barristers. The _Middle_ Temple requires the signatures of two
barristers of that Inn and of a bencher, but in each of the three other
Inns the signatures of barristers of any of the four Inns will suffice.
No person is admitted without the approbation of a bencher, or of the
benchers in council assembled.

The _Middle Temple_ includes the universities of Durham and London. At
the _Inner Temple_ the candidate for admission who has taken the degree
of B.A., or passed an examination at the Universities of Oxford,
Cambridge, or London, is required to pass an examination by a barrister,
appointed by the Bench for that purpose, in the Greek and Latin
languages, and history or literature in general. No person in priest's
or deacon's orders can be called to the bar. In the _Inner Temple_, an
attorney must have ceased to be on the rolls, and an articled clerk to
be in articles for _three years_, before he can be called to the bar.

Legal students worked hard in the old times; Coke's career is an
example. In 1572 he rose every morning at five o'clock, lighting his own
fire; and then read Bracton, Littleton, and the ponderous folio
abridgments of the law till the court met, at eight o'clock. He then
took boat for Westminster, and heard cases argued till twelve o'clock,
when the pleas ceased for dinner. After a meal in the Inner Temple Hall,
he attended "readings" or lectures in the afternoon, and then resumed
his private studies till supper-time at five. Next came the moots, after
which he slammed his chamber-door, and set to work with his commonplace
book to index all the law he had amassed during the day. At nine, the
steady student went to bed, securing three good hours of sleep before
midnight. It is said Coke never saw a play or read a play in his
life--and that was Shakespeare's time! In the reign of James I. the
Temple was often called "my Lord Coke's shop." He had become a great
lawyer then, and lived to become Lord Chief Justice. Pity 'tis that we
have to remember that he reviled Essex and insulted Raleigh. King James
once said of Coke in misfortune that he was like a cat, he always fell
on his feet.

History does not record many riots in the Temple, full of wild life as
that quiet precinct has been. In different reigns, however, two
outbreaks occurred. In both cases the Templars, though rather hot and
prompt, seem to have been right. At the dinner of John Prideaux, reader
of the Inner Temple, in 1553, the students to