Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/255

 THE GREEN BAG

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AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE TEMPLE BY C. E. A. BEDWELL IN the heart of the- Metropolis of the British Empire but so secluded as to form a haven of rest and peace from the tur moil of the thronged thoroughfare stand the three groups of buildings — Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, and the Temple — in which the barristers have their Chambers. The chief of these is the Temple which. is appor tioned between the Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple. The history of the four Inns of Court is lost in the mists of antiquity, and in particular the date at which the lawyers succeeded the Knights Templars in the possession 'of the Temple Church and surrounding property is a matter of uncertainty. The records of the two Inns carry the enquirer back only for a period of four centuries, but Sir John Fortescue, writing in the middle. of the fifteenth century, has left a description of the course of study at the Inns of Court. He tells us "That knights, barons and the great nobility of the kingdom, often place their children in these Inns of Court; not so much to make the laws their study, much less to live by the profession (having large patrimo nies of their own), but to form their manners and preserve them from the contagion of vice. . . . They learn singing and all kinds of music, dancing and such other accomplishments and diversions (which are called Revels) as are suitable to their equality, and such as are usually practised at Court. At other times, out of term, the greater part apply themselves to the study of the law. Upon festival days, and after the Offices of. the Church are over, they employ themselves in the study of the sacred and profane history;- here every thing which is good and virtuous is to be learned; all vice is discouraged and banished."1 1 De LaucJibus Legum AnglUv. p. 172.

Towards the latter part of the sixteenth century the records are sufficiently in detail as to furnish a connected narrative of the life and members of the Inn. During that period the Middle Temple Hall was erected and still remains one of the finest specimens of Elizabethan architecture. By day the light is diffused through the stained-glass windows containing the coats of arms of distinguished members, and at night the electric lamps illumine the hammer beam roof and the fine oak screen which is a magnificent piece of Renaissance work. From that time to the present it has wit nessed many memorable scenes of which one of the most notable was the admission in 1905 of Mr. Choate, then American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, to a place at the Bench table of the Society. The Benchers form the governing body of the Inn. The meeting at which they regu late its affairs is known as the Parliament. By tracing the history of the closing years of the sixteenth century it may be. possible to establish an earlier connection between the Society of which Mr. Choate is a bencher and the nation of which he has been the accredited representative. In 1555 Richard Hakluyt, cousin of the Geographer, was admitted to membership of the Inn and Chambers. Among his con temporaries was Miles Sandys, brother of Edwin Sandys, afterwards Archbishop of York. Some time before 1570 young Richard Hakluyt, then studying at West minister School, came to visit his cousin at his Chambers in the Temple and "found lying upon his bobrd certeine bookes of cosmographie with an universall mappe" which aroused his curiosity. The elder Richard, no doubt glad to have a ready listener, gave him a long " discourse " which so impressed the young man as to induce him to form a resolution that he "would