THE LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF THE TEMPLE. FEW things can lend a charm like that of association with great men and great events; and no associations appeal more strongly than those with the great names in our literature — the names of those who have charmed us in our hours of ease, or cast a cloak of comfort round us in our troublous times of unrest. They surround us with a fascination that cannot be ana lyzed, and with simple reverence we stand uncovered in the presence of aught that suggests the great man's name. Though Hampstead Heath is, and always has been, the abode of many distinguished literary men, " The Temple," lying between Fleet Street and the Embankment, is almost as closely associated with literature, teeming as it does with the memories of many great names. Brilliantly they cluster round it, the memory of one coming so fast on the association with another that at length they seem like stars lost in each other's bright ness. It has little magnificence of architec ture, and though most noted for its con nection with the English law, much of its interest and fame is entwined with that of English literature. The buildings, dismal and murky-looking with London fog and smoke, the worn flagstones, the rickety staircases, the sundials, the fountain, and the old-fashioned pumps, have all a share in the glory of our literature. It was about 1327 or 1328 that the Tem ple buildings came into the hands of a body of lawyers from Thavies' Inn, Holborn. They took it on a lease from the Knights Hospitallers of St. John at a rent of £10 a year. That century gave two great names to our literature, Gower and Chaucer, and both of these the Temple claims as mem bers. Had one no other information, one would have concluded from the reading of
Chaucer's description of the " serjeant of law ware and wise," and of the " gentil manciple of the Temple " in the prologue to the " Can terbury Tales," as well as from the knowl edge of law displayed throughout his writ ings, that he must have been intimately con nected with the legal profession. Chaucer, it is inferred (though Chaucer's biographers, alas, do not accept the inference), was a member of the Inner Temple, for Buckley, a writer of the reign of Elizabeth, mentions a record of that society in which " Geffrey Chaucer was fined 2s. for beating a Fran ciscan frier in Fleet Street." Gower, too, was a student of law, and in one place refers to having met Chaucer in the Temple. Thus early commences the connection of the two societies of the Temple with litera ture. From the time of Chaucer till the reign of Elizabeth, English literature can present us with few great names, and the records of the Temple are equally barren. Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, the lofty, melan choly, and moral author of the " Mirrour of Magistrates," became a member about the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. He was the founder of the Dorset family, and as Waipole called him, "the patriarch of a race of genius and wit." He was an intimate friend of Spenser, who has dedicated a sonnet to him, and he is further connected with liter ature by the fact that the " Scholemaster "of Roger Ascham was written for his children. The Temple, too, has its share in the Elizabethan dramatists, as it can number among its members Massinger, Ford, and Beaumont. Of the personal life of Massin ger we know very little; but from old edi tions of his works we learn that some of his plays were composed for the society of the Inner Temple, of which he was a member,
