A CORNER IN LINCOLN’S INN.
CHAPTER XI.
THE OLD INNS—CLIFFORD’S, STAPLE, BARNARD’S, ETC.
AS we turn from the bustle and hurly-burly of Fleet Street, hard by St. Dunstan’s—an effective modern church—we see a retired alley, leading by a curious little archway into Clifford’s Inn. It is difficult to conceive the sudden surprise as we find ourselves in this forlorn inclosure. It might be a fragment of some decayed country town, or of some of those left-behind corners we come upon in an old Dutch or Flemish hamlet. Here are a few ragged, blighted trees, a little railed-in square without grass, inexpressibly unkempt, like a disused burial-ground, on which blink sadly the ancient crusted mansions surrounding the old “Chambers.” Behind us, and next the low entrance, is a sad-looking dining-hall—a small, steep-roofed little building that might hold a score of diners. Above it is the usual pert little lantern-clock. No doubt in the last century the Dutch tradition of such things survived. Its two or three blackened, well-grimed windows have a shining metallic look, and there are shadowy outlines and leadings which betoken armorial work and stained-glass emblems. Here are old, tattered, yet still serviceable houses, encrusted together, as it were, and toned into a deep copper colour; their tiled roofs are sinuous, with eaves shaggy as old eyebrows; while above is a picturesque form of dormer windows which suggest Nuremberg, coupled, half a dozen windows in a row together, under a low, tiled roof. Thus is there roof upon roof. The mellow gloomy tone of the whole is quite “Walkerish,” and would have pleased the lamented artist. In a corner are other retired white-plastered houses. The general solitude is rarely disturbed, save by some hurried messenger or man of business taking a fancied short cut from Chancery Lane to Fleet Street; the tailor, with his forlorn book of patterns displayed, seems little disturbed by customers. The Inn, however, is still inhabited, and the names of tenants are displayed at the doors. They look down into the forsaken and grassless “square”—so called—whose shaky gate of twisted iron excludes trespassers. The old Inn has remained in this precarious state for some years. The “Antients” have not found the way to sell their property—as they deem it. Some morning, however, the new clean hoarding will be found set up, and the “housebreakers” with their picks will be seen at their work. A Naboth’s Vineyard of this sort is a perpetual challenge to ingenuity to surmount all impediments.
Clement’s Inn is close by, just beside the Law Courts. The gardens of both touch each other, separated only by a railing, and have something of the air of the Temple Gardens in miniature. A little quaint, well-designed Queen Anne villa, as it might be called, juts into the centre, and seems a residence that might be coveted. A well-known dramatic critic lived with his family for some years in the inclosure, and has described to us the delightful sensation of looking out on this agreeable plaisaunce, where his children played, quite with the feeling that these were his own grounds: while close outside were Wych Street and the busy Strand. It is not surprising that the old Inn, with its close-like retirement, should have been affected by literary men and others of tranquil pursuits. It was in one of these places that the late Mr. Chenery lived in solitude, editing the Times from his modest chambers; and it was here, too, that he was seized with his last illness, and died, it was said, with but little attendance.
OLD DOORWAY, 24, CAREY STREET.