Inn, and Barnard's Inn, all of which were standing
in Dickens' day, but of which only Staple Inn and Sergeant's Inn have
endured, Clement's Inn having only recently (1903) succumbed to the
house-breaker.

Staple Inn, in Holborn, "the fayrest inne of Chancerie," is one of the
quaintest, quietest, and most interesting corners of mediaeval London left
to us.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, describing his first wanderings in London, said, "I
went astray in Holborn through an arched entrance over which was Staple
Inn, and here likewise seemed to be offices; but in a court opening
inwards from this, there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet
dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the
court and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. The windows were open, it
was a lovely summer afternoon, and I had a sense that bees were humming in
the court." Many more years have passed over the old corner since
Hawthorne's visit, but still it retains its ancient charm, and still the
visitor is struck by the rapid change from the hurrying stream of
Holborn's traffic to this haunt of ancient peace about which Mr. Worsfold
writes with pardonable enthusiasm.

With a history traceable backward for many centuries, Staple Inn was at
first associated in the middle ages with the dealing in the "staple
commodity" of wool, to use Lord Chief Justice Coke's words, but about the
fifteenth century the wool merchants gave way to the wearers of woollen
"stuff," and their old haunt became one of the Inns of Chancery--the
Staple Inn of the lawyers--perpetuating its origin in its insignia, a bale
of wool. For many years the connection of the Inn with the Law was little
beyond a nominal one, and in 1884 the great change came, and the haunt of
merchants, the old educational establishment for lawyers, passed from the
hands of "The Principal, Ancients and Juniors of the Honourable Society of
Staple Inn," to those of a big insurance society, while the fine old hall
became the headquarters of the Institute of Actuaries.

True it is, that perhaps no area of the earth's surface, of say a mile
square, has a tithe of the varied literary association of the
neighbourhood lying in the immediate vicinity of the Temple, the
birthplace of Lamb, the home of Fielding, and the grave of Goldsmith.

Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, is still haunted by the memory of the boy
Chatterton, and Will's Coffee House, the resort of wits and literary
lights of former days, vie