alled and began to earn a
little money, his parsimonious father reduced the stipend by L10; but,
adds Roger North, "to do right to his good father, he paid him that
fifty pounds a year as long as he lived, saying he would not discourage
industry by rewarding it, when successful, with less." George Jeffreys,
in his student-days, smarted under a still more galling penury, for he
was allowed only L50 a year, L10 being for his clothes, and L40 for the
rest of his expenditure. In the following century the nominal incomes of
law-students rose in proportion as the wealth of the country increased
and the currency fell in value. In George II.'s time a young Templar
expected his father to allow him L150 a year, and on encouragement would
spend twice that amount in the same time. Henry Fielding's allowance
from General Fielding was L200 per annum; but as he said, with a laugh,
he had too feeling and dutiful a nature to press an affectionate father
for money which he was totally unable to pay. At the present time L150
per annum is about the smallest sum on which a law-student can live with
outward decency; and L250 per annum the lowest amount on which a chamber
barrister can live with suitable dignity and comfort. If he has to
maintain the expenses of a distant circuit Mr. Briefless requires from
L100 to L200 more. Alas! how many of Mr. Briefless's meritorious and
most ornamental kind are compelled to shift on far less ample means!
How many of them periodically repeat the jest of poor A----, who made
this brief and suggestive official return to the Income Tax
Commissioners--"I am totally dependent on my father, who allows
me--nothing!"

CHAPTER XXXVII.

READERS AND MOOTMEN.

Romantic eulogists of the Inns of Court maintain that, as an instrument
of education, the law-university was nearly perfect for many generations
after its consolidation. That in modern time abuses have impaired its
faculties and diminished its usefulness they admit. Some of them are
candid enough to allow that, as a school for the systematic study of
law, it is under existing circumstances a deplorably deficient machine;
but they unite in declaring that there _was_ a time when the system of
the combined Colleges was complete and thoroughly efficacious. The more
cautious of these eulogists decline to state the exact limits of the
period when the actual condition of the university merited their cordial
approval, but they concur in pointing to the years