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legal right to hold intercourse of any kind with infidels without express license from the Crown; for which he adduced the expression of Lord Coke, in Calvin's case, that infidels were perpetual enemies, and cited scriptural authority: "We read how the children of Israel were perverted from their religion by converse with the nations round about them, in the book of Judges." "I confess," replied Sir George Treby, "I did a little wonder to hear merchandizing in the East Indies objected against as an unlawful trade, and did not expect so much divinity in the argument. I must take leave to say, that this notion of Christians not to have commerce with infidels is a conceit absurd, monkish, fantastic, and fanatical." Restored to his office of Recorder by William III. in 1688, he was appointed Attorney-general in 1689, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1692. He died in 1701.

For the following compendious notice of another celebrated whig lawyer, we are indebted to Anthony Wood." Sir John Trenchard was born of puritanical parents; member for Taunton 1679; busy against papists and prerogative; concerned in Monmouth's rebellion; included in James's act of oblivion, but ungrateful, and opposed to him the rest of his reign; made by King William, for whom he appeared openly, Chief Justice of Chester, in May 1688, and Secretary of State, 1693; died April 1695, æt. 45. A man of turbulent and aspiring spirit, never satisfied. An astrologer told him formerly that he should such a year be imprisoned, such a year like to be hanged, such a year be promoted to a great place in the law, such a year rise higher, and such a year die;

Athenæ Oxonienses.

which all came to pass, as he told Dr. Gibbons on his death-bed"-Credat Judæus Apella!

Sir John Hawles, a great favourite of King William, and one that deserved his favour; a better writer than speaker; was born in the Close at Salisbury; educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and a person of note in his profession; "but," adds spiteful Anthony, who could not endure a Williamite, "ill-natured, turbulent, and inclining to a republic." He wrote in March 1688-9, "Remarks on the Trials of Lord Russell, Sydney, Cornish," &c., by way of reflection on the injustice, as he thought, of certain judges and other persons, in the latter end of the reign of King Charles II. and the beginning of James-a right honest and valuable work. His notes on the trials reflect the highest credit upon Sir John, both as a lawyer and a man. He may be intemperate and abusive in parts, but who could or ought to write with calm moderation, when the blood of the murdered Sydney was yet fresh upon the ground; when that judge without mercy, and gentleman without manners, Sir Francis Wythens, was yet living in shameless impunity; when Titus Oates was anew a pensioned favourite; and the legal murders of Cornish, and Lisle, and Gaunt, found still apologists and defenders! The homely pathos, with which Hawles dilates on the iniquities practised against Cornish, speaks to the heart.

"How often was he snubbed and bid hold his tongue! How often did he beg the patience of the Court, to hear him and his witnesses! And, when he was heard, how was all he said ridiculed; and, if he said he was innocent, he was bid remember, my Lord Russell said so to his death; when he said he was as "Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.

innocent as any person in the court, he was told, for all his confidence few believed him. If he said the matter sworn against him was improbable, (which hath been taken for a pretty good topic for the disbelief of amatter testified,) how is it ridiculed by improbability! improbability! improbability! If he go to prove he is an honest man, he is told that is all appearance. If he says he employed Goodenough about the riot, he is told that is a branch of the plot; if he called one to prove he received the sacrament, he is told that was in order to qualify himself to be a sheriff. No account can be given for the proceedings against Mr. Cornish in the above manner, but that some of the judges, whereof three were on the Bench, had newly come out of the West, where they had been so flushed and hardened, that nothing seemed to them rigorous or cruel."

We forget, when reading this and other eloquent effusions of a just and humane spirit, that the author was that "mumbling Solicitor-General," whom the Lords would scarcely permit to sum up an impeachment, as they could not hear what he said. His legal performances in the closet atone for his imperfections in Court and the Senate; for, while posterity have confirmed his condemnation of those cruel trials, which are a lasting disgrace to our judicature, he has the merit of being the first who laid bare their iniquity, and exposed them in print.

A few more disjointed anecdotes contain all the information worthy of notice of the remaining lawyers in Parliament," whose names have sufficient buoyancy to float down the stream of time." Among these was Serjeant Pengelly, less successful in the House of Commons than in Chancery, where, for some years, he

led against the future Lord Hardwicke, till driven from his profession by over-sensitiveness. The then Chancellor, Lord Macclesfield, had the great fault of favouritism, and was in the habit of repeating, at the close of the Serjeant's arguments, that what Mr. Yorke had said had not been answered. The poor Serjeant, annoyed beyond endurance at this daily provocation, for the petted rival was young enough to be his son, one morning threw down his brief in a rage, and wended his way for ever from the Hall, exclaiming, 'he would no more attend a court where he found Mr. Yorke was not to be answered."t

He had afterwards an opportunity to feed his grudge against the partial Lord Macclesfield, by taking up to the House of Lords articles of impeachment against him, and prosecuting them to judgment. In his character of counsel to the Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain, he gave great umbrage to Steele, by advising the Duke, that he had power to cancel his license as governor of the Company of Comedians. Sir Richard, in his vexation, wrote to his grace, that he, "who advises how to escape the law and to do injustice to his fellow-subject, is an agent of hell. Such a man, for a larger fee, would lend a dark lanthern to a murderer! I hope he is poor, by selling poison to get himself food." With a quaint revenge, the witty licenser thus dissects the name of his oppressor: "Pen is the Welch word for head, Guelt the Dutch word for money, which with the English word Ly, express one who turns his head to lye for money" Sir Thomas Pengelly survived this curious anagram, and became Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

* Bentham's Recollections of Lord Hardwicke.

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Among the silent occupants of the tory benches was the famous Roger North, so often cited, whose histories give as false a reflection of all opposed to him in politics as those fantastical mirrors, which, from a flaw in the glass, caused the wigs and headdress of all who ventured to take a peep in them to look as if they sat awry. In his lives of the three brothers North, the Lord Keeper Guildford, the merchant, and the divine, he has committed all imaginable sins of composition: his diction is bald and vulgarhis sentiments low-his portraits of men and manners bitterly prejudiced and partial; yet is there so much anecdote diffused through the whole narrative, about persons of whom we love to obtain information, so much amusing gossip, such minute details of interesting matter, that his biography must always attract an hour of leisure, and stamp its author the Boswell of the 17th century. Sciolist in philosophy, he was, we fear, though dignified with the honour of King's Counsel, not too conversant with law. The second Lord Clarendon says, indeed, in his Diary, "that the only honest lawyers he had met with were Roger North and Sir Charles Porter," both like himself, thorough jacobites. The last was afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, with a reputation as slippery as his fortunes; and of the first it must be confessed that, if candour and veracity make any part of honesty, he had but an indifferent claim to the distinction.

Reserving our memoir of Sir Thomas Parker (Lord Macclesfield) till we come to the history of his impeachment, there is but one lawyer more of eminence in the parliament of Queen Anne and George I., who claims to be remembered: Sir Robert Raymond,

'Diary of Henry, second Lord Clarendon.

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