Still, in spite of its shortcomings, the seventeenth century has at least one claim upon the gratitude of those who worship in the Temple Church. The organ of Bernard Schmidt (Father Smith), purchased in 1686, still survives as the foundation of the modern instrument. The story of the Battle of the Organs has been often told. The masters of the bench were anxious to secure by competition the best possible make, and rival organs were set up in the church by Smith and Harris. The decision was eventually left to Judge Jeffreys, not apparently on account of his musical knowledge, but because he was Lord Chancellor at the time. The beautiful music of the Temple Church is thus strangely linked with a name not usually associated with sweetness or harmony.

A few only of the Temple buildings are named after eminent men, and the choice of names has been to some extent capricious or accidental. Among lawyers thus commemorated, no one will dispute the claims of Edmund Plowden, already mentioned. Hare Court preserves the memory not of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls in Mary's reign (died 1557), but of a nephew of his, a comparatively unknown Nicholas Hare, who rebuilt the chambers on the south side of the court. The present Harcourt Buildings replace earlier chambers erected during the treasurership of Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor (died 1727). The eponymus of Tanfield Court was Sir Lawrence Tanfield, a well-known judge in his day, who resided there. We cannot but regret that more of the greatest legal names have not in this way been handed down as household words to posterity. Two great literary names do thus survive, but in neither case was the existing building the home of the man. Dr. Johnson's Buildings, rebuilt in 1857, recall nothing but the site of the chambers in which Johnson lived for a few years from 1760. Goldsmith Building, erected in 1861, stands in no relation to the poet save that it is near the stone which serves to mark (not very exactly) his burial place. Pious pilgrimages are still made yearly to that stone on November 10, the anniversary of his birth. Goldsmith died in the Temple in 1774, and from 1765 onwards he occupied chambers which still exist at 2, Brick Court. A commemorative tablet recently placed there raises the question whether the rooms on the north or on the south side of the staircase are properly described as "two pair right." Some years before Oliver Goldsmith removed to Brick Court, the Temple was the residence of another poet—William Cowper. His attempted suicide there in 1763 shows how bad for his melancholy temperament was a solitary life in chambers. Charles Lamb, on the other hand—as we see, for instance, from his essay on the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple—delighted in the Temple and all its ways. The sense of its charm may be said to have been born and bred in him, for he was born and spent his childhood in Crown Office Row. In later life, for seventeen years from 1800, he and his sister occupied chambers now no longer in existence, first in Mitre Court Buildings, and afterwards in Inner Temple Lane, from the back windows of which he looked upon the trees and pump in Hare Court. Lamb Building, of course, has nothing to do with Charles Lamb. It belongs to an earlier time, and its name is derived from the Agnus of the Middle Temple over its doorway. Within fifteen years of Lamb's departure from the Temple Thackeray was settled for a short time in the chambers in Hare Court, which were immortalised some twenty years later, in Pendennis. "Lamb Court," in which he places the chambers of George Warrington and Arthur Pendennis, is the result of a combination of Lamb Building and Hare Court. Other reminiscences of his life at the Temple may be found by the student of Thackeray in some of his other works. Dickens, though he never lived at the Temple, also betrays the influence of its charm. No one can walk through Fountain Court without thinking sometimes of Ruth Pinch.

Of the great lawyers who have occupied chambers in the Temple nothing can here be said. The settlement of the lawyers has now lasted for nearly six hundred years—almost four times as long as the tenure of the Knights Templars, and for the greater part of that time we find in every generation legal names which still survive in history, and which have been concerned with the making of history. The lists which have been compiled of distinguished members of the Inner and the Middle Temple are of great interest and importance. But even more important is the long, continuous history of the two societies. It has preserved for us such memorials of the Knights Templars as still survive. If the lawyers had never settled in the Temple, the Temple Church would probably have met with the fate which overtook the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, and all that could now be done would be to restore a ruin. There have been times, no doubt, in its past history when the church has suffered from neglect and ignorance, but on the whole the lawyers have shown a large-minded appreciation of their responsibilities. The last restoration of the building in 1841, in spite of one or two mistakes, was wonderfully successful. It was one of the earliest and best examples of the "Gothic revival" which was just beginning to set in over England. We owe to it, among other things, two interesting works on the Knights Templars and on the Temple Church by C. G. Addison (died 1866), who was one of the first lawyers in modern times to study the history of the Temple in connection with the original documents. During the last few years a great advance has been made in this direction, mainly by the labours of lawyers. The Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, with its full and learned introductions by F. A. Inderwick, K.C., Master of the Bench (died 1904), is never likely to be superseded; and the same may be said of The Middle Temple Records, with Index and Calendar, edited by C. Hopwood, K.C. (died 1904), Master of the Bench of that society. To these must be added A Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars, by Mr. John Hutchinson, and a privately printed list of Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple from 1450 to 1883, with Supplement to 1900. Judge Baylis, K.C., Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple, has given much valuable information in his well-known work on the Temple Church, which has gone through several editions. More recently, Mr. H. Bellot, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, has aimed at recording the legal, literary, and historic associations of the Inner and Middle Temple, and in a Bibliography appended to his book gives some idea of the immense mass of material which has accumulated round the history of the Temple. May "the two Learned and Honourable Societies of this House"—as they are designated in the Bidding Prayer used every Sunday in the Temple Church—long continue to be the home, not merely of professional learning, but of general culture.

HOLBORN AND THE INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY
By E. Williams

Just as Holland denotes the hollow land, so Holborn, or Holeburn, implies the hollow bourne—the bourne or river in the hollow. This once forcible little stream descended four hundred feet in a journey of six miles, taking its rise in Ken Wood, the beautifully timbered estate of the Earls of Mansfield at Highgate. After passing through several ponds, skirting the existing Millfield Lane, it crossed the foot of West Hill and continued its course through what is now known as the Brookfield Stud Farm, till, somewhat to the north of Prince of Wales' Road at Kentish Town, it encountered another stream of almost equal rapidity, the birthplace of which was in the Happy Valley at Hampstead. The united current then rolled on through Camden Town and St. Pancras towards Battle Bridge at King's Cross, from whence it flowed through Packington Street, under Rosebery Avenue, into Farringdon Street, creating steep banks on its flanks, which still remain the measure and evidence of its ancient energy; until, finally, it debouched into that tidal estuary from the Thames mediævally known as the Fleet. Holborn Viaduct, at a much higher altitude, now spans the hollow where once stood Holeburn Bridge, at the wharves on either side of which "boats with corn, wine, firewood, and other necessaries" would unload. But in 1598 John Stow knew of this burn only as Turnmill Brook. Now it no longer exists; the damming of its waters for the erection of mills in the Middle Ages, and its more recent absorption by the water companies, have led to its complete disappearance.

The Manor of Holeburn, which was bounded on the east by the southern part of the Farringdon Street portion of this stream, included both sides of Shoe Lane; but how far west or north it originally extended is not known. In the year 1300, Saffron Hill, Fetter (or Faytour) Lane, and Fleet Street were all outside its bounds. Shoe Lane was known as Sho Lane, at one end of which was a well, called Show Well, from which the neighbourhood drew its water.[75]

It was here that the Dominicans, or Black Friars, made their first settlement in 1222;[76] their monastery was in Shoe Lane, and in 1286, when they moved to the eastern side of the Fleet, by Baynard's Castle, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who was lord of the manor and a justiciar, bought their old houses and established the first Lincoln's Inn.[77] Two other inns of that name, one next to Staple Inn and one in Chancery Lane, came into existence later, as we shall see presently. Here the earl died in 1311, and he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. By his will, proved in the Court of Hustings at the Guildhall, he directed that the houses which he had acquired from the monks should be sold;[78] but the inheritance of the manor of Holeburn descended to his son-in-law, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin and Steward of the kingdom. Legal business was certainly transacted at his Inn. The yearly accounts of the Earldom of Lancaster for that period show that at his house in Shoe Lane, from Michaelmas, 1314, to Michaelmas, 1315, the amount of £314 7s. 4½d. was spent for 1,714 lbs. of wax, with vermilion and turpentine to make red wax, and £4 8s. 3¼d. for one hundred and twenty-nine dozen of parchment, with ink.[79] He was beheaded in 1322, leaving no issue, and his widow, Alesia de Lacy, married secondly Ebulo Lestrange,[80] in whose family the manor remained until 1480, when it passed by marriage to the Stanleys, Earls of Derby.[81] In 1602 it was sold by the widow of Ferdinando, fifth earl, to Lord Buckhurst,[82] afterwards Earl of Dorset, under whose immediate successor it was broken up for building purposes.

The street of Holborn was at first simply the King's Street; afterwards it acquired the name of Holebourne-Bridge-strate. From Newgate to a little way west of St. Sepulchre's Church the high-road was known as "la Baillie"; from thence it bore the same name as the river, being carried over the bridge on to the ridge along which the Romans had built their military stone-way, known as Watling Street, out of which, in the year 1300, there turned two streets towards the south, namely, Scho Lane and Faitur Lane, and two towards the north, one called "le Vrunelane,"[83] afterwards Lyverounelane, then Lyver Lane, now Leather Lane, and the other called Portpool Lane, now Gray's Inn Road.

The justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and serjeants had frequent cause to protest against the manner in which the stream of Holeburn was being defiled. In the Parliament of Barons held in 1307, the Earl of Lincoln, whose Inn was in close proximity, complained that