tained by a gross imposture; yet Sir Edward Coke stiffly maintained that a cause so gained in his court, could not be reversed by the court of equity.

About this time he fell into disgrace, and met with very harsh treatment; but he was afterwards restored to the royal favour, which he lost again in 1621, for defending the privileges of the house of commons. He is said to have called the king's prerogative in parliament, a great monster, for which he was sent to the Tower, but was soon released. In the beginning of the next reign, he was nominated sheriff of the county of Buckingham, to prevent the being chosen into parliament; and notwithstanding his exceptions tendered by him to the attorney-general, the privy council obliged him to discharge the office, and thus he who had been ford chief justice of England, was compelled to attend upon the judges of assize as sheriff. This, however, did not hiuder his election for the county in 1628, and in the parliament of that year he distinguished himself as an energetic speaker, in defence of the liberty of the subject, and in supporting the privileges of the house of commons. He proposed and framed the famous PETITION OF RIGHTS, and he vindicated the right of the house to proceed against any subject, how high soever, who misled his sovereign to the prejudice of the people. He concluded a long and learned speech on this subject, with a direct application to the reigning favourite, thus: "I think

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"I think the duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our miseries; and till the king be informed thereof, we shall never go on with honour, or sit with honour here; that man is the grievance of grievances; let us set down the causes of all our disasters, and all will reflect upon him."

It must be confessed, that the doctrine laiddown by Sir Edward, was sound and constitutional, nor can his language be considered as too strong for the occasion. But there was a strange want of consistency in this great lawyer, for not long before he pronounced this declamation against the duke of Buckingham, he publicly, and as the noble historian properly says blasphemously, called the same court minion our Saviour. Thus it is that noisy patriotism often arises from motives of resentment; and the same men who are most clamorous against public men and public measures, will, if in place, be most zealous and indecent in their defence.

Sir Edward Coke was a man of great regularity in his professional pursuits, and very concise in his pleadings, though in set speeches and in his writings too prolix and affected. It was a favourite saying with him "that much matter lay in a little room." He was very neat in his dress, observing, "that the cleanness of a man's clothes ought to put him in mind of keeping all clean within."

In examining witnesses he was remarkably particular, and his questions were oftentimes more minute

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minute than pertinent to the cause.

Here we

A

may relate a pleasant story from Howell. Norfolk countryman appearing as a witness in the court of king's bench, upon a cause respecting a river, was asked by the judge "how he called the river ?" to which he replied, "My lord, I need not call her, for she is forward enough to come of herself."*

Sir Edward Coke met with more changes of fortune than any man of his station; but as the writer of his article in the Biographia Britannica, observes, it must be allowed that he made a better figure in adversity than in prosperity: for as king James was wont to say, "Whichever way he was thrown, he would always fall upon his feet."

Yet the same monarch must have entertained no very honourable opinion of his integrity, if he really said, when Coke was turned out of the privy council, "that he was the fittest instrument for a tyrant that ever was in England." It must be owned, however, that the authority upon which this story rests, is very slender.†

Sir Edward married first Bridget, daughter and coheiress of John Paston, Esq. by which union he became allied to some of the noblest houses in the kingdom. By this lady he had ten

* Howell's Letters, 5th edition, p. 99.

+ Wilson's History of king James, in Kennet's Collections, Vol. 2, page 728; and Howell's Letters, page 103.

houses

children. His next wife was the widow of Sir William Hatton, and sister to Thomas Burleigh, earl of Exeter. This marriage was a very disagreeable one, owing to the haughty spirit of both parties, and for some time there was a separation between Sir Edward and his lady, but at last an apparent reconciliation took place between them.

After a long and chequered life, this profound lawyer expired September 3, 1654, with these words, "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done." Whatever were his political or his private failings, his Reports and his Institutes will immortalize his

name.

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THOMAS

THOMAS RANDOLPH.

THE fate of this once celebrated poet affords a mortifying, though instructive lesson to young 'men of genius, ambitious of a towering and lasting fame, yet careless of the solid means of obtaining. it. He was born at Newnham, in the county of Northampton, and educated on the foundation at Westminster school, from whence he was elected to Trinity-college, Cambridge, of which he became fellow, and commenced master of arts, which degree he was incorporated into at Oxford, in 1631. At the age of ten he wrote the 'History of the Incarnation of our Saviour,' in verse, but it was never published. Randolph united in himself two characters, which, however contradictory they may appear, are often found together, a spirit of libertinism with an inward reverence for religion; hence in his writings we meet with a strange mixture of humour and piety. His lively and agreeable conversation engaged him in too much company, and once in a jovial and drunken meeting, he had the misfortune to lose the little finger of his left hand. One writer says, that this was done by a gentleman with whom Randolph quarrelled; but another states, that he lost one of his fingers by a cut which he received in endeavouring to part two of his companions.