|The Green Bag.|}}

3H LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.

gulariter, de capita tie skarletto, et sic creatifuerunt servientes ad legem." In his admonitory exhortation, the Chief-Justice displays to them the moral and religious duties of their profession. " Ambulate in vocatione in qua vocati estis. Disce cultum Dei, reverentiam superioris, miscrcordiam pauperi." He tells them the coif is " sicut vestis Candida et immaculata," the emblem of purity and virtue; and he commences a portion of his discourse in the Scriptural language used by the Popes in the famous bull conceding to the Templars their vast spiritual and temporal privileges : " Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum decursum est descendens a patre luminum," etc. The Freres Serjens of the Temple were strictly enjoined to " eat their bread in silence," and "place a watch upon their mouths; " and the Freres Serjens of the law, we are told, after their admission did dyne together with sober counte nance and lytel communycacion." — Legal Ob server.

In the sixth year of the reign of Edward III. (a. d. 1333), when the lawyers had just established themselves in the convent of the Temple, and had engrafted upon the old stock of Knights Templar their infant society for the study of the practice of the common law, the judges of the Court of Com mon Pleas were made knights, being the earliest instance on record of the grant of the honor of knighthood for services purely civil; and the pro fessors of the common law, who had the exclusive privilege of practising in that court, assumed the title or degree of Freres Serjens, or Fratres Servientes; so the knight and serving brethren, simi lar to those of the ancient order of the Temple, were most curiously revived and introduced into the profession of the law. The Freres Serjens of the Temple wore linen coifs, and red caps close over them. (The Ser jeants at the present time wear a.coif, but instead of a red cap, they wear a powdered wig.) At the ceremony of their admission into the frater There was in England, in ancient times, a Chief nity, the Master of the Temple placed the coif Justiciar, and likewise from very remote times a upon their heads, and threw over their shoulders Grand Justiciar in Scotland, with very arbitrary the white mantle of the Temple; he then caused power. In that country, when the judges going on them to sit down on the ground, and gave them circuit approach a royal burgh, the Lord Provost a solemn admonition concerning the duties and universally comes out to meet them, with the ex responsibilities of their profession. They were ception of Aberdeen, of which there is by tradition warned that they must enter upon a new life; this explanation. Some centuries ago, the Lord that they must keep themselves fair and free from Provost, at the head of the magistrates, going out stain, like the white garment that had been thrown to meet the Grand Justiciar at the Bridge of Dee, around them, which was the emblem of purity and the Grand Justiciar, for some imaginary offence, innocence; that they must render perfect obe hanged his lordship at the end of the bridge, dience to their superiors; that they must protect since which the Lord Provost of Aberdeen has the weak, succor the needy, reverence old men, never trusted himself in the presence of a judge and do good to the poor. beyond the walls of the city. — Campbell's Lives The Knights and Serjeants of the Common Law, on the other hand, have ever constituted of the Chancellors. a privileged fraternity, and always address one another by the endearing term brother. The religious character of the ancient ceremony FACETIÆ. of admission into this legal brotherhood, which Judge Kirwan was one of the wittiest and most took place in church, and its striking similarity to the ancient mode of reception into the fraternity amusing men who ever sat upon the Irish bench. He was known as " the poor man's magistrate," of the Temple, are curious and remarkable. and his judgments were so full of fun that the pris "Capitalis Juslitiariits," says an ancient MS. ac count of the creation of Serjeants-at-Law in the oner often left the dock for the prison in screams reign of Henry VII., " monstrabat eis plura bona of laughter. On one occasion a poor man was exempla de coram prcedeccssoribus, et tunc posuit summoned for selling apples on a Sunday, and the les coyfes super eorum capitibus et induebat cos sin- majority of the bench were for punishing him