open at the name of Sir Thomas Gresham, the
page containing whose biography was surrounded
with choice maxims. I proceeded with the
biography, and learned that the good old "royal
merchant" had by will founded seven lectureships
for professors of the " seven liberal sciences,"
and that their lectures were to be given, gratis,
to the people. And I determined to profit by
Sir Thomas Gresham's bounty.

The social science which I chose to be
lectured on was rhetoric, thinking I might gain a
few hints for improving myself in neat after-
dinner speeches and toast-proposings, and at a
few minutes before noon on the first day, when
this subject stood for discussion on the syllabus,
I presented myself at the Gresham College. A
pleasant-faced beadle, gorgeous in blue broadcloth
and gold, and with the beaver-iest hat I
had ever seen—a cocked-hat bound with lace like
the Captain's in Black-Eyed Susan—was standing
in the hall, and to him I addressed myself,
asking where the lectnre was given.

"In the theatre, up-stairs, sir. Come at one,
and you'll hear it in English."

"Isn't it given in Latin at twelve?"

"Lor' bless you, not unless there's three
people present, and there never is! I give 'em
five minutes, but they never come! Pity, ain't
it? He's here, all ready" (jerking his head
towards an inner door), " he's got it with him;
but there's never anybody to hear him, leastways
werry seldom, and then if there is three or four
come in for shelter out of the rain or such-like,
d'rectly he begins in Latin, and they can't
understand him, they gets up and goes away!"

"Then they do come to the English lectures?"

"Bless you, yes; to some of them, lots,
'specially the music and the 'stronomy. Ladies
come—lots of 'em—and the clerks out of the
counting-houses hereabouts, for the music
lecture's in the evening, you know; and they
brings ladies with 'em—ah, maybe as many as a
hundred!"

"Well, I'll go up and take my chance of
somebody coming!"

"You're welcome, sir, but I'm afraid you'll be
the only one."

I went up-stairs, and soon found myself in one
of the prettiest lecture-theatres I had ever seen,
semicircular in shape, and fitted with benches,
rising one above the other, and capable of holding
some five hundred people. The space
allotted to the lecturer was partitioned off by a
stout panelling, and was fitted with a red-
covered table, and a high standing-desk. There
was also an enormous slate, with traces of recenl
diagrams still unobliterated, and an indescribable
something, like a gymnastic machine, behind it.
I took a seat on one of the topmost benches, and
remained there a solemn five minutes, in the
midst of a silence and desolation quite appalling.
At last I heard a footstep on the stone stairs,
and I hoped, but it was the beadle's. " I told
you so," he said, pleasantly. " I always gives
'em five minutes; now, if you want to hear the
lecture, come again at one

I went again at one, and found what a Frenchman
would call " du monde." There must have
been fully seventeen people present. Close
down against the rail partitioning off the
lecturer's stage, was a crushed and spiritless man,
with a fluffy head of hair, like a Chinchilli boa
or an Angora cat, who seemed in the lowest
possible spirits: leaning his head against the
oaken panelling in front of him, he kept groaning
audibly. Immediately behind him sat two seedy
old women, in damp, mildewed, lustreless black,
with smashed bonnets, and long, black, perspiry
old gloves, the fingers of which, far too long,
doubled over as far as the knuckles. They looked
more like superannuated pew-openers than old
ladies, and kept conversing in a hoarse whisper,
at every sentence addressing each other as
"mem." A little higher up, a fair-haired, light-
whiskered man had ensconced himself against
one of the pillars, and was cutting his nails.
He was properly balanced on the other side of
the hall by a black-bearded man, leaning against
the opposite pillar, who scratched his head.
Close by me, at the upper portion of the hall,
were a very pretty girl and a savage, fidgety
old woman; probably her aunt. Next to the
aunt, a spry man, with blue spectacles, who
commenced taking notes as soon as the
lecturer opened his mouth: a man with a red
nose and a moist eye, and a general notion
of rum-and- water about him—probably in
the appalling-accident, devouring-element, and
prodigious-gooseberry line of literature. A
misanthropic shoemaker, having on the bench
beside him a blue bag bursting with boots, which
diffused an acrid smell of leather and blacking,
and a miserable old man in a faded camlet cloak
who sat munching an Abernethy biscuit between
his toothless gums, and snowing himself all over
with the fragments, made up our company. After
the lecture had proceeded about five minutes, the
door opened, and a thin, sharp-faced man, in very
short trousers, very dirty white socks, and low
pumps, advanced two paces into the room, but
he looked round deliberately, and after saying,
quietly, " Dear me! ah!" as though he had
made a mistake, turned round and retreated.

At a few minutes after one, a very tall gentleman
in a Master of Arts gown appeared at the
lecture table, and made a little bow. We got up
a feeble round of applause to receive him—such
applause as three umbrellas and two pair of hands
could produce— but he bobbed in acknowledgment
of it, looked up at the gallery, which was
perfectly empty, and commenced. He had such a low
opinion of us his audience, that he thought we
could not have read the syllabus, for, instead ot
Rhetoric, his lecture, he told us, was upon Taste.
I am, I trust, a patient hearer. I have lectured
myself, and have a feeling for the position of a
man being compelled to stand up and endeavour
to win the attention of a stupid and scanty
audience. I think there are very few men in London
who have been better bored than I have in
the course of my life, but I am bound to say
that anything more appallingly dreary and
uninteresting than the tall gentleman's discourse
I never listened to. The matter was prosaic,