‘GRAND DAY.’
To the majority of people, the surroundings of the legal profession, to say nothing of the law itself, are subjects fraught with no inconsiderable amount of the mysterious. For instance, what a variety of conceptions have been formed by the uninitiated with respect to one ceremony alone connected with the ‘upper branch’ of the legal profession; we mean that known as ‘Call to the Bar.’ The very expression itself has often proved a puzzle to the lay outsider, and perhaps not unnaturally, because there can be no doubt that it is one of those out-of-the-way phrases the signification of which sets anything like mere conjecture on that point at defiance. There is a hazy notion abroad that ‘Call to the Bar’ involves proceedings of a somewhat imposing character, especially as there is just a smack of the grandiloquent about the term. Accordingly, it may be disappointing to many persons to learn that, in the first place, there is no ‘calling’ at all connected with the ceremony, except the calling over the names of the gentlemen who present themselves for admission to the profession known as the Bar. And in the next place, it may be a little surprising to learn that there is no semblance even of a ‘bar’ of any description employed in the performance of the ceremony alluded to.
Again, people appear to have a somewhat indistinct notion about legal festivities, the traditional fun of a circuit mess, the precise share which ‘eating dinners’ has in qualifying a student for the Bar, and so forth. Often, too, they wonder how it is that men addicted to such grave pursuits as those followed by the working members of the Bar, are so much given to mirth and jollity and costly festivity. The answer to this is that, just in proportion to the mental tension superinduced by the demands of their calling, is the recoil of their minds in an exactly opposite direction after that tension.
Well, then, assuming that barristers are not only a learned and laborious but also at suitable times a convivial body of men, we will endeavour to describe the proceedings in the Hall of an Inn of Court on the evening of a day when barristerial conviviality is supposed to reach its culminating point—namely, on what is termed ‘Grand Day.’
We may observe that during each of the four legal terms or sittings there is one Grand Day, but the Grand Day of Trinity Term is the grandest of them all, and is accordingly styled ‘Great Grand Day.’ Also, that these days are observed in each of the four Inns of Court—namely, the Inner and Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. For present purposes, however, we shall suppose our Grand Day to be in Trinity Term, and at an Inn which we shall for certain proper reasons call Mansfield’s Inn.
It is a glorious summer evening, and as we approach our noble old Hall, we soon perceive that something ‘out of the common’ is going on. There is the crimson cloth laid down for the noble and distinguished guests who are always invited on these occasions; and near the entrance there is a little knot of spectators of all kinds, from the elderly respectable gentleman down to the shoeless ‘arab’ from the streets. The carriages are beginning to arrive; and the sooner we are inside the Hall the better. But there is something to be done before we get thither. We must first enter one of the anterooms. Here there is a great crush owing to the invariable preliminary to every dinner in Hall—the ‘robing,’ as it is called; for benchers, barristers, and students all dine in gowns. There are two men now busily engaged at this work of robing, selecting from a great black mountain of gown-stuff the attire suited to each member. On they go, asking all the time the question, ‘Barrister or student, sir?’ of those with whom they are unacquainted, until the last man is served. But who is that portly looking personage, wearing a gorgeous scarlet gown, who ever and anon appears on the scene and gives directions? Nonsense! Did you say the head-porter? Certainly; and he is so called, after the lucus a non lucendo fashion, because he is never employed to carry anything except perhaps letters and messages. In like manner the women called ‘laundresses’ who attend to the chambers in the Inns of Court, are so termed because they never wash anything at all, which in some instances is but too painfully true. But the ‘head-porter’ is carrying something this evening, in the shape of an enormous baton with a silver knob big enough to produce five pounds-worth of shillings. Then there is another important-looking gentleman, of graver and more anxious demeanour, wearing a black gown, who seems to be the life and soul of the preparations generally, and who moves about with such alacrity as to suggest an approach to the ubiquitous. This individual is the head-butler, and of course his position is one of serious responsibility, especially on the present occasion.
Being now robed, we enter the Hall. What a babel of tongues is here also! ‘Have you got a mess?’ is the question asked by friend of friend. (An Inn of Court mess consists of four persons, the first of whom is called the ‘Captain.’) ‘Come and join our mess,’ says another. ‘I have a capital place up here,’ shouts a joyous young student. ‘Oh, but you’ll be turned down,’ replies his friend, with a slightly consequential air; and we see that the latter, by his sleeved and otherwise more flowing robe, is a barrister, although as juvenile as his hopeful friend; hence the tone of importance.
‘We sit by seniority on Grand Day,’ our learned young friend goes on to state, and languidly falls into a seat.
‘When were you called, sir?’ says a voice to the languid but consequential one. The voice proceeds from a form which might easily be that of the other’s father, if not grandfather; but the question is put pro formâ.
‘Hilary ’78’ is the answer.
‘Then I fear I must trouble you to move, for I was called in Hilary ’58, ha, ha, ha!’ in which the students previously corrected heartily join.
‘Oh, all right,’ with a slight soupçon of deference; and away go the youngsters; while the man called to the Bar in 1858 will very likely have to make way for another called in ’48, and so on, until the whole are duly and severally located.
There is an unquestionable aspect of distinction about the place this evening. The old Hall itself, in the centre of which is displayed the costly plate of Mansfield’s Inn, seems to smile in the sunshine of the summer evening. Yet, as the light softly steals in through the stained glass forming the armorial bearings of distinguished members of the Inn long since passed away, we seem to feel a sort of melancholy, in spite of all the gaiety around, from the consideration—which will force itself upon the mind—that the paths of law, like glory, ‘lead but to the grave.’
Then, again, the timeworn and grim-looking escutcheons of the old ‘readers,’ which crowd the wainscoted walls, seem to be less grim than usual. At the same time, it is impossible not to heave one little sigh, as we look up and see in front of us the name and arms, say, of Gulielmus Jones, Armiger, Cons. Domi. Regis, Lector Auct. 1745 (William Jones, Esquire, Counsel of our Lord the King, Autumn Reader, &c.), and wonder how much that learned gentleman enjoyed his Grand Days in the period of comparative antiquity mentioned on his escutcheon.
Our business, however, is strictly with the present; and as one of the features of Grand Day dinner is that the mauvais quart d’heure is a very long quart indeed, we shall be able to look round before dinner and see what is going on.
It requires no very great expenditure of speculative power to comprehend the nature of the present assembly, numerous though it is. Each member of it will readily and with tolerable accuracy tell us who and what he is, as mathematicians say, by mere inspection on our part. The fact is, we are really face to face with a world as veritable and as varied as that outside, only compressed into a smaller compass.
Here are to be seen old, worn, sombre-looking men, some of them bending under the weight of years, and actually wearing the identical gowns—now musty and faded, like themselves—which had adorned their persons when first assumed in the heyday of early manhood, health, high spirits, and bright hopes. Among these old faces there are some that are genial and easy-looking; yet, beyond a doubt, we are in close proximity to many of those individuals who help to constitute that numerous and inevitable host with which society abounds—the disappointed in life. We see clearly that upon many of these patriarchal personages, the fickle goddess has persistently frowned from their youth up, and that they have borne those frowns with a bad grace and a rebellious spirit.
Hither, also, have come those who began their career under the benign and auspicious influences of wealth and powerful friends; yet many of these are now a long way behind in the race—have, in fact, been outrun by those who never possessed a tithe of their advantages. Such men form a very melancholy group; and we gladly pass from them to another class of visitors. These are they whose lives have been a steady, manful conflict with hard times and hard lines, but who, uninspired by that devouring ambition already alluded to, have not experienced the disheartening and chilling disappointment which has preyed upon some of the others. These men, however, have seen many of their early hopes and aspirations crushed; but they have borne the grievance with patience and cheerfulness. They may have had a better right to expect success than some of those who had been more sanguine; but they have not sneered at small successes because they could not achieve grander ones, and have not been ashamed to settle down as plodders. They are most of them gentlemen in all senses of the word; men of whom universities had once been proud, and who had also honoured universities; men who, if unknown to the world at large, have yet enlightened it; men whose bright intellects have perhaps elucidated for the benefit of the world the mysteries of science, thrown light upon its art, literature, and laws; and who, without having headed subscription lists or contributed to so-called charities, have yet been genuine benefactors to their species. But with all this, they are nevertheless men who, destitute of the practical art of ‘getting on in the world,’ have not made money. They have never condescended to ‘boo’ or toady, in order to do so, and thus they must be content to shuffle along the byroads of life as best they can, after their own fashion.
Intermingled with such members of the Inn as we have just mentioned are their opposites—those who are regarded as having been successful in the race of life. How portly and well got-up they are; how bland are the smiles which light up their jolly, comfortable-looking countenances, whereon exist none of those lines so painfully conspicuous elsewhere. There is no lack of geniality here; and you are certain that these gentlemen possess happy, if not indeed hilarious temperaments, the buoyancy of which is never endangered by the intrusion of any such ‘pale cast of thought’ as wears away the existence of those others whom we have referred to.
This species of ‘successful’ barristers, fortunate though they may be, and risen men, too, in one sense, must yet not be confounded with that other set of men who make up the real bonâ fide rising and risen ones. These latter are grand fellows, and constitute the most interesting group of the evening. In some respects they are like those others we have spoken of, who have had to fight; but unlike them, they have possessed and exercised the gifts of energy, tact, perseverance, a wider acquaintance with human nature; and they have also possessed the inestimable gifts of good physique and the capacity for unmitigated labour. Like the other successful ones, they have risen; but unlike them, they have achieved honours which appertain more closely to their profession. They are the men from whose ranks our judicial strength is recruited; men who in time may become statesmen too, and leave distinguished names behind them. They are, in short, gifted honourable men, whose promotion is a delight to their friends and a benefit to the community, because the promotion of such is always well deserved.
Observable also in the present assembly are several of what may be termed the purely ornamental limbs of the law, who are to be found in the Inns of Court, and elsewhere. This class comprises country squires, gentlemen at large generally, and so forth, who, although entitled to the designation of ‘barrister-at-law,’ make no pretensions—at anyrate, here—to any depth of legal learning. Yet, likely enough, many of them are administrators of the law as county magistrates. However, great lawyers are not always the best hands at discharging the often rough-and-ready duties of ‘justices out of sessions;’ and whatever may be the ability of our friends now in Hall, one thing concerning them is clear, that they are to-night amongst the jolliest of the jolly. Look at them greeting old friends, dodging about the Hall, replenishing here and there their stock of legal on dits and anecdotes for retailing to admiring audiences elsewhere, discussing the affairs of the Inn and of the nation generally!
Lastly, there are the youngsters, ranging from the shy students only recently ‘of’ the Inn, to the youthful barristers who have just assumed the wig and gown. Some of the latter are engaged in detailing to eager and ambitious listeners the glories surrounding the first brief, while all are brimful of mirth and hopefulness. To such, the business of Grand Day appears tame in comparison with the high and substantial honours which they all firmly believe to be in store for them in the future. Ah! the future; that alluring period, so surpassingly enchanting to us all in the days of youth!
Such is the assembly before us at Mansfield’s Inn on Grand Day of this Trinity Term.
‘Dinner!’ shouts the head-porter, who stands at the door with his great silver-headed baton in hand. We now see the use of this badge of office; for immediately after enunciating the above welcome word, he brings his baton heavily on to the floor three times. Then slowly advancing up the Hall, we see that he is a sort of vanguard, or rather avant-courier, of a host which is gradually following him, gentlemen who walk two and two in procession, almost with funereal precision and solemnity. As they proceed, the previous loud hum of conversation is considerably lulled, and everybody is standing at his place. These are the Benchers of the Inn and their guests. The proper designation of the former is ‘Masters of the Bench’ of the Inn to which they belong. Each is called ‘Master’ So-and-so; and the chief of their body is the Treasurer of the Inn, who holds office for one year. The guests are invariably persons of well-known position in the Army and Navy, the Church, Politics, Law, Science, Literature, and Art. Sometimes royal personages honour the Inns with their company on Grand Day; and it is well known that several members of the royal family are members of certain Inns. The Prince of Wales is a Bencher of the Middle Temple, and dined there on Grand Day of Trinity Term 1874, when an unusually brilliant gathering appeared. The Prince on that occasion delivered a humorous and genial speech, in which he reminded his learned friends of the circumstance of Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton opening a ball in that very place with Queen Elizabeth. On the recent occasion of the Prince again dining there, no speeches were delivered in Hall.
The procession moves on; and as many of the various guests are recognised, the hum of conversation recommences. The Benchers wear silk gowns; and now we are actually brushed by a K.G., whose blue ribbon is unquestionably a distingué addition to evening dress; or by a G.C.B., whose red ribbon is so extremely becoming as to set some of the youngsters speculating which they would rather be, a Knight of the Garter or a Grand Cross of the Bath. Here we are, then, with peers, right honourables, generals, judges, orators, poets, painters, humorists, and so forth, around us; but, alas, in the midst of so much grandeur, we are troubled by a prosaic monitor whose demands are becoming imperative. In other words, we are getting hungry. Well, we have not much longer to wait. ‘Rap, rap, rap!’ goes the head-porter—this time with an auctioneer’s hammer on one of the tables. Immediately dead silence ensues, and then ‘grace’ is read by the Preacher of the Inn.
Now we fall to. There is soup, fish, joint, poultry, pastry, beer, champagne, and one bottle of any other wine for each mess; and all for half-a-crown! However, we know the Inn is rolling in wealth, and we feel no compunction as to assisting in the heartiest way to carry on the work of consumption going on in all directions.
Presently comes the rapping of Mr Head-porter again, who now proclaims ‘Silence!’ and having secured this, there comes another request to the assembly: ‘Gentlemen, charge your glasses, and drink to the health of Her Majesty the Queen.’ The Treasurer then rises and says: ‘Gentlemen, “The Queen;”’ whereupon a great and enthusiastic shout of ‘The Queen!’ bursts forth. There is no more conservative body of men than the Bar of England, nor has the Crown more staunch or more devoted supporters than the gentlemen of the Long Robe. At the same time, no body of men in this country has ever more firmly withstood any attempt to extend the royal prerogative to the injury of the subject. The toast, ‘The health of the Queen,’ is always drunk at these Bar gatherings with an amount of fervour which betokens strong attachment to the constitution; and on this particular occasion, the intensity and unanimity of the response forcibly reminds one of the discharge of a sixty-eight-pounder!
As a rule, there is no speechifying in Hall, and there is none this evening. The practice is for the Benchers to take dessert in one of their reception-rooms, called ‘The Parliament Chamber.’ There, all the speeches are made, and the speakers are refreshed by the choicest products of the vineyard which money and good judgment can procure. Who would not be a Bencher?
And now, so far as the ordinary portion of the assembly is concerned, dinner is over. Grace again is said; and the Benchers, with their guests, retire in the order in which they entered. But now there is not altogether that grave air of solemnity about the procession which distinguished it at its entrance; indeed, everybody looks and feels all the better for the good things which have been partaken of. Neither the distinguished guests nor those of the Benchers who are popular with the Inn are allowed to depart without a friendly cheer; and if some personage happens to be very popular indeed, his name is shouted out in a fashion often bordering on the obstreperous.
The last two members of the retiring procession have now passed through the door of the Hall, and away go also the majority of those who have been dining. A few of the ‘Ancients’ or senior barristers are left behind, to finish their wine and their chat; but by twelve o’clock the Hall itself and its purlieus are once more deserted and silent.