THE INNS OF COURT.
THEREe 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.
[Sidenote: GRAY'S INN GARDENS.]
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 gateway, 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.
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S INN.]
On either side of the dais of the dining hall beneath the lofty oriel
window in Lincoln's Inn, is a sideboard for the upper or "benchers"
table who are the high authorities of the place; the other tables are
arranged in graduation, two crosswise 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.
[Sidenote: LINCOLN'S INN.]
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 gas-brackets 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.
[Sidenote: "DINNER IN HALL"]
He is then required to keep "commons," by dining in the hall for
twelve terms (four terms occur each year), on commencing which, he
must deposit with the treasurer £100, to be retained with interest
until he is "called"; but members of the Universities are exempt from
this deposit. The student must also sign a bond with sureties for the
payment of his commons and term-fees. In all the Inns no person can be
called unless he is above twenty-one years of age and of three years'
standing as a student. The "call" is made by the Benchers in council;
after which the student becomes a barrister, and takes the usual oath
at Westminster. In certain Inns, however, the student must, before his
call, attend certain lectures, which are a revival of the old readings,
without their festivities.
To witness one of the "Hall Dinners" is enough to bring back the days
of chivalry to one's mind. There is the lofty, grand Gothic roof, the
long tables, the grace before meat, which is offered by the "Reader,"
the magnificent windows of stained glass, which project a thousand
varied hues on the faces of the students, and the grave features of the
Benchers who sit aloft on the dais.
At five or half-past five o'clock, the barristers, students and other
members, in their gowns, having assembled in the hall, the Benchers
enter in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table three
times, grace is said by the treasurer or senior Bencher present, and
the dinner commences; the Benchers observe somewhat more style at
their table than the other members do at theirs; the general repast
is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each
mess consisting of four persons; each mess is also allowed a bottle
of port-wine. The dinner over, the Benchers, after grace, retire to
their own apartments. At the Inner Temple, on May 29, a gold cup of
"sack" is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of
Charles II. At Gray's Inn a similar custom prevails, but the toast is
the memory of Queen Elizabeth. The Inner Temple Hall waiters are called
"panniers," from "pan-arii" who attended the Knights Templars. At both
Temples the form of the dinner resembles the repasts of the military
monks; the Benchers on the dais representing the "knights;" the
barristers the "freres," or brethren; and the students, the "novices."
The Middle Temple still bears the arms of the Knights Templars, viz.,
the figure of the Holy Lamb.
The entrance expenses at the Inner Temple (the average of the costs at
other Inns), are £40 11s. 5d., of which £25 1s. 3d. is for the stamp;
on call, £82 12s., of which £52 2s. 6d. is for the stamp; total, £123
3s. The commons bill is about £12 annually.
Of Clement's Inn in the Strand which is just the same Clement's Inn as
it was when Shakspeare lived, that poet speaks as follows in the second
part of Henry IV.:
_Shallow._ I was once of Clement's Inn, where, I think, they will talk
of mad Shallow yet.
_Silence._ You were called lusty Shallow, then, cousin.
_Shallow._ By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done
any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of
Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes of Staffordshire, and Francis
Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.
Then Shallow tells of Sir John Falstaff breaking "Skogan's head at the
court-gate when he was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did
I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn."
_Shallow._ Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the
Windmill in St. George's Fields?
_Falstaff._ We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
_Shallow._ I remember at Mile-End Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn),
I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's Show.
Then Falstaff says of Shallow: "I do remember him at Clement's Inn,
like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring."
Before a student can enter an Inn of Court and eat his first dinner,
he must deposit £100 as security that he will pay for the rest of his
dinners. No student is allowed to keep a "term" unless he has been
three days in "hall" when grace is said at dinner.
[Sidenote: IRISH STUDENTS.]
No person in trade or in deacon's orders, or one who has been a
conveyancer's clerk, can be admitted at all, so strict are the rules.
No gentleman can be called to the bar by any of these Inns which are
corporate and chartered bodies, before having been a member or student
of his Inn for five years, unless that he is a Bachelor of Laws, or a
Master of Arts of the Universities of Oxford, Dublin, or Cambridge,
when three years is the period required. No one can be called to the
bar until his name and description have been put up on the screen in
the hall of the Inn to which he belongs for a fortnight previous to his
call, and communicated to all the other societies.
Irish students must keep eight terms in one of the English Inns, as
well as nine in the King's Inns, Dublin, before they can be called to
the Irish bar.
Irish students may keep terms in London and Dublin alternately, or in
any other order they may think proper. Gray's Inn is the favorite Inn
of Irish students, for the reason that discipline is not so strict
as in the Inner or Middle Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, and, besides, no
charge is made for "absent commons," or being away from the dinners,
while in the other Inns the student is charged for his meals in any
case.
[Illustration]