blished of persons, who, (as Spelman 9 observes,) addicting themselves wholly to the study of the laws of the land, and no longer considering it as a mere subordinate science for the amusement of leisure hours, soon raised those laws to that pitch of perfection, which they suddenly attained under the auspices of our English Justinian, king Edward the first.

IN consequence of this lucky assemblage, they naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order, and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, found it necessary to establish a new university of their own. This they did by purchasing at various times certain houses (now called the inns of court and of chancery) between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the king's courts, and the city of London; for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provisions in the other. Here exercises were performed, lectures read, and degrees were at length conferred in the common law, as at other universities in the canon and civil. The de

grees were those of barristers (first styled apprenticess [24] from apprendre, to learn) who answered to our bachelors: as the state and degree of a serjeant', servientis

ad legem, did to that of doctor.

THE Crown seems to have soon taken under its protection this infant seminary of common law; and, the more effectu

q Glossar. 334.

r Fortesc. c. 48.

$ Apprentices or barristers seem to have been first appointed by an ordinance of king Edward the first in parliament, in the 20th year of his reign. (Spelm. Gloss. 37. Dugdale, Orig. jurid. 55.)

The first mention which I have met with in our law books of serjeants or countors, is in the statute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 29. and in Horn's Mirror, c. 1. sec. 10. c. 2. sec. 5. c. 3. sec. 1. in the same reign. But M. Paris in his life of John II. abbot of St. Alban's, which he wrote in 1255, 39 Hen. III. speaks of advocates at the common law, or countors, (quos banci narratores vulgariter appellamus,) as of an order of men well known. And we have an example of the

antiquity of the coif in the same author's history of England, A. D. 1259, in the case of one William de Bussy; who, being called to account for his great knavery and malprac tices, claimed the benefit of his orders or cler gy, which till then remained an entire secret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifae suae solvere, ut palam monstraret se tonsuram ha bere clericalem; sed non est permissus.~~~ Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence sir H. Spel man conjectures, (Glossar. 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonsure of such renegade clerks, as were still tempted to remain in the secular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohibition by canon.

ally to foster and cherish it, king Henry the third, in the nineteenth year of his reign, issued out an order directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law schools within that city should for the future teach law therein". The word, law, or leges, being a general term, may create some doubt at this distance of time whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby restrained. But in either case it tends to the same end. If the civil law only is prohibited, (which is Mr. Selden'sw opinion,) it is then a retaliation upon the clergy, who had excluded the common law from their seats of learning. If the municipal law be also included in the restriction, (as sir Edward Coke understands it, and which the words seem to import,) then the intention is evidently this; by preventing private teachers within the walls of the city, to collect all the common lawyers into the one public university, which was newly instituted in the suburbs.

In this juridical university (for such it is insisted to [25] have been by Fortescuey and sir Edward Coke2) there are two sorts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger students of the law were usually placed, "learning and studying, says Fortescue, the ori❝ginals, and as it were the elements of the law; who, profit"ing therein, as they grew to ripeness, so were they admit❝ted 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.

HENCE it is evident, that (though under the influence of the monks our universities neglected this study, yet) in the time of Henry the sixth it was thought highly necessary, and was the universal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be instructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degrees this custom has fallen into disuse; so that in the reign of queen Elizabeth sir Edward Cokeb 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, are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are very rarely(3) 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, arc found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished

their usual courses at the universities, have seldom [26] 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: the rest of our gentry (not to say our nobility also) having usually

b 3 Rep. Pref.

(3) The inns of court are, the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn, from which societies alone, students are called to the bar. The inns of chancery are Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, Lion's Inn, New Inn, Furnival's Inn, Thavies's Inn, Staple's Inn, and Barnard's Inn. These are subordinate to the inns of court; the three first belong to the Inner Temple, the fourth to the Middle Temple, the two next to Lincoln's Inn, and the two last to Gray's Inn. (Dug. Orig. jurid. 320 & passim.) Gentlemen are never entered at present in the inns of chancery with an intention of being called to the bar, for admission there would now be of no avail with regard to the time and attendance required by the inns of court.

retired to their estates, or visited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life, without any instruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining instruction, unless it can be afforded them in these seats of learning.

AND that these are the proper places, for affording assistances of this kind to gentlemen of all stations and degrees, cannot (I think) with any colour of reason be denied. For not one of the objections, which are made to the inns of court and chancery, and which I have just now enumerated, will hold with regard to the universities. Gentlemen may here associate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and studies left entirely to their own discretion; but regulated by a discipline so wise and exact, yet so liberal, so sensible, and manly, that their conformity to its rules (which does at present so much honour to our youth) is not more the effect of constraint than of their own inclinations and choice. Neither need they apprehend too long an avocation hereby from their private concerns and amusements, or (what is a more noble object) the service of their friends and their country. This study will go hand in hand with their other pursuits: it will obstruct none of them; it will ornament and assist them all.

BUT if, upon the whole, there are any still wedded to monastic prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this study is properly and regularly academical, such persons I am afraid either have not considered the constitution and design of an university, or else think very meanly of it. It must be a deplorable narrowness of mind, that would confine these seats of instruction to the limited views of one or two learned professions. To the praise of this age be it spoken, a more open and generous way of thinking begins now uni- [27] versally to prevail. The attainment of liberal and

gen

teel accomplishments, though not of the intellectual sort, has been thought by our wisest and most affectionate patrons, and very lately by the whole university d, no small improvement of our ancient plan of education: and therefore I may safely affirm that nothing (how unusual soever) is, under due regulations, improper to be taught in this place, which is proper for a gentleman to learn. But that a science, which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish, or redress the other; which employs in its theory the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart; a science, which is universal in its use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending the whole community; that a science like this should ever have been deemed unnecessary to be studied in an university, is matter of astonishment and concern. Surely, if it were not before an object of academical knowledge, it was high time to make it one and to those who can doubt the propriety of its reception among us, (if any such there be,) we may return an answer in their own way, that ethics are confessedly a branch of academical learning; and Aristotle himself has said, speaking of the laws of his own country, that jurisprudence, or the knowledge of those laws, is the principal and most perfect branch of ethicse.

FROM a thorough conviction of this truth, our munificent benefactor, Mr. VINER, having employed above half a century in amassing materials for new modelling and rendering more commodious the rude study of the laws of the land, con

e Lord chancellor Clarendon, in his dialogue of education, among his tracts, p. 325, appears to have been very solicitous, that it might be made a "part of the ornament of our “learned academies, to teach the qualities of “riding, dancing, and fencing, at those hours

d By accepting in full convocation the remainder of Lord Clarendon's history from his noble descendants, on condition to apply the profits arising from its publication to the establishment of a manage in the university. • Τελεια μαλιςα αρετη, ό τι της * when more serious exercises should be in- τελείας αρετης χρησις εσι. Ethica

“termitted."

ad Nicomach. l. 5. c. 3.