Student Life at the Inns of Court.

37i

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STUDENT LIFE AT THE INNS OF COURT. THE Inns of Court, each with its pleas ant garden and its library, offer an agreeable picture to the eye wearied by the monotony of street after street of dingy buildings. The Inns, or hostels, as these schools of law were anciently called, are but a stone's-throw from the busy thoroughfare; and should the stranger, tired of the noise and bustle of the London streets, turn down one of the many narrow little lanes by which they are approached, he will suddenly find himself in a region of stately buildings and silent courts and squares. Here is much to interest a lover of things ancient. He may, if he has strayed within the precincts of the Temple, visit the fine old church, with its effigies of recumbent Crusaders. Here, in a corner of the churchyard, is Goldsmith's grave; and hard by is Brick Court, where stood the building in which he wrote his "Animated Nature," and in which, when times were prosperous with him, which did not occur often, he made merry with his friends. There is an old-world air about the Inns of Court that might easily beguile the stran

ger, if he were in a dreamy mood, into the fancy that time had slipped back a century or two. Nor would the illusion be dispelled if he could peep into the hall of the Middle Temple at six o'clock — the dinner-hour — during term-time. He would see the bench ers in their black gowns walking slowly up the hall, preceded by the head porter in em broidered robe, carrying a long wand or mace. He would have noticed this official, before entering the hall, strike the floor twice with the end of his mace, and all the occupants, clad in black gowns, rise to their feet at the signal. These are the barristers and students. They remain standing until the benchers have reached their tables and grace has been said. After dinner another grace is said, and the benchers retire in the same order. At the Middle Temple students and barristers dine together in messes of four, and the dishes are passed around in a manner prescribed by immemorial usage. Each mess is supplied with wine, and the old-fashioned custom of drinking with one another is still preserved.