fascination proceeded from faction, and had at the root more of confederacy than judgment; for because the chief justice was in principle averse to monarchy and the court, they all with one voice exalted him, in order to have him lead the law and all the lawyers that way, and left no room for just thoughts of him, which attributed enough of honour and commendation, but all that he said was right, and whoever said to the contrary was wrong. In opposition to this impetuous, or, rather, rage of reputation, (under which his lordship himself was a sufferer, as may be seen elsewhere,) his lordship thought fit to note down the several instances in his own observation of this judge's fondness and partiality; which he intended to have explained at large when he was at leisure and should have had a disposition so to do. [Several instances are here related, but they do not appear to be of any consequence at present, and are therefore omitted. The following, however, deserves notice.] "That juries cannot be fined for slighting evidence and directions contrary to reason and the whole course of precedents." This was popular, and the law stands so settled. The matter is trust, whether the court or the jury. The court may abuse a trust in an undue punishment of jurymen, as in any other act of justice; and, on the other side, juries may abuse their trust; as, soon after, was done with a vengeance, in the scandalous instances of ignoramus juries. The precedents ran all for the trust on the side of the court: what reason to change it (which was changing the law) but popularity? Here I have done with this very great lawyer, the lord chief justice Hales. And I must not part without subjoining my solemn protestation that nothing is here set down for any invidious purposes, but merely for the sake of truth; first, in general, for all truth is profitable; and secondly, in particular, for justice to the character I write of, against whom never any thing was urged so peremptorily as the authority of Hales; as [This is the lord keeper's original note, which the biographer illustrates by a commentary.] if one must of necessity be in the wrong, because another was presumed to be in the right. These two chiefs were of different opinions in matters of private right, as well as touching the public. And if one were a Solomon, saint, and oracle, what must the other be taken for? Therefore I have understood it absolutely necessary for me, as (assisted with his lordship's own notes) I have done, to shew Hales in a truer light than when the age did not allow such freedom, but accounted it a delirium, or malignancy at least, not to idolize him; and thereby to manifest that he had his frailties, defects, prejudices and vanities, as well as excellencies; and that he was not a very touchstone of law, probity, justice, and public spirit as in his own time he was accounted: but that some that did not agree with him might have those virtues as eminently in the eye of a just observer. This is the only consideration that moved me so freely to display the matters aforegoing; wishing only that I had means or ability of doing it with more punctuality. I conclude with this observation, that it is a general error of the community, learned and unlearned, when a man is truly great in some capacities, by the measure of them to magnify him in all others, wherein he may be a shallow pretender. But it is the office of a just writer of the characters of men, to give every one his due and no more. SIR WILLIAM SCROGGS, [From the Life of Lord Keeper Guilford.] HIS Sir William Scroggs was made lord chief justice of THIS the king's bench while his lordship sat in the common pleas. He was of mean extract, having been a butcher's son, but wrought himself into business in the law, was made a serjeant and practised under his lordship. His person was large, visage comely, and speech witty and bold. He was a VOL. III. great voluptuary and companion of the high court rakes, as Ken, Guy, &c. whose merits, for aught I know, might prefer him. His debaucheries were egregious, and his life loose, which made the lord chief justice Hales detest him. He kept himself very poor, and when he was arrested by king's bench process, Hales would not allow him the privilege of a serjeant, as is touched elsewhere. He had a true libertine principle. He was preferred for professing loyalty: but Oates coming forward with a swinging popularity, he (as chief justice) took in and ranted on that side most impetuously. It fell out that when the earl of Shaftesbury had sat some short time in the council and seemed to rule the roast, yet Scroggs had some qualms in his politic conscience; and, coming from Windsor in the lord chief justice North's coach, he took the opportunity and desired his lordship to tell him seriously if my lord Shaftsbury had really so great a power with the king as he was thought to have. His lordship answered quick, No, my lord, no more than your footman hath with you. Upon that the other hung his head, and, considering the matter, said nothing for a good while, and then passed to other discourse. After that time he turned as fierce against Oates and his plot as ever, before, he had ranted for it, and thereby gave so great offence to their evidenceships the plot witnesses, that Oates and Bedloe accused him to the king and preferred formal articles of divers extravagancies and immoralities against him. The king appointed a hearing of the business in council, where Scroggs run down his accusers with much severity and wit, and the evidences fell short, so that, for want of proof, the petition and articles were dismissed. But for some jobs in the king's bench, as discharging a grand jury, &c. he had the honour to be impeached in parliament, of which nothing advanced. At last he died in Essex-street of a polypus in the heart. During his preferment he lived well and feathered his nest. Μ' SERJEANT MAYNARD. [From the Life of Lord Keeper Guilford.] R. Serjeant Maynard had a mind to punish a man who had voted against his interest in a borough in the west, and brought an action against him for scandalous words spoke against him at a time when a member, to serve in the house of commons for that borough, was to be chosen. And, after his great skill, he first laid his action in the county of Middlesex: and that was by virtue of his privilege, which supposes a serjeant is attendant on the court of common pleas, and not to be drawn from the county where the court sat. And then in the next place he charged the words in Latin, that, if he proved the effect, it would be sufficient; whereas, being in English, they must prove the very words to a tittle; and were a long story that used to be told of Mr. Noy and all the cock lawyers of the west. And this was tried before his lordship at the nisi prius for the common pleas for Middlesex. The witness telling the story as he swore the defendant told it, said a client came to the serjeant and gave him a basket of pippins, and every pippin had a piece of gold in it. Those were golden pippins, quoth the judge. The serjeant began to puff, not bearing the jest, so the witness went on. And then, said he, the other side came and gave him a roasting pig, (as it is called in the west), and in the belly of that there were fifty broad pieces. That's good sauce to a pig, quoth the judge again. This put the serjeant out of all patience; and speaking to those about him, This, said he, is on purpose to make me ridiculous. This story being sworn, the judge directed the jury to find for the serjeant; but in the court the judgment was arrested, because the words were but a land story, and went as mere merriment over ale, without intent to slander. Such bitterness flows from the sour spirits of old pretended republicans. It had been well if no other instances but such. as this were extant to shew it. This happened when I attended; and so, know the matter to be, as above, literally true. But it is hard to believe that such a poor revenge could have been put into act by so great a man. And I should almost distrust myself if I had not been partaker of a more wretched come-off with the same person, which I shall relate, conceiving it to be full as material to shew little things of great men as great things of little men. One afternoon at the nisi prius court of the common pleas in Westminster Hall, before the judge sat, a poor half-starved old woman who sold sweetmeats to schoolboys and footmen, at the end of the bar, desired the serjeant to pay her two shillings for keeping his hat two terms. She spoke two or three times and he took no notice of her; and then I told the serjeant the poor woman wanted her money, and I thought he would do well to pay her. The serjeant fumbled a little, and then said to me, lend me a shilling. Ay, with all my heart, quoth I, to pay the poor woman. He took it and gave it her; but she asked for another. I said, I would lend him that also to pay the woman. No, don't, boy, said he, for I never intend to pay you this. And he was as good as his word; for, however he came off with that woman, having been, as they say, a wonderful charitable man, I am sure he died in my debt. But in this manner (as I guess he intended) I stood corrected for meddling. This great man, as I must call him, since his natural and acquired abilities and the immense gains he had acquired by practice justly entitled his name to that epithet, was an antirestauration lawyer. In 1684 I heard him say in the court of chancery, of a cause then at hearing, that he was counsel in that cause in the year 1643. His name is in Crook's Reports, in 3 Car. His actions, in the rebellious times, made the act of indemnity smell sweet. And, afterwards, he had the cunning to temporize, and get to be made the king's eldest serjeant; but advanced no farther. His lordship [lord Guilford] must needs have much conversation, as well as intercourse in business, with this eminent practiser in the law; but, as in other cases of adverse party-men, so, here, there could be no cordial friendship between them; but a fair and reasonable corre |