BRIGHT AND SAD.

From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For many generations clerical discipline restrained the members of the bar from garments of lavish costliness and various colors, unless high rank and personal influence placed them above the fear of censure and punishment; but as soon as the law became a lay-profession, its members—especially those who were still young—eagerly seized the newest fashions of costume, and expended so much time and money on personal decoration, that the governors of the Inns deemed it expedient to make rules, with a view to check the inordinate love of gay apparel.

By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they deserve attention.

From Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales,' it appears that in the earlier part of Henry VIII.'s reign, the students and barristers of the Inns were allowed great licence in settling for themselves minor points of costume; but before that paternal monarch died, this freedom was lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry—"They have no order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of costume, the general discipline of the Inn was scandalously lax; the very next paragraph of the 'Origines' showing that the templars forbore to shut their gates at night, whereby "their chambers were oftentimes robbed, and many other misdemeanors used."

But measures were taken to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made "that the gentlemen of this company" (i.e., the Inner Temple) "should reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have long beards. And that the Treasurer of this society should confer with the other Treasurers of Court for an uniform reformation." The authorities of Lincoln's Inn had already bestirred themselves to reduce the extravagances of dress and toilet which marked their younger and more frivolous fellow-members. "And for decency in Apparel," writes Dugdale, concerning Lincoln's Inn, "at a council held on the day of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 23 Hen. VIII. it was ordered that for a continual rule, to be thenceforth kept in this house, no gentleman, being a fellow of this house, should wear any cut or pansid hose, or bryches; or pansid doublet, upon pain of putting out of the house."

Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn (33 Hen. VIII.) ordered that no member of the society "being in commons, or at his repast, should wear a beard; and whoso did, to pay double commons or repasts in this house during such time as he should have any beard."

By an order of 5 Maii, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the gentlemen of the Inner Temple were forbidden to wear long beards, no member of the society being permitted to wear a beard of more than three weeks' growth. Every breach of this law was punished by the heavy fine of twenty shillings. In 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary it was ordered that no member of the Middle Temple "should thenceforth wear any great bryches in their hoses, made after the Dutch, Spanish, or Almon fashion; or lawnde upon their capps; or cut doublets, upon pain of iii^s iiii^d forfaiture for the first default, and the second time to be expelled the house." At Lincoln's Inn, "in 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, one M^r Wyde, of this house, was (by special order made upon Ascension day) fined at five groats, for going in his study gown in Cheapside, on a Sunday, about ten o'clock before noon; and in Westminister Hall, in the Term time, in the forenoon." Mr. Wyde's offence was one of remissness rather than of excessive care for his personal appearance. With regard to beards in the same reign Lincoln's Inn exacted that such members "as had beards should pay 12d. for every meal they continued them; and every man" was required "to be shaven upon pain of putting out of commons."

The orders made under Elizabeth with regard to the same or similar matters are even more humorous and diverse. At the Inner Temple "it was ordered in 36 Elizabeth (16 Junii), that if any fellow in commons, or lying in the Louse, did wear either hat or cloak in the Temple Church, hall, buttry, kitchen, or at the buttry-barr, dresser, or in the garden, he should forfeit for every such offence vi^s viii^d. And in 42 Eliz. (8 Febr.) that they go not in cloaks, hatts, bootes, and spurs into the city, but when they ride out of the town." This order was most displeasing to the young men of the legal academies, who were given to swaggering amongst the brave gallants of city ordinaries, and delighted in showing their rich attire at Paul's. The Templar of the Inner Temple who ventured to wear arms (except his dagger) in hall committed a grave offence, and was fined five pounds. "No fellow of this house should come into the hall" it was enacted at the Inner Temple, 38 Eliz. (20 Dec.) "with any weapons, except his dagger, or his knife, upon pain of forfeiting the sum of five pounds." In old time the lawyers often quarrelled and drew swords in hall; and the object of this regulation doubtless was to diminish the number of scandalous affrays. The Middle Temple, in 26 Eliz., made six prohibitory rules with regard to apparel, enacting, "1. That no ruff should be worn. 2. Nor any White color in doublets or hoses. 3. Nor any facing of velvet in gownes, but by such as were of the bench. 4. That no gentleman should walk in the streets in their cloaks, but in gownes. 5. That no hat, or long, or curled hair be worn. 6. Nor any gown, but such as were of a sad color." Of similar orders made at Gray's Inn, during Elizabeth's reign, the following edict of 42 Eliz. (Feb. 11) may be taken as a specimen:—"That no gentleman of this society do come into the hall, to any meal, with their hats, boots, or spurs; but with their caps, decently and orderly, according to the ancient order of this house: upon pain, for every offence, to forfeit iii^s 4^d, and for the third offence expulsion. Likewise, that no gentleman of this society do go into the city, or suburbs, or to walk in the Fields, otherwise than in his gown, according to the ancient usage of the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, upon penalty of iii^s iiii^d for every offence; and for the third, expulsion and loss of his chamber."

At Lincoln's Inn it was enacted, "in 38 Eliz., that if any Fellow of this House, being a commoner or repaster, should within the precinct of this house wear any cloak, boots and spurs, or long hair, he should pay for every offence five shillings for a fine, and also to be put out of commons." The attempt to put down beards at Lincoln's Inn failed. Dugdale says, in his notes on that Inn, "And in 1 Eliz. it was further ordered, that no fellow of this house should wear any beard above a fortnight's growth; and that whoso transgresses therein should for the first offence forfeit 3s. 4d., to be paid and cast with his commons; and for the second time 6s. 8d., in like manner to be paid and cast with his commons; and the third time to be banished the house. But the fashion at that time of wearing beards grew then so predominant, as that the very next year following, at a council held at this house, upon the 27^th of November, it was agreed and ordered, that all orders before that time touching beards should be void and repealed." In the same year in which the authorities of Lincoln's Inn forbade the wearing of beards, they ordered that no fellow of their society "should wear any sword or buckler; or cause any to be born after him into the town." This was the first of the seven orders made in 1 Eliz. for all the Inns of Court; of which orders the sixth runs thus:—"That none should wear any velvet upper cap, neither in the house nor city. And that none after the first day of January then ensuing, should wear any furs, nor any manner of silk in their apparel, otherwise than he could justifie by the stature of apparel, made an. 24 H. 8, under the penalty aforesaid." In the eighth year of the following reign it was ordained at Lincoln's Inn "that no rapier should be worn in this house by any of the society."

Other orders made in the reign of James I., and similar enactments passed by the Inns in still more recent periods, can be readily found on reference to Dugdale and later writers upon the usages of lawyers.

On such matters, however, fashion is all-powerful; and however grandly the benchers of an Inn might talk in their council-chamber, they could not prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards when beards were the mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by gallants at court. Even in the time of Elizabeth—when authority was most anxious that utter-barristers should in matters of costume maintain that reputation for 'sadness' which is the proverbial characteristic of apprentices of the law—counsellors of various degrees were conspicuous throughout the town for brave attire. If we had no other evidence bearing on the point, knowledge of human nature would make us certain that the bar imitated Lord Chancellor Hatton's costume. At Gray's Inn, Francis Bacon was not singular in loving rich clothes, and running into debt for satin and velvet, jewels and brocade, lace and feathers. Even of that contemner of frivolous men and vain pursuits, Edward Coke, biography assures us, "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls."

The courts of James I. and his son drew some of their most splendid fops from the multitude of young men who were enjoined by the elders of their profession to adhere to a costume that was a compromise between the garb of an Oxford scholar and the guise of a London 'prentice. The same was the case with Charles II.'s London. Students and barristers outshone the brightest idlers at Whitehall, whilst within the walls of their Inns benchers still made a faint show of enforcing old restrictions upon costume. At a time when every Templar in society wore hair—either natural or artificial—long and elaborately dressed, Sir William Dugdale wrote, "To the office of the chief butler" (i.e., of the Middle Temple) "it likewise appertaineth to take the names of those that be absent at the said solemn revells, and to present them to the bench, as also inform the bench of such as wear hats, bootes, long hair, or the like (for the which he is commonly out of the young gentlemen's favor)."