CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE INNS OF COURT.

HERE are four Inns of Court in London and thirteen Inns of Chancery. The Inns of Court are the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inns of Chancery are Barnard's Inn, Holborn; Clement's Inn, Strand; Clifford's Inn, Fleet street; Furnival's Inn, between Brook street and Leather lane; Lyon's Inn, Strand; New Inn, Wych street; Sergeant's Inn, Chancery lane; Staple Inn, Holborn; Sergeant's Inn, Fleet street; Symond's Inn, Chancery Inn, and Thavie's Inn, 56 and 57 Holborn Hill.

These Inns of Court and Chancery are large boarding-houses or hotels; and in the middle ages, they were called "inns" or "hostels," where students in law and Chancery were taught the legal science and ate their meals while living as students at a common table as in college. This is called "dining in hall," and certain rules and regulations are prescribed so that the aspiring student may not expect to have the license of the American boarding-house, being in fact in a state of pupilage as was intended by the founders of the splendid (for I cannot use any other term) Inns of Court.

In the old days of the York and Lancaster factions, the Sergeants and "apprentices at law," as the students were called, each had their pillars in Old St. Paul's, and at the foot of the pillar the student, half kneeling, heard his client's case and jotted down the points on his tablet.

The four Inns of Court were frequented by sons of wealthy commoners and the nobility, while the Inns of Chancery had for pupils and boarders, the sons of merchants and tradesmen, who had not the means of paying the expenses of the Inns of Court which amounted to twenty marks, annually, a large sum in those days.

About 8,000 students attend the Inns of Court and Chancery in London, and it is a very strange sight to see the dark chambers in some of these ancient Inns with their old fashioned, mediæval architecture, parapets, gate-ways, unillumined windows, courts, and passages, amidst one of the very busiest spots in London.

Go inside of one of these courts and you shall no longer hear the sullen roar of the city, or the clatter of the omnibusses, nor the incessant and deafening din of hawkers and street pedlars. A monastic silence reigns, and in the grass-grown square of Lincoln's Inn, all is silent as the grave, and in the dim passages of Clifford's and Clement's Inns, it is very difficult to believe that the densely-packed Strand and thronged Fleet street

are so near.

During Elizabeth's reign, alms were distributed twice a week at the gate of Gray's Inn, and James I. signified that none but gentlemen of descent and blood should be admitted to matriculate. The "Reader," a lazy official of Gray's had a liberal allowance of wine and venison for which sixpence and eightpence were paid per mess, and eggs and green sauce were breakfast dishes on Lenten day. Beer was then only six shillings a barrel. Caps were worn at supper by order, and hats and boots and spurs, and standing with the back to the fire in the hall were forbidden the students under penalty. Dice and cards were only allowed at Christmas. Two students slept in a bed and Coke and Littleton are said to have been at one time bed-fellows.

Gray's Inn Gardens was one of the most pleasant places in London in the old days long agone, and during the reign of Charles I., it was frequented as a place of assignation. The principal entrance to Gray's Inn is from Holborn by a gate

way, a fine specimen of brick-work of 1542. The hall of Lincoln's Inn has an open oak roof, divided into seven bays by gothic arched ribs, the spandrils and pendants richly carved; in the centre is an open louvre, which is pinnacled externally. The interior is richly wainscoted, decorated with Tuscan columns, and the windows are of stained glass, gorgeously emblazoned. The library 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 44 feet high has an open oak roof, with separate apartments for study, and iron balconies running around the book-cases.

There are in this apartment five stained glass windows, and a collection of valuable law books and MSS. to the number of 25,000.

On either side of the dais of the dining hall beneath the lofty oriel window in Lincoln's Inn, is a side-board for the upper or "benchers'" table who are the high authorities of the place; the other tables are arranged in graduation, two cross

wise and five along the hall for the barristers and students who dine here every day during term; the average number is 200; and of those who dine on one day or another during the term "keeping commons," there are about 500 students.

The new hall of Lincoln's Inn, just completed and equal to anything in England, is situated on the site of the old hall, between Middle Temple Cloister and Crown Office-row. It is of the Perpendicular Gothic style, faced externally with Portland stone and internally with Bath. The building projects towards the gardens 14 feet more than the old hall, which measured 70 feet by 29 feet; the new hall being 93 feet by 41 feet. Its floor above the pavement-level, and the basement is occupied by the various offices required for the officials. In rebuilding their hall, the "Benchers" have availed themselves of the opportunity to extend and improve the domestic offices; to provide commodious robing-rooms, and lavatories for the use of members and of students and to obtain better clerks' offices.

New offices have also been built for the treasurer, and the Parliament Chamber has been increased in size. The interior of the hall is panelled, to the height of nine feet, with a very handsome wainscot dado; the panels with cinquefoil cusp heads, surmounted by an embattled cornice-a magnificent specimen of joiner's work. The Parliament Chamber, attached to the hall eastward, has been considerably altered and improved -this is what may be called the drawing-room attached to the hall, where the "Benchers" retire for dessert. The kitchen is attached at the west end, and fitted up with the latest modern appliances. The hall is to be heated with hot water and lighted with sun-burners, and very handsome ornamental gasbrackets have also been introduced on the side walls.

Lincoln's Inn occupied the site of the Convent of Blackfriars, which was built by Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Among the famous students of the Middle Temple, were Edmund Burke, Bulstrode Whitelocke, Wycherley and Congreve, Sir William Blackstone, Lord Chancellors Eldon and Stowell, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Oliver Goldsmith.

The number of students in the reign of Henry VI. were:

Four Inns of Court, each 200-800; ten Inns of Chancery, each 100-1000; total 1800. To-day there are in the four Inns of Court alone, 4500 students.

In Gray's Inn lived Dr. Rawlinson, "Tom Folio" of the "Tatler," who stuffed four chambers so full of books that he was compelled to sleep in the passage.

How to become a lawyer is the only science studied in the Inns of Court, and the manner of doing it is as I shall describe. The four Inns of Court, viz: the Middle and Inner Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn, have exclusively the power of conferring the degree of Barrister-at-Law, requsite for practising as an advocate or counsel in the superior courts. Lincoln's Inn is generally preferred by students who contemplate the Equity Bar; it being the locality of Equity Counsel and Conveyancers, and of Equity Courts or Courts of Chancery. If the student design to practise the common law, either immediately as an advocate at Westminster, the assizes, and sessions, or as a special pleader (a learned person who, having kept his terms, is allowed to draw legal forms and pleadings, though not actually at the bar), his choice lies usually between the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and Gray's Inn, though he may adopt Lincoln's Inn. The Inner Temple, from its formerly insisting on a classical examination before admission, became more exclusive than the Middle Temple or Gray's Inn. Gray's Inn is numerously attended by Irish students, and has produced some of the greatest luminaries at the Irish Bar, including Daniel O'Connell.

To procure admission to either of these Inns, the student must obtain the certificate of two barristers, coupled in the Middle Temple with that of a Bencher, to the effect that the applicant is a fit person to be received into the Inn, for the purpose of being called to the Bar. Once admitted, the student has the use of the library, and is entitled to a seat in the church or chapel of the Inn, and to have his name set down for chambers.

He is then required to keep "commons," by dining in the hall for twelve terms (four terms occur each year), on commenc