In spite of all bad proclivities, Shire Lane had its fits of respectability. In 1603 there was living there Sir Arthur Atie, Knt., in early life secretary to the great Earl of Leicester, and afterwards attendant on his step-son, the luckless Earl of Essex. Elias Ashmole, the great antiquary and student in alchemy and astrology, also honoured this lane, but he gathered in the Temple those great collections of books and coins, some of which perished by fire, and some of which he afterwards gave to the University of Oxford, where they were placed in a building called, in memory of the illustrious collector, the Ashmolean Museum.

To Mr. Noble's research we are indebted for the knowledge that in 1767 Mr. Hoole, the translator of Tasso, was living in Shire Lane, and from thence wrote to Dr. Percy, who was collecting his "Ancient Ballads," to ask him Dr. Wharton's address. Hoole was at that time writing a dramatic piece called Cyrus, for Covent Garden Theatre. He seems to have been an amiable man but a feeble poet, was an esteemed friend of Dr. Johnson, and had a situation in the East India House.

Another illustrious tenant of Shire Lane was James Perry, the proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, who died, as it was reported, worth £130,000. That lively memoir-writer, Taylor, of the Sun, who wrote "Monsieur Tonson," describes Perry as living in the narrow part of Shire Lane, opposite a passage which led to the stairs from Boswell Court. He lodged with Mr. Lunan, a bookbinder, who had married his sister, who subsequently became the wife of that great Greek scholar, thirsty Dr. Porson. Perry had begun life as the editor of the Gazeteer, but being dismissed by a Tory proprietor, and on the Morning Chronicle being abandoned by Woodfall, some friends of Perry's bought the derelict for £210, and he and Gray, a friend of Barett, became the joint-proprietors of the concern. Their printer, Mr. Lambert, lived in Shire Lane, and here the partners, too, lived for three or four years, when they removed to the corner-house of Lancaster Court, Strand.

Bell Yard can boast of but few associations; yet Pope often visited the dingy passage, because there for some years resided his old friend Fortescue, then a barrister, but afterwards a judge and Master of the Rolls. To Fortescue Pope dedicated his "Imitation of the First Satire of Horace," published in 1733. It contains what the late Mr. Rogers, the banker and poet, used to consider the best line Pope ever wrote, and it is certainly almost perfect,

"Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star."

In that delightful collection of Pope's "Table Talk," called "Spence's Anecdotes," we find that a chance remark of Lord Bolingbroke, on taking up a "Horace" in Pope's sick-room, led to those fine "Imitations of Horace" which we now possess. The "First Satire" consists of an imaginary conversation between Pope and Fortescue, who advises him to write no more dangerous invectives against vice or folly. It was Fortescue who assisted Pope in writing the humorous law-report of "Stradling versus Stiles," in "Scriblerus." The intricate case is this, and is worthy of Anstey himself: Sir John Swale, of Swale's Hall, in Swale Dale, by the river Swale, knight, made his last will and testament, in which, among other bequests, was this: "Out of the kind love and respect that I bear my muchhonoured and good friend, Mr. Matthew Stradling, gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, gent., all my black and white horses." Now the testator had six black horses, six white, and six pied horses. The debate, therefore, was whether the said Matthew Stradling should have the said pied horses, by virtue of the said bequest. case, after much debate, is suddenly terminated by a motion in arrest of judgment that the pied horses were mares, and thereupon an inspection was prayed. This, it must be confessed, is admirable

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fooling. If the Scriblerus Club had carried out their plan of bantering the follies of the followers of every branch of knowledge, Fortescue would no doubt have selected the law as his special butt. "This friend of Pope," says Mr. Carruthers, "was consulted by the poet about all his affairs, as well as those of Martha Blount, and, as may be gathered, he gave him advice without a fee. The intercourse between the poet and his learned counsel' was cordial and sincere; and of the letters that passed between them sixty-eight have been published, ranging from 1714 to the last year of Pope's life. They are short, unaffected lettersmore truly letters than any others in the series." Fortescue was promoted to the bench of the Exchequer in 1735, from thence to the Common Pleas in 1738, and in 1741 was made Master of the Rolls. Pope's letters are often addressed to "his counsel learned in the law, at his house at the upper end of Bell Yard, near unto Lincoln's Inn." In March, 1736, he writes of "that filthy old place, Bell Yard, which I want them and you to quit."

Apollo Court, next Bell Yard, has little about it worthy of notice beyond the fact that it derived its name from the great club-room at the "Devil" Tavern, that once stood on the opposite side of Fleet Street, and the jovialities of which we have already chronicled.

CHANCERY, or Chancellor's, Lane, as it was first called, must have been a mere quagmire, or carttrack, in the reign of Edward I., for Strype tells us that at that period it had become so impassable to knight, monk, and citizen, that John Breton, Custos of London, had it barred up, to "hinder any harm;" and the Bishop of Chichester, whose house was there (now Chichester Rents), kept up the bar ten years; at the end of that time, on an inquisition of the annoyances of London, the bishop was proscribed at an inquest for setting up two staples and a bar, "whereby men with carts and other carriages could not pass." The bishop pleaded John Breton's order, and the sheriff was then commanded to remove the annoyance, and the hooded men with their carts once more cracked their whips and whistled to their horses up and down the long disused lane.

Half-way up on the east side of Chancery Lane a dull archway, through which can be caught glimpses of the door of an old chapel, leads to the Rolls Court. On the site of that chapel, in the year 1233, history tells us that Henry III. erected a Carthusian house of maintenance for converted Jews, who there lived under a Christian governor. At a time when Norman barons were not unaccustomed to pull out a Jew's teeth, or to fry him on gridirons till he paid handsomely for his release, conversion, which secured safety from such rough practices, may not have been unfrequent. However, the converts decreasing when Edward I., after hanging 280 Jews for clipping coin, banished the rest from the realm, half the property of the Jews who were hung stern Edward gave to the preachers who tried to convert the obstinate and stiff-necked generation, and half to the Domus Conversorum, in Chancellor's Lane. In 1278 we find the converts calling themselves, in a letter sent to the king by John the Convert, "Pauperes Cœlicolæ Christi." In the reign of Richard II. a certain converted Jew received twopence a day for life; and in the reign of Henry IV. we find the daughter of a rabbi paid by the keepers of the house of converts a penny a day for life, by special patent.

Edward III., in 1377, broke up the Jewish almshouse in Chancellor's Lane, and annexed the house and chapel to the newly-created office of Custos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the Rolls. Some of the stones the old gaberdines have rubbed against are no doubt incorporated in the present chapel, which, however, has been so often altered, that, like the Highlandman's gun, it is "new stock and new barrel." The first Master of the Rolls, in 1377, was William Burstal; but till Thomas Cromwell, in 1534, the Masters of the Rolls were generally priests, and often king's chaplains.

The Rolls Chapel was built, says Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a cost of £2,000. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon. One of the monuments belonging to the earlier chapel is that of Dr. John Yonge, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute the tomb to Torregiano, Michael Angelo's contemporary and the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The master is represented by the artist (who starved himself to death at Seville) in effigy on an altar-tomb, in a red gown and deep square cap; his hands are crossed, his face wears an expression of calm resignation and profound devotion. In a recess at the back is a head of Christ, and an angel's head appears on either side in high relief. Another monument of interest in this quiet, legal chapel is that of Sir Edward Bruce, created by James I. Baron of Kinloss. He was one of the crafty ambassadors sent by wily James to openly congratulate Elizabeth on the failure of the revolt of Essex, but secretly to commence a correspondence with Cecil. The place of Master of the Rolls was Bruce's reward for this useful service. The ex-master lies with his head resting on his hand, in the "toothache" attitude ridiculed by the old dramatists. His hair is short, his beard long, and he wears a long furred robe. Before him kneels a man in armour, possibly his son, Lord Kinloss, who, three years after his father's death, perished in a most savage duel with Sir Edward Sackville, ancestor to the Earls of Elgin and Aylesbury. Another fine monument is that of Sir Richard Allington, of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire,