404 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



the lectures ceased to excite any interest or attention, those for 

 whom they were designed being practically excluded from them. 



" In the year 1837 the Exchange was burnt down, and the cost ot 

 erecting the new one devolved on the trustees, to whom, as a tem- 

 porary lecture-hall, was ofFered the theatre of the City of London 

 School ; a room capable of holding 500 persons. It now remained 

 to be seen whether Gresham College was a worn-out institution, 

 and unsuited to the present state of science and of society, or whether 

 it was still able to realize the intentions of its founder. 



" The trial exhibited a regular increase in the number of hearers, 

 varying according to the general interest of the subjects, but always 

 sufficient to show that the public attention, and especially that of 

 the citizens of London, was directed to the re-establishment of the 

 College. Several years elapsed before the building of the new Ex- 

 change began ; and by this time the rebuilding of the College was 

 no longer regarded as a doubtful or uncertain affair. A piece of 

 ground belonging to the Corporation, at the junction of Cateaton 

 (now Gresham) and Basinghall Street, was fixed on for the site, and 

 there Gresham College stands. It was opened on the 2nd of No- 

 vember 1843. Since that time, the number of hearers has gradually 

 increased ; having been in Michaelmas term of that year 245 1 , and in 

 the corresponding term of last year 2940 : so that the four terms give 

 an aggregate attendance of from 10,000 to 12,000 persons per annum, 



" When Gresham College was razed to the ground by a decree of 

 the legislature, had the ground on which it stood, and by which it 

 was surrounded (reaching from Broad Str.eet to Bishopsgate), been 

 let out on building leases, the income arising from it would now 

 have been nearly 10,000^. per annum, instead of the pitiful sum for 

 which it was bartered away. It might have been anticipated that 

 the present government of the country, having professed so much 

 zeal for popular education, would have gladly done an act of tardy 

 justice to an institution especially founded for, and dedicated to, the 

 service of the people, without distinction of rank, sex, or sect — an 

 institution fettered by no obsolete usages, but in active and useful 

 operation, as far as its means allowed. These, at present, are very 

 slender, owing to the heavy debt which the Gresham trust incurred 

 by building the Royal Exchange and the College. 



" That the munificent design of its founder has been but partially 

 carried out, is true ; but this has arisen from events which he could 

 not foresee. He left, in the Royal Exchange, what he regarded as 

 an ample revenue for his College. And such it was, till its de- 

 struction in the great fire of London brought on the trust the heavy 

 charge of rebuilding it : and before this debt was liquidated, the 

 second Exchange shared the fate of the first, and occasioned a re- 

 newal of the debt. These were casualties which he did not con- 

 template ; but still less would he have imagined that the govern- 

 ment of England would, by an act of the legislature, have compelled 

 his trustees to expend 1 800/. of the revenues of the College in its 

 destruction, and thus deprive London of his munificent bequest. 



" It is, however, satisfactory to reflect that the germ of the institu- 

 tion yet remains ; that its advantages, even with its present limited 



