archway that attracts no notice and reveals nothing within, you find yourself, after a short walk, within the Temple close. Here, and in the neighboring Inns, is con gregated the whole profession of London, we might almost say of England; and here every student must enter for his education. Many lawyers and judges who are without families live here entirely, having apartments, with offices and servants, more or less expensive. Some occupy " chambers " only, or " offices" as we call them, dining in the Temple Hall, where the students also dine. In this place you find the active members of the profession, whether leaders at Nisi Prius and the courts, members of Parliament, of whom a great number are always barristers, or the great law officers immediately con nected with the crown. Here, also, are those eminent chamber counsel, whose opinions settle half the concerns of London; and those law writers, perfectly known to the profes sion everywhere, whose voices, however, are never heard in court, nor their names within the " city." Besides these laborious classes, who give the place its essential impress, there are many lawyers here whose professional re lations hang more lightly upon them, — men, often very eminent, who choose to limit the extent of their professional services; or men who find pleasure in the literature of the law, those tasteful barristers " who study Shakspeare at the Inns of Court." The Temple grounds, which meet your gaze when once within its close, are beauti ful. As the reader is aware, the place was, many centuries ago, the residence of the Knights Templars; and, like Fountains, Fettey, Tintern, and other religious houses in England, it was selected and disposed by its founders with comprehensive and exqui site taste. Before you lies the Thames. On its opposite side, above, rise the time-honored spires of Lambeth, and, in the greater dis tance, the swell of the Surrey hills. The trees and walks and cloistered gardens of the Temple impress you by their venerable beauty and the air of repose which they in
spire. The "Temple Garden" makes a scene in Henry VI. (Part I. Act II. Scene 4), and the student of Shakspeare will re member it as the spot in which the distinc tive badges (the white rose and red rose) of the houses of York and Lancaster were first assumed. Here is the Temple church, a marvel of beauty, the services in which are confined to the members of the Inn, and, being thus sustained by male voices only, have a mo nastic and peculiar air. As the church comes down from the religious order of Templars, it is said to be the only one in London in which no child was ever baptized. In its aisles still lie, under their effigies of stone — mailed, sworded, and helmeted — the Knights Templars, whose crossed legs show that they were slain in the Crusades, and who, buried here eight hundred years ago, now give the Inn its name. Here, too, in later times, have been buried many members of the bar — Plowden and Selden, Sir John Vaughan, Chief-Justice Treby, John William Smith, and others — for whose memory the mem bers of the Inn have recorded their affection by enduring monuments. From the pulpit of this venerable church Hooker and Sher lock proclaimed to the assembled profession of England morality yet higher than its own; and since the days of Blow and Purcell, who were both its organists, the choral services have been better performed than in any other church in London. In another building is the Inner Temple Library. The structure is not so costly as that of Lincoln's Inn; but the collection is rich not only in books of law but in classics, history, and every kind of literature that can entertain the genius and tastes of an educated and intellectual profession. In the Great Hall of the Middle Temple, a venerable struc ture with massive tables and benches that look as if they had defied the wear of cen turies, the members and students of the Inn dine. The room is about sixty feet high. On its richly stained windows you see the armorial displays of nearly two hundred of
