But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.’
In the background of this garden, with its fine trees and flowers, where the great dramatist placed, in his imagination, this historical incident, may be seen the old walls and buttresses of the Middle Temple Hall. The descent into the garden is after the Italian fashion, from a court, in the centre of which stands that celebrated fountain of which nearly every noted author has spoken. Who does not remember Ruth Pinch—that devoted sister of Tom’s, in Martin Chuzzlewit, walking under the trees in Fountain Court, and meeting there—by the merest accident, of course—her lover? ‘Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin’s rim, and vanished.’ There is a graceful poem by L. E. L. (Miss Landon) on this much admired and petted fountain in the Temple Gardens:
The fountain’s low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind:
Some to grieve, some to gladden; around them they cast
The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.
Away in the distance is heard the vast sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of fountain’s or ocean’s deep call;