Under the heading, "The charges of my coming into my judge's place, and the taxes upon it the first yeare and halfe," Judge Rokeby gives the following particulars:

"1689, May 11. To Mr. Milton, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, as per note, for the patent and swearing privately, L21, 6s. 4d. May 30. To Mr. English, charges of the patent at the Secretary of State's Office, as per note, said to be a new fee, L6, 10s. Inrolling the patent in Exchequer and Treasury, L2, 3s. 4d. Ju. 27. Wine given as a judge, as per vintner's note, L23, 19s. Ju. 24. Cakes, given as a judge, as per vintner's note, L5, 14s. 6d. Second-hand judge's robes, with some new lining, L31. Charges for my part of the patent for our salarys, to Aaron Smith, L7, 15s., and the dormant warrant L3.—L10, 15s.—L101, 8s. 2d.

"Taxes, L420.

"The charges of my being made a serjeant-at-law, and of removing myselfe and family to London, and a new coach and paire of horses, and of my knighthood (all which were within the first halfe year of my coming from York), upon the best calculation I can make of them, were att least L600."

Concerning the expenses attendant on his removal from the Common Pleas to the King's Bench in 1695—a removal which had an injurious result upon his income—the judge records: Nov. 1. To Mr. Partridge, the Crier of King's Bench, claimed by him as a fee due to the 2 criers, L2. Nov. 12. To Mr. Ralph Hall, in full of the Clerk of the Crown's bill for my patent, and swearing at the Lord Keeper's, and passing it through the offices, L28, 14s. 2d. Dec. 6. To Mr. Carpenter, the Vintner, for wine and bottles, L22, 10s. 6d. To Gwin, the Confectioner, for cakes, L5, 3s. 6d. To Mr. Mand (his clerk), which he paid att the Treasury, and att the pell for my patent, allowed there, L1, 15s. Tot. L60, 2s. 8d. The charges for wine and cakes were consequences of a custom which required a new judge to send biscuits and macaroons, sack and claret, to his brethren of the bench.

In the reign of George I. the salaries of the common law judges were raised—the pensions of the chiefs being doubled, and the puisnes receiving fifteen hundred instead of a thousand pounds.

Cowper's incomes during his tenure of the seals varied between something over seven and something under nine thousand per annum: but there is some reason to believe that on accepting office, he stipulated for a handsome yearly salary, in case he should be called upon to relinquish the place. Evelyn, not a very reliable authority, but still a chronicler worthy of notice even on questions of fact, says:—"Oct. 1705. Mr. Cowper made Lord Keeper. Observing how uncertain greate officers are of continuing long in their places, he would not accept it unless L2,000 a yeare were given him in reversion when he was put out, in consideration of his loss of practice. His predecessors, how little time soever they had the seal, usually got L100,000, and made themselves barons." It is doubtful whether this bargain was actually made; but long after Cowper's time, lawyers about to mount the woolsack, insisted on having terms that should compensate them for loss of practice. Lord Macclesfield had a special salary of L4000 per annum, during his occupancy of the marble chair, and obtained a grant of L12,000 from the king;—a tellership in the Exchequer being also bestowed upon his eldest son. Lord King obtained even better terms—a salary of L6000 per annum from the Post Office, and L1200 from the Hanaper Office; this large income being granted to him in consideration of the injury done to the Chancellor's emoluments by the proceedings against Lord Macclesfield—whereby it was declared illegal for chancellors to sell the subordinate offices in the Court of Chancery. This arrangement—giving the Chancellor an increased salary in lieu of the sums which he could no longer raise by sales of offices—is conclusive testimony that in the opinion of the crown Lord Macclesfield had a right to sell the masterships. The terms made by Lord Northington, in 1766, on resigning the Seals and becoming President of the Council, illustrate this custom. On quitting the marble chair, he obtained an immediate pension of L2000 per annum; and an agreement that the annual payment should be made L4000 per annum, as soon as he retired from the Presidency: he also obtained a reversionary grant for two lives of the lucrative office of Clerk of the Hanaper in Chancery.

In Lord Chancellor King's time, amongst the fees and perquisites which he wished to regulate and reform were the supplies of stationery, provided by the country for the great law-officers. It may be supposed that the sum thus expended on paper, pens, and wax was an insignificant item in the national expenditure; but such was not the case—for the chief of the courts were accustomed to place their personal friends on the free-list for articles of stationery. The Archbishop of Dublin, a dignitary well able to pay for his own writing materials, wrote to Lord King, April 10, 1733: "MY LORD,—Ever since I had the honor of being acquainted with Lord Chancellors, I have lived in England and Ireland upon Chancery paper, pens, and wax. I am not willing to lose an old advantageous custom. If your Lordship hath any to spare me by my servant, you will oblige your very humble servant,

"JOHN DUBLIN."

So long as judges or subordinate officers were paid by casual perquisites and fees, paid directly to them by suitors, a taint of corruption lingered in the practice of our courts. Long after judges ceased to sell injustice, they delayed justice from interested motives, and when questions concerning their perquisites were raised, they would sometimes strain a point, for the sake of their own private advantage. Even Lord Ellenborough, whose fame is bright amongst the reputations of honorable men, could not always exercise self-control when attempts were made to lessen his customary profits, "I never," writes Lord Campbell, "saw this feeling at all manifest itself in Lord Ellenborough except once, when a question arose whether money paid into court was liable to poundage. I was counsel in the case, and threw him into a furious passion, by strenuously resisting the demand; the poundage was to go into his own pocket—being payable to the chief clerk—an office held in trust for him. If he was in any degree influenced by this consideration, I make no doubt that he was wholly unconscious of it."

George III.'s reign witnessed the introduction of changes long required, and frequently demanded in the mode and amounts of judicial payments. In 1779, puisne judges and barons received an additional L400 per annum, and the Chief Baron an increase of L500 a year. Twenty years later, Stat. 39, Geo. III., c. 110, gave the Master of the Rolls, L4000 a year, the Lord Chief Baron L4000 a year, and each of the puisne judges and barons, L3000 per annum. By the same act also, life-pensions of L4000 per annum were secured to retiring holders of the seal, and it was provided that after fifteen years of service, or in case of incurable infirmity, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench could claim, on retirement, L3000 per annum, the Master of the Rolls, Chief of Common Pleas, and Chief Baron L2500 per annum, and each minor judge of those courts or Baron of the coif, L2000 a year. In 1809, (49 Geo. III., c. 127) the Lord Chief Baron's annual salary was raised to L5000; whilst a yearly stipend of L4000 was assigned to each puisne judge or baron. By 53 Geo. III., c. 153, the Chiefs and Master of the Rolls, received on retirement an additional yearly L800, and the puisnes an additional yearly L600. A still more important reform of George III.'s reign was the creation of the first Vice Chancellor in March, 1813. Rank was assigned to the new functionary next after the Master of the Rolls, and his salary was fixed at L5000 per annum.

Until the reign of George IV. judges continued to take fees and perquisites; but by 6 Geo. IV. c. 82, 83, 84, it was arranged that the fees should be paid into the Exchequer, and that the undernamed great officers of justice should receive the following salaries and pensions on retirement:—

An. Pension An. Sal. on retirement.

Lord Chief Justice of King's Bench L10,000 L4000 Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas 8000 3750 The Master of the Rolls 7000 3750 The Vice Chancellor of England 6000 3750 The Chief Baron of the Exchequer 7000 3750 Each Puisne Baron or Judge 5500 3500

Moreover by this Act, the second judge of the King's Bench was entitled, as in the preceding reign, to L40 for giving charge to the grand jury in each term, and pronouncing judgment on malefactors.

The changes with regard to judicial salaries under William IV. were comparatively unimportant. By 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 116, the salaries of puisne judges and barons were reduced to L5000 a year; and by 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 111, the Chancellor's pension, on retirement, was raised to L5000, the additional L1000 per annum being assigned to him in compensation of loss of patronage occasioned by the abolition of certain offices. These were the most noticeable of William's provisions with regard to the payment of his judges.

The present reign, which has generously given the country two new judges, called Lord Justices, two additional Vice Chancellors, and a swarm of paid justices, in the shape of county court judges and stipendiary magistrates, has exercised economy with regard to judicial salaries. The annual stipends of the two Chief Justices, fixed in 1825 at L10,000 for the Chief of the King's Bench, and L8000 for the Chief of the Common Pleas, have been reduced, in the former case to L8000 per annum, in the latter to L7000 per annum. The Chancellor's salary for his services as Speaker of the House of Lords, has been made part of the L10,000 assigned to his legal office; so that his income is no more than ten thousand a year. The salary of the Master of the Rolls has been reduced from L7000 to L6000 a year; the same stipend, together with a pension on retirement of L3750, being assigned to each of the Lords Justices. The salary of a Vice Chancellor is L5000 per annum; and after fifteen years' service, or in case of incurable sickness, rendering him unable to discharge the functions of his office, he can retire with a pension of L3500.

Thurlow had no pension on retirement; but with much justice Lord Campbell observes: "Although there was no parliamentary retired allowance for ex-Chancellors, they were better off than at present. Thurlow was a Teller of the Exchequer, and had given sinecures to all his relations, for one of which his nephew now receives a commutation of L9000 a year." Lord Loughborough was the first ex-Chancellor who enjoyed, on retirement, a pension of L4000 per annum, under Stat. 39 Geo. III. c. 110. The next claimant for an ex-Chancellor's pension was Eldon, on his ejection from office in 1806; and the third claimant was Erskine, whom the possession of the pension did not preserve from the humiliation of indigence.

Eldon's obstinate tenacity of office, was attended with one good result. It saved the nation much money by keeping down the number of ex-Chancellors entitled to L4000 per annum. The frequency with which Governments have been changed during the last forty years has had a contrary effect, producing such a strong bevy of lawyers—who are pensioners as well as peers—that financial reformers are loudly asking if some scheme cannot be devised for lessening the number of these costly and comparatively useless personages. At the time when this page is written, there are four ex-Chancellors in receipt of pensions—Lords Brougham, St. Leonards, Cranworth, and Westbury; but death has recently diminished the roll of Chancellors by removing Lords Truro and Lyndhurst. Not long since the present writer read a very able, but one-sided article in a liberal newspaper that gave the sum total spent by the country since Lord Eldon's death in ex-Chancellors' pensions; and in simple truth it must be admitted that the bill was a fearful subject for contemplation.

[19] During the Commonwealth, the people, unwilling to pay their judges liberally, decided that a thousand a year was a sufficient income for a Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal.



PART IV.

COSTUME AND TOILET.



CHAPTER XIX.

BRIGHT AND SAD.

From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For many generations clerical discipline restrained the members of the bar from garments of lavish costliness and various colors, unless high rank and personal influence placed them above the fear of censure and punishment; but as soon as the law became a lay-profession, its members—especially those who were still young—eagerly seized the newest fashions of costume, and expended so much time and money on personal decoration, that the governors of the Inns deemed it expedient to make rules, with a view to check the inordinate love of gay apparel.

By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they deserve attention.

From Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales,' it appears that in the earlier part of Henry VIII.'s reign, the students and barristers of the Inns were allowed great licence in settling for themselves minor points of costume; but before that paternal monarch died, this freedom was lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry—"They have no order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of costume, the general discipline of the Inn was scandalously lax; the very next paragraph of the 'Origines' showing that the templars forbore to shut their gates at night, whereby "their chambers were oftentimes robbed, and many other misdemeanors used."

But measures were taken to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made "that the gentlemen of this company" (i.e., the Inner Temple) "should reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have long beards. And that the Treasurer of this society should confer with the other Treasurers of Court for an uniform reformation." The authorities of Lincoln's Inn had already bestirred themselves to reduce the extravagances of dress and toilet which marked their younger and more frivolous fellow-members. "And for decency in Apparel," writes Dugdale, concerning Lincoln's Inn, "at a council held on the day of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 23 Hen. VIII. it was ordered that for a continual rule, to be thenceforth kept in this house, no gentleman, being a fellow of this house, should wear any cut or pansid hose, or bryches; or pansid doublet, upon pain of putting out of the house."

Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn (33 Hen. VIII.) ordered that no member of the society "being in commons, or at his repast, should wear a beard; and whoso did, to pay double commons or repasts in this house during such time as he should have any beard."

By an order of 5 Maii, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the gentlemen of the Inner Temple were forbidden to wear long beards, no member of the society being permitted to wear a beard of more than three weeks' growth. Every breach of this law was punished by the heavy fine of twenty shillings. In 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary it was ordered that no member of the Middle Temple "should thenceforth wear any great bryches in their hoses, made after the Dutch, Spanish, or Almon fashion; or lawnde upon their capps; or cut doublets, upon pain of iiis iiiid forfaiture for the first default, and the second time to be expelled the house." At Lincoln's Inn, "in 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, one Mr Wyde, of this house, was (by special order made upon Ascension day) fined at five groats, for going in his study gown in Cheapside, on a Sunday, about ten o'clock before noon; and in Westminister Hall, in the Term time, in the forenoon." Mr. Wyde's offence was one of remissness rather than of excessive care for his personal appearance. With regard to beards in the same reign Lincoln's Inn exacted that such members "as had beards should pay 12d. for every meal they continued them; and every man" was required "to be shaven upon pain of putting out of commons."

The orders made under Elizabeth with regard to the same or similar matters are even more humorous and diverse. At the Inner Temple "it was ordered in 36 Elizabeth (16 Junii), that if any fellow in commons, or lying in the Louse, did wear either hat or cloak in the Temple Church, hall, buttry, kitchen, or at the buttry-barr, dresser, or in the garden, he should forfeit for every such offence vis viiid. And in 42 Eliz. (8 Febr.) that they go not in cloaks, hatts, bootes, and spurs into the city, but when they ride out of the town." This order was most displeasing to the young men of the legal academies, who were given to swaggering amongst the brave gallants of city ordinaries, and delighted in showing their rich attire at Paul's. The Templar of the Inner Temple who ventured to wear arms (except his dagger) in hall committed a grave offence, and was fined five pounds. "No fellow of this house should come into the hall" it was enacted at the Inner Temple, 38 Eliz. (20 Dec.) "with any weapons, except his dagger, or his knife, upon pain of forfeiting the sum of five pounds." In old time the lawyers often quarrelled and drew swords in hall; and the object of this regulation doubtless was to diminish the number of scandalous affrays. The Middle Temple, in 26 Eliz., made six prohibitory rules with regard to apparel, enacting, "1. That no ruff should be worn. 2. Nor any White color in doublets or hoses. 3. Nor any facing of velvet in gownes, but by such as were of the bench. 4. That no gentleman should walk in the streets in their cloaks, but in gownes. 5. That no hat, or long, or curled hair be worn. 6. Nor any gown, but such as were of a sad color." Of similar orders made at Gray's Inn, during Elizabeth's reign, the following edict of 42 Eliz. (Feb. 11) may be taken as a specimen:—"That no gentleman of this society do come into the hall, to any meal, with their hats, boots, or spurs; but with their caps, decently and orderly, according to the ancient order of this house: upon pain, for every offence, to forfeit iiis 4d, and for the third offence expulsion. Likewise, that no gentleman of this society do go into the city, or suburbs, or to walk in the Fields, otherwise than in his gown, according to the ancient usage of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, upon penalty of iiis iiiid for every offence; and for the third, expulsion and loss of his chamber."

At Lincoln's Inn it was enacted, "in 38 Eliz., that if any Fellow of this House, being a commoner or repaster, should within the precinct of this house wear any cloak, boots and spurs, or long hair, he should pay for every offence five shillings for a fine, and also to be put out of commons." The attempt to put down beards at Lincoln's Inn failed. Dugdale says, in his notes on that Inn, "And in 1 Eliz. it was further ordered, that no fellow of this house should wear any beard above a fortnight's growth; and that whoso transgresses therein should for the first offence forfeit 3s. 4d., to be paid and cast with his commons; and for the second time 6s 8d., in like manner to be paid and cast with his commons; and the third time to be banished the house. But the fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so predominant, as that the very next year following, at a council held at this house, upon the 27th of November, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before that time touching beards should be void and repealed." In the same year in which the authorities of Lincoln's Inn forbade the wearing of beards, they ordered that no fellow of their society "should wear any sword or buckler; or cause any to be born after him into the town." This was the first of the seven orders made in 1 Eliz. for all the Inns of Court; of which orders the sixth runs thus:—"That none should wear any velvet upper cap, neither in the house nor city. And that none after the first day of January then ensuing, should wear any furs, nor any manner of silk in their apparel, otherwise than he could justifie by the stature of apparel, made an. 24 H. 8, under the penalty aforesaid." In the eighth year of the following reign it was ordained at Lincoln's Inn "that no rapier should be worn in this house by any of the society."

Other orders made in the reign of James I., and similar enactments passed by the Inns in still more recent periods, can be readily found on reference to Dugdale and later writers upon the usages of lawyers.

On such matters, however, fashion is all-powerful; and however grandly the benchers of an Inn might talk in their council-chamber, they could not prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards when beards were the mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by gallants at court. Even in the time of Elizabeth—when authority was most anxious that utter-barristers should in matters of costume maintain that reputation for 'sadness' which is the proverbial characteristic of apprentices of the law—counsellors of various degrees were conspicuous throughout the town for brave attire. If we had no other evidence bearing on the point, knowledge of human nature would make us certain that the bar imitated Lord Chancellor Hatton's costume. At Gray's Inn, Francis Bacon was not singular in loving rich clothes, and running into debt for satin and velvet, jewels and brocade, lace and feathers. Even of that contemner of frivolous men and vain pursuits, Edward Coke, biography assures us, "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls."

The courts of James I. and his son drew some of their most splendid fops from the multitude of young men who were enjoined by the elders of their profession to adhere to a costume that was a compromise between the garb of an Oxford scholar and the guise of a London 'prentice. The same was the case with Charles II.'s London. Students and barristers outshone the brightest idlers at Whitehall, whilst within the walls of their Inns benchers still made a faint show of enforcing old restrictions upon costume. At a time when every Templar in society wore hair—either natural or artificial—long and elaborately dressed, Sir William Dugdale wrote, "To the office of the chief butler" (i.e., of the Middle Temple) "it likewise appertaineth to take the names of those that be absent at the said solemn revells, and to present them to the bench, as also inform the bench of such as wear hats, bootes, long hair, or the like (for the which he is commonly out of the young gentlemen's favor)."



CHAPTER XX.

MILLINERY.

Saith Sir William Dugdale, in his chapter concerning the personal attire of judges—"That peculiar and decent vestments have, from great antiquity, been used in religious services, we have the authority of God's sacred precept to Moses, 'Thou shall make holy rayments for Aaron and his sons, that are to minister unto me, that they may be for glory and beauty.'" In this light and flippant age there are men irreverent enough to smile at the habiliments which our judges wear in court, for the glory of God and the seemly embellishment of their own natural beauty.

Like the stuff-gown of the utter-barrister, the robes of English judges are of considerable antiquity; but antiquaries labor in vain to discover all the facts relating to their origin and history. Mr. Foss says that at the Stuart Restoration English judges resumed the robes worn by their predecessors since the time of Edward I.; but though the judicial robes of the present day bear a close resemblance to the vestments worn by that king's judges, the costume of the bench has undergone many variations since the twentieth year of his reign.

In the eleventh year of Richard II. a distinction was made between the costumes of the chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and their assistant justices; and at the same time the Chief Baron's inferiority to the Chief Justices was marked by costume.

Henry VI.'s Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Fortescue, in his delightful treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,' describes the ceremony attending the creation of a justice, and minutely sets forth the chief items of judicial costume in the Bench and Common Pleas during his time. "Howbeit," runs Robert Mulcaster's rendering of the 'De Laudibus,' "the habite of his rayment, hee shall from time to time forwarde, in some pointes change, but not in all the ensignments thereof. For beeing serjeaunt at lawe, hee was clothed in a long robe priestlyke, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and thereupon a hoode with two labels such as Doctours of the Lawes use to weare in certayne universityes, with the above described quoyfe. But being once made a justice, in steede of his hoode, hee shall weare a cloake cloased upon his righte shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still remayning; sauing that a justyce shall weare no partye coloured vesture as a serjeant may. And his cape is furred with none other than menever, whereas the serjeant's cape is ever furred with whyte lambe."

Judicial costume varied with the fashion of the day or the whim of the sovereign in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent generations saw the introduction of other changes; and in the time of Charles I. questions relating to the attire of the common law judges were involved in so much doubt, and surrounded with so many contradictory precedents and traditions, that the judges resolved to simplify matters by conference and unanimous action. The result of their deliberation was a decree, dated June 6, 1635, to which Sir John Bramston, Chief of the King's Bench, Sir John Finch, Chief of the Common Pleas, Sir Humphrey Davenport, Chief of the Exchequer, and all the minor judges of the three courts, gave subscription.



CHAPTER XXI.

WIGS.

The changes effected in judicial costume during the Commonwealth, like the reformation introduced at the same period into the language of the law, were all reversed in 1660, when Charles II.'s judges resumed the attire and usages of their predecessors in the first Charles's reign. When he had satisfied himself that monarchical principles were sure of an enduring triumph, and that their victory would conduce to his own advantage, great was young Samuel Pepys's delight at seeing the ancient customs of the lawyers restored, one after another. In October, 1660, he had the pleasure of seeing "the Lord Chancellor and all the judges riding on horseback, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the first day of term." In the February of 1663-4 his eyes were gladdened by the revival of another old practice. "28th (Lord's Day). Up and walked to St. Paul's," he writes, "and, by chance, it was an extraordinary day for the Readers of Inns of the Court and all the Students to come to church, it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of students, more than there was room to seat but upon forms, and the church mighty full. One Hawkins preached, an Oxford man, a good sermon upon these words, 'But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable.'" Hawkins was no doubt a humorist, and smiled in the sleeve of his Oxford gown as he told the law-students that peace characterized the highest sort of wisdom.

But, notwithstanding their zeal in reviving old customs, the lawyers of the Restoration introduced certain novelties into legal life. From Paris they imported the wig which still remains one of the distinctive adornments of the English barrister; and from the same centre of civilization they introduced certain refinements of cookery, which had been hitherto unknown in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Strand. In the earlier part of the 'merry monarch's' reign, the eating-house most popular with young barristers and law-students was kept by a French cook named Chattelin, who, besides entertaining his customers with delicate fare and choice wine, enriched our language with the word 'cutlet'—in his day spelt costelet.

In the seventeenth century, until wigs were generally adopted, the common law judges, like their precursors for several past generations, wore in court velvet caps, coifs, and cornered caps. Pictures preserve to us the appearance of justices, with their heads covered by one or two of these articles of dress, the moustache in many instances adorning the lip, and a well-trimmed beard giving point to the judicial chin. The more common head-dress was the coif and coif-cap, of which it is necessary to say a few words.

The coif was a covering for the head, made of white lawn or silk, and common law judges wore it as a sign that they were members of the learned brotherhood of sergeants. Speaking of the sergeants, Fortescue, in his 'De Laudibus,' says—"Wherefore to this state and degree hath no man beene hitherto admitted, except he hath first continued by the space of sixteene years in the said generall studio of the law, and in token or signe, that all justices are thus graduat, every one of them alwaies, while he sitteth in the Kinge's Courts, weareth a white quoyfe of silke; which is the principal and chiefe insignment of habite, wherewith serjeants-at-lawe in their creation are decked. And neither the justice, nor yet the serjeaunt, shall ever put off the quoyfe, no not in the kinge's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse." At times it was no easy matter to take the coif from the head; for the white drapery was fixed to its place with strings, which in the case of one notorious rascal were not untied without difficulty. In Henry III.'s reign, when William de Bossy was charged in open court with corruption and dishonesty, he claimed the benefit of clerical orders, and endeavored to remove his coif in order that he might display his tonsure; but before he could effect his purpose, an officer of the court seized him by the throat and dragged him off to prison. "Voluit," says Matthew Paris, "ligamenta coifae suae solvere, ut, palam monstraret se tonsuram habere clericalem; sed non est permissus. Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem." From which occurrence Spelman drew the untenable, and indeed, ridiculous inference, that the coif was introduced as a veil, beneath which ecclesiastics who wished to practice as judges or counsel in the secular courts, might conceal the personal mark of their order.

The coif-cap is still worn in undiminished proportions by judges when they pass sentence of death, and is generally known as the 'black cap.' In old time the justice, on making ready to pronounce the awful words which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure and firmness. At present the black cap is assumed to strike terror into the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide the emotion of the judge.

Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap; and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar, followed in the wake of fashion: but at first they wore their old coifs and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan cumbersome, they gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human hair.

Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in the Court of Chancery a round, conical hat. Bradshaw, sitting as president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law. Kennett tells us that "Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off blows." It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a poor guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary head-dress of an English common law judge, and in assuming a high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and long after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion; it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar lines—

"Where England's monarch once uncovered sat, And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."

Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs, some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration. Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer, represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having on his head a cap—not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. Such skull-caps, it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.

When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a black hat. "His lordship," says the 'Examen,' "regarded censure so little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot positively say, though I saw him, was so."

Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper wore his own hair in court instead of a wig, until he received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her father, 1705:—"The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age—'tis said the youngest Lord Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals to a boy."

The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service, showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and sword. Familiar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. "Sir, it is Lord Hardwicke," whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the ex-Chancellor's title than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy laughter. "Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man."

The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of legal practitioners—attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: "He was a great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise expect." In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates wore cocked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in 1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.

Many are the good stories told of judicial wigs, and amongst the best of them, is the anecdote which that malicious talker Samuel Rogers delighted to tell at Edward Law's expense. "Lord Ellenborough," says the 'Table-Talk,' "was once about to go on circuit, when Lady Ellenborough said that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he had no objection provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes, which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey Lord Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his foot against something below the seat; he discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, and the footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough furiously called out, 'Drive on!' The bandbox, accordingly, was left by the ditch-side. Having reached the county town where he was to officiate as judge, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for his appearance in the court-house. 'Now,' said he, 'where's my wig?—where is my wig?' 'My lord,' replied his attendant, 'it was thrown out of the carriage window!'"

Changing together with fashion, barristers ceased to wear their wigs in society as soon as the gallants and bucks of the West End began to appear with their natural tresses in theatres and ball rooms; but the conservative genius of the law has hitherto triumphed over the attempts of eminent advocates to throw the wig out of Westminster Hall. When Lord Campbell argued the great Privilege case, he obtained permission to appear without a wig; but this concession to a counsel—who, on that occasion, spoke for sixteen hours—was accompanied with an intimation that "it was not to be drawn into precedent."

Less wise or less fortunate than the bar, the judges of England wore their wigs in society after advocates of all ranks and degrees had agreed to lay aside the professional head-gear during hours of relaxation. Lady Eldon's good taste and care for her husband's comfort, induced Lord Eldon, soon after his elevation to the pillow of the Common Pleas, to beg the king's permission that he might put off his judicial wig on leaving the courts, in which as Chief Justice he would be required to preside. The petition did not meet with a favorable reception. For a minute George III. hesitated; whereupon Eldon supported his prayer by observing, with the fervor of an old-fashioned Tory, that the lawyer's wig was a detestable innovation—unknown in the days of James I. and Charles the Martyr, the judges of which two monarchs would have rejected as an insult any proposal that they should assume a head-dress fit only for madmen at masquerades or mummers at country wakes. "What! what!" cried the king, sharply; and then, smiling mischievously, as he suddenly saw a good answer to the plausible argument, he added—"True, my lord, Charles the First's judges wore no wigs, but they wore beards. You may do the same, if you like. You may please yourself about wearing or not wearing your wig; but mind, if you please yourself by imitating the old judges, as to the head—you must please me by imitating them as to the chin. You may lay aside your wig; but if you do—you must wear a beard." Had he lived in these days, when barristers occasionally wear beards in court, and judges are not less conspicuous than the junior bar for magnitude of nose and whisker, Eldon would have accepted the condition. But the last year of the last century, was the very centre and core of that time which may be called the period of close shavers; and John Scott, the decorous and respectable, would have endured martyrdom rather than have grown a beard, or have allowed his whiskers to exceed the limits of mutton-chop whiskers.

As Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and subsequently as Chancellor, Eldon wore his wig whenever he appeared in general society; but in the privacy of his own house he gratified Lady Eldon by laying aside the official head-gear. That this was his usage, the gossips of the law-courts knew well; and at Carlton House, when the Prince of Wales was most indignant with the Chancellor, who subsequently became his familiar friend, courtiers were wont to soothe the royal rage with diverting anecdotes of the attention which the odious lawyer lavished on the natural hair that gave his Bessie so much delight. On one occasion, when Eldon was firmly supporting the cause of the Princess of Wales, 'the first gentleman of Europe' forgot common decency so far, that he made a jeering allusion to this instance of the Chancellor's domestic amiability. "I am not the sort of person," growled the prince with an outbreak of peevishness, "to let my hair grow under my wig to please my wife." With becoming dignity Eldon answered—"Your Royal Highness condescends to be personal. I beg leave to withdraw;" and suiting his action to his words, the Chancellor made a low bow to the angry prince, and retired. The prince sneaked out of the position by an untruth, instead of an apology. On the following day he caused a written assurance to be conveyed to the Chancellor, that the offensive speech "was nothing personal, but simply a proverb—a proverbial way of saying a man was governed by his wife." It is needless to say that the expression was not proverbial, but distinctly and grossly personal. Lord Malmesbury's comment on this affair is "Very absurd of Lord Eldon; but explained by his having literally done what the prince said." Lord Eldon's conduct absurd! What was the prince's?



CHAPTER XXII.

BANDS AND COLLARS.

Bands came into fashion with Englishmen many years before wigs, but like wigs they were worn in general society before they became a recognized and distinctive feature of professional costume. Ladies of rank dyed their hair, and wore false tresses in Elizabethan England; but their example was not extensively followed by the men of their time—although the courtiers of the period sometimes donned 'periwinkes,' to the extreme disgust of the multitude, and the less stormy disapprobation of the polite. The frequency with which bands are mentioned in Elizabethan literature, affords conclusive evidence that they were much worn toward the close of the sixteenth century; and it is also matter of certainty that they were known in England at a still earlier period. Henry VIII. had "4 shirte bands of silver with ruffes to the same, whereof one was perled with golde;" and in 1638 Peacham observed, "King Henry VIII. was the first that ever wore a band about his neck, and that very plain, without lace, and about an inch or two in depth. We may see how the case is altered, he is not a gentleman, or in the fashion, whose band of Italian cutwork standeth him not at the least in three or four pounds; yea, a sempster in Holborn told me there are of threescore pound price apiece." That the fops of Charles I.'s reign were spending money on a fashion originally set by King Henry the Bluff, was the opinion also of Taylor the Water Poet, who in 1630 wrote—

"Now up alofte I mount unto the ruffe, Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe; Yet ruffes' antiquity is here but small— Within this eighty years not one at all; For the Eighth Henry (so I understand) Was the first king that ever wore a band; And but a falling-band, plaine with a hem; All other people knew no use of them. Yet imitation in small time began To grow, that it the kingdom overran; The little falling-bands encreased to ruffes, Ruffes (growing great) were waited on by cuffes, And though our frailties should awake our care, We make our ruffes as careless as we are."

In regarding the falling-band as the germ of the ruff, the Water-Poet differs from those writers who, with greater appearance of reason, maintain that the ruff was the parent of the band. Into this question concerning origin of species, there is no occasion to enter on the present occasion. It is enough to state that in the earlier part of the seventeenth century bands or collars—bands stiffened and standing at the backward part, and bands falling upon the shoulder and breast—were articles of costume upon which men of expensive and modish habits spent large sums.

In the days of James I., when standing bands were still the fashion, and falling-bands had not come in, the Inns of Court men were very particular about the stiffness, cut, and texture of their collars. Speaking of the Inns of Court men, Sir Thomas Overbury, (who was poisoned in 1613), says: "He laughs at every man whose band sits not well, or that hath not a fair shoe-type, and is ashamed to be in any man's company who wears not his cloathes well."

If portraits may be trusted, the falling-band of Charles I.'s time, bore considerable resemblance to the falling neck-frill, which twenty years since was very generally worn by quite little boys, and is still sometimes seen on urchins who are about six years of age. The bands worn by the barristers and clergy of our own time are modifications of this antique falling-band, and like the coif cap of the modern sergeant, they bear only a faint likeness to their originals. But though bands—longer than those still worn by clergymen—have come to be a distinctive feature of legal costume, the bar was slow to adopt falling-collars—regarding them as a strange and fanciful innovation. Whitelock's personal narrative furnishes pleasant testimony that the younger gentry of Charles I.'s England adopted the new collar before the working lawyers.

"At the Quarter-Sessions of Oxford," says Whitelock, speaking of the year 1635, when he was only thirty years of age, "I was put into the chair in court, though I was in colored clothes, a sword by my side, and a falling-band, which was unusual for lawyers in those days, and in this garb I gave the charge to the Grand Jury. I took occasion to enlarge on the point of jurisdiction in the temporal courts in matters ecclesiastical, and the antiquity thereof, which I did the rather because the spiritual men began in those days to swell higher than ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the Church that anything savoring of the spirituality, should be within the cognisance of ignorant laymen. The gentlemen and freeholders seemed well pleased with my charge, and the management of the business of the sessions; and said they perceived one might speak as good sense in a falling-band as in a ruff." At this time Whitelock had been about seven years at the bar; but at the Quarter-Sessions the young Templar was playing the part of country squire, and as his words show, he was dressed in a fashion that directly violated professional usage.

Whitelock's speech seems to have been made shortly before the bar accepted the falling-band as an article of dress admissible in courts of law. Towards the close of Charles's reign, such bands were very generally worn in Westminster Hall by the gentlemen of the long robe; and after the Restoration, a barrister would as soon have thought of appearing at the King's Bench without his gown as without his band. Unlike the bar-bands of the present time—which are lappets of fine lawn, of simple make—the bands worn by Charles II.'s lawyers were dainty and expensive articles, such as those which Peacham exclaimed against in the preceding reign. At that date the Templar in prosperous circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with gravy, and the young lawyer was deemed a marvel of amiability who could see his point lace thus defiled and abstain from swearing. "I remember," observes Roger North, when he is showing the perfect control in which his brother Francis kept his temper, at his table a stupid servant spilt a glass of red wine upon his point band and clothes. "He only wiped his face and clothes with the napkin, and 'Here,' said he, 'take this away;' and no more."

In 'The London Spy,' Ned Ward shows that during Queen Anne's reign legal practitioners of the lowest sort were particular to wear bands. Describing the pettifogger, Ward says, "He always talks with as great assurance as if he understood what he pretends to know; and always wears a band, in which lies his gravity and wisdom." At the same period a brisk trade was carried on in Westminster Hall by the sempstresses who manufactured bands and cuffs, lace ruffles, and lawn kerchiefs for the grave counsellors and young gallants of the Inns of Court. "From thence," says the author of 'The London Spy', "we walked down by the sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleating turnsovers and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with amorous looks, obliging cant, and inviting gestures, to give so extravagant a price for what they buy."

From collars of lace and lawn, let us turn to collars of precious metal.

Antiquarians have unanimously rejected the fanciful legend adopted by Dugdale concerning the SS collar, as well as many not less ingenious interpretations of the mystic letters; and at the present time it is almost unanimously settled that the SS collar is the old Lancastrian badge, corresponding to the Yorkist collar of Roses and Suns, and that the S is either the initial of the sentimental word 'Souvenez,' or, as Mr. Beltz maintains, the initial letter of the sentimental motto, 'Souvenez-vous de moi.' In Mr. Foss's valuable work, 'The Judges of England,' at the commencement of the seventh volume, the curious reader may find an excellent summary of all that has been or can be said about the origin of this piece of feudal livery, which, having at one time been very generally assumed by all gentle and fairly prosperous partisans of the House of Lancaster, has for many generations been the distinctive badge of a few official persons. In the second year of Henry IV. an ordinance forbade knights and Esquires to wear the collar, save in the king's presence; and in the reign of Henry VIII., the privilege of wearing the collar was taken away from simple esquires by the 'Acte for Reformacyon of Excesse in Apparayle,' 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, which ordained "That no man oneless he be a knight ... weare any color of Gold, named a color of S." Gradually knights and non-official persons relinquished the decoration; and in our own day the right to bear it is restricted to the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the sergeant-trumpetor, and all the officers of the Heralds' College, pursuivants excepted; "unless," adds Mr. Foss, "the Lord Mayor of London is to be included, whose collar is somewhat similar, and is composed of twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots; and measures sixty-four inches."



CHAPTER XXIII.

BAGS AND GOWNS.

On the stages of the Caroline theatres the lawyer is found with a green bag in his hand; the same is the case in the literature of Queen Anne's reign; and until a comparatively recent date green bags were generally carried in Westminster Hall and in provincial courts by the great body of legal practitioners. From Wycherley's 'Plain Dealer,' it appears that in the time of Charles II. angry clients were accustomed to revile their lawyers as 'green bag-carriers.' When the litigious Widow Blackacre upbraids the barrister who declines to argue for her, she exclaims—"Impertinent again, and ignorant to me! Gadsboddikins! you puny upstart in the law, to use me so, you green-bag carrier, you murderer of unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag, Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy burden of green bags.

So also in the time of Queen Anne, to say that a man intended to carry a green bag, was the same as saying that he meant to adopt the law as a profession. In Dr. Arbuthnot's 'History of John Bull,' the prevalence of the phrase is shown by the passage, "I am told, Cousin Diego, you are one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of our lawsuit. I'll teach them and you too to manage." It must, however, be borne in mind that in Queen Anne's time, green bags, like white bands, were as generally adopted by solicitors and attorneys, as by members of the bar. In his 'character of a pettifogger' the author of 'The London Spy' observes—"His learning is commonly as little as his honesty, and his conscience much larger than his green bag."

Some years have elapsed since green bags altogether disappeared from our courts of law; but the exact date of their disappearance has hitherto escaped the vigilance and research of Colonel Landman, 'Causidicus,' and other writers who in the pages of that useful and very entertaining publication, Notes and Queries, have asked for information on that point and kindred questions. Evidence sets aside the suggestion that the color of the lawyer's bag was changed from green to red because the proceedings at Queen Caroline's trial rendered green bags odious to the public, and even dangerous to their bearers; for it is a matter of certainty that the leaders of the Chancery and Common Law bars carried red bags at a time considerably anterior to the inquiry into the queen's conduct.

In a letter addressed to the editor of Notes and Queries, a writer who signs himself 'Causidicus,' observes—"When I entered the profession (about fifty years ago) no junior barrister presumed to carry a bag in the Court of Chancery, unless one had been presented to him by a King's Counsel; who, when a junior was advancing in practice, took an opportunity of complimenting him on his increase of business, and giving him his own bag to carry home his papers. It was then a distinction to carry a bag, and a proof that a junior was rising in his profession. I do not know whether the custom prevailed in other courts." From this it appears that fifty years since the bag was an honorable distinction at the Chancery bar, giving its bearer some such professional status as that which is conferred by 'silk' in these days when Queen's Counsel are numerous.

The same professional usage seems to have prevailed at the Common Law bar more than eighty years ago; for in 1780, when Edward Law joined the Northern Circuit, and forthwith received a large number of briefs, he was complimented by Wallace on his success, and presented with a bag. Lord Campbell asserts that no case had ever before occurred where a junior won the distinction of a bag during the course of his first circuit. There is no record of the date when members of the junior bar received permission to carry bags according to their own pleasure; it is even matter of doubt whether the permission was ever expressly accorded by the leaders of the profession—or whether the old restrictive usage died a gradual and unnoticed death. The present writer, however, is assured that at the Chancery bar, long after all juniors were allowed to carry bags, etiquette forbade them to adopt bags of the same color as those carried by their leaders. An eminent Queen's Counsel, who is a member of that bar, remembers that when he first donned a stuff gown, he, like all Chancery jurors, had a purple bag—whereas the wearers of silk at the same period, without exception, carried red bags.

Before a complete and satisfactory account can be given of the use of bags by lawyers, as badges of honor and marks of distinction, answers must be found for several questions which at present remain open to discussion. So late as Queen Anne's reign, lawyers of the lowest standing, whether advocates or attorneys, were permitted to carry bags;—a right which the junior bar appears to have lost when Edward Law joined the Northern Circuit. At what date between Queen Anne's day and 1780 (the year in which Lord Ellenborough made his debut in the North), was this change effected? Was the change gradual or sudden? To what cause was it due? Again, is it possible that Lord Campbell and Causidicus wrote under a misapprehension, when they gave testimony concerning the usages of the bar with regard to bags, at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century? The memory of the distinguished Queen's Counsel, to whom allusion is made in the preceding paragraph, is quite clear that in his student days Chancery jurors were forbidden by etiquette to carry red bags, but were permitted to carry blue bags; and he is strongly of opinion that the restriction, to which Lord Campbell and Causidicus draw attention, did not apply at any time to blue bags, but only concerned red bags, which, so late as thirty years since, unquestionably were the distinguishing marks of men in leading Chancery practice. Perhaps legal readers of this chapter will favor the writer with further information on this not highly important, but still not altogether uninteresting subject.

The liberality which for the last five and-twenty years has marked the distribution of 'silk' to rising members of the bar, and the ease with which all fairly successful advocates may obtain the rank of Queen's Counsel, enable lawyers of the present generation to smile at a rule which defined a man's professional position by the color of his bag, instead of the texture of his gown; but in times when 'silk' was given to comparatively few members of the bar, and when that distinction was most unfairly withheld from the brightest ornaments of their profession, if their political opinions displeased the 'party in power,' it was natural and reasonable in the bar to institute for themselves an 'order of merit'—to which deserving candidates could obtain admission without reference to the prejudices of a Chancellor or the whims of a clique.

At present the sovereign's counsel learned in the law constitute a distinct order of the profession; but until the reign of William IV. they were merely a handful of court favorites. In most cases they were sound lawyers in full employment; but the immediate cause of their elevation was almost always some political consideration—and sometimes the lucky wearer of a silk gown had won the right to put K.C. or Q.C. after his name by base compliance with ministerial power. That our earlier King's Counsel were not created from the purest motives or for the most honorable purposes will be readily admitted by the reader who reflects that 'silk gowns' are a legal species, for which the nation is indebted to the Stuarts. For all practical purposes Francis Bacon was a Q.C. during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He enjoyed peculiar and distinctive status as a barrister, being consulted on legal matters by the Queen, although he held no place that in familiar parlance would entitle him to rank with her Crown Lawyers; and his biographers have agreed to call him Elizabeth's counsellor learned in the law. But a Q.C. holding his office by patent—that is to say, a Q.C. as that term is understood at the present time—Francis Bacon never was. On the accession, however, of James I., he received his formal appointment of K.C., the new monarch having seen fit to recognise the lawyer's claim to be regarded as a 'special counsel,' or 'learned counsel extraordinary.' Another barrister of the same period who obtained the same distinction was Sir Henry Montague, who, in a patent granted in 1608 to the two Temples, is styled "one of our counsel learned in the law." Thus planted, the institution of monarch's special counsel was for many generations a tree of slow growth. Until George III.'s reign the number of monarch's counsel, living and practising at the same time, was never large; and throughout the long period of that king's rule the fraternity of K.C. never assumed them agnitude and character of a professional order. It is uncertain what was the greatest number of contemporaneous K.C.'s during the Stuart dynasty; but there is no doubt that from the arrival of James I. to the flight of James II. there was no period when the K.C.'s at all approached the sergeants in name and influence. In Rymer's 'Foedera' mention is made of four barristers who were appointed counsellors to Charles I., one of whom, Sir John Finch, in a patent of precedence is designated "King's Counsel;" but it is not improbable that the royal martyr had other special counsellors whose names have not been recorded. At different times of Charles II.'s reign, there were created some seventeen K.C.'s, and seven times that number of sergeants. James II. made ten K.C.'s; William and Mary appointed eleven special counsellors; and the number of Q.C.'s appointed by Anne was ten. The names of George I.'s learned counsel are not recorded; the list of George II.'s K.C.'s, together with barristers holding patents of precedence, comprise thirty names; George III. throughout his long tenure of the crown, gave 'silk' with or without the title of K.C., to ninety-three barristers; George IV. to twenty-six; whereas the list of William IV.'s appointments comprised sixty-five names, and the present queen has conferred the rank of Q.C. on about two hundred advocates—the law-list for 1865 mentioning one hundred and thirty-seven barristers who are Q.C.'s, or holders of patents of precedence; and only twenty-eight sergeants-at-law, not sitting as judges in any of the supreme courts. The diminution in the numbers of the sergeants is due partly to the loss of their old monopoly of business in the Common Pleas, and partly—some say chiefly—to the profuseness with which silk gowns, with Q.C. rank attached, have been thrown to the bar since the passing of the Reform Bill.

Under the old system when 'silk' was less bountifully bestowed, eminent barristers not only led their circuits in stuff; but, after holding office as legal advisers to the crown and wearing silk gowns whilst they so acted with their political friends, they sometimes resumed their stuff gowns and places 'outside the bar,' on descending from official eminence. When Charles York in 1763 resigned the post of Attorney General, he returned to his old place in court without the bar, clad in the black bombazine of an ordinary barrister, whereas during his tenure of office he had worn silk and sat within the bar. In the same manner when Dunning resigned the Solicitor Generalship in 1770, he reappeared in the Court of King's Bench, attired in stuff, and took his place without the bar; but as soon as he had made his first motion, he was addressed by Lord Mansfield, who with characteristic courtesy informed him that he should take precedence in that court before all members of the bar, whatever might be their standing, with the exception of King's Counsel, Sergeants, and the Recorder of London. On joining the Northern Circuit in 1780, Edward Law found Wallace and Lee leading in silk, and twenty years later he and Jemmy Park were the K.C.'s of the same district; Of course the circuit was not without wearers of the coif, one of its learned sergeants being Cockell, who, before Law obtained the leading place, was known as 'the Almighty of the North;' and whose success, achieved in spite of an almost total ignorance of legal science, was long quoted to show that though knowledge is power, power may be won without knowledge.

From pure dislike of the thought that younger men should follow closely or at a distance in his steps to the highest eminences of legal success, Lord Eldon was disgracefully stingy in bestowing honors on rising barristers who belonged to his own party, but his injustice and downright oppression to brilliant advocates in the Whig ranks merit the warmest expressions of disapproval and contempt. The most notorious sufferers from his rancorous intolerance were Henry Brougham and Mr. Denman, who, having worn silk gowns as Queen Caroline's Attorney General and Solicitor General, were reduced to stuff attire on that wretched lady's death.

It is worthy of notice that in old time, when silk gowns were few, their wearers were sometimes very young men. From the days of Francis North, who was made K.C. before he was a barrister for seven full years' standing, down to the days of Eldon, who obtained silk after seven years' service in stuff, instances could be cited of the rapidity with which lucky youngsters rose to the honors of silk, whilst hard-worked veterans were to the last kept outside the bar. Thurlow was called to the bar in November, 1754, and donned silk in December, 1761. Six years had now elapsed since his call to the English bar, when Alexander Wedderburn was entitled to put the initials K.C. after his name, and wrote to his mother in Scotland, "I can't very well explain to you the nature of my preferment, but it is what most people at the bar are very desirous of, and yet most people run a hazard of losing money by it. I can scarcely expect any advantage from it for some time equal to what I give up; and, notwithstanding, I am extremely happy, and esteem myself very fortunate in having obtained it." Erskine's silk was won with even greater speed, for he was invited within the bar, but his silk gown came to him with a patent of precedence, giving him the status without the title of a King's Counsel.

Bar mourning is no longer a feature of legal costume in England. On the death of Charles II. members of the bar donned gowns indicative of their grief for the national loss, and they continued, either universally or in a large number of cases, to wear these woful habiliments till 1697, when Chief Justice Holt ordered all barristers practising in his court to appear "in their proper gowns and not in mourning ones"—an order which, according to Narcissus Luttrell, compelled the bar to spend L15 per man. From this it may be inferred that (regard being had to change in value of money) a bar-gown at the close of the seventeenth century cost about ten times as much as it does at the present time.



CHAPTER XXIV.

HATS.

Not less famous in history than Bradshaw's broad-brimmed hat, nor less graceful than Shaftesbury's jaunty beaver, nor less memorable than the sailor's tarpaulin, under cover of which Jeffreys slunk into the Red Cow, Wapping, nor less striking than the black cap still worn by Justice in her sternest mood, nor less fanciful than the cocked hat which covered Wedderburn's powdered hair when he daily paced the High Street of Edinburgh with his hands in a muff—was the white hat which an illustrious Templar invented at an early date of the eighteenth century. Beau Brummel's original mind taught the human species to starch their white cravats; Richard Nash, having surmounted the invidious bar of plebeian birth and raised himself upon opposing circumstances to the throne of Bath, produced a white hat. To which of these great men society owes the heavier debt of gratitude thoughtful historians cannot agree; but even envious detraction admits that they deserve high rank amongst the benefactors of mankind. Brummel was a soldier; but Law proudly claims as her own the parent of the pale and spotless chapeau.

About lawyers' cocked hats a capital volume might be written, that should contain no better story than the one which is told of Ned Thurlow's discomfiture in 1788, when he was playing a trickster's game with his friends and foes. Windsor Castle just then contained three distinct centres of public interest—the mad king in the hands of his keepers; on the one side of the impotent monarch the Prince of Wales waiting impatiently for the Regency; on the other side, the queen with equal impatience longing for her husband's recovery. The prince and his mother both had apartments in the castle, her majesty's quarters being the place of meeting for the Tory ministers, whilst the prince's apartments were thrown open to the select leaders of the Whig expectants. Of course the two coteries kept jealously apart; but Thurlow, who wished to be still Lord Chancellor, "whatever king might reign," was in private communication with the prince's friends. With furtive steps he passed from the queen's room (where he had a minute before been assuring the ministers that he would be faithful to the king's adherents), and made clandestine way to the apartment where Sheridan and Payne were meditating on the advantages of a regency without restriction. On leaving the prince, the wary lawyer used to steal into the king's chamber, and seek guidance or encouragement from the madman's restless eyes. Was the malady curable? If curable, how long a time would elapse before the return of reason? These were the questions which the Chancellor put to himself, as he debated whether he should break with the Tories and go over to the Whigs. Through the action of the patient's disease, the most delicate part of the lawyer's occupation was gone; and having no longer a king's conscience to keep, he did not care, by way of diversion—to keep his own.

For many days ere they received clear demonstration of the Chancellor's deceit, the other members of the cabinet suspected that he was acting disingenuously, and when his double-dealing was brought to their sure knowledge, their indignation was not even qualified with surprise. The story of his exposure is told in various ways; but all versions concur in attributing his detection to an accident. Like the gallant of the French court, whose clandestine intercourse with a great lady was discovered because, in his hurried preparations for flight from her chamber, he appropriated one of her stockings, Thurlow, according to one account, was convicted of perfidy by the prince's hat, which he bore under his arm on entering the closet where the ministers awaited his coming. Another version says that Thurlow had taken his seat at the council-table, when his hat was brought to him by a page, with an explanation that he had left it in the prince's private room. A third, and more probable representation of the affair, instead of laying the scene in the council-chamber, makes the exposure occur in a more public part of the castle. "When a council was to be held at Windsor," said the Right Honorable Thomas Grenville, in his old age recounting the particulars of the mishap, "to determine the course which ministers should pursue, Thurlow had been there some time before any of his colleagues arrived. He was to be brought back to London by one of them, and the moment of departure being come, the Chancellor's hat was nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search in the apartment where the council had been held, a page came with the hat in his hand, saying aloud, and with great naivete, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other Ministers were still in the Hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which they drew." Cannot an artist be found to place upon canvas this scene, which furnishes the student of human nature with an instructive instance of

"That combination strange—a lawyer and a blush?"

For some days Thurlow's embarrassment and chagrim were very painful. But a change in the state of the king's health caused a renewal of the lawyer's attachment to Tory principles and to his sovereign.

The lawyers of what may be termed the cocked hat period seldom maintained the happy mean between too little and too great care for personal appearance. For the most part they were either slovenly or foppish. From the days when as a student he used to slip into Nando's in a costume that raised the supercilious astonishment of his contemporaries, Thurlow to the last erred on the side of neglect. Camden roused the satire of an earlier generation by the miserable condition of the tiewig which he wore on the bench of Chancery, and by an undignified and provoking habit of "gartering up his stockings while counsel were the most strenuous in their eloquence." On the other hand Joseph Yates—the puisne judge whom Mansfield's jeers and merciless oppressions drove from the King's Bench to the Common Pleas, where he died within four months of his retreat—was the finest of fine gentlemen. Before he had demonstrated his professional capacity, the habitual costliness and delicacy of his attire roused the distrust of attorneys, and on more than one occasion wrought him injury. An awkward, crusty, hard-featured attorney entered the foppish barrister's chambers with a bundle of papers, and on seeing the young man in a superb and elaborate evening dress, is said to have inquired, "Can you say, sir, when Mr. Yates will return?" "Return, my good sir!" answered the barrister, with an air of surprise, "I am Mr. Yates, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to talk with you about those papers." Having taken a deliberate survey of the young Templar, and made a mental inventory of all the fantastic articles of his apparel, the honest attorney gave an ominous grunt, replaced the papers in one of the deep pockets of his long-skirted coat, twice nodded his head with contemptuous significance, and then, without another word—walked out of the room. It was his first visit to those chambers, and his last. Joseph Yates lost his client, before he could even learn his name; but in no way influenced by the occurrence he maintained his reputation for faultless taste in dress, and when he had raised himself to the bench, he was amongst the judges of his day all that Revell Reynolds was amongst the London physicians of a later date.

Living in the midst of the fierce contentions which distracted Ireland in the days of our grandfathers, John Toler, first Earl of Norbury, would not have escaped odium and evil repute, had he been a merciful man and a scrupulous judge; but in consequence of failings and wicked propensities, which gave countenance to the slanders of his enemies and at the same time earned for him the distrust and aversion of his political coadjutors, he has found countless accusers and not a single vindicator. Resembling George Jeffreys in temper and mental capacity, he resembled him also in posthumous fame. A shrewd, selfish, overbearing man, possessing wit which was exercised with equal promptitude upon friends and foes, he alternately roused the terror and the laughter of his audiences. At the bar and in the Irish House of Commons he was alike notorious as jester and bully; but he was a courageous bully, and to the last was always as ready to fight with bullets as with epigrams, and though his humor was especially suited to the taste and passions of the rabble, it sometimes convulsed with merriment those who were shocked by its coarseness and brutality. Having voted for the abolition of the Irish Parliament, the Right Honorable John Toler was prepared to justify his conduct with hair-triggers or sarcasms. To the men who questioned his patriotism he was wont to answer, "Name any hour before my court opens to-morrow," but to the patriotic Irish lady who loudly charged him in a crowded drawing-room with having sold his country, he replied, with an affectation of cordial assent, "Certainly, madam, I have sold my country. It was very lucky for me that I had a country to sell—I wish I had another." On the bench he spared neither counsel nor suitors, neither witnesses nor jurors. When Daniel O'Connell, whilst he was conducting a cause in the Irish Court of Common Pleas, observed, "Pardon me, my lord, I am afraid your lordship does not apprehend me;" the Chief Justice (alluding to a scandalous and false report that O'Connell had avoided a duel by surrendering himself to the police) retorted, "Pardon me also; no one is more easily apprehended than Mr. O'Connell"—(a pause—and then with emphatic slowness of utterance)—"whenever he wishes to be apprehended." It is said that when this same judge passed sentence of death on Robert Emmett, he paused when he came to the point where it is usual for a judge to add in conclusion, "And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" and regarded the brave young man with searching eyes. For a minute there was an awful silence in the court; the bar and the assembled crowd supposing that the Chief Justice had paused so that a few seconds of unbroken stillness might add to the solemnity of his last words. The disgust and indignation of the spectators were beyond the power of language, when they saw a smile of brutal sarcasm steal over the face of the Chief Justice as he rose from his seat of judgment without uttering another word.

Whilst the state prosecutions were going forward, Lord Norbury appeared on the bench in a costume that accorded ill with the gravity of his office. The weather was intensely hot; and whilst he was at his morning toilet the Chief Justice selected from his wardrobe the dress which was most suited to the sultriness of the air. The garb thus selected for its coolness was a dress which his lordship had worn at a masquerade ball, and consisted of a green tabinet coat decorated with huge mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat of yellow relieved by black stripes, and buff breeches. When he first entered the court, and throughout all the earlier part of the proceedings against a party of rebels, his judicial robes altogether concealed this grotesque attire; but unfortunately towards the close of the sultry day's work, Lord Norbury—oppressed by the stifling atmosphere of the court, and forgetting all about the levity as well as the lightness of his inner raiment—threw back his judicial robe and displayed the dress which several persons then present had seen him wear at Lady Castlereagh's ball. Ere the spectators recovered from their first surprise, Lord Norbury, quite unconscious of his indecorum, had begun to pass sentence of death on a gang of prisoners, speaking to them in a solemn voice that contrasted painfully with the inappropriateness of his costume.

In the following bright and picturesque sentence, Dr. Dibdin gives a life-like portrait of Erskine, whose personal vanity was only equalled by the egotism which often gave piquancy to his orations, and never lessened their effect:—"Cocked hats and ruffles, with satin small-clothes and silk stockings, at this time constituted the usual evening dress. Erskine, though a good deal shorter than his brethren, somehow always seemed to take the lead both in pace and in discourse, and shouts of laughter would frequently follow his dicta. Among the surrounding promenaders, he and the one-armed Mingay seemed to be the main objects of attraction. Towards evening, it was the fashion for the leading counsel to promenade during the summer in the Temple Gardens, and I usually formed one in the thronging mall of loungers and spectators. I had analysed Blackstone, and wished to publish it under a dedication to Mr. Erskine. Having requested the favor of an interview, he received me graciously at breakfast before nine, attired in the smart dress of the times, a dark green coat, scarlet waistcoat, and silk breeches. He left his coffee, stood the whole time looking at the chart I had cut in copper, and appeared much gratified. On leaving him, a chariot-and-four drew up to wheel him to some provincial town on a special retainer. He was then coining money as fast as his chariot wheels rolled along." Erskine's advocacy was marked by that attention to trifles which has often contributed to the success of distinguished artists. His special retainers frequently took him to parts of the country where he was a stranger, and required him to make eloquent speeches in courts which his voice had never tested. It was his custom on reaching the town where he would have to plead on the following day, to visit the court over-night, and examine its arrangements, so that when the time for action arrived he might address the jury from the most favorable spot in the chamber. He was a theatrical speaker, and omitted no pains to secure theatrical effect. It was noticed that he never appeared within the bar until the cause celebre had been called; and a buzz of excitement and anxious expectation testified the eagerness of the assembled crowd to see, as well as to hear, the celebrated advocate. Every article of his bar costume received his especial consideration; artifice could be discerned in the modulations of his voice, the expressions of his countenance, and the movements of his entire body; but the coldest observer did not detect the artifice until it had stirred his heart. Rumor unjustly asserted that he never uttered an impetuous peroration which he had not frequently rehearsed in private before a mirror. About the cut and curls of his wigs, their texture and color, he was very particular: and the hands which he extended in entreaty towards British juries were always cased in lemon-colored kid gloves.

Erskine was not more noticeable for the foppishness of his dress than was Lord Kenyon for a sordid attire. Whilst he was a leading advocate within the bar, Lord Kenyon's ordinary costume would have disgraced a copying clerk; and during his later years, it was a question amongst barristers whether his breeches were made of velvet or leather. The wits maintained that when he kissed hands upon his elevation to the Attorney's place, he went to court in a second-hand suit purchased from Lord Stormont's valet. In the letter attributed to him by a clever writer in the 'Rolliad,' he is made to say—"My income has been cruelly estimated at seven, or, as some will have it, eight thousand pounds per annum. I shall save myself the mortification of denying that I am rich, and refer you to the constant habits and whole tenor of my life. The proof to my friends is easy. My tailor's bill for the last fifteen years is a record of the most indisputable authority. Malicious souls may direct you, perhaps, to Lord Stormont's valet de chambre, and can vouch the anecdote that on the day when I kissed hands for my appointment to the office of Attorney General, I appeared in a laced waistcoat that once belonged to his master. I bought the waistcoat, but despise the insinuation; nor is this the only instance in which I am obliged to diminish my wants and apportion them to my very limited means. Lady K—— will be my witness that until my last appointment I was an utter stranger to the luxury of a pocket-handkerchief." The pocket-handkerchief which then came into his possession was supposed to have been found in the pocket of the second-hand waistcoat; and Jekyll always maintained that, as it was not considered in the purchase, it remained the valet's property, and did not pass into the lawyer's rightful possession. This was the only handkerchief which Lord Kenyon is said to have ever possessed, and Lord Ellenborough alluded to it when, in a conversation that turned upon the economy which the income-tax would necessitate in all ranks of life, he observed—"Lord Kenyon, who is not very nice, intends to meet the crisis by laying down his handkerchief."

Of his lordship's way of getting through seasons of catarrh without a handkerchief, there are several stories that would scarcely please the fastidious readers of this volume.

Of his two wigs (one considerably less worn than the other), and of his two hats (the better of which would not have greatly disfigured an old clothesman, whilst the worse would have been of service to a professional scarecrow), Lord Kenyon took jealous care. The inferior wig was always worn with the better hat, and the more dilapidated hat with the superior wig; and it was noticed that when he appeared in court with the shabbier wig he never removed his chapeau; whereas, on the days when he sat in his more decent wig, he pushed his old cocked hat out of sight. In the privacy of his house and in his carriage, whenever he traveled beyond the limits of town, he used to lay aside wig and hat, and cover his head with an old red night-cap. Concerning his great-coat, the original blackness of which had been tempered by long usage into a fuscous green, capital tales were fabricated. The wits could not spare even his shoes. "Once," Dr. Didbin gravely narrated, "in the case of an action brought for the non-fulfillment of a contract on a large scale for shoes, the question mainly was, whether or not they were well and soundly made, and with the best materials. A number of witnesses were called, one of them, a first-rate character in the gentle craft, being closely questioned, returned contradictory answers, when the Chief Justice observed, pointing to his own shoes, which were regularly bestridden by the broad silver buckle of the day, 'Were the shoes anything like these?' 'No, my lord,' replied the evidence, 'they were a good deal better and more genteeler.'" Dr. Didbin is at needless pains to assure his readers that the shoemaker's answer was followed by uproarious laughter.



PART V.

MUSIC.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE PIANO IN CHAMBERS.

In the Inns of Court, even more often than in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, musical instruments and performances are regarded by severe students with aversion and abhorrence. Mr. Babbage will live in peace and charity with the organ-grinders who are continually doing him an unfriendly turn before the industrious conveyancer on the first floor will pray for the welfare of 'that fellow upstairs' who daily practises the flute or cornopean from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. The 'Wandering Minstrels' and their achievements are often mentioned with respect in the western drawing-rooms of London; but if the gentlemen who form that distinguished troupe of amateur performers wish to sacrifice their present popularity and take a leading position amongst the social nuisances of the period, they should migrate from the district which delights to honor them to chambers in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, and give morning concerts every day of term time.