leading position amongst the social
nuisances of the period, they should migrate from the district which
delights to honor them to chambers in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, and
give morning concerts every day of term time.

Working lawyers feel warmly on this subject, maintaining that no man
should be permitted to be an _amateur_-barrister and an
_amateur_-musician at the same time, and holding that law-students with
a turn for wind-instruments should, like vermin, be hunted down and
knocked on the head--without law. Strange stories might be told of the
discords and violent deeds to which music has given rise in the four
Inns. In the last century many a foolish fellow was 'put up' at ten
paces, because he refused to lay down an ophicleide; even as late as
George IV.'s time death has followed from an inordinate addiction to the
violin; and it was but the other day that the introduction of a piano
into a house in Carey Street led to the destruction of three close and
warm friendships.

So alive are lawyers to the frightful consequences of a wholesale
exhibition of melodious irritants, that a natural love of order and
desire for self-preservation has prompted them to raise numerous
obstructions to the free development of musical science in their
peculiar localities of town. In the Inns of Court and Chancery Lane
professional etiquette forbids barristers and solicitors to play upon
organs, harmoniums, pianos, violins, or other stringed instruments,
drums, trumpets, cymbals, shawms, bassoons, triangles, castanets or any
other bony devices for the production of noise, flageolets, hautboys, or
any other sort of boys--between the hours of 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. And this
rule of etiquette is supported by various special conditions introduced
into the leases by which the tenants hold much of the local house
property. Under some landlords, a tenant forfeits his lease if he
indulges in any pursuit that causes annoyance to his immediate
neighbors; under others, every occupant of a set of chambers binds
himself not to play any musical instrument therein, save between the
hours of 9 A.M. and 12 P.M.; and in more than one clump of chambers,
situated within a stone's throw from Chancery Lane, glee-singing is not
permitted at any period of the four-and-twenty hours.

That the pursuit of harmony is a dangerous pastime for young lawyers
cannot be questioned, although a long list might be given of cases where
musical barristers have gained the