at various times, and it is probable that the old material has been used again and again. It was built, says Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a cost of 2,000l. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon. The arms of Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Harbottle Grimstone enrich the chapel windows. There is a fine monument in the chapel to Dr. Young, one of the masters, which, according to Vertue, was executed by Torregiano, who built the splendid tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Sir John Trevor, infamous for bribery and corruption, also lies here. "Wisely," says Pennant, "his epitaph is thus confined, 'Sir J. T., M. R., 1717. Some other masters," he adds, rest within the walls; among them Sir John Strange, but without the quibbling line,

Here lies an honest lawyer, that is Strange." Sir Joseph Jekyll was another Master of the Rolls. When Jekyll came into the office many of the houses were rebuilt, and to the expense of ten of them he added, out of his own purse, as much as 3501. each house, observing that he would have them built as strong and as well as if they were his own inheritance."

Among the preachers at the Rolls Chapel may he mentioned Bishops Atterbury, Butler, and Burnet. The last-named bishop was dismissed on account of the offence given to the king and court by his preaching a sermon here on the text, "Save

me from the lion's mouth; thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn." The recent

removal of old buildings in Chancery Lane has rendered it easy to get a good view of the quaint building.

BREAM'S BUILDINGS.

At the back of the Rolls Chapel, in Bowling Pin Alley, Bream's Buildings, there once lived, according to party calumny, a journeyman labourer named Thompson, whose clever and pretty daughter, the wife of Clark, a bricklayer, became the mischievous mistress of the good-natured but weak Duke of York. After making great scandal about the sale of commissions obtained by her influence, the shrewd woman wrote some memoirs, ten thousand copies of which, it is recorded, were, the year after, burnt at a printer's in Salisbury Square, upon condition of her debts being paid and an annuity of 4001. granted her. This lady, however, was not the daughter of a labourer. She was really, as Mr. Cyrus Redding, who knew most of the political secrets of his day, has proved, the unfortunate granddaughter of that unfortunate man, Theodore, King of Corsica, and daughter of even a more unhappy man, Col. Frederick, a brave, well-read gentleman, who, under the pressure of temporary monetary difficulty, occasioned by the dishonourable conduct of a friend, blew out his brains in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster,

The girl married an Excise officer, much older than herself, and became the mistress of the Duke of York, to whom probably she had applied for assistance or subscriptions to a poem which she had written in 1798. When he got tired of Mrs. Clark, the duke meanly and heartlessly left her, with a promised annuity which he never paid, and with debts mutually incurred at their house in Gloucester Place, which he shamefully allowed to fall upon her. SERJEANTS' INN.

It was

Another interesting spot close by deserves a word or two. Serjeants' Inn, although rebuilt in modern times, is an old institution. occasionally occupied by the Serjeants as early as the time of Henry IV., when it was called Farringdon's Inn, though it is believed that they never have held possession of the place but under continued to be occupied by the lawyers in 1730, tenure to the Bishops of Ely or their lessees. It when the whole was taken down. All the judges, as having been Serjeants-at-law before their elevation to the bench, have still chambers in the Inn in Chancery Lane. The windows of the house are filled when they are knighted, are emphatically equites with the armorial bearings of the members, who, aurati (knights made golden), at least so far as rings with mottoes expressive of their sentiments upon are concerned, for they give rings on the occasion, law and justice. Jekyll, the learned punster, made an epigram upon the oratory and scarlet robes of his brethren to the following effect :

The Serjeants are a grateful race;
Their dress and language show it;
Their purple robes from Tyre we trace,
Their arguments go to it.

A curious custom, which used to be observed so late as the reign of Charles I. in the creation of serjeants, was for the new dignitary to go in procession to St. Paul's, and there to choose his pillar, as it was expressed. This ceremony is supposed to have originated in the ancient practice of the lawyers taking each his station at one of the pillars in the cathedral, and there waiting for clients. The legal sage stood, it is said, with pen in hand, and dexterously noted down the particulars of every man's case on his knee.

Serjeants still address each other as "brother," and the old formula at Westminster, when a new serjeant approached the judges, was, "I think I see a brother." The accompanying illustration represents the old building as it existed some years ago. In 1837-38, the Inn was rebuilt, excepting the old dining-hall, by Sir Robert

Smirke.

CLIFFORD'S INN.

Corner in

Cliffords Inn 1892

or "Kentish Men." When the meal is over, the chairman of the Kentish Men, standing up at the Junior table, bows gravely to the Principal, takes from the hand of a servitor standing by four small rolls of bread, silently dashes them three times on the table, and then pushes them down to the further end of the board, whence they are removed. Perfect silence is preserved during this mystic ceremony. It has been suggested by some antiquaries that this singular custom typifies offerings to Ceres, who first taught mankind the use of laws, and originated those peculiar ornaments of civilization their expounders, the lawyers.

It appears that the four little loaves are baked together so as to form a cross, and that the chair

man, raising this symbol above his head, strikes it down on the table three times. This has been supposed to have reference to the three persons of The removal of the little loaves the Trinity. along the table is supposed to intimate that poor. Till what is left of the repast is to go to the a few years ago this was done, a number of old women waiting at the buttery to receive the The grace before meat consists broken meats. of the words "Pro hoc convivus-Deo Gratia." 66 Ancient and Honourable The only toasts are and Absent Members," and no speeches are allowed.

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Leigh Hunt declares that there are three things to notice in Clifford's Inn: its little bit of turf and trees, its quiet, and its having been the

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residence of Robert Pultock, author of the curious narrative of Peter Wilkins,' with its flying women. Who he was is not known; probably a barrister without practice; but he wrote an amiable and interesting book. The garden of Clifford's Inn forms part of the area of the Rolls.

The sketch-map of Chancery Lane and its immediate neighbourhood is founded upon the excellent plan which was made by Rocque in the first half of the eighteenth century. This plan of London, begun in 1737 and completed in 1746, sets forth the streets and buildings in considerable detail, and enables us to form a tolerably perfect idea of the disposition of houses, open spaces, and connecting streets and alleys of this locality about a century and a half ago.

TOOK'S COURT.

Took's Court, represented on the map (where it is denominated "Tuke's Court "), is memorable as having contained the spunging-house where Sheridan, in the last year of his life, was confined, and wherein he wrote the angry letter to Whitbread which has been printed in Moore's 'Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan.' In more recent times Took's Court has been tenanted by law-stationers and law-writers; but it has been chiefly known, perhaps, as containing the publishing offices of the Athenæum and Notes and Queries, and the premises of the Chiswick Press, which will now be next to the new Patent Office. The first number of Notes and Queries printed in Took's Court (at No. 4) was that which was published at 20, Wellington Street, Strand, on October 5, 1872; and the first number printed and published in Took's Court was that of December 19, 1885.

The alterations and improvements now in active progress will speedily obliterate the familiar features of the court and its surroundings immortalized by the pen of Charles Dickens, and although Notes and Queries knows Took's Court no more, it is satisfactory to those whose natures are apt to cling to old associations to hear that the new offices are situated in Bream's Buildings, within a stone's cast of Chancery Lane, environed by the same legal atmosphere as before, and removed by but a short distance from the site of the old office, which many of us have become used to regard with a sort of affection for the sake of old ties and old associations.

GEORGE CLINCH.

[Concerning the venerable gateway of Lincoln's Inn, we hear with sincere regret that the structure is in a most dilapidated condition, and believe that the greater part of it cannot possibly be kept standing.]

OLD TIME FAMINES.

I have in my possession an old magazine, containing a number of extracts from a scarce and curious pamphlet, entitled

"Artachthos; or, A new Booke declaring the Assise or Weight of Bread by Troy and Averdupois Weights, and conteining divers Orders and Articles made and set forth by the Lords and others of bis Majesties most honble. Privie Councell. 4to. Printed by R. Bishop and Edward Griffine, and are to be sold at the Stationers Shops, or at the Chamber of John Penkethman, the Composer, in Simons Inn, in Chancerie Lane."

These extracts comprise accounts of the great dearths with which this country was afflicted from the middle of the eleventh until the end of the sixteenth century, and, in the light of the existing distress in Russia and Germany, are of peculiar interest. It will be observed, indeed, that the more exceptional circumstances attending the Russian famine, in particular, bear a striking analogy to those accompanying the famines which occurred during the period between the Norman Conquest and the close of the reign of Queen Elizabetb. The first account given relates to the year 1069, and is as follows:

"In the third and fourth yeare of the said King (William the Conqueror), by meanes of the Normans wasting of England in Northumberland and other through all England, especially Northumberland, and places in the yeare precedent, such a dearth encreased the Countries next adjoyning, that men were glad to eat Horses, Catts, Dogges, and mans flesh, for all the land lying betweene Durham and Yorke lay waste without Inhabitants and people to till the ground, for Saint John of Beverlake." space of nine yeares, except only the Territory of

the

Seventeen years later

was a great dearth of cattell, and sore distemperature afterwards many others died of Famine"; of the aire, so that many men died of Feavers, and whilst in A.D. 1124, being

"the 23 yeare of King Henry the first, by meanes of changing the Coine, all things became very deere, whereof an extreame Famine did arise, and afflict the multitude of the people even to death."

During the reign of the tyrannical John there appears to have been only one dearth of a serious character, 38. 4d. being asked for a quarter of oats, which were wont to be sold for 4d.; but in the eighteenth year of Henry III. (1234)

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was a great Frost at Christmasse, which destroyed the Corne in the ground, and the Roots of hearbs in the Gardens, continuing till Candlemasse without any snow, so that no man could plough the ground, and all the yeare after was unseasonable weather, so that barrennesse of all things ensued, and many poore folks dyed for want of victualls, the rich being so bewitched with Avarice, that they could yeeld them no reliefe. Amongst whom Walter Gray, then Archbishop of York, was not least covetous, of whom it is recorded that his Corne being then 5 yeares old, hee doubting the same to be spoild with vermine, did command that it should be delivered to the Husbandmen that inhabited his Mannours, upon condition, that they should pay him the like quantity of new Corne after Harvest, but would give none to the poore for God's sake, whereupon it came to passe that when men came to a great Stack of his Corne, which stood neere the Towne of Rippon, there appeared in the Sheaves all over the same, the heads of