INNS OF COURT 
281 
mentions his walks there with his wife, went to see the 
alterations. “So to Lincoln’s Inne, and there walked 
up and down to see the new garden which they are 
making, and will be very pretty.” The outside world 
seems to have had easy access to the gardens of all the 
Inns of Court in those days, but it was regarded as a 
special privilege granted to a very wide circle, and a 
favour not accorded to the public at large. In the 
Taller occur such passages as, “I went into Lincoln’s 
Inn walks, and having taken a round or two I sat down 
according to the allowed familiarity of these places.” 
Again, “ I was last week taking a solitary walk in the 
garden of Lincoln’s Inn, a favour that is indulged me by 
several of the benchers who are my intimate friends.” 
They were, however, so much frequented by all the 
fashionable world of London, that the foreigner arriving 
there naturally took them for public gardens. Mr. 
Grosley, who came to London in 1765, thus describes 
them :—- 
“Besides St. James’s Park, the Green Park, and Hyde 
Park, the two last of which are continuations of the first, 
which, like the Tuileries at Paris, lie at the extremity of 
the metropolis, London has several public walks, which 
are much more agreeable to the English, as they are less 
frequented and more solitary than the Park. Such are 
the gardens contained within the compass of the Temple, 
of Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. They consist of grass 
plots, which are kept in excellent order, and planted with 
trees, either cut regularly, or with high stocks: some of 
them have a part laid out for culinary uses. The grass 
plots of the gardens at Lincoln’s Inn are adorned with 
statues, which, taken all together, form a scene very 
pleasing to the eye.” 
