CHAPTER XXX. The Knights of the Temple
Colleges, schools, and inns of courts still have some respect forantiquity, and maintain a great number of the customs and institutionsof our ancestors, with which those persons who do not particularlyregard their forefathers, or perhaps are not very well acquainted withthem; have long since done away. A well-ordained workhouse or prisonis much better provided with the appliances of health, comfort, andcleanliness, than a respectable Foundation School a venerable College,or a learned Inn. In the latter place of residence men are contented tosleep in dingy closets, and to pay for the sitting-room and the cupboardwhich is their dormitory, the price of a good villa and garden in thesuburbs, or of a roomy house in the neglected squares of the town. Thepoorest mechanic in Spitalfields has a cistern and an unbounded suppyof water at his command; but the gentlemen of the inns of court, andthe gentlemen of the universities, have their supply of this cosmeticfetched in jugs by laundresses and bedmakers, and live in abodes whichwere erected long before the custom of cleanliness and decency obtainedamong us. There are individuals still alive who sneer at the people andspeak of them with epithets of scorn. Gentlemen, there can be but littledoubt that your ancestors were the Great Unwashed: and in the Templeespecially, it is pretty certain, that only under the greatestdifficulties and restrictions the virtue which has been pronounced to benext to godliness could have been practised at all.
Old Grump, of the Norfolk Circuit, who had lived for more than thirtyyears in the chambers under those occupied by Warrington and Pendennis,and who used to be awakened by the roaring of the shower-baths whichthose gentlemen had erected in their apartments--a part of the contentsof which occasionally trickled through the roof into Mr. Grump'sroom,--declared that the practice was an absurd, newfangled, dandifiedfolly, and daily cursed the laundress who slopped the staircase by whichhe had to pass. Grump, now much more than half a century old, had indeednever used the luxury in question. He had done without water very well,and so had our fathers before him. Of all those knights and baronets,lords and gentlemen, bearing arms, whose escutcheons are paintedupon the walls of the famous hall of the Upper Temple, was there nophilanthropist good-natured enough to devise a set of Hummums for thebenefit of the lawyers, his fellows and successors? The Temple historianmakes no mention of such a scheme. There is Pump Court and FountainCourt, with their hydraulic apparatus, but one never heard of a bencherdisporting in the fountain; and can't but think how many a counsellearned in the law of old days might have benefited by the pump.
Nevertheless, those venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag and theWinged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons whoinhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom which men alwaysremember with pleasure. I don't know whether the student of lawpermits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poeticalreminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, and says, "YonderEldon lived--upon this site Coke mused upon Littleton--here Chittytoiled--here Barnewall and Alderson joined in their famous labours--hereByles composed his great work upon bills, and Smith compiled hisimmortal leading cases--here Gustavus still toils, with Solomon to aidhim:" but the man of letters can't but love the place which has beeninhabited by so many of his brethren, or peopled by their creations asreal to us at this day as the authors whose children they were--and SirRoger de Coverley walking in the Temple Garden, and discoursing withMr. Spectator about the beauties in hoops and patches who are saunteringover the grass, is just as lively a figure to me as old Samuel Johnsonrolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels on theirway to Dr. Goldsmith's chambers in Brick Court; or Harry Fielding, withinked ruffles and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articlesat midnight for the Covent Garden Journal, while the printer's boy isasleep in the passage.
If we could but get the history of a single day as it passed in any oneof those four-storied houses in the dingy court where our friends Penand Warrington dwelt, some Temple Asmodeus might furnish us with a queervolume. There may be a great parliamentary counsel on the ground floor,who drives off to Belgravia at dinner-time, when his clerk, too, becomesa gentleman, and goes away to entertain his friends, and to take hispleasure. But a short time since he was hungry and briefless in somegarret of the Inn; lived by stealthy literature; hoped, and waited, andsickened, and no clients came; exhausted his own means and his friends'kindness; had to remonstrate humbly with duns, and to implore thepatience of poor creditors. Ruin seemed to be staring him in the face,when, behold, a turn of the wheel of fortune, and the lucky wretch inpossession of one of those prodigious prizes which are sometimes drawnin the great lottery of the Bar. Many a better lawyer than himself doesnot make a fifth part of the income of his clerk, who, a few monthssince, could scarcely get credit for blacking for his master's unpaidboots. On the first floor, perhaps, you will have a venerable man whosename is famous, who has lived for half a century in the Inn, whosebrains are full of books, and whose shelves are stored with classicaland legal lore. He has lived alone all these fifty years, alone and forhimself, amassing learning, and compiling a fortune. He comes home nowat night alone from the club, where he has been dining freely, to thelonely chambers where he lives a godless old recluse. When he dies, hisInn will erect a tablet to his honour, and his heirs burn a part of hislibrary. Would you like to have such a prospect for your old age, tostore up learning and money, and end so? But we must not linger too longby Mr. Doomsday's door. Worthy Mr. Grump lives over him, who is also anancient inhabitant of the Inn, and who, when Doomsday comes home to readCatullus, is sitting down with three steady seniors of his standing,to a steady rubber at whist, after a dinner at which they have consumedtheir three steady bottles of Port. You may see the old boys asleep atthe Temple Church of a Sunday. Attorneys seldom trouble them, andthey have small fortunes of their own. On the other side of the thirdlanding, where Pen and Warrington live, till long after midnight, sitsMr. Paley, who took the highest honours, and who is a fellow of hiscollege, who will sit and read and note cases until two o'clock in themorning; who will rise at seven and be at the pleader's chambers as soonas they are open, where he will work until an hour before dinner-time;who will come home from Hall and read and note cases again untildawn next day, when perhaps Mr. Arthur Pendennis and his friend Mr.Warrington are returning from some of their wild expeditions. Howdifferently employed Mr. Paley has been! He has not been throwinghimself away: he has only been bringing a great intellect laboriouslydown to the comprehension of a mean subject, and in his fierce grasp ofthat, resolutely excluding from his mind all higher thoughts, all betterthings, all the wisdom of philosophers and historians, all the thoughtsof poets; all wit, fancy, reflection, art, love, truth altogether--sothat he may master that enormous legend of the law, which he proposesto gain his livelihood by expounding. Warrington and Paley had beencompetitors for university honours in former days, and had run eachother hard; and everybody said now that the former was wasting his timeand energies, whilst all people praised Paley for his industry. Theremay be doubts, however, as to which was using his time best. The onecould afford time to think, and the other never could. The one couldhave sympathies and do kindnesses; and the other must needs be alwaysselfish. He could not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or admirea work of genius, or kindle at the sight of beauty or the sound of asweet song--he had no time, and no eyes for anything but his law-books.All was dark outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (whichis the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God)were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night,he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went tosleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met hisold companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that wasdoomed to perdition.
It may have been the sight of that cadaverous ambition andself-complacent meanness, which showed itself in Paley's yellow face,and twinkled in his narrow eyes, or it may have been a natural appetitefor pleasure and joviality, of which it must
be confessed Mr. Pen wasexceedingly fond, which deterred that luckless youth from pursuinghis designs upon the Bench or the Woolsack with the ardour, or rathersteadiness, which is requisite in gentlemen who would climb to thoseseats of honour. He enjoyed the Temple life with a great deal of relish:his worthy relatives thought he was reading as became a regular student;and his uncle wrote home congratulatory letters to the kind widowat Fairoaks, announcing that the lad had sown his wild oats, andwas becoming quite steady. The truth is, that it was a new sort ofexcitement to Pen, the life in which he was now engaged, and havinggiven up some of the dandified pretensions, and fine-gentleman airswhich he had contracted among his aristocratic college acquaintances,of whom he now saw but little, the rough pleasures and amusements ofa London bachelor were very novel and agreeable to him, and he enjoyedthem all. Time was he would have envied the dandies their fine horsesin Rotten Row, but he was contented now to walk in the Park and lookat them. He was too young to succeed in London society without a bettername and a larger fortune than he had, and too lazy to get on withoutthese adjuncts. Old Pendennis fondly thought he was busied with lawbecause he neglected the social advantages presented to him, and, havingbeen at half a dozen balls and evening parties, retreated before theirdulness and sameness; and whenever anybody made inquiries of the worthyMajor about his nephew the old gentleman said the young rascal wasreformed, and could not be got away from his books. But the Major wouldhave been almost as much horrified as Mr. Paley was, had he known whatwas Mr. Pen's real course of life, and how much pleasure entered intohis law studies.
A long morning's reading, a walk in the park, a pull on the river, astretch up the hill to Hampstead, and a modest tavern dinner; a bachelornight passed here or there, in joviality, not vice (for Arthur Pendennisadmired women so heartily that he never could bear the society of anyof them that were not, in his fancy at least, good and pure); a quietevening at home, alone with a friend and a pipe or two, and a humblepotation of British spirits, whereof Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress,invariably tested the quality;--these were our young gentleman'spursuits, and it must be owned that his life was not unpleasant. Interm-time, Mr. Pen showed a most praiseworthy regularity in performingone part of the law-student's course of duty, and eating his dinnersin Hall. Indeed, that Hall of the Upper Temple is a sight notuninteresting, and with the exception of some trifling improvements andanachronisms which have been introduced into the practice there, aman may sit down and fancy that he joins in a meal of the seventeenthcentury. The bar have their messes, the students their tables apart;the benchers sit at the high table on the raised platform surrounded bypictures of judges of the law and portraits of royal personages who havehonoured its festivities with their presence and patronage. Pen lookedabout, on his first introduction, not a little amused with the scenewhich he witnessed. Among his comrades of the student class therewere gentlemen of all ages, from sixty to seventeen; stout grey-headedattorneys who were proceeding to take the superior dignity,--dandiesand men about town who wished for some reason to be barristers of sevenyears' standing,--swarthy, black-eyed natives of the Colonies, who cameto be called here before they practised in their own islands,--and manygentlemen of the Irish nation, who make a sojourn in Middle TempleLane before they return to the green country of their birth. There werelittle squads of reading students who talked law all dinner-time; therewere rowing men, whose discourse was of sculling matches, the Red House,Vauxhall and the Opera; there were others great in politics, and oratorsof the students' debating clubs; with all of which sets, except thefirst, whose talk was an almost unknown and a quite uninterestinglanguage to him, Mr. Pen made a gradual acquaintance, and had manypoints of sympathy.
The ancient and liberal Inn of the Upper Temple provides in its Hall,and for a most moderate price, an excellent wholesome dinner of soup,meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the barristers and studentswho attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged in messesof four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg of mutton,its sufficient apple-pie and its bottle of wine. But the honest habituesof the hall, amongst the lower rank of students, who have a tastefor good living, have many harmless arts by which they improve theirbanquet, and innocent 'dodges' (if we may be permitted to use anexcellent phrase that has become vernacular since the appearance of thelast dictionaries) by which they strive to attain for themselves moredelicate food than the common every-day roast meat of the students'tables.
"Wait a bit," said Mr. Lowton, one of these Temple gourmands. "Wait abit," said Mr. Lowton, tugging at Pen's gown--"the side-tables are veryfull, and there's only three benchers to eat ten dishes--if we wait,perhaps we shall get something from their table." And Pen looked withsome amusement, as did Mr. Lowton with eyes of fond desire, towards thebenchers' high table, where three old gentlemen were standing up beforea dozen silver dish-covers, while the clerk was quavering out a grace.
Lowton was great in the conduct of the dinner. His aim was to manage soas to be the first, a captain of the mess, and to secure for himselfthe thirteenth glass of the bottle of port wine. Thus he would have thecommand of the joint on which he operated his favourite cuts, and maderapid dexterous appropriations of gravy, which amused Pen infinitely.Poor Jack Lowton! thy pleasures in life were very harmless; an eagerepicure, thy desires did not go beyond eighteen pence.
Pen was somewhat older than many of his fellow-students, and there wasthat about his style and appearance, which, as we have said, was ratherhaughty and impertinent, that stamped him as a man of ton--very unlikethose pale students who were talking law to one another, and thoseferocious dandies, in rowing shirts and astonishing pins and waistcoats,who represented the idle part of the little community. The humble andgood-natured Lowton had felt attracted by Pen's superior looks andpresence--and had made acquaintance with him at the mess by opening theconversation.
"This is boiled-beef day, I believe, sir," said Lowton to Pen.
"Upon my word, sir, I'm not aware," said Pen, hardly able to contain hislaughter, but added, "I'm a stranger; this is my first term;" on whichLowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall.
"That's Boosey the bencher, the bald one sitting under the picture andaving soup; I wonder whether it's turtle? They often ave turtle. Nextis Balls, the King's Counsel, and Swettenham--Hodge and Swettenham, youknow. That's old Grump, the senior of the bar; they say he's dined hereforty years. They often send 'em down their fish from the benchers tothe senior table. Do you see those four fellows seated opposite us?Those are regular swells--tip-top fellows, I can tell you--Mr. Trail,the Bishop of Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbar'sbrother, you know. He'll have a good place, I bet any money; and BobSuckling, who's always with him--a high fellow too. Ha! ha!" Here Lowtonburst into a laugh.
"What is it?" said Pen, still amused.
"I say, I like to mess with those chaps," Lowton said, winking his eyeknowingly, and pouring out his glass of wine.
"And why?" asked Pen.
"Why! they don't come down here to dine, you know, they only makebelieve to dine. They dine here, Law bless you! They go to some of theswell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names inthe Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. Why, I bet anythingthat Ringwood has his cab, or Trail his Brougham (he's a devil of afellow, and makes the bishop's money spin, I can tell you) at the cornerof Essex Street at this minute. They dine! They won't dine these twohours, I dare say."
"But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't eat anydinner?" Pen asked, still puzzled. "There's plenty, isn't there?"
"How green you are," said Lowton. "Excuse me, but you are green. Theydon't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets the bottle tohimself if he likes it when he messes with those three chaps. That's whyCorkoran got in with 'em."
"Ah, Mr. Lowton, I see you are a sly fellow," Pen said, delighted withhis acquaintance: on which the other modestly replied, that he had livedin London the better part of his life, and of course had his eyes abo
uthim; and went on with his catalogue to Pen.
"There's a lot of Irish here," he said; "that Corkoran's one, andI can't say I like him. You see that handsome chap with the blueneck-cloth, and pink shirt, and yellow waistcoat, that's another; that'sMolloy Maloney of Ballymaloney, and nephew to Major-General Sir HectorO'Dowd, he, he," Lowton said, trying to imitate the Hibernianaccent. "He's always bragging about his uncle; and came into Hall insilver-striped trousers the day he had been presented. That other nearhim, with the long black hair, is a tremendous rebel. By Jove, sir, tohear him at the Forum it makes your blood freeze; and the next is anIrishman, too, Jack Finucane, reporter of a newspaper. They all sticktogether, those Irish. It's your turn to fill your glass. What? youwon't have any port? Don't like port with your dinner? Here's yourhealth." And this worthy man found himself not the less attached toPendennis because the latter disliked port wine at dinner.
It was while Pen was taking his share of one of these dinners with hisacquaintance Lowton as the captain of his mess, that there came to jointhem a gentleman in a barrister's gown, who could not find a seat, as itappeared, amongst the persons of his own degree, and who strode over thetable and took his place on the bench where Pen sate. He was dressed inold clothes and a faded gown, which hung behind him, and he wore a shirtwhich, though clean, was extremely ragged, and very different tothe magnificent pink raiment of Mr. Molloy Maloney, who occupieda commanding position in the next mess. In order to notify theirappearance at dinner, it is the custom of the gentlemen who eat in theUpper Temple Hall to write down their names upon slips of paper, whichare provided for that purpose, with a pencil for each mess. Lowton wrotehis name first, then came Arthur Pendennis, and the next was that ofthe gentleman in the old clothes. He smiled when he saw Pen's name,and looked at him. "We ought to know each other," he said. "We're bothBoniface men; my name's Warrington."
"Are you St---- Warrington?" Pen said, delighted to see this hero.
Warrington laughed--"Stunning Warrington--yes," he said, "I recollectyou in your freshman's term. But you appear to have quite cut me out."
"The college talks about you still," said Pen, who had a generousadmiration for talent and pluck. "The bargeman you thrashed, Bill Simes,don't you remember, wants you up again at Oxbridge. The Miss Notleys,the haberdashers----"
"Hush!" said Warrington--"glad to make your acquaintance, Pendennis.Heard a good deal about you."
The young men were friends immediately, and at once deep incollege-talk. And Pen, who had been acting rather the fine gentleman ona previous day, when he pretended to Lowton that he could not drink portwine at dinner, seeing Warrington take his share with a great deal ofgusto, did not scruple about helping himself any more, rather to thedisappointment of honest Lowton. When the dinner was over, Warringtonasked Arthur where he was going.
"I thought of going home to dress, and hear Grisi in Norma," Pen said.
"Are you going to meet anybody there?" he asked.
Pen said, "No--only to hear the music," of which he was fond.
"You had much better come home and smoke a pipe with me," saidWarrington,--"a very short one. Come, I live close by in Lamb Court, andwe'll talk over Boniface and old times."
They went away; Lowton sighed after them. He knew Warrington wasa baronet's son, and he looked up with simple reverence to all thearistocracy. Pen and Warrington became sworn friends from that night.Warrington's cheerfulness and jovial temper, his good sense, his roughwelcome, and his never-failing pipe of tobacco, charmed Pen, who foundit more pleasant to dive into shilling taverns with him, than to dinein solitary state amongst the silent and polite frequenters of thePolyanthus.
Ere long Pen gave up the lodgings in St. James's, to which he hadmigrated on quitting his hotel, and found it was much more economical totake up his abode with Warrington in Lamb Court, and furnish and occupyhis friend's vacant room there. For it must be said of Pen, that no manwas more easily led than he to do a thing, when it was a novelty, orwhen he had a mind to it. And Pidgeon, the youth, and Flanagan, thelaundress, divided their allegiance now between Warrington and Pen.
The History of Pendennis Page 32