the Temple, for youth, however poor, is hopeful. It to have a poet for his friend, in the obtaining of takes time to make a man despair, and when he de- which, as neither vanity, party, nor fear had a share, spairs, the devil is soon at his elbow. Nevertheless, so he supported his title to it by all the offices of a greed and madness have upset some Templars' generous and true friendship." brains. In October, 1573, a crazed, fanatical man of the Middle Temple, named Peter Burchet, mistaking John Hawkins (afterwards the naval hero) for Sir Christopher Hatton, flew at him in the Strand, and dangerously wounded him with a dagger. The queen was so furious that at first she wanted Burchet tried by camp law; but, being found to hold heretical opinions, he was committed to the Lollards' Tower (south front of St. Paul's), and afterwards sent to the Tower. Growing still madder there, Burchet slew one of his keepers with a billet from his fire, and was then condemned to death and hung in the Strand, close by where he had stabbed Hawkins, his right hand being first stricken off and nailed to the gibbet. In 1685 John Ayloff, a barrister of the Inner Temple, was hung for high treason opposite the Temple Gate. In 1738 Thomas Carr, an attorney, of Elm Court, and Elizabeth Adams, his accomplice, were executed for robbing a Mr. Quarrington in Shire Lane (see page 74); and in 1752 Henry Justice, of the Middle Temple, in spite of his well-omened name, was cruelly sentenced to death for stealing books from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, but eventually he was only transported for life. The celebrated Earl of Mansfield, when Mr. There spread round Murray all your blooming loves." A second compliment by Pope to this great man "Graced as thou art by all the power of words, which was thus cleverly parodied by Colley Cibber: "Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks." One of Mansfield's biographers tells us that "once he was surprised by a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn (who took the liberty of entering his room in the Temple without the ceremonious introduction of a servant), in the act of practising the graces of a speaker at a glass, while Pope sat by in the character of a friendly preceptor." Of the friendship of Pope and Murray, Warburton has said: "Mr. Pope had all the warmth of affection for this great lawyer; and, indeed, no man ever more deserved "A good story," says Mr. Jeaffreson, "is told of certain visits paid to William Murray's chambers at No. 5, King's Bench Walk, Temple, in the year 1738. Born in 1705, Murray was still a young man when, in 1738, he made his brilliant speech on behalf of Colonel Sloper, against whom Colley Cibber's rascally son had brought an action for immorality with his wife, the lovely actress, who on the stage was the rival of Mrs. Clive, and in private life was remarkable for immorality and fascinating manners. Amongst the many clients who were drawn to Murray by that speech, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was neither the least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand guineas, of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part, explaining to the astonished duchess that 'the professional fee, with a general retainer, could not be less nor more than five guineas.' If Murray had accepted the whole sum he would not have been overpaid for his trouble, for her grace persecuted him with calls at most unseasonable hours. On one occasion, returning to his chambers after drinking champagne with the wits,' he found the duchess's carriage and attendants on King's Bench Walk. A numerous crowd of footmen and link-bearers surrounded the coach, and when the barrister entered his chambers he encountered the mistress of that army of lackeys. 'Young man,' exclaimed the grand lady, eyeing the future Lord Mansfield with a look of displeasure, 'if you mean to rise in the world, you must not sup out.' On a subsequent night Sarah of Marlborough called without appointment at the chambers, and waited till past midnight in the hope that she would see the lawyer ere she went to bed. But Murray, being at an unusually late supper-party, did not return till her grace had departed in an overpowering rage. 'I could not make out, sir, who she was,' said Murray's clerk, describing her grace's appearance and manner, for she would not tell me her name; but she swore so dreadfully that I am sure she must be a lady of quality."" Charles Lamb, who was born in Crown Office Row, in his exquisite way has sketched the benchers of the Temple whom he had seen pacing the terrace in his youth. Jekyll, with the roguish eye, and Thomas Coventry, of the elephantine step, the scarecrow of inferiors, the browbeater of equals, who made a solitude of children wherever he came, who took snuff by palmfuls, diving for it under the mighty flap of his old-fashioned red waistcoat. In the gentle Samuel Salt we discover a portrait of the employer of Lamb's father. Salt was a shy indolent, absent man, who never dressed for a dinner party but he forgot his sword. The day of Miss Blandy's execution he went to dine with a relative of the murderess, first carefully schooled by his clerk to avoid the disagreeable subject. However, during the pause for dinner, Salt went to the window, looked out, pulled down his ruffles, and observed, "It's a gloomy day; Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I suppose." Salt never laughed. He was a well-known toast with the ladies, having a fine figure and person. Coventry, on the other hand, was a man worth four or five hundred thousand, and lived in a gloomy house, like a strong box, opposite the pump in Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street. Fond of money as he was, he gave away £30,000 at once to a charity for the blind, and kept a hospitable house. Salt was indolent and careless of money, and but for Lovel, his clerk, would have been universally robbed. This Lovel was a clever little fellow, with a face like Garrick, who could mould heads in clay, turn cribbage-boards, take a hand at a quadrille or bowls, and brew punch with any man of his degree in Europe. With Coventry and Salt, Peter Pierson often perambulated the terrace, with hands folded behind him. Contemporary with these was Daines Barrington, a burly, square man. Lamb also mentions Burton, "a jolly negation," who drew up the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, where the benchers dined; thin, fragile Wharry, who used to spitefully pinch his cat's ears when anything offended him; and Jackson, the musician, to whom the cook once applied for instructions how to write down "edge-bone of beef" in a bill of commons. Then there was Blustering Mingay, who had a grappling-hook in substitute for a hand he had lost, which Lamb, when a child, used to take for an emblem of power; and Baron Mascres, who retained the costume of the reign of George II. In his "Essays" Lamb writes:-"I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river I had almost said-for in those young years what was the king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places ?-these are of my oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more frequently or with kindlier emotion than those of Spenser where he speaks of this spot. Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time-the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent, ample squares, its classic green recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden, that goodly pile 'Of buildings strong, albeit of paper hight,' confronting with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more fantastically shrouded one named of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown Office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the stately stream, which washes the garden foot with her yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from Twickenham Naïades! A man would give something to have been born in such places. What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times! to the astonishment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic. "So may the winged horse, your ancient badge and cognisance, still flourish! So may future Hookers and Seldens illustrate your church and chambers! So may the sparrows, in default of more melodious quiristers, imprisoned hop about your walks! So may the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery-maid, who by leave airs her playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing curtsey as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion! So may the younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with the same superstitious veneration with which the child Elia gazed on the old worthies that solemnised the parade before ye!" Charles Lamb, in his "Essay" on the old benchers, speaks of many changes he had witnessed in the Temple-i.e., the Gothicising the entrance to the Inner Temple Hall and the Library front, to assimilate them to the hall, which they did not resemble; and the removal of the winged horse over the Temple Hall, and the frescoes of the Virtues which once Italianised it. He praises, too, the antique air of the "now almost effaced sun-dials," with their moral inscriptions, seeming almost coeval with the time which they measured, and taking their revelations immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light. Of these dials there still remain-one in Temple Lane, with the motto, "Pereunt et imputantur;" one in Essex Court, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum ;" and one in Brick Court on which Goldsmith must often have gazed-its motto, "Time and tide tarry for no man." In Pump Court and Garden Court are two dials without mottoes; and in each Temple garden is a pillar dial—" the natural garden god of Christian gardens." On an old brick house at the east end of Inner Temple Terrace, removed in 1828, was a dial with the odd inscription, "Begone about your business," words with which an old bencher is said to have once dismissed a troublesome lad who had come from the dial-maker's for a motto, and who mistook his meaning. The one we have engraved at page 180 is in Pump Court. The date and the initials are renewed every time it is fresh painted. There are many old Temple anecdotes relating to that learned disciple of Bacchus, Porson. Many a time, says Mr. Timbs, at early morn, did Porson stagger from his old haunt, the "Cider Cellars" in Maiden Lane, where he scarcely ever failed to pass some hours, after spending the evening else where. It is related of him, upon better authority than most of the stories told to his discredit, that one night, or rather morning, Gurney (the Baron), who had chambers in Essex Court under Porson, was awakened by a tremendous thump in the chamber above. Porson had just come home dead drunk, and had fallen on the floor. Having extinguished the candle in the fall, he presently staggered downstairs to re-light it, and Gurney heard him dodging and poking with the candle at the staircase lamp for about five minutes, and all the time very lustily cursing the nature of things. We read also of Porson shutting himself up in these chambers for three or four days together, admitting no visitor. One morning his friend Rogers went to call, having ascertained from the barber's hard by that Porson was at home, but had not been seen by any one for two days. Rogers proceeded to his chambers, and knocked at the door more than once; he would not open it, and Rogers came downstairs, but as he was crossing the court Porson opened the window and stopped him. He was then busy about the Grenville "Homer," for which he collated the Harleian MS. of the "Odyssey," and received for his labour but £50 and a large-paper copy. His chambers must have presented a strange scene, for he used books most cruelly, whether they were his own or belonged to others. He said that he possessed more bad copies of good books than any private gentleman in England. Rogers, when a Templar, occasionally had some visitors who absorbed more of his time than was always agreeable; an instance of which he thus relates: “When I lived in the Temple, Mackintosh and Richard Sharp used to come to my chambers and stay there for hours, talking metaphysics. One day they were so intent on their 'first cause,' 'spirit,' and 'matter,' that they were unconscious of my having left them, paid a visit, and returned. I was a little angry at this; and to show my indifference about them, I sat down and wrote letters, without taking any notice of them. I never met a man with a fuller mind than Mackintosh--such readiness on all subjects, such a talker." Before any person can be admitted a member of the Temple, he must furnish a statement in writing, describing his age, residence, and condition in life, and adding a certificate of his respectability and fitness, signed by himself and a bencher of the society, or two barristers. The Middle Temple requires the signatures of two barristers of that Inn and of a bencher, but in each of the three other Inns the signatures of barristers of any of the four Inns will suffice. The educational year is divided into three terms, namely, from the 1st of November to the 22nd of December, from the 11th of January to the 30th of March, and from the 15th of April to the 31st of July; and instruction is given to students by means of lectures, but the attendance of the students at such lectures is not compulsory. Professors of jurisprudence, of common law, of equity, and of the law of real and personal property, are duly appointed by the council, for the purpose of giving instruction to the students, such professors being at liberty to receive, in addition to their salaries, fees from the students who attend the classes. Legal students worked hard in the old times; Coke's career is an example. In 1572 he rose every morning at five o'clock, lighting his own fire; and then read Bracton, Littleton, and the ponderous folio abridgments of the law till the court met, at eight o'clock. He then took boat for Westminster, and heard cases argued till twelve o'clock, when the pleas ceased for dinner. After a meal in the Inner Temple Hall, he attended "readings" or lectures in the afternoon, and then resumed his private studies till supper-time at five. Next came the moots, after which he slammed his chamber-door, and set to work with his commonplace book to index all the law he had amassed during the day. At nine, the steady student went to bed, securing three good hours of sleep before midnight. It is said Coke never saw a play or read a play in his life-and that was Shakespeare's time! In the reign of James I. the Temple was often called "my Lord Coke's shop." He had become a great lawyer then, and lived to become Lord Chief Justice. Pity 'tis that we have to remember that he reviled Essex and insulted Raleigh. King James once said of Coke in misfortune that he was like a cat, he always fell on his feet. The ante-prandial the old banquets have died out. horn is sounded, it is true, and the loving cup goes round, but oysters are no longer brought in every Friday in term before dinner; nor, when one History does not record many riots in the bencher dines, does he, on leaving the hall, invite Temple, full of wild life as that quiet precinct the senior bar man to come and take wine with has been. In different reigns, however, two out- him in the parliament chamber, answering to the breaks occurred. In both cases the Templars, "Common Room" of Oxford colleges. Yet the though rather hot and prompt, seem to have been rich and epicurean Inner Temple still cherishes right. At the dinner of John Prideaux, reader of many worthy customs, affects recherché French the Inner Temple, in 1553, the students took dishes, and is curious in entremets; while the offence at Sir John Lyon, the Lord Mayor, coming Middle Temple has to content itself with plainer in state, with his sword up, and the sword was fare, that some hungry wit has compared to dragged down as he passed through the cloisters."eating a gravel-walk, and meeting an occasional The same sort of affray took place again in 1669, weed." A writer in Blackwood, quoting the old when Lord Mayor Peake came to Sir Christopher proverb, "The Inner Temple for the rich, the Goodfellow's feast, and the Lord Mayor had to be hidden in a bencher's chambers till, as Pepys relates, the fiery young sparks were decoyed away to dinner. The case was tried before Charles II., and Heneage Finch pleaded for the Temple, claiming immemorial exemption from City jurisdiction. The case was never decided. From that day to this (says Mr. Noble) a settlement appears never to have been made; hence it is that the Temples claim to be "extra parochial," closing nightly all their gates as the clock strikes ten, and keeping extra watch and ward when the parochial authorities "beat the bounds" upon Ascension Day. Many struggles have taken place to make the property rateable, and of late the question has more than once arisen; and it is hardly to be wondered at, for it would be a nice bit of business to assess the Templars upon the £32,866 which they have returned as the annual rental of their estates. A third riot was with those ceaseless enemies of the Templars, the Alsatians, or lawless inhabitants of disreputable Whitefriars. In July, 1691, weary of their riotous and thievish neighbours, the benchers of the Inner Temple bricked up the gate (still existing in King's Bench Walk) leading into the high street of Whitefriars; but the Alsatians, swarming out, pulled down as fast as the bricklayers built up. The Templars hurried together, swords flew out, the Alsatians plied pokers and shovels, and many heads were broken. Ultimately, two men were killed, several wounded, and many hurried off to prison. Eventually, the ringleader of the Alsatians, Captain Francis White-a "copper captain," no doubt-was convicted of murder, in April, 1693. This riot eventually did good, for it led to the abolition of London sanctuaries, those dens of bullies, low gamblers, thieves, and courtesans. At the Middle Temple time has proved a great worker of change, and many curious customs of Middle for the poor," says few great men have come from the Middle Temple; and the statement is partly true, even in the present day. At a dinner in 1865, Mr. Timbs tells us, there were present only three benchers, seven barristers, and six students. An Inner Temple banquet is a very grand affair. At five, or half-past five, the barristers and students in their gowns follow the benchers to the hall; then the head porter strikes the table solemnly three times, grace is said by the treasurer, or senior bencher present, and the men of law fall to. In former times it was the custom to blow a horn in every court to announce the meal, but how long this ancient Templar practice has been discontinued we do not know. The benchers observe somewhat more style at their table than the other members do at theirs. The general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each mess, consisting of four persons, and to each mess is allowed a bottle of wine. Dinner is served daily to the members of the Inn during term time; the masters of the Bench dining on the state, or dais, and the barristers and students at long tables. On grand days some of the judges often are present; they used to dine in succession. with each of the four Inns of Court. To the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers repair after dinner. The loving cups used on certain grand occasions are huge silver goblets, which are passed down the table, filled with a delicious composition, immemorially termed "sack," consisting of sweetened and exquisitelyflavoured white wine. The butler attends the progress of the cup, to replenish it; and each student is by rule restricted to a sip; yet it is recorded that once, though the number present fell short of seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquid were sipped away. At the Inner Temple, on May 29th, |