Temple Students and Temple Studies.

Late years, however, have wrought many changes in the buildings. At the far end of the Temple, next the river, is a florid example of Italian art, erected some few years ago, which provides "eligible suites" at the cost of very glaring incongruity with every building round. Opposite Goldsmith's windows in Brick Court the scaffolding is not yet removed from a building which will exhibit the same striking contrast to its neighbors in Middle Temple Lane (though we could hardly plead now any slavish ad herence to the style of architecture there), and serve as a handsome tomb for all the memories of Elia's description of Hare Court and its pump. But Temple architects have seldom pleased the critics. " They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner Temple hall and the library front: to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all resemble." Thus Elia; while Thackeray, who placed Pendennis in Lamb Court, Upper Temple (read Lamb Building, Inner Temple), has something equally charming and equally rude. If the outward appearance of the Temple is fast changing, its customs are still jealously preserved. The old forms and quaint habits are still kept up, although their significance may have disappeared. The dinner has assumed a more subordinate position in the curriculum than it had some hundred years since. No longer do the functions of chief butler and librarian unite themselves, as in the person of Mr. Joshua Blew, who lies buried, in that dual capacity, hard by Gold smith's grave. But the ceremonial, already

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described in these pages, abates hardly one jot. Once it seemed as if the old order were changing — when the student might qualify merely by coming into Hall, and without staying for dinner. To what base uses the vessels were then put may be guessed from the fact that the Loving Cup became "the receptacle for toothpicks." "There's anti-climax for you! " But these niggard times soon vanished in a day of greater splendor when, though the diners numbered less than seventy, and though every member is, by rule, restricted to a sip, thirty-six quarts of generous wine were pledged in the progress of the cup round the tables. It was a tolerable deal of sack for the number of heads. It is after leaving the Hall with its mem ories and old-world ceremony that we may best understand the spirit of the place. Night falls on the quaint gables of the houses and the cone-pointed turrets of the church. Scarcely a sound of any kind stirs through all the courts. The little traffic Fleet Street has drops to a pleasant mur mur, and only here and there a light from the windows shows the presence of a tenant in the old rooms. So one begins to under stand its history and realize its tradition. One may even look to see the Doctor rolling home from the Mitre with the " Scotch sheep-dog" just behind; see Thurlow work ing the night through in his attic, that he may pretend to an aimless leisure to-mor row; and, further back yet, hear John Manningham sauntering home from the Hall with his chamber-fellow, Curie, and hum ming a catch from Twelfth Night.