ter, would spend itself away in two or three months, and, as it were, boil from a pint to a spoonful. It was further looked into that he might have respite to study the weight and trust of the office, whereby to supply it with that skill as might in candour be expected from a beginner."* The Lord Keeper-elect actually began with immense vigour the study of the law. He had for preceptor Sir Harry Finch, whom he kept in his lodgings for six months [JUNE 25.] following, working with him night and day. In the meanwhile, to add to his dignity, he was made a Privy Councillor, and appointed to the see of Lincoln. Parliament being prorogued,-Trinity Term being over,-and all the causes which stood for hearing being disposed of by the Commissioners,-on the 10th of July the King ordered the Great Seal to be brought to him at Whitehall, and a document being sealed with it merely by his own order, to assert a right to use it without the intervention of any responsible officert, he seated himself on his throne. The Prince of Wales, and the great officers of state being present, his Majesty then called the Dean of Westminster, who knelt down, and he delivered the Great Seal to him as Lord Keeper,―with an eloquent oration on the integrity, industry, and zeal requisite for duly discharging the duties of the office.‡ When Williams had received the Great Seal into his hands, still remaining on his bended knees, he delivered this address, ascribing his promotion to the miraculous interposition of Heaven. "Most dread and mighty Sovereign, if I should think myself any way worthy or sufficient for this great place wherein your Majesty is pleased to make probation of me, I were the most unworthy and insufficient wretch in all the world. But, in good faith, I do not: But as conscious of mine own weakness, as I am quite astonished at your favour and goodness, I do not therefore trouble my head to find out the reason of this advancement: because I take it for no ordinary effect, but an extraordinary miracle. Deus et qui Deo proximus, tacito munera dispertit arbitrario, et beneficiorum suorum indignatus per homines stare judicium, mavult de subditis dedisse Miraculum. I must only lift up mine eyes unto Heaven, and beseech that God, who, some ten years since, brought me, like Elisha, to be servant only unto that Elias, who under God and your Majesty was the chariot and horsemen of our Israel, that now he would be pleased to double the spirit of Elias upon his servant Elisha, whom your Majesty hath thus invested with his robe and mantle." After twaddling at considerable length about his being "only a probationer"-"not a keeper, but a suitor only * Hacket, 59. 60. † The Cl. R. says, "Mos cnim iste venit în consuetudinem." "Et postquam elegantissimam, gravissimam, prudentissimam, et plane Nestoream oracionem de officio, integritate, sedulitate, et industria in custode sigilli requir enda," &c.-CI R. 19 Jac, for the Great Seal"-he proceeds, "Non ut me consulem sed ut consulatus candidatum putem. And if I feel the burden too heavy (which I mightily fear and suspect), I will choose rather desinere quam deficere, to slip it off willingly to some stronger shoulder than to be crushed in pieces with the poise. I will say unto your Majesty as Jacob said unto Pharaoh, Pastor ovium est servus tuus. I am but a keeper of sheep; in that calling your Majesty found me, and to that calling I shall ever be ready to appropriate myself again. In the mean time, I beseech your Majesty to protect this Court of Justice wherein you have placed me, that the strength and power of the body be nothing impaired through the weakness of the head. Nemo adalescentiam meam contemnat. And so I end with my prayer unto God that your Majesty may live long, and myself no longer than I may be serviceable to your Majesty."* His Majesty graciously replied that he was as well satisfied with this appointment as any he had ever made, and he was persuaded that his judgment would not be deceived.† Ever with a keen eye to his own interest, the Lord Keeper, in addition to his new ecclesiastical dignity, retained in commendam his living of Waldegrave, his different prebends, and the Deanery of Westminster. For this last piece of preferment there were many applicants, and he had a hard struggle for it; but he prevailed, by representing that "if he were deprived of it, he must be provided with an official house at the public expense; that he had supplies to his housekeeping from the College in bread, beer, corn, and fuel, of which, if he should be deprived, he must be forced to call for a diet which would cost the King 16001. per annum, or crave for some addition in lieu thereof out of the King's own means, as all his foregoers in the office had done; and it was but a step from thence into Westminster Hall, whare his business lay, and it was a lodging which afforded him marvellous quietness to turn over his papers and to serve the King." Succeeding in keeping all his preferments, a jest was circulated against him, "that he was a perfect diocese in his own person, being at once Bishop, Dean, Prebendary, and Parson." To soften envy, he gave out that he was bona fide likely to resign the Great Seal very soon, and that, at all events, he could not possibly hold it more than three years, as, upon his suggestion, the "Dus * Hacket, 61, 62. The Cl. R. thus describes this part of the ceremony: Custos pred, sig, a regiis manibus plane augustissimis mirabundus accipiens brevem et humilissimam orationem huic regiam benignitatem obstupescens extulit propriam tenuitatem et infanciam agnovit se a strepitu forensi abhorrentem et in civilibus hisce occupationibus plane peregrim professus est nec abstinere posse se dixit quin illud augustissimo Regi in mentem revocet quod Jacob olim Pharaoni Pastor ovium est servus tuus. Postremo hoc voto et observacione sermonem finivit Quod si onus hoc (alii honorem vocant) suis humeris (quod valde veritus est) impar usu expiret veniam daret serenissima Majestas ut hoc officio se sponte abdicaret et desinere pocius quam deficere eligeret." + Hacket, 62. King had laid down an inflexible rule that, in all time coming, no one should ever be permitted to be Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor for a more extended period. The long vacation being spent in severe study, the first day of Michaelmas term arrived, and he was to take his seat [OCT. 9.] in the Court of Chancery. According to ancient custom, he ought to have rode to Westminster Hall in grand procession. Out of affected humility he declined this pomp, perhaps having a certain misgiving that the lawyers from the Inns of Court would not very eagerly join in it, and that the nobility might not very willingly follow in the train of a parvenue as yet so little distinguished. Some supposed that, from being so severe a student, he was not an expert horseman, and that he had apprehensions of being spilt by the way. He summoned the Judges, who were under his control, to meet him at an early hour in the morning at the deanery,-saying that he declined all other attendance. With them he passed through the cloisters into the Abbey, and so on to Henry VII.'s chapel. There he fell down on his knees, and remained in secret devotion for a quarter of an hour, praying Then for enlightenment to perform the duties of his new office. rising up cheerfully, as if he had received a favourable answer to his petition, he walked at the head of the twelve Judges, and with no other train, across Palace Yard, and entered at the North Gate of Westminster Hall, where curiosity had collected a great multitude of all degrees. After the oaths had been administered to him he delivered a very long oration, of which I can only afford to give some of the more remarkable passages: "My Lords and Gentlemen all, I would to God my former course of life had so qualified me for this great place, (wherein, by the will of God and the special favour of the King, I am for a time to bestow myself,) that I might have fallen to my business without any farther preface or salutation. For my own part, I am as far from affecting this speech as I was from the ambition of this place. But having found by private experience that sudden and unexpected eruptions put all the world into a gaze and wonderment, I thought it most convenient to break the ice with this short deliberation which I will limit to these two heads, my calling and my carriage in this place of judicature." *"Cumque ibi in celeberrimo Hen, sept. sacello preces et orationes publicas et privatas effudisset Aulam Westm. &c. propriis tantum famulis stipatus ingressus est. Ibi autem Dno custode circa horam nonam ante meridianam in Cur. Canc. sellam et tribunal conscenso [he takes the oaths]. Et cum pro consuetudine et more loci illustrissimum Dum Presidentem Mag. Rot. reliquosque prime forme clericos sive cancel. magros salutasset proprio loco considit. Et cum de Curiæ istius scitis et plitis ad prescriptum Regni emendandis et corrigendis et aliis rebus haud dissimilibus oracoem bene longam huisset Dno Presidenti humanissime valedixit officiariis ut sigillarent mandavit et se interim ad juris-consultorum quesit. audiend. simul et terminand placide_composuit.”—Cl. R. 19 Jac. This is the last specimen of Close Roll Latinity in the history of the Great Seal.-all the subsequent entries being in English. 32* He goes on to explain how he came to be appointed, in a manner not very flattering to his legal auditors:-" A resolution was formed to change or reduce the Governor of this Court from a professor of our municipal laws to some one of the nobility, gentry, or clergy of this kingdom. Of such a conclusion of state (qua aliquando incognita semper justa) as I dare not take upon me to discover the cause, so I hope I shall not endure the envy.' He suggests that "the just management of a Court of Equity might be impeded equally by too much as too little law, and that the most distinguished of his predecessors, excepting always the mirror of the age and glory of the profession, his reverend Master (Egerton), had the commendation of the completest men, but not of the deepest lawyers." He becomes bolder as he advances† : "Again, it may be the continual practice of the strict law, without a special mixture of other knowledge, makes a man unapt and indisposed for a Court of Equity. Jurisconsultus ipse per se nihil nisi leguleius quidam, cautus et acutus,-as much used to defend the wrong as to protect and maintain the most upright cause. And if any of them should prove corrupt, he carries about him armatam nequitiam,—that skill and cunning to palliate the same, so that the mis-sentence which, pronounced by a plain and understanding man, would appear most gross and palpable, by their colours, quotations, and wrenches of the law, would be made to pass for current and specious." He points out the disadvantage of a Chancellor having to decide the causes of his former clients, "who today have for their Judge him who yesterday was their hired advocate," and he plainly insinuates (though he professes to disclaim) the imputation, "that a proneness to take bribes may be generat ed from the habit of taking fees." He concludes this head with a clumsy attempt at palliation :-"These reasons, though they please some men, yet, God be praised, if we do but right to this noble profession, they are in our commonwealth no way concluding or demonstrative. For I make no question but there are many scores which profess our laws, who beside their skill and practice in this kind, are so richly enabled in all moral and intellectual endowments, ut omnia tanquam singula perficiant, that there is no Court of Equity in the world but might be most safely committed unto them.' With respect to himself he affects a mixture of humility and confidence :-" Surely if a sincere, upright, and wellmeaning heart doth not cover thousands of other imperfections, I am the unfittest man in the kingdom to supply the place; and therefore must say of my creation as the poet said of the creation of the world,—Materiam noli quærere, nulla fuit. Trouble not your * On this passage Coleridge in a note passes the following just censure:-" This perversion of words respecting the decrees of Providence to the caprices of James and his beslobbered minion the Duke of Buckingham, is somewhat nearer to blasphemy than even the euphuism of the age can excuse, + If Sir E. Coke was present, his feelings must have been mixed-his hatred of Bacon being at last satiated,-but his regard for the honor of the profession cruelly wounded. head to find out the cause. I confess there is none at all. It was without the least inclination or thought of mine own (?)-the immediate work of God and the King, and their actions are no ordinary effects, but extraordinary miracles."* From this miraculous touch he becomes as courageous as a lion :-" What then? Should I beyond the limits and duty of obedience despond and refuse to make some few years' trial in this place? Non habeo ingenium, Cæsar sed jussit, habero. Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putet? I am no way fit for this great place, but because God and the King will have it so, I will endeavour as much as I can to make myself fit, and place my whole confidence in his grace and mercy, Qui nominem dignum eligit, sed eligendo dignum facit." He then goes on with better taste to confess his disadvantage in coming after two such men as Egerton and Bacon,—“ one of them excelling in most things,-the other in all things,-both of them so bred in this course of life, ut illis plurimarum rerum agitatio frequens nihil esse ignotum patiebatur;" adding rather felicitously, My comfort is this, that arriving here as a stranger, I may say, as Archimedes did when he found geometrical lines and angles drawn every where in the sands of Egypt. Video vestigia humana. I see in this Court the footsteps of wise men, many excellent rules and orders which though I might want learning and knowledge to invent, I hope I shall not want honesty to act upon. He next lays down certain principles by which he is to be governed, professing great respect for the common law, and laughing at the equitable doctrine, "that sureties are to be favoured for, says he, “When the money is to be borrowed, the surety is the first in the intention, and therefore if it be not paid, let him a God's name be the first in the execution." He thus not ungracefully concluded:-"I will propound my old master for my pattern and precedent in all things,-beseeching Almighty God so to direct me that while I hold this place I may follow him by a true and constant imitation; and if I prove unfit, that I may not play the mountebank so in this place as to abuse the King and the state, but follow the same most worthy Lord in his cheerful and voluntary resignation, Sic mihi contingat vivere, sicque mori."+ CHAPTER LVIII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD KEEPER WILLIAMS TILL THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I. THE Lord Keeper now set to work with stupendous energy and * There can be nothing more revolting than the language of English divines during the seventeenth century, who frequently put the King nearly, if not altogether, on a footing with Almighty God, Hacket, 71-74, |