Among the Jews it existed to a formidable degree, and the Levitical laws were very strict in separating the diseased from the tabernacle, and from the eating of the holy things. See xxii and xxiii of Leviticus. Some have imagined it to have been the itch, contracted by this people, partly from their filthiness, and partly from drinking water of a bad and bituminous quality, which greatly augmented the disease.

Calmet and other commentators have differed greatly on this subject, but the exact nature of the malady has been much questioned; there is, however, little doubt but its inveteracy was engendered by uncleanliness-dirty linenand want of baths during their wanderings in the desarts.

Voltaire assures us, that there are about thirty diseases of the skin from the simple itch to the direful cancer, and many of them are of a formidable nature.

"That species of the leprosy, which is called elephantiasis, came not into Italy before the time of Pompey the Great: it commonly began in the face, or at the nostril, no bigger at first than a small pea; it spreads itself all over the body, which it deforms with divers spots, unequal skin, and a rough scab: at last it turns black, and wastes the flesh unto the very bones, making the fingers and toes in the meantime swell. The disease is peculiar to Egypt, and

if it falls upon the king, is fatal to the people, for baths of human blood are the usual and frequent remedies that are prepared for it."See a curious passage in Wanley's History of Man.

This disorder, modern medical men say, was an inveterate stage of the scurvy. Its effects render the limbs swollen and tuberous, the skin bloated, rough and wrinkled, the callous parts of the feet and other members ulcerated and varicated. A cleanlier system, and different modes of living, have almost extinguished this malady.

Hospitals were founded and endowed in many parts of the kingdom for persons thus afflicted, and among these institutions St. James's was founded, before the conquest, as a hospital for fourteen maidens that were leprous. Henry VIII. first procured it for a palace, and it was greatly added to by Charles I.

Among the earliest of these was the celebrated Hospital of St. Giles, which was founded in 1117 by Matilda, (or, as she is called by some historians, Maud), daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, Queen of Henry I. It was built for the reception of forty lepers, one clerk, and one messenger, besides matrons, the master, and others on the establishment,

and she gave sixty shillings a year to each leper.*

The site of the hospital was the site of the original parochial church, as is evident from the words of King Henry II.'s charter, which expressly states it to have been founded " ubi

e

Johannes bonac memoria fuit capellanus," which is "upon the spot where John of good memory was chaplain." The ground given by the crown (together with the Manor of St. Giles), was eight acres, upon which, says Leland, Queen Matilda caused to be built a house or principal mansion with an oratory (chapel) and offices." That these buildings, at first few and small, were afterwards increased and enlarged as well as the hospital boundaries, when charity added to its revenues, there seems no doubt, but at this distance of time we can only conjecture. In the licence to Wymond Carew, which we shall advert to hereafter, there is mention made of a close, or enclosure,

* Maitland and other antiquarians have been much puzzled to account how they were maintained with so scanty a sum, after allowing for the difference of the value of money at that and the present period. It is well known, however, that lazar houses when first built were allowed to augment their means by sending every market-day to the markets a clapdish, to beg corn. Other means were also resorted to to increase their income. Matilda founded another hospital for poor maimed persons at Cripplegate; the Priory of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate; and the Church and Hospital of St. Catherine, below the Tower, (now removed to Regent's Park.)

lying within the precints of the hospital, and one before the great gate, is stated at sixteen acres, late in the occupation of Thomas Magnus, clerk, and another, same tenant, called Newland, twenty acres.

Another called Le Lane, late in the occupation of George Sutton, gentleman. It has been inferred from hence, that the hospital buildings were much of the same character at the foundation and dissolution.

But among all the establishments of this kind, the most celebrated in magnitude and consequence was that of Burton St. Lazar in Leicestershire, which was built in 1135 (eighteen years after that of St. Giles) during the reign of King Stephen. This hospital was erected by general contribution, and Roger de Mowbray was a munificent benefactor to it; and we have records to show how intimately it was connected with that of St. Giles.

The latter hospital comprised, with its garden, a considerable extent, and was situate near to the present church, a little to the west, and, according to Maitland, where Lloyd's Court now stands, and its gardens between High Street and Hog Lane (now Crown Street) and the Pound which stood nearly opposite to and west of where Meux's Brewhouse now stands. It was surrounded by a wall nearly of a triangular form, being a boundary to the

hospital and its precints, running in a line with Crown Street, to somewhere near the Cock and Pye Fields (now Seven Dials) thence in a line with Monmouth Street, and thence east and west up High Street, joining at the north end of Crown Street where St. Giles' Pond stood subsequently.

The hospital was dedicated to a Grecian Saint, bearing the name of "St. Giles of the Lepers": it had a chapel attached to it, a house for its master and other officers, and continued under flourishing circumstances, with some variations, owing partly to the quarrels of its loathsome inmates, till its dissolution under the rapacious reign of Henry VIII.

In the Hospital Chapel (or Church as it was afterwards called) a great taper was superstitiously burnt before its patron Saint Giles, which stood on a high altar at its east end.

It would seem that this disease increased in virulence: the council of Lateran having decreed in 1179, that persons so afflicted should have churches, church-yards, and ministers of their own, and kept distinct from society.

On the removal of the gallows from the elms in Smithfield in the first year of Henry V. 1413, it was set up at the north corner of St. Giles's Hospital Wall, between the termination of High Street and Crown Street, opposite