Attorney.-Oh! damnable Atheist! he hath learned some text of scripture to serve his own purpose, but falsely alleged. He councils him not to be councilled by preachers, as Essex was: he died the child of God, God honoured him at his death; thou wert by when he died. Et lupus et turpes instant morientibus ursæ. He died indeed for his offence. The king himself spake these words; “He that shall say Essex died not for treason is punishable.”

Raleigh. I say that Cobham is a base, dishonourable poor soul. Attorney. Is he base? I return it into thy throat, on his behalf: but for thee he had been a good subject.

Lord-Chief-Justice.-I perceive you are not so clear a man as you have protested all this while; for you should have discovered these matters to the king.

Upon the conclusion of the evidence, the jury retired for about a quarter of an hour and returned a verdict of Guilty, upon which,

The Lord-Chief-Justice proceeded :- Now it rests with me to pronounce the judgment, which I wish you had not been this day to have received from me: for if the fear of God had been in you answerable to your other great parts, you might have lived to have been a singular good subject. I never saw the like trial, and I hope I shall never see the like again. But since you have been found guilty of these horrible treasons, the judgment of this court is, that you shall be had from hence to the place whence you came, there to remain until the day of execution; and from thence you shall be drawn upon a hurdle through the open streets, to the place of execution, there shall be hanged and cut down alive, and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off, and thrown into the fire before your eyes; then your head shall be struck off from your body, and your body shall be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of at the king's pleasure. And God have mercy upon your soul.

Thus ended this most extraordinary and cruelly conducted trial. But notwithstanding the dreadful sentence recorded, Sir Walter was left to his Majesty's mercy, who, apparently convinced of the iniquity of the conviction, still thought the prisoner too great a malcontent to have his freedom, and yet too innocent to lose his life. Sir Walter was therefore confined in the Tower,

but permitted to enjoy libera custodia; where he beguiled his imprisonment in literary and scientific pursuits. After some time spent in close companionship with musty records, he completed his "History of the World," a book which, "for the exactness of its chronology, singularity of its contexture, and learning of all sorts, should rather seem to be the work of an age, than the production of a single individual in the compass of a few years." The publisher, however, complained that he was a loser by the sale, whereupon Sir Walter threw a second part which he had prepared into the fire.

In this history Sir Walter threw out certain allusions to a gold mine in Guiana, on the southern coasts of America, which, in his travels twenty years before, he alleged to have discovered; and after fourteen years confinement in the Tower, taking advantage of the cupidity of the times, he succeeded in convincing the people, as also the Queen and Prince, and ultimately the wily King James himself, of the truth of his assertions, and obtained a commission for an expedition to Guiana in search of this hidden treasure. The King of Spain, however, had in the mean time taken possession of Guiana, and planted a small colony there called St. Thomas; which Raleigh unadvisedly sacked and plundered, but the Spaniards he alleged commenced hostilities. After

a fruitless voyage he returned to an incensed court, and was immediately arrested and brought to London, where he found the Spanish Ambassador crying aloud for vengeance on the destroyer of the rising colony of Guiana. King James was thus involved in an unpleasant situation, he inust either sacrifice Raleigh or encounter the charge and toil of a war with Spain. The choice was soon made, and the unfortunate Sir Walter,

at near eighty years of age, was carried to the scaffolda martyr to his country rather than a traitor to his king. Coke must certainly be acquitted of any share in this execution; but his intemperate zeal had no doubt an intimidating effect on the jury and mainly contributed to the verdict of condemnation which they unhesitatingly returned. It was thought by many that Sir Walter's commission which enabled him to exercise martial law on a considerable body of his majesty's subjects, was in itself so incompatible with the notion of a condemned criminal, that it amounted to a pardon; and certain it is that this act of apparent injustice and cruelty gave general dissatisfaction to the nation.

The next important occasion which called forth a display of the Attorney's sagacity in unravelling the perplexities of a dark and mysterious case, was the Gunpowder Treason, upon which he was engaged three-andtwenty days in arranging and connecting the evidence. At the conclusion of his able speech to the jury, he craved to be reminded of the Lords Commissioners if he had forgot any thing material. Upon which Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, said, " Mr. Attorney, I do assure you, you have done very well, painfully and learnedly; the evidence you have well opened, and I never heard so much matter better compacted or made more intelligible to a jury.”—The principal conspirators pleaded guilty, and Garnet's trial was the only one on which the learned Attorney had an opportunity of displaying his learning and ingenuity; this he did with more temper and suavity than on former occasions, and consequently commanded more general attention and respect. His speech on this occasion, which is given at length in the State Trials, is considered one of the best he ever delivered.

In June, 1606, Gawdy, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, died, and Sir Edward now mounted the Bench. The day after his appointment, he took his seat as Chief Justice, and was attended by the Society of the Inner Temple, who indulged themselves in the evening, as was usual, with a solemn revel; and this perhaps was one of the last occasions on which a mummery of that kind was performed. The chief seat in the Common Pleas was at this time much more beneficial in point of emolument than that in the King's Bench. It was also less subject to the influence of political intrigues, and was consequently more steady and desirable in the main. In this place Sir Edward conducted himself with much propriety, there being perhaps fewer occasions for the exercise of his forbearance than in the stormy conflicts he was obliged to endure as Attorney-General.

Sir Edward held the Chief-Justiceship of the Common Pleas about seven years, when (August, 1613) Fleming, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, died. By this time Bacon had procured the post of Solicitor-General, and was one of the Privy Council: he was on terms of much intimacy also with Villiers the prime favourite of the King, and through his means this accomplished politician obtained access to the royal ear; and it now appears by the publication of his letters, that to mortify his rival Coke, and at the same time to gratify his own ambition, he advised in a memorial which he drew up, that Coke should be removed to the King's Bench, Hobart, Attorney-General, to the Common Pleas, and that he himself should be made Attorney-General. This advice was

adopted, and Sir Edward Coke was, on the 25th of Ocber, 1613, sworn in Chief Justice of the King's Bench. It was one object of Bacon to embroil the Chief Justice with political questions, well knowing his inflexible ad

herence to the law would render his conduct obnoxious to those whom he opposed.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was at this time at the head of a High Commission Court for the administration of ecclesiastical affairs and the punishment of spiritual delinquents. Besides the power of fine and imprisonment, this Court occasionally indulged in the unconstitutional use of the rack and torture. And its commitment of Sir William Chancey to the Fleet for adultery, now raised a question as to the extent of its jurisdiction. Sir Edward Coke held that the High Commission Court had no power to commit on suspicion, and its power to imprison in any case he also allowed to be impugned without contradiction. (See 12 Co. 19.) This gave great umbrage to the Archbishop, and highly incensed the church party.

With the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere also, Sir Edward found himself entangled in an unpleasant dispute. It had always been, and still is the province of the Chancery to soften the rigour of the common law. It has therefore of necessity, power to modify in some degree the adjudications of courts of law. This the Chief-Justice denied, and hinted, that if after judgment given in the Court of King's Bench, any man should draw that judgment to a new examination in any other court, he the Chief Justice would speedily regard it. The Chancellor, however, was held justified in his claim of jurisdiction in the Star Chamber, and the Chief Justice created many enemies by the dispute.

With the King himself, the Chief Justice had also frequent conflicts on the policy and legality of court measures. On the question of proclamations which King James had been advised were equal to acts of par