nteresting field for research.

It has provided that which ancient Rome is said to have possessed,
but which London did not possess--viz., a place of deposit for the
wills of living persons.

It has extended the English favourite mode of trial--viz., trial by
jury--by admitting jurors to try the validity of wills and questions
of divorce.

It has made divorce not a matter of wealth but of justice: the
wealthy and the poor alike now only require a clear case and "no
collusion."

It has enabled the humblest wife to obtain a "protection order" for
her property against an unprincipled husband.

It has afforded persons wanting to establish legitimacy, the
validity of marriages, and the right to be deemed natural born
subjects, the means of so doing.

Amongst its minor benefits it has enabled persons needing copies of
wills which have been proved since January, 1858, in any part of the
country, to obtain them from the principal registry of the Court of
Probate in Doctors' Commons.

Sir Cresswell Cresswell was appointed Judge of the Probate Court at its
commencement. He was likewise the first Judge of the Divorce Court.

The College property--the freehold portion, subject to a yearly
rent-charge of L105, and to an annual payment of 5s. 4d., both payable
to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's--was put up for sale by auction,
in one lot, on November 28, 1862. The place has now been demolished, and
the materials have been sold, the site being required in forming the new
thoroughfare from Earl Street, Blackfriars, to the Mansion House; the
roadway passes directly through the College garden.

Chaucer, in his "Canterbury Tales," gives an unfavourable picture of the
old sompnour (or apparitor to the Ecclesiastical Court):--

"A sompnour was ther with us in that place,
Thad hadde a fire-red cherubimes face;
For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe.
As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe,
With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd;
Of his visage children were sore aferd.
Ther n'as quiksilver, litarge, ne brimston,
Boras, ceruse, ne oile of Tartre non,
Ne oinement that wolde clense or bite,
That him might helpen of his whelkes white,
Ne of the nobbes sitting on his chekes.
Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes,
And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood.
Than wold he speke, and crie as he we