The ceremony of making a serjeant is or rather was a very imposing and expensive one. Connected with this ceremony, the serjeant had to give a great dinner, “like to the feast of a king’s coronation,” and which continued seven days, and he had to present gold rings, bearing some loyal motto, to every prince, duke and archbishop present, and to every earl and bishop, lord privy seal, lords chief justices, lord chief baron, every lord baron of Parliament, abbot and notable prelate, worshipful knight, master of the rolls, every justice, baron of exchequer, chamberlain, officer and clerk of the courts, each receiving a ring, convenient for his degree. And a similar token was given to friends. These rings were delivered by some friend of the new serjeant’s and who was of the standing of barrister. He was called his _colt_. Whitlock says, when the new Serjeants counted, their _colts_ delivered the rings.[153] Why they are thus called is not very clear: “_colt_,” according to Shakspeare, is a young foolish fellow. In 1 _Modern Reports, case 30_, we have a hint of “short weight.” “Seventeen serjeants being made the 14th day of November, a daye or two after Serjeant Powis, the junior of them all, coming to the King’s Bench bar, Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told him that he had something to say to him, viz.: that the rings which he and the rest of the serjeants had given weighed but eighteen shillings apiece; whereas Fortescue, in his book _De Laudibus Legum Angliæ_, says, ‘The rings given to the chief justices and to the chief baron ought to weigh twenty shillings apiece;’ and that he spoke not this expecting a recompence, but that it might not be drawn into a precedent, and that the young gentlemen there might take notice of it.” We consider the matter about serjeants’ rings sufficiently curious and interesting to allow of our adding extracts from Fortescue and Cooke: “But this you must understand,[154] that when the day appointed is come, those elect persons, among other solemnities, must keep a great dinner, like to the feast of a king’s coronation, which shall continue and last for the space of seven days, and none of those elect persons shall defray the charges growing to him about the costs of this solemnity with less expense than the sum of four hundred marks; so that the expenses which eight men so elect shall then bestow, will surmount to the sum of three thousand and two hundred marks, of which expenses one parcel shall be this: Every of them shall give rings of gold to the value of forty pounds sterling at the least; and your chancellour well remembreth, that at what time he received this state and degree, the rings which he then gave stood him in fifty pounds. For every such serjeant, at the day of his creation, useth to give unto every prince, duke and archbishop being present at that solemnity and to the Lord Chancellour and Lord Treasurer of England a ring of the value of 26_s_. 8_d_.