close unwholesome smell. Time and neglect have made the once-white
ceiling like a huge map, in which black and swollen rivers and tangled
mountain ranges are struggling for pre-eminence. Melancholy, decay, and
desolation are on all sides. The holy of holies, where the profane
vulgar could not tread, but which was sacred to the venerable gowned
figures who cozily took it in turns to dispense justice and to plead, is
now open to any passer-by. Where the public were permitted to listen is
bare and shabby as a well-plucked client. The inner door of
long-discoloured baize flaps listlessly on its hinges, and the true
law-court little entrance-box it half shuts in is a mere nest for
spiders. A large red shaft, with the word 'broken' rudely scrawled on it
in chalk, stands where the judgment-seat was formerly; long rows of ugly
piping, like so many shiny dirty serpents, occupy the seats of honour
round it; staring red vehicles, with odd brass fittings: buckets,
helmets, axes, and old uniforms fill up the remainder of the space. A
very few years ago this was the snuggest little law-nest in the world;
now it is a hospital and store-room for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
For we are in Doctors' Commons, and lawyers themselves will be startled
to learn that the old Arches Court, the old Admiralty Court, the old
Prerogative Court, the old Consistory Court, the old harbour for
delegates, chancellors, vicars-general, commissaries, prothonotaries,
cursitors, seal-keepers, serjeants-at-mace, doctors, deans, apparitors,
proctors, and what not, is being applied to such useful purposes now.
Let the reader leave the bustle of St. Paul's Churchyard, and, turning
under the archway where a noble army of white-aproned touters formerly
stood, cross Knightrider Street and enter the Commons. The square itself
is a memorial of the mutability of human affairs. Its big sombre houses
are closed. The well-known names of the learned doctors who formerly
practised in the adjacent courts are still on the doors, but have, in
each instance, 'All letters and parcels to be addressed' Belgravia, or
to one of the western inns of court, as their accompaniment. The one
court in which ecclesiastical, testamentary, and maritime law was tried
alternately, and which, as we have seen, is now ending its days
shabbily, but usefully, is through the further archway to the left. Here
the smack _Henry and Betsy_ would bring its action for salvage against
the schooner _Mary Ja