CHELSEA HOSPITAL.

THE Royal Hospital of Chelsea is situated on the banks of the Thames, at the distance of a mile and an half from Buckingham Gate. It was begun in the reign of Charles the Second, and compleated in that of William and Mary. Its scite is that of the edifice known by the name of "King James's College;" of which, as a very curious and connected subject, some account will be naturally expected.

This collegiate establishment was originally projected by Doctor Matthew Sutcliffe, a very zealous and learned divine, and Dean of Exeter, in the seventh year of the reign of James the First, and under the immediate patronage of that monarch. It was designed for the sole study of polemical divinity, under the government of a provost and fellows, who were to employ their whole time and talents in the advancement of the reformed religion, and the defence of it against the attacks of the church of Rome. At this period, the press teemed with publications on topics of controversial divinity; and the public attention was proportionably engrossed by theological disquisitions. The court set the example, as the monarch himself was attached to that branch of study; and to be considered as a powerful controversalist in religious polemics, was no small gratification to his pride. This college, therefore, found a zealous patron in the king, who supported it by various grants and benefactions. His majesty laid the first stone of the new edifice on the eighth day of May, 1609, granted a sufficient quantity of timber for its construction from his royal Forest of Windsor, and was pleased to command, as recited in the original charter of incorporation, dated the ninth of May in the same year, that it should bear the name of " King James's College at Chelsea." By this instrument it was also directed that the provost and fellows were to be nineteen