relsome folk enough, God knows; and the new tenants of their abode keep themselves respectable out of the proceeds of quarrels, fatten upon quarrels, and buy themselves wigs and gowns out of them. Woe betide the wight whom they entangle in their meshes! They will put the vulture of litigation in him to gnaw out his entrails, and will tie a millstone round his neck, which they call "costs," to drag him down to ruin. In those gloomy chambers, so pleasantly situated, sits LAW, as upon a throne. Sweet are all the purlieus of the spot:-flowers blossom, trees cast a refreshing shade, and a fountain maketh a pleasant murmur all the year; but each room in that precinct is a den inhabited by a black spider, who sucks the blood of foolish flies who, by quarrelling and fighting, struggle themselves into the toils. It is fair outside, to make the world believe that it is the abode of justice and equity; but its beauty is but a cheat and a lure, to hide from too common observers the revenge, rapacity, and roguery that lie beneath the surface. Hoity toity!-quoth we to ourselves-what a fuss about nothing! What a gross injustice we have given utterance to! What a foul libel we have penned upon that learned and eminent body!—and all for the sake of-what? For the mere sake of saying something pungent or illnatured, which with many people is all the same. Forgive us, O shades of learned Sir Thomas More, of upright Sir Matthew Hale, of philosophic Lord Bacon !-forgive us, spirits of Clarendon, Camden, and Mansfield!-forgive us, living Denman, Tindal, Brougham, that we should have so slandered the profession of which ye have been or are the ornaments! Wit, worth, and wisdom are associated with your names, and with hundreds of others, both alive and dead, whom we could specify, if there were any need for it. "We never were known for a railer, In fun all this slander we spoke ; For a lawyer, as well as a sailor, Is not above taking a joke." It is in these gardens that Shakspeare, in the First Part of his Henry the Sixth, has laid the scene of the first quarrel of the rival houses of York and Lancaster, and where the red and the white roses, the badges afterwards of bloody wars, were first plucked, and where Warwick is made to prophesy, "The brawl to day Grown to this faction in the Temple garden, Whether the immortal bard had the authority of any tradition current in his day, or whether the scene was thus laid with the licence usually claimed by, and allowed to, poets, is not known with certainty. Sailing onwards from the Temple we arrive opposite Arundel Street, leading down from the Strand. Here formerly stood Hampton Place, the Episcopal residence of the Bishops of Bath and Wells. It was granted by King Edward the Sixth to his uncle, Lord Seymour of Sudely, who changed its name to Seymour Place. Upon his attainder and execution it "a was purchased by the Earl of Arundel, who once more changed its name. It then came by marriage into the possession of the family of the Duke of Norfolk. It was in his time " large and old-built house, with a spacious yard for stabling towards the Strand, and with a gate to enclose it, where there was a porter's lodge, and a large fair garden towards the Thames." When the great Duke de Sully, then Marquis de Rosny, was ambassador in England, this house was set apart for his accommodation, and he mentions it as one of the finest and most commodious in London. The house was pulled down about the middle of the seventeenth century. The family name and titles are still retained for the streets which arose upon its site; Norfolk Street, Surrey Street, and others. A short distance beyond is Somerset House, a large pile of building, chiefly used now as government offices, except one wing, recently added, which is occupied by the officers and scholars of King's College, London. Somerset House took its name from the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector during the reign of Edward the Sixth; it is not, however, the building erected by that princely nobleman, mere modern edifice erected in the but a VOL. I. D reign of George the Third, under the superintendence of Sir William Chambers. The architect of the original fabric was John of Padua. After the attainder of Somerset it devolved to the crown, and Queen Elizabeth frequently inhabited it. Anne of Denmark, Queen of James the First, held her court here, and so did Catharine, Queen of Charles the Second. It at last became appropriated of right to the Queens Dowager, and was frequently appointed for the reception of ambassadors, whom the monarchs delighted especially to honour. The Venetian ambassador made a grand public entry into old Somerset House in 1763, a short time before it was pulled down. In the quadrangle opposite the Strand entrance, stands the gigantic piece of bronze executed by Bacon, the principal figure of which is an allegorical representation of the Thames. Immediately adjoining is Waterloo Bridge, the finest of the many fine structures that span the bosom of the Thames within metropolitan limits. Around its arches clings half the romance of modern London. It is the English Bridge of Sighs," the "Pons Asinorum," the "Lover's Leap," the "Arch of Suicide," and well deserves all these appellations. Many a sad and too true tale might be told, the be 66 |