CHAPTER XI 



INNS OF COURT 



Siveete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my Song. 

 At length they all to mery London came^ 



There tvhen they came, nvhereas those hr'tckly toivers 

 The which on Themmes hrode aged hache doe ryde 

 Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers. 

 There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde. 

 Till they decayed through pride : 



Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my Song. 



— Spenser : " Prothalamion, or a Spousall Verse." 



HERE are no more peaceful gardens 

 in all London than those among 

 the venerable buildings devoted to 

 the study of the law. There is 

 a sense of dignity and repose, the 

 mom.ent one has entered from the 

 noisy thoroughfares which sur- 

 round these quiet courts. They 

 may be dark, dull, and dingy, as seen by a Dickens, and 

 sombre and serious, to those whose business lies there ; 

 but to the ordinary Londoner, who loves the old world 

 of the City, and the links that bind the present with the 

 past, there are no more reposeful places than these 

 gardens. The courts and buildings seem peopled with 



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