Across Fleet Street, and between it and the Thames, is the Temple, a lane dividing it into the Inner and the Middle Temple, while obstructing Fleet Street there was the old Temple Bar, one of the ancient city gates, which has recently been removed. The name is derived from the Knights Templar, who existed here seven centuries ago; and they afterwards gave the site to certain law-students who wished to live in the suburbs away from the noise of the city. Here in seclusion, for the gates were locked at night, the gentlemen of these societies in a bygone age were famous for the masques and revels given in their halls. Kings and judges attended them, and many were the plays and songs and dances that then enlivened the dull routine of the law. The Inner Temple has for its device a winged horse, and the Middle Temple a lamb. Some satirist has written of these—
"Their clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession:
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition."
Here is the old Templar Church of St. Mary, built in 1185 and enlarged in 1240. Formerly, the lawyers waited for their clients in this ancient church. During recent years England has erected magnificent buildings for her law courts. The new Palace of Justice fronts about five hundred feet on the Strand, near the site of Temple Bar, which was taken away because it impeded the erection of the new courts, and they cover six acres, with ample gardens back from the street, the wings extending about five hundred feet northward around them. A fine clock-tower surmounts the new courts. In this part of the Strand are many ancient structures, above which the Palace of Justice grandly towers, and some of them have quaint balconies overlooking the street.
SIR PAUL PINDAR'S HOUSE IN BISHOPSGATE STREET.
While in old London the feasting that has had so much to do with the municipal corporation cannot be forgotten, and on Bishopsgate Street we find the scene of many of the famous public dinners, savory with turtle-soup and whitebait—the London Tavern. Not far distant, and on the same street, is Sir Paul Pindar's House, a quaint structure, now falling into decay, that gives an excellent idea of mediæval domestic architecture.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Fronting upon Great Russell Street, to which various smaller streets lead northward from Oxford Street, is that vast treasure-house of knowledge whose renown is world-wide, the British Museum. The buildings and their courtyards cover seven acres, and have cost nearly $5,000,000 to construct. The front is three hundred and seventy feet long, the entrance being under a grand portico supported by rows of columns forty-five feet high. This vast museum originated from a provision in the will of Sir Hans Sloane in the last century, who had made a valuable collection and directed that it be sold to the government for $100,000. Parliament, accepting the offer, in 1753 created the museum to take charge of this and some other collections. The present site, then Montagu House, was selected for the museum, but it was not until 1828 that the present buildings were begun, and they have only recently been finished. The reading-room, the latest addition, is the finest structure of its kind in the world, being a circular hall one hundred and forty feet in diameter and covered with a dome one hundred and six feet high. It cost $750,000, and its library is believed to be the largest in the world, containing seven hundred thousand volumes, and increasing at the rate of twenty thousand volumes annually. Its collection of prints is also of rare value and vast extent, and by far the finest in the world.