LONDON MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.

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residents of this Inn may be named Edward Hall, author of the Chronicles; Gascoigne the poet; Queen Elizabeth's favourite minister, Lord Burleigh; the great but fallible Lord Bacon, and Bradshaw the regicide. The gardens are very extensive, and well planted with timber; they are entered from the south side through a rich gate and piers. "In Charles the Second's time, and the days of the Tatler and Spectator, they were a fashionable promenade on a summer evening. The great Lord Bacon is said to have planted some of the trees, but none now exist coeval with his time. The principal entrance from Holborn was by Fulwood's-rents, then a fashionable locality, now the squalid habitation of the poorest people in the parish of St. Andrew's. The gardens in Charles the Second's time possessed an uninterrupted view towards Highgate and Hampstead. Moorfields gave way to Gray's Inn, Gray's Inn to the Mall in St. James' Park, the Mall to the Ring, and the Ring to the Long Walk in Gray's Inn Gardens."* In Gray's Inn Coffee-house, adjoining Gray's Inn Gate in Holborn, the commissions held in London to inquire into the state of mind of alleged lunatics generally take place.

Facing the gate of Gray's Inn is Southampton-buildings, extending from Holborn into Chancery-lane and Staple's Inn. They stand upon the site of Southampton House, the mansion of the Wriothesleys, earls of Southampton, which was taken down in 1652. Stow says, the old Temple, the early abode of the Knights Templars in England, occupied this ground. In Southampton-buildings are the offices of the Masters in Chancery, and also the London Mechanics' Institution, established in 1823 by the late Dr. Birkbeck, "for increasing the knowledge, refining the taste, and eliciting the genius of the artizans of London," for which object nearly £4,000 were given by its munificent founder. Attached to it is a commodious lecturetheatre, an extensive library and reading-rooms, and schools for instruction in the various branches of educa* Peter Cunningham.

tion. It is one of the most flourishing and best attended institutions in the metropolis.

The next turning on the south side of Holborn is Chancery-lane, the antecedents of which have been described in our progress through Fleet-street. In this lane is one of the chief entrances to that celebrated Inn of Court, Lincoln's Inn, called the Gate-house, erected by Sir Thomas Lovell in 1518. There are also entrances to Lincoln's Inn from Carey-street, Lincoln's Inn-fields, and the higher part of Chancery-lane. The ground covered by the Inn was anciently occupied by the house of the Dominicans or Black Friars, and upon the removal of that community to the neighbourhood which still bears. their name, it came into the possession of Ralph de Nova Villa or Neville, who held the appointments of Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Chichester. He built a large house here where he lived until the time of his death in 1244, and Chichester-rents in Chancery-lane, fill the area where the episcopal palace formerly stood. The property was granted by Edward I. to Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. That nobleman made it his residence, and hence it was called his Inn, the word Inn in those days simply meaning a dwelling-house, and used in the same sense as "hotel" is to this day in France. The Bishops of Chichester again became the proprietors of Lincoln's Inn, which they held till the early part of the sixteenth century, when Robert Sherborn, the then bishop, conveyed the estate to William Sulyard, the judge, for a long time. His descendant Sir Edward Sulyard, disposed of the whole to the benchers of Lincoln's Inn. Fuller, author of the Worthies, writes that "Ben Jonson helped in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, when, having a trowel in one hand, he had a book in his pocket." The old hall of Lincoln's Inn, where the students, barristers, and benchers were accustomed to dine together in Term time, was erected by Sir Thomas Lovell in 1506. Since the erection of the new hall it has ceased to serve the purposes of a refectory, but is still used for the sittings of the Lord

LINCOLN'S INN CHAPEL.

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Chancellor out of Term. Between the Gate-house and old hall are two modern gloomy-looking rooms, the courts of the two additional Vice-Chancellors created some years since; and between the hall and the garden is the chief Vice-Chancellor's Court. The new hall of Lincoln's Inn, a handsome building in the Elizabethan style of red brick with stone dressings, has incroached considerably on the garden, and extends along a great portion of the east side of Lincoln's Inn-fields, whence a handsome gateway, corresponding in appearance, leads into the Inn. The first stone was laid in 1843, and the hall was opened by Queen Victoria in October, 1845. It is 120 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 62 feet in height, and the roof is of carved oak. The library, formerly in Stone-buildings, attached to it is 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and in height 44 feet. In the hall, removed from the old hall, are Hogarth's painting of Paul before Felix, and a fine statue of Lord Erskine by Westmacott. Facing the entrance to this superb range of building is Lincoln's Inn New-square, erected long subsequent to the formation of the Inn of Court on a piece of ground successively called Little Lincoln's Innfields, Ficquet's-fields, and Serle's-court, by Mr. Henry Searle, who died in 1690. The garden of Lincoln's Inn is still very considerable, and is well laid out. The original wall by which it is separated from Lincoln's Inn-fields was raised in 1663, at an outlay of £100. Stone-buildings, a noble row of large houses or rather mansions, to which there is an opening from Chancery-lane, form the eastern boundary of the garden. Lincoln's Inn Chapel, on the east side of the Old-square, is a Gothic edifice after the design of Inigo Jones. Its consecration sermon was preached by Dr. Donne on Ascension Day, 1623. It is raised on thick Gothic arches, which are adorned with armorial bearings and other figures carved on the stone. A cloister is thus formed, in the shade of which Cromwell's secretary, Thurloe; Prynne, the persecuted Puritan ; and other eminent lawyers repose. The interior of the chapel is profusely enriched with stained glass windows.