weep for; outcasts of the great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable."

The pleasantest part of the Middle Temple is the Fountain Court, with its little fountain, low enough now, but which, Sir Christopher Hatton says, sprang "to a vast and

almost incredible altitude" in his time. It is commemorated in a poem of L. E. L. (Miss Landon), with the lines

"The fountain's low singing is heard in 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 far sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains or ocean's deep call;
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all."

Charles Dickens has left a pretty description of Ruth Pinch going to meet her lover in this court-" 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;" and how, when John Westlock came at last"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."

In this court is the Middle Temple Hall, an admirable Elizabethan building (of 1572) with a screen, which is very handsome, though it is not, as is often said, made from the spoils of the Spanish Armada, being thirteen years earlier in date. The order of the military monks is preserved here during dinner, the Benchers on the dais representing the knights, the Barristers the priors or brethren, the Students the novices. The old Cow's Horn is preserved, by the blowing of which the Benchers used to be summoned to dinner. It is a fact worth notice as showing the habits of these Benchers in former days, that when the floor of the Middle Temple Hall was taken up in 1764, no less than a hundred pair of (very small) dice were found beneath it, having slipped through between the ill-adjusted boards. In the time of Elizabeth the Benchers were so quarrelsome a body that an edict was passed that no one should come into hall with other weapons than a sword or a dagger! The feasts of Christmas, Halloween, Candlemas, and Ascension were formerly kept here with great splendour, a regular Master of the Revels being elected, and the Lord Chancellor, Judges, and Benchers opening the sports by dancing solemnly three times around the sea-coal fire.

"Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters o'er him,
My grave Lord-Keeper led the brawls;
The seal and maces danced before him."

This dance called forth many satires-especially from Buckingham in his play of The Rehearsal, from Prior in his Alma, and Dr. Donne in his Satires. In Pope's Dunciad we find

"The judge to dance, his brother serjeant calls."

In this Hall Shakspeare's Twelfth Night, or What you Will, was performed soon after its production, Feb. 2, 1601; and it is probably the only remaining building in which one of his plays was seen by his contemporaries. Sir John Davys was expelled the Society for thrashing his friend Mr. Richard Martin (the Bencher to whom Ben Jonson dedicated his "Poetaster") in this hall during dinner.

"Truly it is a most magnificent apartment; very lofty, so lofty, indeed, that the antique oak roof is quite hidden, as regards all its details, in the sombre gloom that broods under its rafters. The hall is lighted by four great windows, on each of the two sides, descending half-way from the ceiling to the floor, leaving all beneath enclosed by oaken panelling, which, on three sides, is carved with escutcheons of such members of the society as have held the office of reader. There is likewise, in a large recess or transept, a great window, occupying the full height of the hall and splendidly emblazoned with the arms of the Templars who have attained to the dignity of Chief-Justices. The other windows are pictured, in like manner, with coats of arms of local dignities connected with the Temple; and besides all these there are arched lights, high towards the roof, at either end, full of richly and chastely coloured glass, and all the illumination of that great hall came through those glorious panes, and they seemed the richer for the sombreness in which we stood. I cannot describe, or even intimate, the effect of this transparent glory, glowing down upon us in the gloomy depth of the hall."-Hawthorne. English Note-Books.

The expression "moot (mot) point" comes from the custom of proposing difficult points of law for discussion during dinner, which was formerly observed in the halls of the Inns of Court.

Near the Hall is the New Library erected by H. R. Abraham. Its garden has a tree-Catalpa Syringifolia— said to have been planted by Sir Matthew Hale.

Three Sun-Dials in the Temple have mottoes. That in Temple Lane, "Pereunt et imputantur;" that in Essex Court, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum;" that in Brick Court, "Time and Tide tarry for no man."

"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 this king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places!—these are my oldest recollections. . . . What an antique air had the now almost effaced sun-dials, with their moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light! How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep!

Ah, yet doth beauty like a dial-hand

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived!"

Charles Lamb.

The Temple Garden is the place where Shakspeare makes the partisans of the Houses of York and Lancaster first choose a red and white rose as their respective badges.

Suffolk. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud:
The garden here is more convenient. . . .

Plantagenet. Let him that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this briar pluck a white rose with me.

Somerset. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. .
Plantagenet. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Somerset. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet ?. . .
Warwick.
This brawl to-day,

Grown to this faction in the Temple Gardens,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night."

First Part of Henry VI. Act ii. sc. 4.

There are charming views of the river-the busy silent highway, from the gardens, though on Lord Mayor's Day you can no longer

"Stand in Temple Gardens, and behold

London herself on her proud stream afloat;
For so appears this fleet of magistracy,

Holding due course to Westminster."

Shakspeare's Henry V.

No roses will live now in the smoke-laden air, but the gardens are still famous for their autumnal show of Chrysanthemums, the especial flowers of the Temple. Near a dial given by "Henricus Wynne, Londini, 1770," are the remains of a sycamore of Shakspeare's days.

"So, O Benchers, 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 sparrow, in default of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned 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 curtsy 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.

Opposite the Temple, occupying a space of eight acres, in the clearance of which as many as thirty wretched