"Oh, don't they, just!" said Mr. Ramsay cheerfully. "You see, as girls they are heavily handicapped. They can't do anything they like, or go anywhere; it's awfully slow for them, poor things. And so they naturally look forward to the time when they will get their liberty as well as a husband. But the competition must be something awful. A fellow that has got a fine property or money is regularly hunted down; and even a poor devil like me has to be monstrous careful. Cowrie, of the Carbineers, who has got sixty thousand a year, says that he can't go to certain houses, for fear they may have a clergyman secreted about the place and will get him spliced to the ugliest daughter before he can escape. Awfully clever chap, Cowrie,—a match for any mamma in England, I can tell you. He is not going to marry any woman but the one he wishes to marry. No more am I. That's why I can't marry. I've got no money. The governor picked out a young woman from Liverpool for me last year,—a brewer's daughter, with pots of it,—and wanted me to make up to her."
"Oh, he did! What did you do about it?" asked Bijou, in a low voice.
"Well, you see, just then I was most awfully hard up, and couldn't afford to break with the governor; and so—"
"I'd be ashamed to say any more about it. Addressing a girl just for her money!" interjected Bijou warmly, disappointed that he had not scorned the proposition utterly.
"It didn't go that far. I thought it might be a good thing, you know. And so I tried it,—spooning, you know," said he placidly.
"Oh, indeed!" commented Bijou sarcastically. "Very honorable of you, I am sure, and delightful for the girl to have such a disinterested admirer. How did it end?"
"How you do pick,a fellow up!" remonstrated Mr. Ramsay amiably. "It sounds awfully conceited to say so, of course, but I think I could have carried off the cup if I had liked. At least every one said she was hard hit. And she wasn't long in the tooth, or very ugly, or vulgar, or anything; but somehow I couldn't stand it. I got to hate her. She breathed so hard when she danced, for one thing. Regular grampus. Upon my word, she almost blew my gibus away from under my arm sometimes. Regular snorts. And then she was always smilin'. And she talked an awful lot about Goethe and Schiller, and those chaps. Altogether, I cried off, and told the governor I would try the Colonies. And he told me that if I was such a consummate ass as to let a good thing like that slip, I could take my little pittance and go to the deuce as soon as ever I liked; and here I am. Some may think I acted foolishly, but one's relatives are not always the best judges of what is good for one, you know, though they may think they are actin' for one's good; and what one wants to do is to do one's best in whatever position one finds one's self in, you know, no matter what one—Hang it all! I know what I want to say, but I can't say it. You understand, I fancy, without me tryin' to explain."
Having tied himself up in this conversational bow-knot, Mr. Ramsay waited to be extricated. His idea had been to convey in the most delicate and roundabout way to Bijou that he was not the man to marry any woman for her money, and that if he had seemed to like a certain person a good deal it was not because she was the daughter of a rich man. To her, however, he seemed to be posing as a conqueror of heiresses, indifferent to the pain he might inflict upon any girl silly enough to be captivated by his good looks and good manners,—a breaker of tacit engagements, and a wicked worldling. So she rose very stiffly, and said that she neither knew nor cared to know what he meant, and was obliged to leave him, and so went away, and left him extremely puzzled and disconcerted by the behavior of his charmer.
After this, the summer of Mr. Ramsay's discontent set in. There was nothing that he could actually complain of in Bijou's treatment of him, but it was plain that she had changed. She was vastly more polite than before, but much less kind. Their intimacy seemed a thing of the past century. It was Mr. Heathcote now who, partly from idleness, partly from a desire to tease his friend, went constantly to the Browns', and showed Bijou various attentions, which she accepted with very pronounced satisfaction. It was with Miss Price now that Mr. Ramsay rode and walked and talked,—Miss Price, whose free-and-easiness, vapid chatter, artificiality, and sentimentalism contrasted unpleasantly with Bijou's frankness and sincerity. By this course each confirmed the other in the impression of untrustworthiness and flirtatiousness both had received, and they ought to have been perfectly satisfied with this result. But, considering how perfectly happy she was in Mr. Heathcote's society, it was odd that Bijou grew paler and thinner every day. And if Miss Price was so perfectly delightful, why did she send Mr. Ramsay home always as gloomy and morose as any young man very well could be? With blundering honesty, Mr. Ramsay once taxed Bijou with a preference for Mr. Heathcote, not knowing that when a jealous lover accuses a girl of being fond of some other man she never fails to encourage the idea, unless it is really true, when she denies it with the utmost vehemence. Bijou, with much feminine circumlocution, insinuated that he was devotedly attached to Miss Price, to which he truthfully replied that he did not care "one rap" about her. Women are born incredulous in such affairs. When sure of themselves, they doubt the lover; when sure of the lover, they invariably doubt themselves. And so the misunderstanding grew, and continued in mutual mistake and suspicion, and no two people were ever more thoroughly and foolishly miserable. Mr. Ketchum, when enlightened by his wife, could see that his guest was in a bad way; and one day it chanced that they were left alone in the library, where Job was most unromantically engaged in looking up plans for a model pig-stye, while he incidentally refreshed himself with his favorite confection, molasses candy.
"Man alive!" said he, after directing a keen glance at Mr. Ramsay's face, "what is the matter? Take some of the Dentist's Friend, won't you?" (pushing a plate toward him.) "I like it better than all the French stuff that was ever made, and Mabel keeps me liberally supplied. You look awfully down in the mouth, Ramsay, as though you'd enjoy howling like the lone wolf on far Alaska's shore, if you were sure nobody was looking. Suppose you tell me what has impaled you. Is it love, money, or indigestion, old fellow?"
The words were light, but the tone hearty and kind; and, thus encouraged, Mr. Ramsay laid bare his woes, Mr. Ketchum listening attentively, and saying, when he had finished, "I know; I know. When I thought I had lost Mabel once, I carried the universe around on a sore back all day, and then my heart would get up on its hind legs and yelp half the night; and there have been other times when I got caught in the machinery, and I know how it hurts, I think of those times often. They grind a man down to the quick, and send the chaff flying: they teach him valuable lessons. I remember I started out in life with two violent prejudices,—one against Jews, and the other against Roman Catholics. Well, in the greatest strait I have ever known, the Christian that came to my relief was a Jew in a town of seven thousand people; and when I had the smallpox a Sister of Charity took me to the hospital and nursed me, when every one had deserted me and left me to die or live without any meddling from them to bias me in my decision. After that I said to myself, 'Job Ketchum, if the Lord can make and stand as great a fool as you have been, he can make plenty of good Jews and Roman Catholics, and if they have got his hall-mark they can do without your valuable endorsement; and when smelting-day comes I reckon you'll find that the Protestant quartz won't pan out all the silver that has been put in the earth's veins. You needn't go around blushing for David and Thomas ?Kempis any longer, my son. Take a holiday.' My advice to you, Ramsay, is to keep a stiff upper lip. Perhaps the buzz-saw has only got your clothes, and you will be all right when you cut loose; but if it has got you, all you can do is to stand and take it, and if you can remember who set it going it will be better for you."
The last phrase Mr. Ketchum got out in a shamefaced way, as if very much ashamed of it, as indeed he was; but Mr. Ramsay was the better for the talk, and, though not "a readin' man," had easily understood the illuminated characters in this page of human experience. He brightened perceptibly from this date, and was able to take a healthy interest in certain match-games of base-ball and la-crosse in neighboring cities, which he attended with Mr. Ketchum and Sir Robert, who, besides these diversions, had to visit the prisons and all the public schools, and to gather a mass of information in regard to these two subjects, with criminal and educational statistics, systems, theories, that had to be examined, sifted, recorded in the diary with the pains, study, and reverence for facts that characterized every entry made in it. Meanwhile, quite an intimacy had sprung up between the ladies of the Ketchum and Brown households, or rather the existing one soon embraced the Englishwomen. Mrs. Sykes and Miss Noel were struck by a number of things in the latter establishment.
"Do you suppose that all American households are organized in this extraordinary, miscellaneous way, so as to include, besides the head of the house, his wife and children, all sorts of relatives, outsiders, and strangers?" said Mrs. Sykes to Miss Noel. "Mrs. De Witt told me, quite as a matter of course, that the sister of her husband's first wife lived with them, though she was away when we were there. And look at the Ketchums and the Browns. It is most remarkable. Why do they do it, I wonder? I must really ask about it, how it ever came about. And on such an extraordinary basis, too! Only fancy, that poor, thread-paper creature, Mr. Brown's daughter, has married badly and come back to her father with a troop of children; and she married in opposition to his wishes, and she hasn't a farthing of her own; and yet she seems to have no proper sense of her position whatever. She does nothing to make herself useful and get her living, but sits up in her bedroom, rocking and sewing, all the day long. She bids her father buy this and that for the children, just as though they were not actually beggars, dependent upon him for shelter and every mouthful. She meddles in household matters to any extent, giving the servants orders, having fires made, and even the dinner-hour changed to suit her convenience; and one would think she was mistress there. I wonder she dares do it. Yet, so far from being sat upon or put in her place, I heard Mr. Brown tell Bijou the other day, when some little disagreement took place between them, that she must let her "poor sister" have everything to suit herself, and do her best to make her happy and contented and help her to forget all the trouble she had known, as far as possible. Just as if spoiling her like that, and giving her false ideas of her importance, could be a good plan. Not that it will last. She is a pauper, and will be made to see that she is one, sooner or later. She has nothing but what he gives her, I know, for I have asked her; but she would not tell me why she separated from her husband. Americans are so absurdly secretive and sensitive! Do you know, she was vexed by the inquiry? A great mistake, as I told her, to get rid of him, unless he was a dangerous brute: men are so useful, and 'grass-widows,' as they say here, are always looked down upon. Did you ever know anything so idle as those Brown women? The men here are very active and 'go-ahead,' as they call it, but the women seem to do one of two things,—either they hold their hands altogether and are a thousand times more idle than any queen or duchess, or they work themselves to death, and are cooks, sempstresses, maids, housemaids, nurses, governesses, ladies, and a dozen other things rolled into one,—poor things! Thank heaven I am not an American lady."
"I see what you mean," said Miss Noel. "That dear, sweet girl Bijou has had no practical training whatever. She was amazed that I should make Ethel dye her white kid slippers (when they were soiled) for morning use; and when she saw me getting up some dainty bits of old point that I do not trust to Parsons, she asked me why I bothered with the old stuff and didn't buy new. She has absolutely no idea of the value of money or of household management. On the other hand, that little Mrs. Grey, their friend, told me that she did all the sewing for her twelve children; and Mrs. Grey has not taken a holiday of even a few weeks for twenty years. I can't think how it is they don't break down altogether."
But it was the children of the Brown household that awakened the liveliest surprise in the minds of these ladies,—an astonishment wholly free from admiration or approval, for they were children of a type with which Americans are sadly familiar, but which had never come under their notice before. The little Graysons were utterly undisciplined, and got their own way in everything. Their grandfather, aunt, mother, and nurses combined were powerless to control them, and would give them anything but what they most needed. They pervaded the whole house, and were the hub of it; they ate at all hours, and of whatever they fancied. They had no regular hour for going to bed, but fell asleep everywhere, and were removed with the utmost precaution. Mrs. Sykes, going there, would find them jumping up and down with muddy feet on the drawing-room sofas or playing on the new grand piano with the poker. Miss Noel one day found Mr. Brown in a great state of perturbation, calling out, "Helen! Jane! Bijou! Come here, quick! The baby is bumping his head on the floor!" (The baby being three years old.) "Don't get angry, darling. If you won't bump your head, grandpa will bring you a wax doll from Kalsing to-morrow." Another day, baby's sister in banging on the window-pane struck through the glass and cut her fist. "Poor little dear! Poor childie! Let me bind it up quickly. Harry, love, bid nurse fetch the arnica at once," exclaimed Miss Noel; but the patient stamped and shrieked, and would not have her hand examined or doctored by anybody, whereupon her admiring mother said, "Jenny has always been that way. She has a great deal of character, Miss Noel."
"A very undisciplined one, I fear," replied that lady emphatically. She could scarcely believe that she heard aright when, on asking this model parent what her plans were for the summer, she said,—
"I am going to try Saratoga again. We were there last year, and I went prepared to stay until the 1st of October. I liked it very much; it was very gay and pleasant; but Harry got tired of it, and wouldn't stay after the second week, so I packed up and went to Long Branch, which he has always liked."
"Your brother, or uncle?" inquired Miss Noel, in perfect good faith.
"No, my little Harry," replied the placid mother.
The very appearance of the children, fragile, delicate-looking, nervous, was in striking contrast to the solid, rosy, somewhat stolid English children to whom she was accustomed. They were pretty, quite abnormally intelligent she thought, and as attractive as such rearing would permit them to become; but their habits and manners positively afflicted her. She pined to put them to bed at seven o'clock, keep them four or five hours of every day in the open air, give them simple, nourishing food,—in short, inaugurate the wholesome nursery system of her own country. To see them sitting down to table without saying their grace or putting on their pinafores, and order of the servant soups full of condiments, veal, any or all of eight vegetables, pickles, tarts, pudding, jelly, custard, fruit-cake, bon-bons, strong coffee, cheese, almonds, raisins, figs, more custard, raisins again, and more fruit-cake, all despatched in great haste, with no attention to the proper use of napkin, knife, fork, or spoon, was acutely disagreeable to her; and it was amusing to see her efforts to insinuate, as it were, better things into their daily life. "Nice, clever children," she would say,—"so delicate-featured, and so refined in appearance, but, heavens! what a monstrous system of education!" She had taken a fancy to Bijou from the first, and she soon noticed in her a great many little evidences of weariness, discontent, unhappiness; also that she was alternately very pale and depressed or flushed and animated. She took the girl therefore under her motherly wing, lectured her a little in her gentle way about some things, praised her in others, and was very kind to her.
"My dear," she would say, "do you not eat entirely too many sweets, bon-bons, and what not, and then go without proper food at the regular meals?" Or it would be, "How do you occupy yourself, as a rule, dear child? Do you district-visit, botanize, sketch, learn a language? What do you do? You would enjoy a course of belles-lettres, and should take that. And that head in crayons that you did at school was pleasantly executed: why not study from life constantly?" Bijou had to confess that she did nothing, and not even that industriously. "But, my dear, you are not an Asiatic. You surely don't wish to be a doll, a plaything, self-indulgent, helpless, leading a life of mere luxurious indulgence and artificiality?"
No, Bijou had no such wish; but what was the use of learning or doing anything now as a girl? If she married, it would be different; but then she would never, never marry. But Miss Noel insisted that an idle woman was a miserable woman, married or single, and was brisk and cheerful and kind, and devised a number of small employments for Bijou, whom she kept with her a great deal, and so befriended her as effectually as Mr. Ketchum had done Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Sykes found fault with her once or twice, but did not find her all meekness.
"Why do you talk of 'an elegant breeze'?" she said to her one day.
"For the same reason that you spoke of 'a beautiful roast' yesterday," retorted the young lady, who might be broken-hearted, but was certainly not broken-spirited. "I know better, and I suppose you do, but we are both careless."
Matters drifted along in this way until a certain morning spent by Mr. Ramsay at the Browns',—eventful because a little thing happened which convinced him that Bijou cared for him. He came home with a new pang substituted for those he had been enduring for a lover's age. After dinner he tramped off for a long walk alone, in the course of which it may fairly be presumed that he decided what course to take, for early on the following day he called especially, for the second time, upon Mr. Brown.
"I have come to tell you that I can't come here any more," he said, holding his hat with his accustomed grace, and going in his straightforward fashion immediately to the subject in his mind. "And I wish to thank you for bein' so kind to me and receivin' me as you have done, and to tell you why I am actin' in this way."
"Why, what's the matter? Going away? Isn't this rather sudden?" asked
Brown p?, all unsuspicious of what was to come.
"Oh, it isn't that! Though of course I shall be goin'. It is that I can't marry. That is what it is. You should have been told of it before, by rights, only I kept puttin' it off. You have a perfect right to blame me for not sayin' so long ago, when you were good enough to admit me here on an intimate footin'. It was a shabby, dishonorable thing of me, and I hope you'll forgive it, rememberin' that it was not my intention to deceive you," said Mr. Ramsay. "It wasn't, now, really."
"But, my dear fellow, of what are you accusing yourself? There must be some mistake. What has that got to do with your visits here?" asked Mr. Brown.
"Why, don't you see?—don't you object to me bein' thrown so much with
Miss Brown, under the circumstances?" stammered out Mr. Ramsay.
"Not the least in the world,—not the least in the world, I assure you. Delighted to see you, I am sure, whenever you like to come," said Mr. Brown, with hospitable warmth. "Why should I? There is no necessity for your marrying anybody, that I can see. What put such a foolish idea in your head?"
"But I thought you would think—she would think I thought—that is—as you might say—"
A hearty laugh from Mr. Brown interrupted him: "Why, you seem to have thought a good deal on the subject. The most extraordinary idea! Excuse my saying so. This house is always full of young men dancing attendance on Bijou, who is as popular a girl as there is; but I don't trouble my head about them, I can assure you. No, indeed. Half of them don't want to marry Bijou, and she don't want to marry any of them that I know of. And I guess I shall be told when the affair comes off, so that I can order the wedding-cake. Why, they are just all young people together. It don't mean anything. They just naturally like each other's society. They are amusing themselves,—that's all; and quite right, too."
Mr. Ramsay had never conceived of such a philosophical parent or agreeable state of affairs. He was very much embarrassed, and caught at a familiar idea in his confusion. "That's what I thought you would think,—that I was amusin' myself. And I wanted to tell you that I am not, you know. I have far too much respect for Miss Brown to dream of doin' such a thing," he said very eagerly.
"Oh, you mean at her expense? I understand now. Well, now, let me make your mind perfectly easy on that score. Bijou can take care of herself as well as any girl in America, and I never thought of such a thing. If you are thinking of her, that's all right. If you are thinking of yourself, of course that is another thing. She isn't thinking of marrying you. She doesn't care anything about you in that way, I am certain. I should have noticed it if she had been," said Mr. Brown, who labored under the usual parental delusion as to his daughter's heart having a glass window through which he could see all that went on there.
"I am tryin' to do what is best for both of us," said Mr. Ramsay honestly, blushing profusely. "And I came to say good-by. And here is a little note I have written Miss Brown. I have left it open, in case you wished to see it."
"Not at all,—not at all. Bijou would blow me up sky-high if she caught me reading it, I can tell you. I'll give it to her, certainly. I think you are giving yourself unnecessary concern; but your scruples, though novel, do you honor. If you think it best to give us up, you are, as far as you are personally concerned, the best judge. Good-by. Send us a line to say how you like the West. Good-by," said Mr. Brown, and smilingly accompanied him to the front door.
Papa Brown gave his daughter the note, which ran as follows:
"MY DEAR MISS BROWN,—I am going away, and you have been so awfully kind to me that I know you will excuse me writing to say how awfully grateful I am to your family for receiving a stranger as they have done."
Here "I shall often think of you" was carefully scratched out, and "I shall always remember it and the pleasant hours I have spent with them" substituted.
"And now I have got to say a disagreeable word, which is good-by. I hope you will have a fine hot summer and will think of me sometimes when you are spooning tremendously at croquet,—as you know you do, though it isn't fair. With best regards to all the members of your household, I am
"Faithfully yours,
"P.S.—If I should drop into a good thing you will hear of it."
Mr. Ramsay had taken four hours to compose something that should not be actionable or compromising, and yet that should convey some idea of the state of his mind and feelings, and had turned out this masterpiece, which Bijou read in bitterness of soul over and over again.
"Excuse me writing," "fine hot summer," "croquet," she quoted mentally. "After all that has passed between us! If he had really cared for me, and anything had separated us, he would have had the common honesty and manliness to say so. No; he thinks me another Liverpool girl, 'hard hit.' He is running away from me." At this cruel idea, so abhorrent to her vanity, pride, affection, and general womanhood, the poor girl sank down on her bed overwhelmed, and did not leave her room for three days,—or rather eternities,—at the end of which time she met Mr. Ramsay by accident on the high-road and cut him dead.
"I must pull myself together and get away out of this," said Mr. Ramsay to
Mr. Ketchum that evening. "I have bought of Albert Brown his ranch in
Colorado, near Taylorsville, and I leave in the morning."
"WHAT!" cried Mr. Ketchum. "Has he sold you that tumble-down claim on a burnt prairie, miles from any wood or water? I know the place."
"I haven't examined the property; but he assures me it is a fine one. And, anyway, it is settled, I am going. A thousand thanks for all your kindness, Ketchum. An Englishman that I met in New York wants me to go huntin' with him, and I shall join him at St. Louis and go on out from there."
"Why, I thought you had all promised to go to Niagara as my guests in a few days. Do change your mind and stay, won't you?" urged Mr. Ketchum.
But Mr. Ramsay was obdurate, and took himself and a car-load of property off in the direction of the setting sun by the mid-day train next morning.
"Ramsay, I want you to promise me one thing. If, owing to that skunk Brown, you are disappointed out there, or don't get on, write or telegraph me, and I'll stand by you to the tune of ten thousand or so. Good-by, old fellow. Remember, I'm your friend," said generous Job, at the station. And as he went home he stopped and presented Mr. Albert Brown with a piece of his mind that any other man would only have taken in exchange for a flogging, delivered.
"How very nice and kind of the dear duke to give Mr. Ramsay an invite to join him!" said Mrs. Sykes, with emotion, at dinner that day.
* * * * *
Sauntering down the southerly side of Fleet Street, toward the historic spot where once stood Temple Bar, crested with its ghastly array of pike-pierced traitors' heads, the curious itinerant comes to an arched gate-way of Elizabethan architecture. The narrow lane which it guards is known as Inner Temple Street, and cleaves the Temple enclosure into unequal parts, ending at the river. Standing in the shady archway, with the roar and rattle, the glare and glitter, of Fleet Street at our backs, we instinctively feel that we are about to enter a new and strange locality, the quiet atmosphere and the cloister-like walks of which seem redolent of books and the pursuits of bookish men.
We are on the threshold of the Temple,—a spot than which none in all this historic metropolis is more replete with memories of the storied past. Nor does its interest consist solely in its associations with the men and manners of a by-gone epoch. Despite its antique architecture and its quaint observances, the Temple still maintains its reputation for scholarship and legal acumen. Its virility is fitly symbolized in the venerable and vigorous trees whose branching boughs wave above its walls: sound to the core, it sends forth new scions with perennial freshness.
The gray gate-way under which we have halted is one of the two chief entrances to the Temple. It was built in the reign of James I., being consequently nearly three centuries old. White-aproned porters, with numbered pewter badge on lapel, stand on either side, ready—for a consideration—to direct our transatlantic ignorance into veritable "paths of pleasantness and peace." Access to the Middle Temple from Fleet Street is had by way of another gate-house, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1684, soon after the Great Fire. It is in the style of Inigo Jones, of reddish brick, with stone pointing. There are several other entrances,—many of them known only to the initiated,—through intricate courts and passages debouching on Fleet Street and the surrounding thoroughfares, and one from the river at Temple Pier; but, chiefly because of their proximity to the New Courts of Law, these two gate-ways are most frequented.
The boundaries of this famous abode of British wit and intellect may be roughly sketched as follows: on the north, Fleet Street; on the south, the Thames and the Victoria Embankment; on the east, Serjeants' Inn and the Whitefriars region; on the west, Essex Street, Strand. These boundaries remain substantially as they were six or seven centuries ago. The Middle Temple lies nearest the river; the Inner Temple is nearer to Fleet Street, and "inside"—that is, on the "city" side—of Temple Bar. Essex House and its purlieus, once the abode of the powerful earls of that name, were formerly a part of the Temple. It was called the Outer Temple, because "outside" of Temple Bar.
In the reign of Henry II., about the year 1185, the ground now included in the Temple area became the head-quarters in London of the crusading Knights Templar. Removing from humbler quarters in Holborn, the order, having become wealthy and ambitious, bought a tract of land extending from the walls of Essex House to Whitefriars, and from the river to Fleet Street. They erected a church, a priory, and other buildings clustered around in the mediaeval fashion, and in imitation of the Temple near the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.
Under the first Richard and the third Henry the Templars increased in pelf, power, and pride. After a career commenced in zeal and purity, culminating in valor and fanaticism, and closing in corruption and indolence, in the year 1312, when the second Edward sat on the throne of England, the now useless order was formally abolished by Clement V., the reigning Pontiff. The Temple domain, by grant of the crown, then passed to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who conveyed it to the Earl of Lancaster, a cousin of Edward II. It was then rented to the professors and students of the common law, who had recently become an incorporate body, In 1333 the Temple had apparently reverted to the crown, for we find Edward III. farming out the rents for twenty-five pounds a year.
The Knights Hospitallers of St. John, meantime, affected to be much scandalized at what they deemed a desecration of holy ground, and claimed the custody of the place. In 1340, in consideration of a hundred golden guineas contributed toward the armament against France, the king made over the Temple to the Hospitallers. They handsomely endowed the church with lands, and gave "a thousand fagots yearly from Lillerton Wood to nourish the church fires."
The records of the Temple date back no further than the reign of Henry VII., so that the history of the previous period; is more or less obscure and traditional: the precise manner in which the Temple passed from the control of the sword to that of the wig and gown is not certain. The Hospitallers of St. John, who already possessed a priory at Clerkenwell, in the north of London, after having vindicated the sanctity of the church and cloisters, are believed to have leased the buildings and the demesne to the lawyers for the rent of ten pounds, payable yearly. Another account says that the latter purchased the property outright. However this may have been, in the reign of Richard II. we find the legal fraternity of the metropolis securely domiciled in the locality they have ever since tenaciously clung to.
Even so early as the time of Henry VI. the brotherhood of lawyers had attained to an unwieldy growth, and it separated into two halls, the original two halls of the Knights Templar forming the nuclei around which the frequenters of each grouped themselves. Thus arose the Middle and Inner Temple. Under the eighth Henry the two societies became direct tenants of the crown once more. In 1609 James I. granted "letters patent to the mansion of the Inner Temple," at a yearly rent of ten sovereigns; and a like sum was exacted for the Middle Temple. The societies have not been disturbed in their holdings since that time.
The Temple to-day comprises two of the four great Inns of Court, —Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple,—which, taken collectively, constitute the backbone of the legal polity of England. Ben Jonson described them as "the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the kingdom." They are all of great age and the recipients of rich revenues. The income of the Middle Temple alone (not the richest of the four) from the single item of rents is about thirteen thousand pounds yearly; but the affairs of the Inns are so shrouded in administrative secrecy that exact information on this topic is not easily obtained.
Until recently there was a fifth,—Serjeants' Inn, the members of which were lawyers who had risen to the rank of serjeant, or to the bench itself. Formerly such promotions terminated membership in the original Inn; but since the abolishment of the rank of sergeant at the English bar Serjeants' Inn has ceased to exist,—the name surviving only in the locality,—and the four Inns have readmitted those of their members on whom judicial honors were bestowed.
Each Inn possesses certain smaller or subordinate Inns, which formerly served as preparatory schools, but which are now mere collections of chambers. There are thus attached to the Inner Temple Clement's Inn, Clifford's Inn, and Lyon's Inn; to the Middle Temple, New Inn.
All the Inns of Court are unincorporated voluntary societies. In our modern nomenclature the name "inn" may seem a strange one for an institution of learning; but the term is a literal rendering of the ancient title hospitia applied to them in the Latin records, as distinguished from public lodging-houses (diversoria).
Each Inn consists of a hall, a chapel, a law-library, a set of rooms for the benchers, and a large number of houses, divided into small suites known as "chambers," and occupied chiefly by barristers, solicitors, and students, though tenancy is not restricted to these classes. The quiet, the studious environment, and the freedom from certain social obligations unavoidable in more fashionable quarters, have at all times rendered residence in the several Inns peculiarly attractive to that large class in England which consists in the main of young men of good family, moderate fortune, and no particular occupation.
The Inns possess the exclusive right of "calling students to the bar,"[A] also of "disbarring" a barrister for questionable practices,—a right exercised by Gray's Inn in 1864 in the case of the late erratic but brilliant Dr. Kenealy, counsel for the notorious Tichborne "claimant." From their decision no court, as such, can give relief. The disbarred one has only the right of appeal to and review by certain of the judges. The Inns neither govern nor license attorneys, who are admitted to practice by the courts.
[Footnote A: The origin of this term dates from the venerable custom of calling students to the bar that divided the benchers' dais from the body of the hall to bear their part in the "meetings" or discussions on knotty legal topics. We are informed by Lord Campbell that Sir Edward Coke "first evinced his forensic powers when deputed by the students to make a representation to the benchers of the Inner Temple at one of the 'moots' respecting the poor quality of the commons served in the hall. He argued with so much quickness of penetration and solidity of judgment that he gave entire satisfaction to the students and was much admired by the benchers."]
The Middle Temple affiliates with the Universities of London and Durham. A residence of three years and the keeping of twelve "commons" entitle a gentleman to be called to its bar, after certain qualifying examinations, if he be above twenty-three years of age. In the Inner Temple (by far the richest and most popular of the two societies) the candidate for admission must have taken his B.A. or passed an examination at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, or London. No one in holy orders can be called, and none are admitted without the consent of the benchers. The candidate must also furnish a statement in writing, outlining his rank, age, and residence, accompanied by a voucher as to his respectability signed by a bencher or two barristers. In short, the Inns of Court may be described as universities "with power to grant degrees in the municipal law of England, which constitute indispensable qualifications for practice in the superior courts of law." To secure these ends they have from time immemorial enjoyed the protection of the crown.
In former times the curriculum was comprehensive and the discipline severe. The fare provided was frugal, and the chambers were sparsely furnished. Luxury was tabooed, and the rules were rigidly enforced. From early morning till the hour of five in the evening, when supper was served, not an hour was wasted. Fortescue, writing in the time of Henry VI., gives a graphic account of these law-schools as they were in his day. "Students resort hither in great numbers to be taught as in common schools. Here they learn to sing and to exercise themselves in all kinds of harmony. On the working days they study law, and on the holy days Scripture, and their demeanor is like the behavior of such as are coupled together in perfect amity. There is no place where are found so many students past childhood as here." But in these degenerate days, when the jeunesse dorée decorate their "dens" with Queen Anne furniture, Turkish rugs, and choice bric-à -brac, it has been jocosely said that "dining in hall is the only legal study of Temple students." Of late years, however, "the best professional sentiment" has strongly and successfully tended in favor of keeping up the standard of these institutions as true seminaries of learning. Ample courses of lectures have been introduced, also subsequent searching examinations.
A glance at a map of the Temple shows conclusively that it has no connected plan. Its growth has been the outcome of the needs of many generations during the last half-dozen centuries, and it is at present a picturesque conglomeration of buildings of all sizes and shapes and styles, erected with no regard for architectural beauty or symmetry, and with no very great adaptability to their past or present use. Aside from the halls and libraries of the two societies, the Church of St. Mary, and one or two blocks of chambers, like Paper Buildings, there is no salient feature to impress the eye. Yet the uniform ugliness of some of the buildings constitutes not the least of their attractions. A hard grayish stone frequently appears, though there are a number of brick houses so mellowed by age that it would be difficult to name their original hue.
The chambers are frequently massed around four sides of a stone-paved court, from which direct entrance is had to the main staircases. In some of these flagged spaces a fountain tinkles; in others, sturdy elm- or plane-trees tower far above the red chimney-stacks; in the centre of another is the famous Temple pump. The several courts have distinguishing names, such as Garden Court, Pump Court, and Brick Court, and they connect with each other sometimes by an arched passage under the houses, at two sides of the square, or again by narrow alleys. Nor is the same level always preserved. Small flights of time-worn steps continually surprise us in our pilgrimage. The aggregate—barren courts, narrow passages, and winding lanes—forms a perfect labyrinth, very trying to a stranger or to one possessing a poor memory for localities.
The nomenclature of certain of these Temple courts possesses a breezy, countrified sound, utterly unsuggestive of musty tomes and special pleadings. Thus, we have Elm-Tree Court, Vine Court, Fig-Tree Court, and Fountain Court. The reader will recall to mind the fact that it was in the last-named locality, with its sprightly, sparkling, upward-springing stream, that Ruth Pinch—"gentle, loving Ruth"—held tryst with her lover, manly John Westlock. Letitia Elizabeth Landon, too, has embalmed this "pet and plaything of the Temple" in some pleasant stanzas:
The fountain's low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind,—
Some to grieve, some to gladden: around them they cast
The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.
Away in the distance is heard the vast sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of fountains, or the ocean's deep call;
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all.
Entering the houses, we find them mostly of a stereotyped pattern. A wainscoted, dark, and generally uncarpeted staircase gives access to landings on which abut the outer doors of the "sets," or chambers. These consist of two, three, or at most four rooms, in the style peculiar to the domestic architecture of the earlier years of the present century. High corniced ceilings, wainscoted walls, and shoulder-high chimney-pieces abound. Here and there, however, some opulent tenant has modernized his rooms; but the structures, inside and out, remain for the most part not materially changed from the later Georgian era of their erection,—a time when every gentleman sported a small-sword and ladies wore hoops and patches. The famous garden forms one of the chief charms of the Temple enclosure, and its beauty and atmosphere of quiet repose are justly celebrated. Here Shakespeare is believed to have sat and thought out some of his most masterly creations; here many of the great legal luminaries of the last few centuries walked and talked; and here the infantile footsteps of the subsequently famous "Elia" chased butterflies across the velvety sward. "The Temple Garden," says Mr. Walter Thornbury, "has probably been a garden from the time the white-robed Templars first came from Holborn and settled by the river-side." It covers an expanse of three acres, and its gay flower-beds, umbrageous trees, and emerald turf make it a veritable oasis to the inhabitants, and especially to the children, of that corner of the great metropolis. A pillar sundial in the centre of the grass bears the date 1770, and the iron gate, surmounted by a winged horse, which guards the entrance from the terrace, was erected in 1730. East of the sundial is a hoary old sycamore, sole survivor of three sisters, carefully protected by railings, under whose grateful shade, says local tradition, Johnson and Goldsmith were wont to chat. In the Middle Temple Garden stands a venerable catalpa-tree, planted by Sir Matthew Hale, "one of the most eminent of lawyers and excellent of men." The scene in "King Henry the Sixth,"[A] where the partisans of the rival houses of Lancaster and York assume the distinctive badges of the white and red rose, is laid in the Temple Garden. "Toward evening," says Dr. Dibdin, "it was the fashion for the leading counsel to promenade during the summer months in the Temple Gardens. Cocked hats and ruffles, with satin small-clothes, at that time constituted the usual evening dress." Anciently, the "moots" were held on the terrace of the Garden at five of the clock in the long summer evenings.
[Footnote A: Part I., act 2, scene 4.]
The great hall of the Middle Temple is one of the finest Elizabethan structures in the metropolis. It was commenced in 1562, when the old hall was converted into chambers, consumed a decade in building, and is of grand proportions. It is a hundred feet long, and the massive beauty of the glossy oaken roof, almost black with age, is alone worth an Atlantic voyage to see. The walls and windows are decorated with the arms of various members of the Inn, and the paintings are numerous and of great historical interest. Over the dais is a portrait of Charles I. on horse-back, by Vandyke, one of the three original paintings of the unhappy monarch by that great master. Another of the trio is at Windsor, while the third adorns Warwick Castle. There are also copies of portraits of Charles II., James II., William III., Queen Anne, and George II., and marble busts, by Behnes, of "Doubting" Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, the great Admiralty judge. The screen and the music-gallery are marvels of the wood-carver's art. Tradition says the screen was made of oak from the timbers of the wrecked Invincible Armada; but this cannot be, inasmuch as it was set up a dozen years before the doomed squadron sailed out of Lisbon harbor.
The Middle Temple Library, a handsome building of recent erection, situated on the river side of the Inn, at the southwest corner of the Temple Gardens, was opened by the Prince of Wales, October 31, 1861. While it is of nobler proportions than the library of the Inner Temple, it does not seem to be so well suited for the purposes of the student. Its location, however, is far more pleasant, on the margin of the flower-mantled garden, and within sight of the busy Victoria Embankment and of the panoramic river scenery. From the great oriel window a noble vista is unrolled. In the distance, the twin-towered Houses of Parliament are outlined against the sky, while the massive proportions of the "water front" of Somerset House, the motley groupings of the structures that crowd the intervening water-side, and the flashing river hound by many-arched bridges, fill the middle distance.
Aside from the lustre shed around its history by many eminent lawyers and jurists, the Middle Temple has numbered among its students several great poets and dramatists, notably John Ford, William Congreve, Nicholas Rowe, Thomas Shadwell, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Moore. But, as their literary remains prove, few or none of them prosecuted their legal studies with that sedulous devotion which the law, proverbially a jealous mistress, demands. Sir William Blackstone, who immortalized his name by his "Commentaries on the Laws of England," was educated in the Middle Temple, where he was entered as a student, November 20, 1741, and by which he was called to the bar, April 26, 1750. In his Temple chambers, ere he finally consecrated his massive intellect to the legal profession, Blackstone wrote the famous "Farewell to the Muses:"
Lull'd by the lapse of gliding floods,
Cheer'd by the warbling of the woods,
How blest my days, my thoughts how free,
In sweet society with thee!
Then all was joyous, all was young,
And years, unheeded, roll'd along;
But now the pleasing dream is o'er,—
These scenes must charm me now no more.
Lost to the field and torn from you,
Farewell! a long, a last adieu.
Edmund Burke was entered at the Middle Temple in 1747, and kept his terms in 1750. But the great tribune was never called to the bar. Had he been, what a powerful advocate, what a pitiless adversary, he would have made! Porson, the brilliant but bibulous classicist, has left behind him many sad stories of his pranks during his residence in Essex Court, where he had chambers immediately above those occupied by the future Baron Gurney, whom, in one of his debauches, he came near burning in his bed. Chaucer is believed to have entered as a student of the Middle Temple, where he is supposed to have formed a friendship with the "moral Gower." Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Overbury, Sir Edward Bramston, Lord-Keeper Guildford, Edmund Plowden,—perhaps the greatest lawyer of the Elizabethan epoch, —"Ugly" Dunning, who afterward became Lord Ashburton, and Lord Eldon, are among the ornaments of the British bench and bar who sprung from the Middle Temple.
Now, however, the glories of the Middle Temple rest chiefly in the past. It has decreased in wealth and in numbers. There is an old proverb which says, "The Inner Temple for the rich, the Middle Temple for the poor;" and a famous wit emphasized this saying by a happy mot. After one of its far from recherché dinners, he compared a gritty salad, of which he had been unlucky enough to partake, to "eating a gravel walk and meeting an occasional weed."
The hall of the Inner Temple is a modern building, and was opened by the Princess Louise on May 4, 1870. More spacious than the one it replaced, it contains a number of cosy offices and ante-rooms. There is also attached a lunch-room for the use of members, much frequented in term-time, when at the mid-day hour one may meet many of the great practitioners at the English bar. Passable portraits of William and Mary, Queen Anne, Lord Chief-Justice Coke, and Sir Thomas Littleton look upon the visitor, and the arms of the successive treasurers of the Inn are blazoned on the walls.
The Inner Temple Library is the most attractive, quiet, and convenient of any in the four Inns. Its plan comprises a series of book-lined apartments leading one into another. Besides a valuable and voluminous collection of authorities on legal topics, it possesses a unique array of works on general subjects. It stands on the terrace, and commands a view of the river. The noble hammer-beam roof is a fine specimen of its kind, spanning a chamber forty-two feet wide and ninety-six feet long. One of the stained-glass windows is emblazoned with the Templars' escutcheon. The debating-hall is in the Tudor style, and cost not far from seventy-five thousand dollars.
Several great jurists and a number of men equally eminent in other walks of life were connected with the Inner Temple, pre-eminent among whom stand Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord-Chancellor of England in 1587, and nicknamed the "Dancing Chancellor," Lord Tenterden, "one of the greatest Englishmen who ever sat in the seat of Gamaliel," who was admitted in 1795, and John Selden, who took up residence in Paper Buildings in 1604. The latter were consumed in the great fire of 1666. Audley, chancellor to the eighth Henry, Nicholas Hare, privy councillor to the latter monarch and Master of the Rolls under Mary, who resided in the court which now bears his name, the eminent lawyer Littleton and his no less famous commentator Coke, Lord Buckburst, Beaumont the poet, Sir William Follett, and Judge Jeffries of infamous memory, were all students within the Temple precincts.
Charles Lamb, whose father, John Lamb, was clerk to Mr. Salt, a bencher of the Inner Temple, was born in Crown Office Row. In 1809 he took chambers at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where some of the delightful "Elia" essays were penned. In one of these he says, "I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountains, 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 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,[A]
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 Na?es! 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 tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic." Though its courts may have been "magnificent" and "ample" to the contemplation of the kindly Lamb, they would scarce be so accounted now.
[Footnote A: Paper Buildings.]
The "great Cham of Literature," Dr. Samuel Johnson, resided for some time at No. 1, Inner Temple Lane. Indeed, it was while the doctor was living in the Temple that the world-famous "Literary Club" was founded. The faithful and receptive Boswell, too, as might be expected, lived within easy distance of the object of his veneration, at the foot of Inner Temple Lane. It was in 1763 that Boswell first made the acquaintance of the "Great Bear" and called on him in his Temple chambers.
Cowper the poet, as the reader doubtless remembers, at first embraced the law as his profession. He was duly articled to a solicitor of some eminence; but with how little ardor he devoted himself to the study may be inferred from the following candid confession: "I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor,—that is to say, I slept three years in his house, but I lived, I spent my days, in Southampton Row. Here was I and the future Lord Chancellor [Thurlow] constantly employed from morning till night in giggling and making giggle instead of studying law." It is not surprising, as one of his biographers remarks, that when, at the age of twenty-one, he proudly became the occupant of a set of chambers in the Middle Temple, "he neither sought business nor business sought him."
While domiciled here, the hideous malady which darkened his manhood began to cast its gloomy pall on his mind. In the year 1759 he removed from the Middle Temple to better quarters in the Inner Temple. For a time the change seemed beneficial, but in 1763 what had hitherto been mere morbid melancholy became something very near the dreaded insanity. "I was struck, " he says, "not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such dejection of spirits as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror and rising up in despair." His residence at the Temple extended in all through eleven years. The year above mentioned, the last of that term, found the poet in straitened circumstances. The twin offices of reading-clerk and clerk of committees in the House of Lords became vacant at this juncture, and both were at the disposal of a cousin of Cowper's. They were duly conferred on the poet. But the duties of these positions necessitated frequent attendance before the Peers, and to one who suffered from a morbid nervousness this prospect was most distasteful. Hence, almost immediately after having accepted them, Cowper resigned these posts and took instead that of clerk of the journals. Now another difficulty intervened. It was necessary, in order to qualify for this place, that he should undergo an examination at the bar of the House of Peers; and thus "the evil from which he seemed to have escaped again met him."
"A thunderbolt," he writes, "would have been as welcome to me as this intelligence. To require my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might there publicly entitle myself to the office, was in effect to exclude me from it. In the mean time, the interest of my friend, the honor of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward, all urged me to undertake what I saw to be impracticable." The mental agony he suffered was wellnigh unbearable. He even contemplated with some calmness the coming of mental derangement, that thereby he might have good reason for throwing up the appointment. He made many attempts to destroy himself. "He purchased laudanum, but threw it away. He went down to the Custom-House Quay to throw himself into the river. He tried to stab himself." Finally, the most desperate attempt of all to extinguish the lamp of life took place in his Temple chambers. Thrice he essayed to hang himself by his garter,—first on his high canopy bedstead, and then on the door.
The public way which, starting at Fleet Street, runs between the Temple Church and Goldsmith Buildings, is a curious thoroughfare,—street it cannot be called. It inclines somewhat toward the river, with a very narrow foot-walk, scarcely wide enough for two to pass abreast. On one side is the hoary sanctuary, and on the other a row of gloomy, flat-fronted houses, whose dirty windows blink drowsily on the flagged way beneath.
The pavement of a part of this thoroughfare is unique. It consists of old tombstones. In 1842, the entire available space in the churchyard being covered with graves, the benchers decided to permit no more interments there, and ordered it to be paved over. A path now runs directly across the old cemetery, where rest the bones of the Knights Templar and their dependants, and many of the sculptured stones have become paving-flags. Worn and polished by the passage of many feet, the epitaphs are entirely defaced. Here and there a few letters of antique cut may with difficulty be deciphered; but soon no sign will survive to tell of this painful desecration.
A little outside the roadway the ground is slightly elevated, and near to, but outside of, the gilt-tipped railings which enclose the Temple Church lies a very unpretending slab of marble. Rising but a few inches above the level, one corner sunken and green with earth-mould, it is but a single remove from the general decay around it. No fence protects it, children play and fight their mimic battles thereon, and when last we saw it a group of workmen employed near by were discussing their noontide bread and cheese and beer in various lounging attitudes upon it. The slab is sadly chipped, yet it is not nearly so old as the years of the century. Surely the man whose death it commemorates departed this life
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Not so. Let us scrape aside the accumulated dirt, and trace with finger-tip the fast-vanishing inscription. It says, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." This, then, is the way the world reveres its great ones. Of what avail a monument to the poet in Westminster Abbey, dignified by the celebrated epitaph of Dr. Johnson, when his tomb is thus relegated to the domain of neglect and oblivion? Even the site at present indicated is "entirely conjectural:" the precise position of the poet's grave has been long forgotten.
Goldsmith Buildings, of course, take their name from the erratic poet and playwright. In one of them he lived and died, just above the rooms tenanted by the learned Blackstone, who, at that time engaged in penning the fourth volume of his "Commentaries," was often grievously annoyed by the dancing- and drinking-parties, the games of blind-man's-buff, and the noisy singing of "poor Noll" and his boon companions. Goldsmith took up residence in the Temple in the spring of the year 1764, in a very shabby set of rooms, which he shared with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Here Dr. Johnson visited him, says Mr. Forster, "and on prying and peering about in them after his short-sighted fashion, flattening his face against every object be looked at, Goldsmith's uneasy sense of their deficiencies broke out. 'I shall soon be in better chambers, sir, than these,' he said. 'Nay, sir,' answered Johnson, 'never mind that: nil te quaesiveris extra.'"
In 1765, his purse having become somewhat more plethoric, he removed to Garden Court, then, as now, one of the choice spots in the Temple Area. Here he sported a man-servant, and ran head over ears in debt to his trades-people. Three years later, in 1768, we find the happy-go-lucky spendthrift squandering four hundred of the five hundred pounds which the partial success of "The Good-Natured Man" netted him in the purchase of a set of chambers in No. 2 Brick Court, much to the sorrow of the studious Blackstone, whose fellow-tenant he thus became. The nocturnal revelries of Goldy and his intimates are happily described in Mr. Forster's biography. Supper-parties were frequent, "preceded by blind-man's-buff, forfeits, or games of cards, when Goldsmith, festively entertaining them all, would make frugal supper for himself off boiled milk." He would "sing all kinds of Irish songs," and with special enjoyment "gave them the Scotch ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong' (his old nurse's favorite);" with great cheerfulness "he would put the front of his wig behind, or contribute in any other way to the general amusement;" and to an "accompaniment of uncontrolled laughter he once danced a minuet with Mrs. Seguin," the wife of an Irish merchant.
A volume would not contain the thrilling story of the trials and triumphs, the struggles and successes, of the dead-and-gone generations whose feet have polished the cool gray flags of the purlieus of the Temple. Comedy and tragedy have been enacted within its walls; penury and prodigality have dwelt beneath the same rafters; the versatile genius and the plodding dullard have taken their maiden flights toward fame in its halls. Soldiers and statesmen, poets and playwrights, courtiers, wits, and adventurers, have herein acted their various parts. Yet, despite the checkered lives that have run their course within its pale, and notwithstanding the lustre shed upon its history by the many great jurists nurtured there, the Temple gains its greatest renown from the residence therein of that famous trio, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Lamb.
The immortal pump, so often alluded to in the Temple annals, stands in the centre of Hare Court,—not in Pump Court, as might not unreasonably be expected. It yields a copious supply of the coolest spring-water, and the office-lads of the surrounding chambers make many pilgrimages hither, stone pitcher in hand, during the sultry summertime. Charles Lamb, in an epistle to Coleridge, in his happiest vein, says, "I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself; but I have got others at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy…. The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going; just now it is dry. Hare Court's trees come in at the window,—so that it's like living in a garden." Again, writing from the Temple in 1810 to his friend Manning, who is in China, Lamb says, "The household gods are slow to come, but here I mean to live and die. Come, and bring any of your friends the mandarins with you. My best room commands a court in which are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold—with brandy, and not very insipid without." At about the same time we find Mary Lamb recording that her genial brother had suddenly taken to living like an anchorite. He tabooed all alcoholic drinks, and confined himself to cold water and cold tea. But the beverage drawn from Hare Court did not agree with his internal economy: he suffered in consequence from cramps and rheumatism, and his abstention from generous fluids was, we are forced to infer, exceedingly brief.
The poet Garth, who exposed the apothecaries of London to reprobation and ridicule in his satirical poem "The Dispensary," also humorously alludes to Hare Court's pump:
And dare the college insolently aim
To equal our fraternity in fame?
Then let crabs' eyes with pearls for virtue try,
Or Highgate Hill with lofty Pindus vie;
So glowworms may compare with Titan's beams,
And Hare Court pump with Aganippe's streams.
The one structure in the Temple area that overshadows all others in point of interest is the famous round church, consecrated to St. Mary by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the year 1185. This prelate's presence in England was on an errand to invoke the assistance of Henry II. against Saladin, who had recently inflicted several disastrous defeats on the Templars in the Holy Land.
The church was finished about 1240. It is one of the four round churches still remaining in England. Its plan is that of a central round tower, supported by six beautiful clustered columns, crossed by a nave and transepts. Notwithstanding the lapse of ages, and although its beauties were for centuries hidden beneath a variety of hideous excrescences, it remains to-day one of the best specimens of early Gothic architecture extant. In 1682, 1695, 1706, 1737, and 1811 extensive repairs were made. In 1828 the exterior was thoroughly restored and recased with stone, and several unsightly structures that impeded the view of the church were removed. All of these so-called restorations were, however, but partial in extent. Many outrageous additions and much meretricious ornamentation, added at various epochs, were allowed to remain.
Finally, in 1845, steps were taken looking to a thorough renovation and restoration of the venerable pile. The purity of the marble columns had been sullied by several coats of paint and whitewash, while many of the foliated capitals of the columns supporting the "Round" bore traces of gilding. These latter were scraped and cleaned; an eight-feet-high oak wainscot was removed; light, movable seats were substituted for the heavy pews of Charles II.'s time that encumbered the Round; the pavement was lowered to its original level, thus revealing the bases of the columns; the organ (built by the famous Father Smith in the reign of Charles II.) was removed to its present position in the choir, and the whole interior, by means of these and other extensive changes, was exhibited in its pristine purity.
It is difficult to understand the crass stupidity which blocked up exquisite Norman windows, covered carved capitals with a thick coat of cement, closed many of the arches with wooden partitions, planted a cumbrous pulpit and reading-desk immediately under the dome, and hid the noble groined ceiling behind a shell of flat, whitewashed boarding. In the course of these repairs much of the marble-work was found to require renewal, for replacing which some old quarries in the Isle of Purbeck, unworked for generations, were reopened.
On the pavement, immediately under the Round, are several marble effigies of mail-clad knights,—"Associates of the Temple." Those that have been identified represent Geoffry de Magnaville, Earl of Essex, one of the barons who fought against King Stephen; another, having clean-cut features and clad in chain-armor, commemorates William Marshall, who was Protector during the reign of Henry III,; and by his side rests his son, a leader of the Barons in their memorable struggle against King John. The effigy of Gilbert Marshall, third son of the Protector, reposes near the western door-way, and hard by is the figure of a warrior in the act of prayer, supposed to be intended for Robert, Lord of Ros. Five or six other figures, some of remarkable beauty, and all in good preservation, two of heroic stature, are unidentified.
Service is held daily in the Temple Church, and admission is practically free. On Sunday mornings, however, the introduction of a bencher is requisite to secure admittance. The music is of the best of its kind, and the organ, though of great age, is renowned as one of the purest-and sweetest-toned instruments in London.
No account of the Temple would be complete without some mention of its many curious sundials. Each garden possesses a plain pillar-dial. There is one in Temple Lane with the motto, "Pereunt et imputantur," and "Vestigia nulla retrorsum" appears on another in Essex Court. In Pump Court, high up on the front of a house is a large, rectangular dial, with gilt figures and stile, bearing the inscription, "Shadows we are and like shadows depart." Over the dial is the traditional Temple lamb bearing a cross.[A] In Brick Court there is a dial with the apt legend, "Time and tide tarry for no man." In the year 1828 an ancient building on Inner Temple Terrace was demolished, and with it a sundial bearing the strange but not inappropriate inscription, "Begone about your business." The story runs that, many years before, a crusty old bencher had promised the dial-maker to provide a motto for the then new dial. The messenger, however, arrived at an inopportune time, received the above curt dismissal in answer to his request, and conveyed it to his master as the legend to be engraved.
[Footnote A: The devices of the Middle and Inner Temple are a lamb and a horse respectively, and they may be frequently seen blazoned on window and wall. An irreverent wit once scrawled these lines on the Temple gate:
As by the Templars' hold you go,
The horse and lamb displayed
In emblematic figures show
The merits of their trade.
The clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession:
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition.
O happy Britons, happy isle,
Let foreign nations say,
Where you get justice without guile,
And law without delay!
In answer and in ridicule of which, a second scribbler penned the following stanzas beneath:
Deluded men, these holds forego,
Nor trust such cunning elves:
These artful emblems tend to show
Their clients, not themselves.
'Tis all a trick; these are all shams
By which they mean to cheat you:
But have a care,—for you're the lambs,
And they the wolves that eat you.
Nor let the thought of "no delay"
To these their courts misguide you:
'Tis you're the showy horse, and they
The jockeys that will ride you.]
The din and devastation of civil strife and the smoke and flame of conflagration have more than once surged high and furious in and around the Temple. In Wat Tyler's rebellion many of the houses were razed by the rioters, books and parchments were carried away and fed to bonfires, and it was the intention of the rebels to destroy the precinct and the lawyers together, for thus, they said, they would obliterate both unjust laws and corrupt law-makers. The "No-Popery" rioters in 1780 marched to attack the Temple, but were awed into flight by the apparently determined front presented by the lawyers and students, who were really in desperate fear themselves. Street-fights with the lawless Alsatians of the adjoining Whitefriars region were at one time frequent.[B] In 1553, and again in 1669, the mayor of the city essayed to "pass through the cloisters with drawn sword." The Temple claimed immunity from civic control, and on both occasions the mayor's weapon was beaten down and a bloody affray resulted. An appeal growing out of this event was made to Charles II. by Heneage Finch in behalf of the Temple, but the question is still unsettled. Hence the modern Templars close their gates at ten o'clock every night, and when the "charity children" of the adjacent parishes "beat the bounds" on Ascension Day, redouble their vigilance. The rich rental of the property pays no local taxes, though repeated efforts have been made to assess it.
[Footnote B: Salisbury Court, Whitefriars, enjoyed for centuries the privilege of a sanctuary—at first for criminals, but finally for debtors only—until 1697, when it was abolished by royal warrant. It was nicknamed "Alsatia," in imitation of the frontier province of the same name, which was long a cause of contention and familiarly known to English soldiers in the long Continental wars. As Cunningham observes, "In the Temple students were trying to keep the law, and in Alsatia, adjoining, debtors to avoid and violate it. The Alsatians were troublesome neighbors to the Templars, and the Templars as troublesome neighbors to the Alsatians."]
In 1666 the Great Fire of London burnt its way westward as far as the Temple. After consuming several sets of chambers and a quantity of title-deeds to many valuable estates, the course of the flames was stayed just east of the Temple Church. But in 1678-79, in the mouth of January, a large area was burned over. The fire lasted from midnight till noon of the ensuing day. Pump Court, Vine Court, part of Brick Court, Elm-Tree Court, Hare Court, part of Middle Temple Hall, a portion of Inner Temple Hall, and the old cloisters, were swept away. The season was remarkable for its severity: the Thames was frozen over, and the supply of water entirely inadequate. So great hogsheads of ale were hoisted up from the cellars and the liquor fed to the clumsy hand-engines of the period. When the ale gave out, recourse was had to gunpowder,—buildings in the track of the flames being blown up; but in this dangerous work the Temple library was demolished. In the end, however, the Temple was the gainer by this fire: much better structures took the place of the old rookeries, and the entire precinct was purified.
Around the hoary walls of the Temple cluster memories of many a strange custom or quaint observance. The revels at Yule-tide, St. Stephen's Day, New Year's Day, and Twelfth Night were not surpassed anywhere in "merrie England." Feasts, masques, and play-acting at various times greatly scandalized the more sober and staid among the benchers. Stowe tells us that the readers of his day "for upwards of three weeks kept a splendid table, feasting the nobility, judges, bishops, principal officers of state, and sometimes the king himself, insomuch that it has cost a reader above one thousand pounds,"—a mint of money in those frugal days. Revelries grew in frequency and attractiveness as the business of instruction declined, so much so that we are compelled to believe that at one period the qualifications for admission were merely nominal. A banquet given by Sir Heneage Finch the year following the restoration of Charles II. lasted from the 4th to the 17th of August, and all London was invited and made welcome.