Lecture II. The Inns of Court (including under this general name the late Inns of Chancery) are among the - of the Inns of Court, like those of the lesser Inns, came into possession "Befel that, in that season on a day, In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay "Dr. Johnson," says Rendle, "has a choice little selection of quotations from great writers on the subject of inns; the two sadder ones touch me most: from Spenser, where the word is perhaps used in its more extended sense : — 666 Palmer," quoth he, "death is an equal doom from Dryden, who seems to paraphrase Spenser: 'Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.'' "The Inns of Old Southwark," by William Rendle, London, 1888, chap. i., pp. 7, 8. II. antiquity Inns. most remarkable antiquities of London. The mists Lecture of a remote period hang densely about their foundation. The legal antiquary cannot fix upon the exact Origin and time of the origin of these Inns, but it can be nearly of the approximated. They carry the mind back to the depths of the Middle Ages. They antedate the discovery and settlement of America. They existed long before Columbus lifted the veil from the New World. They touch upon the borders of Magna Charta and the Crusades. King John lodged at the new Temple previously to signing Magna Charta, and pending the negotiations with his barons, which, in 1215, had their glorious issue at Runnymede. A distinguished American lawyer and judge, — the Hon. Jeremiah Black, who visited Europe for the first time in 1880, declared that he did so to see two things, the Inns of Court, and Running-Mede. The Temple society of lawyers afterward inherited the name, and what was more important to it succeeded to the property, of the Knights Templars, which the society still owns. In the quaint and curious edifices known as the Inns of Court, the lawyers and judges of England, the artificers and builders of English law, have been trained and educated for centuries. Changes, 1 "It is natural that the mist which veils any system built up in remote periods should hang most densely about its foundations; and an attempt to ascertain exactly the time from which each of the Inns of Court has been established as a seat of legal education has little prospect of success." — Smith, "History of Education for the English Bar," p. 2. "The original institution of the Inns of Court nowhere precisely appears. . . . They are voluntary societies which have for ages submitted to government analogous to that of the seminaries of learning." Lord Mansfield in Rex v. Gray's Inn, 1 Douglas, 353. Character Lecture replacements, and additions have from time to time II. been made in the buildings; and the present structures, as a whole, excepting of course the Temple Church, and the old halls, notwithstanding the admiration with which they are regarded by their members, offer externally to the eye no imposing presence, and no striking architectural beauty; quite the reverse. The interest is historical and intellectual. The chambers are in sober fact mostly dismal and dingy; but they are associated with the lives and names of the great sages in the law who have conferred glory and renown upon the legal profession and advanced English law to its present height and proportions.1 of the edi fices and their his torical interest and asso ciations. "The Knights of the Temple," 1 In "Pendennis," chapter xxix., Thackeray gives a graphic account of some of the features of the social life at the Inns, and takes off, in his quiet way, the pride with which they are regarded by the members. The following extracts may interest the reader: "A well-ordained workhouse or prison is much better provided with the appliances of health, comfort, and cleanliness, than a Foundation School, a venerable College, or a learned Inn. In the latter place of residence men are contented to sleep in dingy closets, and to pay for the sitting-room and the cupboard, which is their dormitory, the price of a good villa and garden in the suburbs, or of a roomy house in the neglected squares of the town. . . . Nevertheless, those venerable Inns, which have the Lamb and Flag and the Winged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom, which men always remember with pleasure. I don't know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, and says, 'Yonder Eldon lived upon this site Coke mused upon Lyttleton here Chitty toiled - here Barnwell and Alderson joined in their famous labors — here Byles composed his great work upon Bills, and Smith compiled his immortal "Leading Cases " here Gustavus still toils, with Solomon to aid him:' but the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, or peopled by their creations as real to us at this day as the authors son's II. places. More than six centuries have elapsed since the Lecture Inns of Court were founded, and the original Westminster Hall was at that time more than a century old. What thoughtful lawyer or law student can survey them with indifference? Dr. Johnson, in Dr. Johna familiar and noted passage respecting famous passage places, declares "that to abstract the mind from all concerning "local emotion would be impossible, if it were en"deavored, and would be foolish, if it were possible. "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our 66 senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or "the future, predominate over the present, advances "us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from "me, and from my friends, be such frigid philoso"phy as may conduct us, unmoved, over any ground "which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or That man is little to be envied whose "patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of "Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer "among the ruins of Iona." As little to be envied "virtue. 1 whose children they were; and Sir Roger de Coverley walking in the Temple Garden, and discoursing with Mr. Spectator about the beauties in hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass, is just as lively a figure to me as old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels, on their way to Dr. Goldsmith's chambers in Brick Court, or Harry Fielding, with inked ruffles, and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at midnight for the 'Covent Garden Journal, while the printer's boy is asleep in the passage." 1 "Journey to the Western Isles: Inch Kenneth." Speaking of this extract, Boswell (Life of Dr. Johnson) says: "Had our tour (to the Hebrides) produced nothing but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks told me he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration." Lecture is the lawyer who can contemplate without emotion these venerable Inns and this illustrious Hall. II. clause in Magna concerning the Court The Inns of Court were originally provided for the use of lawyers and students of law, and they have maintained that character to the present time. Effect of By a clause in Magna Charta, June 15, a. D. 1215, it was, to redress the grievance of compelling suitors Charta to attend the sovereign wherever he might chance to be, ordained that the Court of "Common Pleas mon Pleas. "should not thenceforth follow the Court [the King], but be held in some certain place." certain place was established in Westminster Hall, which distinctively became, and has remained until recently, the principal seat of the great judicial courts. The fixed location of this court, called by of Com 66 This 1 The authorities clearly establish that the Court of Common Pleas existed from time immemorial, and was not created by the clause in Magna Charta which required this court to be held in some certain place. Serjeant Pulling in his "Order of the Coif," after referring to the authorities (chap. iii., p. 89 et seq.), says that they quite refute the idea of those who speak of the Court of Common Pleas as created in the time of Edward I., or originating in the clause of Magna Charta, which provided for its sittings being in aliquo certo loco. The words of this clause in Magna Charta have evidently led to a variety of mistakes with reference to the Common Pleas. The evil which was designed to be dealt with by the clause in question was the continual change in the place of sitting of the courts. Incidentally no doubt it had the effect in time of bringing about the establishment at Westminster Hall of not only the Court of Common Pleas, but the other courts which grew out of the old Aula Regia; but it is free from dispute that for ages after Magna Charta, as well the Common Pleas, as the King's Bench and Exchequer, were held in a variety of places and were certainly not de facto aut nomine what in modern times they became, His Majesty's Courts at Westminster.' They were each of them in their turn held at Winchester, Gloucester, Windsor, Lincoln, or York, as much as at Westminster, and neither of the places named could therefore exclusively be called the certus locus in which the courts were obliged to be held." |