This small, cramped, and inconvenient tenement is worth considering as a curiosity from the ingenuity with which the owner has contrived to make the most of his space and materials. One room has no less than seven doors, one communicating with the vestibule, the other with the front room, whilst that on each side of the fireplace opens into a small book cabinet lighted from above; these latter most happily contrived. The Picture Cabinet gives a happy effect to a vista from the gallery; one critic says “it is perfectly fascinating in its result.” Passing into the inclosure of the old Inn adjoining, we cannot but admire the “elderly repose,” (Elia’s phrase), the old-fashioned air of the green, and the fine sound old houses over which the great tower of the Law Courts lifts itself. The line of houses that look on the small square--like an old-fashioned garden--have a pleasing air of tranquillity. A sort of low booth or shop projects here with odd effect, and serves as the headquarters of a volunteer corps. Turning by it into a narrow passage, we find ourselves in a little retired inclosure, with a tiny walled garden which belongs to an old sequestered house; and, going on further, we find some decrepit gabled mansions peering down at us; and beyond, some gloomy passages leading out into Chancery Lane, lined with finely-crusted mansions, the back of the old Inn, while an ancient tavern, the Old Ship, rears itself conspicuously. All this miscellany is oddly antique, and Dickens like. At the other end of the Fields the unclean disorderly passages about Clare Market still “flourish”--if that term be appropriate. Here are two extraordinary old taverns: one black with age, its upper stories overhanging the pavement and propped up with rude beams of old wood serving as columns. This is the Old “George IV.” The other is “The Black Jack,” whose name is significant evidence of its antiquity. One or other of the taverns is associated with the immortal Pickwick, and is presumed to be the Magpie and Stump, where Lowten, Perker’s clerk, spent many convivial hours. These grimed old places are quite in harmony with the traditions of Jack Sheppard and Joe Miller, which haunt them. Both will soon be gone. In Chancery Lane, almost facing Carey Street, is an arch, through which we get a glimpse of the old Rolls Chapel, which seems a ghostly place and abandoned.