“Besides St. James’s Park, the Green Park, and Hyde Park, the two last of which are continuations of the first, which, like the Tuileries at Paris, lie at the extremity of the metropolis, London has several public walks, which are much more agreeable to the English, as they are less frequented and more solitary than the Park. Such are the gardens contained within the compass of the Temple, of Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. They consist of grass plots, which are kept in excellent order, and planted with trees, either cut regularly, or with high stocks: some of them have a part laid out for culinary uses. The grass plots of the gardens at Lincoln’s Inn are adorned with statues, which, taken all together, form a scene very pleasing to the eye.” The students must certainly have aimed at keeping their gardens from the vulgar gaze, and showed their displeasure at some one who had built a house with windows overlooking the Garden in 1632 in an uproarious manner. They flung brickbats at the offending window until “one out of the house discharged haile shot upon Mr. Attornie’s sonne’s face, which though by good chance it missed his eyes yet it pitifully mangled his visage.” Old maps of the gardens show a wall dividing the large upper garden from the smaller, but by 1772 the partition had disappeared. It was doubtless unnecessary when the terrace was made and the rabbits done away with. The 1658 map with the wall in it shows the upper garden intersected by four paths, and an avenue of trees round three sides, and the small garden with a single row of trees round it divided into two large grass plots. The lovely shady avenue below the terrace in the large garden has still a great charm, and although not so extensive as it once was, the great green-sward and walks seem very spacious in these days of crowding. The terrace overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with the broad walk and border of suitable old-fashioned herbaceous plants, has great attractions. The view from here must have improved since the days when the Fields were a wild-looking place of evil repute, and the scene of bloody executions. In the lonely darkness below the terrace wall, deeds of violence were only too common. “Though thou are tempted by the linkman’s call, Yet trust him not along the lonely wall. In the mid-way he’ll quench the flaming brand, And share the booty with the pilfering band.” --GAY. Certainly when one is sentimental over the departed charms of Old London, it would be an excellent antidote to call up some of the inconveniences that electric light and the metropolitan police have banished.