In his day, Oliver Goldsmith was a most conscientious member of the shilling whist that met at the Devil Tavern. Several practical jokers in the club were quite in sympathy one evening when Goldsmith arrived and explained that he had given the cabman a guinea instead of a shilling. At the next meeting Goldsmith was surprised at being summoned to the door by a cabman who returned the guinea. He was quite overpowered and collected small sums from the other members, contributing heavily himself, and rewarded the cabman. He was still expatiating upon the honesty of the lower classes when one of the guests asked to see the returned guinea. It was counterfeit and in reality so was the cabman. Goldsmith realising that he had been imposed upon by his facetious colleagues retired amid a burst of much laughter.
Two doors to the south of the Devil Tavern towards the east Bernard Lintot had his bookshop. John Gay the poet who wrote "The Beggar's Opera," went himself to impress upon the book man the importance of having his books exposed for sale, and afterwards, in 1711, said in his "Trivia":
Oh, Lintot, let my labours obvious lie
Ranged on thy stall for every envious eye.
[FIVE]
The Spell of the Temple and Inns of Court
The Temple lies between Fleet Street and the river, with Essex Street on the west and Whitefriars on the east. It is a wide area of quaint buildings, strange windings and uncertain by-ways relieved by unexpected open spaces and magnificent gardens—a place to wander in if you are fond of wandering, and to get lost in if you make up your mind to wander and do not mind getting lost. For hundreds of years this has been hallowed ground in sacred history. It was the quarters of the Knights Templars, a religious order founded in the twelfth century to protect the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the recruiting point for Crusaders. When the Order was dissolved in 1313 the Temple became Crown property. In 1346 it was leased to the professors of common law and since then has been a school of law, and a great centre of learning in England.
There are two divisions of the Temple, the eastern or Inner Temple; the western or Middle Temple. The Inner Temple came by its name being nearest the City; the Middle Temple because it was between the Inner and Outer Temples. The Outer Temple vanished long ago. In 1609, James I. conveyed the Temple property by grant to the benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple—two of the Inns of Court.
The Inns of Court are four—the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn. These are societies formed for the study of law and custom has given them the exclusive privilege of deciding who may be called to the bar. Their quarters were called Inns of Court originally because as students of law they belonged to "the King's Court." In the 15th century there were ten other Seminaries called Inns of Chancery offshoots from the four parent societies. In the Inns of Chancery fees were low and suited to the middle classes—the Inns of Court being patronized by the aristocracy.