"Old Temple," the Inn of the Knights Templars from the time of its erection, in 1118, till their removal to the New Temple in Fleet Street, in 1184. According to Stow, about the year 1595, one Agaster Roper, while employed in erecting buildings on the spot, discovered the ruins of the old church, which were of Caen stone, and built in a circular shape.

In 1597 the eminent botanist, John Gerarde, was residing in Holborn, then a suburb of London, where he had a good garden behind his house, in which he cultivated his rare exotics. Another remarkable person who resided in Holborn was the eccentric Sir Kenelm Digby. "The fair houses in Holborn," says Aubrey, "between King Street and Southampton Street, were built anno 1633, by Sir Kenelm, where he lived before the Civil wars."

King Street, running out of Holborn, and now forming part of Southampton Row, is connected with the fate of an unfortunate poet, John Bamfylde, whose sonnets Mr. Dyce has thought worthy of being included in his selection of the choicest in the language. "He was the brother of Sir Charles, as you say," writes Southey to Sir Egerton Brydges on the authority of Jackson of Exeter, " and you probably know that there is a disposition to insanity in the family. At the time when Jackson became intimate with him he was just in his prime, and had no other wish than to live in solitude and amuse himself with poetry and music. He lodged in a farmhouse near Chudleigh, and would oftentimes come to Exeter in a winter morning, ungloved and open-breasted, before Jackson was up, with a pocket-full of music or poems, to know how he liked them. His relations thought this was a sad life for a man of family, and forced him to London! The tears ran down Jackson's cheeks when he told the story. 'Poor fellow!' said he, 'there did not live a

purer creature; and if they would have let him alone he might have been alive now.' When he was in London, his feelings having been forced out of their natural and proper channel,. took a wrong direction, and he began soon to suffer the punishment of debauchery. The Miss Palmer (afterwards Lady Inchiquin), to whom he dedicated his sonnets, was niece to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Whether Sir Joshua objected to his addresses on account of his irregularities in London, or of the family disposition to insanity, I know not, but this was the commencement of his madness. He was refused admittance into the house; upon this, in a fit of half anger and half derangement, he broke the windows, and was (little to Sir Joshua's honour), sent to Newgate. Some weeks after this had happened, Jackson went to London, and one of his first inquiries was for Bampfylde. Lady B., his mother, said she knew little or nothing about him-that she had got him out of Newgate, and he was now in some beggarly place. 'Where?'—' In King Street, Holborn,' she believed, but she did not know the number of the house.' Away went Jackson, and knocked at every door till he found the right. It was a truly miserable place: the woman of the house was one of the worst class of women in London. She knew that Bampfylde had no money, and that at that time he had been three days without food. When Jackson saw him there was all the levity of madness in his manners. His shirt was ragged, and black as a coalheaver's, and his beard of a two months' growth. Jackson sent out for food, said he was come to breakfast with him, and turned aside to a harpsichord in the room, literally, he said, to let him gorge himself without being noticed. He removed him from hence, and, after giving his mother a severe lecture, obtained for him a decent allowance, and left him, when he himself quitted town, in decent lodgings, earnestly begging him to

write. But he never wrote. 'The next news was that he was in a private madhouse, and I never saw him more.' After twenty years' confinement," adds Southey, "he recovered his senses, but not till he was dying of a consumption. The apothecary urged him to leave Sloane Street, where he had always been as kindly treated as he could be, and go into his own country, saying, that his friends in Devonshire would be very glad to see him. But he hid his face and answered, 'No, sir! They who knew me what I was shall never see me what I am.' *

It remains to mention one or two celebrated men who were residents in Holborn, but in what exact locality is not known.

Milton at two different periods of his life was a resident in Holborn, and on both occasions, as was his custom, occupied houses looking upon the green fields. The first time that he resided here was in 1647, in a house which "opened backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields," and here it was that he principally employed himself in writing his virulent tirades against monarchy and Charles the First. The second occasion of his residing in Holborn was after the Restoration of Charles the Second, when his house looked into Red Lion Fields, the site of the present Red Lion Square. After residing here a short time he removed to Jewin Street, Aldersgate Street.

From Boswell we learn that Dr. Johnson, during a part of the time he was employed in compiling his great work, the English Dictionary, was a resident in Holborn. Here, too, was born the once popular actor and poet, George Alexander Stevens; a man whose misfortunes were only equal to

See Sir Egerton Brydges' "Anglo-Genevan Journal, 1831;" Southey's "Specimens of the Later English Poets," and Dyce's "Specimens of English Sonnets."

his misconduct at one time the idol of a Bacchanalian club, and at another the inmate of a gaol-at one moment writing a drinking-song, and at another a religious poem. Stevens is now, perhaps, best remembered from his "Lecture on Heads," a medley of wit and nonsense, to which no other person but himself could have given the proper effect. The lecture was originally designed for Shuter, who entirely failed in the performance. Stevens, however, no sooner attempted the task himself, than it became instantly popular. His songs are now nearly forgotten; yet one or two of them are not without merit, especially the one entitled the " Wine Vault," commencing :

"Contented I am, and contented I'll be,

For what can this world more afford,

Than a lass that will sociably sit on my knee,
And a cellar as sociably stored?

My brave boys.

My vault-door is open, descend and improve,
That cask,-ay, that we will try ;

'Tis as rich to the taste as the lips of your love,
And as bright as her cheeks to the eye,

VOL. III.

My brave boys."

7

ELY HOUSE, GRAY'S INN, THAVIE'S INN,

STAPLE INN, BARNARD'S INN.

ELY HOUSE IN ITS SPLENDOUR.-ITS INHABITANTS.-PROTECTOR GLOUCESTER. -BISHOPS OF ELY.-FEASTINGS IN ELY HOUSE.-SIR CHRISTOPHER HAT

TON AND THE BISHOPS OF ELY.-GRAY'S INN AND GARDENS.-MASQUES PERFORMED AT GRAY'S INN.-FAMOUS MASQUE. CELEBRATED MEN WHO STUDIED AT GRAY'S INN.-THAVIE'S INN.-FURNIVAL'S INN.-STAPLE INN. -BARNARD'S INN.-GORDON RIOTS.

Ο

N the north side of Holborn Hill are Ely Place and Hatton Garden; the former deriving its name from the episcopal palace of the Bishops of Ely, which stood here for nearly four centuries, and the latter from the adjoining residence of Sir Christopher Hatton, the graceful courtier and eminent statesman of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Ely House in the days of its splendour-for at one period its palace and gardens covered an area of nearly twenty acres-consisted of a spacious paved court, the approach to which was through a stately gateway. On the left side of the court was a small garden; on the right were the offices supported by a colonnade; and, at the extremity, the noble old hall, associated in our minds with many past scenes of revelry and splendour. To the north-west of the hall was a quadrangular cloister, and, adjoining it, a small meadow in which stood the chapel, dedicated to St. Etheldreda, the patron saint of the Cathedral Church of Ely. The