EMINENT STUDENTS OF LINCOLN'S INN. 195 that he would illustrate some of the consequences of good laws in his usual manner. Old Fortescue was of Lincoln's Inn; Spelman, the great antiquary; Sir Thomas More; Cromwell; Sir Mathew Hale; Lord Chancellor Egerton, otherwise known by his title of Lord Ellesmere; Shaftesbury, the statesman; and Lord Mansfield. Dr. Donne also studied there for a short time, but left the Inn to enjoy an inheritance, and became a clergyman. However, he returned to it in after life as preacher of the lecture; which office he held about two years, to the great satisfaction of his hearers. Tillotson was another preacher. It is difficult to present to one's imagination the venerable judges in their younger days; to think of Hale as a gay fellow (which he was till an accident made him otherwise); or fancy that Sir Thomas More had any other face but the profound and ponderous one in his pictures. His face, indeed, must have been full of meaning enough at all times; for at twenty-one he was a stirring youth in Parliament; and at twenty he took to wearing a hair-shirt, as an aid to his meditations. It is interesting to fancy him passing us in the Inn square, with a glance of his deep eye; we (of posterity) being in the secret of his hair-shirt, which the less informed passengers are not. The account of Hale's change of character, on his entrance into Lincoln's Inn, merits to be repeated. "At Oxford," says his biographer, "he fell into many levities and extravagances, and was preparing to go along with his tutor, who went chaplain to Lord Vere, into the Low Countries, with a resolution of entering himself into the Prince of Orange's army, when he was diverted from his design by being engaged in a lawsuit with Sir William Whitmore, who laid claim to part of his estate. Afterwards, by the persuasions of Serjeant Glanville, who happened to be his counsel in this case, and had an opportunity of observing his capacity, he resolved upon the study of the law, and was admitted of Lincoln's Inn, November 8, 1629. Sensible of the time he had lost in frivolous pursuits, he now studied at the rate of sixteen hours a-day, and threw aside all appearance of vanity in his apparel. He is said, indeed, to have neglected his dress so much, that, being a strong and well-built man, he was once taken by a press-gang, as a person very fit for seaservice, which pleasant mistake made him regard more decency in his clothes for the future, though never to any degree of extravagant finery. What confirmed him still more in a serious and regular way of life was an accident, which is related to have befallen one of his companions. Hale, with other young students of the Inn, being invited out of town, one of the company called for so much wine, that notwithstanding all Hale could do to prevent it, he went on in his excess till he fell down in a fit, seemingly dead, and was with some difficulty recovered. This particularly affected Hale, in whom the 196 OLIVER CROMWELL-MANSFIELD. principles of religion had been early implanted; and, therefore, retiring into another room, and falling down upon his knees, he prayed earnestly to God, both for his friend, that he might be restored to life again, and for himself, that he might be forgiven for being present and countenancing so much excess; and he vowed to God, that he would never again keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived. His friend recovered; and from this time Mr. Hale forsook all his gay acquaintance, and divided his whole time between the duties of religion, and the studies of his profession." Cromwell is supposed to have been about two years in Lincoln's Inn, and while he was there attended to anything but the law, the future devout Protector being, in fact, nothing more or less than a gambler and debauchee. However, he is supposed to have run all his round of dissipation in that time. Mansfield's residence in Lincoln's Inn, when Mr. Murray, gave rise to a singular reference in Pope. It is in the translation of Horace's ode, "Intermissa Venus diu," where the poet says to the goddess "I am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne. There spread round Murray all your blooming loves; To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend." This number five to which Venus is to go with her doves, points out Murray's apartments in Lincoln's Inn. Pope, as we have mentioned elsewhere, thought that nature intended his noble acquaintance for an Ovid; a notion partly suggested, perhaps, by Ovid's having been a lawyer. It was during his residence in Lincoln's Inn, that the future Lord Chief Justice is said to have drunk the Pretender's health on his knees; which he very likely did. The charge was brought up twenty years afterwards, to ruin his prospects under the Hanover succession; but it came to nothing. One dynasty has no dislike to a strong prejudice in favour of a preceding dynasty, when the latter has ceased to be formidable. The propensity to adhere to royalty is looked upon as a good symptom; and the event generally answers the expectation. The favourite courtiers under the house of Brunswick have come of Jacobite families. A century ago, according to a passage in Gay, Lincoln's Inn and the neighbourhood were dangerous places to walk through at night. LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. "Where Lincoln's Inn, wide space, is railed around, That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound 197 The wall here mentioned is probably that which was not long since displaced by the new one, and the elegant structure that now adorns the east side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Lincoln's Inn Fields, now a handsome square, set more agreeably than most others, with grass plat and underwood, were first disposed into their present regular appearance by Inigo Jones, under the auspices of a committee of gentry and nobility, one of whom was Bacon. Inigo built some of the houses, and gave to the ground-plot of the square the exact dimensions of the base of one of the pyramids of Egypt. He could not have hit upon a better mode of conveying to the imagination a sense of those enormous structures. If the passenger stops and pictures to himself one of the huge slanting sides of the pyramid, as wide as the whole length of the square, leaning away up into the atmosphere, with an apex we know not how high, it will indeed seem to him a kind of stone mountain. The houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields built by Inigo Jones are in Arch Row (the western side), and may still be distinguished. Pennant speaks of one of them as being "Lindesey House, once the seat of the Earls of Lindesey, and of their descendants, the Dukes of Ancaster." They are probably still a great deal more handsome inside, and more convenient, than any of the flimsy modern houses preferred to them; but London has grown so large, that everybody who can afford it lives at the fashionable outskirts for the fresh air. It is probable that Inigo's houses created an ambition of good building in this quarter. Pepys speaks of a Mr. Povey's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields as a miracle of elegance and comfort. His description of it is characteristic of the snug and wondering Pepys. "Thence (that is to say, from chapel and the ladies) with Mr. Povey home to dinner; whereextraordinary cheer. And after dinner 198 HOUSES BUILT BY INIGO JONES. up and down to see his house. And in a word, methinks, for his perspective in the little closet; his room floored above with woods of several colours, like, but above the best cabinet-work I ever saw; his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of the house, good pictures, and his manners of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life." * go The Country and City Mouse, in Pope's imitation of Horace, which had To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn, Palladian walls, Venetian doors, The house of a late architect (Sir John Soane) is observable in Holborn Row (the north side of the square), and has a singular but pleasing effect, though not quite desirable perhaps in this northern climate, where light and sun are in request. It presents a case of stone, added to the original front, and comprising a balcony and arcade. Shrubs and plate-glass complete the taste of its appearance. On the opposite side of the way (called Portugal Row, most likely from our connection with Portugal in Charles the Second's time), the inhabitant of the above house had the pleasure, we believe, of contemplating his own work in the handsome front and portico of Surgeon's College. This mode of giving a new front to a house, and fetching it out into a portico, is an ingenious way of getting up an ornament to the metropolis at little expense. Surgeons' College, instead of being two or three old houses with a new face, looks like a separate building. In Portugal Row sometime lived Sir Richard Fanshawe, in whose quaint translation of the Camoens there is occasionally more genuine poetry, than in the less unequal version of Mickle. This accomplished person was recalled from an embassy in Spain, on the ground that he had signed a treaty without authority; which was fact; but the suspicious necessity of finding some honourable way of removing Lord Sandwich from his command in the navy, induced Lady Fanshawe and others to conclude that he was sacrificed to that convenience. He died on the intended day of his return, of a violent fever, aggravated, not improbably, perhaps caused, by this awkward close of his mission: for such things have been, with men of sensitive imaginations. His wife, a very frank and cordial woman, has left interesting memoirs of him, in * Diary, ut supra, vol. ii., p. 185. SIR RICHARD AND LADY FANSHAWE. 199 which she countenances a clamour of that day, that Lord Sandwich was a coward. She adds, "He neither understood the custom of the (Spanish) court, nor the language, nor indeed anything but a vicious life; and thus (addressing her children) was he shuffled into your father's employment, to reap the benefit of his five years' negotiation."* We quote this passage here, because Lord Sandwich was himself an inhabitant of Lincoln's Inn Fields. His want of courage (a charge shamefully bandied to and fro between officers at that time) is surely not to be taken for granted upon the word of his enemies, considering the testimonies borne in his favour by the Duke of York and others, and his numerous successes against the enemy. It is possible, however, that the pleasures of Charles's court might have done him no good. Sandwich had been one of Cromwell's council. He appears afterwards to have been a gallant of Lady Castlemain's; was a great courtier; and probably had as little principle as most public men of that age. Pepys, who was his relation, describes him as being a lute-player. On Lady Fanshawe's return to England, she took a house for twenty-one years in Holborn Row (the north side of the Fields), where the contemplation of the houses opposite must have been very sad. Her account of the circumstances under which she returned is of a melancholy interest. "I had not," she says, "God is my witness, above twenty-five doubloons by me at my husband's death, to bring home a family of three score servants, but was forced to sell one thousand pounds' worth of our own plate, and to spend the Queen's present of two thousand doubloons in my journey to England, not owing nor leaving one shilling debt in Spain, I thank God; nor did my husband leave any debt at home, which every ambassador cannot say. Neither did these circumstances following prevail to mend my condition, much less found I that compassion I expected upon the view of myself, that had lost at once my husband, and fortune in him, with my son, but twelve months old, in my arms, four daughters, the eldest but thirteen years of age, with the body of my dear husband daily in my sight for near six months together, and a distressed family, all to be by me in honour and honesty provided for; and, to add to my afflictions, neither persons sent to conduct me, nor pass, nor ship, nor money to carry me one thousand miles, but some few letters of compliment from the chief ministers, bidding 'God help me!' as they do to beggars, and they might have added, 'they had nothing for me,' with great truth. But God did hear, and see, and help me, and brought my soul out of trouble; and, by his blessed providence, I and you live, move, and * "Memoires of Lady Fanshawe, &c., written by herself." 1729, p. 267. |