gates by the abbot and monks with torches, and received with great reverence. The first ejaculation of Wolsey, on greeting these holy persons, indicated his inward sense of his approaching death. "Father abbot," said he, "I am come hither to lay my bones among you;" and with much difficulty he was carried up stairs, and laid upon his death-bed, for he was now unable to walk, and his disease increased rapidly. Cavendish remitted not his last and sad attentions to his unfortunate master. After watching many hours by his bedside, the compassionate friend and attendant of Wolsey perceived that the object of his cares was likely soon to be released from his earthly troubles: yet the expiring light lingered in its socket, and the Cardinal continued to breathe until the following morning, when he seemed revived, asked for food, and confessed to one Dr. Palmes, who had for some time sedulously attended him. When this was finished, the morning was far advanced, and having, with the singular and unaccountable spirit of conjecture which is sometimes displayed by the dying, foretold the hour when his spirit should depart from its mortal tenement, he believed his end to be fast approaching. His words to Kingston, who bade him good morrow, were memorable and affecting. "I tarry," said he, "but the will and pleasure of God to render unto him my simple soul into his divine hands." He explained with great clearness the nature of his disease, which, in spite of some suspicions of his having taken poison, is credibly asserted to have been a dysentery, and alluding to the fatal tendency of that disorder; "Well, well, Master Kingston," said he, "I see the matter against me how it is framed; but if I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs." This remarkable and heartfelt reference to an existence spent upon the slippery ground of courts, in the pursuit of fallacious and unprofitable honours, affords an indication that, in his latter days at least, he had not suffered his understanding to be wholly perverted by the habits and associations of his life. After this acknowledgment, the second nature resumed the sway, and the dying Cardinal, again a courtier, besought Kingston to commend him to the king, and pressed him to remember all the communications which ever passed between them, especially touching the divorce. He manifested considerable

anxiety with respect to the progress of the Lutherans, whose rapid increase in importance and estimation he dreaded as a zealous churchman. After a long address, which, as it has been transmitted to us, shows that the native energy of his mind remained with him to the last sigh, the unequivocal and awful symptoms of death appeared on his countenance. "And even with these words," says Cavendish, who received his parting breath, "he began to draw his speech at length, and his tongue to fail; his eyes being set in his head, whose sight failed him." Then the bystanders began to remind him of Christ's passion; the abbot was summoned to administer the fifth sacrament of the Roman Catholic church, called extreme unction; and the guard were also desired to witness his last moments. The superstitious notions of the age caused the spectators of the scene to regard as a circumstance of some moment, the coincidence of Wolsey's words with the hour of his death; he expired as the clock struck eight.

The character of Wolsey, obscured by the envy of his contemporaries, and by the resentment of the three sovereigns who succeeded Henry the Eighth, has received its due tribute of commendation in later times. He was a man enlightened far beyond the period in which he lived, and calculated to advance the progress of civilization with a rapidity inconceivable to inferior minds. The strength of his understanding was only equalled by the versatility of his talents. In each of the various spheres of action allotted to him, he effected some important and beneficial change; displaying, in his course, an originality in his conceptions, which overpowered the obstacles opposed by custom and prejudice. In his legislative and political functions, he generally laboured with assiduity to promote the order and prosperity of the realm; so that, had he never suffered his private interests to interfere with his public duties, and from his clerical habits suffered his discharge of those duties to be biassed by the spirit of his order, he would have been justly deemed one of the greatest statesmen his country ever produced. As a diplomatist, it were difficult to say whether his abilities or his industry were most remarkable. The object of his political measures was to preserve that balance of power, the notion of which he probably first infused into the mind of Henry: but in

those times, general principles were much more frequently sacrificed to the passions and interests of kings and ministers, than in the present day, when a system of action is adopted in our councils, and if often erroneous, has at least the advantage of being discussed, and the chance of being dispassionately pursued. In Wolsey's foreign transactions he displayed a degree of decision, accompanied with caution, which may probably have been acquired from his insight into the cabinet of Henry the Seventh; and to this he added a more extended knowledge of political economy than any preceding minister. The league of 1518, concluded at Greenwich, under the administration of Wolsey, has been regarded as a model for all treaties for peace; and the dexterity, not unaccompanied by artifice, with which Wolsey managed the conference at Bruges, shows how great an adept he was in all the minor branches of the diplomatic art. Eclipsed as his fine qualities often were by a selfish amhition not rarely dashed with sordid propensities, they conferred on the commonweal benefits of no trivial value. To Wolsey England is indebted for the first notion of a vigorous police, and of a regular system in the administration of justice. To him she owes, in part, the superiority of her navy, to which Henry the Eighth, by his advice, directed a closer attention, treating it with a greater liberality than any of his predecessors had done. To Wolsey may be ascribed the first regular patronage of the medical art. In a more general sense, incalculable benefits may be traced to the example and encouragement given by his zeal and energy in promoting a spirit of improvement, and in rousing men from the slumber of ignorance and dull contentment in which all classes of society were at that time in some degree plunged.

In the ecclesiastical department, the merits of Wolsey are less unequivocal. It is true that he sought to promote the truest interests of the church in facilitating the means of education to its members, and enabling them to attain that sound knowledge without which power is both pernicious and unstable. But while he cherished this meritorious scheme, the immediate effects of his example were detrimental to his sacred profession, and to religion. Although his zeal did not run into acts

• Herbert, p. 75.

of persecution, yet it was generally suspected to result from ambition, and to savour far more of desire for the papal chair than of affection for the tenets of the church. In morals he was more than loose, not merely tolerating the improprieties of others, but countenancing them by his own departure from decorum. Yet some allowances are to be made for the profligate manners of the times, and for the lax notions of the great body of the clergy in those days of professed celibacy. In promoting the diffusion of science and letters, Wolsey aided the cause of virtue, ever most secure when attended by those auxiliaries, and invigorated by their natural consequence, mental employment. Wolsey was sincere and enthusiastic in his love for learning, both biblical and classical. Indifferently educated, and cast too soon into the business of life to make any great proficiency in literature himself, he is yet declared to have recalled into this country the "three learned languages, without which all learning is lame." He invited Erasmus, and other celebrated scholars to England, and selected his daily associates and his household from the same valuable class of persons.* Even before he had brought his designs regarding Oxford to maturity, he projected the establishment of seven additional lectures there, both for the promulgation of knowledge, and as a means of provision for the learned. His solicitude for the welfare of his infant college was manifested by affecting supplications to Henry for its continuance, after all his own worldly prospects seemed closed for ever.

In the personal character of Wolsey there is a mixture of magnanimity and meanness, of arrogance and of urbanity, which alternately excites contempt and admiration. For the display of qualities so opposite, his lowly origin and sudden elevation may, in some degree, account. His nature was generous and open, as the affection of his dependents testifies but he became habitually haughty and overbearing from the assumption of a rank to which he had no claim by birth, and rapacious from the indulged desire to give to that rank the lustre of unwonted magnificence and parade. The greatest vice of his character was, that he knew not to forgive. An affront to his dignity, or a sarcasm upon his weaknesses, was keenly felt, and it was bitterly re

• Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.

sented. The poet Shelton, tutor and poet laureate to Henry the Eighth, was pursued with unrelenting anger, for having indited satires upon the Cardinal, which were then deemed replete with poignancy; but in which the modern reader can with difficulty discover the sin of malice, through the veil of dulness. But Wolsey thought otherwise, or he regarded the design rather than the execution. The rash versifier died in the sanctuary of Westminster, whither he fled to escape the holy vengeance of this father of the church.

The more memorable fate of Buckingham was imputed to the wounded pride of Wolsey; and the early offence revenged upon Sir Amias Pawlet evinced, that if, in some instances, the motives of his conduct were misconstrued, the unchristian spirit attributed to it too surely sullied his character.

Wolsey left one illegitimate son, Thomas Winter, who received, through the bounty of his father, a learned education at Paris; and, by the patronage of the Cardinal, was presented to eleven benefices.* Two other children were also said to have owed their being to the Cardinal, who was charged, in the articles of his inpeachment, with having compelled Sir John Hanley to resign a farm belonging to the convent of Chester, in favour of the man that had married their mother. This statement is less certain than the other; nor is the point of any importance, except as illustrating his imperious and unscrupulous nature.

The remains of Wolsey were interred in the Abbey church of Leicester, after having been viewed by the mayor and corporation of Leicester, for the prevention of false rumours. On removing the body, it was found that he wore a shirt of haircloth next to his skin, an act of penance customary among the pious in those days; and, though indicating very false conceptions of the will of that Being who has constituted our frames for enjoyment, and who has beautifully exemplified the image of happiness in the infant state of man, this little circumstance, which was unknown to the attendants of Wolsey, proved that repentance and self-abasement were in his thoughts.

It was deemed proper that the Cardinal's corpse should be interred decorated with such vestures and ornaments as appertained to his holy offices. Thus,

Fiddes, p. 531.

attended to the last by some semblance of human grandeur, all that remained of Thomas Wolsey was deposited in the grave by torch-light, between four and five o'clock of the morning of St. Andrew's day, November 30th, 1530; the abbot and all the convent attending in solemn order, the canons singing dirges, and offering orisons.

The king, upon hearing of the death of his former favourite, is said to have expressed poignant concern, and to have declared that he would rather have lost twenty thousand pounds than so valuable a man; yet his grief did not prevent the selfish monarch from interrogating Cavendish, who conveyed to him the tidings, with some anxiety, about a sum of fifteen hundred pounds due to him from Wolsey; nor could his regard for the memory of a distinguished subject induce him to give it the just and even accustomed honours. Cardinal's college, the glory of Wolsey, was assigned to a new patron, the monarch himself; and his monument, prepared by his own orders, and designed by Benedetto, a famous Florentine sculptor, was seized by Henry, who left the tomb of his renowned minister destitute and obscure.

The

It is impossible to close the page of history on which we have been meditating, without marking a circumstance calculated to give the personal character of the bold, able, and unprincipled man, whose story lies before us, a kind of interest that, strictly speaking, belongs not to it, we mean the contrast presented by his royal master. When, revolted by the Cardinal's unbearable haughtiness, or disgusted with his meanness, we turn to the king and find 1.im clothed in all his minister's worst vices, and glaring with all his own, unredeemed by a single virtuous or amiable quality, we at once acknowledge that a more hateful tyrant has scarcely ever cursed any country whose sins he was suffered to chasten, and feel disposed to dwell upon Wolsey's talents as a mitigation of his faults. This feeling is softened into something like pity, when we reflect on the black ingratitude that worked his ruin; we are fair to admit that his fall was effected by almost the only hand which had no right to rise against him; and we retire with the impression, that no one portion of his character claims more of our reprehension than his unhesitating, undeviating subserviency to his imperious

master.

Ir has often been observed, that the biography of those men who have enlightened or entertained the world by their writings, is barren of incident, and devoid of interest. But this, like all other general remarks, is subject to many exceptions. Besides the numerous instances of authors, whose lives have been chequered with variety of adventure, and frequent change of fortune, history, both ancient and modern, furnishes abundant examples of illustrious philosophers, and poets, and historians, who, while their leisure moments have been devoted to study, have nevertheless borne an active and a conspicuous part in the passing events of their time. As the life of every one who has taken a share in public affairs, must necessarily partake in a great degree of the interest attached to whatever is connected with them; and as it has almost invariably happened, that the most eminent individuals in every department of literature and science have flourished during periods the most pregnant with important or extraordinary circumstances, the biography of such of them as have stood forward on the stage of public life can seldom fail to be both interesting and instructive. The life of the great lawyer who is the subject of the following memoir, is an instance corroborative of this observation. The profession to which he devoted himself is one that, in this country, generally obliges those who attain very considerable eminence in it, to occupy a conspicuous station in the political community; and the exercise of their public duties is for the most part connected with those most important of all objects, the civil liberties, the rights and immunities of their countrymen. The period during which he lived, comprises the greater part of the reign of Elizabeth; the whole reign of James I; and part of that of Charles I; a space of time peculiarly memorable in the history of the English constitution, since during its continuance the prerogative of the crown was exerted and enforced with that intemperate want of forbearance, which afterwards caused its complete overthrow. These circumstances are sufficient to compensate for the want of personal incident and adventure.

Edward Coke was the descendant of an ancient and honourable family of Norfolk. He was born at Mileham, in that county; (1550 ;) and his father, who was himself a barrister of some eminence, dying while he was still young, he was at an early age left heir to a considerable fortune. Fortunately, however, his wealth did not eventually prevent him from embarking in the same honourable but laborious profession his parent had adopted. The bar was at that time considered, much more so than it is at present, a pursuit peculiarly adapted to the aristocracy; and whether there were more of ambition or of assiduity among their youth than they have been wont to display of late years, it certainly was then by no means uncommon to find men born to the enjoyment of ample fortunes devoting themselves to the study and the practice of the law, with no less zeal and perseverance than the keenest necessity could have stimulated them to exercise.

Coke was not poor, but he possessed a mind capable of the closest application, and ambition to render him assiduous in any pursuit that held out to him hopes of honour and preferment.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the particulars of Coke's education, as it does not appear that he was distinguished for any of the precocity of talent, or that his boyhood was attended with any of those uncommon circumstances, which sometimes give celebrity to the early years of remarkable men. After remaining a sufficient time at the free school of Norwich, where he had been sent at the age of ten years, he became a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, about the same time that the celebrated Doctor Whitgift was appointed master. There he resided during nearly four years; and having taken the degree of bachelor of arts, he afterwards proceeded to London for the purpose of studying the law as a profession. According to the general custom of that time, which required a student to go through a noviciate of some length in one of the inns of Chancery, previous to his admission as a member of either of the great inns of court, Coke was first enrolled among the students of Clifford's Inn, before his name was entered on the books of the Inner Temple.

B

Here he shortly distinguished himself by his assiduity and his rapid proficiency in study, which the frequent mootings and other academical exercises then practised in the inns of court gave him an opportunity of displaying to his seniors. Such public lectures and examinations, besides being capable of affording some assistance to those who were thrown without a guide among the intricacies of an abstruse study, had the advantage of bringing into notice many whose professional attainments might otherwise long have remained unknown. They have now for many years past been discontinued. Lord Keeper Guildford being represented by his entertaining biographer, Roger North, as the last person who regarded them in any other light than that of antiquated ceremonies; and, indeed, it appears, that even in Coke's time they were beginning to be much neglected; though this is a circumstance that he often laments in his writings.

It is much to be regretted that we have no detailed account of Coke's early studies in his profession; but we may gather from his occasional remarks on the subject, that he considered the time a young lawyer devoted to his profession might be best divided between attendance on the courts, or public lectures, and private reading."I would advise our student," he says in one place," that when he shall be enabled and armed to set upon the year bookes, or reports of law, that he be furnished with all the whole course of the law, that when he heareth a case vouched and applyed either in Westminster Hall, (where it is necessary for him to be a diligent hearer, and observer of cases of law,) or at readings or other exercises of learning, he may finde out and read the case so vouched; for that will both fasten it in his memory, and be to him as good as an exposition of that case. But that must not hinder his timely and orderly reading, which (all excuses set apart) he must bind himselfe unto; for there be two things to be avoyded by him, as enemies to learning, præpostera lectio and præpropera praxis." It is to be supposed that it was thus he himself acquired that fund of legal knowledge, for which he was remarkable even while he continued a student. In this capacity he remained during six years; after which time, in consideration of his

great proficiency in the law, he was permitted to be called to the bar, though the usual period of probation was then eight years. The flattering compliment thus paid by the heads of his profession to his learning and talents was of itself a sufficient recommendation to ensure him early opportunities for bringing himself further into notice. Accordingly we find him engaged as counsel in a case of some importance so early as 1578, that is, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. He was also appointed reader or lecturer at Lyon's Inn, an office which he held during three years; and his readings, (which were not given, as it is usual to give them at present, merely for the sake of observing an antiquated form,) were so assiduously attended, and so generally admired, that he rapidly attained a degree of repute much greater than that of any other barrister of the same age and standing at the bar. His practice, in consequence, daily increased; and he was at length retained as counsel in almost every cause of importance that was tried in Westminster Hall. He became recorder of the cities of Norwich and Coventry, then solicitor to the queen, and afterwards attorney-general. His career was equally successful in parliament. He was returned by the freeholders of Norfolk as knight of the shire; and in 1592 was made speaker of the House of Commons.

The increase of his fortune, which, it has been already mentioned, was originally considerable, more than kept pace with his preferment. Soon after he had been called to the bar, he had contracted a marriage with a lady of the ancient and highly connected family of the Paston's; and he received with her a fortune, such as was considered at that time a very large one, no less a sum than thirty thousand pounds. After her death, which occurred while he was attorney-general, he formed another no less advantageous alliance (1598) with the daughter of the celebrated Lord Burleigh. This lady, who was the widow of Sir William Hatton, also brought him a considerable addition to his property, as well as to his consequence; but his marriage with her was not productive of domestic happiness. The celebration of the ceremony involved the parties in some difficulty. Notwithstanding the seve rity with which Archbishop Whitgift