The four Inns of Court were frequented by sons of wealthy commoners and the nobility, while the Inns of Chancery had for pupils and boarders, the sons of merchants and tradesmen, who had not the means of paying the expenses of the Inns of Court which amounted to twenty marks, annually, a large sum in those days.
About 8,000 students attend the Inns of Court and Chancery in London, and it is a very strange sight to see the dark chambers in some of these ancient Inns with their old fashioned, mediæval architecture, parapets, gate-ways, unillumined windows, courts, and passages, amidst one of the very busiest spots in London.
Go inside of one of these courts and you shall no longer hear the sullen roar of the city, or the clatter of the omnibusses, nor the incessant and deafening din of hawkers and street pedlars. A monastic silence reigns, and in the grass-grown square of Lincoln's Inn, all is silent as the grave, and in the dim passages of Clifford's and Clement's Inns, it is very difficult to believe that the densely-packed Strand and thronged Fleet street are so near.
During Elizabeth's reign, alms were distributed twice a week at the gate of Gray's Inn, and James I. signified that none but gentlemen of descent and blood should be admitted to matriculate. The "Reader," a lazy official of Gray's had a liberal allowance of wine and venison for which sixpence and eightpence were paid per mess, and eggs and green sauce were breakfast dishes on Lenten day. Beer was then only six shillings a barrel. Caps were worn at supper by order, and hats and boots and spurs, and standing with the back to the fire in the hall were forbidden the students under penalty. Dice and cards were only allowed at Christmas. Two students slept in a bed and Coke and Littleton are said to have been at one time bed-fellows.
Gray's Inn Gardens was one of the most pleasant places in London in the old days long agone, and during the reign of Charles I., it was frequented as a place of assignation. The principal entrance to Gray's Inn is from Holborn by a gateway, a fine specimen of brick-work of 1542. The hall of Lincoln's Inn has an open oak roof, divided into seven bays by gothic arched ribs, the spandrils and pendants richly carved; in the centre is an open louvre, which is pinnacled externally. The interior is richly wainscoted, decorated with Tuscan columns, and the windows are of stained glass, gorgeously emblazoned. The library 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 44 feet high has an open oak roof, with separate apartments for study, and iron balconies running around the book-cases. There are in this apartment five stained glass windows, and a collection of valuable law books and MSS. to the number of 25,000.
LINCOLN'S INN.
On either side of the dais of the dining hall beneath the lofty oriel window in Lincoln's Inn, is a sideboard for the upper or "benchers" table who are the high authorities of the place; the other tables are arranged in graduation, two crosswise and five along the hall for the barristers and students who dine here every day during term; the average number is 200; and of those who dine on one day or another during the term "keeping commons," there are about 500 students.
LINCOLN'S INN.