Volume 1

An historical account of the origin, progress, and present state of Bethlem Hospital. Founded by Henry the eighth, for the cure of lunatics, and enlarged ... for the reception and maintenance of incurables / [Thomas Bowen].

  • Bowen, Thomas, -1800.
Date:
1783
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An historical account of the origin, progress, and present state of Bethlem Hospital. Founded by Henry the eighth, for the cure of lunatics, and enlarged ... for the reception and maintenance of incurables / [Thomas Bowen]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    |||| 1 . Is] In April 1675 this great work was begun. The lord-mayor, aider- men, and common-council of the city of London, allotted to the governors a large piece of ground near London-Wall, on the fouth fide of the lower quarter of Moorfields, where the hofpital of Bethlem now ftands. The expedition, with which this ftately fabric was com¬ pleted, challenges our admiration. For, from an infcription over the arch facing the entrance into the hofpital, it appears that it was finifhed in July, in the following year. So a6tive was the zeal that quickened the growth of this noble ftrudture! The generofity of the contributors muft have been equal to their attention, for the charge of the building amounted to no lefs a fum than £1.7,000. And inever, it may be truly alTerted, were expence and trouble better be- jftowed: the hofpital of Bethlem fkmds an illuffrious monument of Britifh charity; and, whether we confider the becoming magnifi¬ cence of the building, the commodious arrangement of the interior apartments, or the effectual relief which it reaches out to the poor abjefts whom it ftielters, we may fafely pronounce, that it is not to be parallelled in the whole world. ^ C , Ap . In * The defign of the building was taken from the Chateau de fuilleries^aS»ii«£Biii«*r Louis >QV. it is faid, was fo much offended that his palace fhould be made a model for an hofpital, hat, in revenge, he ordered a plan of St. James’s to be taken for offices of a very inferior ature. The figures of the two lunatics over the gates of the hofpital, an engraving of which is pre- xed to this account, were the work of Cibber, the father of the comedian. “ My father f Caius Gabriel Cibber was a native of Holftein, who came into England, fome time before r the reft oration of king Charles II. to follow his profeffion, which was that of a ftatuary. The r baffo'relievo on the pedeftal of the great column in the city, and the two figures of the lunatics, the Raving, and the Melancholy, over the gates of Bethlem hofpital, are no ill ' monuments of his fame as an artift.” Cibber s Apology for his own Life. There is a tradition that the perfon represented by the figure of the melancholy lunatic, was ;>rter to Oliver Cromwell.
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