pounds at least, to the high officials and other dignitaries before whom he came to receive his degree. To the Lord Chancellor and to each Prince, Duke, and Archbishop present, a ring to the value of twenty-six shillings and eight pence. To the Lord of the Privy Seal, and to each Earl and Bishop, a ring to the value of twenty shillings. To each Lord Baron of Parliament and each Abbot, Knight, and Justice, a ring valued at a mark; and so on clown the list " insomuch that there shall not be a Clerk but he shall receive a Ring convenient for his degree." It was the custom also for them to give liveries to their servants, and suits of clothes to the friends and acquaintances who did them the honor of being present. But the pièce de résistance of the affair was a great feast that lasted seven days. I have put myself to no great search to discover the nature of the viands at these very early ban quets; doubtless many of the dishes would be totally unknown to us; but glance, if you please, at the prandial sufficiency supplied on an occasion of the kind in the sixteenth cen tury. There were brought from the slaughter house, says the historian, " twenty-four great beefes, one carcass of anoxe, one hundred fat muttons, fifty-one great véales, thirty-four porkes, and ninety-one piggs." Besides which there were 'three hundred and forty dozen larks, thirty-seven dozen pigeons, fourteen dozen swans, and a great supply of other good things. Not only did they have an abundance of provender, but it was finely set up and well served. On the banquet board there was a great standing dish of wax, representing the Court of Common Pleas, and if I were to write down the full list of savory edibles, such as chewet pies, roasted godwits and knotts (whatever these were) baked venison and venison pasties, roasted pheasants and swans and woodcocks, jellies and custards, not to mention such things as spiced bread, comfits, and hippocras, space would fail and all of us grow ravenous in the reading.
The account of the food consumed on this occasion shows that much of it was sent in by the new Serjeant's friends. Thus we read : " Cates sent in by Mr. Walpole," under which heading is given a large supply of game, turkeys, and deer contributed by that gentleman — and again like gifts from Mr. Catline and Mr. Browne and Mr. Prideaux. The latter seems to have been a glutton, greedy also, and not over gracious in his giv ing, for we read above his list : " Cates sent in by Mr. Prideaux, for himself alone." Pos sibly he warmed up to generosity before he had finished his four does, his swan, his bus tard, and his ten capons, but it is not men tioned that he allowed his fellow guests even so much as to pick a bone. In due time the coming and the going, the kneeling and the curtseying, the writ-reading, oath-taking, speech-making, ring-giving, feast ing, and congratulating were all over, and the new Serjeants settled down to the enjoyment of their privileges. Upon them fell the ex penses of the feast and the gifts, and it was no small sum that each of them had to draw from the recesses of his pocket; though it is not recorded that any one of the order ever grudged the cost, or at any rate down to 1846, before which year they had exclusive right to practice in the Court of Common Pleas, certainly a remunerative privilege. Sir John Fortescue writes on this point : "Neither is there any man of Law through out the universal world, which by reason of his office or profession, gaineth so much as one of these Serjeants." Moreover it was for centuries a rule that the ranks of the Jus tices could only be recruited from the Serjeants-at-Law. latterly, to be sure, this rule was sometimes quibbled with, for when it was desired to create a Justice from outside, the candidate was simply made a Serjeant the day before his higher appointment. In 1875 the rule thus played with was set aside alto gether. I must not omit to speak here of their garb and insignia. Sir Henry Chauncy, who was
