THE TEMPLE 173 admonishes the lawyers with the words, "Discite justiciam moniti.” It seems a pity that Virgil's excellent ending to the line, "et non temnere divos," should have been omitted; or did our forefathers imagine that the respect due to Heaven would not be appreciated by the inhabitants of the Temple? Another warning is conveyed to us by the sun-dial in Essex Court in the words, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum." In Mrs Cook's Highways and Byways of London reference is made to the old arms of the Knights Templars. Alluding to one example, she says, "In the Middle Temple it is the Lamb bearing the banner of Innocence and the red cross, the original badge of the Order." Again: "In the Middle Temple-the winged Pegasus, with the motto, 'Volat ad astra virtus.' This winged horse has a curious history; for when the horse was originally chosen as an emblem he had no wings, but was ridden by two men at once, to indicate the self-chosen poverty of the brotherhood; in lapse of years the figures of the two men became worn and abraded, and when restored were mistaken for wings!" The entrance gate to the Temple from Fleet Street was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1684. In the round church 174 FAMILIAR LONDON there is evidence that in the rules of the Order mercy was not over-conspicuous, for we find, near the stairs, "the penitential cell," so small that the penitent could neither stand up nor lie down in it. Walter le Bachelar, the Grand Preceptor of Ireland, was here confined and starved to death. In the recent demolition of streets and courts at the east end of the Strand many of the old decaying nests of the Chancery lawyers have been swept away—perhaps not too soon, for, in spite of the interest that one cannot fail to have in anything that recalls the past, they had in some instances become not only very insanitary but also very disreputable. vivid In Bleak House Dickens gives us a very description of one of the old legal dens in Symond's Inn, now demolished : 66 "The name of Mr Vholes, preceded by the legend GROUND FLOOR, is inscribed upon a doorpost in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane: a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn, like a large dustbin of two compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man in his day, and constructed his inn of old building materials, which took kindly to the dry rot, and to dirt and all things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated AN OLD LEGAL DEN 175 Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. Quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond, are the legal bearings of Mr Vhole. Mr Vhole's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner, and blinks at a dead wall. Three feet of knottyfloored dark passage bring the client to Mr Vhole's jet black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest midsummer's morning, and encumbered by a black bulkhead of cellarage staircase, against which belated civilians generally strike their brows. Mr Vhole's chambers are on so small a scale, that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool; while the other, who elbows him at the same desk, has equal facilities for poking the fire. A smell as of unwholesome sheep, blending with the smell of must and dust, is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles, and to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows, in their heavy frames, have but one piece of character in them, which is a 176 FAMILIAR LONDON determination to be always dirty, and always shut, unless coerced." Ah! these little scraps of vanishing London have been, and are, very dismal to look upon; but one cannot help regretting their removal, necessary though it may be. In Clifford's Inn used to live the attorneys of the Marshalsea Court, "which rendered this little spot the fountain-head of more misery than any whole county of England." The prison of the Marshalsea was used in connection with this court, which had to decide differences and to punish criminals within the Royal Palace or on the verge thereof, which extended to twelve miles round. Hare tells us that Bishop Bonner was imprisoned for ten years here for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. As he was being led to prison a wag said to him, "Good morning, Bishop quondam"; to which he answered readily, "Farewell, knave semper." The Bishop died in the prison on September 5, 1569. In Little Dorrit "Whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little Dickens says, |