which was thus cleverly parodied by Colley Cibber:
"Persuasion tips his tongue whene"er he talks, And he has chambers in the King"s Bench Walks."
One of Mansfield"s biographers tells us that "once he was surprised by a gentleman of Lincoln"s Inn (who took the liberty of entering his room in the Temple without the ceremonious introduction of a servant), in the act of practising the graces of a speaker at a gla.s.s, while Pope sat by in the character of a friendly preceptor." Of the friendship of Pope and Murray, Warburton has said: "Mr. Pope had all the warmth of affection for this great lawyer; and, indeed, no man ever more deserved to have a poet for his friend, in the obtaining of which, as neither vanity, party, nor fear had a share, so he supported his t.i.tle to it by all the offices of a generous and true friendship."
"A good story," says Mr. Jeaffreson, "is told of certain visits paid to William Murray"s chambers at No. 5, King"s Bench Walk, Temple, in the year 1738. Born in 1705, Murray was still a young man when, in 1738, he made his brilliant speech on behalf of Colonel Sloper, against whom Colley Cibber"s rascally son had brought an action for immorality with his wife, the lovely actress, who on the stage was the rival of Mrs.
Clive, and in private life was remarkable for immorality and fascinating manners. Amongst the many clients who were drawn to Murray by that speech, Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, was neither the least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand guineas, of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part, explaining to the astonished d.u.c.h.ess that "the professional fee, with a general retainer, could not be less nor more than five guineas." If Murray had accepted the whole sum he would not have been overpaid for his trouble, for her grace persecuted him with calls at most unseasonable hours. On one occasion, returning to his chambers after "drinking champagne with the wits," he found the d.u.c.h.ess"s carriage and attendants on King"s Bench Walk. A numerous crowd of footmen and link-bearers surrounded the coach, and when the barrister entered his chambers he encountered the mistress of that army of lackeys. "Young man," exclaimed the grand lady, eyeing the future Lord Mansfield with a look of displeasure, "if you mean to rise in the world, you must not sup out." On a subsequent night Sarah of Marlborough called without appointment at the chambers, and waited till past midnight in the hope that she would see the lawyer ere she went to bed. But Murray, being at an unusually late supper-party, did not return till her grace had departed in an overpowering rage. "I could not make out, sir, who she was," said Murray"s clerk, describing her grace"s appearance and manner, "for she would not tell me her name; _but she swore so dreadfully that I am sure she must be a lady of quality_.""
Charles Lamb, who was born in Crown Office Row, in his exquisite way has sketched the benchers of the Temple whom he had seen pacing the terrace in his youth. Jekyll, with the roguish eye, and Thomas Coventry, of the elephantine step, the scarecrow of inferiors, the browbeater of equals, who made a solitude of children wherever he came, who took snuff by palmfuls, diving for it under the mighty flap of his old-fashioned red waistcoat. In the gentle Samuel Salt we discover a portrait of the employer of Lamb"s father. Salt was a shy indolent, absent man, who never dressed for a dinner party but he forgot his sword. The day of Miss Blandy"s execution he went to dine with a relative of the murderess, first carefully schooled by his clerk to avoid the disagreeable subject. However, during the pause for dinner, Salt went to the window, looked out, pulled down his ruffles, and observed, "It"s a gloomy day; Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I suppose." Salt never laughed. He was a well-known toast with the ladies, having a fine figure and person. Coventry, on the other hand, was a man worth four or five hundred thousand, and lived in a gloomy house, like a strong box, opposite the pump in Serjeants" Inn, Fleet Street. Fond of money as he was, he gave away 30,000 at once to a charity for the blind, and kept a hospitable house. Salt was indolent and careless of money, and but for Lovel, his clerk, would have been universally robbed. This Lovel was a clever little fellow, with a face like Garrick, who could mould heads in clay, turn cribbage-boards, take a hand at a quadrille or bowls, and brew punch with any man of his degree in Europe. With Coventry and Salt, Peter Pierson often perambulated the terrace, with hands folded behind him. Contemporary with these was Daines Barrington, a burly, square man.
Lamb also mentions Burton, "a jolly negation," who drew up the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, where the benchers dined; thin, fragile Wharry, who used to spitefully pinch his cat"s ears when anything offended him; and Jackson, the musician, to whom the cook once applied for instructions how to write down "edge-bone of beef" in a bill of commons. Then there was Bl.u.s.tering Mingay, who had a grappling-hook in subst.i.tute for a hand he had lost, which Lamb, when a child, used to take for an emblem of power; and Baron Mascres, who retained the costume of the reign of George II.
In his "Essays," Lamb says:--"I was born and pa.s.sed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river I had almost said--for in those young years what was the king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are of my oldest recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more frequently or with kindlier emotion than those of Spenser where he speaks of this spot. Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time--the pa.s.sing from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent, ample squares, its cla.s.sic green recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden, that goodly pile
"Of buildings strong, albeit of paper hight,"
confronting with ma.s.sy contrast, the lighter, older, more fantastically shrouded one named of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown Office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right opposite the stately stream, which washes the garden foot with her yet scarcely trade--polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from Twickenham Naades! A man would give something to have been born in such places. What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many times! to the astonishment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic...."
"So may the winged horse, your ancient badge and cognisance, still flourish! So may future Hookers and Seldens ill.u.s.trate your church and chambers! So may the sparrows, in default of more melodious quiristers, imprisoned hop about your walks! So may the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery-maid, who by leave airs her playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing curtsey as ye pa.s.s, reductive of juvenescent emotion! So may the younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with the same superst.i.tious veneration with which the child Elia gazed on the old worthies that solemnised the parade before ye!"
Charles Lamb, in his "Essay" on the old benchers, speaks of many changes he had witnessed in the Temple--_i.e._, the Gothicising the entrance to the Inner Temple Hall and the Library front, to a.s.similate them to the hall, which they did not resemble; to the removal of the winged horse over the Temple Hall, and the frescoes of the Virtues which once Italianised it. He praises, too, the antique air of the "now almost effaced sun-dials," with their moral inscriptions, seeming almost coeval with the time which they measured, and taking their revelations immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light. Of these dials there still remain--one in Temple Lane, with the motto, "Pereunt et imputantur;" one in Ess.e.x Court, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum;" and one in Brick Court on which Goldsmith must often have gazed--the motto, "Time and tide tarry for no man." In Pump Court and Garden Court are two dials without mottoes; and in each Temple garden is a pillar dial--"the natural garden G.o.d of Christian gardens." On an old brick house at the east end of Inner Temple Terrace, removed in 1828, was a dial with the odd inscription, "Begone about your business," words with which an old bencher is said to have once dismissed a troublesome lad who had come from the dial-maker"s for a motto, and who mistook his meaning. The one we have engraved at page 180 is in Pump Court. The date and the initials are renewed every time it is fresh painted.
There are many old Temple anecdotes relating to that learned disciple of Bacchus, Porson. Many a time (says Mr. Timbs), at early morn, did Porson stagger from his old haunt, the "Cider Cellars" in Maiden Lane, where he scarcely ever failed to pa.s.s some hours, after spending the evening elsewhere. It is related of him, upon better authority than most of the stories told to his discredit, that one night, or rather morning, Gurney (the Baron), who had chambers in Ess.e.x Court under Porson"s, was awakened by a tremendous thump in the chamber above. Porson had just come home dead drunk, and had fallen on the floor. Having extinguished the candle in the fall, he presently staggered downstairs to re-light it, and Gurney heard him dodging and poking with the candle at the staircase lamp for about five minutes, and all the time very l.u.s.tily cursing the nature of things.
We read also of Porson"s shutting himself up in these chambers for three or four days together, admitting no visitor. One morning his friend Rogers went to call, having ascertained from the barber"s hard by that Porson was at home, but had not been seen by any one for two days.
Rogers proceeded to his chambers, and knocked at the door more than once; he would not open it, and Rogers came downstairs, but as he was crossing the court Porson opened the window and stopped him. He was then busy about the Grenville "Homer," for which he collated the Harleian MS.
of the "Odyssey," and received for his labour but 50 and a large-paper copy. His chambers must have presented a strange scene, for he used books most cruelly, whether they were his own or belonged to others. He said that he possessed more _bad_ copies of _good_ books than any private gentleman in England.
Rogers, when a Templar, occasionally had some visitors who absorbed more of his time than was always agreeable; an instance of which he thus relates: "When I lived in the Temple, Mackintosh and Richard Sharp used to come to my chambers and stay there for hours, talking metaphysics.
One day they were so intent on their "first cause," "spirit," and "matter," that they were unconscious of my having left them, paid a visit, and returned. I was a little angry at this; and to show my indifference about them, I sat down and wrote letters, without taking any notice of them. I never met a man with a fuller mind than Mackintosh--such readiness on all subjects, such a talker."
Before any person can be admitted a member of the Temple, he must furnish a statement in writing, describing his age, residence, and condition in life, and adding a certificate of his respectability and fitness, signed by himself and a bencher of the society, or two barristers. The _Middle_ Temple requires the signatures of two barristers of that Inn and of a bencher, but in each of the three other Inns the signatures of barristers of any of the four Inns will suffice.
No person is admitted without the approbation of a bencher, or of the benchers in council a.s.sembled.
The _Middle Temple_ includes the universities of Durham and London. At the _Inner Temple_ the candidate for admission who has taken the degree of B.A., or pa.s.sed an examination at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, or London, is required to pa.s.s an examination by a barrister, appointed by the Bench for that purpose, in the Greek and Latin languages, and history or literature in general. No person in priest"s or deacon"s orders can be called to the bar. In the _Inner Temple_, an attorney must have ceased to be on the rolls, and an articled clerk to be in articles for _three years_, before he can be called to the bar.
Legal students worked hard in the old times; c.o.ke"s career is an example. In 1572 he rose every morning at five o"clock, lighting his own fire; and then read Bracton, Littleton, and the ponderous folio abridgments of the law till the court met, at eight o"clock. He then took boat for Westminster, and heard cases argued till twelve o"clock, when the pleas ceased for dinner. After a meal in the Inner Temple Hall, he attended "readings" or lectures in the afternoon, and then resumed his private studies till supper-time at five. Next came the moots, after which he slammed his chamber-door, and set to work with his commonplace book to index all the law he had ama.s.sed during the day. At nine, the steady student went to bed, securing three good hours of sleep before midnight. It is said c.o.ke never saw a play or read a play in his life--and that was Shakespeare"s time! In the reign of James I. the Temple was often called "my Lord c.o.ke"s shop." He had become a great lawyer then, and lived to become Lord Chief Justice. Pity "tis that we have to remember that he reviled Ess.e.x and insulted Raleigh. King James once said of c.o.ke in misfortune that he was like a cat, he always fell on his feet.
History does not record many riots in the Temple, full of wild life as that quiet precinct has been. In different reigns, however, two outbreaks occurred. In both cases the Templars, though rather hot and prompt, seem to have been right. At the dinner of John Prideaux, reader of the Inner Temple, in 1553, the students took offence at Sir John Lyon, the Lord Mayor, coming in state, with his sword up, and the sword was dragged down as he pa.s.sed through the cloisters. The same sort of affray took place again in 1669, when Lord Mayor Peake came to Sir Christopher Goodfellow"s feast, and the Lord Mayor had to be hidden in a bencher"s chambers till, as Pepys relates, the fiery young sparks were decoyed away to dinner. The case was tried before Charles II., and Heneage Finch pleaded for the Temple, claiming immemorial exemption from City jurisdiction. The case was never decided. From that day to this (says Mr. n.o.ble) a settlement appears never to have been made; hence it is that the Temples claim to be "extra parochial," closing nightly all their gates as the clock strikes ten, and keeping extra watch and ward when the parochial authorities "beat the bounds" upon Ascension Day.
Many struggles have taken place to make the property rateable, and even of late the question has once more arisen; and it is hardly to be wondered at, for it would be a nice bit of business to a.s.sess the Templars upon the 32,866 which they have returned as the annual rental of their estates.
A third riot was with those ceaseless enemies of the Templars, the Alsatians, or lawless inhabitants of disreputable Whitefriars. In July, 1691, weary of their riotous and thievish neighbours, the benchers of the Inner Temple bricked up the gate (still existing in King"s Bench Walk) leading into the high street of Whitefriars; but the Alsatians, swarming out, pulled down as fast as the bricklayers built up. The Templars hurried together, swords flew out, the Alsatians plied pokers and shovels, and many heads were broken. Ultimately, two men were killed, several wounded, and many hurried off to prison. Eventually, the ringleader of the Alsatians, Captain Francis White--a "copper captain,"
no doubt--was convicted of murder, in April, 1693. This riot eventually did good, for it led to the abolition of London sanctuaries, those dens of bullies, low gamblers, thieves, and courtesans.
As the Middle Temple has grown gradually poorer and more neglected, many curious customs of the old banquets have died out. The loving cup, once fragrant with sweetened sack, is now used to hold the almost superfluous toothpicks. Oysters are no longer brought in, in term, every Friday before dinner; nor when one bencher dines does he, on leaving the hall, invite the senior bar man to come and take wine with him in the parliament chamber (the accommodation-room of Oxford colleges). Yet the rich and epicurean Inner Temple still cherishes many worthy customs, affects _recherche_ French dishes, and is curious in _entremets_; while the Middle Temple growls over its geological salad, that some hungry wit has compared to "eating a gravel walk, and meeting an occasional weed."
A writer in _Blackwood_, quoting the old proverb, "The Inner Temple for the rich, the Middle for the poor," says few great men have come from the Middle Temple. How can ac.u.men be derived from the scrag-end of a neck of mutton, or inspiration from griskins? At a late dinner, says Mr.
Timbs (1865), there were present only three benchers, seven barristers, and six students.
An Inner Temple banquet is a very grand thing. At five, or half-past five, the barristers and students in their gowns follow the benchers in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table solemnly a mystic three times, grace is said by the treasurer, or senior bencher present, and the men of law fall to. In former times it was the custom to blow a horn in every court to announce the meal, but how long this ancient Templar practice has been discontinued we do not know. The benchers observe somewhat more style at their table than the other members do at theirs. The general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each mess, consisting of four persons, and each mess is allowed a bottle of port wine. Dinner is served daily to the members of the Inn during term time; the masters of the Bench dining on the state, or dais, and the barristers and students at long tables extending down the hall. On grand days the judges are present, who dine in succession with each of the four Inns of Court. To the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers repair after dinner. The loving cups used on certain grand occasions are huge silver goblets, which are pa.s.sed down the table, filled with a delicious composition, immemorially termed "sack," consisting of sweetened and exquisitely-flavoured white wine. The butler attends the progress of the cup, to replenish it; and each student is by rule restricted to a _sip_; yet it is recorded that once, though the number present fell short of seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquid were sipped away. At the Inner Temple, on May 29th, a gold cup of sack is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of Charles II.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SUN-DIAL IN THE TEMPLE (_see page 177_).]
The writer in _Blackwood_ before referred to alludes to the strict silence enjoined at the Inner Temple dinners, the only intercourse between the several members of the mess being the usual social scowl vouchsafed by your true-born Englishman to persons who have not the honour of his acquaintance. You may, indeed, on an emergency, ask your neighbour for the salt; but then it is also perfectly understood that he is not obliged to notice your request.
The old term of "calling to the bar" seems to have originated in the custom of summoning students, that had attained a certain standing, to the bar that separated the benchers" dais from the hall, to take part in certain probationary mootings or discussions on points of law. The mere student sat farthest from the bar.
When these mootings were discontinued deponent sayeth not. In c.o.ke"s time (1543), that great lawyer, after supper at five o"clock, used to join the moots, when questions of law were proposed and discussed, when fine on the garden terrace, in rainy weather in the Temple cloisters.
The dinner alone now remains; dining is now the only legal study of Temple students.
In the _Middle Temple_ a three years" standing and twelve commons kept suffices to ent.i.tle a gentleman to be called to the bar, provided he is above twenty-three years of age. No person can be called to the bar at any of the Inns of Court before he is twenty-one years of age; and a standing of five years is understood to be required of every member before being called. The members of the several universities, &c., may, however, be called after three years" standing.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TEMPLE STAIRS.]
The Inner Temple Garden (three acres in extent) has probably been a garden from the time the white-mantled Templars first came from Holborn and settled by the river-side. This little paradise of nurserymaids and London children is entered from the terrace by an iron gate (date, 1730); and the winged horse that surmounts the portal has looked down on many a distinguished visitor. In the centre of the gra.s.s is such a sun-dial as Charles Lamb loved, with the date, 1770. A little to the east of this stands an old sycamore, which, fifteen years since, was railed in as the august mummy of that umbrageous tree under whose shade, as tradition says, Johnson and Goldsmith used to sit and converse.
According to an engraving of 1671 there were formerly three trees; so that Shakespeare himself may have sat under them and meditated on the Wars of the Roses. The print shows a brick terrace faced with stone, with a flight of steps at the north. The old river wall of 1670 stood fifty or sixty yards farther north than the present; and when Paper Buildings were erected, part of this wall was dug up. The view given on this page, and taken from an old view in the Temple, shows a portion of the old wall, with the doorway opening upon the Temple Stairs.
The Temple Garden, half a century since, was famous for its white and red roses (the Old Provence, Cabbage, and the Maiden"s Blush--Timbs); and the lime-trees were delightful in the time of bloom. There were only two steamboats on the river then; but the steamers and factory smoke soon spoiled everything but the hardy chrysanthemums. However, since the Smoke Consuming Act has been enforced, the roses, stocks, and hawthorns have again taken heart, and blossom with grateful luxuriance. In 1864 Mr. Broome, the zealous gardener of the Inner Temple, exhibited at the Central Horticultural Society twenty-four trusses of roses grown under his care. In the flower-beds next the main walk he managed to secure four successive crops of flowers--the pompones were especially gaudy and beautiful; but his chief triumph were the chrysanthemums of the northern border. The trees, however, seem delicate, and suffering from the cold winds, dwindle as they approach the river. The planes, limes, and wych elms stand best. The Temple rooks--the wise birds Goldsmith delighted to watch--were originally brought by Sir William Northcote from Woodcote Green, Epsom, but they left in disgust, many years since. Mr. Timbs says that 200 families enjoy these gardens throughout the year, and about 10,000 of the outer world, chiefly children, who are always in search of the lost Eden, come hers annually. The flowers and trees are rarely injured, thanks to the much-abused London public.
In the secluded Middle Temple Garden is an old catalpa tree, supposed to have been planted by that grave and just judge, Sir Matthew Hale. On the lawn is a large table sun-dial, elaborately gilt and embellished. From the library oriel the Thames and its bridges, Somerset House and the Houses of Parliament, form a grand _coup d"oeil_.
The revenue of the Middle Temple alone is said to be 13,000 a year.
With the savings we are, of course, entirely ignorant. The students"
dinners are half paid for by themselves, the library is kept up on very little fodder, and altogether the system of auditing the Inns of Court accounts is as incomprehensible as the Sybilline oracles; but there can be no doubt it is all right, and very well managed.
In the seventeenth century (says Mr. n.o.ble) a benevolent member of the Middle Temple conveyed to the benchers in fee several houses in the City, out of the rents of which to pay a stated salary to each of two referees, who were to meet on two days weekly, in term, from two to five, in the hall or other convenient place, and without fee on either side, to settle as best they could all disputes submitted to them. From that time the referees have been appointed, but there is no record of a single case being tried by them. The two gentlemen, finding their office a sinecure, have devoted their salaries to making periodical additions to the library. May we be allowed to ask, was this benevolent object ever made known to the public generally? We cannot but think, if it had been, that the two respected arbitrators would not have had to complain of the office as a sinecure.
He who can enumerate the wise and great men who have been educated in the Temple can count off the stars on his finger and measure the sands of the sea-sh.o.r.e by teacupsful. To cull a few, we may mention that the Inner Temple boasts among its eminent members--Audley, Chancellor to Henry VIII.; Nicholas Hare, of Hare Court celebrity; the great lawyer, Littleton (1481), and c.o.ke, his commentator; Sir Christopher Hatton, the dancing Chancellor; Lord Buckhurst; Selden; Judge Jeffries; Beaumont, the poet; William Browne, the author of "Britannia"s Pastorals" (so much praised by the Lamb and Hazlitt school); Cowper, the poet; and Sir William Follett.
From the Middle Temple have also sprung swarms of great lawyers. We may mention specially Plowden, the jurist, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Overbury (who was poisoned in the Tower), John Ford (one of the latest of the great dramatists), Sir Edward Bramston (chamber-fellow to Mr.
Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon), Bulstrode Whitelocke (one of Cromwell"s Ministers), Lord-Keeper Guildford (Charles II.), Lord Chancellor Somers, Wycherley and Congreve (the dramatists), Shadwell and Southern (comedy writers), Sir William Blackstone, Edmund Burke, Sheridan, Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Lord Chancellor Eldon, Lord Stowell, as a few among a mult.i.tude.
CHAPTER XVII.
WHITEFRIARS.
The Present Whitefriars--The Carmelite Convent--Dr. b.u.t.ts--The Sanctuary--Lord Sanquhar Murders the Fencing-Master--His Trial--Bacon and Yelverton--His Execution--Sir Walter Scott"s "Fortunes of Nigel"--Shadwell"s _Squire of Alsatia_--A Riot in Whitefriars--Elizabethan Edicts against two Ruffians of Alsatia--Bridewell--A Roman Fortification--A Saxon Palace--Wolsey"s Residence--Queen Catherine"s Trial--Her Behaviour in Court--Persecution of the First Congregationalists--Granaries and Coal Stores destroyed by the Great Fire--The Flogging in Bridewell--Sermon on Madame Creswell--Hogarth and the "Harlot"s Progress"--Pennant"s Account of Bridewell--Bridewell in 1843--Its Latter Days--Pictures in the Court Room--Bridewell Dock--The Gas Works--Theatres in Whitefriars--Pepys" Visits to the Theatre--Dryden and the Dorset Gardens Theatre--Davenant--Kynaston--Dorset House--The Poet-Earl.
So rich is London in legend and tradition, that even some of the spots that now appear the blankest, baldest, and most uninteresting, are really vaults of entombed anecdote and treasure-houses of old story.
Whitefriars--that dull, narrow, uninviting lane sloping from Fleet Street to the river, with gas works at its foot and mean shops on either side--was once the centre of a district full of n.o.blemen"s mansions; but Time"s harlequin wand by-and-by turned it into a debtors" sanctuary and thieves" paradise, and for half a century its bullies and swindlers waged a ceaseless war with their proud and rackety neighbours of the Temple. The dingy lane, now only awakened by the quick wheel of the swift newspaper cart or the ponderous tires of the sullen coal-wagon, was in olden times for ever ringing with clash of swords, the cries of quarrelsome gamblers, and the drunken songs of noisy Bobadils.
In the reign of Edward I., a certain Sir Robert Gray, moved by qualms of conscience or honest impulse, founded on the bank of the Thames, east of the well-guarded Temple, a Carmelite convent, with broad gardens, where the white friars might stroll, and with shady nooks where they might con their missals. Bouverie Street and Ram Alley were then part of their domain, and there they watched the river and prayed for their patrons"
souls. In 1350 Courtenay, Earl of Devon, rebuilt the Whitefriars Church, and in 1420 a Bishop of Hereford added a steeple. In time, greedy hands were laid roughly on cope and chalice, and Henry VIII., seizing on the friars" domains, gave his physician--that Doctor b.u.t.ts mentioned by Shakespeare--the chapter-house for a residence. Edward VI.--who, with all his promise, was as ready for such pillage as his tyrannical father--pulled down the church, and built n.o.blemen"s houses in its stead. The refectory of the convent, being preserved, afterwards became the Whitefriars Theatre. The mischievous right of sanctuary was preserved to the district, and confirmed by James I., in whose reign the slum became jocosely known as Alsatia--from Alsace, that unhappy frontier then, and later, contended for by French and Germans--just as Chandos Street and that shy neighbourhood at the north-west side of the Strand used to be called the Caribbee Islands, from its countless straits and intricate thieves" pa.s.sages. The outskirts of the Carmelite monastery had no doubt become disreputable at an early time, for even in Edward III."s reign the holy friars had complained of the gross temptations of Lombard Street (an alley near Bouverie Street). Sirens and Dulcineas of all descriptions were ever apt to gather round monasteries. Whitefriars, however, even as late as Cromwell"s reign, preserved a certain respectability; for here, with his supposed wife, the Dowager Countess of Kent, Selden lived and studied.
In the reign of James I. a strange murder was committed in Whitefriars.
The cause of the crime was highly singular. In 1607 young Lord Sanquhar, a Scotch n.o.bleman, who with others of his countrymen had followed his king to England, had an eye put out by a fencing-master of Whitefriars.