ners are half paid for by themselves, the library is kept up on very
little fodder, and altogether the system of auditing the Inns of Court
accounts is as incomprehensible as the Sybilline oracles; but there can
be no doubt it is all right, and very well managed.

In the seventeenth century (says Mr. Noble) a benevolent member of the
Middle Temple conveyed to the benchers in fee several houses in the
City, out of the rents of which to pay a stated salary to each of two
referees, who were to meet on two days weekly, in term, from two to
five, in the hall or other convenient place, and without fee on either
side, to settle as best they could all disputes submitted to them. From
that time the referees have been appointed, but there is no record of a
single case being tried by them. The two gentlemen, finding their office
a sinecure, have devoted their salaries to making periodical additions
to the library. May we be allowed to ask, was this benevolent object
ever made known to the public generally? We cannot but think, if it had
been, that the two respected arbitrators would not have had to complain
of the office as a sinecure.

He who can enumerate the wise and great men who have been educated in
the Temple can count off the stars on his finger and measure the sands
of the sea-shore by teacupsful. To cull a few, we may mention that the
Inner Temple boasts among its eminent members--Audley, Chancellor to
Henry VIII.; Nicholas Hare, of Hare Court celebrity; the great lawyer,
Littleton (1481), and Coke, his commentator; Sir Christopher Hatton, the
dancing Chancellor; Lord Buckhurst; Selden; Judge Jeffries; Beaumont,
the poet; William Browne, the author of "Britannia's Pastorals" (so much
praised by the Lamb and Hazlitt school); Cowper, the poet; and Sir
William Follett.

From the Middle Temple have also sprung swarms of great lawyers. We may
mention specially Plowden, the jurist, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas
Overbury (who was poisoned in the Tower), John Ford (one of the latest
of the great dramatists), Sir Edward Bramston (chamber-fellow to Mr.
Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon), Bulstrode Whitelocke (one of
Cromwell's Ministers), Lord-Keeper Guildford (Charles II.), Lord
Chancellor Somers, Wycherley and Congreve (the dramatists), Shadwell and
Southern (comedy writers), Sir William Blackstone, Edmund Burke,
Sheridan, Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Lord Chancellor Eldon, Lord Stowell,
as a few among a multitude.

CHAPTE