rts and passages
debouching on Fleet Street and the surrounding thoroughfares, and one from
the river at Temple Pier; but, chiefly because of their proximity to the
New Courts of Law, these two gate-ways are most frequented.

The boundaries of this famous abode of British wit and intellect may be
roughly sketched as follows: on the north, Fleet Street; on the south, the
Thames and the Victoria Embankment; on the east, Serjeants' Inn and the
Whitefriars region; on the west, Essex Street, Strand. These boundaries
remain substantially as they were six or seven centuries ago. The Middle
Temple lies nearest the river; the Inner Temple is nearer to Fleet Street,
and "inside"--that is, on the "city" side--of Temple Bar. Essex House and
its purlieus, once the abode of the powerful earls of that name, were
formerly a part of the Temple. It was called the Outer Temple, because
"outside" of Temple Bar.

In the reign of Henry II., about the year 1185, the ground now included in
the Temple area became the head-quarters in London of the crusading
Knights Templar. Removing from humbler quarters in Holborn, the order,
having become wealthy and ambitious, bought a tract of land extending from
the walls of Essex House to Whitefriars, and from the river to Fleet
Street. They erected a church, a priory, and other buildings clustered
around in the mediaeval fashion, and in imitation of the Temple near the
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

Under the first Richard and the third Henry the Templars increased in pelf,
power, and pride. After a career commenced in zeal and purity,
culminating in valor and fanaticism, and closing in corruption and
indolence, in the year 1312, when the second Edward sat on the throne of
England, the now useless order was formally abolished by Clement V., the
reigning Pontiff. The Temple domain, by grant of the crown, then passed to
Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who conveyed it to the Earl of
Lancaster, a cousin of Edward II. It was then rented to the professors and
students of the common law, who had recently become an incorporate body,
In 1333 the Temple had apparently reverted to the crown, for we find
Edward III. farming out the rents for twenty-five pounds a year.

The Knights Hospitallers of St. John, meantime, affected to be much
scandalized at what they deemed a desecration of holy ground, and claimed
the custody of the place. In 1340, in consideration of a hundred golden
guineas contributed toward the