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 
