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always careful to repress such indecencies, and not only protected but used him with much humanity. For nothing is so sure a sign of a bad breed as insulting over the depressed."(Life of Lord Guilford. ii, 125.)

Sir Thomas Jones, whose name was connected with the proceedings in Parliament against Scroggs, perhaps exhibits, in some respects, a favourable specimen of the judicial character at this period, though he was a partner in the scandalous conduct of North on Colledge's trial." He was a very reverend and learned judge, a gentleman, and impartial, but being of Welsh extraction, was apt to warm, and when much offended, often shewed his heats in a rubor of his countenance, set off by his grey hairs, but appeared in no other disorder, for he refrained himself in due bounds and temper, and seldom or never broke the laws of his gravity."-(Examen, p. 563.)

In the year 1683, Jones was appointed chief justice of the King's Bench, an office which he held until 1686, when he was displaced by James II. In pursuing his insane project of introducing the Catholic Religion into this kingdom, James considered it essentially necessary that he should secure the cooperation of the judges, in order that he might by their opinions sanction his dispensing with the penal laws against recusants. Roger Coke, in his usual homely style, has given the following account of the king's attempt to corrupt Sir Thomas Jones:"However herein the king stumbled at the threshold; for it is said he began with Sir Thomas Jones, who had merited so much in Mr. Cornish his trial, and in the West; yet Sir Thomas boggled at this, and told the king he could not do it; to which the king answered, he would have twelve judges of his opinion, and Sir Thomas replied, he might have twelve judges of his opinion, but would scarce find twelve lawyers. The truth of this I have only from fame, but I am sure the king's practice in reforming the judges, whereof all (except my Lord Chief Baron Atkins, and Justice Powel) were such a pack as never before sate in Westminster Hall, gave credit to it." (Coke's Detection, &c. ii. 434.)-Roger Coke's account of this transaction is confirmed by Sir John Reresby.

“This day, April 29, 1686, being the first of the term, a great change was made among the judges in Westminster Hall. There was a new chief justice of the Common Pleas, and another new judge of the same bench; there was a new chief baron; in fine, four new judges of the several Courts. This made a considerable noise, as the gentlemen now displaced were of great learning and loyalty, and whose only crime had been, they would not give their opinions as several of their brethren had done, that the king by his prerogative might dispense with the test required of Roman Catholics. The next day I was informed by Mr. Jones, son to the chief justice of that name lately turned

out, that his father, upon his dismission, observed to the king, that he was by no means sorry that he was laid aside, old and worn out as he was in his service; but concerned that his majesty should expect such a construction of the law from him as he could not honestly give; and that none but indigent, ignorant, or ambitious men would give their judgment as he expected; and that to this his majesty made answer, -it was necessary his judges should be all of one mind."

We must not omit the following portrait, by Roger North, of Weston, at this time one of the Barons of the Exchequer.

"He was a learned man, not only in the common law, wherein he had a refined and speculative skill, but in the civil and imperial law, as also in history, and humanity in general. But being insupportably tortured with the gout, became of so touchy a temper, and susceptible of anger and passion, that any affected or unreasonable opposition to his opinion would inflame him so as to make him appear as if he were mad; but when treated reasonably, no man was ever more a gentleman, obliging, condescensive, and communicative than he was. Therefore, while a practiser, he was observed always to succeed better in arguing solemnly, than in managing of evidence; for the adversary knew how to touch his passions, and make them disorder him, and then take advantage of it. But at the bottom he was as just as the driven snow; and being a judge, for which office he was fit, because he had neither fear, favour, nor affection; besides his judgment, he would often in his charges shine with his learning and wit. He was one of a clear conduct, by principle honest and just, and, as we find in the best of that character, so he was intrepid, and feared not the face of all human kind. He made no ceremony of flying in the face of faction, at all turns ; and being one of those they call prerogative men, inaccessible and unalterable, he was hated bitterly by the party."

Amongst the most eminent of that very small body of men, the anti-court lawyers of the reign of Charles II., was Sir William Jones, who for some time filled the office of attorneygeneral. Having finished his studies at Gray's Inn, his learning and great acquirements soon brought him into practice in the King's Bench, and were ultimately the means of raising him, notwithstanding his popular principles, to the high post of attorney-general. Ambition appears to have been Jones's foible in the earlier part of his legal career, and probably induced him to accept an employment which could not be altogether consonant to his principles. When Sir Heneage Finch, the solicitor general, was appointed attorney, on the death of Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a contest for the vacant office ensued between Jones and Sir Francis North, the latter of whom ultimately prevailed; but Jones, by the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, was knighted and made king's counsel. Having been appointed attorney-general before the discovery of the Popish

plot, he took a very conspicuous part in the prosecution of the supposed offenders, particularly in the case of the unfortunate Lord Stafford. "If I may have leave to guess," says Roger North," the greatest load of all that sate upon and oppressed his spirits, was his undue fervor in prosecuting him to death for high treason upon the foot of Oates's plot." (Life of Lord Guilford, i. 96.) With all the charity of a political opponent, North supposes Sir William Jones to have been "at the bottom of the whole stratagem" of the Popish plot, but he was certainly too honest a man to lend himself, knowingly, to so enormous a villainy. Like the other anti-court politicians of that day, he appears to have been infected with the panic which Oates spread over the whole nation. On the first opening of the plot, his apprehensions were so great, that he despatched an express from Hampstead, where he was then residing, to his town house, to have all the billets of wood removed out of his cellar into his back yard, lest the Papists should throw fire-balls into his cellar and set his house on fire. Growing weary of his official duties, Jones resigned the place of attorney; and, although (according to Burnet, who was acquainted with him,) he was offered the seals he refused them. In promoting the bill of exclusion against the Duke of York, Sir William Jones exerted himself most strenuously; and it is probably, in allusion to his conduct upon this occasion, that he is described by Dryden in Absalom and Achitophel, as

"Bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw

To mean rebellion, and make treason law."

Sir William Temple, referring to the same subject, adds, "And this person having the name of the greatest lawyer in England, and commonly, of a very wise man; besides this, of a very rich, and of a wary or rather timorous nature, made people generally conclude, that the thing was certain and safe, and would at last be agreed on all parts, whatever countenance were made at court." When Sir William Temple was employed to carry the king's message against the Exclusion bill, to the House of Commons, Jones observed to him, "that for himself, he was old and infirm, and expected to die soon."-" But you,' said he," will, in all probability, live to see the whole kingdom lament the consequences of this message you have brought from the king."

Roger North, in his character of Sir William Jones, has displayed more impartiality than is usually to be found in his sketches of his great contemporaries.

"He was a person of a very clear understanding, and, if possible, clearer expression; wherein he was assisted by an extraordinary opinion he had of both, as also of his own general worth, for that was

his foible. He was extremely proud and impatient of competition, and much more of his being left behind, as it was his chance to be, in the course of his preferment, whereby he missed of his desired post. And that partly occasioned a sort of restlessness, which made him commit several gross errors in the main chances of his life. His felicity was never to be disturbed in speaking, nor by any audience or emergence put by the forecast and connection of his thoughts: but, dilated with a constancy, steadiness, and deliberation admirable in his way, so that in speaking as counsel, one might mistake him for the judge. He affected somewhat of the rustic phrase of his own country, which was Gloucestershire, as to instance in a word, althoff, instead of although as we pronounce it, which was no disadvantage but rather set him off. He affected also general learning, as history and theology; and as great men usually have their vanities, his was to profess of that sort more than belonged to him, and accordingly he chose his company, who were for the most part divines, such as were most eminent in his time, as Tillotson, &c. I dare say they profited more in his company than he in theirs. I have touched his felicity; his infelicity was a penchant toward the anti-court, or, rather, republican party, and consequently must be a favourer of non-conformity, for opposites to government of all kinds seem to make but one party."

*

In the annals of the English bench no one has filled a more prominent station than Sir George Jefferies, whose very name has passed into a bye-word, significative of every quality which can disgrace the judicial character. In a former volume* we presented to our readers the able and vivid portrait of this odious man, which Roger North has drawn; and we shall, therefore, on the present occasion, confine ourselves to some anecdotes of him collected from other sources. Jefferies was descended from a Welsh family of some consideration; his grand-father having been one of the judges of North Wales, He was educated at Westminster school, from whence, without having received the benefit of a residence at either of the Universities, he removed to the Temple, and applied himself assiduously to the study of the law;" though in an obscure and mean apartment, his allowance being only forty pounds a year, and that from an old grand-mother, while his father, upon pretence of the numerousness of his family, but more indeed out of a near and covetous nature, scarce contributed ten pounds a-year more towards his cloathing; a very scanty income put together for the support and carrying of a young gentleman through so genteel and expensive a study."+ The scantiness of his fortune

* Retros. Rev. v. ii. p. 251.

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"The Exhibition" allowed Francis North, afterwards Lord Keeper Guilford, by his father, was 601. per annum. In addition to this, he had twenty pounds a-year from his grand-father, and picked some pence by court-keeping. (Life of Lord Guilford, i. 49.) In Sir

at this time was, we are told, supplied by Jefferies's own ingenuity," which ever suggested some shifts or other to him," until he began to support himself by his practice.

It has been asserted, that Jefferies was never regularly called to the bar, but that " having by some means or other, got a bar gown on his back," he began to practice with considerable success. He even braved the plague for the sake of briefs; and in the year 1666 came into notice at the Kingston assizes, at which, on account of the pestilence, very few counsel had the boldness to make their appearance.

Having given some manifestations of qualities highly favourable to the views of the court, Jefferies was selected as a person worthy of promotion; and he was accordingly appointed a Welsh judge, and knighted. His next elevation was to the chief justiceship of Chester, in the year 1680, and in the same year he was made sergeant and a baronet. The office of recorder was also conferred upon him by the city of London, in return for which favour he is said to have been one of the chief advisers of the crown, in the case of the Quo warrantos against the corporation of that city; and on the death of Sir Edmund Saunders, who had been raised to the bench expressly with a view to the settlement of that question, Jefferies was, in September 1683, sworn lord chief justice of the King's Bench. The temper and qualities of Jefferies now began to develope themselves more fully, and the subserviency which had marked his former conduct was changed into haughtiness and insolence. When at the bar, a certain decency of carriage was necessarily observed by him, but now that, raised to the bench, there was no superior to check the ebullitions of his insolent passion, he indulged in the most disgraceful language; "so much Billingsgate towards the prisoners at the bar," observes a legal biographer, "cannot be paralleled in history." Roger North has left us a few specimens of the licks which he used to give with the rough side of his tongue, and to these we shall add a few more by way of illustrating the manners of the bench at this period. The trial of Sir S. Barnadiston (ix. State Trials, 1353.) affords a good instance, both of the style of language used by Sir George Jefferies, and of the court principles which he professed. In adverting to the trial of Russell and Sidney, names," to use the words of Mr. Fox, ever dear to every English heart;" the chief justice expressed himself with an inhuman and disgusting irony which nothing can surpass.

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John Fortescue's time, no student could be maintained for less expenses by the year than twenty marks." (Fortescue De Laudibus, &c. c 49 )

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