ouse on this side was
Portsmouth House, over Portsmouth Place.

The remainder of the houses have the same general character of stuccoed
and pilastered uniformity, broken here and there by uncovered brick
surfaces or frontages of stone. They are almost uninterruptedly occupied
by solicitors. This is the oldest side of the square, being that built
by Inigo Jones.

At the south corner of the square there is a quaint red-brick,
gable-ended house, with a bit of rusticated woodwork. This is all part
of the same block as the Old Curiosity Shop, supposed to be that
described by Dickens.

On the south side rises the Royal College of Surgeons. The central part
is carried up a story and an entresol higher than the wings, and, like
the wings, is capped by a balustrade. The legend, "AEdes Collegii
Chirurgorum Anglici--Diplomate Regio Corporate A.D. MDCCC," runs across
the frontage. A massive colonnade of six Ionic columns gives solidity to
the basement. The museum of this college has absorbed the site of the
old Duke's Theatre. Its nucleus was John Hunter's collection, purchased
by the college, and first opened in 1813.

This side of the square is outside our present district. (See _The
Strand_, in the same series.)

The origin of the Company of Barber-Surgeons is very ancient, for the
two guilds, Barbers and Surgeons, were incorporated in 1540; but in 1745
they separated, and the Surgeons continued as a body alone. However,
they came to grief in 1790, and the charter establishing the Royal
College of Surgeons of London was granted in 1800; in 1845 the title was
changed to that of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The present
building, however, dates only from 1835, and is the work of Sir C.
Barry. It has since been enlarged and altered.

With this the ancient parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields ends, but our
district includes Lincoln's Inn, and beyond it the parish of St. Andrew,
Holborn, into which we pass.

LINCOLN'S INN.

BY W. J. LOFTIE.

The old brick gateway in Chancery Lane is familiar to most Londoners. It
ranks with the stone gateway of the Hospitallers in Clerkenwell, with
the tower of St. James's Palace, and with the gate of Lambeth Palace, as
one of the three or four relics of the Gothic style left in London. Even
Gothic churches are scarce, while specimens of the domestic style are
still scarcer. It need hardly be said that this tower has been
constantly threatened, by "restorers" on the one hand, a