the men of law fall to. In former times it was the custom to blow a horn
in every court to announce the meal. The benchers observe somewhat more
style at their table than the other members do at theirs. The general
repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese to each
mess, consisting of four persons, and each mess is allowed a bottle of
port wine. Dinner is served daily to the members of the Inn during
term-time,--the masters of the bench dining on the dais, and the
barristers and students at long tables extending down the hall. On grand
days the judges are present, who dine in succession with each of the four
Inns of Court. To the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers
repair after dinner. The 'loving-cups' used on certain grand occasions are
huge silver goblets, which are passed down the table filled with a
delicious composition, immemorially termed 'sack,' consisting of sweetened
and exquisitely flavored white wine. The butler attends the progress of
the cup to replenish it, and each student is by rule restricted to a sip;
yet it is recorded that once, though the number present fell short of
seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquid were sipped away. At the Inner
Temple, on May 29, a gold cup of sack is handed to each member, who drinks
to the happy restoration of Charles II."

The Temple has been for generations a favorite abode with men of letters
and others having no leaning toward or connection with the bar. It is a
vast bachelors' hall. Fleet Street and its immediate vicinity is the
centre of the publishing interest of London. Here many of the great
dailies are edited and printed, and "Brain Street," as George Augustus
Sala fitly nicknamed it, is midway between the "city" and the "West End,
"--the "down town" and the "up town" of London, if such a simile is
permissible as applied to a brick-and-mortar polypus whose members radiate
toward every point of the compass. No part of the Temple is more than five
minutes' walk from this centre of intellectual industry, and yet, once