‘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.