It lies not far from Temple Bar.
Going to it, by the usual way, is like stealing from a heated plain into
some cool, deep glen, shady among harbouring hills.
Sick with the din and soiled with the mud of Fleet Street--where the
Benedick tradesmen are hurrying by, with ledger-lines ruled along their
brows, thinking upon rise of bread and fall of babies--you adroitly turn
a mystic corner--not a street--glide down a dim, monastic way, flanked
by dark, sedate, and solemn piles, and still wending on, give the whole
careworn world the slip, and, disentangled, stand beneath the quiet
cloisters of the Paradise of Bachelors.
Sweet are the oases in Sahara; charming the isle-groves of August
prairies; delectable pure faith amidst a thousand perfidies: but
sweeter, still more charming, most delectable, the dreamy Paradise of
Bachelors, found in the stony heart of stunning London.
In mild meditation pace the cloisters; take your pleasure, sip your
leisure, in the garden waterward; go linger in the ancient library; go
worship in the sculptured chapel: but little have you seen, just nothing
do you know, not the sweet kernel have you tasted, till you dine among
the banded Bachelors, and see their convivial eyes and glasses sparkle.
Not dine in bustling commons, during term-time, in the hall; but
tranquilly, by private hint, at a private table; some fine Templar’s
hospitably invited guest.
Templar? That’s a romantic name. Let me see. Brian de Bois Gilbert was a
Templar, I believe. Do we understand you to insinuate that those famous
Templars still survive in modern London? May the ring of their armed
heels be heard, and the rattle of their shields, as in mailed prayer the
monk-knights kneel before the consecrated Host? Surely a monk-knight
were a curious sight picking his way along the Strand, his gleaming
corselet and snowy surcoat spattered by an omnibus. Long-bearded, too,
according to his order’s rule; his face fuzzy as a pard’s; how would the
grim ghost look among the crop-haired, close-shaven citizens? We know
indeed--sad history recounts it--that a moral blight tainted at last
this sacred Brotherhood. Though no sworded foe might out-skill them in
the fence, yet the worm of luxury crawled beneath their guard, gnawing
the core of knightly troth, nibbling the monastic vow, till at last the
monk’s austerity relaxed to wassailing, and the sworn knights-bachelors
grew to be but hypocrites and rakes.
But for all this, quite unprepared were we to learn that
Knights-Templars (if at all in being) were so entirely secularised as to
be reduced from carving out immortal fame in glorious battling for the
Holy Land, to the carving of roast mutton at a dinner-board. Like
Anacreon, do these degenerate Templars now think it sweeter far to fall
in banquet than in war? Or, indeed, how can there be any survival of
that famous order? Templars in modern London! Templars in their
red-cross mantles smoking cigars at the Divan! Templars crowded in a
railway train, till, stacked with steel helmet, spear, and shield, the
whole train looks like one elongated locomotive!
No. The genuine Templar is long since departed. Go view the wondrous
tombs in the Temple Church; see there the rigidly-haughty forms
stretched out, with crossed arms upon their stilly hearts, in
everlasting and undreaming rest. Like the years before the flood, the
bold Knights-Templars are no more. Nevertheless, the name remains, and
the nominal society, and the ancient grounds, and some of the ancient
edifices. But the iron heel is changed to a boot of patent leather; the
long two-handed sword to a one-handed quill; the monk-giver of
gratuitous ghostly counsel now counsels for a fee; the defender of the
sarcophagus (if in good practice with his weapon) now has more than one
case to defend; the vowed opener and clearer of all highways leading to
the Holy Sepulchre, now has it in particular charge to check, to clog,
to hinder, and embarrass all the courts and avenues of Law; the
knight-combatant of the Saracen, breasting spear-points at Acre, now
fights law-points in Westminster Hall. The helmet is a wig. Struck by
Time’s enchanter’s wand, the Templar is to-day a Lawyer.
But, like many others tumbled from proud glory’s height--like the apple,
hard on the bough but mellow on the ground--the Templar’s fall has but
made him all the finer fellow.
I dare say those old warrior-priests were but gruff and grouty at the
best; cased in Birmingham hardware, how could their crimped arms give
yours or mine a hearty shake? Their proud, ambitious, monkish souls
clasped shut, like horn-book missals; their very faces clapped in
bombshells; what sort of genial men were these? But best of comrades,
most affable of hosts, capital diner is the modern Templar. His wit and
wine are both of sparkling brands.
The church and cloisters, courts and vaults, lanes and passages,
banquet-halls, refectories, libraries, terraces, gardens, broad walks,
domicils, and dessert-rooms, covering a very large space of ground, and
all grouped in central neighbourhood, and quite sequestered from the old
city’s surrounding din; and everything about the place being kept in
most bachelor-like particularity, no part of London offers to a quiet
wight so agreeable a refuge.
The Temple is indeed a city by itself. A city with all the best
appurtenances, as the above enumeration shows. A city with a park to it,
and flower-beds, and a river-side--the Thames flowing by as openly, in
one part, as by Eden’s primal garden flowed the mild Euphrates. In what
is now the Temple Garden the old Crusaders used to exercise their steeds
and lances; the modern Templars now lounge on the benches beneath the
trees, and, switching their patent-leather boots, in gay discourse
exercise at repartee.
Long lines of stately portraits in the banquet-halls, show what great
men of mark--famous nobles, judges, and Lord Chancellors--have in their
time been Templars. But all Templars are not known to universal fame;
though, if the having warm hearts and warmer welcomes, full minds and
fuller cellars, and giving good advice and glorious dinners, spiced with
rare divertisements of fun and fancy, merit immortal mention, set down,
ye muses, the names of R. F. C. and his imperial brother.
Though to be a Templar, in the one true sense, you must needs be a
lawyer, or a student at the law, and be ceremoniously enrolled as member
of the order, yet as many such, though Templars, do not reside within
the Temple’s precincts, though they may have their offices there, just
so, on the other hand, there are many residents of the hoary old
domicils who are not admitted Templars. If being, say, a lounging
gentleman and bachelor, or a quiet, unmarried, literary man, charmed
with the soft seclusion of the spot, you much desire to pitch your shady
tent among the rest in this serene encampment, then you must make some
special friend among the order, and procure him to rent, in his name,
but at your charge, whatever vacant chamber you may find to suit.
Thus, I suppose, did Dr. Johnson, that nominal Benedick and widower but
virtual bachelor, when for a space he resided here. So, too, did that
undoubted bachelor and rare good soul, Charles Lamb. And hundreds more,
of sterling spirits, Brethren of the Order of Celibacy, from time to
time have dined, and slept, and tabernacled here. Indeed, the place is
all a honeycomb of offices and domicils. Like any cheese, it is quite
perforated through and through in all directions with the snug cells of
bachelors. Dear, delightful spot! Ah! when I bethink me of the sweet
hours there passed, enjoying such genial hospitalities beneath those
time-honoured roofs, my heart only finds due utterance through poetry;
and, with a sigh, I softly sing, ‘Carry me back to old Virginny!’
Such then, at large, is the Paradise of Bachelors. And such I found it
one pleasant afternoon in the smiling month of May, when, sallying from
my hotel in Trafalgar Square, I went to keep my dinner appointment with
that fine Barrister, Bachelor, and Bencher, R. F. C. (he _is_ the first
and second, and _should_ be the third; I hereby nominate him), whose
card I kept fast pinched between my gloved forefinger and thumb, and
every now and then snatched still another look at the pleasant address
inscribed beneath the name, ‘No. --, Elm Court, Temple.’
At the core he was a right bluff, care-free, right comfortable, and most
companionable Englishman. If on a first acquaintance he seemed reserved,
quite icy in his air--patience; this champagne will thaw. And if it
never do, better frozen champagne than liquid vinegar.
There were nine gentlemen, all bachelors, at the dinner. One was from
‘No. --, King’s Bench Walk, Temple’; a second, third, and fourth, and
fifth, from various courts or passages christened with some similarly
rich resounding syllables. It was indeed a sort of Senate of the
Bachelors, sent to this dinner from widely-scattered districts, to
represent the general celibacy of the Temple. Nay it was, by
representation, a Grand Parliament of the best Bachelors in universal
London; several of those present being from distant quarters of the
town, noted immemorial seats of lawyers and unmarried men--Lincoln’s
Inn, Furnival’s Inn; and one gentleman, upon whom I looked with a sort
of collateral awe, hailed from the spot where Lord Verulam once abode a
bachelor--Gray’s Inn.
The apartment was well up toward heaven. I know not how many strange old
stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous company,
should be well earned. No doubt our host had his dining-room so high
with a view to secure the prior exercise necessary to the due relishing
and digesting of it.
The furniture was wonderfully unpretending, old, and snug. No new
shining mahogany, sticky with undried varnish; no uncomfortably
luxurious ottomans, and sofas too fine to use, vexed you in this sedate
apartment. It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from
every sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and
gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement. The American
Benedick snatches, down-town, a tough chop in a gilded show-box; the
English bachelor leisurely dines at home on that incomparable South Down
of his, off a plain deal board.
The ceiling of the room was low. Who wants to dine under the dome of St.
Peter’s? High ceilings! If that is your demand, and the higher the
better, and you be so very tall, then go dine out with the topping
giraffe in the open air.
In good time the nine gentlemen sat down to nine covers, and soon were
fairly under way.
If I remember right, ox-tail soup inaugurated the affair. Of a rich
russet hue, its agreeable flavour dissipated my first confounding of its
main ingredient with teamsters’ gads and the raw-hides of ushers. (By
way of interlude, we here drank a little claret.) Neptune’s was the next
tribute rendered--turbot coming second; snow-white, flaky, and just
gelatinous enough, not too turtleish in its unctuousness.
(At this point we refreshed ourselves with a glass of sherry.) After
these light skirmishers had vanished, the heavy artillery of the feast
marched in, led by that well-known English generalissimo, roast beef.
For aides-de-camp we had a saddle of mutton, a fat turkey, a
chicken-pie, and endless other savoury things; while for
_avant-couriers_ came nine silver flagons of humming ale. This heavy
ordnance having departed on the track of the light skirmishers, a picked
brigade of game-fowl encamped upon the board, their camp-fires lit by
the ruddiest of decanters.
Tarts and puddings followed, with innumerable niceties; then cheese and
crackers. (By way of ceremony, simply, only to keep up good old
fashions, we here each drank a glass of good old port.)
The cloth was now removed; and like Blucher’s army coming in at the
death on the field of Waterloo, in marched a fresh detachment of
bottles, dusty with their hurried march.
All these manœuvrings of the forces were superintended by a surprising
old field-marshal (I cannot school myself to call him by the inglorious
name of waiter), with snowy hair and napkin, and a head like Socrates.
Amidst all the hilarity of the feast, intent on important business, he
disdained to smile. Venerable man!
I have above endeavoured to give some slight schedule of the general
plan of operations. But anyone knows that a good genial dinner is a sort
of pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail in all
particulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a glass of
sherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain specific
periods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers, so to speak.
Innumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the periods of those
grand imposing ones.
The nine bachelors seemed to have the most tender concern for each
other’s health. All the time, in flowing wine, they most earnestly
expressed their sincerest wishes for the entire well-being and lasting
hygiene of the gentlemen on the right and on the left. I noticed that
when one of these kind bachelors desired a little more wine (just for
his stomach’s sake, like Timothy), he would not help himself to it
unless some other bachelor would join him. It seemed held something
indelicate, selfish, and unfraternal, to be seen taking a lonely,
unparticipated glass. Meantime, as the wine ran apace, the spirits of
the company grew more and more to perfect genialness and unconstraint.
They related all sorts of pleasant stories. Choice experiences in their
private lives were now brought out, like choice brands of Moselle or
Rhenish, only kept for particular company. One told us how mellowly he
lived when a student at Oxford; with various spicy anecdotes of most
frank-hearted noble lords, his liberal companions. Another bachelor, a
gray-headed man, with a sunny face, who, by his own account, embraced
every opportunity of leisure to cross over into the Low Countries, on
sudden tours of inspection of the fine old Flemish architecture
there--this learned, white-haired, sunny-faced old bachelor excelled in
his descriptions of the elaborate splendours of those old guild-halls,
town-halls, and stadthold-houses to be seen in the land of the ancient
Flemings. A third was a great frequenter of the British Museum, and knew
all about scores of wonderful antiquities, of Oriental manuscripts, and
costly books without a duplicate. A fourth had lately returned from a
trip to Old Granada, and, of course, was full of Saracenic scenery. A
fifth had a funny case in law to tell. A sixth was erudite in wines. A
seventh had a strange characteristic anecdote of the private life of the
Iron Duke, never printed, and never before announced in any public or
private company. An eighth had lately been amusing his evenings, now and
then, with translating a comic poem of Pulci’s. He quoted for us the
more amusing passages.
And so the evening slipped along, the hours told, not by a water-clock,
like King Alfred’s, but a wine-chronometer. Meantime the table seemed a
sort of Epsom Heath; a regular ring, where the decanters galloped round.
For fear one decanter should not with sufficient speed reach his
destination, another was sent express after him to hurry him; and then a
third to hurry the second; and so on with a fourth and fifth. And
throughout all this nothing loud, nothing unmannerly, nothing turbulent.
I am quite sure, from the scrupulous gravity and austerity of his air,
that had Socrates, the field-marshal, perceived aught of indecorum in
the company he served, he would have forthwith departed without giving
warning. I afterward learned that, during the repast, an invalid
bachelor in an adjoining chamber enjoyed his first sound refreshing
slumber in three long, weary weeks.
It was the very perfection of quiet absorption of good living, good
drinking, good feeling, and good talk. We were a band of brothers.
Comfort--fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the
affair. Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no
wives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were
travellers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any
twinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fireside.
The thing called pain, the bugbear styled trouble--those two legends
seemed preposterous to their bachelor imaginations. How could men of
liberal sense, ripe scholarship in the world, and capacious
philosophical and convivial understandings--how could they suffer
themselves to be imposed upon by such monkish fables? Pain! Trouble! As
well talk of Catholic miracles. No such thing.--Pass the sherry,
sir.--Pooh, pooh! Can’t be!--The port, sir, if you please. Nonsense;
don’t tell me so.--The decanter stops with you, sir, I believe.
And so it went.
Not long after the cloth was drawn our host glanced significantly upon
Socrates, who, solemnly stepping to a stand, returned with an immense
convolved horn, a regular Jericho horn, mounted with polished silver,
and otherwise chased and curiously enriched; not omitting two lifelike
goats’ heads, with four more horns of solid silver, projecting from
opposite sides of the mouth of the noble main horn.
Not having heard that our host was a performer on the bugle, I was
surprised to see him lift this horn from the table, as if he were about
to blow an inspiring blast. But I was relieved from this, and set quite
right as touching the purposes of the horn, by his now inserting his
thumb and forefinger into its mouth; whereupon a slight aroma was
stirred up, and my nostrils were greeted with the smell of some choice
Rappee. It was a mull of snuff. It went the rounds. Capital idea this,
thought I, of taking snuff about this juncture. This goodly fashion must
be introduced among my countrymen at home, further ruminated I.
The remarkable decorum of the nine bachelors--a decorum not to be
affected by any quantity of wine--a decorum unassailable by any degree
of mirthfulness--this was again set in a forcible light to me, by now
observing that, though they took snuff very freely, yet not a man so far
violated the proprieties, or so far molested the invalid bachelor in the
adjoining room, as to indulge himself in a sneeze. The snuff was snuffed
silently, as if it had been some fine innoxious powder brushed off the
wings of butterflies.
But fine though they be, bachelors’ dinners, like bachelors’ lives,
cannot endure forever. The time came for breaking up. One by one the
bachelors took their hats, and two by two and arm-in-arm they descended,
still conversing, to the flagging of the court; some going to their
neighbouring chambers to turn over the _Decameron_ ere retiring for the
night; some to smoke a cigar, promenading in the garden on the cool
river-side; some to make for the street, call a hack, and be driven
snugly to their distant lodgings.