recommendation of the great Lord Mansfield, as the appropriation of a legacy to the Inn of 2007.; statue of Lord Erskine, by Sir R. Westmacott, R.A. Observe in Drawingroom, &c., portraits of Sir Matthew Hale, by Wright; Lord Chancellor Bathurst, by Sir N. Dance; and Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, by Harlowe. The Library contains the unique fourth volume of Prynne's Records, for which the Society paid 3351. at the Stowe sale in 1849; and the rich collection of Books and MSS., the bequest of Sir Matthew Hale, "a treasure," says Hale, in his will, "that are not fit for every man's view." The Court of Chancery sits in "Term Time" at Westminster; during the "Vacation in Lincoln's Inn Old Hall, a mean building near the Chapel. Lincoln's Inn New Square (built on Little Lincoln's-Innfields) forms no part of the Inn of Court called Lincoln's Inn.

GRAY'S INN is an Inn of Court, with two Inns of Chancery attached, Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn, and is so called after Edmund, Lord Gray of Wilton, of the time of Henry VII. The Hall was built in 1560, and the Gardens first planted about 1600. The great Lord Burghley and the great Lord Bacon, who dates the dedication of his Essays "from my chamber at Graies Inn, this 30 of Januarie, 1597," are the chief worthies of the Inn. Bradshaw, who sat as president at the trial of Charles I., was a bencher of the Inn.

Gray's Inn Walks, or Gray's Inn Gardens, were in Charles II.'s time, and the days of the Tatler and Spectator, a fashionable promenade on a summer evening. The great Lord Bacon is said to have planted some of the trees, but none now exist coeval with his time. As late as 1754 there was still in the gardens an octagonal seat, erected by Lord Bacon when Solicitor-General, to his friend Jeremiah Bettenham, of this Inn. The principal entrance from Holborn was by Fulwood's-rents, then a fashionable locality, now the squalid habitation of the poorest people of the Parish of St. Andrew. "Within Gray's Inn Gate, next Gray's Inn Lane," Jacob Tonson first kept shop. The first turning on the right (as you walk from Holborn up Gray'sInn-lane) is Fox-court, in which, on the 16th of January, 1696-7, at 6 o'clock in the morning, the Countess of Macclesfield was delivered, wearing a mask all the while, of Richard Savage, the poet. The only toast ever publicly drank by the Society of Gray's Inn is, "To the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of Queen Elizabeth."

The INNS OF CHANCERY, attached to the four Inns of Court, are nine in number. To the Inner Temple belonged

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Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn; to the Middle Temple, New Inn and Strand Inn; to Lincoln's Inn, Furnival's Inn and Thavies' Inn; and to Gray's Inn, Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn. They have now little or no connexion with the Inns of Court.

Harrison, the regicide, was a clerk in the office of Thomas Houlker, an attorney in Clifford's Inn.

Justice Shallow was a student of Clement's Inn.

"Shallow. I was once of Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk ofmad Shallow yet.

"Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin.

"Shallow. By the mass, I was called anything; and I would have done anything indeed, and roundly too. There was I and Little John Doit of Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes of Staffordshire, and Francis Pickbone and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.

"Shallow. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain she's old, and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's Inn.

"Shallow. I remember at Mile-end-green (when I lay at Clement's Inn) I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show.

"Falstaff. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring."-Shakespeare, Second Part of Henry IV. "Withowt St. Clement's Inn back dore, as soon as you come up the steps and owt of that house and dore on your left hand two payre of stayres, into a little passage right before you," lived Winceslaus Hollar, the engraver. The black figure kneeling in the garden of Clement's Inn was presented to the Inn by Holles, Earl of Clare, but when or by what earl no one has told us. It was brought from Italy, and is

said to be of bronze.

William Weare, murdered by Thurtell, at Gill's-hill, in Hertfordshire, lived at No. 2 in Lyon's Inn.

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'They cut his throat from ear to ear,

His brains they battered in;

His name was Mr. William Weare,
He dwelt in Lyon's Inn."

Contemporary Ballad, attributed to Theodore Hook.

Isaac Reed (d. 1807) had chambers at No. 11, Staple Inn, Holborn. Here (in Reed's chambers) Steevens corrected the proof sheets of his edition of Shakspeare. He used to leave his house at Hampstead at 1 in the morning, and walk to Staple Inn. Reed, who went to bed at the usual hour, allowed his facetious fellow-commentator a key to the chambers, so that Steevens stole quietly to his proof sheets, without, it is said, disturbing the repose of his friend.

PRISONS, PENITENTIARIES, AND PLACES OF
PUBLIC EXECUTION.

NEWGATE, in the OLD BAILEY, is a prison appertaining to the city of London and county of Middlesex, formerly for felons and debtors; since 1815 (when Whitecross-street Prison was built) for felons only, and is now used as the gaol for the confinement of prisoners from the metropolitan counties, preparatory to their trial at the Central Criminal Court in the Old Bailey. It is the oldest prison in London, was so called because it was the tower of a gate of the same name, and has given its name as a common name for all prisons, as Bridewell has done for all houses of correction, and Bedlam for all houses in which lunatics are confined. The present edifice was designed by George Dance, the architect of the Mansion House, and the first stone laid by Alderman Beckford, 1770. The works advanced but slowly, for in 1780, when the old prison was burnt to the ground in the Lord George Gordon riots of that year, the new prison was only in part completed. More rapid progress was made in consequence of this event, and on Dec. 9th, 1783, the first execution took place before its walls. This was the first execution at Newgate, the last at Tyburn occurring on the 7th of the preceding month. The solitary or separate system is not in use in Newgate, and cannot, it is said, be introduced without a complete alteration of the design and structure of the prison. For the year 1845, the total number of prisoners committed to Newgate for trial was 2581: of that number 1960 were convicted, and 621 were acquitted. The prison, it is said, does not afford proper accommodation for more than 400 prisoners, but is often made to contain before the meeting of the sessions as many as 1000. Here, in the prison he had emptied and set in flames, Lord George Gordon, the leader of the riots of 1780, died (1793) of the gaol distemper, and in front of this prison Bellingham was executed (1812) for the murder of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister. Admission to inspect the interior is granted by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs. Observe. Opposite this prison, No. 68, Old Bailey, the residence of Jonathan Wild, the famous thief and thief-taker; immediately behind his house is a good specimen of the old wall of London.

BRIDEWELL. A city prison, situated in Bridge-street, Blackfriars, immediately behind the church of St. Bride,

Fleet-street. It derives its name from a manor or house, presented to the City of London by Edward VI., after a sermon by Bishop Ridley, who begged it of the King as a Workhouse for the poor, and a House of Correction "for the strumpet and idle person, for the rioter that consumeth all, and for the vagabond that will abide in no place." The prison is calculated to accommodate, in single cells, 70 male and 30 female prisoners. The sentences vary from three days to three months; the average length of confinement being thirty days. All prisoners committed are under summary convictions of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, together with refractory apprentices committed by the City Chamberlain. The employment of prisoners is as follows:-Male prisoners, sentenced to and fit for hard labour, are employed on the treadwheel, by which corn is ground for the supply of the three branches of the establishment, Bridewell, Bethlehem, and the House of Occupations. Prisoners under fourteen years of age, with others who are unfit for the wheel, or who have not been sentenced to hard labour, are employed in picking coir and in cleaning the wards. A portion of the females are employed in washing, mending, and getting up the linen and bedding of the prisoners, and the others in picking junk and cleaning their side of the prison. punishments for breaches of prison rules are diminution of food (with or without solitary confinement, as the case may be), and irons in cases of a violent and refractory nature. There is no whipping for offences committed within the prison. Observe.-Over chimney in Court-room large picture by Holbein, representing Edward VI. delivering the Charter of Endowment to the Mayor.

The

"Holbein has placed his own head in one corner of the picture. Vertue has engraved it. This picture it is believed was not completed by Holbein, both he and the King dying immediately after the donation."-Horace Walpole.

The scene of the 4th plate of Hogarth's Harlot's Progress is laid in Bridewell.

HORSEMONGER LANE GAOL, HORSEMONGER LANE, SOUTHWARK, is the county gaol for Surrey. Here Mr. Leigh Hunt was confined for two years (1812-14) for a libel on the Prince Regent in the Examiner newspaper, and here (Nov. 13th, 1849) Mr. and Mrs. Manning were hung. The place of execution is the top of the prison. "I was a witness," says Mr. Charles Dickens, "of the execution of the Mannings at Horsemonger-lane. I went there with the intention of observing the crowd gathered to behold it, and I had excellent opportunities of doing so, at intervals all through the

night, and continuously from daybreak until after the spectacle was over. I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it, faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks and language, of the assembled spectators. When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold. As the night went on, screeching, and laughing, and yelling in strong chorus of parodies on Negro melodies, with substitutions of 'Mrs. Manning' for 'Susannah' and the like were added to these. When the day dawned, thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians and vagabonds of every kind, flocked on to the ground, with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour. Fightings, faintings, whistlings, imitations of Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight when swooning women were dragged out of the crowd by the police with their dresses disordered, gave a new zest to the general entertainment. When the sun rose brightly -as it did-it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to feel ashamed of the shape he wore, and to shrink from himself, as fashioned in the image of the Devil. When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perished like the beasts. I have seen, habitually, some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution, and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. I do not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralisation as was enacted this morning outside Horsemonger-lane Gaol is presented at the very doors of good citizens, and is passed by, unknown or forgotten."