Worthy of especial notice is the colored kneeling effigy of Martin,
Recorder of London, and Reader of the Middle Temple, 1615. Near this is
the effigy--also colored and under a canopy--of Edmund Plowden, the famous
jurist, of whom Lord Ellenborough said that "better authority could not be
cited"; and referring to whom Fuller quaintly remarks: "How excellent a
medley is made, when honesty and ability meet in a man of his profession!"
There is also a monument to James Howell (1594-1666), whose entertaining
letters, chiefly written from the Fleet, give many curious particulars
relating to the reigns of James I. and Charles I.... The church (eight-two
feet long, fifty-eight wide, thirty-seven high), begun in 1185 and
finished in 1240, is one of our most beautiful existing specimens of Early
English Pointed architecture: "the roof springing, as it were, in a
harmonious and accordant fountain, out of the clustered pillars that
support its pinioned arches; and these pillars, immense as they are,
polished like so many gems." [Footnote: Hawthorne.] In the ornaments of
the ceiling the banner of the Templars is frequently repeated--black and
white, "because," says Fawyne, "the Templars showed themselves wholly
white and fair toward the Christians, but black and terrible to them that
were miscreants." The letters "Beausean" are for "Beauseant," their war
cry.

In a dark hole to the left of the altar is the white marble monument of
John Selden, 1654, called by Milton "the chief of learned men reputed in
this land." The endless stream of volumes which he poured forth were
filled with research and discrimination. Of these, his work "On the Law of
Nature and of Nations" is described by Hallam as among the greatest
achievements in erudition that any English writer has performed, but he is
perhaps best known by his "Table Talk," of which Coleridge says, "There is
more weighty bullion sense in this book than I ever found in the same
number of pages of any uninspired writer."...