CHARLES LAMB'S LODGING 169 to meet him, then he would see her . . . . ... coming briskly up with the best little laugh upon her face that ever played in opposition to the fountain, and beat it all to nothing. . . . . The Temple fountain might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful maidenhood, that in her person stole on, sparkling, through the dry and dusty channels of the Law; the chirping sparrows, bred in Temple chinks and crannies, might have held their peace to listen to imaginary skylarks, as so fresh a little creature passed. Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the fountain's rim and vanished." Poor Charles Lamb lived for some time in Inner Temple Lane, near Hare Court, whence he moved to King's Bench Walk, as he tells us :— "I am going to change my lodgings. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tip-toe) over the Thames, and Surrey hills: at the upper end of King's Bench Walk, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with any 170 FAMILIAR LONDON immortal mind. I shall be airy, up four pair of steps, as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more than Mahometan, paradise, London, whose dirtiest, drab-frequented alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain." Many other very distinguished men were residents in the Temple; but I must not omit the names of Chaucer (as a student) and the great lawyer, Blackstone. Oliver Goldsmith lived in Brick Court, and the comic songs in which he delighted at his supper-parties were, no doubt, not . conducive to the undisturbed hours that Blackstone desired for the compilation of his Commentaries. It is related of Sir Joshua Reynolds that, coming into Goldsmith's room once unexpectedly, he found him savagely kicking round the room a masquerade dress he had ordered but could not pay for. Here poor Goldsmith died, in debt no doubt, but leaving behind him numberless debtors among the poor in the locality, to whom his charity and kindness had been unfailing. These poor outcasts flocked to his grave-side, to weep for their lost friend. The fine old gateway to Lincoln's Inn is well worth inspection. It was built in the time of |