262 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



those who have worked and lived there. If stones could 

 speak, what tales some of these could tell ! 



The best-known, perhaps, of the gardens are those 

 belonging to the Inner and Middle Temple, as their 

 green lawns are visible from the Embankment. They 

 add greatly to the charm of one of London's most 

 beautiful roadways, now, alas ! desecrated by the rush of 

 electric trams, and its fine young trees sacrificed to make 

 yet more rapid the stream of beings hourly passing 

 between South London and the City. The modern 

 whirl of business life can leave nothing untouched in 

 this age of bustle, money-making, ceaseless toil, and care. 

 Even pleasures have to be provided by united effort, and 

 partake of noise and hurry. Thought and contempla- 

 tion are hardly counted among the pleasures of life ; yet 

 to those who value them, even to look through the 

 iron railings on the smooth turf brings a sense of relief. 

 Even to those who scarcely seem to feel it, the very 

 existence of these haunts of comparative peace, which 

 flash on their vision as they hurry by, leaves something, 

 a subtle influence, a faint impression on the brain. It 

 must make a difference to a child who knows nothing 

 beyond the noisy streets and alleys in which its lot is 

 cast, to hear the rooks caw and the birds sing in the 

 quiet gardens of Gray's Inn. It must come as a welcome 

 relief, even though unperceived and unappreciated, from 

 the din and clatter in which most of its days are passed. 

 One cannot be too grateful that it has not been thought 

 necessary to change and modernise " our English juridical 

 university." 



Although the four great Inns of Court are untouched, 

 the lesser Inns have vanished or are vanishing. Clement's 

 Inn has gone. The garden there was small, but had a 



