Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/304

 The Passing of the Serjeant. in the face of Death and Death smiled back. On the monument that shall soon keep alive for future generations the form and feat ures of "the old man eloquent " may be well inscribed the poet's praise: —

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Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere, In action faithful and in honor clear, Who sought no title, served no private end, Who broke no promise, and who lost no friend.

THE PASSING OF THE SERJEANT. BY GEORGE H. WESTLEY. BORN in 18 1 6; created a Serjeant-at-Law in 1862; died in 1900 — such in brief is the mundane tale of Frederic Lowten Spinks, the last of a long and honorable line. Or to be more precise, the last of those called Serjeant s-at- Law, for there still live several of the order who, however, having risen to higher honors are no longer known by that old and respected title. So that it may truly be said the Serjeant-at-Law has now joined the Dodo and other things in what has been called "the world's great museum of extincts." The beginning of the order seems to be lost in the maze of mediaeval history. Sir William Dugdale who wrote extensively on the Serjeants in his Origines Juridiciales, for some reason did not make deep research into their origin, and on this point I think we cannot do much better than to refer to the work by Sir Henry Chauncy on the Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire. " This degree is very ancient," writes Sir Henry, "for I find Pleaders, Coimteurs, and Attornies did manage Causes and Controversies in Law in Normandy before the Conquest, called in Latin Sennentes3XtA Narratorcs, because they served the King and people in pleading their matters in law for their Fees : and in French they were termed Serjeant Coiuifciirs." Sir Henry goes on to say that after the accession of William the Conqueror, great numbers of the inferior clergy who were skilled in the Norman laws " followed that King hither and were called by writ to this

Degree, for I find a Writ of the same form with a Serjeant's among the Writs in the most ancient Register in Manuscript. These Serjeants were of two sorts: i. Semientes Regis ad Lcgcm; 2. Semientes ad Legem." This seems to be as far back as any of the old writers can trace the order with any de gree of certainty. Sir John Fortescue enlightens us on the manner of man who in the early days was chosen for this honor. He tells us that the Lord Chief Justice used, as often as he thought desirable, to choose " seven or eight of the discretest persons that in the foresaid general study have most profited in the Laws, and which are thought to be of the best dis position. . . every one of the persons so elect to take upon him the state and degree of a Serjeant-at-Law." And for a note on an ancient custom of theirs we look to Chaucer, who says in one of his Canterbury Tales A serjeant of the law, wary and wise, That often had y-been at the parvis.

"Parvis " meaning the porch of old St Pauls, where each Serjeant had his particular pillar at which he held interviews with the clients. We come now I think to matter of more interest. Of old the creating of a Serjeant was attended with almost as much pomp and ceremony as the crowning of a King. Not to enter elaborately into the details of the occasion, one of the special features was the giving of gold rings. Each of the new elect had to give rings of gold, to the value of forty