re wood.
And when that he wel dronken had the win,
Than wold he speken no word but Latin.
A fewe termes coude he, two or three,
That he had lerned out of some decree;
No wonder is, he herd it all the day.
And eke ye knowen wel, how that a jay
Can clepen watte, as well as can the pope.
But who so wolde in other thing him grope,
Than hadde he spent all his philosophie,
Ay, _Questio quid juris_ wold he crie."

In 1585 there were but sixteen or seventeen doctors; in 1694 that swarm
had increased to forty-four. In 1595 there were but five proctors; in
1694 there were forty-three. Yet even in Henry VIII.'s time the proctors
were complained of, for being so numerous and clamorous that neither
judges nor advocates could be heard. Cranmer, to remedy this evil,
attempted to gradually reduce the number to ten, which was petitioned
against as insufficient and tending to "delays and prolix suits."

"Doctors' Commons," says Defoe, "was a name very well known in Holland,
Denmark, and Sweden, because all ships that were taken during the last
wars, belonging to those nations, on suspicion of trading with France,
were brought to trial here; which occasioned that sarcastic saying
abroad that we have often heard in conversation, that England was a fine
country, but a man called Doctors' Commons was a devil, for there was no
getting out of his clutches, let one's cause be never so good, without
paying a great deal of money."

A writer in Knight's "London" (1843) gives a pleasant sketch of the
Court of Arches in that year. The Common Hall, where the Court of
Arches, the Prerogative Court, the Consistory Court, and the Admiralty
Court all held their sittings, was a comfortable place, with dark
polished wainscoting reaching high up the walls, while above hung the
richly emblazoned arms of learned doctors dead and gone; the fire burned
cheerily in the central stove. The dresses of the unengaged advocates in
scarlet and ermine, and of the proctors in ermine and black, were
picturesque. The opposing advocates sat in high galleries, and the
absence of prisoner's dock and jury-box--nay, even of a
public--impressed the stranger with a sense of agreeable novelty.

Apropos of the Court of Arches once held in Bow Church. "The Commissary
Court of Surrey," says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Book about the Clergy,"
"still holds sittings in the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark; and any
of my London readers, who ar