On the 20th of last October a venerable London institution changed its quarters.  Doctors’ Commons may almost be said to be no more.  Its heart is gone.  The Principal Registry of the Court of Probate—­the successor to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury—­is no longer to be found there, and those who seek their fortunes in wills have now to prosecute their researches in that hub of British departmental records, Somerset House.  The knell of “the Commons” was rung about twenty years ago, when a campaign against the abuses prevailing in the ecclesiastical courts was begun in the London Times.  It unquestionably had been the home par excellence of sinecures and monopolies, which culminated in the office of registrar of the Prerogative Court of the archbishop of Canterbury.  This office was in the gift of the archbishop, and was at the time these attacks began held by the Rev. Mr. Moore.  Mr. Moore was a member of a family which had certainly good cause to stand steadfast in the faith of the Church of England, and not to waver one inch in attachment thereto.  It may be doubted whether since its foundation any family—­we except, of course, those to whom grants were made from abbey-lands—­during the whole history of the Church has drawn such vast sums from it.  His father, a singularly fortunate man, set the ball rolling.  Having gone up to Christ Church, Oxford, as a sizar, or poor scholar, he happened about the time of taking his degree to cross the quadrangle at the moment when a nobleman of great position was asking the dean to recommend a tutor for his son.  Young Moore at that moment caught the very reverend functionary’s eye.  There is the very man, thought he.  He called him up, presented him to the peer, and an engagement was made.  In those days the patronage of a powerful peer was a ready road to preferment.  Young Moore gave satisfaction to his noble patron, and was pushed up the ecclesiastical tree until he reached its topmost branch, being created in 1783 archbishop of Canterbury.  In 1770 he formed a very judicious marriage with Miss Eden.  This lady was sister of Sir Robert Eden, governor of Maryland in 1776 (who married the sister and co-heir of the last Lord Baltimore), and of the first Lord Auckland, whom George III. very justly stigmatized as “that eternal intriguer.”  To the “eternal intriguer” the elevation of Moore to the archbishopric was probably mainly due.  Lord Auckland was for many years as intimate a friend as Pitt ever had, and his daughter (afterward countess of Buckinghamshire) is the great minister’s only recorded love.  For twenty-three years Dr. Moore filled the archbishopric, and in those days it was a far better thing pecuniarily than it is now.  He made hay whilst the sun shone, and then and for long after did his relatives bask in the sun.  Registrarships, canonries and livings fell upon them in rich profusion, and the great prize of all, the registrarship of the Prerogative Court of the archbishop of Canterbury, fell to the luckiest of the lot.