occasional scowl transmitted from one side of the table to the other after the manner of English who have not the honour of one another'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. 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.

It

The Middle Temple is of a different temperament, as the sound maxim of law hath it,

"The Inner for the rich-the Middle for 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 pota

toes 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

mortal Bacon, who so worthily sustains 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 lastnamed 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 presence of Hurd, of Van Mildert, and 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.

Thursdays,

Fridays,

ding. Fried sole Roast leg of mutton.

Now, I put it to you, I put it to my learned friend on the opposite side, whether this is not a substantial system of English jurisprudence-whether there remains any wonder that Lincoln's Inn should be the inn she is

and that the men of Lincoln's Inn should be the men they are? I must observe that the bill of fare, above transcribed exactly from the records of the Inn by permission of the treasurer, is not unvaried. On the contrary, it is adapted to the times and seasons of the year, as well as to the temper of the students at the several terms. For example, in winter, roast beef and plum-pudding preponderate, winter being the season of severe study; in summer, mutton and custard supersede the heavier matter; summer being the season of digestive relaxation. Michaelmas term affords the student gravy soup and bouilli; Trinity term, on the contrary, replaces these delicacies with the more refrigeratory vietual of cold boiled lamb and salad. In like manner, Hilary term is celebrated for boiled capons and oyster sauce. The advent of Faster term, again, is hailed with rapture as the season of returning spring, cabbage, early cauliflowers, and sprouts. The baked plum-pudding of winter gives way to the rhubarb tart of spring, and to the gooseberry pie of maturer summer; while, with returning winter, baked plum-pudding once again smokes upon the board. But these delicate and judicious variations of the bill of fare in Lincoln's Inn hall, are so numerous, that I am compelled to leave the subject in despair, trusting that some author of more matured experience in legal dietetics may favour the hungry public with a complete catalogue of all the delicacies of the season as consumed in Lincoln's Inn hall, from time whereof the memory of man extendeth, not to the contrary. The conversation in our Hall-for conversation to a limited extent is permitted-is begun after the first glass of wine, and is continued until after the second, by which time the wine

sumes her dominion in the Hall. The turn which the conversation invariably takes, is naturally dictated by the main object of the assembled partiesthat is to say, of and concerning dinner-What was for dinner yesterday, and whether it was good this is an illustration of the pleasures of retrospection - What is for dinner to-day, and whether it is likely to be goodbeing an illustration of the pleasures of hope-And what will be for dinner to-morrow, and so on. Scruggins observes to his opposite neighbour at the mess, that in his humble opinion the roasted legs of mutton are always under-done. Wiggins lays down the law on the opposite side, by an argument tending to prove that the boiled buttock of beef is always over-done. Spriggins then sums up in the style judicial, enlarging upon the fact, that some men like mutton over-done, and beef under-done, and the contrarythat mutton may be either over-done or under-done, but not both together; that the same law is applicable to beef - that beef, when under-done, may, by the judicious application of additional caloric, be done enough, or even overdone, which holds also of mutton; but that mutton, when over-done, can by no culinary process hitherto discovered, be under-done, the same law of nature being applicable to beef - that one man likes one thing, and another man likes another thing that there are cases exactly in point-that there are two sound maxims of law bearing upon this argument, which he (Spriggins) takes leave to quote to the court, -the first being to the effect, that

"De gustibus non est disputandum;" and the second not less authoritative to the same effect, "that what's one man's meat, is another man's poison." Having delivered this charge, or something very like it, in the true judicial fashion of leaving the whole matter more obfuscated than he found it, Lord Chief-Justice Spriggins (that is to be) takes a pull at the red-hot port, and looks round the Hall with the air of a man who has done a meritorious action! The conversation now migrates to port. Duggins is confident that the wine is not so confounded bad this term. Stiggins will answer for last term, that it could not have been worse; while Jiggins wishes he may never finger a fee, if next term the wine will not be worse than ever it was. In short, while these gentlemen are drinking the wine, the wine is getting worse and worse every mouthful; but when, at last, the last drop is drained out of the decanter, the wine is pronounced absolutely not drinkable!

The politics of Lincoln's Inn Hall deserve our gravest attention. At present, the question of paramount importance in the hall is the potatoe question; and parties are divided pretty equally into the "potatoe-with-jackets-on" party, and the "potatoe-without-jackets-on" party-both parties being equally violent and outrageous, as respectable political parties are in duty bound to be.

The "potatoe-with-jackets-on" party assume the character of innovators, and pretend to call themselves reformers-they talk perpetually of the "march of intellect," and are morally certain that the "schoolmaster is abroad"-of which, as far as the poor man's intellects are concerned, there has not for a long time been a shadow of doubt; they laugh at the wisdom of our ancestors, and affect to be surprised how any rational man can suppose that the existence of our glorious constitution is involved in the potatoe-with-jackets-on question. They prate of economy too, in all matters that do not affect the pockets of themselves and their relations

and draw up documents to prove the necessity of a Commission to show the saving that will accrue to the Inn if the potatoe-with-jackets-on question is carried, in the manual labour now required for peeling the potatoes, and in the melted butter at present demanded to make the potatoes go down! In fact, the potatoe-with-jackets-on party, upon this and all other occasions, have proved themselves neither more nor less than talking potatoes.

The potatoe with-jackets-off party are of a different stamp-they talk little, but they think the more they venerate the wisdom of our ancestors, and are devotedly attached to our glorious Constitution they assert that potatoes-with-jackets-off have been in consumption within our Hall, from time whereof the memory of man extendeth, not to the contrary they say Black

stone has laid it down, that immemorial custom carries the force of law, with which observation I entirely agree, and insinuate that the potatoewith-jackets-on party care neither for law nor gospel-which, there is too much reason to fear, is somewhere about the truth. They boldly assert that the pretended economy of the potatoe-with-jackets-on party is all my eye and Mrs Elizabeth Martinthat plates to peel the potatoes on must be bought by the Inn, to which the potatoe-with-jackets-on party reply, that plates are cheaper than melted butter. The potatoe-with-jackets-off party hold peeling potatoes in the dining-hall to be a filthy practice; to which the other party reply, that their thumbs may be supposed to be cleaner than the thumbs of the scullions-a rejoinder rebutted by the tart assertion of the potatoe-with-jackets-off party, that they (the p- w-joparty) don't know whether or not! Meetings and counter meetings have been held_resolutions and counter resolutions have been passed-petitions and counter petitions lie everywhere for signature by every body who can sign, and for signature by proxy by every body who cannotnobody knows where the potatoe question will end; and very many quiet, well-disposed respectable people are sick of the subject, and have given up eating potatoes altogether!

Latterly, the peelers, as the potatoewith-jackets-on party is facetiously denominated, have become insolent in the highest degree, in consequence of the accession of the Irish party-by no means an inconsiderable faction in Lincoln's Inn Hall. This party, understanding the potatoe question as it does, was considered of great importance to the potatoe-with-jackets-on party, and its adhesion to their principles is considered the "precursor" of complete success. Indeed it is obscurely whispered throughout the Hall, that the Marchioness of Normanby, prime minister, has had a draft of a bill for the settlement of the potatoe question carried into Buckingham palace by one of the pages of the back-stairs - that her ladyship, with the other stipendiary ladies of the back-stairs, have considered the matter favourably, and are shortly expected to give their more than royal assent; while the he-fellows who are strings of these high-minded damsels, have already, we understand, received orders to spare "no expense" on the potatoe question, and to hold themselves in readiness to conciliate the paramount Irish party by the imme. diate settlement of the long-mooted potatoe-with-jackets-on question, as also, in the next session, if possible, to agree to a repeal of the Legislative Union!

We do not intend, in this place, to enter at large into the antiquities of the several Inns of Court, my learned friend, Counsellor O'Rubbishy, being at present up to the ears in cobwebs and black-letter upon that very subject, to which the learned gentleman intends to prefix a dissertation upon the origin of eating and drinking in general, and of legal eating and drinking in particular; also, in the appendix, to give a minute account of the original eating-house on Mutton Hill, where the learned gentleman and myself dine in vacation, to which will be added, observations tending to throw light upon the personal identity of the first lawyer, who, saving your reverence, is credibly understood to be neither more nor less than Old Clooty himself! I only mention what Counsellor O'Rubbishy means to do in this place, as we put a specification into the Patent Office to secure an exclusive right-that is to say, to prevent, in the case of the learned gentleman, needy scribblers in trashy periodicals from doing by him as they have done (God forgive them!) by me-taking the bread out of my mouth, and leaving me, by the theft of an original idea, minus a dinner! I don't so much mind a man stealing an idea, if he knows how to work it up decently, but I do solemnly protest against my morocco being cut out by a brogue-makerand I hereby warn and advise all literary pirates whatsoever, who may glean from my conversation or otherwise what they have the effrontery to call an original article, that whenever they throw my lion's hide over their asinine shoulders, I will take up the title of their stolen original-and, close upon the heels of it, write an article of my own head, that will knock them, as brother Jonathan has it, "into eternal smash!"

The law, like all other sublunary matters, is not stationary but pro

head" marvellously. We ourselves recollect many great and important changes. We are full of experience, and looked up to as a high authority in the Hall of Lincoln's Inn. We remember several epochs in the gastronomic history of the bar-about fiveand-twenty years ago we were not quite grey-we held one brief and we had no wine in Lincoln's Inn Hall! It seems as if it were only yesterday! Then came, we recollect, the epoch of the bottle-seven years exactly after, I arrived at the dignity of the cucumber! I can safely hazard my reputation as a lawyer upon the fact, which I here give as my professional opinion, that from that time to the present the wine has got worse and worse every term; and that, if worse could now by any possibility be had for love or money, we should be required to swallow it. In my early days, when the world lay all smiling before me, as Tommy Moore has it, and I looked upon Lord Eldon as only a venerable old gentleman airing my chair, we dined off pewter platters_helped ourselves to gravy with iron spoons, that imparted to all our dishes a high chalybeate flavour-stud our several knives promiscuously into the saltcellar, and suspended our "kibaubs" of impregnable mutton upon bipronged forks. Since that time we have gained a point-our forks are now tridents-our iron spoons, by some alchemical process, are transmuted into pewter, and our pewter platters are replaced by hydrographic (only think of the perfectibility of crockery) by hydrographic plates! About this time turnip radishes were introduced into our hall, and in Hilary Term 1801, we arrived at the epoch of cheese! Up to Trinity Term 1830, the profession drank their beer from a mug-I have heard before now of tea in a mug-but beer in a mug I never knew till I knew it in Lincoln's Inn Hall! The epoch of mug, however, like other memorable epochs, passed away, and was succeeded by the epoch of tumblers. About this time, too, an important change came over the spirit of our dreams-pewter was discarded-and the students actually appeared in the hall with silver spoons in their mouths!

This was the silver age

"How blest the silver age in early times, When no avenger knew or punish'd crimes!"