The Walnut, probably a native of Persia, is thought to have been introduced in Europe by the Greeks. It found its way early to Rome-Horace and Virgil allude to it,—and very probably this tree was brought to England by the Romans.

We have not yet mentioned the Ash-a tree which, though yielding in vastness and circumference of trunk to many of our ancient oaks, frequently towers in height above the herculean monarch of the woods. In the Arboretum Britannicum many ash-trees are mentioned varying from twenty to thirty feet in circumference of trunk, and attaining from seventy to even a hundred feet in height. The Ash is not so slow in growth as the oak. The great ash at Carnock, planted in 1596, is thirtyone feet in circumference, and ninety in height. The great ash at Woburn is also remarkable, but not so large in its dimensions.

But here we must stop, or the dimensions of our paper will grow beyond all customary bounds. We have spoken of the sylvan celebrities that adorn our parks and ancient woods rather than of trees generally; of the historical interest of particular trees rather than of the poetry and charm that belongs to these ever-magnificent objects of God's fair creation. Otherwise we might have said much of their "infinite variety" of character and aspect, contrasting the grand, massy foliage of the sycamore with the silvery leaf and plumose lightness of the willow; the dark, wide-spreading, horizontal branches of the tall cedar, of which such magnificent specimens grace the pleasure-grounds of many English noblemen in the southern counties, with the tremulous verdure of "the light, quivering aspen;" the dark, tufted foliage of the stately chestnut with the light, picturesque, pendant branches of the ash; the grand, living pyramid of the lime with the lightsome, weeping verdure of the birch-tree"lady of the woods;" the ancient, solitary gloom of the yew with the slender and aspiring poplar or the towering pine. What natural objects can be more magnificent in themselves, or give a greater charm to landscape scenery, than the English elm, with its picturesque and noble outline; the walnut, with its imposing form and lofty stature; the Wych elm, with its massive yet graceful luxuriance; the Oriental plane, with its elegant form, majestic layers of foliage, and picturesque depth of

light and shade; the noble, expansive beech-the Adonis, as it has been called, of our Sylva; or, finally, the majestic oak, so stately in growth, so massive and strong in its branches, so rich in its clustering foliage, so pre-eminent in dignity and duration amongst the sylvan lords, and which, if the ash is the Venus of the woods, may well be called the Hercules of the forest? Long may our woodlands flourish, and may their shadows never be less!

THE INNS OF COURT.

["Illustrated London News," 4 April, 1857.]

WITHIN a circle of a few hundred yards from Temple-bar, islanded by the thronged highways of traffic, and adjoining, yet apart from, the noisy thoroughfares of commerce, the old paved courts and dark quadrangles of tall houses that form the quiet colonies of the lawyers stand in their privileged seclusioncurious portions of old London that seem (in the words of our friend, Mr. Charles Dickens) to have been "left behind in the march of Time." You need only cross the threshold of their guarded ways to exchange the tumult of crowded, garish thoroughfares for quiet courts where "shadows and silence dwell;" to stand amidst quaint-looking groups of high, red-tiled houses old enough to have sheltered a Bacon and a Plowden, a Selden and a Coke; and to find things of the Past lingering as if spell-bound amongst the buildings of a by-gone age. But all is not sombre and dingy that we find within the quiet Inns of Court: for there tall elms, inhabited by birds (and those not rooks only), spread their refreshing verdure; and you may stand on grass-plots under whispering trees, while you

hear the vast sound

From the streets of the city that compass them round.

A high legal authority recently described the learned civilians in Doctors' Commons as moving in a kind of ancient twilight rather than the clear light of day, and certainly the penetralia of some of the less-favoured Inns of Court can hardly be said to possess any greater enjoyment of natural daylight; while, to the

uninitiated, their constitution and purpose appear wrapped in a mystery darker than the aspect of their ominous labyrinths. They are looked upon as provinces sacred to benchers and butlers, barristers and barbers, law-students and laundresses, pleaders and porters, solicitors and stationers, conveyancers and cooks the heterogeneous constituents of the mythic University of the Law. And if these inns present external features so unlike the rest of London, their internal privileges and polity seem equally anomalous and antiquated. An Inn of Court is supposed to be designed for a college of legal education; and its hall and chapel give collegiate and religious associations to the spot; but the public see in it only a stronghold of law and good living-an aggregation of unsavoury chambers round a savoury symposium. An Inn of Court is understood to be well endowed from olden time for promoting the study of the law; but, until lately, one looked in vain for a visible system of education. Its fine hall is, indeed, collegiate in character and capacity—but the course was found to be gastronomic rather than academic; and, as to the government of this imperium in imperio, less has been known of it than of the most distant colony of the crown. was therefore not surprising that, when Parliament recently addressed Her Majesty for inquiry into the application of their revenues, and the fulfilment of their assumed charge of legal education, the popular voice arraigned the benchers to answer for trusts broken and resources misapplied, for having sent forth their students graduated but untaught, and for having allowed their halls to become mere refectories, where

All

Bar-aspirants ate their tedious way.

It

persons acquainted with the character of the eminent men chosen to govern their respective Inns of Court felt that such accusations, however well founded, must be occasioned by the faults of a system, and were not justly attributable to any personal deficiencies in the benchers. Mr. Phillimore, the Queen's Counsel, does them no more than justice when he ascribes to them "a high feeling of honour, and a strong desire to do right. They constitute (to use the language of that learned gentleman) an excellent aristocracy; they have no conceivable

motive to go wrong; their honour and social status are involved in the honour of the profession which they watch over; they have no interest except for the general good; they are very considerate-almost too indulgent; men of highly-exercised minds, and yet not overlooking offences which the interests of society require them to notice."

A strong impression, nevertheless, prevailing in the public mind, that all sorts of abuses had crept into the administration of the Inns of Court, it was quite in accordance with the spirit of the age that the governing functionaries of this legal oligarchia should be called upon to shew what revenues they possess properly applicable to the study of law and jurisprudence, and what arrangements they have made for its promotion. Her Majesty accordingly appointed Commissioners on the 5th May, 1854, to inquire into those arrangements and revenues, and “the means most likely to secure a sound and systematic education for students, and to provide satisfactory tests of fitness for admission to the bar." The "Blue-book" now before us* contains the results of that inquiry, and their importance and interest are by no means confined to that portion of the community which is engaged in the study and practice of the law. Every Englishman has an interest in the enlightened training and due education of the advocate: to that education must be attributed the influence which lawyers exert; and upon its high character must depend the titles of the legal profession to its eminence in the estimation of mankind. For these reasons we propose, although the professional studies of the lawyers are of course foreign to our critical province, to glance at the history of the Inns of Court, and at the recommendations which the Commissioners offer with the view of improving the education of candidates for the Bar.

And-looking first at the present before we revert to the past-it is startling to learn that the income of the Inns of Court, collectively, amounts to nearly 80,000l. a-year (which sum is derived from rental of such chambers as are not appropriated by

"Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Arrangements in the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery for promoting the Study of the Law and Jurisprudence." Presented to Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1855.