.

Dr. Dibdin thus describes the Garden walks of the last
century:--"Towards evening it was the fashion for the leading counsel to
promenade during the summer months in the Temple Gardens. Cocked hats
and ruffles, with satin small-clothes and silk stockings, at this time
constituted the usual evening dress. Lord Erskine, though a great deal
shorter than his brethren, somehow always seemed to take the lead, both
in place and in discourse, and shouts of laughter would frequently
follow his dicta."

Ugly Dunning, afterwards the famous Lord Ashburton, entered the Middle
Temple in 1752, and was called four years later, in 1756. Lord
Chancellor Thurlow used to describe him wittily as "the knave of clubs."

Home Tooke, Dunning, and Kenyon were accustomed to dine together, during
the vacation, at a little eating-house in the neighbourhood of Chancery
Lane for the sum of sevenpence-halfpenny each. "As to Dunning and
myself," said Tooke, "we were generous, for we gave the girl who waited
upon us a penny a piece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money,
sometimes rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with a promise."

Blackstone, before dedicating his powers finally to the study of the law
in which he afterwards became so famous, wrote in Temple chambers his
"Farewell to the Muse:"--

"Lulled by the lapse of gliding floods,
Cheer'd by the warbling of the woods,
How blest my days, my thoughts how free,
In sweet society with thee!
Then all was joyous, all was young,
And years unheeded roll'd along;
But now the pleasing dream is o'er--
These scenes must charm me now no more.
Lost to the field, and torn from you,
Farewell!--a long, a last adieu!

* * * * *

Then welcome business, welcome strife,
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,
The visage wan, the purblind sight,
The toil by day, the lamp by night,
The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate,
The drowsy bench, the babbling hall,--
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!"

That great orator, Edmund Burke, was entered at the Middle Temple in
1747, when the heads of the Scotch rebels of 1745 were still fresh on
the spikes of Temple Bar, and he afterwards came to keep his terms in
1750. In 1756 he occupied a two-pair chamber at the "Pope's Head," the
shop of Jacob Robinson, the Twickenham poet's publisher, just within the
In