SQUARES 
235 
open waste till long >fter 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 
