Temple, are curious and remarkable. “Capitalis Justitiarius,” says an ancient MS. account of the creation of serjeants-at-law, “monstrabat eis plura bona exempla de eorum prædecessoribus, et tunc. posuit les _coyfes_ super eorum capitibus, et induebat eos singulariter de capital de skarletto, et sic creati fuerunt _servientes ad legem_.” In his admonitory exhortation, the chief-justice displays to them the moral and religious duties of their profession. “Ambulate in vocatione in quâ vocati estis.... Disce cultum Dei, _reverentiam superioris, misericordiam pauperi_.” He tells them the coif is sicut vestis _candida_ et immaculata, the emblem of purity and virtue, and he commences a portion of his discourse in the scriptural language used by the popes in the famous bull conceding to the Templars their vast spiritual and temporal privileges, “_Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est descendens a patre luminum_,” &c. &c.[185] It has been supposed that the coif was first introduced by the clerical practitioners of the common law to hide the _tonsure_ of those priests who practised in the Court of Common Pleas, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical prohibition. This was not the case. The early portraits of our judges exhibit them with a coif of very much larger dimensions than the coifs now worn by the serjeants-at-law, very much larger than would be necessary to hide the _mere clerical tonsure_. A covering for that purpose indeed would be absurd. From the inquisition into the state of the Temple, taken 10 E. III., A. D. 1337, it appears, as we have already seen, that in the time of the Knights Templars there were TWO HALLS in the Temple, the one being the hall of the knights, and the other the hall of the _freres serjens_, or serving-brethren of the order. One of these halls, the present Inner Temple Hall, had been assigned, the year previous to the taking of that inquisition, to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John, together with the church, cloisters, &c., as before mentioned, whilst the other hall remained in the hands of the crown, and was not granted to the Hospitallers until 13 E. III., A. D. 1340. It was probably soon after this period that the Hospitallers conceded the use of _both halls_ to the professors of the law, and these last, from dining apart and being attached to different halls, at last separated into two societies. When the lawyers originally came into the Temple as lessees of the earl of Lancaster, they found engraved upon the ancient buildings the armorial bearings of the order of the Temple, which were, on a shield argent, a plain cross gules, and (_brochant sur le tout_) the holy lamb bearing the banner of the order, surmounted by a red cross. These arms remained the emblem of the Temple until the fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, when unfortunately the society of the Inner Temple, yielding to the advice and persuasion of Master