THE INNS OF COURT.
HEREe are four Inns of Court in London and thirteen Inns of Chancery. The Inns of Court are the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inns of Chancery are Barnard's Inn, Holborn; Clement's Inn, Strand; Clifford's Inn, Fleet street; Furnival's Inn, between Brook street and Leather lane; Lyon's Inn, Strand; New Inn, Wych street; Sergeant's Inn, Chancery lane; Staple Inn, Holborn; Sergeant's Inn, Fleet street; Symond's Inn, Chancery Inn, and Thavie's Inn, 56 and 57 Holborn Hill.
These Inns of Court and Chancery are large boarding-houses or hotels; and in the middle ages, they were called "inns" or "hostels," where students in law and Chancery were taught the legal science and ate their meals while living as students at a common table as in college. This is called "dining in hall," and certain rules and regulations are prescribed so that the aspiring student may not expect to have the license of the American boarding-house, being in fact in a state of pupilage as was intended by the founders of the splendid (for I cannot use any other term) Inns of Court.
In the old days of the York and Lancaster factions, the Sergeants and "apprentices at law," as the students were called, each had their pillars in Old St. Paul's, and at the foot of the pillar the student, half kneeling, heard his client's case and jotted down the points on his tablet.
GRAY'S INN GARDENS.