GREENWICH HOSPITAL. THE '15, AND THE EARL OF DERWENTWATER. HAT a foundation where a number of old pensioners used to be lodged has to do with one of the Stuart risingsthat of the '15-may seem for a moment mysterious, but it is very easily explained, as the reader will soon see; and he will also admit that we are quite justified in joining these apparently dissimilar subjects together. As to the hospital itself. It was begun by Charles II., and the part then built now forms the west wing of the present hospital. Queen Mary, the wife of William of Orange, wished to render the place an asylum for wounded seamen, and her husband, after her death, carried out her design. The work was carried out under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren; and under the same great architect the stately pile of buildings was still further added to, during the reign of Anne. After the '15, when the rising had been quite suppressed, the estates of Lord Derwentwater, amounting to £6,000 per annum-then a much more valuable sum than now-were sequestrated for the benefit of the Hospital, which, we may further add, is no longer devoted to the pensioners, who have been otherwise accommodated, but to the students of the Royal Naval College. Of the last days of Derwentwater and his companions we give the following account. After the defeat of Preston, which practically crushed the English part of the insurrection, "the prisoners of most note were sent up to London, into which they were introduced in a kind of procession, which did less dishonour to the sufferers than to the mean minds who planned and enjoyed such an ignoble triumph. By way of balancing the influence of the Tory mob, whose violences in burning chapels, etc., had been of a formidable and highly criminal character, plans had been adopted by government to excite and maintain a rival spirit of tumult among such of the vulgar as were called, or called themselves, the Low Church party. Party factions often turn upon the most frivolous badges of distinction. As the Tories had affected a particular passion for ale, as a national and truly English potation, their parliamentary associations taking the title of the October and March Clubs; so, in the spirit of opposition, the Whigs of the lower rank patronised beer (distinguished, according to Dr. Johnson, from ale, by being either older or smaller), and mug-houses were established, held by landlords of orthodox Whig principles, where this protestant and revolutionary liquor was distributed in liberal quantities, and they speedily were thronged by a set of customers, whose fists and sticks were as prompt to assault the admirers of High Church and Ormond, as the Tories were ready to defend them. It was for the gratification of the frequenters of these mug-houses, as they were called, that the entrance of the Preston prisoners into London was graced with the mock honours of a triumphal procession. The prisoners, most of them men of birth and education, were, on approaching the capital, all pinioned with cords. like the vilest criminals. This ceremony they underwent at Barnet. At Highgate they were met by a large detachment of horse grenadiers and foot guards, preceded by a body of citizens decently GREENWICH HOSPITAL. dressed, who shouted to give example to the mob. Halters were put upon the horses ridden by the prisoners, and each man's horse was led by a private soldier. Forster, a man of high family, and still Member of Parliament for Northumberland, was exposed in the same manner as the rest. A large mob of the patrons of the mughouses attended on the occasion, and the prisoners, with all sort of scurrilous abuse and insult, were led through the streets of the city in this species of unworthy triumph, and deposited in the jails of Newgate, the Marshalsea, and other prisons in the metropolis. In consequence of this sudden increase of tenants a most extraordinary change took place in the discipline of these melancholy abodes. When the High Church party in London began to recover the astonishment with which they had witnessed the suppression of the insurrection, they could not look back with much satisfaction on their own passive behaviour during the contest, if it could be called one, and now endeavoured to make up for it by liberally supplying the prisoners, whom they regarded as martyrs in their cause, with money and provisions, in which wine was not forgotten. The fair sex are always disposed to be compassionate, and certainly were not least so in this case, where the objects of pity were many of them gallant young cavaliers, sufferers in a cause which they had been taught to consider as sacred. The consequence was, that the prisons overflowed with wine and good cheer, and the younger and more thoughtless part of the inmates turned to revelling and drowning in liquor all more serious thoughts of their situation; so that even Lord Derwentwater himself said of his followers, that they were fitter inhabitants for Bridewell than a state prison. Money, it is said, circulated so plentifully among them, that when it was difficult to obtain silver for a guinea in the streets, nothing was so easy as to find change, whether of gold or silver, in the jail. When such a golden shower descends on a prison, the jailor generally secures to himself the largest share of it; and those prisoners who desired separate beds, or the slightest accommodation in point of lodging, had to purchase them at a rate which would have paid for many years the rent of the best houses in St. James's-square or Piccadilly. Dungeons, the names of which indicate their gloomy character, as the Lions' Den, the Middle Dark, and the like, were rented at the same extravagant prices, and were not only filled with prisoners, but abounded with good cheer. These riotous scenes went on the more gaily that almost all had nursed a hope, that their having surrendered at discretion would be admitted as a protection for their lives. But when numerous bills of high treason were found against them, escape from prison began to be thought of, which the command of money, and the countenance of friends without doors, as well as the general structure of the jails, rendered more easy than could have been expected. Thus, on the 10th of April, 1716, Thomas Forster escaped from Newgate, by means of false keys, and, having all things prepared, got safely to France. On the 10th of May, Brigadier MacIntosh, with fourteen other gentlemen, chiefly Scottish, took an opportunity to escape in the following manner. The Brigadier having found means to rid himself of his irons, and coming down stairs about eleven at night, he placed himself close by the door of the jail; and as it was opened to admit a servant at that time of night (no favourable example of prison discipline), he knocked down the jailor, and made his escape with his companions, some of whom were retaken in the streets, from not knowing whither to fly. This gentleman had pinioned the arms of the turnkey by an effort of strength, and effected his escape into the open street without pursuit. But he was at a loss whither to fly, or where to find a friendly place of refuge. His wife and family were, he knew, in London; but how, in that great city, was he to discover them, especially as they most probably were residing there under feigned names? While he was agitated by this uncertainty, and fearful of making the least inquiry, even had he known in what words to express it, he saw at a window in the street an ancient piece of plate, called the Keith Tankard, which had long belonged to his family. He immediately conceived that his wife and children must be inhabitants of the lodgings, and entering, without asking questions, was received in their arms. They knew of his purpose of escape, and took lodgings as near the jail as they could, that they might afford him immediate refuge; but dared not give him any hint where they were, otherwise than by setting the well-known flagon where it might by good fortune catch his eye. He escaped to France. The noblemen who had placed themselves at the head of the rebellion were now called to answer for their guilt; and articles of impeachment for high treason for which he suffered. Lord Kenmure | gloomy way, and who, not so fortunate as Lord Nithisdale, only left it for the scaffold on Tower Hill. Through here "went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, Moore." In old times the river was much more used as a means of communication between various parts of London than it is at present, and there were many advantages in conveying state prisoners to the Tower by this way. Little notice was excited, and there was no danger of a rescue. THE DAYS RUB-STREET, Dr. Johnson tells us, was "much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street." The period when this charming locality flourished was not the golden age of literature, or at least of literary men. OF GRUB-STREET. "It was a dark night between two sunny days. The age of patronage had passed away. The age of general curiosity and intelligence had not arrived. The number of readers is at present so great that a popular author may subsist in comfort and opulence on the profits of his works. In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the deficiency of the natural demand for litera |