succeeded; but he that takes upon him to write, doth captivate all the faculties and powers both of his mind and body, and must be only attentive to that which he collecteth, without any expression of joy or cheerfulness whilst he is at his work."* His passion He had a passionate attachment to his own calling, and he was fully convinced that the blessing ate love of his of heaven was specially bestowed on those who followed it. Thus he addresses the young profession. beginner: "For thy comfort and encouragement, cast thine eyes upon the sages of the law that have been before thee, and never shalt thou find any that hath excelled in the knowledge of the laws but hath sucked from the breasts of that divine knowledge, honesty, gravity, and integrity, and, by the goodness of God, hath obtained a greater blessing and ornament than any other profession to their family and posterity. It is an undoubted truth, that the just shall flourish as the palm tree and spread abroad as the cedars of Lebanus. Hitherto, I never saw any man of a loose and lawless life attain to any sound and perfect knowledge of the said laws; and on the other side, I never saw any man of excellent 'judgment in the laws but was withal (being taught by such a master) honest, faithful, and virtuous." Wherefore," he says, 66 66 a great lawyer never dies improlis aut intestatus, and his posterity continue to flourish to distant generations.”† In his old age he agreed with the Puritans, but he continued to support the Established Church; and, a great peer threatening to dispute the rights of the Dean and Chapter of Norwich, he stopped him by saying, "If you proceed, I will put on my cap and gown, and follow the cause through Westminster Hall." From his large estates he had considerable ecclesiastical patronage, which he always exercised with perfect purity, saying, in the professional jargon of which he was so fond, "Livings ought to pass by Livery and Seisin, and not by Bargain and Sale." § * Epilogue to 4th Institute. + See Preface to "Second Report." Lloyd's State Worthies, p. 825. He tried to carry a law that on every presentation the patron should be sworn against simony, as well as the incumbent.-Roger Coke's Vindication, p. 266. The distri time. He certainly was a very religious, moral, and temperate man, although he was suspected of giving to Law a considerable portion of bution of his those hours which, in the distribution of time, he professed to allot to PRAYER and the MUSES, according to his favourite Cantilena,——— 6 "Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis, Quatuor orabis, des epulisque duas, Quod superest ultra sacris largire camoenis."* His style of His usual style of living was plain, yet he could give very handsome entertainments. Lord Bacon tells us that "he was wont to say, when a living. great man came to dinner at his house unexpectedly, Sir, since you sent me no notice of your coming, you must dine with me; but, if I had known of it in due time, I would have dined with you.'"+ He once had the honour of giving a dinner to Queen Elizabeth, and she made him a present of a gilt bowl and cover on the christening of one of his children; but he was never very anxious about the personal favour of the sovereign, and he considered it among the felicities of his lot that he had obtained his preferments nec precibus, nec pretio. Notwithstanding his independence, King James had an excellent opinion of him, and, having failed in his attempts to disgrace him, used to say, "Whatever way that man falls, he is sure to alight on his legs." Sir Edward Coke was a handsome man, and was very neat in his dress, as we are quaintly informed by Lloyd: "The jewel of his mind was put into a fair His habits and manners. case, a beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls."* "The neatness of outward apparel," he himself used to say, "reminds us that all ought to be clean within."† The only amusement in which he indulged was a game of bowls; but, for the sake of his health, he took daily exercise either in walking or riding, and, till turned of eighty, he never had known any illness except one slight touch of the gout. Contempo rary testi favour. 66 His temper appears to have been bad, and he gave much offence by the arrogance of his manners. He was unamiable in domestic life; and the monies in his wonder rather is, that Lady Hatton agreed to marry him, than that she refused to live with him. Nor does he seem to have formed a friendship with any of his contemporaries. Yet they speak of him with respect, if not with fondness. He was," said Spelman, "the founder of our legal storehouse, and, which his rivals must confess, though their spleen should burst by reason of it, the head of our jurisprudence." Camden declared that "he had highly obliged both his own age and posterity;"§ and Fuller prophesied that he would be admired "while Fame has a trumpet left her, and any breath to blow therein.” || Modern writers have treated him harshly. For example, Hallam, after saying truly that he was "proud and overbearing," describes him as "a flatterer and tool of the Court till he had obtained his ends."¶ * Worthies, ii. 297. There are many portraits and old engravings of him extant,-almost all representing him in his judicial robes, -and exhibiting features which, according to the rules of physiognomy, do not indicate high genius. Rel. Spel. p. 150. He is unjustly cen Hallam. But he does not seem at all to have mixed in politics till, at the request of Burleigh, he consented to become a law officer of the Crown; and although, in that capacity, he unduly stretched sured by the prerogative, he at no time betrayed any symptom of sycophancy or subserviency. From the moment when he was placed on the bench, his public conduct was irreproachable. Our Constitutional Historian is subsequently obliged to confess that "he became the strenuous asserter of liberty on the principles of those ancient laws which no one was admitted to know so well as himself: redeeming, in an intrepid and patriotic old age, the faults which we cannot avoid perceiving in his earlier life."* In estimating the merit of his independent career, which led to his fall and to his exclusion from office for the rest of his days, we are apt not sufficiently to recollect the situation of a "disgraced courtier" in the reign of James I. Nowadays, a political leader often enhances his consequence by going into opposition, and sometimes enjoys more than ever the personal favour of the sovereign. But, in the beginning of the 17th century, any one who had held high office, if forbidden "to come within the verge of the Court"--whether under a judicial sentence or not, was supposed to have a stain affixed to his character, and he and those connected with him were shunned by all who had any hope of rising in the world. Whether would you Coke or have been Most men, I am afraid, would rather have been Bacon than Coke. The superior rank of the office of Chancellor, and the titles of Baron and Viscount, would now go for little in the comparison; but the intellectual and the noble-minded must be in danger of being captivated too much by Bacon's stupendous genius and his bril Const. Hist. i. 476. Bacon? liant European reputation, while his amiable qualities win their way to the heart. Coke, on the contrary, appears as a deep but narrow-minded lawyer, knowing hardly anything beyond the wearisome and crabbed learning of his own craft, famous only in his own country, and repelling all friendship or attachment by his harsh manners. Yet, when we come to apply the test of moral worth and upright conduct, Coke ought, beyond all question, to be preferred. He never betrayed a friend, or truckled to an enemy. He never tampered with the integrity of judges, or himself took a bribe. When he had risen to influence, he exerted it strenuously in support of the laws and liberties of his country, instead of being the advocate of every abuse and the abettor of despotic sway. When he lost his high office, he did not retire from public life "with wasted spirits and an oppressed mind," overwhelmed by the consciousness of guilt,-but, bold, energetic, and uncompromising, from the lofty feeling of integrity, he placed himself at the head of that band of patriots to whom we are mainly indebted for the free institutions which we now enjoy. Part taken by Lady Hatton in the civil war. Lady Hatton, his second wife, survived him many years. On his death she took possession of the house at Stoke Pogis, and there she was residing when the civil war broke out. Having strenuously supported the Parliament against the King,-when Prince Rupert approached her with a military force she fled, leaving behind her a letter addressed to him, in which, having politely said "I am most heartily sorry to fly from this dwelling, when I hear your Excellency is coming so near it, which, however, with all in and about it, is most willingly exposed to your pleasure and accommodation," she gives him this caution: "The Parliament is the only firm foundation of the greatest establish |