THE TEMPLE (_continued_).
The Middle Temple Hall: its Roof, Busts, and Portraits--Manningham's
Diary--Fox Hunts in Hall--The Grand Revels--Spenser--Sir J. Davis--A
Present to a King--Masques and Royal Visitors at the Temple--Fires
in the Temple--The Last Great Revel in the Hall--Temple
Anecdotes--The Gordon Riots--John Scott and his Pretty Wife--Colman
"Keeping Terms"--Blackstone's "Farewell"--Burke--Sheridan--A Pair of
Epigrams--Hare Court--The Barber's Shop--Johnson and the Literary
Club--Charles Lamb--Goldsmith: his Life, Troubles, and
Extravagances--"Hack Work" for Booksellers--_The Deserted
Village_--_She Stoops to Conquer_--Goldsmith's Death and Burial.
In the glorious reign of Elizabeth the old Middle Temple Hall was
converted into chambers, and a new hall built. The present roof (says
Mr. Peter Cunningham) is the best piece of Elizabethan architecture in
London. The screen, in the Renaissance style, was long supposed to be an
exact copy of the Strand front of Old Somerset House; but this is a
vulgar error; nor could it have been made of timber from the Spanish
Armada, for the simple reason that it was set up thirteen years before
the Armada was organised. The busts of "doubting" Lord Eldon and his
brother, Lord Stowell, the great Admiralty judge, are by Behnes. The
portraits are chiefly second-rate copies. The exterior was cased with
stone, in "wretched taste," in 1757. The diary of an Elizabethan
barrister, named Manningham, preserved in the Harleian Miscellanies, has
preserved the interesting fact that in this hall in February,
1602--probably, says Mr. Collier, six months after its first appearance
at the Globe--Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ was acted.
"Feb. 2, 1601 (2).--At our feast," says Manningham, "we had a play
called _Twelve Night, or What you Will_, much like the _Comedy of
Errors_ or _Menechmi in Plautus_, but most like and neere to that in
Italian called _Inganni_. A good practice in it is to make the steward
believe his lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfayting a
letter, as from his lady, in generall terms telling him what shee liked
best in him, and prescribing his gestures, inscribing his apparaile,
&c., and then, when he came to practise, making him believe they tooke
him to be mad."
The Temple revels in the olden time were indeed gorgeous outbursts of
mirth and hospitality. One of the most splendid of these took place in
the fourth year of Elizabeth's reign, when the queen's favourite, Lord
Robert Dudley (afterwards the great Earl of Leicester) was elected
Palaphilos, constable or marshal of the inn, to preside over the
Christmas festivities. He had lord chancellor and judges, eighty guards,
officers of the household, and other distinguished persons to attend
him; and another of the queen's subsequent favourites, Christopher
Hatton--a handsome youth, remarkable for his skill in dancing--was
appointed master of the games. The daily banquets of the Constable were
announced by the discharge of a double cannon, and drums and fifes
summoned the mock court to the common hall, while sackbuts, cornets, and
recorders heralded the arrival of every course. At the first remove a
herald at the high table cried,--"The mighty Palaphilos, Prince of
Sophie, High Constable, Marshal of the Knights Templars, Patron of the
Honourable Order of Pegasus!--a largesse! a largesse!" upon which the
Prince of Sophie tossed the man a gold chain worth a thousand talents.
The supper ended, the king-at-arms entered, and, doing homage, announced
twenty-four special gentlemen, whom Pallas had ordered him to present to
Palaphilos as knights-elect of the Order of Pegasus. The twenty-four
gentlemen at once appeared, in long white vestures, with scarves of
Pallas's colours, and the king-at-arms, bowing to each, explained to
them the laws of the new order.
For every feast the steward provided five fat hams, with spices and
cakes, and the chief butler seven dozen gilt and silver spoons, twelve
damask table-cloths, and twenty candlesticks. The Constable wore gilt
armour and a plumed helmet, and bore a poleaxe in his hands. On St.
Thomas's Eve a parliament was held, when the two youngest brothers,
bearing torches, preceded the procession of benchers, the officers'
names were called, and the whole society passed round the hearth singing
a carol. On Christmas Eve the minstrels, sounding, preceded the dishes,
and, dinner done, sang a song at the high table; after dinner the oldest
master of the revels and other gentlemen singing songs.
On Christmas Day the feast grew still more feudal and splendid. At the
great meal at noon the minstrels and a long train of servitors bore in
the blanched boar's head, with a golden lemon in its jaws, the
trumpeters being preceded by two gentlemen in gowns, bearing four
torches of white wax. On St. Stephen's Day the younger Templars waited
at table upon the benchers. At the first course the Constable entered,
to the sound of horns, preceded by sixteen swaggering trumpeters, while
the halberdiers bore "the tower" on their shoulders and marched gravely
three times round the fire.
On St. John's Day the Constable was up at seven, and personally called
and reprimanded any tardy officers, who were sometimes committed to the
Tower for disorder. If any officer absented himself at meals, any one
sitting in his place was compelled to pay his fee and assume his office.
Any offender, if he escaped into the oratory, could claim sanctuary, and
was pardoned if he returned into the hall humbly and as a servitor,
carrying a roll on the point of a knife. No one was allowed to sing
after the cheese was served.
On Childermas Day, New Year's Day, and Twelfth Night the same costly
feasts were continued, only that on Thursday there was roast beef and
venison pasty for dinner, and mutton and roast hens were served for
supper. The final banquet closing all was preceded by a dance, revel,
play, or mask, the gentlemen of every Inn of Court and Chancery being
invited, and the hall furnished with side scaffolds for the ladies, who
were feasted in the library. The Lord Chancellor and the ancients
feasted in the hall, the Templars serving. The feast over, the
Constable, in his gilt armour, ambled into the hall on a caparisoned
mule, and arranged the sequence of sports.
The Constable then, with three reverences, knelt before the King of the
Revels, and, delivering up his naked sword, prayed to be taken into the
royal service. Next entered Hatton, the Master of the Game, clad in
green velvet, his rangers arrayed in green satin. Blowing "a blast of
venery" three times on their horns, and holding green-coloured bows and
arrows in their hands, the rangers paced three times round the central
fire, then knelt to the King of the Revels, and desired admission into
the royal service. Next ensued a strange and barbarous ceremony. A
huntsman entered with a live fox and cat and nine or ten couple of
hounds, and, to the blast of horns and wild shouting, the poor creatures
were torn to shreds, for the amusement of the applauding Templars. At
supper the Constable entered to the sound of drums, borne upon a
scaffold by four men, and as he was carried three times round the hearth
every one shouted, "A lord! a lord!"
He then descended, called together his mock court, by such fantastic
names as--
Sir Francis Flatterer, of Fowlershurst, in the county
of Buckingham;
Sir Randal Rakabite, of Rascal Hall, in the county
of Rakebell;
Sir Morgan Mumchance, of Much Monkery, in the
county of Mad Mopery;
and the banquet then began, every man having a gilt pot full of wine,
and each one paying sixpence for his repast. That night, when the lights
were put out, the noisy, laughing train passed out of the portal, and
the long revels were ended.
"Sir Edward Coke," says Lord Campbell, writing of this period, "first
evinced his forensic powers when deputed by the students to make a
representation to the benchers of the Inner Temple respecting the bad
quality of their _commons_ in the hall. After laboriously studying the
facts and the law of the case, he clearly proved that the cook had
broken his engagement, and was liable to be dismissed. This, according
to the phraseology of the day, was called 'the cook's case,' and he was
said to have argued it with so much quickness of penetration and
solidity of judgment, that he gave entire satisfaction to the students,
and was much admired by the Bench."
In his exquisite "Prothalamion" Spenser alludes to the Temple as if he
had sketched it from the river, after a visit to his great patron, the
Earl of Essex,--
"Those bricky towers,
The which on Thames' broad, aged back doe ride,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,
There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride."
Sir John Davis, the author of "Nosce Teipsum," that fine mystic poem on
the immortality of the soul, and of that strange philosophical rhapsody
on dancing, was expelled the Temple in Elizabeth's reign, for thrashing
his friend, another roysterer of the day, Mr. Richard Martin, in the
Middle Temple Hall; but afterwards, on proper submission, he was
readmitted. Davis afterwards reformed, and became the wise
Attorney-General of Ireland. His biographer says, that the preface to
his "Irish Reports" vies with Coke for solidity and Blackstone for
elegance. Martin (whose monument is now hoarded up in the Triforium)
also became a learned lawyer and a friend of Selden's, and was the
person to whom Ben Jonson dedicated his bitter play, _The Poetaster_. In
the dedication the poet says, "For whose innocence as for the author's
you were once a noble and kindly undertaker: signed, your true lover,
BEN JONSON."
On the accession of James I. some of his hungry Scotch courtiers
attempted to obtain from the king a grant of the fee-simple of the
Temple; upon which the two indignant societies made "humble suit" to the
king, and obtained a grant of the property to themselves. The grant was
signed in 1609, the benchers paying L10 annually to the king for the
Inner Temple, and L10 for the Middle. In gratitude for this concession,
the two loyal societies presented his majesty with a stately gold cup,
weighing 200-1/2 ounces, which James "most graciously" accepted. On one
side was engraved a temple, on the other a flaming altar, with the words
_nil nisi vobis_; on the pyramidical cover stood a Roman soldier leaning
on his shield. This cup the bibulous monarch ever afterwards esteemed as
one of his rarest and richest jewels. In 1623 James issued another of
those absurd and trumpery sumptuary edicts, recommending the ancient way
of wearing caps, and requesting the Templars to lay aside their unseemly
boots and spurs, the badges of "roarers, rakes, and bullies."
The Temple feasts continued to be as lavish and magnificent as in the
days of Queen Mary, when no reader was allowed to contribute less than
fifteen bucks to the hall dinner, and many during their readings gave
fourscore or a hundred.
On the marriage (1613) of the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of King James I.,
with Prince Frederick, the unfortunate Elector-Palatine, the Temple and
Gray's Inn men gave a masque, of which Sir Francis Bacon was the chief
contriver. The masque came to Whitehall by water from Winchester Place,
in Southwark; three peals of ordnance greeting them as they embarked
with torches and lamps, as they passed the Temple Garden, and as they
landed. This short trip cost L300. The king, after all, was so tired,
and the hall so crowded, that the masque was adjourned till the Saturday
following, when all went well. The next night the king gave a supper to
the forty masquers; Prince Charles and his courtiers, who had lost a
wager to the king at running at the ring, paying for the banquet L30 a
man. The masquers, who dined with forty of the chief nobles, kissed his
majesty's hand. Shortly after this twenty Templars fought at barriers,
in honour of Prince Charles, the benchers contributing thirty shillings
each to the expenses; the barristers of seven years' standing, fifteen
shillings; and the other gentlemen in commons, ten shillings.
One of the grandest masques ever given by the Templars was one which
cost L21,000, and was presented, in 1633, to Charles I. and his French
queen. Bulstrode Whitelocke, then in his youth, gives a vivid picture
of this pageant, which was meant to refute Prynne's angry
"Histro-Mastix." Noy and Selden were members of the committee, and many
grave heads met together to discuss the dances, dresses, and music. The
music was written by Milton's friend, Lawes, the libretto by Shirley.
The procession set out from Ely House, in Holborn, on Candlemas Day, in
the evening. The four chariots that bore the sixteen masquers were
preceded by twenty footmen in silver-laced scarlet liveries, who carried
torches and cleared the way. After these rode 100 gentlemen from the
Inns of Court, mounted and richly clad, every gentleman having two
lackeys with torches and a page to carry his cloak. Then followed the
other masquers--beggars on horseback and boys dressed as birds. The
colours of the first chariot were crimson and silver, the four horses
being plumed and trapped in parti-coloured tissue. The Middle Temple
rode next, in blue and silver; and the Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn
followed in equal bravery, 100 of the suits being reckoned to have cost
L10,000. The masque was most perfectly performed in the Banqueting House
at Whitehall, the Queen dancing with several of the masquers, and
declaring them to be as good dancers as ever she saw.
The year after the Restoration Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of
Nottingham, kept his "reader's feast" in the great hall of the Inner
Temple. At that time of universal vice, luxury, and extravagance, the
banquet lasted from the 4th to the 17th of August. It was, in fact, open
house to all London. The first day came the nobles and privy
councillors; the second, the Lord Mayor and aldermen; the third, the
whole College of Physicians in their mortuary caps and gowns; the
fourth, the doctors and advocates of civil law; on the fifth day, the
archbishops, bishops, and obsequious clergy; and on the fifteenth, as a
last grand explosion, the King, the Duke of York, the Duke of
Buckingham, and half the peers. An entrance was made from the river
through the wall of the Temple Garden, the King being received on
landing by the Reader and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas;
the path from the garden to the wall was lined with the Reader's
servants, clad in scarlet cloaks and white doublets; while above them
stood the benchers, barristers, and students, music playing all the
while, and twenty violins welcoming Charles into the hall with unanimous
scrape and quaver. Dinner was served by fifty young students in their
gowns, no meaner servants appearing. In the November following the Duke
of York, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Dorset were admitted
members of the Society of the Inner Temple. Six years after, Prince
Rupert, then a grizzly old cavalry soldier, and addicted to experiments
in chemistry and engraving in his house in the Barbican, received the
same honour.
The great fire of 1666, says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Law and Lawyers,"
was stayed in its westward course at the Temple; but it was not
suppressed until the flames had consumed many sets of chambers, had
devoured the title-deeds of a vast number of valuable estates, and had
almost licked the windows of the Temple Church. Clarendon has recorded
that on the occasion of this stupendous calamity, which occurred when a
large proportion of the Templars were out of town, the lawyers in
residence declined to break open the chambers and rescue the property of
absent members of their society, through fear of prosecution for
burglary. Another great fire, some years later (January, 1678-79),
destroyed the old cloisters and part of the old hall of the Inner
Temple, and the greater part of the residential buildings of the "Old
Temple." Breaking out at midnight, and lasting till noon of next day, it
devoured, in the Middle Temple, the whole of Pump Court (in which
locality it originated), Elm-tree Court, Vine Court, and part of Brick
Court; in the Inner Temple the cloisters, the greater part of Hare
Court, and part of the hall. The night was bitterly cold, and the
Templars, aroused from their beds to preserve life and property, could
not get an adequate supply of water from the Thames, which the unusual
severity of the season had frozen. In this difficulty they actually
brought barrels of ale from the Temple butteries, and fed the engines
with the malt liquor. Of course this supply of fluid was soon exhausted,
so the fire spreading eastward, the lawyers fought it by blowing up the
buildings that were in immediate danger. Gunpowder was more effectual
than beer; but the explosions were sadly destructive to human life.
Amongst the buildings thus demolished was the library of the Inner
Temple. Naturally, but with no apparent good reason, the sufferers by
the fire attributed it to treachery on the part of persons unknown, just
as the citizens attributed the fire of 1666 to the Papists. It is more
probable that the calamity was caused by some such accident as that
which occasioned the fire which, during John Campbell's
attorney-generalship, destroyed a large amount of valuable property, and
had its origin in the clumsiness of a barrister who upset upon his fire
a vessel full of spirit. Of this fire Lord Campbell observes:--"When I
was Attorney-General, my chambers in Paper Buildings, Temple, were burnt
to the ground in the night-time, and all my books and manuscripts, with
some valuable official papers, were consumed. Above all, I had to lament
a collection of letters written to me by my dear father, from the time
of my going to college till his death in 1824. All lamented this
calamity except the claimant of a peerage, some of whose documents
(suspected to be forged) he hoped were destroyed; but fortunately they
had been removed into safe custody a few days before, and the claim was
dropped." The fire here alluded to broke out in the chambers of one
Thornbury, in Pump Court.
[Illustration: THE OLD HALL OF THE INNER TEMPLE (_see page 164_).]
"I remember," says North in his "Life of Lord Keeper Guildford," "that
after the fire of the Temple it was considered whether the old cloister
walks should be rebuilt or rather improved into chambers, which latter
had been for the benefit of the Middle Temple; but, in regard that it
could not be done without the consent of the Inner Houses, the masters
of the Middle Houses waited upon the then Mr. Attorney Finch to desire
the concurrence of his society upon a proposition of some benefit to be
thrown in on his side. But Mr. Attorney would by no means give way to
it, and reproved the Middle Templars very bitterly and eloquently upon
the subject of students walking in evenings there, and putting 'cases,'
which, he said, 'was done in his time, mean and low as the buildings
were then. However, it comes,' he said, 'that such a benefit to students
is now made little account of.' And thereupon the cloisters, by the
order and disposition of Sir Christopher Wren, were built as they now
stand."
[Illustration: Door from the Middle Temple.
Wig-Shop in the Middle Temple.
Door from the Inner Temple.
Fireplace in the Inner Temple.
Screen of the Middle Temple Hall.
Buttery of the Inner Temple.]
The last revel in any of the Inns of Court was held in the Inner Temple,
February, 1733 (George II.), in honour of Mr. Talbot, a bencher of that
house, accepting the Great Seal. The ceremony is described by an
eye-witness in "Wynne's Eunomus." The Lord Chancellor arrived at two
o'clock, preceded by Mr. Wollaston, Master of the Revels, and followed
by Dr. Sherlock, Bishop of Bangor, Master of the Temple, and the judges
and serjeants formerly of the Inner Temple. There was an elegant dinner
provided for them and the chancellor's officers, but the barristers and
students had only the usual meal of grand days, except that each man was
furnished with a flask of claret besides the usual allowance of port and
sack. Fourteen students waited on the Bench table: among them was Mr.
Talbot, the Lord Chancellor's eldest son, and by their means any special
dish was easily obtainable from the upper table. A large gallery was
built over the screen for the ladies; and music, placed in the little
gallery at the upper end of the hall, played all dinner-time. As soon as
dinner was over, the play of _Love for Love_ and the farce of _The Devil
to Pay_ were acted, the actors coming from the Haymarket in chaises, all
ready-dressed. It was said they refused all gratuity, being satisfied
with the honour of performing before such an audience. After the play,
the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Temple, the judges and benchers
retired into their parliament chamber, and in about half an hour
afterwards came into the hall again, and a large ring was formed round
the fire-place (but no fire nor embers were in it). Then the Master of
the Revels, who went first, took the Lord Chancellor by the right hand,
and he with his left took Mr. J[ustice] Page, who, joined to the other
judges, serjeants, and benchers present, danced, or rather walked, round
about the coal fire, according to the old ceremony, three times, during
which they were aided in the figure of the dance by Mr. George Cooke,
the prothonotary, then upwards of sixty; and all the time of the dance
the _ancient song_, accompanied with music, was sung by one Tony Aston
(an actor), dressed in a bar gown, whose father had been formerly Master
of the Plea Office in the King's Bench. When this was over, the ladies
came down from the gallery, went into the parliament chamber, and stayed
about a quarter of an hour, while the hall was putting in order. Then
they went into the hall and danced a few minutes. Country dances began
about ten, and at twelve a very fine collation was provided for the
whole company, from which they returned to dancing. The Prince of Wales
honoured the performance with his company part of the time. He came into
the music gallery wing about the middle of the play, and went away as
soon as the farce of walking round the coal fire was over.
Mr. Peter Cunningham, _apropos_ of these revels, mentions that when the
floor of the Middle Temple Hall was taken up in 1764 there were found
nearly one hundred pair of very small dice, yellowed by time, which had
dropped through the chinks above. The same writer caps this fact by one
of his usually apposite quotations. Wycherly, in his _Plain Dealer_
(1676--Charles II.), makes Freeman, one of his characters,
say:--"Methinks 'tis like one of the Halls in Christmas time, whither
from all parts fools bring their money to try the dice (nor the worst
judges), whether it shall be their own or no."
The Inner Temple Hall (the refectory of the ancient knights) was almost
entirely rebuilt in 1816. The roof was overloaded with timber, the west
wall was cracking, and the wooden cupola of the bell let in the rain.
The pointed arches and rude sculpture at the entrance doors showed great
antiquity, but the northern wall had been rebuilt in 1680. The
incongruous Doric screen was surmounted by lions' heads, cones, and
other anomalous devices, and in 1741 low, classic windows had been
inserted in the south front. Of the old hall, where the Templars
frequently held their chapters, and at different times entertained King
John, King Henry III., and several of the legates, several portions
still remain. A very ancient groined Gothic arch forms the roof of the
present buttery, and in the apartment beyond there is a fine groined and
vaulted ceiling. In the cellars below are old walls of vast thickness,
part of an ancient window, a curious fire-place, and some pointed
arches, all now choked with modern brick partitions and dusty
staircases. These vaults formerly communicated by a cloister with the
chapel of St. Anne, on the south side of the church. In the reign of
James I. some brick chambers, three storeys high, were erected over the
cloister, but were burnt down in 1678. In 1681 the cloister chambers
were again rebuilt.
During the formation of the present new entrance to the Temple by the
church at the bottom of Inner Temple Lane, when some old houses were
removed, the masons came on a strong ancient wall of chalk and ragstone,
supposed to have been the ancient northern boundary of the convent.
Let us cull a few Temple anecdotes from various ages:--
In November, 1819, Erskine, in the House of Lords, speaking upon Lord
Lansdowne's motion for an inquiry into the state of the country,
condemned the conduct of the yeomanry at the "Manchester massacre." "By
an ordinary display of spirit and resolution," observed the brilliant
egotist to his brother peers (who were so impressed by his complacent
volubility and good-humoured self-esteem, that they were for the moment
ready to take him at his own valuation), "insurrection may be repressed
without violating the law or the constitution. In the riots of 1780,
when the mob were preparing to attack the house of Lord Mansfield, I
offered to defend it with a small military force; but this offer was
unluckily rejected. Afterwards, being in the Temple when the rioters
were preparing to force the gate and had fired several times, I went to
the gate, opened it, and showed them a field-piece, which I was prepared
to discharge in case the attack was persisted in. They were daunted,
fell back, and dispersed."
Judge Burrough (says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Law and Lawyers") used to
relate that when the Gordon Rioters besieged the Temple he and a strong
body of barristers, headed by a sergeant of the Guards, were stationed
in Inner Temple Lane, and that, having complete confidence in the
strength of their massive gate, they spoke bravely of their desire to be
fighting on the other side. At length the gate was forced. The lawyers
fell into confusion and were about to beat a retreat, when the sergeant,
a man of infinite humour, cried out in a magnificent voice, "Take care
no gentleman fires from behind." The words struck awe into the
assailants and caused the barristers to laugh. The mob, who had expected
neither laughter nor armed resistance, took to flight, telling all whom
they met that the bloody-minded lawyers were armed to the teeth and
enjoying themselves. The Temple was saved. When these Gordon Rioters
filled London with alarm, no member of the junior bar was more
prosperous and popular than handsome Jack Scott, and as he walked from
his house in Carey Street to the Temple, with his wife on his arm, he
returned the greetings of the barristers, who, besides liking him for a
good fellow, thought it prudent to be on good terms with a man sure to
achieve eminence. Dilatory in his early as well as his later years,
Scott left his house that morning half an hour late. Already it was
known to the mob that the Templars were assembling in their college, and
a cry of "The Temple! kill the lawyers!" had been raised in Whitefriars
and Essex Street. Before they reached the Middle Temple gate Mr. and
Mrs. Scott were assaulted more than once. The man who won Bessie Surtees
from a host of rivals and carried her away against the will of her
parents and the wishes of his own father, was able to protect her from
serious violence. But before the beautiful creature was safe within the
Temple her dress was torn, and when at length she stood in the centre of
a crowd of excited and admiring barristers, her head was bare and her
ringlets fell loose upon her shoulders. "The scoundrels have got your
hat, Bessie," whispered John Scott; "but never mind--they have left you
your hair."
In Lord Eldon's "Anecdote Book" there is another gate story amongst the
notes on the Gordon Riots. "We youngsters," says the aged lawyer, "at
the Temple determined that we would not remain inactive during such
times; so we introduced ourselves into a troop to assist the military.
We armed ourselves as well as we could, and next morning we drew up in
the court ready to follow out a troop of soldiers who were on guard.
When, however, the soldiers had passed through the gate it was suddenly
shut in our faces, and the officer in command shouted from the other
side, 'Gentlemen, I am much obliged to you for your intended assistance;
but I do not choose to allow my soldiers to be shot, so I have ordered
you to be locked in.'" And away he galloped.
The elder Colman decided on making the younger one a barrister; and
after visits to Scotland and Switzerland, the son returned to Soho
Square, and found that his father had taken for him chambers in the
Temple, and entered him as a student at Lincoln's Inn, where he
afterwards kept a few terms by eating oysters. Upon this Mr. Peake
notes:--"The students of Lincoln's Inn keep term by dining, or
pretending to dine, in the hall during the term time. Those who feed
there are accommodated with wooden trenchers instead of plates, and
previously to the dinner oysters are served up by way of prologue to the
play. Eating the oysters, or going into the hall without eating them, if
you please, and then departing to dine elsewhere, is quite sufficient
for term-keeping." The chambers in King's Bench Walk were furnished with
a tent-bedstead, two tables, half-a-dozen chairs, and a carpet as much
too scanty for the boards as Sheridan's "rivulet of rhyme" for its
"meadow of margin." To these the elder Colman added L10 worth of law
books which had been given to him in his own Lincoln's Inn days by Lord
Bath; then enjoining the son to work hard, the father left town upon a
party of pleasure.
Colman had sent his son to Switzerland to get him away from a certain
Miss Catherine Morris, an actress of the Haymarket company. This
answered for a time, but no sooner had the father left the son in the
Temple than he set off with Miss Morris to Gretna Green, and was there
married, in 1784; and four years after, the father's sanction having
been duly obtained, they were publicly married at Chelsea Church.
In the same staircase with Colman, in the Temple, lived the witty
Jekyll, who, seeing in Colman's chambers a round cage with a squirrel in
it, looked for a minute or two at the little animal, which was
performing the same operation as a man in the treadmill, and then
quietly said, "Ah, poor devil! he is going the Home Circuit;" the
locality where it was uttered--the Temple--favouring this technical
joke.
On the morning young Colman began his studies (December 20, 1784) he was
interrupted by the intelligence that the funeral procession of the great
Dr. Johnson was on its way from his late residence, Bolt Court, through
Fleet Street, to Westminster Abbey. Colman at once threw down his pen,
and ran forth to see the procession, but was disappointed to find it
much less splendid and imposing than the sepulchral pomp of Garrick five
years before.
Dr. Dibdin thus describes the Garden walks of the last
century:--"Towards evening 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 and silk stockings, at this time
constituted the usual evening dress. Lord Erskine, though a great deal
shorter than his brethren, somehow always seemed to take the lead, both
in place and in discourse, and shouts of laughter would frequently
follow his dicta."
Ugly Dunning, afterwards the famous Lord Ashburton, entered the Middle
Temple in 1752, and was called four years later, in 1756. Lord
Chancellor Thurlow used to describe him wittily as "the knave of clubs."
Home Tooke, Dunning, and Kenyon were accustomed to dine together, during
the vacation, at a little eating-house in the neighbourhood of Chancery
Lane for the sum of sevenpence-halfpenny each. "As to Dunning and
myself," said Tooke, "we were generous, for we gave the girl who waited
upon us a penny a piece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money,
sometimes rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with a promise."
Blackstone, before dedicating his powers finally to the study of the law
in which he afterwards became so famous, wrote in Temple chambers his
"Farewell to the Muse:"--
"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'd
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.
"Oh, happy Britons! happy isle!
Let foreign nations say,
Where you get justice without guile
And 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 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."
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 L300 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.
[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH (_see page 167_).]
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 L30 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. My best 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 this ascetic
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.
[Illustration: GOLDSMITH'S TOMB IN 1860 (_see page 171_).]
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
quaesiveris extra_.'" He soon hurried off to the quiet of Islington, as
some 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 The _Good-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
applying to 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 of _The Good-Natured Man_ (January, 1768),
Goldsmith, having cleared L500, broke out like a successful gambler. He
purchased a set of chambers (No. 2, up two pairs of stairs, in Brick
Court) for L400, squandered the remaining L100, 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 L8 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 tea and 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 L500 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 1773 _She Stoops to Conquer_ made 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 L2,000. "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 the kindly
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, because it 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.'"