We will consider the Serjeant-at-Law in the first place in his academic character, in which he might rank as a B.C.L. or as a Doctor Legum, though this is not quite what we intended by graduation. Law, like the other liberal professions, has always been regardful of outward and visible signs. This being so, we trust we have committed no very serious sin of plagiarism in borrowing as the heading of this chapter the title of a well-known work by Serjeant Pulling, one of the last survivors of the order. At any rate, the plagiarism is open and avowed. Though the most significant, the coif was not the only exterior note of the Serjeant, in contradistinction to the laymen; and, in order to show how he appeared, when in full professional attire, we think we cannot do better than quote from a fifteenth-century lawyer, one of our greatest authorities on such matters--Serjeant Fortescue. Writing about 1467, he says of his class that they were "clothed in a long robe, priest-like, with a furred cape about the shoulders; and therefrom a hood with two labels, such as Doctors use to wear in certain Universities, with the above-described quoyf." The "long robe"--the proverbial emblem of the legal profession--evidently corresponds with the cassock, the "furred cape" to the tippet, and the "labels" probably belonged, not, as Fortescue seems to intimate, to the hood, but were rather the strings of the coif, which were the attribute of Doctors of Laws. Here we have all the marks of graduation--that is, the process necessary for the lawful exercise of a learned calling--and graduation might be equally accomplished in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of Court. As regards the remainder of his dress, the Serjeant-at-Law might pass for a Master of Arts or a Bachelor of Divinity. The distinguishing feature is the coif, and, wherever it is discovered, it may be safely accepted as a criterion. Thus in Gosfield Church, Essex, there is an interesting brass of Thomas Rolf (d. 1440), who is represented as wearing a cassock, sleeved tabard, tippet, hood, and coif. The last-mentioned forms a circle round the head, and attached to it are two loops or lappets, which appear below the hood. Boutell has figured this brass, which he states to be that of a serjeant-at-law. The inscription, which has the words _legi professus_, already pointed to that conclusion, Rolf being devoted to law, as, under the circumstances, he might have been devoted to religion.