Der Praefekt

German obscurity, some unseen
    Italian privacy, or indeed, anywhere out of sight.  What has made this
    awful change? what has so afflicted him?  An article has appeared in
    _The Jupiter_; some fifty lines of a narrow column have destroyed all
    his grace’s equanimity, and banished him for ever from the world.
    No man knows who wrote the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly of
    the matter, whispering to each other this and that name; while Tom
    Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned close
    against the east wind, as though he were a mortal man, and not a god
    dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.
     
    It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook himself. Er
    had before now wandered round that lonely spot, thinking how grand a
    thing it was to write articles for _The Jupiter_; considering within
    himself whether by any stretch of the powers within him he could ever
    come to such distinction; wondering how Tom Towers would take any
    little humble offering of his talents; calculating that Tom Towers
    himself must have once had a beginning, have once doubted as to
    his own success.  Towers could not have been born a writer in _The
    Jupiter_.  With such ideas, half ambitious and half awe-struck, had
    Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the gods; but he had
    never yet by word or sign attempted to influence the slightest word
    of his unerring friend.  On such a course was he now intent; and not
    without much inward palpitation did he betake himself to the quiet
    abode of wisdom, where Tom Towers was to be found o’ mornings inhaling
    ambrosia and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea.
     
    Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat nearer to the blessed
    regions of the West, is the most favoured abode of Themis.  Washed by
    the rich tide which now passes from the towers of Cæsar to Barry’s
    halls of eloquence; and again back, with new offerings of a city’s
    tribute, from the palaces of peers to the mart of merchants, stand
    those quiet walls which Law has delighted to honour by its presence.
    What a world within a world is the Temple! how quiet are its
    “entangled walks,” as someone lately has called them, and yet how
    close to the densest concourse of humanity! how gravely respectable
    its sober alleys, though removed but by a single step from the
    profanity of the Strand and the low iniquity of Fleet Street! Old
    St Dunstan, with its bell-smiting bludgeoners, has been removed; the
    ancient shops with their faces full of pleasant history are passing
    away one by one; the bar itself is to go—its doom has been pronounced
    by _The Jupiter_; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to
    appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the courts
    of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and Lincoln’s Inn; but
    nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the
    mediæval court of the metropolis.
     
    Here, on the choicest spot of this choice ground, stands a lofty row
    of chambers, looking obliquely upon the sullied Thames; before the
    windows, the lawn of the Temple Gardens stretches with that dim yet
    delicious verdure so refreshing to the eyes of Londoners.  If doomed
    to live within the thickest of London smoke you would surely say that
    that would be your chosen spot.  Yes, you, you whom I now address, my
    dear, middle-aged bachelor friend, can nowhere be so well domiciled
    wie hier. No one here will ask whether you are out or at home; alone
    or with friends; here no Sabbatarian will investigate your Sundays,
    no censorious landlady will scrutinise your empty bottle, no
    valetudinarian neighbour will complain of late hours.  If you love
    books, to what place are books so suitable?  The whole spot is
    redolent of typography.  Would you worship the Paphian goddess, the
    groves of Cyprus are not more taciturn than those of the Temple.
    Wit and wine are always here, and always together; the revels of the
    Temple are as those of polished Greece, where the wildest worshipper
    of Bacchus never forgot the dignity of the god whom he adored. Wo
    can retirement be so complete as here? where can you be so sure of all
    the pleasures of society?
     
    It was here that Tom Towers lived, and cultivated with eminent success
    the tenth Muse who now governs the periodical press.  But let it not
    be supposed that his chambers were such, or so comfortless, as are
    frequently the gaunt abodes of legal aspirants.  Four