west front is altogether different. The old Gateway, at the southern entrance of St. John's Square, still remains, but has been considerably altered from its original state: it shews, however, that Hollar's view could never have been strictly accurate. In James the First's reign, this Gate was the habitation of Sir Roger Wilbraham, but it has acquired much greater celebrity from having been the residence of Edward Cave, the projector of that invaluable repository of antiquarian lore, the "Gentleman's Magazine," which was first published at St. John's Gate, in the year 1730. It has long been differently appropriated: the western side and upper part constitute a respect. able public-house, called the Jerusalem Tavern: on the eastern side is the parish watch-house.-Sir John Longstrother, Prior of St. John's, an adherent of Henry VI., who was taken at the Battle of Tewkesbury, May 4, 1741, was beheaded at Tewkesbury, the second day afterwards, with divers other persons.

INNS OF COURT IN LONDON.

The following Historical particulars of the origin, &c. of the Inns of Court in London, and of the ancient modes of study and discipline therein, are derived from Reeves's "History of the English Law." The subject would admit of much amplification, yet what is here stated will be sufficient, probably, to gratify the general reader.

There is nothing but a vague tradition to give us any trace of the places where the practisers and students of the law had their residence before the

reign of King Edward II., when we find that such places were called Hospitals, or Inns of Court, because the inhabitants of them belonged to the King's Court. One of these, called Johnson's Inn, is said to have been at Dowgate; another in Fewter's (i. e. Fetter) Lane; and another in Pater-noster Row. An ancient custom is vouched, to support a belief, that some Inn was in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's Church; it is said that the Serjeants and Apprentices [of the Law], each at his pillar, used to hear his client's case, and take notice thereof upon his knee; a custom which was remembered by a solemnity observed in the time of Charles I., upon the making of Serjeants, for it was then customary for them to go there in their formalities, and choose their pillar.

Of the origin of LINCOLN'S INN, it is reported by the learned Dugdale, that William, Earl of Lincoln, about the beginning of the above reign, being well affected to the study of the laws, first brought the professors of them to settle in a house of his, since called Lincoln's Inn. The Earl was only lessee under the Bishops of Chichester; and many succeeding bishops, in after-times, let leases of this house to certain persons, for the use and residence of the practisers and students of the law, till the 28th of Henry VIII. when the Bishop of Chichester granted the inheritance to Francis Sulyard, and his brother Eustace, both students; the survivor of whom, in the 20th of Elizabeth, sold the fee to the benchers for 5201. It seems clear, that Thavies Inn was inhabited at this time by lawyers. Such were the first Inns

[of Court] of which we have any account that may be depended upon.

It is, beyond dispute, that the TEMPLE was inhabited by a law Society in the reign of Edward III. On the dissolution of the order of the Knights Templars in the previous reign, their possessions came to the crown. The New Temple, as it was then called, to which they had removed from their house in Holborn, about the beginning of Edward the Second's reign, was granted by that King, successively, to the Earl of Lancaster, the Earl of Pembroke, and Hugh Despencer, his son, upon whose several attainders this property again devolved to the crown. In pursuance of a decree made by the great Council at Vienna, in 1324, respecting the possessions of the Templars, King Edward III. granted this building to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and they soon after, as the tradition is, devised it, at the rent of 101. per annum, to divers professors of the law who came from Thavies Inn in Holborn. At the general dissolution of religious houses, when the inheritance of this Order again fell to the crown, King Henry VIII. granted the Temple premises to the Law professors on lease, and they continued tenants to the crown till the sixth year of King James I., when that King granted the inns and capital messuages known by the name of the Inner or New Temple, to Sir Julius Cæsar and others, to them and their heirs, for the use and reception of the professors and students of the law.

It is said, that some professors of the law resided