From a passage in "Hudibras" (as well as from other poems of the 17th century) it appears that the Temple was formerly as notorious for its marts of common-bail and affidavit-men, as the purlieus of Serjeant's Inn are at the present day; and even that the Church itself was not free from this species of profanation. When Hudibras consults the lawyer upon the means of obtaining the widow, he is advised, among other modes of entrapping her, to "Retain all sorts of witnesses That ply i' th' Temples, under trees ; The pillar-rows in Lincoln's Inn :- Texpose to sale all sorts of oaths, According to their ears and cloaths. Their only necessary tools Besides the Gospel, and their Souls." Dugdale says, " Item, they (the lawyers) have no place to walk in, and talk and confer their learnings, but the Church; which place all the term-times hath in it no more quietness than the Pervise of Paules, play, and following scene, the first keeper, in reply to the dying Mortimer, says "Richard Plantagenet, my Lord, will come : by occasion of the confluence* and concourse of such as are suitors in the law." The entrance from Fleet-street to the Inner Temple, is by a heavy sculptured archway, erected in 1611, at the expense of John Benet, Esq. the King's Serjeant. Above it and adjoining, is a large house of the same period, as appears by its façade, which is ornamented with pilasters, scroll-work, &c.† among which is a plume of feathers in compliment to Henry, Prince of Wales, who was then held in high favour by the nation. The Middle Temple Gate was constructed by Sir Christopher Wren, at the expense of the Society, between the years 1684 and 1688. It has a handsome frontispiece of brick-work, enriched with stone pilasters of the Ionic Order, supporting an entablature and pediment, within which, in a round, are the words, Surrexit impens, Soc. M. Templi, MDCLXXXIV. RIVER THAMES.-THE FOLLY. In the reign of Charles II. there was a floating House of Entertainment on the River Thames, between London and Westminster, called the Folly ; which was interiorly divided into sundry apartments, and had chimney turrets and a balustraded platform at the top. This had originally been devised as a Musical Summer-House, and it was resorted to by persons of quality both for refreshment and pleasure. Queen Mary, with some of her courtiers, had once 66 *"Origines Juridiciales," p. 195. + Mrs. Salmon's Wax-work was formerly exhibited in this house. the curiosity to visit it; but it sunk into a receptacle for companies of loose and disorderly people, for the purposes of drinking and promiscuous dancing; till, at length, becoming scandalous, the building was. suffered to decay, and the materials became firewood.". According to the facetious Tom Brown, who notices it as a whimsical piece of architecture, its character was at all times equivocal; and in the end degenerated into "a confused scene of folly, madness, and debauchery."- "The Ladies of the town," he says, 'overstocked the place with such an inundation of harlotry, that dash'd the female Quality out of countenance, and made them seek more retir'd Conveniency," by which means, "the Mercenaries entirely possessed themselves of this moveable mansion."* In the view of Somerset House, from the river, given in the present volume, the Folly is represented as at anchor opposite to the gardens of that building. LAMBETH PALACE. The manor of North Lambeth, which, in the Saxon times, was an ancient demesne of the crown, was granted to the See of Rochester by the Countess Godat (sister of King Edward the Confessor) and * Vide Brown's "Works, Serious and Comical," vol. iii. p. 327. We dare not follow him in his visit to the interior. From a list of benefactions to the Cathedral of Rochester, printed in Thorpe's" Registrum Roffense," p. 119; we cannot doubt but that the above Lady had a mansion here, as the record particularizes some ornaments belonging to the Countess which had been found at Lambeth by Ralph, the first keeper (custos) of the manor there, and by him conveyed to Rochester. |