"The fountain's low singing is heard on the wind, Like a melody, bringing sweet fancies to mind-- Some to grieve, some to gladden; around them they cast The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past. Away in the distance is heard the vast sound From the streets of the city that compass it round, Like the echo of fountains or ocean's deep call; Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all." Fig-tree Court derived its name from obvious sources. Next to the plane, that has the strange power of sloughing off its sooty bark, the fig seems the tree that best endures London's corrupted atmosphere. Thomas Fairchild, a Hoxton gardener, who wrote in 1722 (quoted by Mr. Peter Cunningham), alludes to figs ripening well in the Rolls Gardens, Chancery Lane, and to the tree thriving in close places about Bridewell. Who can say that some Templar pilgrim did not bring from the banks of "Abana or Pharpar, rivers of Damascus," the first leafy inhabitant of inky and dusty Fig-tree Court? Lord Thurlow was living here in 1758, the year he was called to the bar, and when, it was said, he had not money enough even to hire a horse to attend the circuit. The Inner Temple Library stands on the terrace facing the river. The Parliament Chambers and Hall, in the Tudor style, were the work of Sidney Smirke, R.A., in 1835. The library, designed by Mr. Abrahams, is 96 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 63 feet high; it has a hammer-beam roof. One of the stained glass windows is blazoned with the arms of the Templars. Below the library are chambers. The cost of the whole was about L13,000. The north window is thought to too much resemble the great window at Westminster. Paper Buildings, a name more suitable for the offices of some City companies, were first built in the reign of James I., by a Mr. Edward Hayward and others; and the learned Dugdale describes them as eighty-eight feet long, twenty feet broad, and four storeys high. This Hayward was Selden's chamber-fellow, and to him Selden dedicated his "Titles of Honour." Selden, according to Aubrey, had chambers in these pleasant river-side buildings, looking towards the gardens, and in the uppermost storey he had a little gallery, to pace in and meditate. The Great Fire swept away Selden's chambers, and their successors were destroyed by the fire which broke out in Mr. Maule's chambers. Coming home at night from a dinner-party, that gentleman, it is said, put the lighted candle under his bed by mistake. The stately new buildings were designed by Mr. Sidney Smirke, A.R.A., in 1848. The red brick and stone harmonise pleasantly, and the overhanging oriels and angle turrets (Continental Tudor) are by no means ineffective.