students in and out of town, the parentage and demeanor of new members,
the gossip of the halls, and the rumors of the cloisters. In proportion
as the political temper and action of the lawyers were deemed matters of
high importance, their political indiscretions and misdemeanors were
promptly and sometimes ferociously punished. An idle joke over a pot of
wine sometimes cost a witty barrister his social rank and his ears. To
promote a wholesome fear of authority in the colleges, government every
now and then flogged a student at the cart's tail in Holborn, or
pilloried a sad apprentice of the law in Chancery Lane, or hung an
ancient on a gibbet at the entrance of his inn.

The anecdote-books abound with good stories that illustrate the
political excitability of the inns in past times, and the energy with
which ministers were wont to repress the first manifestations of
insubordination. Rushworth records the adventure of four young men of
Lincoln's Inn who throw aside prudence and sobriety in a tavern hard by
their inn, and drank to "the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury."
The next day, full of penitence and head-ache, the offenders were
brought before the council, and called to account for their scandalous
conduct; when they would have fared ill had not the Earl of Dorset done
them good service, and privately instructed them to say in their
defence, that they had not drunk confusion to the archbishop but to the
archbishop's _foes_. On this ingenious representation, the council
supposed that the drawer--on whose information the proceedings were
taken--had failed to catch the last word of the toast; and consequently
the young gentlemen were dismissed with a 'light admonition,' much to
their own surprise and the informer's chagrin.

Of the political explosiveness of the inns in Charles II.'s time
Narcissus Luttrell gives the following illustration in his diary, under
date June 15 and 16, 1681:--"The 15th was a project sett on foot in
Grayes Inn for the carrying on an addresse for thankes to his majestie
for his late declaration; and was moved that day in the hall by some at
dinner, and being (as is usual) sent to the barre messe to be by them
recommended to the bench, but was rejected both by bench and barr; but
the other side seeing they could doe no good this way, they gott about
forty together and went to the tavern, and there subscribed the said
addresse in the name of the truelye loyall gentlemen of Grayes Inn