benevolence of succeeding times to supply that comfortable subsistence, and tender care, which have restored so many distracted objects to their families, and to society.

About the year 1644, it was under consideration to enlarge the old hospital; but the situation was too close and confined to allow of its being rendered a commodious asylum for the numerous distracted persons of both sexes that claimed its protection: after the Restoration, it became a matter of serious deliberation to build a new hospital.

In April 1675, the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city of London, allotted to the governors a large piece of ground near London Wall, on the south side of the lower quarter of Moorfields, where the hospital of Bethlem now stands. The expedition, with which this stately fabric was completed, challenges our admiration. For, from an inscription over the arch facing the entrance into the hospital, it appears that it was finished in July, in the following year. So active was the zeal that quickened the growth of this noble structure! The generosity of the contributors must have been equal to their attention, for the charge of the building amounted to no less a sum than 17,000l. The hospital of Bethlem stands an illustrious monument of British charity; and, whether we consider the becoming magnificence of the building, the commodious errangement of the interior apartments, or the effectual relief which it reaches out to the poor objects whom it shelters, we may safely pronounce, that it is not to be paralleled in the whole world.

The design of the building was taken from the Thuilleries in Paris. Louis XIV. it is said, was so much offended that his palace should be made a model for an hospital, that, in revenge, he ordered a plan of St. James's to be taken for offices of a very inferior nature. The figures of the two lunatics over the gates of the hospital, were the work of Cibber, the father of the comedian. "6 My father Caius Gabriel Cibber was a native of Holstein, who came into England, some time before the restoration of king Charles II. to follow his profession, which was that of a sta

tuary. The basso relievo on the pedestal of the great column in the city, and the two figures of the lunatics, the Raving, and the Melancholy, over the gates of Bethlem Hospital, are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist *.”

There is a tradition that the person represented by the figure of the melancholy lunatic, was porter to Oliver Cromwell.

In the close limits within wlrich the old hospital was confined, was impracticable to reserve room for those forlorn beings, of whose return to the comforts of a sound mind there were no hopes. The increasing multitude of curable objects justly demanded admittance; nor did it seem reasonable that they should be excluded from the prospect of enjoying a blessing which the former could not attain. When the new house was erected, it was hoped that some provision might be made for such as were deemed incurable, and at the same time dangerous to the public. But the great influx of insane persons, from all parts of the kingdom, into the hospital, frustrated these expectations, and gave reason to suppose, that few, if any, of its numerous apartments, would, at any time, be vacant. It was therefore found necessary to enlarge the building; a particular subscription was set on foot for the purpose, and, in the year 1734, two wings were added to the hospital. This addition of room enabled the governors, in some degree, to answer the wishes of the public; and there are now maintained one hundred incurable patients, fifty of each sex, who enjoy every advantage which their deplorable state can admit. The number of patients in the house, who are supposed capable of being relieved, commonly amounts to about one hundred and seventy, and of these, it has been found upon an average, that nearly two out of three are restored to their understanding. To such a degree of perfection have the liberal benefactions of the well-disposed (for it is by benefactions that the deficient revenues of this hospital have been, and must be supplied) advanced this

*Cibber's Apology for his own Life.

Hoble