1

therefore must say of my creation as the poet said of the creation of the world,-Materiam noli quærere, nulla fuit. Trouble not your head to find out the cause. I confess there was none at all. It was without the least inclination or thought of mine own (?)—the immediate work of God and the King, and their actions are no ordinary effects, but extraordinary miracles." From this miraculous touch he becomes as courageous as a lion:"What then? Should I beyond the limits and duty of obedience despond and refuse to make some few years' trial in this place? Non habeo ingenium, Cæsar sed_jussit, habebo. Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putet? I am no way fit for this great place, but because God and the King will have it so, I will endeavor as much as I can to make myself fit, and place my whole confidence in his grace and mercy,-Qui neminem dignum eligit, sed eligendo dignum facit." He then goes on with better taste to confess his disadvantage in coming after two such men as Egerton and Bacon," one of them excelling in most things, the other in all things,-both of them so bred in this course of life, ut illis plurimarum rerum agitatio frequens nihil esse ignotum patiebatur;" adding rather felicitously, "My comfort is this, that arriving here as a stranger, I may say, as Archimedes did when he found geometrical lines and angles drawn every where in the sands of Egypt, Video vestigia humana, I see in this Court the footsteps of wise men, many excellent rules and orders which though I might want learning and knowledge. to invent, I hope I shall not want honesty to act upon. He next lays down certain principles by which he is to be governed, professing great respect for the common law, and laughing at the equitable doctrine," that sureties are to be favored;" for, says he, "When the money is to be borrowed, the surety is the first in the intention, and therefore if it be not paid let him a God's name be the first in the execution." He thus not ungracefully concluded:" I will propound my old master for my pattern and precedent in all thingsbeseeching Almighty God so to direct me that while I hold this place I may follow him by a true and constant imitation; and if I prove unfit, that I may not play the

1 There can be nothing more revolting than the language of English divines during the seventeenth century, who frequently put the King nearly, if not altogether, on a footing with Almighty God.

mountebank so in this place as to abuse the King and the state, but follow the same most worthy Lord in his cheerful and voluntary resignation, Sic mihi contingat vivere, sicque mori."1

CHAPTER LVIII.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD KEEPER WILLIAMS TILL THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I.

TH

HE Lord Keeper now set to work with stupendous energy and with consummate discretion. By incessant reading and conversation with Finch and the officers of the Court, he had got some little insight into its rules and practice; he never sat in public without the assistance of the Master of the Rolls, or some of the Common-law Judges supposed to be most familiar with equity; and although he ostensibly delivered the judgment, he took care to be decorously prompted by those on whom he could rely.

In spite of his great caution he could not avoid sometimes misapplying technical terms, and causing a titter among the lawyers, who viewed him with no favor. One morning, when his Honor, the Master of the Rolls, who had been expected, was by sudden illness detained at home, a wag at the bar had the impudence to attempt a practical joke upon the Right Reverend the Lord Keeper. When called to, the wicked counsellor rose demurely, and pretending to look at his brief, made a sham motion,which seems to have been somewhat like that mentioned in the Life of Lord Eldon, for a writ,-" Quare adhæsit pavimento." The exact terms of this motion are not mentioned by any Reporter, but we are told on undoubted authority that it was "crammed like a grenade with obsolete words, coins of far-fetched antiquity, which had been long disused, worse than Sir Thomas More's "An averia caruca capta in withernam sint irreplegiabilia."

1 Hacket, 71-74.

Hacket explains their dislike of him into envy, comparing them to "Joseph's brethren, who hated the very dream of a sheaf to which they must do obeysance."—p. 60.

With these misty and recondite phrases he thought to leave the new Judge groping about in the dark." Williams discovered the trick, and, notwithstanding his Welsh blood, he preserved his temper. "With a serious face the Lord Keeper answered him in a cluster of most crabbed notions picked out of metaphysics and logic, as "categorematical" and "syncategorematical," and a deal of such drumming stuff, that the motioner, being foiled at his own weapon, and well laughed at in the Court, went home with this new lesson-that he that tempts a wise man in jest shall make himself a fool in earnest.'

The account we have of his industry shames the most industrious men of this degenerate age. He entered the Court of Chancery in the winter time by candle-light between six and seven o'clock in the morning. Having sat there two hours, he went to the House of Lords between eight and nine, where the Prince and the Peers were assembled, expecting him to take his place on the woolsack. There he continued propounding and discussing the questions which arose till twelve at noon, every day, and when there was a late debate, till past one in the afternoon. Going to the Deanery, he refreshed himself with a short repast, and then returned to the Court of Chancery to hear petitions and causes which he had not been able to dispatch in the morning. Coming home about eight in the evening he perused such letters and papers as his secretaries had prepared for him,-and after that, far in the night, he prepared himself for so much as concerned him to have in readiness for the Lords' House in the morning. His attendances in the Star Chamber and at the council-table did not interfere with the business of the Court of Chancery, where he always attended two hours early in the morning before going elsewhere. He is said to have decided five or six causes in a morning, according to the quality and measure of the points that came to be debated in them, and that he might make others industrious and punctual like himself, two or three afternoons in every week he had a peremptory paper consisting of cases that had been long depending, and that he himself appointed to be heard at all events, and, if possible, finally disposed of. He is a striking instance of what may be accomplished without genius by industry. "Industry, I think," says

' Hacket, 75.

his secretary," was his recreation,-for certain he had not a drop of lazy blood in his veins. He filled up every hour of the day, and a good part of the night with the dispatch of some public and necessary business."

Thus energetic and thus assisted, notwithstanding his inexperience and ignorance as a Judge, he got on marvelously well, and all the causes, petitions, and motions were disposed of without any public clamor. As yet the proceedings in Chancery were not reported, precedent not being considered binding there, as in other Courts, and none of his decisions have been preserved to us. But as there were several sessions of parliament while he held the Great Seal, and there does not appear to have been any complaint against him except in one instance, which was without foundation,' we are bound to believe that, in spite of all the objections reasonably made to his appointment, he gave satisfaction to the public.'

At all events he satisfied himself. On the 10th of July, 1622, the anniversary of his receiving the Seal, he thus wrote to Buckingham. "In this place I have now served his Majesty one whole year diligently and honestly. But to my heart's grief, by reason of my rawness and inexperience, very unprofitably. Yet, if his Majesty will examine the registers, there will be found more causes finally ended this one year than in all the seven years preceding. How well ended, I ingenuously confess, I know not. His Majesty and your Lordship (who, no doubt, have received some complaints, though in your love you conceal them from me) are in that the most competent judges."

He and his friends suggested that it was by some sort of miraculous influence that he performed so well; but the miracle is solved in his judiciously availing himself of the knowledge and skill of others. His assessors may truly be considered the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal while he held it; and his great merit was, that he steadily kept them to their work.

He seems from his own resources to have done his duty creditably in the House of Lords. Parliament met in November, 1621. He had then to address the two Houses, in the absence of the King, who was indisposed. This 1 Hacket, 76. Sir John Bouchier's case, post.

3 Quod nemo noverit bæne non fit.

speech was well seasoned with divine right and passive obedience, and we have this account of it in a letter written to him next day by Buckingham. "I know not how the Upper House of Parliament approve your Lordship's speech. But I am sure he that called them together, and as I think can best judge of it, is so taken with it, that he saith it is the best that ever he heard in Parliament, and the nearest to his Majesty's meaning; which, beside the contentment it hath given to his Majesty, hath much comforted me in his choice of your Lordship, which in all things doth so well answer his expectation."

But the speech excited violent murmurs against the speaker and the whole order to which he belonged. A few days after, during a protracted debate respecting oaths, an aged Bishop, very infirm in health, begged permission to withdraw,-which then seems to have been necessary before a member could be absent from the division. Thereupon several Lords, who are said to have "borne a grudge to that apostolic order," cried out, that "they might all go home if they would;" and the Earl of Essex, the future leader of the parliamentary army,—then a hot-headed young man who had just taken his seat,make a formal motion, which he required to be put from the woolsack and entered on the journals, "that their Lordships were content to open their doors wide to let out all Bishops." The Lord Keeper, who perceived that this blow was aimed at himself, "replied with a prudent animosity, that he would not put the question even if commanded by the House, for their Lordships, as well spiritual as temporal, were called by the King's writ to sit and abide there till the same power dissolved them, and for my Lords temporal, they had no power to license themselves, much less to authorize others to depart from the Parliament." This spirited conduct quelled the disturbance, and the debate was allowed quietly to proceed; but Williams lived to see the day when he ineffectually opposed a bill for preventing the Bishops from sitting in the House of Lords, and he had the mortification to find that this bill, after passing both Houses, received the royal assent.

The only other proceeding in which he was personally

II Parl. Hist. 1295.