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palace"; for it is clear that the guests would not otherwise have had elbow-room.* Fabyan relates in his Chronicle that Henry VII. in the ninth year of his reign kept a royal feast there; and the same king used the Hall for certain entertainments, under the name of "disguisyngs," which were exhibited to the people at Christmas. We have the following proof that they were provided or assisted by the Government: an entry occurs in the Issue Roll of a payment of 281. 38. 5 d. (a large sum in those days) to Richard Daland, "for providing certain spectacles or theatres, commonly called scaffolds," for these performances.‡

The royal ceremonies and entertainments, however, nor the legal solemnities to which Westminster Hall was devoted, did not exempt it or its occupiers from the calamities to which inferior buildings and ordinary mortals are liable. Many were the occasions when pestilence, or plague, or sweating sickness, necessitated the adjournment of the Terms, and even the entire desertion of the Hall. Instances of adjournment on that account occur in 1434 in Henry VI.'s reign, and again in 1482 in that of Edward IV. On this account the courts were held at St. Albans in the 26th year of Henry VIII., and at Walden in the 35th year of the same king. In the reign of Elizabeth there were frequent recurrences of similar visitations, the courts being sometimes held at Hertford, and sometimes at St. Albans. Beaumont and Fletcher allude to the

* Stow's London (Thoms' ed.) 173.

† Fabyan's Chronicle, 685.

Devon's Issue Roll, 516.

latter fact when, in their play of "Wit without Money," they make Lance speak of

"Taverns wither'd

As though the Term lay at St. Albans."

During the Great Plague of 1665 the Term was held at Oxford and at Windsor.

The Hall also was visited by the calamity of fire. Archbishop Laud in his Diary records that on Sunday, February 20, 1630-1, the hall was found on fire "by the burning of the little shops or stalls kept therein." It was soon extinguished, and the damage quickly repaired.

Inundations of the Thames also occasionally flooded the Hall. Holinshed mentions two in the reign of Henry III., in 1237, when he says boats might have been rowed up and down, and in 1242, when no one could get into the Hall, except they were set on horseback. He records another, 300 years after, in the reign of Queen Mary, when the Hall was flooded "unto the stair-foot, going to the Chancerie and King's Bench, so that when the Lord Maior of London should come to present the sheriffs to the Barons of the Exchequer, all Westminster Hall was full of water." * These visitations were repeated in the last century, in 1735 and 1791; and even so lately as 1841. The rising of the tide on those occasions gave abundant opportunity for the utterance of legal witticisms. In reference to one of these, Henry Fielding, in his dramatic satire of "Pasquin " makes Law say,

*Holinshed, ii. 380, 399; iv. 80.

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A mighty deluge swam into our Hall,

As if it meant to wash away the Law:
Lawyers were forc'd to ride on porters' shoulders;
One, O prodigious omen! tumbled down,

And he and all his briefs were sous'd together."

The jocular poet, no doubt, did not seriously think that his watery "omen" really portended the "washing away of the law" from Westminster Hall; and we can fancy how his indignant verse would flow were he to witness the great clearance to which his favourite fane is doomed-by neither pestilence, fire, nor inundation. In a few short years the lawyers will be expelled from their ancient haunts,-the religio loci must be abjured,-and the worshippers must resort to another temple. However magnificent the new structure may be in its exterior, or however convenient in its internal arrangements, it will strike the present ministrants of the law with far less admiration than the venerable sanctuary in which they paid their earliest adorations; and it will afford them a perpetual subject of invidious comparison in their intercourse with the novices of the profession. Such feelings are natural, for who can look back to a period of nearly 800 years, during which Westminster Hall has been devoted to its present objects, without acknowledging a degree of veneration towards the eminent judges who have presided there, and an affectionate reminiscence of the eloquent advocates who have pleaded before them.

But we need not fear that the connection between Westminster Hall and the law will ever be forgotten.

Memory will call to mind the sages who have adorned it, and tradition will still remain. Let us hope that when the new Palace of Justice, so long demanded by the necessities of the times, shall be erected, a succession of able judges will emulate their venerable predecessors, and, with the learning, intelligence, and integrity of future aspirants at the bar, will secure for the new fane as much respect and reverence in times. to come, as in times past was attained by Westminster Hall.

IV.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE.

BY JOSEPH BURTT,

ASSISTANT KEEPER OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS.

DURING the last few years I have given some notices. of the Records of the places in which the Institute has held its meetings.

When, however, it was decided that this year's meeting should be held in the metropolis, which owns the most extensive and valuable collection of municipal documents in the kingdom, and which is the depository of the archives of the realm, I felt that my very slight acquaintance with the one collection would remove it from any attempt on my part to present any comments upon it to the consideration of the meeting. It was the hope of those who take the most interest and some trouble in preparing material for these assemblies, that the many illustrations of our history and domestic manners, of the progress of municipal institutions, and the vicissitudes of City life as shown by City records, would have been brought before us by the aid of one who has already done such good service to the subject in his able editorship of that remarkable volume, the "Liber Albus." That hope,

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