In this juridical university (for such it is insisted to have been by Fortescue and Sir Edward Coke) there are two sorts of collegiate houses; one called Inns of Chancery, in which the younger students of the law used to be placed, “learning and studying, says Fortescue, the originals, and as it were, the elements of the law; who, profiting therein, as they grow to ripeness so are they admitted into the greater Inns of the same study, called the Inns of Court.” And in these Inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did use to place their children, though they did not desire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by its practice; and that in his time there were about two thousand students at these several Inns, all of whom he informs us were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born.
But in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above a thousand students, and the number at present is very considerably less: ‘Which seems principally owing to these reasons; first, because the Inns of Chancery being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profession, they are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are now very rarely any young students entered at the Inns of Chancery: secondly, because in the Inns of Court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendance, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the Inns of Court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary: such, I mean, as are intended for the profession.’
Inoculation Hospital for the smallpox, in the Lower street, Islington, beyond the church; in an old building situated backwards, out of the view of the street. This hospital is under the direction of the Small-pox hospital, in Cold Bath fields. See the article Small-Pox Hospital.
Clerk of the Inrollments of Fines and Recoveries, an officer under the three puisne judges of the court of Common Pleas. The inrollments here filed are by statute valid in law, and are of great use in preventing law-suits. This office is kept in the Inner Temple.
Joan Harding’s, near Oakey street, Thames street.
Jockey Field row, Near Gray’s Inn.
John Dever’s yard, Seething lane.†
John’s alley, Budge row.
St. John’s alley, St. Martin’s le Grand.
St. John the Baptist, a church which stood on the west side of Dowgate; but being destroyed by the fire of London in 1666, and not since rebuilt, the parish is annexed to the church of St. Antholin.