Gray's Inn Gate

Gray's Inn Gate.

In this present age there hath beene great cost bestowed therein upon faire buildings, and very lately the gentlemen of this House [Gray's Inn] purchased a Messuage and a Curtillage, scituate uppon the south side of this House, and thereuppon have erected a fayre Gate, and a Gatehouse for a more convenient and more honourable passages into the high street of Holborn, whereof this House stood in much neede; for the other former gates were rather Posterns than Gates.—Sir George Buc; (Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1073).

The old gateway was of red brick, and if grimy had a certain air of antiquity. In the early months of 1867 it was covered with cement and otherwise beautified, without adding credit to the Society's taste. Nash, in speaking of a bulky epistle, notices an old tree that stood by the Gate, and that Bacon must often have passed in his daily walks.

Once I thought to have called in a cooper that went by and cal'd for work, and bid him hoop it about like the tree at Gray's Inne Gate, for feare it should burst, it was so beastly.—Have with you to Saffron Walden, 4to, 1596.

Aubrey, the antiquary, mentions among his many escapes that he was once "in danger of being killed by a drunkard at Gray's Inn Gate." "Within Gray's Inn Gate, next Gray's Inn Lane," Jacob Tonson kept shop. There are two Gray's Inn Gates. Tonson's shop appears to have been at the one in Gray's Inn Lane. Here he published Addison's Campaign, and here he was living when he wrote the following letter to Pope:—

Gray's Inn Gate, April 20, 1706.

Sir—I have lately seen a Pastoral of yours in Mr. Walsh's and Congreve's hands, which is extremely fine, and is approved of by the best judges in poetry. I remember I have formerly seen you at my shop, and am sorry I did not improve my acquaintance with you. If you design your poem for the press, no person shall be more careful in the printing of it, nor no one can give greater encouragement to it than. Sir, yours, etc., Jacob Tonson.

This eminent bookseller was the second son of Jacob Tonson, a barber-chirurgeon in Holborn (d. 1668). His first shop was distinguished by the sign of the Judge's Head, and was situated in Chancery Lane, very near Fleet Street.

The shop in the possession of Jacob Tonson at Gray's Inn Gate, is to be let.—Advertisement in Tatler No. 237, October 12 to 14, 1710.

In spite of this announcement he had a lease from Lady-Day 1725 for "his shop under Gray's Inn Gate next the lane."

He removed to a house in the Strand, over against Catherine Street, and selected Shakespeare's head for his sign. He died extremely rich, March 18, 1735–1736, and was succeeded by his great-nephew, who died March 31, 1767. The shop of Osborne, the bookseller whom Johnson immortalised by knocking down, was also at Gray's Inn Gate in Gray's Inn Road. In 1743–1744 he had purchased the Earl of Oxford's library for £13,000, and Johnson was employed at a daily wage to catalogue it, and select, with Oldys, tracts for the Harleian Miscellany. Lord Chesterfield writes to his son, March 10, 1750, about finding "something better to do than to run to Mr. Osborne's at Gray's Inn to pick up scarce books." Osborne was still there in 1763.

The Gray's Inn Coffee-House, next Gray's Inn Gate, was in existence in 1695.