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THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLAR.

Reminiscences of former Times—Lamentations of Old Crony—
Ancient Sports and Sprees—Modern Im-provements—Hints to
Builders and Buyers—Some Account of the School and its
Worthies—Recollections of old Schoolfellows—Sketches of
Character—The Living and the Dead.
"Fast by, an old but noble fabric stands,
No vulgar work, but raised by princely hands;
Which, grateful to Eliza's memory, pays,
In living monuments, an endless praise."

From a poem by a Westminster Scholar, written during Dr. Friend's Mastership, in 1699.

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"What say you to a stroll through Thorney Island,{1} this morning?" said old Crony, with whom I had been taking a déjeuné à la fourchette; "you have indulged your readers with all the whims and eccentricities of Eton and of Oxford, and, in common justice, you must not pass by the Westminster blacks."{2} Crony had, I learned, been a foundation scholar during the mastership of Dr. Samuel Smith; when the poet Churchill, Robert Lloyd, (the son of the under-master) Bonnel Thornton, George Colman the elder, Richard Cumberland, and a host of other highly-gifted names, were associated within the precincts of the abbey cloisters. Our way towards

1 The abbey ground, so called by the monkish writers; but,
since Busby's time, more significantly designated by the
scholars Birch Island.—Vide Tidier.
2 Black———s from Westminster; ruff—s from Winchester;
and gentlemen from Eton.—Old Cambridge Proverb.

Westminster from the Surrey side of Vauxhall bridge, where Crony had taken up his abode, lay through the scene of his earliest recollections; and, not even Crockery himself could have been more pathetic in his lamentations over the improvements of modern times. "Here," said Crony, placing himself upon the rising ground which commands an uninterrupted view of the bank, right and left, and fronts the new road to Chelsea, and, the Grosvenor property; "here, in my boyish days, used the Westminster scholars to congregate for sports and sprees. Many a juvenile frolic have I been engaged in beneath the shadowy willows that then o'ercanopied the margin of old father Thames; but they are almost all destroyed, and with them disappears the fondest recollections of my youth. Upwards, near yonder frail tenement which is now fast mouldering into decay, lived the beautiful gardener's daughter, the flower of Millbank, whose charms for a long time excited the admiration of many a noble name, ay, and inspired many a noble strain too, and produced a chivalrous rivalry among the young and generous hearts who were then of Westminster. Close to that spot all matches on the water were determined; and beneath yon penthouse, many a jovial cup have I partook of with the contending parties, when the aquatic sports were over, in the evening's cool retirement, or seated on the benches which then filled up the space between the trees in front of Watermans' Hall, as the little public house then used to be called. About half a mile above was the favourite bathing-place; and just over the water below Lambeth palace, yet may be seen Doo's house, where, from time immemorial, the Westminster boys had been supplied with funnies, skiffs, wherries, and sailing-boats. The old mill which formerly stood on the right-hand of the river, and from which the place derived its name, has now entirely disappeared; and in lieu of the green fields and pleasant walks with which this part of the suburbs abounded, we have now a number of square brick-dust tubs, miscalled cottages ornée, and a strange-looking Turkish sort of a prison called a Penitentiary, which from being judiciously placed in a swamp is rendered completely uninhabitable. Cumberland-gardens, on the opposite side, was, in former times, in great vogue; here the cits used to rusticate on a summer's evening, coming up the water in shoals to show their dexterity in rowing, and daring the dangers of the watery element to blow a cloud in the fresh air, and ruralise upon the 'margin of old father Thames.'