The Inns of Court were instituted chiefly for the benefit of those desiring to devote themselves to the legal profession, but from an early period they were resorted to by Churchmen and sons of the nobility and gentry, to whom it was thought fitting to give some instruction in the principles and maxims of our municipal law. We shall mention a few of the more eminent ecclesiastics who have studied at .

[extra_illustrations.2.566.1] , and Lord Chancellor of England, is the of these. He was Cromwell's great adversary. His abilities it is impossible to over-rate, and cannot but admire his inflexible courage in the most trying circumstances; but he was artful, ambitious, and revengeful, even to blood. He died in . The dexterous equivocations by which he habitually endeavoured to secure the advantages and escape the penalties of untruthfulness gave rise to the remark,

My Lord of Winchester is like Hebrew, to be read backwards.

Whitgift, the primate after the Reformation, was admitted to on the . He was distinguished for his learning, piety, and integrity, and is described by Fuller as

one

of the worthiest men that ever the English hierarchy did enjoy.

Ecclesiastical Polity.

In the books of we find entered the name of another distinguished Churchman, Joseph Hall, successively Bishop of Exeter and Norwich. His works have gained him the appellation of the

Christian Seneca.

I leave my body to be buried without any funeral pomp, at the discretion of my executors, with this only monition, that I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints.

Another ecclesiastical member of was Archbishop Laud. He was admitted on the . Speaking of Laud, Fuller, in his characteristic style, remarks,

Indeed, I could instance in some kind of coarse venison, not fit for food when

first

killed; and therefore cunning cooks bury it for some hours in the earth, till the rankness thereof being mortified thereby, it makes most palatable meat. So the memories of some persons, newly deceased, are neither fit for a writer's or reader's repast, till some competent time after their interment. However, I am confident, that impartial posterity, on a serious review of all passages, will allow his name to be reposed among the heroes of our nation, seeing such as hold his expense on

St. Paul's

as but a cypher, will assign his other benefactions a very valuable significance, viz., his

erecting and endowing an almshouse in Reading; his increasing of Oxford Library with books and

St. John's

College with beautiful buildings.

[extra_illustrations.2.567.1] , Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was admitted a member of on the . It was this prelate, the reader will remember, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold, and did his best, by suitable exhortations, to prepare the unfortunate king for his end.

There is, sir,

but

one

stage more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very short

one

. Consider, it will soon carry you a great way; it will carry you from earth to heaven; and there you shall find to your great joy the prize to which you hasten a crown of glory.

I go,

from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown;

the head of a traitor.

The author of the which led to the conversion of Richard Baxter, and which Izaak Walton bequeathed to his children, was once the preacher of . He was Dr. Richard Sibbes. His death took place at his chambers, here, in .

Baxter himself tells us of the happy influence which this book had upon him. His father was pious, but his surroundings generally were adverse to all religious impressions. The neighbourhood in which he passed his youth--a village near the foot of the Wrekin, in Shropshire--was all that Queen Elizabeth or King James could have wished; or, says writer,

if it exceeded her Majesty's allowance--

two preachers enough for one county,

in complying with her kinsman's

Book of Sports,

it showed an excess of loyalty.

Bruised Reed

And thus,

without any means but books, was God pleased to resolve me unto Himself.

The use that God made of books above ministers to the benefit of my soul made me somewhat excessively in love with good books, so that I thought I had never enow, but scraped up as great a treasure of them as I could.

A few members of the picturesque race of antiquaries and bookworms-irritable, eccentric, and hermit-like--have resided in . Joseph Ritson, for instance, had chambers here. He lived and died in No. , . The building. stood against the south wall of the chapel, and has since been pulled down.

In that entertaining work, the by Mr. John Hill Burton, the historian of Scotland gives some curious particulars regarding Ritson. He was a man endowed with almost superhuman irritability of temper, and he had a genius fertile in devising means of giving scope to its restless energies. of his obstinate fancies was, when addressing a letter to a friend of the male sex, instead of using the ordinary prefix of Mr. or the affix of Esq., to employ the term , aswhen writing to well-known fellow-workers in the ways of old antiquity-Master John Pinkerton, Master George Chalmers. The agreeable result of this eccentricity was that his communications on delicate and antiquarian disputes were invariably delivered to, and perused by, the young gentlemen of the family, so opening up new little delicate avenues, fertile in controversy and misunderstanding.

But he had another and more varied peculiarity. In his numerous books he insisted on a peculiar spelling. It was not phonetic, nor was it etymological, it was simply Ritsonian. To understand the efficacy of this arrangement as a source of controversy, it must be remembered that the instinct of a printer is to spell according to rule, and that every deviation from the ordinary method can only be carried out by a special contest over each word. Ritson, in seeing his works through the press, fought every step of the way, and such peculiarities as the following, profusely scattered over his books, may be looked upon as the names of so many battles or skirmishes with his printers:

Compilur,

writur,

wil,

kil,

onily,

probablely.

ass,

fs,

sf.

This strange creature,

exemplified the opinion that every

one

must have some creed--something from without having an influence over thought and action, stronger than the imperfect apparatus of human reason. Scornfully disdaining revelation from above, he groped below, and found for himself a little fetish made of turnips and cabbage. He was as fanatical a devotee of vegetarianism as others have been of a middle state or adult baptism; and after having torn through a life of spiteful controversy with his fellowmen, and ribaldry of all sacred things, he thus expressed the

one

weight hanging on his conscience, that

on one occasion, when, tempted by wet, cold, and hunger, in the south of Scotland, he ventured to eat a few potatoes dressed under the roast, nothing less repugnant to feelings being to be had.

Opposite Ritson's chambers lived [extra_illustrations.2.568.1] , the eminent writer on topography and architecture, for years clerk to Simpson, an attorney, at the handsome salary of a week.

Yet,

with this small income, I felt comfortable and happy, as it provided me with a decent lodging, clothes, and food, and with the luxury of books.

At

eleven

o'clock he came to the office to receive business letters, each of which he read several times, with pauses between each sentence; by which process

six

short letters would occupy at least an hour of his time. He devoted more than another hour to dictating equally laconic letters in reply; whilst a

third

was employed in reading those answers when written. This vapid waste of time was the practice of every succeeding day for

three

years.

Most of Britton's works were devoted to topography and architectural antiquities, biography, and the fine arts. Amongst these may be named his

Architectural Antiquities of Great

Britain

,

To his labours, the architecture, and particularly the ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, of the country, is deeply indebted for the restoration of what was decayed, and the improvement of what was defective; and in his beautiful sketches and masterly engravings, extending through many volumes, he has given us a treasure-house of antiquarian art, and made the pencil and the graver not only perpetuate and preserve much that has long been mouldering into shapeless ruin, but has also supplied many a new model of improved beauty, suggested by his own genius, and carried into effect by his own zeal and perseverance.

The well-known historian, Edward Hall, who wrote the a work which furnished material for so many of the dramatic productions of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was a reader, at time, in . We find his name mentioned in connection with a pension of the bench of , held ( Henry VIII.), when. the king's command that all images of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry II., should be removed from churches and chapels, was taken into consideration. It was then ordered that Edward Hall should see to the taking out of a certain window in the chapel of this house,

wherein the picture of the said archbishop was

gloriously

painted,

Amongst other antiquarian members of we may mention Rymer, whose work, the , has given him a European reputation. Rymer was born in Yorkshire, and after studying at Cambridge removed to . He adopted the profession of the law, and in succeeded in the post of historiographer to King William III. His death took place on the , and he found a grave in St. Clement Danes.

In lived Dr. Rawlinson, who stuffed chambers so full of books that he had to sleep in the passage. He was the original of Tom Folio, so pleasantly described in No. of the

Tom Folio is a broker in learning, employed to get together good editions, and stock the libraries of great men. There is not a sale of books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door. There is not

an auction where his name is not heard, and that, too, in the very nick of time, in the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer. There is not a subscription goes forward in which Tom is not privy to the

first

rough draft of the proposals, nor a catalogue printed that does not come to him wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so far as the title-page of all authors; knows the manuscripts in which they were discovered, the editions through which they have passed, with the praises or censure which they have received from the several members of the learned world. He has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks out into a panegyric upon Harvey Stephens. He thinks he gives you an account of an author when he tells you the subject he treats of, the name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or, if you draw him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the paper, extols the diligence of the corrector, and is transported with the beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning and substantial criticism. As for those who talk of the fineness of style and the justness of thought, or describe the brightness of any particular passages; nay, though, they write themselves in the genius and spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks upon them as men of superficial learning, and flashy parts.

The quiet seclusion of has, in bygone times, formed the retreat of many distinguished poets and literary men. It was the residence of George Chapman, the poet, who was born in , and died, honoured and beloved, in .

Chapman deserves best to be kept in remembrance for his translation of Homer, whom he speaks of as

the prince of poets, never before truly translated

The

Iliad

,

is fine, but less equal in the translation, as well as less interesting in itself. What is stupidly said of Shakespeare is really true and appropriate of Chapman--mighty faults, counterpoised by mighty beauties. Excepting his quaint epithets, which he affects to render literally from the Greek, it has no look, no air of a translation. It is as truly an original poem as the

Fairy Queen.

It will give you small idea of Homer, though a far truer

one

than Pope's epigrams or Cowper's cumbersome, most anti- Homeric Miltonism. For Chapman writes and feels as a poet--as Homer might have written had he lived in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an exquisite poem, in spite of its frequent and perverse quaintnesses and harshnesses, which are, however, amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness and beauty of language, all over spirit and feeling. In the main, it is an English heroic poem, the tale of which is borrowed from the Greek.

Sir Philip Sidney, the author of and the gallant Governor of Flushing, was at time a student here. And Butler, the immortal author of seems also, says Mr. Pearce,

to have had a chamber some time in the inn, as

one

of his biographers has supposed he was a member of the house.

About the year Dr. Johnson was a resident in , but for a short time only.

Oliver Goldsmith occupied chambers in early in , while his attic in the library staircase of the Temple was preparing. He was now at work for the Dodsleys, and we get a glimpse of his straitened circumstances in the following brief noteto Mr. James Dodsley :--

Sir,

Gray's Inn

,

to Mr. James Dodesley in

Pall Mall

,

I shall take it as a favour if you can let me have

ten

guineas per bearer, for which I promise to account. I am, sir, your humble servant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. P.S. I shall call to see you on Wednesday next with copy, &c.

A nephew of Goldsmith, when in town with a friend, proposed to call on Uncle Oliver, in , when he was setting to work on his They expected to find him in a wellfurnished library, with a host of books; when, greatly to their surprise, the only book they saw in the place was a well-thumbed part of Buffon's

The outspoken William Cobbett, the writer of the famous and as true a representative of the John Bull character as ever lived, was for some years a clerk in the chambers of a gentlemen of this inn.

We may conclude this notice of with the following table, exhibiting the yearly rental of the Inns of Court and Chancery, as given in Murray's .

Besides , there lie in , Furni

To some an explanation of the nature and object of the Inns of Chancery may here be acceptable. These then will welcome the following extract from the interesting work of Mr. J.C. Jeaffreson, he says,

for many generations maintained towards the Inns of Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent preparation for the superior discipline, and greater freedom of the

four

colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for promotion to the status of Inns-of-Court-men. In course of time students, after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery, were permitted to enter an Inn of Court, on which their Inn of Chancery was not dependent; but at every

Exterior Of Furnival's Inn, 1754.

Inn of Court higher admission fees were charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. If the reader bear in mind the difference in respect to age, learning, and privileges between our modern public schoolboys, and university undergraduates, he will realise with sufficient nearness to truth the differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the Inns of Court students in the

fifteenth

century; and in the students, utterbar- risters, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period he may see

three

distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our own universities.

[extra_illustrations.2.571.1] , between and , was originally the town mansion of the Lords Furnival. It belonged some time, says Stow,

to William Furnivall, knight, who had in

Holborn

two

messuages and

thirteen

shops, as appeareth by record of Richard II., in the

6th

of his reign.

In Charles I.'s time the greater part of the old inn described by Stow was taken down and a new building erected in its stead.

The Gothic Hall,

with its timber roof (part of the original structure), was standing in

1818

, when the whole inn was rebuilt by Mr. Peto, the contractor, who obtained a lease of the ground.

The arms of are-argent, a bend between martlets, with a bordure azure.

A street disturbance is mentioned by Stow, in his in which the leading member of this Inn got into trouble:--

In the

32nd

of Henry VI. a tumult betwixt the gentlemen of Inns of Court and Chancery and the citizens of London, happening in

Fleet Street

, in which some mischief was done, the principals of

Clifford's Inn

,

Furnival's Inn

, and

Barnard's Inn

were sent prisoners to Hartford Castle.

The famous Sir Thomas More was

reader by the space of

three

years and more

I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel. Now if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel, but it is a

hundred

to

one

he shall be stung by a snake.

Sir Thomas was his son by his wife. He also was not afraid of snakes.

Having determined,

by the advice and direction of his ghostly father, to be a married man, there was at that time a pleasant conceited gentleman, of an ancient family in Essex,

one

Mr. John Colt, of New Hall, that invited him into his house, being much delighted in his company, proffering unto him the choice of any of his daughters, who were young gentlewomen of very good carriage, good complexions, and very religiously inclined; whose honest and sweet conversation, and virtuous education, enticed Sir Thomas not a little; and although his affection most served him to the

second

, for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured, yet when he thought within himself that it would be a grief and some blemish to the eldest to have the younger sister preferred before her, he, out of a kind of compassion, settled his fancy upon the eldest, and soon afterwards married her, with all his friends' good liking.

This marriage proved fairly happy, but, before many years had passed, Jane Colt died. More then put his hand a time into the bag, and this time had the ill luck to draw out a scorpion. He proposed to a widow, named Alice Middleton, who would have done well enough for a superior domestic servant: his good judgment and taste deserted him when he decided to make her a closer companion. Bustling, loquacious, tart, the good dame scolded servants and petty tradesmen with admirable effect; but, even at this distance of time, the sensitive ear is pained by her sharp, garrulous tongue, when its ascerbity and virulence are turned against her pacific and scholarly husband. She had no sympathy for, no feelings in common with him; he had as little in common with her.

Both humorous and pathetic, it has been remarked, was that memorable interview between More and Mrs. Alice, in the Tower, when she, regarding his position by the light with which she had been endowed by Nature, advised him to yield even then to the king.

What the good-year, Mr. More!

I marvel that you, who have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now so play the fool as to lie here in this close-fitting prison, and be content to be shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, with the favour and good will of the king and his council, if you would but do as the bishops and best learned of his realm have done. And seeing you have at

Chelsea

a right fair house, your library, your books, your gallery, and all other necessaries so handsome about you, where you might, in company with me, your wife, your children, and household, be merry, I muse what, in God's name, you mean here thus fondly to tarry.

I pray thee, good Mrs. Alice, tell me

one

thing.

What is it?

Is not this house as near heaven as my own?

the right fair house at

Chelsea

.

More, with all his talent, learning, and wit, had in him a great deal of bigotry and superstition: When about years old he began to practise monkish austerities, wearing a sharp shirt of hair next his skin, which he never left off entirely, even when he was Lord Chancellor. As a lay Carthusian he at time disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a hard bench, with a log for a pillow, allowed himself but or hours' sleep in the night, and by a score of other strong measures sought to preserve his spiritual by ruining his bodily health.

He comes before us, very life-like and pleasing, in connection with the charges of bribery, which at the time of his fall were preferred against him before the Privy Council. story of this period has been often repeated. A Mrs. Croker being opposed in a suit to Lord Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favour; so she presented him with a pair of gloves containing angels. With a courteous smile he accepted, the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The gentleness of the rebuff is charming.

In Charles Dickens lived from shortly after his entering the reporters' gallery till , and it was here that the proposal that originated was made to him. Dickens has himself described to us what passed at an interview which must be regarded as a happy by all admirers of the novelist. Mr. Seymour, the artist, had proposed to do a series of cockney sporting plates, which it was thought would take with the public, if accompanied by letterpress, and published in monthly parts.

The idea,

propounded to me was that the monthly something should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour; and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable humorous artist, or of my visitor, Mr. Hall, that a

Nimrod Club,

the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing these. I objected, on consideration, that although born and partly bred in the country, I was no great sportsman, except in regard to all kinds of locomotion; that the idea was not novel, and had already been much used; that it would be infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text; and that I would like to take my own way, with a freer range of English scenes and people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so in any case, whatever course I might prescribe to myself at starting. My views being deferred to, I thought of

Pickwick,

and wrote the

first

number; from the proof-sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the club and his happy portrait of its founder. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a club because of the original suggestion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour.

Thavie's Inn was formerly an Inn of Chancery, appertaining to . It was sold, however, by that society in to a Mr. Middleton. Having been subsequently destroyed by fire, a range of private buildings was erected on its site. The name it bears is derived from John Thavie, a liberal-minded armourer, with whom we have already met when speaking of St. Andrew's. In he bequeathed certain houses in , returning a large rental, for the support of the fabric of that interesting edifice.

I must and will begin with Thavies Inne,

for besides that at my

first

coming to London, I was admitted for probation into that good house, I take it to be the oldest Inn of Chancery, at the least in

Holborn

. It was before the dwelling of an honest citizen called John Thavie, an armourer, and was rented of him in the time of King Edward III. by the chief professors then of the law; viz., Apprentices, as it is yet extant in a record in the Hustings, and whereof my Lord Coke showed to me the transcript, but since that time it was purchased for the students and other professors of the Law of Chancery by the Benchers of

Lincoln's Inn

, about the reign of King Henry VII., and retaineth the name of the old landlord or owner, Master Thavie.

[extra_illustrations.2.573.1]  is an Inn of Chancery appertaining to . Formerly it was called Mackworth's Inn, and in the days of Henry VI. we find it a messuage belonging to Dr. John Mackworth, Dean of Lincoln. At the time of its conversion into an Inn of Chancery, it was in the occupation of Barnard, and his name it has retained ever since.

The arms of are those of Mackworth-party per pale, indented ermine and sables, a cheveron, gules, fretted or.

The old hall of is the smallest of all the halls of the London Inns; it is only thirtysix feet long, feet wide, and feet high. It contains a fine full-length portrait of the upright and learned Lord Chief Justice Holt, for

In the time of Elizabeth there were students in this Inn in term, and out of term; in there were, including the principal, ancient, and companions, in all, members.

A believer in alchemy, Mr. Peter Woulfe, F.R.S., lived, about years ago, in , No. , -floor chambers. He was an eminent chemist, and, according to Mr. Brande,

the last true believer in alchemy.

Sir Humphrey Davy tells us,

that he used to hang up written prayers and inscriptions of recommendations of his processes to Providence. His chambers were so filled with furnaces and apparatus that it was difficult to reach the fireside. Dr. Babington told Mr. Brande that he once put down his hat and could never find it again, such was the confusion of boxes, packages, and parcels, that lay about the room. His breakfast hour was

four

in the morning; a few of his friends were occasionally invited, and gained entrance by a secret signal, knocking a certain number of times at the inner door of the chamber. He had long vainly searched for the elixir, and attributed his repeated failure to the want of due preparation by pious and charitable acts. Whenever he wished to break with an acquaintance, he resented the supposed injuries by sending a present to the offender and never seeing him again. These presents sometimes consisted of an expensive chemical product or preparation. He had an heroic remedy for illness, which was a journey to Edinburgh and back by the mail-coach; and a cold taken on

one

of these expeditions terminated in inflammation of the lungs, of which he died.

His last moments were remarkable. In spite of his serious illness, he strenuously resisted all medical advice. By his desire his laundress shut up his chamber, and left him. She returned at midnight, when he was still alive; next morning, however, she found him dead, his countenance being calm and serene; apparently he had not moved from the position in which she had seen him last.

A contemporary of Woulfe, also an alchemist, is mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, in his paper on astrology and alchemy, in the (). About this enthusiast lived, or rather starved, in the metropolis, in the person of an editor of an evening journal. He expected to compound the alkahest, if he could only keep his materials digested in a lamp-furnace for the space of years. The lamp burnt brightly during years, months, and some odd days besides, and then unluckily it went out. Why it went out the adept never could guess; but he was certain that if the flame could only have burnt to the end of the septennary cycle, his experiment must have succeeded.

An order made by the authorities of , in , throws some light on legal manners in the beginning of the eighteenth century. This order named quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each mess of men, on going through the ceremony of

initiation.

extra

Even Sheridan,

who boasted he could drink any

given

quantity of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so large a given quantity, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant. Anyhow, the quantity was fixed-a fact that would have elicited an expression of approval from Chief Baron Thomson, who, loving port wine wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with the words and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister who observed,

I hold, my lord, that, after a good dinner, a certain quantity of wine does no harm.

With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined,

True, sir, it is the uncertain quantity that does the mischief.

During the

No Popery

The staircase in which my chambers are is not yet burnt down, but it could not be much worse for me if it were. However, I fear there are many scores of

poor creatures in this town who have suffered this night much more than I have, and with less ability to bear it. Will you give me leave to lodge the shattered remains of my little goods in Cleveland Court for a time? There can be no living here, even if the fire stops immediately, for the whole place is a wreck; but there will be time enough to think of this. But there is a circumstance which distresses me more than anything; I have lost my maid, who was a very worthy creature, and I am sure would never have deserted me in such a situation by her own will; and what can have become of her is horrible to think! I fervently hope that you and yours are free from every distress. .

Six

o'clock. The fire, I believe, is nearly stopped, though only at the next door to me. But no maid appears. When I shall overcome the horror of the night, and its consequences, I cannot guess. But I know, if you can send me word that things go well with you, that they will be less sad with me.

[extra_illustrations.2.575.1]  is an Inn of Chancery appertaining to . The tradition is that it derives its name from having been originally an inn or hostell of the merchants of the (wool) staple. With this explanation, until a better is given, we must rest satisfied. It became an Inn of Chancery in the time of Henry V., and the inheritance of it was granted, Henry VIII., to the Society of . The front is of the time of James I., and is worthy of notice as of the oldest existing specimens of our metropolitan street architecture. The hall is of a later date, has a clock turret, and originally possessed an open timber roof. Some of the armorial glass in the windows of the hall date as far back as . There are a few portraits --amongst them are those of Charles II., Queen Anne, the Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Chancellor Cowper, and Lord Camden-and at the upper end is the woolsack, the arms of the Inn. Upon brackets are casts of the Caesars. In the garden adjoining used to be a luxuriant fig-tree, which had spread itself over nearly all the south side of the hall. Upon a terrace opposite, the offices of the taxing-masters in Chancery are situated. They were completed in , and are in the purest style of the reign of James I. The arched entrances and semi-circular oriels are highly effective. The open-work parapet of the terrace, and the lodge and gate leading to , are very picturesque. The Inn is divided into [extra_illustrations.2.575.2] , with a pleasant garden behind.

The doorway shown in our illustration on page is mentioned by Dickens in By it entered the chambers of Mr. Grewgious. What P. J. T. meant, carved on the stone above the door-whether Possibly John Thomas, or Possibly Joe Tyler, or what--the reader will recollect occasionally formed an innocent subject of speculation to Mr. Grewgious.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there were students in Staple Inn, in term, and out of term--the largest number in any of the houses of Chancery.

Reading and mootings were observed here with commendable regularity. Sir Simon d'Ewes mentions that, on the , he went in the morning to Staple Inn, and there argued a moot point, or law case, with others, and they did not abandon the exercise till near o'clock in the afternoon.

Isaac Reed, who died in , had chambers here. It was in Reed's chambers that Steevens corrected the proof-sheets of his well-known edition of Shakespeare. His habits were peculiar. He used, says Peter Cunningham, to leave his house at Hampstead at in the morning, and walk to Staple Inn. Reed, who went to bed at a reasonable hour, allowed his facetious fellow-commentator the luxury of a latch-key, so Steevens stole quietly to his work, without disturbing the repose of his friend.

Dr. Samuel Johnson removed to chambers in this Inn, on the breaking up of his establishment in , , where he had resided for years. We find him writing, under date of , to Miss Porter:--

Dear Madam,--I beg your pardon for having so long omitted to write. One thing or other has put me off. I have this day moved my things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn, London. I am going to publish a little story-book, which I will send you, when it is out. Write to me, my dearest girl, for I am always glad to hear from you.--I am, my dear, your humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

The

little story-book

Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of

one

week, sent it to press in portions, as it was written, and had never since read it over. Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for

£ 100

, but afterwards paid him

£ 25

more, when it came to a

second

edition.

Considering the large sums which have been

Staple Inn--the Steps

Staple Inn-Gateway

received for compilations, and works requiring not much more genius than compilations, we cannot but wonder,

at the very low price which he was content to receive for this admirable performance, which, though he had written nothing else, would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. None of his writings has been so extensively diffused over Europe; for it has been translated into most, if not all, of the modern languages. This tale, with all the charms of Oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shows us that this stage of our being is full of

vanity and vexation of spirit!

To those who look no further than the present life, or who maintain that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it was created, the instruction of this sublime story will be of no avail ; but those who think justly, and feel with strong sensibility, will listen with eagerness and admiration to its truth and wisdom.

There was an alarming fire in Staple Inn, . It consumed several chambers, and women and children perished in the flames. The hall fortunately escaped destruction.

With this description of and the Inns of Court, which form its most interesting feature, we terminate our account of Old and New London east of . In the succeeding volumes we shall move westward, from the same starting point, along , through , and the western portions of London, and across the water into . The ground over which we shall travel will be found as replete with memories and associations of past history, and striking features of modern progress, as any of that which we have already surveyed.

[extra_illustrations.2.566.1] Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester

[extra_illustrations.2.567.1] William Juxon

[extra_illustrations.2.568.1] John Britton

[extra_illustrations.2.571.1] Furnival's Inn

[extra_illustrations.2.573.1] Barnard's Inn

[extra_illustrations.2.575.1] Staple Inn

[extra_illustrations.2.575.2] two courts