THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 14, No. 405.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1829. [PRICE 2d.




NEW BUILDINGS, INNER TEMPLE.


[Illustration: New Buildings, Inner Temple.]

"The Temple," as our readers may be aware, is an immense range of
buildings, stretching from Fleet-street to the River Thames, north and
south; and from Lombard-street, Whitefriars, to Essex-street, in the
Strand, east and west. It takes its name from having been the principal
establishment, in England, of the Knights Templars; and here, in the
thirteenth century they entertained King Henry III., the Pope's Nuncio,
foreign ambassadors, and other great personages. The king's treasure was
accustomed to be kept in the part now called the _Middle Temple_; and
from the chief officer, who, as master of the Temple, was summoned to
Parliament in the 47th of Henry III., the chief minister of the Temple
Church is still called _Master of the Temple_. After the suppression of
this once celebrated order,[1] the professors of the common law
purchased the buildings, and they were then first converted into _Inns
of Court_, called the Inner and _Middle Temple_, from their former
relation to Essex House, which as a part of the buildings, and from its
situation outside the division of the city from the suburbs formed by
Temple Bar, was called the Outer Temple.