock on which the early 
 Governors and Parliament split at the outset of 
 the London Foundling Hospital, and this is confirmed 
 by the same excellent authority already quoted. 
 
 " It seems," says Jonas Hanway, " to have been a 
 general mistake in establishing the Hospital, that we 
 founded our arguments for it, and the great principle
 
 158 
 
 of the plan, upon the practice of other nations, draw- 
 ing our conclusions with too little attention to the 
 genius of our own" 
 
 Now with respect to Foreign Foundling Hospitals, 
 it is a curious fact, that whilst parties in this 
 country are holding them up to our example and 
 imitation because of their liberal or unrestricted 
 operation, the authorities of those institutions are 
 themselves circumscribing their views on this subject, 
 and bringing these establishments down to the sober 
 and consistant level of the London Foundling 
 Hospital. 
 
 In France, the work of reformation has been going 
 on for a considerable time. The following are ex- 
 tracts from notes, on the present system taken in 
 1864: 
 
 "Few persons know that the Hospital for Found- 
 lings no longer exists. That which hitherto was 
 called by that sad name, has given place to the 
 Enfans AssistSs." 
 
 " The wheel (or turning box) as an active medium 
 for abandoning children has disappeared, and the 
 statistics shew that neither miscarriages nor infanti- 
 cides have increased in consequence." 
 
 "The person who brings a child is admitted into 
 the office, and expected to reply to certain questions 
 relative to the name and place of its birth, and of its 
 parents who abandon it. The child is always received 
 under a provisional order, and immediately conducted
 
 159 
 
 to the nursery or the hall, according to its age. The 
 director sends, as soon as possible, all the references 
 obtained to the central administration for public as- 
 sistance, who pronounces on the definite admission, 
 and makes known the decision with the least possible 
 delay : during the interval, the police have time to 
 enquire into the cause of desertion, when it seems 
 made under unusual circumstances. They thus assure 
 themselves that the child, from its origin, does not 
 belong to any other institution." 
 
 "In general, the information given at the Bureau 
 is true ; the children are for the most part illigitimate, 
 and misery, more than misconduct causes the 
 desertion. The investigation is not very strict, the 
 certificate of birth which must mention the name 
 of the mother does not oblige her to acknowledge 
 the child hereafter. It is necessary that a special 
 document signed by her own hand should confirm 
 or rectify the certificate of birth." 
 
 " It is sufficient to pass some hours at the entrance 
 of the house in the Rue d'Enfers, in the vestibule 
 of the office of reception, to convince oneself that 
 the mothers who bring their children, no longer 
 have a bold and immodest air, which is the last 
 outrage to neglected duty. Nor do they evince 
 much grief : they have more the appearance of 
 resignation to a temporary separation, and con- 
 fidence in social benevolence with a fixed hope of 
 reclaiming them in future." 
 
 "The true character of this act is a deposit not
 
 160 
 
 an abandonment, and it is with justice the authorities 
 have substituted on the frontispiece of the house, 
 to the ancient title of 'Enfans Trouv^s,' that of 
 'Enfans AssisteV" 
 
 The wheel system in Portugal has also been 
 abandoned. 
 
 And yet, is there nothing to do on this subject of 
 infanticide? Yes, there is. Let us look manfully 
 in the face of the companion evil the evil of 
 bastardy and coping with this (if we can) a 
 diminution of infanticide may possibly follow in 
 proportion to our success. Let parliament infuse 
 into the existing law, a little more justice and 
 charity towards the weaker, and direct their shafts 
 with greater certainty at the stronger of the two 
 offending parties, and although this will not even 
 then prevent either of these evils, they will at 
 least have the satisfaction of knowing that they 
 have done all they can towards lessening them ! 
 
 JVB, 
 
 October, 1865.
 
 OF THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, 1873. 
 
 tfatrxm, 
 
 HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 $ice- Presidents, 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. LORD CHELMSFORD. 
 BARON HEATH, F.R.S., F.S.A. 
 JOHN TRENCHARD TRENCHARD, ESQ. 
 EDWARD WEYMAN WADESON, ESQ. 
 WILLIAM FOSTER WHITE, ESQ. 
 JOHN PET ER GASSIOT, JUNR., ESQ. 
 
 Treasurer, 
 GEORGE BURROW GREGORY, ESQ. M.P. 
 
 John Lavicount Anderdon, esq. Chiselhurst, Kent S.K. 
 
 Richard Edward Arden, esq. East Burnham House, Buckinghamshire. 
 
 John Hungerford Arkwright, esq. Hampton Court, Herefordshire. 
 
 James Bentley, esq. Wood Green-park, Cheshunt N. 
 William Burra, esq. Ashford, Kent. 
 Patrick Black, M.D. 11, Queen Anne-street w. 
 Richard Berry, esq. 87, Highbury-place, Highbury v 
 W. Pomfret Burra, esq. Ashford, Kent.
 
 162 
 
 Michael A. Bass, Esq. M.P. 101, Eaton-square w. 
 
 Robert Philipson Barrow, esq. 20, Old Broad-street B.C. 
 
 Frederick John Blake, esq. 102, Gloucester-terrace, Hyde Park w, 
 
 Benjamin B. Cabbell, esq. F.R.S., F.S.A., Temple E.G. 
 
 Robert Cook, esq. Harley House, Bath. 
 
 Daniel Cronin, esq. 30, Bloomsbury-square-w.c. 
 
 Henry Cunliffe, esq. 24, Lombard-street E.G. 
 
 Nathaniel Clode, esq. 66, Mark-lane E.G. 
 
 James Bury Capel, esq. North Cray Place, Chiselhurst, Kent. 
 
 Joseph J. Chapman, esq. Oxford & Cambridge Club, Pall Mall s.w. 
 
 Arthur Risdon Capel, esq. 61, Princes Square, Bayswater w. 
 
 Michael Drayson, esq. 4, Russell-square w.c. 
 
 Charles Evans, esq. North-grove, Highgate N. 
 
 John Green Elsey, esq. Morant House, Addison-road, Kensington w. 
 
 James Evans, esq. 68, Southampton-row w.c. 
 
 E. H. Fennell, esq. 23, Southampton-street, Bloomsbury. 
 
 Mr. Serjeant Gaselee, 2, Cambridge-square, Hyde-park w. 
 William Frederick Graham, esq. Elm-grove, Wallington, Surrey. 
 Gabriel Goldney, esq. M.P., 20, Hill-street, Berkeley-square w. 
 Henry J. Gardiner, esq. 6, Orsett Terrace, Hyde Park w. 
 
 Robert Amedee Heath, esq. Croydon s 
 
 Henry Burnley Heath, esq. 66, Russell-square w.c. 
 
 Rev. J. M. Hussey, M.A. Christ Church Vicarage, Cancell-road, Brixton 
 
 Rev. William Harrison, M.A. Birch Rectory, Colchester. 
 
 Amedee John Heath, esq. Croydon s. 
 
 William Hine Haycock, esq. 4, College-hill K.C. 
 
 Luther Holden, esq. F.R.C.S. (Honorary Surgeon to the Hospital,) 
 
 65, Gower-street w.c. 
 Edmund Hyde, esq. Ivy-dene, Feltham Hill, Middlesex. 
 
 Saffrey William Johnson, esq. 11, Lansdown-road, Wimbledon s.w. 
 William Johnson, esq. Denshanger, Northampton. 
 
 Rev. Charles Mackenzie, M.A. 2, Church-terrace, East Lee, Blackheath. 
 Sir Dudley C. Majoribanks, Bart. 29, Upper Brook-street w.
 
 163 
 
 Charles Edward Mudie, esq. New Oxford- street w.c. 
 
 Henry Maudslay, esq. Bystock, Exmouth. 
 
 John Edward Meek, esq. 193, St. John-street E.G. 
 
 John Noble, esq. 50, Westbourne-terrace w. 
 
 John Owen, esq. Broadway Hall, Shrewsbury. 
 
 Thomas Laurence Kington Oliphant, esq. Charlton House, Wimbledon s.w. 
 
 Henry Pownall, esq. 63, Russell-square w.c. 
 
 Arthur Pott, esq. Bridge-street, Southwark S.E. 
 
 William Pott, esq. Bridge-street, Southwark S.E. 
 
 Arthur Julius Pollock, M.D., (Honorary Physician to the Hospital,) 
 
 85, Harley-street w. 
 John Dendy Pilcher, esq. 15, Taviton-street, Gordon-square w.c. 
 
 Sempronius William Roe, esq. 49, Bedford -row w.c. 
 Peter Reid, esq. 20, King-street, St. James' w. 
 Thomas Arnold Rogers, esq. 23, Endsleigh-street w.c. 
 
 John Hugh Smyth, esq. 
 
 George John Steer, esq. 51, Threadneedle- street B.C. 
 
 Thomas Mitchell Shadwell, esq. 2, Elgin-crescent, Notting-hill w. 
 
 Sir David Salomons, Bart., Alderman, M.P. 26, Great Cumberland-place w. 
 
 Thomas Spinks, esq. D.C.L., Q.C., 73, Guildford-street w.c. 
 
 Russell Sturgis, esq. 17, Carl ton House-terrace w. 
 
 Charlf s Skipper, esq. 23, Russell-square w.o. 
 
 Lieut- Col. Stedall, the Priory, Highgate. 
 
 William J. Thompson, esq. 38, Mincing-lane B.C. 
 
 James Thomas Trimmer, Esq. Rendlesham Lodge, Waltham Cross w. 
 
 Alexander Tweedie, M.D., F.R.S., (Honorary Physician to the Hospital,) 
 
 119, Pall Mall s.w. 
 
 Sir James Tyler, Pine-house, Holloway N. 
 Richard Thornton, esq. 98, Portland Place w. 
 
 George Wigg, esq. 
 
 Stephen P. White, esq. 
 
 Rev. Alfred Williams, M.A. Siefton Rectory, by Broomfield, Salop. 
 
 Thomas Wormald, esq. 42, Bedford-row w.o. 
 
 John Francis White, esq. 31, Guildford-street w.c.
 
 104 
 
 Michael Wills, esq. Foley House, Portland-place w. 
 
 Henry White, esq. F.S.A., F.R.G.S., The Lodge, Hillingdon Heath, Uxbridge. 
 Edward Wright, esq. Clare Hall, South Mimms, Middlesex. 
 Lieut.-Colonel F. Maitland Wilson, Stowlangtoft Hall, Bury St. Edmunds. 
 
 Benjamin Young, esq. Hertford. 
 
 W. S. WINTLE, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 %* The Members of HER MAJKSTY'S Most Honourable Privy 
 Council, for the time being, are also Governors and Guardians of the 
 Hospital by the Charter of Incorporation. 
 
 O. .TIQCES, Printer, 30, Kenton Street, Bloomsbury.
 
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