Dr. Johnson moved from Staple Inn to Gray’s Inn, and from Gray’s Inn to No. 1, Inner Temple Lane (1760). Here, in a spot so favourable for retirement and meditation, as Boswell calls it, in a house whose site is indicated by the ugly block of Johnson’s Buildings (1851), were those rooms which have been so vividly described by the great man’s admirers. Here, in two garrets over his chambers, his library was stored, ‘good books, but very dusty and in great confusion.’ Here was housed an apparatus for the chemical experiments in which he delighted, whilst the floor was strewn with his manuscripts for Boswell to scan ‘with a degree of veneration, supposing they might perhaps contain portions of the “Rambler” or of “Rasselas.”’ It was in his chambers here on the first floor, furnished like an old counting-house, that the uncouth genius received Madame de Boufflers--received her, no doubt, clad, as usual, in a rusty brown suit, discoloured with snuff, an old black wig too small for his head, his shirt collar and sleeves unbuttoned, his black worsted stockings slipping down to his feet, which were thrust into a pair of unbuckled shoes. And then, when he began to talk, ‘with all the correctness of a second edition,’ all thought of his slovenly appearance and his uncouth gestures vanished; the knowledge and the racy wit of the man triumphed. We see the lady, fascinated by the great man’s conversation, bowed out of those dirty old rooms, whilst the ponderous scholar rolls back to his books. Then her escort hears ‘all at once a noise like thunder.’ It has occurred to Johnson that he ought to have done the honours of his literary residence to a foreign lady of quality. Eager to show himself a man of gallantry, he hurries down the stairs in violent agitation. ‘He overtook us,’ says Beauclerc, ‘before we reached the Temple Gate, and, brushing in between me and Madame de Boufflers, seized her hand and conducted her to the coach.’ To the bottom of Inner Temple Lane came the devoted Boswell, and took chambers in Farrar’s Buildings--now rebuilt (1876)--in order to be near to the object of his biographical enthusiasm. Another name famous in Literature the Inner Temple can boast. Francis Beaumont, the dramatist, was a Member of this Inn, and in 1612 he wrote the Masques performed by this Inn and Gray’s Inn before King James at Whitehall, in honour of the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and the Count Palatine of the Rhine. This Masque he dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, who represented Gray’s Inn in its preparation.