Chancery Lane, has many most interesting asso- The gatehouse, forming the principal external eature of the old buildings in Chancery Lane, is uch admired; and not the less so because, with he exception of the magnificent gatehouse of ambeth Palace and those at St. James's Palace ad St. John's Priory, Clerkenwell, this may be id to be the only specimen of its kind of early ate now existing in London. Its erection was gely due to the liberality of Sir Thomas Lovell, G., one of the benchers of the Society of Lincoln's in, and Treasurer of the Household of Henry VII. he flanking towers are constructed mainly of ick, the favourite building material of the Tudor riod. The entrance, under an obtusely pointed ch, was originally vaulted, but the groined iling is now removed. Over the arch is an heraldic mpartment containing the arms of Henry VIII., ithin the Garter and crowned, together with the ms of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, and the ms and quarterings of Sir Thomas Lovell. It would be easy to write a long article upon historical, legal, and literary memories which ther around the immediate vicinity of Chancery me. It would be easy to give expression to the alth of pleasant thoughts which are called up by e mere mention of some of the localities hereouts. But the space in Notes and Queries is tally inadequate to the needs of such an underking, and, indeed, it is not proposed to attempt ything of that nature upon this occasion. Only few of the chief topics of interest can be touched "Here was my first perch," said Lord Chancellor don, passing through Cursitor Street with his cretary; "" many a time have I run down to leet Street to get six pennyworth of sprats for pper." This street took its name from the arsitors' Office, or Inn, which was founded there Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and father the great Lord Bacon. The cursitors were venty-four in number, and their office was to ake out and issue writs in the name of the Court Chancery. One of Swift's "Instructions to a orter how to find Mr. Curll's authors" is :— "At the Laundress's at the Hole in the Wall in uraitor's Alley, up three pair of stairs, the author of & its neighbourhood about 174.0. THE ROLLS CHAPEL. John Stow, the chronicler, tells us :— etter "Between this Old Temple and the Bishop of Lincoln's house, is New Street, so called in the reign of Henry III., when he of a Jew's house founded the House of Converts betwixt the Old Temple and the New. The same street bath since been called Chancery Lane, by reason that King Edward III. annexed the House of Converts by patent to the Office of Custos Rotulorum, or Master of the Rolls." It appears that Henry III. founded, close by Chancery Lane, a Carthusian house of maintenance for converted Jews, who there lived under the superintendence of a Christian governor. In 1377 Edward III. broke up this Jewish almshouse in Chancery, or, as it was then called, Chancellor's Lane, and annexed the house and chapel to the newly created office of Keeper of the Rolls. The Rolls Chapel has been much altered 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 & more unhappy man, Col. Frederick, 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. Another interesting spot close by deserves a word or two. Serjeants' Inn, although rebuilt in modern times, is an old institution. It was 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 with the armorial bearings of the members, who, when they are knighted, are emphatically equites aurati (knights made golden), at least so far as rings are concerned, for they give rings on the occasion, law and justice. Jekyll, the learned punster, made with mottoes expressive of their sentiments upon an epigram upon the oratory and scarlet robes of his brethren to the following effect : The Serjeants are a grateful race; A curious custom, which used to be observed so late as the reign of Charles I. in the creation of in proserjeants, was for the new dignitary to go cession 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 bis 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. There is a very curious custom, and one of great antiquity, which prevails after the dinners at Clifford's Inn. That society is divided into two sections-the Principal and Aules, and the Junior |