between the accession
of Henry VII. and the death of James I., as comprising the brightest
days of its academical vigor and renown.

It is however worthy of observation that throughout the times when the
legal learning and discipline of the colleges are described to have been
admirable, the system and the students by no means won the approbation
of those critical authorities who were best able to see their failings
and merits. Wolsey was so strongly impressed by the faulty education of
the barristers who practised before him, and more especially by their
total ignorance of the principles of jurisprudence, that he prepared a
plan for a new university which should be established in London, and
should impart a liberal and exact knowledge of law. Had he lived to
carry out his scheme it is most probable that the Inns of Court and
Chancery would have become subsidiary and subordinate establishments to
the new foundation. In this matter, sympathizing with the more
enlightened minds of his age, Sir Nicholas Bacon was no less desirous
than the great cardinal that a new law university should be planted in
town, and he urged on Henry VIII. the propriety of devoting a certain
portion of the confiscated church property to the foundation and
endowment of such an institution.

On paper the scheme of the old exercises and degrees looks very
imposing, and those who delight in painting fancy pictures may infer
from them that the scholastic order of the colleges was perfect. Before
a young man could be called to the bar, he had under ordinary
circumstances to spend seven or eight years in arguing cases at the Inns
of Chancery, in proving his knowledge of law and Law-French at moots, in
sharpening his wits at case-putting, in patient study of the Year-Books,
and in watching the trials of Westminster Hall. After his call he was
required to spend another period in study and academic exercise before
he presumed to raise his voice at the bar; and in his progress to the
highest rank of his profession he was expected to labor in educating the
students of his house as assistant-reader, single-reader, double-reader.
The gravest lawyers of every inn were bound to aid in the task of
teaching the mysteries of the law to the rising generation.

The old ordinances assumed that the law-student was thirsting for a
knowledge of law, and that the veterans were no less eager to impart
it. During term law was talked in hall at dinner and supper, and after