SQUARES 235 



open waste till long after that date. The Fields, before 

 the building commenced, were used as a place of exe- 

 cution, and Babington and his associates met a traitor's 

 death, in 1586, on the spot where it was supposed they 

 had planned some of their conspiracy. The surrounding 

 houses had been built, and the ground was no longer an 

 open field when William, Lord Russell, was beheaded 

 there in 1683. The scaffold was erected in what is now 

 the centre of the garden. The Fields for many years 

 bore a bad name, and were the haunt of thieves and 

 ruffians of all sorts. When things reached such a climax, 

 that the Master of the Rolls was knocked down in cross- 

 ing the Fields, the centre was railed in. This was done 

 about 1735, with a view to improving their condition, 

 and they remained closed, and kept up by the inhabitants, 

 until a few years ago. The chief feature in the pleasant 

 gardens now are the very fine trees. There are some 

 patriarchal planes, with immense branches, under which 

 numbers of people are always to be seen resting. The 

 houses. Old Lindsay House, Newcastle House, the 

 College of Surgeons, Sir John Soane's Museum, with 

 long histories of their own, and all the lesser ones, with 

 a sleepy air of dingy respectability and ancient splendour, 

 now look down on a most peaceful, well-kept garden, and 

 Gay's lines of warning are no longer a necessary caution : — 



" Where Lincoln's Inn wide space is rail'd around, 

 Cross not with venturous step ; there oft is found 

 The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone, 

 Made the walls echo with his begging tone ; 

 That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound 

 Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground." 



Adjoining the Fields is New Square, which used to be 

 known as Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, and earlier still as 



