In Dugdale’s time the Middle Temple Library, owing to the fact that it always stood open, had been completely despoiled of books. The present [Illustration: MIDDLE TEMPLE LIBRARY ON the left are the buttresses of Middle Temple Hall.] building, in the Gothic style by H. R. Abraham, is ugly in itself, its proportions, especially when viewed from the Embankment, being painfully bad. Its height is far too great for its length and breadth, and this is due to the fact that two stories of offices and chambers are beneath the Library Room, which is approached by a charming outside staircase. The Library itself, which is 86 feet long, is a beautiful room with a fine open hammer-beam roof. It was opened on October 31, 1861, by King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, who was called to the Bar and admitted as a Bencher of the Middle Temple on the same day. CHAPTER V THE INNER TEMPLE Mr. Loftie very justly observes of the Middle Temple that ‘Its Lawn seems wider, its trees are higher, its Hall is older, its Courts are quainter, than those of the other member of this inseparable pair.’ The Middle Temple has, indeed, been unkindly compared to a beautiful woman with a plain husband. This comparison, however, is far from just. For though its beauty is perhaps less obvious and has been much impaired by the ravages of modern builders, yet the Inner Temple remains a _locus classicus_ for the fine beauty of the Jacobean and Queen Anne styles, and across its green lawn the view of the Embankment, the River, and Surrey Hills--too often, alas! shrouded in smoke--is extremely delightful. Moreover, the heart of the Inner Temple presents the engaging completeness of a Collegiate Building. The Church and Master’s House on the North; the Cloisters on the West; the Buttery, Refectories, Hall, and Library on the South; the Master’s Garden, the Graveyard and Garden of the Inn on the East, form just such a Court or Quadrangle as delights the eye at Oxford or Cambridge. I have spoken of the Inner Temple Gateway. In King’s Bench Walk--once known as Benchers’ Walk--the Inner Temple can boast a row of typical Jacobean mansions, with handsome doorways,[41] which look upon a broad and classic avenue of trees. Nor can an Inn, which records the names of Sir Edward Coke and of John Selden amongst its members, and which was the home of Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb, be reckoned inferior to any in the fame and interest of its _alumni_.