The fellowship of the Temple springs from its long traditions of brotherhood among the Templars. To turn out of the Strand into its quiet courts brings over your brooding spirit something of that sacred melancholy pleasure which one feels on entering the old school or dining once again in the college hall. But you are no longer actor, art and part, in the school and college life. Here in the Temple, though others are judges and benchers and fashionable leaders, you can still wander in shabby honesty in the gardens, pull down some of the old volumes in the library, and dine below the salt with your fellow-ancients.
Thackeray has a true insight into the pleasures of memory that the Temple possesses for those who have lived there, and pictures, as he alone can, its historic charm.
“Nevertheless,” he writes, “those venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag and the Winged Horse for their ensigns have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom which men always remember with pleasure. I don’t know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers and says, ‘Yonder Eldon lived—upon this site Coke mused upon Lyttelton—here Chitty toiled—here Barnwell and Alderson joined in their famous labours—here Byles composed his great work upon bills, and Smith compiled his immortal leading cases—here Gustavus still toils, with Solomon to aid him:’ but the man of letters can’t but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, or peopled by their creations, as real to us at this day as the authors whose children they were—and Sir Roger de Coverley, walking in the Temple Garden and discoursing with Mr. Spectator about the beauties in hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass, is just as lovely a figure to me as old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels on their way to Dr. Goldsmith’s chambers in Brick Court; or Harry Fielding, with inked ruffles and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at midnight for the Covent Garden Journal while the printer’s boy is asleep in the passage.”
The Temple is full of ghosts—honest ghosts with whom it is a privilege to claim fellowship.
There are some who speak of the Bar sneeringly as a Trade Union—which it certainly is, and to my thinking one of the oldest and best unions. And if advocacy could be honestly described as a trade, then the phrase trade union might be accepted without demurrer. For the basic quality of a trade union, that which has made these institutions thrive against opposition, is the spirit of fellowship and unselfishness which is the ideal of its members.
We have seen how of old the senior members of the Bar trained up the juniors in the mystery of their craft, and throughout the practice of the profession it has always been a point of honour for the elders to assist the beginners in those difficult days of apprenticeship.
What could be more delightful and encouraging to a youngster than to be received by his genial, handsome leader in the presence of an admiring attorney after the fashion that Montagu Williams tells us of his first meeting with Serjeant Shee? “I shall never forget,” he writes, “my consultation with dear old Serjeant Shee. I knew very little about pleadings, and matters of that kind, and so the work naturally made me feel somewhat nervous. On going upstairs to the consulting-room to see Serjeant Shee, whom I already knew slightly, I had my briefs stuck under my arm, somewhat ostentatiously, I am afraid. The old serjeant patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Lots of briefs flowing in, my boy; delighted to see it.’
“When we had taken our seats, and the consultation had begun, he said, turning to the solicitor who instructed us, ‘Winning case—pleadings all wrong. That young dog over there smelt it out long ago, as a terrier would a rat, I can see—eh, Montagu Williams? You’ve found it out; I can see it by your face.’
“Heaven knows I was as innocent of finding anything out as the man in the moon. I sniggered feebly; and then the serjeant proceeded to put into my mouth the vital blots in the case of our adversary, which he alone had discovered.
“That was the way leaders treated their juniors then. I must leave my successors at the Bar to decide whether or not things are the same now.”