rt; in the Inner Temple the cloisters, the greater part of Hare
Court, and part of the hall. The night was bitterly cold, and the
Templars, aroused from their beds to preserve life and property, could
not get an adequate supply of water from the Thames, which the unusual
severity of the season had frozen. In this difficulty they actually
brought barrels of ale from the Temple butteries, and fed the engines
with the malt liquor. Of course this supply of fluid was soon exhausted,
so the fire spreading eastward, the lawyers fought it by blowing up the
buildings that were in immediate danger. Gunpowder was more effectual
than beer; but the explosions were sadly destructive to human life.
Amongst the buildings thus demolished was the library of the Inner
Temple. Naturally, but with no apparent good reason, the sufferers by
the fire attributed it to treachery on the part of persons unknown, just
as the citizens attributed the fire of 1666 to the Papists. It is more
probable that the calamity was caused by some such accident as that
which occasioned the fire which, during John Campbell's
attorney-generalship, destroyed a large amount of valuable property, and
had its origin in the clumsiness of a barrister who upset upon his fire
a vessel full of spirit. Of this fire Lord Campbell observes:--"When I
was Attorney-General, my chambers in Paper Buildings, Temple, were burnt
to the ground in the night-time, and all my books and manuscripts, with
some valuable official papers, were consumed. Above all, I had to lament
a collection of letters written to me by my dear father, from the time
of my going to college till his death in 1824. All lamented this
calamity except the claimant of a peerage, some of whose documents
(suspected to be forged) he hoped were destroyed; but fortunately they
had been removed into safe custody a few days before, and the claim was
dropped." The fire here alluded to broke out in the chambers of one
Thornbury, in Pump Court.

[Illustration: THE OLD HALL OF THE INNER TEMPLE (_see page 164_).]

"I remember," says North in his "Life of Lord Keeper Guildford," "that
after the fire of the Temple it was considered whether the old cloister
walks should be rebuilt or rather improved into chambers, which latter
had been for the benefit of the Middle Temple; but, in regard that it
could not be done without the consent of the Inner Houses, the masters
of the Middle Houses waited upon the then Mr. Attorney Finch to des