the judges proceed. For example, it used to be the custom of the Common Law judges, when cases were sent to them from the Court of Chancery, to answer privately to the Chancellor. Lord Mansfield, however, in such cases delivered his opinion in open court, and gave the reasons upon which it was grounded. Lord Kenyon returned to the old custom, because (according to Lord Campbell) the Chancellor used to jeer at his reasons. Some light is thrown upon the value of Lord Eldon's reasons by the following story which he himself used to tell :-" After dinner one day, when nobody was present but Lord Kenyon and myself, Lord Thurlow said, 'Taffy, I decided a cause this morning, and I saw from Scott's face that he doubted whether I was right.' Thurlow then stated his view of the case, and Kenyon instantly said, 'Your decision was quite right.' 'What say you to that?' said the Chancellor to me. I said, 'I do not presume to form a judgment upon a case in which you both agree; but I think a fact which may be material has not been mentioned.' I was about to state the fact and my reasons. Kenyon, however, broke in upon me, and with some warmth stated that I was always obstinate, and there was no dealing with me. 'Nay,' interposed Thurlow, that is not fair. You, Taffy, are obstinate, and give no reasons; you, Jack Scott, are obstinate too, but then you give your reasons, and very bad ones they are.'

It may be difficult in some cases to arrive even at a just decision, for when both sides have been heard, the lay mind is naturally perplexed; and to give not

only a just judgment, but the reasons for it, is an ordeal which only highly-trained intellects can pass through with impunity. The advice therefore which Lord Mansfield gave to a military officer who had been appointed Governor of a West India island may be taken as exceedingly wise. It seems that the newly-appointed Governor was not unnaturally somewhat dismayed by the prospect of having to sit as Chancellor of his island and decide causes. The Chief Justice endeavoured to reassure him, saying, "There is no difficulty-only hear both sides patiently, then consider what you think justice requires, and decide accordingly; but never give your reasons, for your judgment will probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong." The sequel to this conversation was told by Lord Mansfield himself in these words :"I was two or three years afterwards sitting at the Cockpit upon plantation appeals, when there was one called from my friend and pupil, the General, which the losing party had been induced to bring on account of the ludicrously absurd reasons given for the judgment; and, indeed, they were so absurd that he incurred some suspicion of corruption, and there was a clamour for his recall. Upon examining it, however, I found that the judgment was perfectly sound and correct. On expressing a regret that my advice had been forgotten, I was told that the General, acquiring reputation by following it, began to suppose himself a great lawyer; and that this case brought before us was the first in which he had given his reasons, and was the first appealed against."

CHAPTER III.

JUDICATURE.

The Corrupt Judge: Bacon-The Incorruptible Judge: More, Hale, Eldon-The Independent Judge: Coke, Sir W. Jones, Holt, Thurlow.

It is one of the highest merits of the English judges of this century that they are above even the suspicion of a bribe. On a recent occasion an infatuated plaintiff, when under examination, expressed his belief that his solicitor had subsidised the Lord Mayor and the Common Serjeant. The information was met with an amused irony, and indeed any suggestion that an English judge is open to a bribe is only worthy of ridicule. When we glance back a few hundred years, the reality of our social progress comes forcibly home to us. In Wolsey's time "no one could hope for a favourable judgment unless his fingers were tipt with gold."

Lord Bacon, however, furnishes a glaring instance of a corrupt judge-an instance all the more remarkable because out of his lips came the most beautiful sentiments of judicial purity. In 1621 he was charged with corruption, and, the charge being made good and confessed, was sentenced to fine, degradation, and imprisonment. The charge was made by one Aubrey, who said that "having a suit pending in the Court of Chancery, and being worn out by delays, he had been

advised by his counsel to present £100 to the Chancellor, that his cause might by more than ordinary means be expedited; and that in consequence he had delivered the money to Sir George Hastings and Mr. Jenkins of Gray's Inn, by whom it was presented to his Lordship; but notwithstanding this offering, the Chancellor had pronounced a killing decree against him." Bacon seems to have tried to deceive his own mind as to the corruption of such dealings. He who would "bind even the hands of suitors from offering," and "avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion," wrote in his notes, made preparatory to an interview with the King, "The law of Nature teaches me to speak in my own defence. With respect to this charge of bribery I am as innocent as any born on St. Innocents' Day; I never had bribe or reward in my eye or thought when pronouncing sentence or order." Yet he wrote openly to the King, "For the briberies and gifts wherewith 1 am charged, when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; however, I may be frail and partake of the abuses of the times;" and, in conclusion, "I rest as clay in your Majesty's gracious hands." When the bitterness of his degradation was over, he repeatedly tried to soften the heart of the King, and even affected to jest on the subject of his offence. Once, with questionable pleasantry, he wrote:- "Because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go further, and present your Majesty with a bribe; for if your

Majesty give me peace and leisure, and God give me life, I will present you with a good History of England and a better digest of your laws." Two years after, when all hope of return to power was gone, he wrote less affectedly: "Of my offences, far be it from me to say, dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas; but I will say that I have good warrant for, they were not the greatest offenders in Israel, upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. I would live to study,

and not study to live; yet I am prepared for date obolum Belisario, and I that have borne a bag can bear a wallet." Thus he, whose wit and wisdom have never been surpassed, either on the Bench or at the Bar, became the most signal instance of a judge degraded for meanness and corruption.

Jeffreys, when he was Chancellor, used to say, "It will be found that I have done the part of an honest man; but as for the judges, they are most of them rogues." The general condemnation was probably just, considering that the judges were for the most part creatures of the Chancellor's promotion; but, with a strange mixture of impudence and irony, he excepted himself from the censure. It is a remarkable fact that, in the midst of the judicial corruption which prevailed under the Tudors and Stuarts, while judges systematically and notoriously took bribes from the suitors who came into their courts, the theory of judicial purity was generally accepted and publicly avowed. Lord Keeper Williams is said to have "stood upon a rule made by his own wisdom-that a judge must not pay a bribe or take a bribe," and in practice there