with you. My best room commands a court in which are trees and a pump, the
water of which is excellent cold--with brandy, and not very insipid
without." At about the same time we find Mary Lamb recording that her
genial brother had suddenly taken to living like an anchorite. He tabooed
all alcoholic drinks, and confined himself to cold water and cold tea. But
the beverage drawn from Hare Court did not agree with his internal
economy: he suffered in consequence from cramps and rheumatism, and his
abstention from generous fluids was, we are forced to infer, exceedingly
brief.

The poet Garth, who exposed the apothecaries of London to reprobation and
ridicule in his satirical poem "The Dispensary," also humorously alludes
to Hare Court's pump:

And dare the college insolently aim
To equal our fraternity in fame?
Then let crabs' eyes with pearls for virtue try,
Or Highgate Hill with lofty Pindus vie;
So glowworms may compare with Titan's beams,
And Hare Court pump with Aganippe's streams.

The one structure in the Temple area that overshadows all others in point
of interest is the famous round church, consecrated to St. Mary by
Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the year 1185. This prelate's
presence in England was on an errand to invoke the assistance of Henry II.
against Saladin, who had recently inflicted several disastrous defeats on
the Templars in the Holy Land.

The church was finished about 1240. It is one of the four round churches
still remaining in England. Its plan is that of a central round tower,