al dignitaries. They preferred to dwell in their
private houses, from which they were not liable to be driven by a change
of ministry or a grist of popular disfavor. In the year 1711 the mansion
was therefore sold to John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, to whom it is
indebted for the name which it still bears. This large, unsightly
mansion is known to every one who lives in London, and has any knowledge
of the political and social life of the earlier Georgian courtiers and
statesmen.

CHAPTER IV.

LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

The annals of the legal profession show that the neighborhood of
Guildhall was a favorite place of residence with the ancient lawyers,
who either held judicial offices within the circle of the Lord Mayor's
jurisdiction, or whose practice lay chiefly in the civic courts. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was quite a colony of jurists
hard by the temple of Gogmagog and Cosineus--or Gog and Magog, as the
grotesque giants are designated by the unlearned, who know not the
history of the two famous effigies, which originally figured in an
Elizabethan pageant, stirring the wonder of the illiterate, and
reminding scholars of two mythical heroes about whom the curious reader
of this paragraph may learn further particulars by referring to Michael
Drayton's 'Polyolbion.'

In Milk Street, Cheapside, lived Sir John More, judge in the Court of
King's Bench; and in Milk street, A.D. 1480, was born Sir John's famous
son Thomas, the Chancellor, who was at the same time learned and simple,
witty and pious, notable for gentle meekness and firm resolve, abounding
with tenderness and hot with courage. Richard Rich--who beyond Scroggs
or Jeffreys deserves to be remembered as the arch-scoundrel of the legal
profession--was one of Thomas More's playmates and boon companions for
several years of their boyhood and youth. Richard's father was an
opulent mercer, and one of Sir John's near neighbors; so the youngsters
were intimate until Master Dick, exhibiting at an early age his vicious
propensities, came to be "esteemed very light of his tongue, a great
dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame."

On marrying his first wife Sir Thomas More settled in a house in
Bucklersbury, the City being the proper quarter for his residence, as he
was an under-sheriff of the city of London, in which character he both
sat in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and presided over a
separate court on the Thursd