the brethren of the Chivalry of the Temple, expecting and hoping that, through our Lord and Saviour, it will greatly contribute to the salvation of our soul." Queen Eleanor also provided for her interment in the Temple, but it was otherwise decreed.
In the triforium of the Temple Church have been packed away, like lumber, the greater part of the clumsy monuments that once disfigured the walls and columns below. In this strange museum lord chancellors, councillors of state, learned benchers, barons of the exchequer, masters of the rolls, treasurers, readers, prothonotaries, poets, and authors jostle each other in dusty confusion. At the entrance, under a canopy, is the recumbent figure of the great lawyer of Elizabeth's time, Edmund Plowden. This grave and wise man, being a staunch Romanist, was slighted by the Protestant Queen. It is said that he was so studious in his youth that at one period he never went out of the Temple precincts for three whole years. He was Treasurer of the Middle Temple when the Hall was built.
Selden (that great writer on international law, whose "Mare clausum" was a reply to the "Mare liberum" of Grotius) is buried to the left of the altar, the spot being marked by a monument of white marble. "His grave," says Aubrey, "was about ten feet deepe or better, walled up a good way with bricks, of which also the bottome was paved, but the sides at the bottome for about two foot high were of black polished marble, wherein his coffin (covered with black bayes) lyeth, and upon that wall of marble was presently lett downe a huge black marble stone of great thicknesse, with this inscription — 'Hic jacet corpus Johannis Seldeni, qui obijt 30 die Novembris, 1654.' He died in Whitefriars, where he had long lived as steward to Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Kent, whom he was thought to have privately married.
There is a monument in the triforium to Edmund Gibbon, a herald, and ancestor of the historian. The great writer, alluding to this monument, says, "My family arms are the same which were borne by the Gibbons of Kent, in an age when the College of Heralds religiously guarded the distinctions of blood and name — a lion rampant gardant between three schollop shells argent, on a field azure. I should not, however, have been tempted to blazon my coat of arms were it not connected with a whimsical anecdote. About the reign of James I., the three harmless schollop shells were changed by Edmund Gibbon, Esq., into three ogresses, or female cannibals, with a design of stigmatising three ladies, his kinswomen, who had provoked him by an unjust lawsuit. But this singular mode of revenge, for which he obtained the sanction of Sir William Seager, King-at-Arms, soon expired with its author; and on his own monument in the Temple Church the monsters vanish, and the three schollop shells resume their proper and hereditary place."
At the latter end of Charles II. 's reign the organ in the Temple Church became the subject of a singular contest, which was decided by a most remarkable judge. The benchers had determined to have the best organ in London ; the competitors for the building were Smith and Harris. Father Smith, a German, was renowned for his care in choosing wood without knot or flaw, and for throwing aside every metal or wooden pipe that was not perfect and sound. His stops were also allowed by all to be singularly equal and sweet in tone. The two competitors were each to erect an organ in the Temple Church, and the best one was to be retained. The competition was carried on with such violence that some of the partisans almost ruined themselves by the money they expended. The night preceding the trial the too zealous friends of Harris cut the bellows of Smith's organ, and rendered it for the time useless. Drs. Blow and Purcell were employed to show the powers of Smith's instrument, and the French organist of Queen Catharine performed on Harris's. The contest continued, with varying success, for nearly a twelvemonth. At length Harris challenged his redoubtable rival to make certain additional reed stops, vox humana, cremona, double bassoon and other stops, within a given time. The controversy was at last terminated by Lord Chief Justice Jefferies — the cruel and debauched Jefferies, who was himself an accomplished musician — deciding in favour of Father Smith. Part of Harris's rejected organ was erected at St. Andrew's, Holborn, part at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Father Smith, in consequence of his success at the Temple, was employed to build an organ for St. Paul's, but Sir Christopher Wren would never allow the case to be made large enough to receive all the stops. "The sound and general mechanism of modern instruments," says Mr. Burge, " are certainly superior to those of Father Smith's, but for sweetness of tone I have never met in any part of Europe with pipes that have equalled his."
In the reign of James I. there was a great dispute between the Custos of the Temple and the two Societies. This sinecure office, the gift of the Crown, was a rectory without tithes, and the Custos was dependent upon voluntary contributions. The benchers, irritated at Dr. Micklethwaite's arrogant
