it were erected in 1843 on the west side of that garden, where Ben Jonson is said to have laboured; and thus, whilst the southern half of the view into Lincoln’s Inn Fields was sacrificed by the Society, a beautiful site, amidst broad green stretches of lawns, shady trees, and flower-beds, was secured for their new blocks. Moreover, the Benchers took great and praiseworthy pains[54] to procure a good design, which should harmonize with the existing buildings ‘in the style of the sixteenth century, before the admixture of Italian architecture.’[55] The result of much deliberation and delay was a singularly successful design by Philip Hardwick, the architect who built the classical portions of Euston Station. Nobly proportioned, constructed of striped brick in the Tudor fashion, with stone dressings, so as to harmonize fitly with the Gatehouse opposite, and decorated with six bays, a projecting window at the north end, and a great south window, fine in detail and fine in its proportions, Lincoln’s Inn Hall is a building as distinguished as it is surprising, when we remember that it is a product of the year 1843. This Hall was opened with great ceremony by Queen Victoria, and upon that occasion Prince Albert was created a Bencher of the Inn. Within, as without, the Hall is superb; the proportions and the materials are excellent. The roof is elaborately carved, and ornamented with colour and gilt. The windows are rich in stained glass; the royal arms figure in the centre of the beautiful south window, the others are filled with old glass. In some directions, it must be confessed, the decoration is a trifle overdone, especially the heraldic decoration. The arms of the Inn, fifteen _fers de moline_ on a blue ground, with the shield of Lacy ‘or, a lion rampant purpure,’ are repeated with bewildering frequency in every material. Above the daïs is the great fresco ‘School of Legislation’ (1852). G. F. Watts had proposed to paint the larger hall of Euston Station, gratis, with a series of frescoes illustrating the ‘Progress of Cosmos.’ The Directors of the London and North-Western Railway fought shy of so unbusinesslike a proposal. Nor can it be said that they were not in some degree wise, for London atmosphere is by no means suitable for fresco-work. The work of art, which the Directors rejected, took shape upon the north wall of the Hall of Lincoln’s Inn. For the Benchers accepted a similar offer from Watts, and that generous-minded artist adorned their Hall with the greatest of English fresco-decorations: ‘Justice, a Hemicycle of Law-givers,’ a group of legislators from Moses to Edward I. The painting has suffered sadly from the acids of the smoke-laden compost known as London air.