the table of the Benchers, remains there, while three solemn knocks with a hammer, after the fashion of the Cock-Lane ghost, announce his presence. Grace is said with becoming solemnity; and it is proper to remark, that grace is pronounced by the present reader in a tone and manner that give to this usually unimportant ceremony an air, if not devotional, at least reverend and impressive. Loud is the noise of the company, one and all resuming their places-tremendous the clangour of knives, forks, and spoons the serious professional business of the day may be truly said to have commenced here at least there are none briefless-all are engaged in the cause-and every learned gentleman confronts his equally learned friend on the opposite side. While the profession is thus worthily employed, let the disinterested reader walk with me through the venerable dome, and regard the several objects of attraction therein contained, which the noise and racket prevent me pointing out. At the top of the hall, exactly over the centre of the Benchers' table, which extends crosswise from east to west, is the Chancellor's chair Lane on a command night, tumbles in, upsetting the unfortunate porter who opens the gate, the old woman who serves the students with gowns, and two or three rash under-waiters who happen to be lingering near the spot -the hall is filled in the twinkling of a bed-post! And now an internal scene of confusion is being enacted in taking places; that operation being performed, by seizing upon as many plates as you can lay hold of with your fingers, toes, or teeth, and turning them bottom upwards, by which you acquire the right of next presentation to all such places so secured, for as many of the mob of your acquaintance as may happen to come late, and also have the pleasure of observing gentlemen of decency and feeling, who do not appertain to the mob, retire from the hall, unable to procure places in consequence of your successful monopoly. It wants now but a quarter to five; and the barristers of twenty years' standing, who have arrived at the dignity of the cucumber, come dropping in, one after another, and proceed with becoming gravity to the upper end of the hall, where they begin to open oysters, throwing away the shells to the right and left, after eating the fish with judicial impartiality. It is five o'clock-the mob of students are all decorated with gowns -the barristers all radiant in their patent wigs-the talking is fearful, and the opening of oysters proceeds with alarming velocity-there cannot at this moment be fewer than fifteen hundred embryo Lord High Chancellors in the hall. Suddenly a gentleman-usher "As peevish, tart, and splenetic, appears at the upper extremity of the As dog distract or monkey sick." hall, and proclaims with a loud voice"BENCHERS, GENTLEMEN-BENCHERS, To the right of the schoolmaster is GENTLEMEN-IF YOU PLEASE." A placed the armorial ensign of that upcrimson curtain is now withdrawn, and right judge and excellent man, Lord in single file a long array of elderly Denman; to the right of this the esapoplectic gentlemen, with faces as cutcheon of the Lord Lyndhurst; and crimson as the curtain itself, enter the to the left of the Chancellor's chair are apartment, and bowing profoundly emblazoned the family arms of the Viceas they pass to the barristers and Chancellor Sir Lancelot Shadwell, of students, who bow profoundly to the the present Lord High Chancellor Benchers in return, pass on to their (Cottenham), and of that able and places at the table allotted to them, learned Parliamentary lawyer, the where they seat themselves, not in the Right Honourable Charles Watkin order of professional rank, but by seWilliams Wynn. niority, as Benchers of the Inn. The chaplain, or reader of the Inn, now leaves the table of the barristers, where his place is, and, going to the top of that chair to which the ambition of every eater and drinker within the body of the hall is laudably directed. Over this post of honour is placed, curiously enough, the escutcheon of a man who occupied it once, and is by no means likely to occupy it once againthe egotistical, physico-theological, melo-dramatical, Tomkinso-political, bombasto-logical schoolmaster Immediately over these arises a canopy of fretted oak, curiously carved, and worthily sustaining an admirable picture of Paul before Festus, from come [July, doubt, have observed that the hall of The reader will by this time, no the proprietor of the Spread Eagle in Lincoln's Inn is, to use the phrase of nattiest magnificence and genteelest the City Road, an eating-room of "the splendour," every way worthy of the astonishing amount of "ating and of drinking" that is enacted within its hallowed walls. It is not the wallsit is not the roof-though the roof, let lantern that lets in any thing but light, me observe, in spite of its dirty little is a fine thing in its way—it is not its emblazoned windows, with their dim religious light, nor its oaken panels inscribed with the names of learned lawyers and lucky dogs, who got on because their fathers got on before them-nor its splendid statue of Lord Erskine, nor the still more splendid picture of Paul before Festus-it is not these that raise my mind to a sort of reverential, awe-struck, clevatedsubdued, how came-you so, tumble-me feeling, with which I am ever oppressed, particularly after dinassociation of ideas--the identifications ner, in the venerable hall-it is the of the place with the important purpose to which the place is appliedthe mingling of the pleasures of memory with the pleasures of hope-of the remembrances of the eating and eating and drinking to come-this it is drinking past, with the prospects of the that makes the hall of Lincoln's Inn classic ground, that confers upon it all its real dignity and all its indisputable glory. When left alone with a heeltap of the red-hot port in the deserted hall (for I generally sit the profession nothing better to do), imagination out, having, to tell the honest truth, with her gay but ephemeral creations usurps the throne of reason, and fills the over-heated brain; roast legs and shoulders of mutton dance fantastically through the hall; fried soles, with shrimp sauce, swim in mid-air; and represent so many pigeon-pies. the ornaments of the concave ceiling Legal Dietetics. the pencil of the inimitable Hogarth, who, to the honour of the Benchers be it spoken, was invited by them to dinner on the occasion of this picture being raised to its present elevationthe only instance on record, I believe, of a gentleman of another profession than the law being the guest of the Benchers, if we except Canning the statesman, King Charles the Second, James Duke of York, and Killigrew the joker, who were jointly and severally entertained at the expense of this Inn. This great but little-known work of a very great man, is perhaps the noblest ornament of the hall, unless the admirers of the sister art of sculpture are disposed to prefer to it the statue of Erskine, which embellishes the further extremity of the room, and which gives a lively idea not only of the features, but of the fire, of that splendid speaker. Round the hall, in various panels of the wainscoting wherewith it is encircled, are emblazoned the bearings, and inscribed the names, of distinguished members of the Inn, from the earliest periods to the present time, among which will be found the talented founders of many of our now most aristocratic families in the land, many of our greatest judges, and, though last not least, the names of Perceval and Pitt. oaken screen, grotesquely carved, enA lofty closes the hall at the lower end, and contains, within recessed panels, the royal arms, subscribed with the initials C. R., together with the escutcheons of the distinguished, witty, and jocular persons who formed the royal party on the occasion above referred to, a minute account of all the ceremonies attendant upon which I would here feel it my duty to bestow upon the patient reader, if I did not consider that the spectacle of the then Benchers of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, crawling upon their knees before their royal and jocular guests, and the honourable treasurer presenting, upon his marrow-bones, a basin and towel, with other base and disgusting prostrations then and there enacted, would rather redound to the dishonour of the Inn than to its credit, and so defeat the only end I have in view in this enquiry; to wit, the honour and glory of the law, and of all and singular the honourable members of that most honourable, not to say useful, profession. "Is this a mackerel that I see before me?" and on its fins and gills are gouts ofIt must be so-a live baked mackerel, parsley and butter." Beg pardon, sir, but 'tis time to shut up the hall!" observes an odious waiter, rousing me from a delicious reverie; so, starting up, I stare the waiter in the face, throw myself into a theatrical attitude, rub both eyes with both thumbs (as they do at Drury Lane), and, exclaiming with a wave of my dexter mawley, ""Tis no such thing!" whip off my gown, throw my wig at the astounded waiter, and cut like fury out of the deserted hall. Deserted, did I say? Worshipful reader, I plead guilty, and request you will do me the favour to fine me five shillings for being drunk. The hall, so far from being deserted, is as full as a tick-tremendous the clangour of knife, fork, and spoon-the tingling of glasses is musical. The loud and continual buzz, every body talking and nobody listening, is as the noise of rushing waters afar off. Now and then a loud uproarious laugh—not the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind-but that sort of delighted chuckle that issues from the gills of a crammed turkey, rises high above the interminable clatter, like the break of the tenth wave on an Atlantic shore. As the dinner approaches to completion, and the guests to repletion, the clatter becomes more clattering, the laughter becomes louder and more robustious-the gathering of the claus-plates, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons-the rush of waiters hurrying with velocipede velocity in opposite directions, gulping the heel-taps at full speed-the jingling of beer-glasses upon trays-the rattle of knife-boxes, crammed, like those that used their contents, to suffocation, make altogether a veritable confusion of noises, articulate and inarticulate-a confusion that Babel could not hold a candle to; for, if it did, the confusion would put it out! How exciting is the noble emulation of generous youth, contending thus, not for fame, fortune, a mistress, a place, a pension, or any of those low and vulgar incentives to ordinary ambition-no-but for that one great, one indispensable, one all-absorbing and paramount necessity-the necessity that keeps the peasant to his spade, the tar to his tiller, the waggoner to his team, the miner to his pit, the dog to his truck, the donkey to his cart, the sweep to his chimney-top, and me to my pen-the necessity of having, at least once in the four-and-twenty hours, a bellyful! How exciting, I say, is all this professional eating and drinking; buts alas, how transient is the excitement! The eating soon is over; for, as men eat in Lincoln's Inn Hall, unless they were created on the principle of certain molluscous animals, in whom the stomach and the whole body are only one and the same thing, how the devil do you think it could be otherwise? The eating is soon, too soon, over-the things to be eaten are all eaten up-and as for the drinking, that is come and gone like a flash of the decanter on the table-the decanlightning. The fifth butler has put ter was full a second ago, and it is now as empty and as fragrant as Normanby's head; and as for the winedid I say wine—“ fuit vinum”"'Tis like the snow-flakes on the river, A moment wine, then gone for ever," with hardly the ceremony of "wine with you," a ceremony that is performed in Lincoln's Inn Hall with an air of vulgar hauteur, and a sulky affectation of gentility, that changes the red-hot port from blazes to vinegar! I say nothing of the quality of the wine, if wine that can properly he called which is an admixture of bad brandy, logwood water, and tincture of kino, fifty per cent over proof, and certainly liable to the brandy duty; I say nothing of this, because I like my vine to be stiff if it be scanty; and for the benefit of Johnny-Raws, whose throats are unseasoned to swallowing of liquid fire, there is a pump (gratis) with an iron ladle attached, in the Inn-yard; but, good Lord, sirs! the quantity-that's the thing makes me cry murder-nor am I at all surprised that, on the evening of the day made memorable by the coronation of our gracious Queen, when the Benchers Heaven send no more of us, God save the Queen!" which ridiculous perversion of the author's meaning was received with a full chorus, amid tremendous shouts of laughter and applause. The wine, however, is gone-the reckoning has been drunk out-and the several messes, depositing their wigs and gowns, look wistfully at a table-spoonful of the ruddy port that clings affectionately to the bottom of the decanter, but dare not taste it, considering that it would be considered ungenteel; so with great reluctance they homewards then take off their several way," leaving the table-spoonful of port to the expectant waiter, who has already swallowed it three or four times in the agony of a thirsty imagination. As the several messes retire from the hall, they have to shoulder in the progress of their exit a hungry mob armed with platters, trenchers, bakingdishes, jugs and mugs, coming to the auction; and it now becomes my duty to direct the attention of the bargainhunting reader to the circumstances attendant upon the ceremony of the auction, which at this very moment, like the performances at Greenwich fair, "is a-going hexactly to begin." Around the doors of all the dininghouses, eating-houses, and guttling houses of this vast metropolis, from the highly respectable boiled-beef house in the Old Bailey, down to the cheap and nasty "dead-meat shop" in Rupert Street, about six or seven o'clock in the evening may be observed a lean and hungry mob of draggletailed women, the wives, daughters, and dependants of artisans as lean and hungry as themselves, in waiting to purchase the bits, scraps, and remainders of victual, saving and except such as are reserved for the mock turtle of the following day, together with all the plate-washings and dishscrapings of the establishment, which disposes of them to these poor people for something about double their intrinsic value; if, indeed, the leavings of the shabby-genteels who take out their tenpenny ration at such places, can be truly said to bear any intrinsic value. Lincoln's Inn is no exception to eating-houses in any other part of the town; the only difference being, that at the regular "dead-meat shops" the auction is deferred until the busi, ness of the day is over; while at Lincoln's Inn you are hustled by the mob of the Victualling Office as you put your foot over the threshold on quitting the Hall. There, in a sort of bar cut off from the body of the Hall, presides a young lady of very prepossessing appearance, a greasy bib tucked under her chin, who is understood to be the daughter of the head cook, and an heiress of no inconsiderable expectations-verbum sap. The hungry mob confronts this amiable damsel, and now the mangled remains of a sirloin of beef-now a baking-dish full of plate-washings-now a quarter or so of ruined pigeon pie-and, again, a plateful of an olio, combined of first and second courses, of meat scraps and sweet scraps, is set up for sale to the highest and last bidder by Miss Georgina Robins as aforesaid. the lots are severally knocked down, the successful bidder produces a pewter spoon from under her cloak, and begins to stir up her particular "lot," sucking her thumbs from time to time with especial relish. One lady is overheard to complain, that "if she had knowed as there wasn't not no custard in her lot,' she'd be blowed afore she'd a giv ninepence-farden for't." Another holds up to the admiring spectators the well-cleaned bone of a shoulder of mutton, and appeals to them whether "that there for fifteenpence is'nt a reggler himposition." While a lady, who has bid for soup, pathetically observes, that "her husband 'll give her a jolly good hiding for laying out his hard-earned money on a bucket of slops." As But it is high time to return from the auction, which I have only alluded to as a highly gratifying spectacle— a diffusion of useful knowledgeequally profitable to the public and to the honourable professors of the law. The course of gastronomic education pursued in the Inns of Court, will next demand our serious consideration. The Inner Temple professes to receive the rich and great more exclu sively, and accordingly the legal bill of fare at that Inn is recherché in a high degree-nothing plain ever being put upon the table, and French cookery preferred. The strictest silence is enjoined in this Hall during the whole time of study, hob-nobbing being interdicted as low, and no further intercourse permitted among the several members of the mess than an occasional scowl transmitted from one side of the table to the other-after the manner of English who have not the honour of one auother's acquaintance, and who, consequently, have an undoubted right to assume every stranger to be a pickpocket, until there is good evidence to the contrary. In the Inner Temple Hall it is understood that you may, in a case of great emergency, ask your neighbour for the salt; but it is also understood that he is not obliged to let you have it. It will be advisable that the young and inexperienced student should not venture to hazard an observation upon the weather in the Hall, that being here considered an indirect attempt to make your neighbour's acquaintance, which he very properly resents by staring you vacantly in the face, and suspiciously buttoning up his breeches pockets. The Middle Temple is of a different temperament, as the sound maxim of law hath it, mortal Bacon, who so worthily sus tains the early reputation of this Inn, the entertainment consists of a first course of rashers and eggs, with gammon and spinach to follow! Lincoln's Inn has produced more illustrious men than all the other Inns of Court, put them all together. Perceval belonged to this Inn-so did Pitt-so do I! Well, then, to descend a peg in the social scale-Camden, Hardwicke, Ashley, Loughborough (afterwards Earl of Rosslyn), Erskine, Lyndhurst, and fifty more, whose names I do not now recollect, worthily occupied the Chancellor's chair; while Ellenborough, Mansfield, and Denman (inter alios), with equal dignity and reputation have occupied-the last. named excellent judge and most worthy man still occupies-the Chief Justice seat of England. To us Addington belongs to us Abbott-and I know not how many other speakers of the House of Commons. The pulpit of our chapel has been adorned by the "The Inner for the rich-the Middle for presence of Hurd, of Van Mildert, and the poor" And here accordingly the course of professional education is confined to the scrag-end of a neck of mutton, and occasionally griskins. The consequences of this meagre course of study may be easily predicted and the fact is well ascertained that the Middle Temple has given to the world fewer great men, and these at longer intervals, than any of the other Inns of Court. How indeed could it be otherwise? What professional acumen can be derived from the scrag-end of a neck of mutton, or what inspiration can the sucking advocate imbibe from griskins? To the Benchers of the Middle Temple I would say, in the language of-Blackstone I think it was "Reform it altogether!" Gray's Inn is, if possible, still more lenten in the style of its professional instruction-the daily routine in that hall consisting of, for the first course, potatoes boiled with butter-milksecond course, of potatoes roasted with butter-milk-and third course, of potatoes boiled and roasted also with butter-milk. On Sundays the students pay attenion to bullock's liver fried, with tripe and onions-while on Grand Day, out of respect for the memory of the im many other divines of equal reputation in the Church; and though last, not least in public regard, by Lonsdale. Of Chief Justices and other Judges of the Common Pleas of Chief Barons and Puisne Barons of the Exchequer, and Justices of the King's Bench, our list is interminable, extending far into the gloom of remote antiquity. To what, then, is this galaxy to talent owing-this constellation of eminent men-this firmament of the stars of the legal profession, that overarches the venerable hall of Lincoln's Inn? Ambitious student, it is owing to the solidity, the substantiality of our bill of fare-it depends upon the grub-it is the natural and legitimate consequence of what Doctor O'Toole, that high authority in educational matters, emphatically styles the "ating and the drinkin':" But this part of our subject is deserving of more minute consideration we proceed to a description of the bill of fare. Sundays, Tuesdays, J Roast beef Plum pudding. Custard pudding. Mondays, Boiled beef College pudding. Boiled mackerel mutton. |