With such a tradition the Temple Garden should never be without its roses. They are one of those friendly plants which will do their best to fight against fog and smoke, and flower boldly for two or three years in succession: so a supply of red and white, and the delightful _Rosa mundi_, the “York and Lancaster,” could without much difficulty be seen there every summer. Certainly some of the finest roses in existence have been in the Temple Gardens, as the Flower Shows, which are looked forward to by all lovers of horticulture, have for many years been permitted to take place in these historic grounds. How astonished those adherents of the red or white roses would have been to see the colours, shades, and forms which the descendants of those briars now produce. The Plantagenet Garden would not contain many varieties, although every known one was cherished in every garden, as roses have always been first favourites. Besides the briars, dog roses, and sweet briars, there was the double white and double red, a variety of _Rosa gallica_. Many so-called old-fashioned roses, such as the common monthly roses, came to England very much later, and the vast number of gorgeous hybrids are absolutely new. Elizabethan gardens had a fair show of roses with centifolia, including moss and Provence roses, and York and Lancaster, _Rosa lutea_, musk, damask, and cinnamon roses in several varieties; and as the old records show, the Temple Garden was well supplied with roses. All these probably flourished there in the days of Shakespeare, and would readily suggest the scene he immortalised. Among the spirits that haunt the Temple Garden, there is none that seems to cling to it more than that of Charles Lamb. It should be a pride of these peaceful gardens that they helped to mould that lovable and unselfish character. A schoolfellow, who describes his ways as a boy at Christ’s Hospital, recalls how all his young days were spent in the solemn surrounding of the Temple, and how, while at school, “On every half holiday (and there were two in the week), in ten minutes he was in the gardens, on the terrace, or at the fountain of the Temple. Here was his home, here his recreation; and the influence they had on his infant mind is vividly shown in his description of the old Benchers.” “Shadows we are and like shadows depart,” suggests the sun-dial on the wall of Pump Court, but shadows of such gentle spirits as Charles Lamb leave something behind, and those “footprints on the sands of time” are nowhere more traceable than in these solemn precincts of law with their quiet, restful gardens. The attractions of the Temple are so great, one feels loth to cross the noisy thoroughfare and plunge through the traffic till the stately old gateway out of Chancery Lane, on which Ben Jonson is said to have worked, affords an opening towards the spacious gardens of Lincoln’s Inn.