a degree of intemperance and asperity shocking to the feelings of
readers, who are familiar only with the more civilized character of
criminal proceedings at the present day. His vulgar vituperation of
Raleigh, and his more measured sarcasm towards Essex, were extremely
offensive even to his contemporaries, and were remembered against him
with malicious eagerness on his own reverse of fortune. “In your
pleadings,” says Bacon to him on the eve of his discharge from the
office of Lord Chief Justice, “you were wont to insult over misery, and
to inveigh bitterly at the persons; which bred you many enemies, whose
poison yet swelleth, and the effects now appear.”
With the trials of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot in 1606, the
career of Sir Edward Coke as an advocate closed. In the month of June in
that year he received his appointment as Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas. He retained this situation upwards of seven years; and, in the
discharge of the common judicial duties at this period, his profound
learning and unwearied industry procured him the highest reputation. At
this time too, though he has sometimes been reproached for a haughty and
unconciliating deportment on the bench, the bitterness of temper which
he had displayed at the bar appears to have been suppressed or softened;
and in several constitutional questions of the highest importance which
occurred while he was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and in which he
resolutely opposed the views of the king, especially in the conflicts
between the ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the courts of common law,
and in his resistance to the encroachment of prerogative on the subject
of royal proclamations, he displayed great integrity and independence.
With a view to corrupt his uncompromising disposition, his crafty and
ambitious rival, Sir Francis Bacon, who was then Solicitor General,
suggested his promotion to the Chief Justiceship of the King’s Bench;
and accordingly he received his patent for that office in October, 1613,
and a few days afterwards took his seat at the board as a Privy
Councillor. In the following year he was elected High Steward of the
University of Cambridge.
The project of making the Chief Justice “turn obsequious” by his
advancement, which was no doubt entertained by the court, and was
expressly avowed by Bacon, altogether failed. In the case of Peacham,
who was prosecuted for treason in the year 1615, for having in his
possession a sermon supposed to contain sedition, written by him, but
never preached or published, Lord Coke expressed an opinion, in direct
opposition to the wishes of the court, that the offence was not treason.
His deportment at the trial of Somerset and the murderers of Sir Thomas
Overbury, in the same year, though praised by Bacon in conducting the
case as Attorney General, gave much displeasure to the king; and his
independent conduct in the case of Commendams, which occurred in 1616,
finally determined the court to remove him from his office. The
transaction was this. A serjeant-at-law, in the discharge of his duty as
an advocate in the Court of Common Pleas, was supposed to have used
matter in his argument which tended to abridge, or at least to question,
the royal prerogative; upon this the king required the judges to proceed
no further in the case without his warrant. The twelve judges conferred
upon this message, and resolved that in a common dispute between party
and party, it was their duty to proceed notwithstanding the king’s
mandate. Upon this they were summoned to the council table, and
personally reprimanded by the king; and all of them, excepting the Lord
Chief Justice, acknowledged their error, and craved pardon for their
offence upon their knees. Sir Edward Coke, on the contrary, boldly
justified his opinion, contending that the king’s command for staying
the proceedings was a delay of justice, and consequently against the
law, and contrary to the judges’ oath. After much discussion, the Lords
of the council proposed the following question to the judges:—“Whether
in a case where the king believed his prerogative or interest concerned,
and required the judges to attend him for advice, they ought not to stay
proceedings till his Majesty had consulted them?” All the judges at once
answered in the affirmative, except Coke, who only said “that, when the
case happened, he would do his duty.”
The court now despaired of bending the stubborn integrity of the Chief
Justice, and determined at all events to displace him. Accordingly, as a
preliminary to his removal, he was summoned before the Council and
charged with several frivolous accusations, some of them founded upon
alleged malversations while he was Attorney General, to all of which he
returned distinct answers. Soon afterwards, being again summoned to
appear before the Council, he was reprimanded, sequestered from the
Council-table during the King’s pleasure, enjoined not to ride the
summer circuit as Judge of Assize, and ordered to employ his leisure in
revising certain “extravagant and exorbitant opinions” set down, as was
pretended, in his Book of Reports. He received his writ of discharge
from the office of Chief Justice, in November, 1616; and was succeeded
by Sir Henry Montague, who was expressly warned by the Lord Chancellor
Egerton “to avoid the faults of his predecessor, who had been removed
for his excessive popularity.” The discharge of a judge of unrivalled
learning and incorruptible integrity for the exercise of the very
qualities which rendered him an honour and an ornament to his station,
forms a part of the long catalogue of weak and wicked actions which
disgraced the reign of James I., and directed the course of events to
that catastrophe by which the fate of the Stuart family was decided.
From causes, not very distinctly explained in the letters and histories
of the day, but which are supposed to have been connected with an
intrigue for the marriage of his daughter to Sir John Villiers,
afterwards Viscount Purbeck, and brother to the celebrated Duke of
Buckingham, Sir Edward Coke, though he never afterwards filled any
judicial situation, was, at no long interval, restored to a certain
degree of royal favour; and in September, 1617, he was reinstated as a
member of the Privy Council. In the course of the next three years he
was employed in several commissions of a public nature; and in the
Parliament which assembled in 1620 he was returned as a Member for the
Borough of Liskeard in Cornwall. In this Parliament he distinguished
himself as one of the most able and zealous advocates of the liberal
measures which were proposed; he declared himself a strenuous opponent
of the pernicious monopolies by which at that period the freedom of
trade was fettered, and took an animated part in that struggle between
the prerogative pretensions of James and the freedom of debate, which
ended in the celebrated resolution of the Commons, “That the liberties,
franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient
and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects of England.”
The consequence was, that he was arrested on one of those vague and
senseless charges which prevailed in those evil days, and committed to
the Tower, in December, 1621, where he remained a close prisoner until
the month of August in the ensuing year. On this occasion, he was a
second time formally dismissed from the Council-table, and was never
afterwards restored to favour at Court.
In the first Parliament of Charles I., called in April, 1625, Sir E.
Coke was again returned as one of the knights of the shire for the
county of Norfolk, as he says in his note, without any canvassing or
solicitation on his part. At the commencement of this Parliament he
adopted a moderate tone. He dissuaded the House from insisting upon
grievances, and urged conciliatory measures; saying, that “as it was the
very beginning of the new king’s reign, there could be no grievances as
yet.” But this disposition to peace was overcome by the determined
tendency of the crown to arbitrary measures; and the king being unable
to obtain any other answer to his demand of a subsidy, than repeated
remonstrances against grievances, abruptly dissolved the Parliament. He
was compelled, however, by his pecuniary wants, to assemble a new one in
the course of the same year, having previously appointed Sir Edward Coke
and three other popular leaders sheriffs of counties, in order to
prevent their serving as members. Coke was again returned as knight of
the shire for Norfolk; and though he did not take his seat, and
consequently took no part in the proceedings of that Parliament, it was
considered that he was still _de facto_ a member of the House, and for
that reason no new writ was issued to supply his place. On occasion of
the third Parliament summoned by Charles I. in March, 1628, Sir Edward
Coke was returned for two counties, Buckingham and Suffolk. He elected
to serve for the former. In this Parliament, though now in his 79th
year, this extraordinary man asserted and defended the constitutional
rights of the people of England with all the energy of youth, and the
sagacity of age. By his advice, and with his active co-operation and
assistance, which his extensive and varied experience rendered
particularly valuable, the celebrated Petition of Right was framed; and
by his perseverance and reasoning the Lords were, after many
conferences, induced to concur in that measure, which was, at last, and
after many ineffectual attempts at evasion, reluctantly assented to by
the king. One of the last acts of his public life was his spirited
denunciation of the Duke of Buckingham as the cause of all the
misfortunes of the country. As a proof of the earnest feelings by which
he was impressed, Rushworth records that, on this occasion, “Sir Edward
Coke, overcome with passion, seeing the desolation likely to ensue, was
forced to sit down when he began to speak, through the abundance of
tears.” At the close of the Session of Parliament, in March, 1629, the
growing infirmities of age induced him to withdraw from public life, and
he passed the remainder of his days in retirement on his estate at Stoke
Pogis, in Buckinghamshire. Still it appears that his vigorous and active
mind was not without employment; and the last years of his life are said
to have been occupied by the revision of the numerous unpublished works
which he left behind him.
The last entry in his note-book, written with almost as firm a hand as
he wrote at the age of 40, records the following incident, which may
possibly have been the cause of his death:—
“Memorandum. Die Jovis, the iii^{rd} of May, 1632, riding in the morning
in Stoke, between eight and nine of the clocke to take the ayre, my
horse under me had a strange stumble backward, and fell upon me (being
above 80 years old), where my head lighted nere to sharpe stubbes, and
the heavy horse upon me. And yet, by the providence of Almighty God,
though I was in the greatest danger, yet I had not the least hurt,—nay,
no hurt at all. For Almighty God saith by his prophet David, ‘The angel
of the Lord tarieth round about them that feare him, and delivereth
them.’ Et nomen Domini benedictum, for it was his work!”
He died on the 3rd of September, in the following year, repeating with
his last breath the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” He was
interred in the burying-place of the Coke family in the church of
Titeshall, in Norfolk.
Lloyd, in his “State Worthies,” gives the following account of Sir
Edward Coke:—“His parts were admirable; he had a deep judgment, faithful
memory, active fancy. And the jewel of his mind was put into a fair
case,—a beautiful body with a comely countenance;—a case, which he did
wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn, and being
wont to say ‘that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor
of purity to our souls.’”
The most celebrated of Sir Edward Coke’s works is the treatise commonly
known by the name of Coke upon Littleton, or the First Institute. It
consists of a minute and laborious Commentary upon the text of
Littleton’s Tenures, in the course of which almost the whole learning of
the common law, as it existed in his time, is embodied and explained.
Ever since the time of Sir Edward Coke to the present day, this book has
been considered as a work of the highest authority in the municipal law
of England. The Second Institute contains Commentaries on several
ancient statutes; the Third Institute is a Treatise on Criminal Law; and
the Fourth Institute relates to the Jurisdiction of different Courts.
Besides these works, Sir Edward Coke was the author of a Treatise on
Copyholds, entitled “The Complete Copyholder,” and of a “Reading on
Fines.” He also published a collection of Reports, which are still of
great value to the profession; and at the time of their appearance
formed an epoch in the history of the law. Sir Francis Bacon speaks of
this produce of the industry and learning of his great rival in terms of
high and deserved commendation; and justly ascribes to the Reports the
praise of having preserved the vessel of the common law in a steady and
consistent course; “For the law,” says he, “by this time had been like a
ship without ballast, for that the cases of modern experience are fled
from those that are adjudged and ruled in former time.”
[Illustration: [Westminster Hall.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
GIBBON.
_From a Print by Ja^s. Hall, after a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
GIBBON.
The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was born at
Putney in Surrey, in May, 1737. He was the eldest son of Edward Gibbon,
a gentleman of some fortune, and a strong attachment to Tory principles.
His mother’s name was Porten. But in his Memoirs, written at the close
of his life, he betrays no strong sense of gratitude or affection
towards either of his parents; while he acknowledges with abundant
warmth the most important obligations to his aunt, Catharine Porten. To
her lessons he ascribes his “invincible love for reading;” to her care
he attributes the very preservation of his precarious life; and he
designates her, in the calmness of distant reflection, as the true
mother both of his body and his mind.
From a private school he was removed to Westminster; from Westminster to
Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was admitted as a gentleman-commoner,
April 3, 1752. About this time his constitution, hitherto extremely
feeble, acquired a sudden vigour, which never deserted him during the
rest of his life. At Oxford he made absolutely no proficiency in any
branch of knowledge, or any useful accomplishment. “To the University of
Oxford (he says) I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully
renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother.”
Accordingly he exhausts the severity of his sarcasm, both upon the
system which was there established, and upon the men who administered
it, without honestly inquiring whether he had laboured to extract, even
from an imperfect system, the modicum of advantage which it was capable
of yielding. But his recollections of Oxford were embittered by his
subsequent contest with some of the clergy, and the hostile treatment
which he sustained at their hands; and the principles which he embraced
in after life would have rendered him equally intolerant of any
institution, standing on a religious foundation.
During his residence at Oxford, and at the usually unreflecting age of
sixteen, he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith. He was first
stirred to thought by the “bold criticism” of Middleton. He then
“swallowed” the miracles of the Basils, the Chrysostoms, and other
Fathers of the Church; and Bossuet achieved the conquest by the
‘Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine,’ and the ‘History of the
Variations.’ And then he made his formal recantation before a Jesuit,
named Baker, one of the Chaplains of the Sardinian Ambassador. In his
retrospect upon this the most singular incident in the history of his
mind, Gibbon might indeed profess to be proud of his change of opinion,
as a sacrifice of interest to principle; but he probably conveys his
habitual reflections more faithfully when he says, with his usual
strength: “To my present feelings it seems incredible that I should ever
believe that I believed in transubstantiation.”
He was immediately removed from Oxford, and placed under the care of a
tutor at Lausanne. To a Swiss pastor, named Pavillard, was entrusted the
delicate office of disentangling the mind of Gibbon from the intricacies
of popery, and leading it back again into the pale of the Protestant
Church. He succeeded: by seasonable arguments, and judicious
admonitions, aided perhaps by the influence of a mild and benevolent
character, he prevailed over the hasty caprice of a powerful intellect;
and on Christmas-day, in 1754, Gibbon publicly renounced his adopted
creed, and received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne. There is no
reason to suspect the sincerity of this recantation, or to believe that
he had yet fallen either into scepticism, or indifference.
He remained, in the whole, five years at Lausanne, and by his “serious
character, and soft and quiet manners” he won the respect and affection
of his tutor. During this time he laid the foundation of those studious
habits, which formed the pride and happiness of his later life. Besides
a passionate devotion to French literature and great diligence in
forming a correct style in that language, he read, according to a
regular system, the whole of the Latin Classics; he acquired the
rudiments of Greek; and gained some insight into the principles of
mathematics. But this last pursuit he never afterwards renewed; though
he would lead us to believe that a readiness in calculation was the
talent of his childhood, and that nature had qualified him to succeed in
that branch of application.
He was presented to Voltaire, at that time resident at Geneva, without
being distinguished by any particular mark of his attention. Yet he was
a constant spectator at the poet’s little theatre, when he recited his
own verses, and represented his own characters. It was likewise during
this period that he formed an attachment for Madlle. Curchod, the
daughter of a Swiss pastor, and afterwards the wife of Necker. The
attachment appears to have been mutual; but his father prevented the
marriage, and he remained faithful during the rest of his life to the
memory of his youthful passion.
He returned to England in May, 1758, and remained there, with a short
interval, for the twenty-five following years. His father’s residence
was Buriton, near Petersfield; and, as he passed some time there, he
became in 1760 a captain in the South Hampshire militia: an incident
which might well pass unnoticed in the life of an ordinary person, but
which in this case is dignified by the value which Gibbon himself has
set upon it, and the conviction long afterwards expressed by him—“that
the captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers was not useless to the historian
of the Roman Empire.”
On the disbanding of the militia, in the beginning of 1763, he spent two
or three months at Paris, from which he proceeded on his second visit to
Lausanne. Here he remained for a year, occupied in various studies,
especially that of geography; and then passed, in the spring of 1764,
into Italy. An ardent curiosity, nourished by reading and meditation,
carried him directly to Rome; and the emotions with which he approached
and entered the Eternal City were, after an interval of twenty-five
years, still fresh in his memory. “After a sleepless night I trod, with
a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus
stood, or Tully spoke, or Cæsar fell, was at once present to my eye; and
several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed, before I could
descend to a cool or minute investigation.” His enthusiasm gradually
gave way to deep and philosophical reflection, not uninfluenced either
by the scenes which surrounded him, or by the recollection of the past.
He became curious to trace the links which connected what he had read
with what he saw; and it was when he was musing in the ruins of the
Capitol, _while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple
of Jupiter_, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City
first started to his mind. This idea, once suggested, was never
abandoned; and though other avocations prevented him from immediately
pursuing it, it remained immovably fixed in his mind, and was the object
of his perpetual meditation.
Without claiming any precocity of genius, Gibbon describes his mind as
having opened considerably in his twelfth year. He had an early and
indiscriminate appetite for books, and had indulged it in much desultory
reading even before his admission at Oxford. A preference for historical
works already displayed itself. His attention was fixed by the accounts
of Mahomet and the Saracens; and the ‘Continuation of Echard’s Roman
History’ first introduced him to the successors of Constantine. But, as
his studies had been directed only by his own curiosity, his information
was partial and ill-digested, and more useful as the result of literary
habits, than as a fund for the use of his maturer years. Yet even thus
early he made an essay at historical composition; and the subject showed
that his mind had been chiefly attracted by the records of the Eastern
World. The ‘Age of Sesostris,’ suggested perhaps by the ‘Siècle de Louis
XIV.,’ then new and popular, was the first production of the pen of
Gibbon. But this attempt was presently abandoned; though the unfinished
manuscript remained for twenty years at the bottom of a drawer, and was
not finally destroyed till 1772. His first publication was an ‘Essai sur
l’Etude de la Littérature.’ It appeared in the spring of 1761, and was
written in French, through a secret ambition in the author to acquire a
peculiar celebrity, as a successful writer in a foreign language. This
dream, however, was not realised. The ‘Essai’ was received with little
enthusiasm abroad, with absolute indifference at home. Nor, indeed, were
its intrinsic merits, clouded as they were by an obscure and abrupt
style, sufficient to establish the author’s claims to the reputation
which he sought.
Gibbon then turned his thoughts to some historical subject; and among
many that attracted him were The Life of Raleigh; The History of the
Liberty of the Swiss; and that of the Republic of Florence under the
House of Medici. But he appears not to have engaged seriously in any one
of these, at the time of his second departure for the Continent. To the
second of those subjects however he afterwards returned, again
discarding his native tongue, for the use of what he deemed a more
general language. He wrote his ‘History of Switzerland’ in Latin. But
having caused a specimen of it to be recited in a society of literary
foreigners in London, at which he was himself present, though not known
as the author, he had the affliction of hearing its condemnation. He
submitted to the sentence, and delivered the imperfect sheets to the
flames. And it was in the same year (October 24, 1767) that Hume
addressed to him a very sensible exhortation to confine his compositions
to his own language, as that which was destined, through conquest and
colonization, to the most general prevalence in after-ages. It was
worthy of the riper wisdom and genius of Hume, to direct the rising
candidate for historical fame into the path wherein alone it was
possible to find it; and to enlarge his views, to teach him to look
beyond the actual and transient condition of the world, and fix his eyes
upon the generations that were to come.