popularly Spittal, a place or building erected, out of charity, for the reception and support of the poor, aged, infirm, sick, and otherwise helpless. The word is formed from the Latin hospes, host, stranger. See Host.

In the early ages of the church, the bishop had the immediate charge of all the poor, both healthy and diseased, as also of widows, orphans, strangers, and others. When the churches came to have fixed revenues allotted to them, it was decreed that at least one fourth part of these should go to the relief of the poor; and to provide for them the more commodiously, houses of charity were built, which were afterwards denominated hospitals. They were governed wholly by the priests and deacons, under the inspection of the bishop. But in course of time, separate revenues were assigned for the hospital; and particular persons, from motives of piety and charity, gave lands and money for erecting hospitals. When the church discipline began to relax, the priests, who till then had been the administrators of hospitals, converted them into a sort of benefices, which they held at pleasure, without accounting to any body, reserving the greater part of the income to their own use, so that the intentions of the founders were in a great measure frustrated. To remove this abuse, the council of Vienne expressly prohibited the giving any hospital to secular priests in the way of a benefice; and directed the administration of these establishments to be committed to sufficient and responsible laymen, who should take an oath, like that of tutors, for the faithful discharge of its duties, and be accountable to the ordinaries. This decree was executed and confirmed by the council of Trent.

In Britain hospitals are buildings properly endowed, or otherwise supported by charitable contributions, for the reception and support of the poor, aged, infirm, sick, or helpless.

or Hôpital, Michel de L', chancellor of France, and one of the most illustrious magistrates of modern times, was born at Aigueperse, in Auvergne, in the year 1505. His father, John de l'Hôpital, who was at once physician and counsellor to the Constable of Bourbon, sent him to study law, first at Toulouse, and afterwards at Padua, the legal school of which then enjoyed great celebrity. In that age jurisprudence was the principal science cultivated, and no one could aspire to any employment without having studied it profoundly. L'Hôpital, although he had already acquired the elements of this science in France, spent six years at Padua in improving himself therein; he also applied himself to the study of the belles-lettres, in which he made rapid advances, and at the same time cultivated the Greek and the Latin languages, with which he rendered himself perfectly familiar. Having completed his studies, and finding his prospects clouded by the death of the Cardinal de Grammont, who had induced him to return to France, and upon whose credit and influence he had founded his hopes of preferment, he entered himself of the bar at Paris. In this profession, his merit and virtue were soon appreciated. At the end of three years, John Morin, criminal lieutenant, a person famous in the martyrology of the Protestants, on account of the severity with which he enforced the laws enacted against them, gave L'Hôpital his daughter in marriage, and at the same time conferred upon him the office of counsellor to the parliament of Paris as her dowry.

In this situation, which he held during twelve years, the toleration he displayed formed a remarkable contrast to the unrelenting severity by which his father-in-law had rendered himself too celebrated. When L'Hôpital entered the parliament, that once illustrious body had much degenerated, owing to the venality which the misfortunes of the time had forced Francis I. to introduce, or at least to overlook. A witness of this corruption, L'Hôpital deplored its consequences, and, in concert with some old magistrates who still remained, endeavoured to set an example of assiduity and application, to a crowd of inexperienced young men, who, by venality, had obtained admission into the parliament, and who had no other title to that honour but the money they had paid for it. L'Hôpital was long cited as a model in the magistracy. He made it a rule to listen with patience, to interrupt no one, to express himself as concisely as possible, and to oppose all unnecessary delays; he was also punctual in his attendance in court, where he generally remained until the business of the day had been regularly gone through, and always rose with reluctance, however late, if any portion of it remained unattended to. In short, he was a laborious and conscientious judge, who to great talents united the most steady and persevering industry. The vacations made no material change in his way of life; his pursuits were indeed different, but his application was the same; the perusal of the great writers of antiquity, the study of French history, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, each in its turn formed the occupation of his leisure time. "There is nothing frivolous in my amusements," says he, in one of his letters; "sometimes Xenophon is the companion of my walks; sometimes the divine Plato regales me with the discourses of Socrates. History and poetry have their turns; but my chief delight is in the sacred writings."

The next appointment which L'Hôpital received was that conferred upon him by Henri II. of envoy or ambassador to the council of Trent, which was then sitting at Bologna. But having soon grown tired of the inactivity to which he found himself reduced, he was, at his own desire, recalled, and, upon his return, experienced some coldness on the part of the court, which did not altogether relish his evident disinclination to assist in the proceedings of that famous council. This obscurantism, however, proved only temporary, for ere long he was restored to the royal favour, and appointed master of the requests. Nor did his promotion stop here. In the beginning of 1554, he was constituted director and superintendent of the royal finances in the chamber of accounts. At this time the finances required a guardian at once vigilant and faithful. Enormous abuses prevailed in the whole fiscal administration. On the one hand there existed profusion without limits, and on the other malversation without shame. Scarcely a third, or even a fourth part of the sums collected, ever reached the royal treasury; the people were exposed to the most grinding exactions, yet the revenue was in a state of gradual decline. To put an end to these disorders, L'Hôpital revived the ancient laws which had fallen into desuetude; he struck terror into defaulters by some examples of wholesome severity; he refused to sanction any expenditure except for the immediate purposes of the state; he defied the enmity of that numerous and vindictive class whose dishonest gains he had destroyed; and he acted with so much personal disinterestedness, that, after having been five years in office, he was unable to give a portion to his daughter, and the deficiency was supplied by the liberality of the sovereign.

After the fatal accident which, in 1559, put an end to the life of the king, the Cardinal de Lorraine, then at the head of affairs, introduced L'Hôpital into the council of state; but as one of the articles of the treaty of Chateau-Cambrésis had provided that the Duchess of Berri, his benefactress, should espouse Emanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, he was appointed to conduct that princess into Piedmont, whither he attended her in the capacity of chancellor. The distracted situation of France, however, soon made it necessary to recall a man of such undaunted firmness and inflexible integrity. In the midst of faction, turbulence, and confusion, when the passions of men appeared, like the evil spirits, to have been for a season unchained, he was advanced to the office of chancellor of France, and in this elevated station conducted himself like a philosopher and a hero, superior alike to weakness and to fear. At this period the destruction of the Protestants had been determined on; it was resolved to leave them no alternative but abjuration or death; and it was even in contemplation to establish in France the redoubtable tribunal of the inquisition. The new chancellor durst not attack this project in front, without compromising himself with the governing party; but he sought indirectly to defeat the odious design, and by the edict of Romorantin, which declared the crime of heresy to be cognisable only by the ecclesiastical judge, he ultimately accomplished his beneficent design, and thus decided the clergy to abandon all idea of establishing the inquisition, which, they knew, would be powerless when deprived of the aid of the secular arm. Upon all occasions, indeed, he was the advocate of mercy and reconciliation, and a declared enemy to persecution on account of religion; and hence the more bigoted Romanists, offended at his wisdom and moderation, accused him of being a concealed Protestant, forgetting that by such suspicions and accusations they paid the highest compliments to the spirit of that faith which they were so desirous to eradicate. With a man of such character, ability, and firmness at the head of affairs, it was hopeless to attempt to carry through the violent measures which were already contemplated; yet when the question of giving him a successor came to be seriously agitated, Catherine of Medicis found herself involved in very great perplexity. The ancient relations of L'Hôpital with the House of Lorraine; the estimation in which he was universally held, his known love of his country, which, in his mind, absorbed all other affections; and the difficulty of finding any one to fill his place, who would not sink into insignificance or contempt in comparison with this truly great man—were serious obstacles to his removal; but as nothing could induce him to abandon or change the pacific character of his measures, all other considerations were at length disregarded, and the queen excluded him from the council of war, upon which he immediately withdrew to his country-house at Vignay, near Estampes.

His exclusion from the council was accompanied with insult. The Constable of Montmorency told him that a man of his profession, a civilian, ought not to intermeddle in what related to war. "That is a subject," said the constable, "on which you are not qualified to give advice." "True," replied the chancellor, "I do not know how to make war, but I know when it is necessary." Several days after his retirement from office, when the seals were demanded of him, he resigned them without regret, observing that the affairs of the world were too corrupt for him to meddle with them. He spent his time in lettered ease, amusing himself with writing Latin poetry, and enjoying the society of some select friends, until his peace was broken by the bloody tragedy of St Bartholomew, which, with his usual sagacity, he had foreseen. Of this barbarous and inexplicable massacre the judgment he pronounced has been ratified by posterity. He was himself near becoming one of its victims. The inhabitants of the country had risen, and were devastating the fields, and dragging the farmers in chains towards the city. But the queen, anxious about his fate, sent a detachment of cavalry for his protection. The sudden apparition of this troop, whose destination was unknown, produced great consternation in his house, which was open on all sides. He was asked by the inmates if they would close the gates. "No, no," said he; "if the small gate will not admit them, throw open the large one." When informed that the persons who prepared the lists of proscription had pardoned him the opposition which he had always given to their projects; "I did not know," replied he coldly, "that I had done any thing to deserve either pardon or death." But what most deeply affected L'Hôpital on this mournful occasion, was the danger to which his daughter, who happened to be in Paris, was in consequence exposed. She was saved by the interference of Hospitality.

Anne d'Este, duchess of Guise, whom L'Hôpital thanked for this signal service, in an epistle overflowing with the warmest feelings of paternal gratitude. These cruel events, however, deeply affected his health and spirits, and he died at Vignay, on the 13th of March 1573, at the age of sixty-eight, and less than one year after the massacre.

"L'Hôpital," says Brantôme, "was the greatest, wisest, and most learned chancellor that was ever known in France. His large white beard, pale countenance, and austere manner, made all who saw him think they beheld a true portrait of St Jerome; and, in fact, he was called St Jerome by the courtiers. All orders of men feared him, particularly the members of the courts of justice; and when he examined them on their lives, their discharge of their duties, their capacities or their knowledge, and particularly when he examined candidates for offices, and found them deficient, he made them feel it. He was profoundly versed in polite learning, very eloquent, and an excellent poet. His severity was never ill natured; he made due allowance for the imperfections of human nature; he was always equal and firm. After his death, his very enemies acknowledged that he was the greatest magistrate whom France had known, and that they did not expect to see such another." The productions of L'Hôpital are, 1. Latin Poems; 2. Speeches delivered at the Meeting of the States at Orleans; 3. Mémoires, contenant plusieurs Traité de Paix, &c., from 1551 to 1560, Cologne, 1672, in 12mo. A work which he had undertaken on law is lost; and it is said that he had also projected a history of his own time, on the model of the ancient historians; but of this no part appears to have been executed. In 1807, M. Bernardi published his Essai sur la Vie, les Ecrits, et les Loix de Michel de l'Hôpital, in one volume 8vo, from which and other documents Mr Charles Butler published his Essay on the Life of L'Hôpital, principally with the view of exhibiting him as a friend of toleration.

Hospital, William-Francis-Antony, Marquis of, an eminent French mathematician, was born of an ancient family in 1661. He was a geometrician almost from his infancy; for one day being at the Duke of Rohan's, where some able mathematicians were speaking of a problem of Pascal's which appeared to them extremely difficult, he ventured to say that he believed he could solve it. They were amazed at such presumption in a boy of fifteen, for he was then no more; nevertheless, in a few days he sent them the solution. He entered early into the army, and rose to be a captain of horse; but being extremely short-sighted, and exposed on that account to perpetual inconveniences and errors, he at length quitted the army, and applied himself entirely to his favourite pursuit. He contracted a friendship for Malebranche, whose opinion he followed upon all occasions. In 1693 he was received as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris; and he published a work upon Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, entitled L'Analyse des Infinitimens Petits. He was the first in France who wrote upon this subject, and on this account was regarded almost as a prodigy. He engaged afterwards in another work of the mathematical kind, in which he included Les Sections Coniques, les Lieux Géométriques, la Construction des Equations, et Une Théorie des Courbes Mécaniques; but a little before he had finished it, he was seized with a fever, of which he died on the 2d of February 1704, at the age of forty-three. It was published after his death.