}

HERE we have another instance of the transformation
of one institution into another, or rather of the translation
of a scholastic building from one description of occupants
to another. Exchange, we say is no robbery; and here
was no sequestration or confiscation, but rather an act of
open agreement and mutual accommodation.

For this house has been collegiated if a proper word is
used-twice; having been made a college once, in the
more modest language of those times, for grammarians;
and again, for philosophy, and the liberal arts: under
the former character, as God's house; a name frequently
given to collegiate and religious institutions ;—under the
latter, as Christ's College

It seems when Henry VI. formed the design of founding King's College, there was an hostel, called God's House, near Clare Hall, which it was expedient for him to take into his plan: the foundation of this hostel in our written histories, is ascribed to William Bingham, in 1442.

But, according to a MS. in Baker's Collections, the case was this; June 18, 26 Hen. VI. viz. 1448, there

passed a grant to God's House of the Priory Alien of Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, a licence having been granted Apr. 16 before to him, to found the same, though the licence was recalled, that King Henry might found it himself. William Bingham is called Parson of the Church of St. John Zachary, in London, and procurator. He is called, too, Master of God's House: but had he been properly the founder, he would probably not have been master; or if master, probably not the founder; unless as a sort of coadjutor and adviser, as Bishop Fisher was to Lady Margaret, in founding St. John's, and Dr. Chadderton to Sir Walter Mildmay, in founding Emmanuel.

:

Far be it from me to despoil a good cleric of the honour of founding a religious or collegiate house, any more than I am of taking the honour of founding a similar institution from Maister John Frost, an honest citizen of Cambridge but if we admit the above statement, it. should seem that Henry VI. wished to be considered as the founder of God's House.

Be this, however, as it may, the society was removed to the site now occupied by Christ's College, to a house belonging to the monks, who came from Tilsey and Denney, to study there; and Henry founded a society in that place, under the name of God's House, for one master, whom he called procurator, and four scholars, or fellows; to whom, by his public letters, he gave a power of making statutes, and of increasing their scholars to 60. After the overthrow of Henry, and Edward the IVth's succession to the government, all Henry's intentions were, of course, over-ruled, and every thing thrown into confusion. After the death of Rich. III. Henry VII. succeeded him—and he intrusted every thing` relating to