"Lulled 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!* * * * *Then welcome business, welcome strife,Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,The visage wan, the purblind sight,The toil by day, the lamp by night,The tedious forms, the solemn prate,The pert dispute, the dull debate,The drowsy bench, the babbling hall,—For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!"
That great orator, Edmund Burke, was entered at the Middle Temple in 1747, when the heads of the Scotch rebels of 1745 were still fresh on the spikes of Temple Bar, and he afterwards came to keep his terms in 1750. In 1756 he occupied a two-pair chamber at the "Pope's Head," the shop of Jacob Robinson, the Twickenham poet's publisher, just within the Inner Temple gateway. Burke took a dislike, however, perhaps fortunately for posterity, to the calf-skin books, and was never called to the bar.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irishman even more brilliant, but unfortunately far less prudent, than Burke, entered his name in the Middle Temple books a few days before his elopement with Miss Linley.
"A wit," says Archdeacon Nares, in his pleasant book, "Heraldic Anomalies," "once chalked the following lines on the Temple gate:"—
"As by the Templars' hold you go,The horse and lamb display'dIn emblematic figures showThe merits of their trade."The clients may infer from thenceHow just is their profession;The lamb sets forth their innocence,The horse their expedition."Oh, happy Britons! happy isle!Let foreign nations say,Where you get justice without guileAnd law without delay."
A rival wag replied to these lively lines by the following severer ones:—
"Deluded men, these holds forego,Nor trust such cunning elves;These artful emblems tend to showTheirclients—notthemselves."'Tis all a trick; these are all shamsBy which they mean to cheat you:But have a care—foryou'rethelambs,And they thewolvesthat eat you."Nor let the thought of 'no delay'To these their courts misguide you;'Tis you're the showyhorse, andtheyThejockeysthat will ride you."
Hare Court is said to derive its name from Sir Nicholas Hare, who was Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. the despotic, and Master of the Rolls to Queen Mary the cruel. Heaven only knows what stern decisions and anti-heretical indictments have not been drawn up in that quaint enclosure. The immortal pump, which stands as a special feature of the court, has been mentioned by the poet Garth in his "Dispensary:"—
"And dare the college insolently aim,To equal our fraternity in fame?Then let crabs' eyes with pearl 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."
In Essex Court one solitary barber remains: his shop is the last wigwam of a departing tribe. Dick Danby's, in the cloisters, used to be famous. In his "Lives of the Chief Justices," Lord Campbell has some pleasant gossip about Dick Danby, the Temple barber. In our group of antiquities of the Temple on page 163 will be found an engraving of the existing barber's shop.
"One of the most intimate friends," he says, "I have ever had in the world was Dick Danby, who kept a hairdresser's shop under the cloisters in the Inner Temple. I first made his acquaintance from his assisting me, when a student at law, to engage a set of chambers. He afterwards cut my hair, made my bar wigs, and aided me at all times with his valuable advice. He was on the same good terms with most of my forensic contemporaries. Thus he became master of all the news of the profession, and he could tell who were getting on, and who were without a brief—who succeeded by their talents, and who hugged the attorneys—who were desirous of becoming puisne judges, and who meant to try their fortunes in Parliament—which of the chiefs was in a failing state of health, and who was next to be promoted to the collar of S.S. Poor fellow! he died suddenly, and his death threw a universal gloom over Westminster Hall, unrelieved by the thought that the survivors who mourned him might pick up some of his business—a consolation which wonderfully softens the grief felt for a favourite Nisi Prius leader."
In spite of all the great lawyers who have been nurtured in the Temple, it has derived its chief fame from the residence within its precincts of three civilians—Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, and Charles Lamb.
Dr. Johnson came to the Temple (No. 1, Inner Temple Lane) from Gray's Inn in 1760, and left it for Johnson's Court (Fleet Street) about 1765. When he first came to the Temple he was loitering over his edition of "Shakespeare." In 1762 a pension of £300 a year for the first time made him independent of the booksellers. In 1763 Boswell made his acquaintance and visited Ursa Major in his den.
"It must be confessed," says Boswell, "that his apartments, furniture, and morning dress were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he had on a little old shrivelled, unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt neck and the knees of his breeches were loose, his black worsted stockings ill drawn up, and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers."
At this time Johnson generally went abroad at four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning. He owned it was a bad habit. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters—Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Murphy, Langton, Stevens, Beauclerk, &c.—and sometimes learned ladies. "When Madame de Boufflers (the mistress of the Prince of Conti) was first in England," said Beauclerk, "she was desirous to see Johnson. I accordingly went with her to his chambers in the Temple, where she was entertained with his conversation for some time. When our visit was over, she and I left him, and were got into Inner Temple Lane, when all at once I heard a voice like thunder. This was occasioned by Johnson, who, it seems, upon a little reflection, had taken it into his head that he ought to have done the honours of his literary residence to a foreign lady of quality, and, eager to show himself a man of gallantry, was hurrying down the staircase in violent agitation. He overtook us before we reached the Temple Gate, and, brushing in between me and Madame de Boufflers, seized her hand and conducted her to her coach. His dress was a rusty-brown morning suit, a pair of old shoes by way of slippers, &c. A considerable crowd of people gathered round, and were not a little struck by his singular appearance."
It was in the year 1763, while Johnson was living in the Temple, that the Literary Club was founded; and it was in the following year that this wise and good man was seized with one of those fits of hypochondria that occasionally weighed upon that great intellect. Boswell had chambers, not far from the god of his idolatry, at what were once called "Farrar's Buildings," at the bottom of Inner Temple Lane.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Charles Lamb came to 4, Inner Temple Lane, in 1809. Writing to Coleridge, the delightful humorist 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. I have two rooms on the third floor, and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to myself, and all new painted, &c., for £30 a year. 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." In 1810 he says:—"The household gods are slow to come; but here I mean to live and die." From this place (since pulled down and rebuilt) he writes to Manning, who is in China:—"Come, and bring any of your friends the mandarins with you. Mybest room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent, cold—with brandy; and not very insipid without." He sends Manning some of his little books, to give him "some idea of European literature." It is in this letter that he speaks of Braham and his singing, and jokes "on titles of honour," exemplifying the eleven gradations, by which Mr. C. Lamb rose in succession to be Baron, Marquis, Duke, Emperor Lamb, and finally Pope Innocent; and other lively matters fit to solace an English mathematician self-banished to China. The same year Mary Lamb describes her brother taking to water like a hungry otter—abstaining from all spirituous liquors, but with the most indifferent result, as he became full of cramps and rheumatism, and so cold internally that fire could not warm him. It is but just to Lamb to mention that thisascetic period was brief. This same year Lamb wrote his fine essays on Hogarth and the tragedies of Shakespeare. He was already getting weary of the dull routine of official work at the India House.
GOLDSMITH'S TOMB IN 1860
Goldsmith came to the Temple, early in 1764, from Wine Office Court. It was a hard year with him, though he published "The Traveller," and opened fruitless negotiations with Dodsley and Tonson. "He took," says Mr. Forster, "rooms on the then library-staircase of the Temple. They were a humble set of chambers enough (one Jeffs, the butler of the society, shared them with him), and on Johnson's prying and peering about in them, after his short-sighted fashion flattening his face against every object he 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 quæsiveris extra.'" He soon hurried off to the quiet of Islington, assome say, to secretly write the erudite history of "Goody Two-Shoes" for Newbery. In 1765 various publications, or perhaps the money for "The Vicar," enabled the author to move to larger chambers in Garden Court, close to his first set, and one of the most agreeable localities in the Temple. He now carried out his threat to Johnson—started a man-servant, and ran into debt with his usual gay and thoughtless vanity to Mr. Filby, the tailor, of Water Lane, for coats of divers colours. Goldsmith began to feel his importance, and determined to show it. In 1766 "The Vicar of Wakefield" (price five shillings, sewed) secured his fame, but he still remained in difficulties. In 1767 he wrote TheGood-Natured Man, knocked off an English Grammar for five guineas, and was only saved from extreme want by Davies employing him to write a "History of Rome" for 250 guineas. In 1767 Parson Scott (Lord Sandwich's chaplain), busily going about to negotiate for writers, describes himself as applyingto Goldsmith; among others, to induce him to write in favour of the Administration. "I found him," he said, "in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions; and—would you believe it!—he was so absurd as to say, 'I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me.' And so I left him," added the Rev. Dr. Scott, indignantly, "in his garret."
On the partial success ofThe Good-Natured Man(January, 1768), Goldsmith, having cleared £500, broke out like a successful gambler. He purchased a set of chambers (No. 2, up two pairs of stairs, in Brick Court) for £400, squandered the remaining £100, ran in debt to his tailor, and borrowed of Mr. Bolt, a man on the same floor. He purchased Wilton carpets, blue merino curtains, chimney-glasses, book-cases, and card-tables, and, by the aid of Filby, enrobed him in a suit of Tyrian bloom, satin grain, with darker blue silk breeches, price £8 2s. 7d., and he even ventured at a more costly suit, lined with silk and ornamented with gilt buttons. Below him lived that learned lawyer, Mr. Blackstone, then poring over the fourth volume of his precious "Commentaries," and the noise and dancing overhead nearly drove him mad, as it also did a Mr. Children, who succeeded him. What these noises arose from, Mr. Forster relates in his delightful biography of the poet. An Irish merchant named Seguin "remembered dinners at which Johnson, Percy, Bickerstaff, Kelly, 'and a variety of authors of minor note,' were guests. They talked of supper-parties with younger people, as well in the London chambers as in suburban lodgings; preceded by blind-man's buff, forfeits, or games of cards; and where Goldsmith, festively entertaining them all, would make frugal supper for himself off boiled milk. They related how he would sing all kinds of Irish songs; with what special enjoyment he gave the Scotch ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong' (his old nurse's favourite); how cheerfully he would put the front of his wig behind, or contribute in any other way to the general amusement; and to what accompaniment of uncontrolled laughter he once 'danced a minuet with Mrs. Seguin.'"
In 1768 appeared "The Deserted Village." It was about this time that one of Goldy's Grub Street acquaintances called upon him, whilst he was conversing with Topham Beauclerk, and General Oglethorpe, and the fellow, telling Goldsmith that he was sorry he could not pay the two guineas he owed him, offered him a quarter of a pound of teaand half a pound of sugar as an acknowledgment. "1769. Goldsmith fell in love with Mary Horneck known as the 'Jessamy Bride.' Unfortunately he obtained an advance of £500 for his 'Natural History,' and wholly expended it when only six chapters were written." In 1771 he published his "History of England." It was in this year that Reynolds, coming one day to Brick Court, perhaps about the portrait of Goldsmith he had painted the year before, found the mercurial poet kicking a bundle, which contained a masquerade dress, about the room, in disgust at his folly in wasting money in so foolish a way. In 1772, Mr. Forster mentions a very characteristic story of Goldsmith's warmth of heart. He one day found a poor Irish student (afterwards Dr. M'Veagh M'Donnell, a well-known physician) sitting and moping in despair on a bench in the Temple Gardens. Goldsmith soon talked and laughed him into hope and spirits, then taking him off to his chambers, employed him to translate some chapters of Buffon. In 1773She Stoops to Conquermade a great hit; but Noll was still writing at hack-work, and was deeper in debt than ever. In 1774, when Goldsmith was still grinding on at his hopeless drudge-work, as far from the goal of fortune as ever, and even resolving to abandon London life, with all its temptations, Mr. Forster relates that Johnson, dining with the poet, Reynolds, and some one else, silently reproved the extravagance of so expensive a dinner by sending away the whole second course untouched.
In March, 1774, Goldsmith returned from Edgware to the Temple chambers, which he was trying to sell, suffering from a low nervous fever, partly the result of vexation at his pecuniary embarrassments. Mr. Hawes, an apothecary in the Strand (and one of the first founders of the Humane Society), was called in; but Goldsmith insisted on taking James's fever-powders, a valuable medicine, but dangerous under the circumstances. This was Friday, the 25th. He told the doctor then his mind was not at ease, and he died on Monday, April 4th, in his forty-fifth year. His debts amounted to over £2,000. "Was ever poet so trusted before?" writes Johnson to Boswell. The staircase of Brick Court was filled with poor outcasts, to whom Goldsmith had been kind and charitable. His coffin was opened by Miss Horneck, that a lock might be cut from his hair. Burke and Reynolds superintended the funeral, Reynolds' nephew (Palmer, afterwards Dean of Cashel) being chief mourner. Hugh Kelly, who had so often lampooned the poet, was present. At five o'clock on Saturday, the 9th of April, Goldsmith was buried in the Temple churchyard. In 1837, a slab of white marble, to thekindly poet's memory, was placed in the Temple Church, and afterwards transferred to a recess of the vestry chamber. Of the poet, Mr. Forster says, "no memorial indicates the grave to the pilgrim or the stranger, nor is it possible any longer to identify the spot which received all that was mortal of the delightful writer." The present site is entirely conjectural; but it appears from the following note, communicated to us by T.C. Noble, the well-known City antiquary, that the real site was remembered as late as 1830. Mr. Noble says:—
"In 1842, after some consideration, the benchers of the Temple deciding that no more burials should take place in the churchyard, resolved to pave it over. For about fifteen years the burial-place of Dr. Goldsmith continued in obscurity; for while some would have it that the interment took place to the east of the choir, others clung to an opinion, handed down by Mr. Broome, the gardener, who stated that when he commenced his duties, about 1830, a Mr. Collett, sexton, a very old man, and a penurious one, too, employed him to prune an elder-tree which, he stated, he venerated, becauseit marked the site of Goldsmith's grave. The stone which has been placed in the yard, 'to mark the spot' where the poet was buried, is not the site of this tree. The tomb was erected in 1860, but the exact position of the grave has never been discovered." The engraving on page 169 shows the spot as it appeared in the autumn of that year. The old houses at the back were pulled down soon after.
Mr. Forster, alluding to Goldsmith's love for the rooks, the former denizens of the Temple Gardens, says: "He saw the rookery (in the winter deserted, or guarded only by some five or six, 'like old soldiers in a garrison') resume its activity and bustle in the spring; and he moralised, like a great reformer, on the legal constitution established, the social laws enforced, and the particular castigations endured for the good of the community, by those black-dressed and black-eyed chatterers. 'I have often amused myself,' Goldsmith remarks, 'with observing their plans of policy from my window in the Temple, that looks upon a grove where they have made a colony, in the midst of the city.'"
THE TEMPLE (continued)
Fountain Court and the Temple Fountain—Ruth Pinch—L.E.L.'s Poem—Fig-tree Court—The Inner Temple Library—Paper Buildings—The Temple Gate—Guildford North and Jeffreys—Cowper, the Poet: his Melancholy and Attempted Suicide—A Tragedy in Tanfield Court—Lord Mansfield—"Mr. Murray" and his Client—Lamb's Pictures of the Temple—The Sun-dials—Porson and his Eccentricities—Rules of the Temple—Coke and his Labours—Temple Riots—Scuffles with the Alsatians—Temple Dinners—"Calling" to the Bar—The Temple Gardens—The Chrysanthemums—Sir Matthew Hale's Tree—Revenues of the Temple—Temple Celebrities.
Fountain Court and the Temple Fountain—Ruth Pinch—L.E.L.'s Poem—Fig-tree Court—The Inner Temple Library—Paper Buildings—The Temple Gate—Guildford North and Jeffreys—Cowper, the Poet: his Melancholy and Attempted Suicide—A Tragedy in Tanfield Court—Lord Mansfield—"Mr. Murray" and his Client—Lamb's Pictures of the Temple—The Sun-dials—Porson and his Eccentricities—Rules of the Temple—Coke and his Labours—Temple Riots—Scuffles with the Alsatians—Temple Dinners—"Calling" to the Bar—The Temple Gardens—The Chrysanthemums—Sir Matthew Hale's Tree—Revenues of the Temple—Temple Celebrities.
Lives there a man with soul so dead as to write about the Temple without mentioning the little fountain in Fountain Court?—that pet and plaything of the Temple, that, like a little fairy, sings to beguile the cares of men oppressed with legal duties. It used to look like a wagoner's silver whip—now a modern writer cruelly calls it "a pert squirt." In Queen Anne's time Hatton describes it as forcing its stream "to a vast and almost incredible altitude"—it is now only ten feet high, no higher than a giant lord chancellor. Then it was fenced with palisades—now it is caged in iron; then it stood in a square—now it is in a round. But it still sparkles and glitters, and sprinkles and playfully splashes the jaunty sparrows that come to wash off the London dust in its variegated spray. It is quite careless now, however, of notice, for has it not been immortalised by the pen of Dickens, who has made it the centre of one of his mostcharming love scenes? It was in Fountain Court, our readers will like to remember, that Ruth Pinch—gentle, loving Ruth—met her lover, by the merest accident of course.
"There was," says Mr. Dickens, "a little plot between them that Tom should always come out of the Temple by one way, and that was past the fountain. Coming through Fountain Court, he was just to glance down the steps leading into Garden Court, and to look once all round him; and if Ruth had come to meet him, there he would see her—not sauntering, you understand (on account of the clerks), but coming briskly up, with the best little laugh upon her face that ever played in opposition to the fountain and beat it all to nothing. For, fifty to one, Tom had been looking for her in the wrong direction, and had quite given her up, while she had been tripping towards him from the first, jingling that littlereticule of hers (with all the keys in it) to attract his wondering observation.
"Whether there was life enough left in the slow vegetation of Fountain Court for the smoky shrubs to have any consciousness of the brightest and purest-hearted little woman in the world, is a question for gardeners and those who are learned in the loves of plants. But that it was a good thing for that same paved yard to have such a delicate little figure flitting through it, that it passed like a smile from the grimy old houses and the worn flagstones, and left them duller, darker, sterner than before, there is no sort of doubt. The Temple fountain might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful maidenhood that in her person stole on, sparkling, through the dry and dusty channels of the law; the chirping sparrows, bred in Temple chinks and crannies, might have held their peace to listen to imaginary skylarks as so fresh a little creature passed; the dingy boughs, unused to droop, otherwise than in their puny growth, might have bent down in a kindred gracefulness to shed their benedictions on her graceful head; old love-letters, shut up in iron boxes in the neighbouring offices, and made of no account among the heaps of family papers into which they had strayed, and of which in their degeneracy they formed a part, might have stirred and fluttered with a moment's recollection of their ancient tenderness, as she went lightly by. Anything might have happened that did not happen, and never will, for the love of Ruth....
"Merrily the tiny fountain played, and merrily the dimples sparkled on its sunny face. John Westlock hurried after her. Softly the whispering water broke and fell, and roguishly the dimples twinkled as he stole upon her footsteps.
"Oh, foolish, panting, timid little heart! why did she feign to be unconscious of his coming?...
"Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin's rim and vanished."
"L.E.L." (Miss Landon) has left a graceful poem on this much-petted fountain, which begins,—
"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 castThe hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.Away in the distance is heard the vast soundFrom the streets of the city that compass it round,Like the echo of fountains or ocean's deep call;Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all."
Fig-tree Court derived its name from obvioussources. Next to the plane, that has the strange power of sloughing off its sooty bark, the fig seems the tree that best endures London's corrupted atmosphere. Thomas Fairchild, a Hoxton gardener, who wrote in 1722 (quoted by Mr. Peter Cunningham), alludes to figs ripening well in the Rolls Gardens, Chancery Lane, and to the tree thriving in close places about Bridewell. Who can say that some Templar pilgrim did not bring from the banks of "Abana or Pharpar, rivers of Damascus," the first leafy inhabitant of inky and dusty Fig-tree Court? Lord Thurlow was living here in 1758, the year he was called to the bar, and when, it was said, he had not money enough even to hire a horse to attend the circuit.
The Inner Temple Library stands on the terrace facing the river. The Parliament Chambers and Hall, in the Tudor style, were the work of Sidney Smirke, R.A., in 1835. The library, designed by Mr. Abrahams, is 96 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 63 feet high; it has a hammer-beam roof. One of the stained glass windows is blazoned with the arms of the Templars. Below the library are chambers. The cost of the whole was about £13,000. The north window is thought to too much resemble the great window at Westminster.
Paper Buildings, a name more suitable for the offices of some City companies, were first built in the reign of James I., by a Mr. Edward Hayward and others; and the learned Dugdale describes them as eighty-eight feet long, twenty feet broad, and four storeys high. This Hayward was Selden's chamber-fellow, and to him Selden dedicated his "Titles of Honour." Selden, according to Aubrey, had chambers in these pleasant river-side buildings, looking towards the gardens, and in the uppermost storey he had a little gallery, to pace in and meditate. The Great Fire swept away Selden's chambers, and their successors were destroyed by the fire which broke out in Mr. Maule's chambers. Coming home at night from a dinner-party, that gentleman, it is said, put the lighted candle under his bed by mistake. The stately new buildings were designed by Mr. Sidney Smirke, A.R.A., in 1848. The red brick and stone harmonise pleasantly, and the overhanging oriels and angle turrets (Continental Tudor) are by no means ineffective.
The entrance to the Middle Temple from Fleet Street is a gatehouse of red brick pointed with stone, and is the work of Wren. It was erected in 1684, after the Great Fire, and is in the style of Inigo Jones—"not inelegant," says Ralph. It probably occupies the site of the gatehouse erected by order of Wolsey, at the expense of his prisoner,Sir Amyas Paulet. The frightened man covered the front with the cardinal's hat and arms, hoping to appease Wolsey's anger by gratifying his pride. The Inner Temple gateway was built in the fifth year of James I.
Elm Court was built in the sixth year of Charles I. Up one pair of stairs that successful courtier, Guildford North, whom Jeffreys so tormented by the rumour that he had been seen riding on a rhinoceros, then exhibiting in London, commenced the practice that soon won him such high honours.
In 1752 the poet Cowper, on leaving a solicitor's office, had chambers in the Middle Temple, and in that solitude the horror of his future malady began to darken over him. He gave up the classics, which had been his previous delight, and read George Herbert's poems all day long. In 1759, after his father's death, he purchased another set of rooms for £250, in an airy situation in the Inner Temple. He belonged, at this time, to the "Nonsense Club," of which Bonnell Thornton, Colman junior, and Lloyd were members. Thurlow also was his friend. In 1763 his despondency deepened into insanity. An approaching appointment to the clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords overwhelmed him with nervous fears. Dreading to appear in public, he resolved to destroy himself. He purchased laudanum, then threw it away. He packed up his portmanteau to go to France and enter a monastery. He went down to the Custom House Quay, to throw himself into the river. He tried to stab himself. At last the poor fellow actually hung himself, and was only saved by an accident. The following is his own relation:—
"Not one hesitating thought now remained, but I fell greedily to the execution of my purpose. My garter was made of a broad piece of scarlet binding, with a sliding buckle, being sewn together at the ends. By the help of the buckle I formed a noose, and fixed it about my neck, straining it so tight that I hardly left a passage for my breath, or for the blood to circulate. The tongue of the buckle held it fast. At each corner of the bed was placed a wreath of carved work fastened by an iron pin, which passed up through the midst of it; the other part of the garter, which made a loop, I slipped over one of them, and hung by it some seconds, drawing up my feet under me, that they might not touch the floor; but the iron bent, and the carved work slipped off, and the garter with it. I then fastened it to the frame of the tester, winding it round and tying it in a strong knot. The frame broke short, and let me down again.
"The third effort was more likely to succeed.I set the door open, which reached to within a foot of the ceiling. By the help of a chair I could command the top of it, and the loop being large enough to admit a large angle of the door, was easily fixed, so as not to slip off again. I pushed away the chair with my feet; and hung at my whole length. While I hung there I distinctly heard a voice say three times, 'Tis over!' Though I am sure of the fact, and was so at the time, yet it did not at all alarm me or affect my resolution. I hung so long that I lost all sense, all consciousness of existence.
"When I came to myself again I thought I was in hell; the sound of my own dreadful groans was all that I heard, and a feeling like that produced by a flash of lightning just beginning to seize upon me, passed over my whole body. In a few seconds I found myself fallen on my face to the floor. In about half a minute I recovered my feet, and reeling and struggling, stumbled into bed again.
"By the blessed providence of God, the garter which had held me till the bitterness of temporal death was past broke just before eternal death had taken place upon me. The stagnation of the blood under one eye in a broad crimson spot, and a red circle round my neck, showed plainly that I had been on the brink of eternity. The latter, indeed, might have been occasioned by the pressure of the garter, but the former was certainly the effect of strangulation, for it was not attended with the sensation of a bruise, as it must have been had I in my fall received one in so tender a part; and I rather think the circle round my neck was owing to the same cause, for the part was not excoriated, nor at all in pain.
"Soon after I got into bed I was surprised to hear a voice in the dining-room, where the laundress was lighting a fire. She had found the door unbolted, notwithstanding my design to fasten it, and must have passed the bed-chamber door while I was hanging on it, and yet never perceived me. She heard me fall, and presently came to ask me if I was well, adding, she feared I had been in a fit.
"I sent her to a friend, to whom I related the whole affair, and dispatched him to my kinsman at the coffee-house. As soon as the latter arrived I pointed to the broken garter which lay in the middle of the room, and apprised him also of the attempt I had been making. His words were, 'My dear Mr. Cowper, you terrify me! To be sure you cannot hold the office at this rate. Where is the deputation?' I gave him the key of the drawer where it was deposited, and his business requiring his immediate attendance, he took itaway with him; and thus ended all my connection with the Parliament office."
THE TEMPLE FOUNTAIN, FROM AN OLD PRINT
In February, 1732, Tanfield Court, a quiet, dull nook on the east side of the Temple, to the south of that sombre Grecian temple where the Master resides, was the scene of a very horrible crime. Sarah Malcolm, a laundress, aged twenty-two, employed by a young barrister named Kerrol in the same court, gaining access to the rooms of an old lady named Duncomb, whom she knew to have money, strangled her and an old servant, and cut the throat of a young girl, whose bed she had probably shared. Some of her blood-stained linen, and a silver tankard of Mrs. Duncomb's, stained with blood, were found by Mr. Kerrol concealed in his chambers. Fifty-three pounds of the money were discovered at Newgate hidden in the prisoner's hair. She confessed to a share in the robbery, but laid the murder to two lads with whom she was acquainted. She was, however, found guilty, and hung opposite Mitre Court, Fleet Street. The crowd was so great that one woman crossed from near Serjeants' Inn to the other side of the way on the shoulders of the mob. SarahMalcolm went to execution neatly dressed in a crape gown, held up her head in the cart with an air, and seemed to be painted. A copy of her confession was sold for twenty guineas. Two days before her execution she dressed in scarlet, and sat to Hogarth for a sketch, which Horace Walpole bought for £5. The portrait represents a cruel, thin-lipped woman, not uncomely, sitting at a table. The Duke of Roxburghe purchased a perfect impression of this print, Mr. Timbs says, for £8 5s. Its original price was sixpence. After her execution the corpse was taken to an undertaker's on Snow Hill, and there exhibited for money. Among the rest, a gentleman in deep mourning—perhaps her late master, Mr. Kerrol—stooped and kissed it, and gave the attendant half-a-crown. She was, by special favour (for superiority even in wickedness has its admirers), buried in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard, from which criminals had been excluded for a century and a half. The corpse of the murderess was disinterred, and her skeleton, in a glass case, is still to be seen at the Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
A SCUFFLE BETWEEN TEMPLARS AND ALSATIANS
Not many recorded crimes have taken place inthe Temple, for youth, however poor, is hopeful. It takes time to make a man despair, and when he despairs, the devil is soon at his elbow. Nevertheless, greed and madness have upset some Templars' 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. Murray, had chambers at No. 5, King's Bench Walk,aproposof which Pope wrote—
"To Number Five direct your doves,There spread round Murray all your blooming loves."(Pope "to Venus," from "Horace.")
A second compliment by Pope to this great man occasioned a famous parody:—
"Graced as thou art by all the power of words,So known, so honoured at the House of Lords"(Pope, of Lord Mansfield);
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 deservedto have a poet for his friend, in the obtaining of which, as neither vanity, party, nor fear had a share, so he supported his title to it by all the offices of a generous and true friendship."
"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 says:—"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 passingfrom 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; to 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—the motto, "Time and tide tarry for no man." InPump 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 elsewhere. 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's, 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's 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 morebadcopies ofgoodbooks 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. Oneday 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. TheMiddleTemple 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. No person is admitted without the approbation of a bencher, or of the benchers in council assembled.
TheMiddle Templeincludes the universities of Durham and London. At theInner Templethe candidate for admission who has taken the degree of B.A., or passed an examination at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, or London, is required to pass an examination by a barrister, appointed by the Bench for that purpose, in the Greek and Latin languages, and history or literature in general. No person in priest's or deacon's orders can be called to the bar. In theInner Temple, an attorney must have ceased to be on the rolls, and an articled clerk to be in articles forthree years, before he can be called to the bar.
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 haveto 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.
History does not record many riots in the Temple, full of wild life as that quiet precinct has been. In different reigns, however, two outbreaks occurred. In both cases the Templars, though rather hot and prompt, seem to have been right. At the dinner of John Prideaux, reader of the Inner Temple, in 1553, the students took offence at Sir John Lyon, the Lord Mayor, coming in state, with his sword up, and the sword was dragged down as he passed through the cloisters. The same sort of affray took place again in 1669, when Lord Mayor Peake came to Sir Christopher 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 even of late the question has once more 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.
As the Middle Temple has grown gradually poorer and more neglected, many curious customsof the old banquets have died out. The loving cup, once fragrant with sweetened sack, is now used to hold the almost superfluous toothpicks. Oysters are no longer brought in, in term, every Friday before dinner; nor when one bencher dines does he, on leaving the hall, invite the senior bar man to come and take wine with him in the parliament chamber (the accommodation-room of Oxford colleges). Yet the rich and epicurean Inner Temple still cherishes many worthy customs, affectsrecherchéFrench dishes, and is curious inentremets; while the Middle Temple growls over its geological salad, that some hungry wit has compared to "eating a gravel walk, and meeting an occasional weed." A writer inBlackwood, quoting the old proverb, "The Inner Temple for the rich, the Middle for the poor," says few great men have come from the Middle Temple. How can acumen be derived from the scrag-end of a neck of mutton, or inspiration from griskins? At a late dinner, says Mr. Timbs (1865), there were present only three benchers, seven barristers, and six students.
An Inner Temple banquet is a very grand thing. At five, or half-past five, the barristers and students in their gowns follow the benchers in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table solemnly a mystic 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 each mess is allowed a bottle of port 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 extending down the hall. On grand days the judges are present, who 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 exquisitely-flavoured white wine. The butler attends the progress of the cup, to replenish it; and each student is by rule restricted to asip; 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,a gold cup of sack is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of Charles II.