"4th July, 1597. Ordered that the summee of £7 15s. 4d. due to Mr. Bacon, for planting of elm trees in the walkes be paid next term;" and again, in the following year, there was an order made for the supply of more young elms, etc., the cost of which, as appears by Mr. Bacon's accounts, was £60 6s. 8d., a very large sum in those days. We learn also from Howell's "Familiar Letters" and from Pepys' "Diary," that Gray's Inn Walks were at one time a fashionable promenade. Howell, writing from Venice in 1621, to a friend residing in Gray's Inn, says: "I hold your walks to be the pleasantest place about London, and that you have there the choicest society." Pepys seems to have frequently visited Gray's Inn Gardens as appears by his "Diary": "4th May, 1662. When church was done my wife and I walked to Gray's Inn to observe fashions of the ladies, because of my wife's making some clothes." Cannot we picture to ourselves quiet Mrs. Pepys carefully scanning the gay apparel of the fine ladies as they passed to and fro? daintily walking with the little mincing French step that the fair Lady Castlemaine had brought into fashion? The good little wife absorbed in the many intricacies of plaits and puckers, weighing the several advantages to be obtained by the use of plain or damask stuffs, all unconscious, probably, that her volatile husband was as curiously scanning the black eyes and pretty faces that had such overpowering attractions for his wandering fancy. Pepys again says: "17th August, 1662. I was very well pleased with the sight of a fine lady that I have often seen walk in Gray's Inn Gardens." Dryden, in his "Sir Martin Marall," 1661, makes the following reference to Gray's Inn Walks: "_Sir John Shallow._ But where did you appoint to meet him? "_Mrs. Millicent._ In Gray's Inn Walks." Addison, in the _Spectator_, selects the terrace in Gray's Inn Gardens as the place where Sir Roger de Coverley enjoys his morning walk. He describes the dear old baronet as "hemming twice or thrice to himself with great vigour, for he loves to clear his pipes in good air, to make use of his own phrase, and is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems." Charles Lamb, in his delightful "Essays of Elia," gives an interesting description of these gardens, adding, however, an indignant protest against the injury their beauty had received from the ugly pile of houses called Verulam Buildings, that had been recently erected. He says: