“No wonder,” responded the patriarch, “for of the devil they come, and to the devil they shall go;” and so departed, as Abbot Brompton records, “in great ire.”
In the wall of the Round Church is a winding staircase of stone leading to the triforium. Part way up it opens into what is called “the penitential cell”—a recess in the thick wall four feet and a half long, and two and a half wide, with two squints to admit air and light, and enable the penitent to witness the divine service. It would seem, however much an active knight might chafe in such restricted quarters, as if he had much to console and support him in looking down into such a church. In the triforium are gathered together monuments that were formerly scattered about the church. Among them is a tablet to Edmundus Gibbon, an ancestor of the historian, who died in 1679.
The Round Church opens by three lofty arches into the rectangular church, consisting of a nave and two aisles, formed by clustered pillars of marble, supporting a groined vault covered with rich arabesques. This church is a beautiful specimen of the early English style. The lawyers of Cromwell's time whitewashed the pillars, and did all they could to obscure the beauty of the building; but now it is restored to somewhat of its former richness. It is paved with tiles bearing the arms of the Outer and Inner Temple, and on its triple lancet windows are emblazoned the arms of the Templars—the lamb and flag and the ruby cross. That red cross, in the very church where it gleamed seven hundred years ago, says volumes to the heart. Where are the Knights Templars now to assume it again, and go to the rescue of the Holy City, bereft of its sovereign lord? Do we not need a new S. Bernard to preach a new crusade in behalf of the captive daughter of Zion, that she may be delivered from the ungodly oppressor, and her anointed one set free?
It was an old English prelate—S. Anselm—who said: “God loves nothing in the world better than the liberty of his church.... He does not wish a servant for his spouse.”
This rectangular church was consecrated in 1240, in presence of the king and a vast number of nobles. In one corner is a beautiful old marble piscina, lately brought to light, where the priest, before the holy oblation, purified the hands that were to touch the Body of the Lord.
On a terrace to the north of the church is Goldsmith's grave, marked by a coped stone. On one side is graven: “Here lies Oliver Goldsmith”; and on the other: “Born 10 Nov., 1728. Died 4 April, 1774.” The row of houses close by is marked “Goldsmith's Buildings.” Perhaps on this very terrace he walked up and down in his bloom-colored coat, dreading to have the bill sent in. There are Johnson's buildings also. And in Inner Temple Lane, Lamb lived at No. 4, which “looks out on Hare Court, with three trees and a pump,” where he used to drink when he was “a young Rechabite of six years” of age. As he says, “it is worth something to have been born in such a place.” It was here the spirit of the past was infused into his mind, moulding it in antique fashion, and planting the germs of the quaint conceits and humorous fancies that so delight us all, and giving him a love for the old dramatists which we have all learned to share in.
Of course every one goes to drink at the fountain which Lamb, when a boy, used to make rise and fall, to the astonishment of the other urchins, “who, nothing able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail its wondrous work as magic.” Miss Landon thus celebrates it:
“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