ure of their fellow-men, he found solace in books and studious contemplation and intellectual employment. His death was pathetic. He was destined to become a martyr to his love of science. In experimenting upon the effect of cold in arresting putrefaction he caught a fatal illness, but he demonstrated the possibility of the great industry of our day of preserving meats in ice, and their transportation across continents and oceans in refrigerator cars and ships. His accidental illness thus contracted was so severe as to prevent his reaching his beloved Inn, and dying within its walls.

In his earlier life he so enjoyed the quiet of the gardens of the Inn and the prospect it afforded that he built therein a summer house for study and reflection. The records of the Society show that the sum of £7 15s. 4d. at one time and £60 6s. 8d. at another, laid out for planting elm-trees in these gardens, were allowed to Mr. Bacon. A catalpa-tree which Bacon planted in the gardens of the Inn he loved so well grew with his rise and lofty advancement, survived his inglorious fall, and while, it is said, it lives to interest the beholder, yet such is the indestructible nature of the works of genius that his

1 Bacon "is said to have designed the gardens of Gray's Inn, and to have planted the old catalpa tree still standing there in 1885." Hutton's "Literary Landmarks of London," article "Bacon." Tradition says that a catalpa-tree was planted by Bacon, and Douthwaite adds: "It is one of the oldest in England, and may well have been brought from its native land by Raleigh." Douthwaite, "Gray's Inn : Its History and Associations," p. 185. It was pointed out to me in 1889. As to the relations of Bacon and Gray's Inn, Douthwaite, ubi supra, p. 207. "Bacon's chambers in Gray's Inn were in the building now known as No. 1 Gray's Inn Square." lb., p. 209. Post Lecture III, Note A.

II.

tarnished

ing fame.

fame, which he confidently committed to an indul- Lecture gent posterity, will for ages outlive the trees he planted and watered and enjoyed.1 The works of Bacon's our hands are perishable; only the creations of the but endurintellect have the heritage of immortality. Bacon died leaving an assured though tarnished fame; but Lord William Russell, who was beheaded on Lincoln's Inn Fields, a martyr to the eternal cause of human liberty, left to the world for all coming time the legacy of a spotless life, and the unfading record of a high and heroic example.3

cue's

We possess on many points but little satisfactory Fortesand definite information of the Inns of Court and sketch of Chancery until the time of Henry VI. (A. D. 1422- the Inns 1461). Sir John Fortescue was his nominal Chancellor, and in his " Panegyric on the Laws of England" we have a sketch of the Inns as they

1 The solemn and touching words of Lord Bacon's will, in which he expresses his reliance upon the justice of future times, are: "For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages."

2 "The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create

And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence.

Shylock and the Moor,

And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away

The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.”

Byron, "Childe Harold," canto iv. verse iv.

8 "The scaffold was erected in Lincoln Inn Fields, a place distant from the Tower; and it was probably intended by conducting Russell through so many streets to show the mutinous city their beloved leader, once the object of all their confidence, now exposed to the utmost rigors of the law."- Hume, "History of England," chap. lxix.

II.

Lecture then existed.1 This was over four hundred years ago. He describes them as composed of four large Inns having about two hundred students each, and ten lesser Inns called Inns of Chancery, having about one hundred students each, about eighteen hundred in all, and situate in the suburbs of the city. The students were chiefly young men of birth, many of them being attended with servants; and although he mentions that it was costly to live at the Inns, he does not give the order or course of instruction or study. More than a century later, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (A. D. 1558-1603), Lord Coke3 gives a full account of the Inns of Court at that time, their names, constitution, readings, moots, etc., and he describes the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, and the Middle Temple, as the "foure famous and renowned Colleges or houses of Court." "All these," with the Serjeants' Inn and the Inns of Chancery, are, he adds, "not "farre distant one from another, and altogether doe "make the most famous Universitie for profession of "law onely, or of any one humane science, that is in "the world, and advanceth itself above all others. "In which houses of Court and Chancery the read"ings and other exercises of the lawes therein con

They con

stitute a legal university.

1 "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ," written between 1461 and 1470. Sir Walter Raleigh calls Fortescue that Notable Bulwark of our Laws, "History of the World," Part I., Book II., chap. iv., § 16.

2 In 1470 the "Paston Letters" (vol. i., p. 41) speak of "your college the Inner Temple," and also subsequently of the Middle Temple. Margaret Paston sent her husband in term time supplies of provisions from the country, as, for example, "xjxx rabets by the berer hereof." "Paston Letters," vol. ii., p. 21.

3 Preface to the third part of the Reports.

tinually used are most excellent, and behooveful for Lecture "attaining to the knowledge of these lawes."1

1 In 1586 in the various Inns of Court and Chancery the number of students in term was 1,703, and out of term was 612, as appears from a MS. in Lord Burghley's collection. Pearce, "Inns of Court," p. 79.

Stow in his "Survey of London" (1598) enumerates as then existing the several societies, fourteen in number, corresponding nearly with those recognized at the present day, of which four are the Inns of Court, properly so called, - Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., " Inns of Court."

In the grant of James I. to "the Inner and Middle Temple" these are described as "being two of those four colleges the most famous of all Europe” for the study of the law.

Edward Wynne, the author of " Eunomus," which originally appeared in 1767, gives (Dialogue II.) an interesting account of the Inns of Court in his time. Space does not permit it to be here set out at length. I can only subjoin an epitome of it with a few extracts. He points out that the common or municipal law was not taught in the two great Universities, but was taught in London by learned men of the law who set up schools for that purpose :

"It seems to me not improbable that the abolition of the Law Schools by the prohibition that issued 19 Henry III. might in part give occasion to a more regular course of instruction, and fix the places of residence that we enjoy at this very day." See Note A at the end of this lecture.

"Those writers who have called the Inns of Court and of Chancery by the name of an University do by no means degrade the term in its more genuine and strict acceptation." He runs a parallel between them and the Universities, and points out that the number of the Inns is not much less than the number of the colleges. In each instruction is given and degrees are taken. The internal government of the Inns in its nature and institution is, he maintains, as perfect as in colleges. But there is no instance, at least in print, until 1762, “of a voluntary concurrence of all of the Inns of Court to establish one common set of regulations [in respect of legal education], which regulations, well considered, reflect great honor on the present establishment," Eunomus," vol. ii., Dialogue II. (2d ed., 1774), pp. 232-255. "Lord Coke," he says, "in his preface to the third Report, reckons fourteen Inns of Court and Chancery, comprehending the two houses of Serjeants' Inn, all of which, except Serjeants' Inn on Fleet Street, are more or less dedicated to the law at this day" (1774), — " Eunomus,” 2d ed., vol. iv., notes, p. 95.

66

II.

Lecture
II.

Branches

of the legal

in Eng

land.

I cannot in this sketch enter minutely upon the details of the student's life. He had his chambers or residence in the Inn. The mode of instruction was principally readings and mootings. Minute regulations as to dress and discipline were ordained, and attendance on religious services was made compulsory.

And here I may observe that the legal profession profession in England has for centuries been divided into two distinct branches: (1) Barristers or counsel who constitute the higher or upper class of lawyers, and who alone have the right to appear in the Superior Courts, and who become such by being "called " by one of the four Inns of Court; (2) Attorneys (officers of the common law courts) and solicitors (officers of the courts of chancery). None of this lower branch has any right to practise in the courts, but they instruct the barrister or counsel in respect of matters in litigation therein. In 1845 and 1875 was chartered "The Incorporated Law Society," composed of attorneys, solicitors, proctors, and others, not being barristers practising in the courts of law and equity in the United Kingdom. This great, and, we may truly call it, Honorable Society has succeeded in securing legislation (6 & 7 Vict. c. 73, 23 & 24 Vict. c. 127) under which preliminary, intermediate, and final compulsory examinations are required on the part of all persons seeking to become attorneys or solicitors. Without further observations touching the division of the profession in England, I now resume my sketch of the Inns of Court.