convenience and advantage of its members." Rightly enough it appeared to
them "singular, that whilst the various public bodies, companies, and
commercial and trading classes in the metropolis, and indeed in many of
the principal towns in the kingdom, have long possessed places of general
resort, for the more convenient transaction of their business; and while
numerous institutions for promoting literature and science amongst all
ranks and conditions of society, have been long established, and others
are daily springing up, the attorneys and solicitors of the superior
courts of record at Westminster should still be without an establishment
in London, calculated to afford them similar advantages; more particularly
when the halls and libraries of the inns of court, the clubs of barristers,
special pleaders, and conveyancers, the libraries of the advocates and
writers to the signet at Edinburgh, and the association of attorneys in
Dublin, furnish a strong presumption of the advantages which would
probably result from an establishment of a similar description for
attorneys in London.

"For effecting the purposes of the institution, it was considered
necessary to raise a fund of 50,000_l_. in shares of 25_l_. each, payable
by instalments, no one being permitted to take more than twenty shares.
The plan having been generally announced to the profession, a large
proportion of the shares were immediately subscribed for, so that no doubt
remained of the success of the design, and the committee therefore
directed inquiries to be made for a site for the intended building, and
succeeded in obtaining an eligible one in Chancery Lane, nearly opposite
to the Rolls Court, consisting of two houses, formerly occupied by Sir
John Silvester (and lately by Messrs. Collins and Wells,) and Messrs.
Clarke, Richards and Medcalf, and of the house behind, in Bell Yard,
lately in the possession of Mr. Maxwell; thus having the advantage of two
frontages, and, from its contiguity to the law offices and inns of court,