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This is a Roll in the two Temples, in which every bencher is taxed yearly at 2s., every barrister at 1s. 6d., and every gentleman under the bar at 1s. to the cook, and other officers of the house, in consideration of a dinner of calves-heads, provided in Easter. Curious Registry. The following entry occurs in the register of the parish of Hanwell, Middlesex, viz.:
Just fifty years after, when I was a judge, and almost the Senior Bencher of my Inn, our illustrious Sovereign, then Prince of Wales, who is also a Bencher of the Middle Temple, favoured us with his presence at dinner, and did me the honour to propose my health in a gracious speech.
There is Pump Court and Fountain Court, with their hydraulic apparatus, but one never heard of a bencher disporting in the fountain; and can't but think how many a counsel learned in the law of old days might have benefited by the pump.
They elected him a Bencher of the Middle Temple, the first American to receive that honor after an interval of one hundred and fifty years. Choate's witticisms and repartees became the social currency of dinner-tables in London and week-end parties in the country. Choate paid little attention to conventionalities, which count for so much and are so rigidly enforced, especially in royal circles.
The candidate must also furnish a statement in writing, outlining his rank, age, and residence, accompanied by a voucher as to his respectability signed by a bencher or two barristers. In short, the Inns of Court may be described as universities "with power to grant degrees in the municipal law of England, which constitute indispensable qualifications for practice in the superior courts of law."
And when she answered, "Oh, yes, sir!" and then added, "If you please!" the Bencher laughed, and told her she was welcome to take any book in his library. And so we find she spent many happy hours in the great man's library; and it was through her importunities that Mr. Salt got banty Charles the scholarship in Christ's Hospital School.
But he found himself to be absolutely ignored and put out of court by his own counsel. They were gentlemen with whom professionally he had had no intercourse, as he had practised at the Chancery, and they at the Common Law Bar. But he had been Solicitor-General, and was a bencher of his Inn, whereas Serjeant Burnaby was only a Serjeant, and Jacky Joram still wore a stuff gown.
Only the other day, however, the Prince of Wales went eastwards and partook of a banquet in the hall of Middle Temple, of which society he is a barrister and a bencher. Schools for the study of the Common Law, existed within the bounds of the city of London, at the commencement of the thirteenth century.
This was all the ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, in accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful refreshment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent Bencher.
In 1586 he entered parliament, sitting for Taunton, and also became a bencher at Gray's Inn; so that at twenty-six he was in full practice in the courts of Westminster, also a politician, speaking on almost every question of importance which agitated the House of Commons for twenty years, distinguished for eloquence as well as learning, and for a manly independence which did not entirely please the Queen, from whom all honors came.
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